Why We Can't Build - <AUTHOR> https://www.vox.com/2020/4/22/21228469/marc-andreessen-build-government-coronavirus <comment><USER3> "In a grotesque way, Florida's disastrous UI system represents the successful completion of a project: They intended to build a UI system that failed those who needed it, and they very much did."

This is the lens that needs to be applied more generally. Just because a system is not achieving its stated goal does not necessarily mean it is failing - it often means that the true goal is simply something different. To take an obvious example, the US healthcare system is not failing in its primary mission, which is to transfer wealth from the population at large to a specific group. It is in fact spectacularly successful.

Andreesen's article entirely ignores this. Things are not the way they are by accident. Ignore the reasons why and you are either being disingenuous or ignorant.

<comment><USER4> This misses the point.

It could be well argued - or even simply stated - that, yes, US healthcare system has in fact primary mission to benefit health of US population. How'd you argue it's not the case? I, for one, know this is my idea of the system. Will you prove that those who proposed the system had other ideas? Can you get in their heads? Can you get in the heads of those implementing the system? They'll perhaps bring enough words trying to convince you otherwise - and some would be sincere.

The problem is that a big system is a collective work - and different agents have different goals in mind. Sometimes they can have compromises - <USER2> on goals, partial or final. Sometimes they can trick each other into doing something which benefits some agents' goals, but not others. You can't make a big system realistically without many agents - so how can you make sure they all work with similar goals?

We talk a lot about possibilities, but sometimes not enough about intentions - and especially verifiable goals. Politicians can promise many things, but it could be expensive to elect somebody who's stating something meaning something completely different - and this idea holds on various levels of public (not only public - see e.g. office politics) decision making.

<comment><USER5> > It could be well argued - or even simply stated - that, yes, US healthcare > system has in fact primary mission to benefit health of US population. How'd > you argue it's not the case?

No, that's the entire point greendave was trying to make. The system's goal has been _perverted_ or _coopted_. This is a logical result of a corrupted system.

Relevant imagery: zerg infestation.

<comment><USER4> > The system's goal has been perverted or coopted.

I think that's a good description. We can use this model to work on fixing the problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I suspect the most practical way to reform our institutions is through increased competition in governance, just like we "fix" stagnant institutions in the private sector. We already have this baked into our constitution: States rights and their ability to pass amendments. There's a movement happening around this. [0]

Justice Brandeis said it best: "state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country." [1]

Imagine if States could try different healthcare systems, or basic income, etc. Citizens would be able to vote with their feet and move to the best systems. This should be a bipartisan movement.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_to_propose_amendmen...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_to_propose_amendments_to_the_United_States_Constitution)

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

<comment><USER7> Localism is rarely the answer. The housing crisis is the primary example of this. The US has one endemic problem, which is local interests successfully lobbying federal government and putting the interests of the few ahead of the interests of society at large.

It's local homeowner associations, the tendency to litigate everything, the inability for large actors like government or business to purchase and develop land. The one person who symbolizes the reason why modern America can't build for me is Erin Brockovich. A person without any formal training in the legal field suing an entire project into the ground, although as it turns out there's actually no scientific evidence for any of the claims, yet she's celebrated as the little guy who stuck it to the man.

Devolving power to the states may only weaken the federal government whose resources and knowledge are needed to provide large scale infrastructure. The deficit here isn't in the billions, its in the trillions.

I'm not in principal opposed to experimenting with local democracy or whatever but it needs to happen on the back of a federal government with sufficient capacity and competence and power to act quickly.

For the "states as laboratories" thing to work you actually need a mechanism to ensure that the things that work actually get adopted. I don't see this happening in the US. There's way too many inmates running their own asylums.

<comment><USER8> Perhaps the interstate highway system is a federal issue, but a metro subway or bus system isn't. Seattle's mass transportation system has no impact on Miami's; I doubt either has an impact on Portland's.

What resources and knowledge does the federal government have that the states don't? If the federal government has such knowledge, it should probably publish the papers, so that state and municipal experts can determine how to apply it to their region.

If the federal government lowers taxes, the states can raise theirs, and accomplish whatever objectives they need to. It's a many-billion dollar state issue in many states, which looks like a trillion dollar federal issue when you add up all the states, but there doesn't seem to be any economy of scale which makes the federal government better suited to solving the issue than any given state.

<comment><USER9> >Seattle's mass transportation system has no impact on Miami's

This is only true if you look at it in the absolute shallowest way. Seattle's increased output due to its subway system helps the entire country.

95% (to pull a number out of my rear end) of the use of interstates in a city are for private vehicles belonging to city residents. I-5 in Seattle doesn't "help" Miami either.

<comment><USER10> You can apply this thinking to the entire world, then. We ought to all be a part of one global country, and London's increased output helps us all!

If only cooperation and decision-making were so simple.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think the points raised are reasonable and, to my mind, not particularly partisan (though I would argue one party is more responsible for the current chaos by several orders of magnitude than the other one..).

The deeper issue this raises is, I suppose, a constitutional one paired with Long Now Foundation-type questions. How do we design institutions that can't themselves be changed too easily due to majoritarian whims, yet _can_ evolve over decades and centuries as societies change. We certainly shouldn't expect the institutions and norms of today to precisely meet the needs of our descendants decades or centuries from now.

For the here and now though, my observation is this: Americans in general are allergic to learning from what other countries do. But really, as a very large country, we should be studying what smaller countries do and using them as experimental points of data and testing them out here. There are plenty of implementations of better, more responsive governance out there. Nothing's perfect, but saying 'we're number one' and plugging our ears is no solution.

</comment><comment><USER12> I would highly recommend the author's new book, Why We're Polarized. The model of the USA political system that he's built reminds me of the model Ben Thompson of Stratechery built to analyse the technology sector.

Just as Stratechery takes the latest happenings in tech, applies the core model, and spits out an article, Ezra Klein here has taken Andressen's blo, applied his model, and spat out an article.

In my opinion, if you want to know why the USA didn't respond properly to COVID-19 and why its national infrastructure is failing, ask Ezra Klein instead of Andressen.

<comment><USER13> I haven't read Ezra Klein's book, but as far as I can tell Ben Thompson's articles are mostly just-so stories[1]. His model seems to be able to predict everything that happens in tech, and when your model predicts everything that usually means it isn't very powerful at all.

Here's a thought experiment: can you use aggregation theory to make sufficiently powerful predictions to beat the stock market in the tech sector? Can Ben? My strong guess is that the answer is to both questions is no.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just- so_story](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-so_story)

<comment><USER9> The problem is you're not able to test the alternate unless you're a VC: companies that don't follow the model (or are in the wrong part of it) probably fail before they ever become public.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I recently read that the CCP only accepts the top students whereas mostly i see the top students avoiding government bureaucracy in favor of private industry as it is more lucrative and there are not many prestigious positions in public service.

I believe the atmosphere within these institutions isn't conducive to action either. Put your time in and get your pension. Do nothing and nothing bad will happen, try something big and it might fail and you look worse than everyone who did nothing.

So we need to start offering 300k/yr for middle level public servants just like programmers in California.

<comment><USER15> >So we need to start offering 300k/yr for middle level public servants just like programmers in California.

I agree with this, but you have to accompany that with making it just as easy to fire a public servant as it is to fire a programmer.

<comment><USER9> Au contraire, it's far too easy to fire people in government for issues that have systemic root causes due to the nature of politics and public pressure. So the poor schmuck who pushed the button gets fired, and that's the end of it. No deeper evaluation or reports on how to prevent the issue from occuring in the future.

This leads to extreme aversion to any risk taking and creates bureaucracy.

This is opposed to the classic stories about junior engineers who lose their companies money, go into the bosses office expecting to be fired, and the boss says "why would we fire you? we just spent $X training you".

<comment><USER16> I see many of these same problems in large companies. Every one just tries to avoid being blamed. Those best at avoiding blame while assigning it to others rise up. Its politics.

<comment><USER9> And I would guess that the companies that have "blame" cultures end up doing much worse than companies that have "fixing" cultures.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I don't think I buy the thesis here. There are plenty of western countries without the "vetocracy" structure of the US's republic. And yet they still haven't built much infrastructure or accomplished much in public works for the last 30-40 years.

The reason is simple -- there's no money. No public money. There's more private wealth than there's ever been, but public sector investment is a fraction of it. The state has lost the ability to collect reasonable tax revenues from private entities, and it's lost the ability to efficiently spend it.

And in large part this is because of a protracted ideological war that one side has effectively lost and another side has effectively won.

Excessive partisanship is a symptom of this ideological divide, not the cause.

<comment><USER18> I don't think you can say "there's no money" in eg. France. French tax revenue is 45% of GDP.

<comment><USER17> I actually don't know much about how well France functions as a nation. My European experience is mostly in Germany where my dad's family is from, and infrastructure there is 50x better than in North America.

I'm speaking more from the Canadian perspective; we have a Westminster parliamentary system without vetoes (well there's the senate but that's mostly rubber stamp) and yet we have the same "getting things built" dysfunction that the US has.

<comment><USER19> That's a procurement and implementation problem.

We order projects, but they become enormously over budget and poorly thought out, causing people to restart again or just oppose the project.

I'm a government developer. I can easily see how our bureaucracy leads to the Phoenix pay system. It is less a vetocracy and more about an overload of features.

<comment><USER17> Thing is, I've worked in a few BigCorp private entities that have similar kinds of dysfunction, and things also blow up and are done inefficiently.

In both cases I feel it's a broader cultural problem. In companies, it's often putting career or team or self interest ahead of company success [empire building, self promotion, etc.]; in government it's often a lack of responsibility and ethics of citizenship.

I've been involved in bidding for government projects before, and associated with he non-profit sector to boot. It was awful to see how people think and behave.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Since 1980 the consistent message in the US from one party is that its objective is to shrink government until it can be drowned in the bathtub. Because of this we are unable to act in common, since government is the closest thing we have to common action.

<comment><USER18> This doesn't explain problems on the state and local level, even in liberal cities:

"If paralysis ended once you walked out of the Capitol, we wouldn't have a housing crisis. We'd have better social insurance infrastructure. We'd have better infrastructure, period. But it doesn't.

To put the question simply: Why is Penn Station, the flagship rail station in New York City, such a dump? Why can't the richest city in the richest nation in the world have, at the very least, a train station with seating, some nice restaurants, working elevators, and an absence of human waste falling through the ceiling?"

<comment><USER21> Cities are relatively broke. See the NYC budget: [https://www.ibo.nyc.ny.us/iboreports/understandingthebudget....](https://www.ibo.nyc.ny.us/iboreports/understandingthebudget.pdf)

I know some would zoom in on those pensions, but those are basically social safety net / 401k investment replacements. And the 18% wouldn't make or break large projects. Building is more expensive than ever for many reasons, which include permits and lawsuits, but also labor cost.

Efforts to raise taxes are usually thwarted by threats of business and wealthy citizens fleeing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> unfortunately this article ignored around the elephant in the room: one of the two dominant political parties has an entire platform devoted to stopping institions from expanding while also eating away at the existing capabilities of those institutions. they pursue this platform relentlessly, and have done so for roughly the last 40 years.

faced with staunch refusals to consider any type of revolutionary building at the institutional level, would-be builders reduced their hopes to incremental changes, bringing us to the current state of affairs.

after enormous legislative efforts, incremental and generally insufficient changes are made to support the strength of US institutions. then, as part of the dealmaking necessary to make any changes whatsoever, other institutions are degraded incrementally in trade. the system of the country's institutions never becomes stronger in terms of its total sum of capabilities, it only reshuffles them.

imagine trying to build a house when half of your building team never lets you purchase any new materials, only permitting you the use of bricks that are already built into the house. you have to remove a brick from the foundation to place it on the top of a half-constructed wall. that's the situation the US is in. it's untenable.

there isn't going to be a tidy legislative solution to this kind of intractability anytime soon because the people with the most money prefer the current situation and fund politicians accordingly.

lest you think that the point of my comment is to blame republicans or democrats, let me tell you that it isn't. my point is that america cannot build because it cannot accept that building requires spending, as spending would require contradicting the will of the political donor class. we needed to get money out of politics back when occupy wall street was calling for it. the next best time is now.

in a nutshell, the rich need to do their part to contribute to society and accept that their influence must be curbed if the country is to flourish once again. as we know, there's no chance of them doing this of their own accord. i'll leave the details of how we can get them on board with rebuilding the country to the imagination of the reader.

<comment><USER18> The article discusses projects that fail despite large budgets. Eg.

"Marc Dunkelman spent years cataloging the many failures to revamp Penn Station, a number of which came complete with hefty doses of federal funding. Each time, the story was the same: Plenty of people who wanted to build, and plenty of money with which to build, but too many people with vetoes who simply didn't want the building to happen."

<comment><USER23> But that's not actually true. That hefty sum was nowhere near sufficient! Sure, it was hefty, but the parties involved were not ready to do real serious work. NYC could have used eminent domain, and yes that would have likely gone to the courts, but that is how it is supposed to work. Or they could have bought the thing, but that was too much money again!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The US political system only works if some critical mass of politicians are operating in good faith.

I skimmed the article and searched for "pork" to no results, so I assume there was no mention of what I'd say is the real problem - I don't think _any_ modern bills come without pork, and that's part of the idiocy keeping our political system from working efficiently. Bills have exploded in size out of purely selfish political gaming wherein sponsors will attach dozens of pet projects as riders and as an added bonus, anyone who votes against the _riders_ can be smeared later as voting against the primary topic of the bill. On top of that, because of this practice our politicians aren't even reading most of what they vote on. It's totally broken but short of a collapse I'm not sure how to convince a few hundred senators/congressmen to stop this idiotic, scummy practice.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rider_(legislation)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rider_\(legislation\))

</comment><comment> xkcd-sucks "Polarization makes America ungovernable" is an interesting thesis -- It was a concern of the USA's founding fathers; it was how the American Civil War was considered inevitable from 1800s-1860s; it was thought for a time to have been resolved by the Civil War; and now here we are. Maybe governments are best scoped to groups of people who mostly agree, and "union at all costs" is a dangerous fantasy.

<comment><USER25> Have a union around those things upon which you agree. For those things upon which you don't agree, every state is a laboratory for trying out those ideas.

<comment><USER26> One problem is that states-as-laboratories are not closed-loop systems. We have free trade and freedom of movement across state borders.

If state A starts using its own tax revenue to house the homeless population, nothing stops states B through Z from then deciding to bus their homeless populations to state A. The other states then don't have to pay for homeless services, and suddenly state A has a far larger homeless population to house (while its tax revenue hasn't increased at all).

<comment><USER10> > One problem is that states-as-laboratories are not closed-loop systems. We > have free trade and freedom of movement across state borders.

Both of these are true in Switzerland, as well as the European Union, and yet they are both body politics that are fully capable of effective decentralization.

<comment><USER27> One drastic difference between the US and almost every other system is the first-past-the-post, winner-take-all system of representation. A party receiving 5% of the votes in a German vote can receive 5% representation. A candidate winning 49.3% of the vote in a US race wins 0% of the representation for their party. The US system is not built for coalition-building or decentralization. Power is concentrated in the singular candidate rather than the collective party.

<comment><USER10> On the surface, you're right, but in all of those systems, you still need a governing majority. In parliamentary systems, coalitions are formed after the election. In America, the coalitions are formed before the election. The two major parties, really, are big tents comprising a handful of minor parties within them.

You can see this manifest in the ideological breadth of representatives within the same party, across different constituents. In a parliamentary system, some of those constituents would elect the same representative, just under the banner of a more appropriate political party.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I really liked this article looking at another of how it got to be hard to build things from the perspective of Penn Station in New York and how the reaction against Robert Moses caused so many problems.

[https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2019/11/29/penn- stati...](https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2019/11/29/penn-station- robert-caro-073564)

</comment><comment><USER29> Since this is a US-centric article it's worth noting that the US spends half of all federal discretionary spending (i.e. everything except Social Security or Medicare) on the military. Almost a trillion dollars a year.

If even half that money were spent on an actual industrial policy we would be in much better shape. I maybe shouldn't be surprised the Vox article doesn't mention this.

<comment><USER30> The problem isn't lack of money and that's a huge part of the point of this article and the Andreesen blog post.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> It has become clear during this latest crisis that if we do not have the ability to make things inside our own borders we are sitting ducks. Its not accurate to think that when we need PPE and all sorts of other medical supplies we can suddenly build factories. Its not just a matter of keeping jobs in the USA its also a matter of security. Its a matter of self sufficiency.

<comment><USER31> Absolutely. This article is simply another example of the fall of American exceptionalism.

It has been assumed for a long time that the US could easily win any major conflict, but is that really so true anymore?

NATO is as weak as it's ever been. Europe is less likely than ever to trust the US or to support it. Key allies are now looking more inward than outward.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were large scale blunders that cost trillions for little benefit. US manufacturing capability has gone down dramatically. There are not enough with trade no-how to support a large scale war-effort. Any war of attrition is likely a losing one - it will be too costly if it's possible at all.

Key positions of government and diplomacy go unfilled because of the Trump administration's refusal to do so, severely limiting US soft-power across the globe.

A captain of a capital ship was publicly relieved of command by acting SecNav (Trump has yet to fill the position permanently, still. The Secretary of the Navy. Still no permanent leader.) in embarrassing fashion after a COVID19 outbreak onboard. That is extremely telling.

A huge portion of military-service eligible citizens are far too overweight to serve. Numbers more are disqualified for other reasons. Waging war requires smarter soldiers - which are not in abundant supply.

Misinformation has been weaponized by Russia and China and the current leadership has done nothing about it because it benefits them.

The polarization divides the country sharply - if one party or the other goes to war, would the rest of the country support it?

There are significant cracks in the armor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> "As I've argued for years, we should prefer the problems of a system where elected majorities can fulfill the promises that got them elected to one where elected majorities cannot deliver on the promises that the American people voted for."

Does that include building the wall, privatizing social security, eliminating the income tax, or implementing school choice? When you live in a country where one side just wants to undo the policies of the other, there's a deeper problem.

Naval Ravikant said on Joe Rogan 1309, and I'm paraphrasing, if you want to build a good system, give it to your enemy for 10 years.

We can't build because the idea of "we" needs to be reevaluated.

<comment><USER33> The argument is that the electorate can't vote on policy unless they can see those policies in action. Voters can rest on the dogmatic idea that private markets solve everything without ever having to experience the effects of privatized social security.

Elected officials can rely on dogma too, styling themselves like sports teams, knowing that because actually accomplishing something is off the table for both parties, they have to appeal to voters almost entirely by signaling their virtues.

Yes, it would mean rapid fluctuations in policy, but the idea is that we need to inject some volatility so we can see what works and what doesn't. Obviously, this can lead to problems, like a majority party implementing policies which restrict the electorate or affect populations that can't form a strong voting coalition, but I'm not sure this is worse than what we have already.

Further, I'm not really sure how we're supposed to reevaluate "we." That's a neat soundbite, but what does that mean? What are you suggesting we actually do? Alter the electorate? Split the union?

<comment><USER10> > Further, I'm not really sure how we're supposed to reevaluate "we." That's a > neat soundbite, but what does that mean? What are you suggesting we actually > do? Alter the electorate? Split the union?

There's no need to split the Union if we just follow the US Constitutions as the Framers intended: a Union of States with powers broadly vested in the States (see: the 9th and 10th Amendments).

The more we take out of the purview of the Federal government and the more we allow States the leeway to enact whatever systems they wish (democratically), the more the States coexist harmoniously. The United States begins to look like the European Union.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Klein conflates vetos by many small minorities with slight supermajority rules. That you can't build in SF w/o satisfying a thousand parties extracting their pound of flesh is very different than the 60% de-filibuster. Giving 51% majorities unhindered power is not the answer.

</comment><comment><USER4> > If even the government is forced to turn a constant profit on its programs > and to avoid anything that might look like a boondoggle

Exhibit A of government boondoggle program is most expensive NASA programs. SLS (Space Launch System) - and its predecessors have spent so much that humanity could have a sizeable buzzing town on the Moon for that kind of money.

The problem is that government both too afraid of responsibility in some places and very irresponsible in others, and there is no working mechanism to timely deal with that.

</comment><comment><USER35> In short, author thinks US should build more liberal institutions

<comment><USER36> You should read the article to the end where he explicitly disavows that. Or for that matter, the beginning of the article, where he blames progressives for overly-empowering public consultations.

Ezra Klein is indeed left of center by US standards (which means he's a centrist anywhere else). But he's making a different point.

I listen to his podcast, and with characteristic understatement, he's been saying something like "I think the government should be able to enact a program, and have voters judge if it's a success." He believes that because of vetocracy that parties now escape accountability as well, they never get to fully implement their idea so they gain electoral success by demonizing or blaming the other group. Klein is saying that he'll even take a right wing idea (like education vouchers) as long as they get to really do it and own the success or failure. Over time he thinks we'll get better policies that way & less empty ideological posturing.

(I believe I have fairly characterized Klein's views here. They are not my own.)

<comment><USER35> Sure, I just think this is a liberal or neophyte idea about how institutions should look like. Conservative or neophobe idea is to keep the democracy as it was

<comment><USER36> Perhaps I am being trolled here, but the opposite of neophobe is neophile, not neophyte.

<comment><USER35> Sorry English is my second language

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> There is definitely a problem with funding which is harmful for value creators.

Funding which is not optimally allocated is much worse than no funding at all.

Imagine if there are two people:

\- PersonA who has the potential to produce a lot of value but is useless when it comes to pitching ideas to investors because they spend all their effort thinking about how to solve problems.

\- PersonB who is useless at creating value but is really good at selling empty ideas to investors because they spend all of their effort thinking about their pitching techniques.

In our economy, PersonB will beat PersonA every single time. What this means is that PersonA cannot get any funding at all and they end up being forced to work as an employee of PersonB who doesn't know what the heck they're doing because the only thing they are good at is attracting investors and telling them what they want to hear.

In reality, it would be more efficient to let PersonA get all the funding and put PersonB on welfare (because PersonA would be smart enough to not hire them). As good as PersonB is at talking and convincing people to give them money, the reality is that they are less than useless for the economy. Unfortunately, we cannot BS our way to a stronger economy.

If you watch some interviews by Masayoshi Son of Softbank, you will understand this. The guy is a genius at convincing people of the most fanciful, outlandish ideas - But he added no net value... He just distributed the funding he received to other snake oil salesmen like himself. The biggest VC in the world didn't know what the heck he was doing and was giving money to other people who also didn't know what the heck they were doing.

I think it would be better if the activity of investing or loaning money would be made illegal. People should just get rich and retire; let the next person have a go.

Getting rich and not retiring is immoral IMO. These people have every tool necessary to enjoy the rest of their lives but they prefer to stay in control and dedicate their entire careers to preventing other people from getting the same opportunities as they got.

Because of them, our entire economy is now founded on the arbitrary top-down picking of winners instead of bottom-up value creation.

<comment><USER38> While bullshit is certainly a problem there are some major problems with your proposals.

1\. How can you tell type A from type B before seeing them to ensure the "right" people get all of the funding?

2\. Part of the reason the rich are encouraged to work is because they have proven high value of sort - regardless of the basis of the evaluation. The immorality assumes a smooth transition of similiar expertise would be trivial - along with experience not mattering. To be frank that is seldom the case.

3\. Capital availability allows for upscaling which gives massive efficency over the small scale - it is why the megacompanies can retain dominance. If they could only produce product at a worse margin and quality then dealing with a mass of small scale producers would be a way to get concrete gains.

<comment><USER37> >> gives massive efficency over the small scale - it is why the megacompanies can retain dominance

I don't buy this argument at all, especially when you consider that history has shown that they need to get bailed out every 10 years or so. They're successful because they're all running on free credit - Either credit that they took themselves against their own collateral or credit taken out by other entities who fund them (either as investors or as customers).

It's very simple. Entities which have capital can use that capital as collateral to receive bank loans which they can use to multiply their profits. There is a nice interview on YouTube where Steven Schwarzman from The Blackstone Group (with assets of $500 billion) explains how this works (and has worked for 30 years as he openly brags): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kThTbLUQdU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kThTbLUQdU)

Basically whatever capital you have to invest, you can go a bank and take a loan against it and double how much of the underlying asset you can buy with the same base capital... Effectively this allows you to supercharge your ROI... Your $1 million which would have given you a ROI of 10% can be used as collateral to secure an additional $1 million loan so that you end up holding twice as much of the asset and 20% ROI (relative to your original 1 million). You just hold the asset for a year or two, then dump and repeat. Can small business without any capital compete against that? No because they're on a different playing field; one where 20% returns are simply not possible.

You could argue that these people are taking a risk, but guess who the Federal Reserve Bank chose to execute the bailout for the covid19 financial crisis? A group called 'Blackrock' [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/25/business/blackrock- federa...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/25/business/blackrock-federal- reserve.html) \- If that company sounds like 'Blackstone', it's no coincidence, the two companies share a common history. Search for 'Blackrock' in the Wikipedia article about 'The Blackstone group': [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blackstone_Group](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blackstone_Group)

When you consider that this credit is printed by banks out of thin air, it's no mystery why the rich get richer. The surplus ROI which they derive from access to free credit is basically just free money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Where in the world can people build?

</comment><comment><USER40> If vetos are the reason, then enough people don't want to build what the author is suggesting. It's not a failure to simply not do what he (and not a clear majority) thinks is good.

<comment><USER41> >enough people don't want to build

If the problem was that 51% of people didn't want those things, well that's just democracy. For a true veto, one person is "enough people." That's an exaggeration in this case, but the point he's getting at is that it takes a very very small minority to prevent things from moving forward. And there will almost always be some people invested in the status quo, or even just trying to block things in the hope of getting some kind of payoff in return (trolls, basically).

<comment><USER3> And 51% is quite misleading. 24% of the US population lives in the 30 smallest states. That means that effectively 12%* of voters are responsible for a supermajority of senators. Or if you consider the filibuster, 41 senators can represent as little as 11% of the US population and are elected by 5.5%* of U.S. voters.

*Assuming a uniform population-voter proportion across states, which is undoubtedly not quite the case, though I don't have the exact numbers handy.

<comment><USER42> And good ol' gerrymandering and voter suppression helps solidify that 5.5%.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> So close to being an amazing essay just to end by making the very mistake it so eloquently showed through the essay is hindering any form of change.

You can't change the system from within. You have to crush it and build something completely new or you just end with the same filibuster situation just about what system of systems to build.

You can't change a system with the very principles that create the system to begin with.</comment>


The Life of a Founder – A Diary of November 2014 - <AUTHOR> http://justinmcgill.net/month-review-founder-diary-november-2014/

<comment><AUTHOR> I do a break down every month for those curious.</comment>


Why Learn Scala in 2013? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.typesafe.com/why-learn-scala <comment><USER2> When I first encountered Scala, my impression was that _this_ would be Java 2.0. Two plus years later, that's still my impression. What this means to me is that if you are looking for a new work-a-day language (i.e. the language that you use to pay the bills; the ones that appear in the Tiobe top 25), then Scala is probably worth a look.

However, if you are happy with your current working language and are, instead, looking for a language that will let you grow as a programmer...well, for that sort of approach I'm not so sure Scala is the best you can do. This is just anecdotal, but I've noticed a trend where someone does something cool in Haskell, and then says "oh yeah, and with a few adjustments and given a couple of caveats, you can do it in Scala like so...". In other words, it seems to me that more of the innovation is happening in other languages and then its being brought _back_ into Scala as almost an afterthought.

I have seen some hints that this is changing, and so I definitely won't write- off Scala. At the same time, there are an _awful_ lot of interesting languages out there if you're looking to grow as a programmer...

<comment><USER3> I like Scala and didn't personally find it that hard to start using it but I'm not optimistic about its future as a mainstream alternative to Java. It's just too big and complex and (apparently) too GC heavy to be useful on what is quickly becoming one of the most important Java environments (Android).

My money is on Jetbrains' Kotlin as a significant but manageable step forward from Java. Given its pedigree I expect it to have tooling support that no other JVM language can match.

<http://kotlin.jetbrains.org/>

<comment><USER4> Part of Kotlin's pedigree are some ex-developers of Groovy, i.e. James Strachan (Groovy's creator) and Alex Tkachman (creator of Groovy++, the inspiration for Groovy's static type-checking). They bring a deep knowledge of implementation pitfalls that can only be gained from doing it wrong the first time.

Of course, Scala creator Martin Odersky completely rewrote Scala after version 1.0, and even in version 2.x, has considered fixing stuff between point releases to be more important than backwards compatibility, so Scala similarly ought to be quite polished by now (version 2.10), in both feature set and implementation.

<comment><USER3> I didn't know that the Groovy folks were involved in Kotlin. That's great to hear. I think this team has exactly the right experience to build a potential Java killer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I really like Scala. But i have some thoughts on this article:

\- Its not objective: It's from Typesafe. Logically they are not going to mention the negative sides of Scala

I used Scala myself and I think it is a very good approach to combining functional, imperative, object oriented and type safety in one language.

But the big downside is complexity: Scala is utterly complex, its has all the features of java. But it simplifies the object model (everything is an object), that's a good thing. But the type system? Really complex. Making compile time errors very difficult to understand.

A shift to functional style programming is happening more and more. But I think, and hope, there will be a complete paradigma shift from imperative to completely functional. This should start with universities starting with lambda calculus and functional languages to 1st year CS students.

Functional programming has the simplest execution model, is one of the best to reason about, and works very well with current multicore systems. That's why i'm spending more time on learning Clojure than learning Scala. In the end a language like lisp is much simpler but the paradigma shift is what makes it a bit difficult for those imperative programmers like me.

<comment><USER6> I'm not disagreeing about the complexity, but you can choose to use a sane subset of the language and do away with all the other stuff. Map, filter, anonymous functions and type inference already puts it way ahead of Java in terms of productivity. You can absolutely choose to ignore the rest of the language.

 _In the end a language like lisp is much simpler but the paradigma shift is what makes it a bit difficult for those imperative programmers like me._

It's not very fair to compare Scala with Clojure - static typing might not be everyone's cup of tea, but over time, I have come to appreciate it's power when dealing with certain classes of problems.

<comment><USER7>
      I'm not disagreeing about the complexity, but you can choose
      to use a sane subset of the language and do away with all
      the other stuff.

You're aware that's the classic counter-argument to "C++ is too complex"? Like with C++, the problem is it will be very hard to agree on what sane subset to use. There are a lot of things nice about Scala, but I can't help seeing it as the C++ of FP languages. Moreover, the Haskell envy it exhibits can be sometimes embarassing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> While I don't think _this_ article presents any compelling reasons to learn scala, you still should. If I had to list my reasons they would be

0\. Of all the "new" languages Scala has the best selection of libraries and I think is the easiest to become instantly productive in. Languages like Rust and even to some extent Go are also really exciting and let you do great things, but the native library support isn't as robust as it is for Scala, and Rust in particular is still under heavy development and isn't really ready yet. From a stability standpoint you should be OK with Go, but even it will be baking in more stuff and changing more then you will see Scala change.

1\. The Productivity Boost Effect. You will find you can solve complex problems with a few lines of code and a little thinking. I have ported 1K+ lines of C++ to 10 or 20 lines of Scala

2\. Personal Growth. If you are coming from C++ or Java and have done Imperative programming your whole career then Scala is a _gentle_ introduction to functional programming. As you start to use the language you might start by using it as java and only typing half the character ( no type signatures ,semi-colons , or in some places parentheses ) as you do more things and look for elegant solutions the function patterns will become obvious in their usefulness and you will start seeing their value first hand.

3\. Awesome Libraries you get access to. I think immediatly of things like Akka, Twitter Storm , Play2 , and my personal favorite Spark[1]. Not that there aren't great libraries in other languages and most if not all of those expose themselves to Java and other languages, but its great using the native language they were designed for. you can do some great stuff.

4\. Finally its better then spending all day reading and commenting on Hacker News. :-)

<comment><USER9>
      > I have ported 1K+ lines of C++ to 10 or 20
      > lines of Scala

I'm not doubting your claim, but as a general rule that sounds awfully steep. Maybe you got lucky (because whatever you wanted to do was a brilliant match for some standard library function or happened to be tailored to a uniquely "Scala-y" feature). In most cases of drastic code reductions upon language switch, however, it's one of two phenomena:

a) Rewrites are usually more succinct simply because you've done the legwork before; a second solution is almost bound to be more to the point.

b) One wasn't using the initial language properly.

Sure, going from C to Haskell may lead to insanely compressed code, but C++ in conjunction with its mature standard library, Boost, and the multitude of libraries available is such an advanced and excessively paradigm-spanning language that a reduction by not one but _two_ orders of magnitude suggests a less than perfect first draft.

<comment><USER8> It was a combination of reasons. Firstly I wrote it better the second time. I think almost any time you rewrite something even in the same language you can do it in less lines. Secondly even with boost and the STL its really hard to do some things in c++ in a few lines of code. My case was incorporating ASIO the framework to get it up and running and get its event loop working as well as the cod to parse the data that was being received. In Scala with Akka it was an actor with the IOManager and then simple text manipulation and I had replicated the functionality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've looked at Scala. I think it's really neat. I think it is Perl. And that's what scares me. You can solve the problem in many ways, each one getting more functional and abstract. Eventual so abstract that you can't really tell what going on.

Another issue is the fact that it interacts with the JVM. Short answer, it seems nice, but if you're functional, you can't really use the 3rd party libs because you can't be sure they will play well in the functional world. Long answer is here. [http://talesfromannoyance.blogspot.com/2012/05/why-im- lookin...](http://talesfromannoyance.blogspot.com/2012/05/why-im-looking-at- erlang-over-scala.html).

I'll probably double back to Scala at some point, but I think a language off the JVM is a better option. Or at lease one that is so odd to the JVM that most people will only look for libs written in that language. For that I assume Clojure is a better choice.

<comment><USER11> There's no limitation: you can use any 3rd party Java library from Scala. We do it in production for years, works perfectly.

It's true that Scala DSL is scary. As far I know soon (version 2.10?) you will have to add a compiler flag to enable some scary stuff. They are useful for library developers, but not too great for everyday apps.

Also you don't have to use the functional part. I saw plenty of code that looked like a nicer Java. You get less boilerplate and better performance - see <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2615096>

Edit: The article you linked says: "... one call to some open source project that didn't worry enough about threading to even warn the user that the object is not thread safe." This would fail in any language, including Java.

<comment><USER10> You're right. But functional adds a whole new layer of "safety". The functional developer will think, "My code is functional, share nothing, messaging passing goodness. I'm fine." As but some new developer, keen on Scala, but not thinking about the older 3rd parties, adds a call from his functional goodness to the non safe, side effecting code. This will introduce a subtle, hard to trace bug. As a result, I'm not a big fan of the "it's compatible with Java" hype around these VM languages.

<comment><USER12> > I'm not a big fan of the "it's compatible with Java" hype around these VM > languages.

The fact is Java interop is a fundamental feature providing great pragmatic utility as well as an absolute prerequisite for any kind of adoption of these languages. It's basically the opposite of "hype."

<comment><USER10> I don't agree. I think that interopt should be at a higher level, like services. Putting the ability to integrate code not written for your paradigm is problematic. Pragmatic, but still problematic.

It's a lot like Node.js. Why Javascript? Because it is so self contained that it is impossible to use code that violates the paradigm because its too new. When the designer of Node looked at using straight C or another language, the legacy threat put him off. Same thing here.

<comment><USER12> > I don't agree. I think that interopt should be at a higher level, like > services. Putting the ability to integrate code not written for your > paradigm is problematic. Pragmatic, but still problematic.

I think if you look at just about any common example of idiomatic Clojure code you'll find Java interop sprinkled all over the place. People aren't going to reimplement all those libraries in Clojure, Scala, or whatever other JVM lang you're targeting. Seamless interop is a prerequisite. I think most Clojurians feel it yields far more benefit than any problems it might introduce.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Funny, I had already planned on this as a 2013 goal of mine - this blog post only reinforced it!

Coursera has a Scala course from Odersky that's worth giving a shot: <https://www.coursera.org/course/progfun>

</comment><comment><USER14> Can anyone recommend a good book on Scala? Or should the documentation be enough?

<comment><AUTHOR> Programming in Scala - <http://www.artima.com/shop/programming_in_scala_2ed>

For more links, visit <http://typesafe.com/resources>

<comment><USER15> besides staircase book (the one from Artima.com:

the other good starter book: <http://horstmann.com/scala/>

detailed looks, all angles: <http://www.manning.com/suereth/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Can anyone explain in less than ten words why one should learn Scala in 2013?

<comment><USER11> Foursquare, Twitter, LinkedIn, Netflix, Box.com, Nest.com, CloudPhysics, Quora, Simple, Klout

More than 10: [http://www.quora.com/Startups/What-startups-or-tech- companie...](http://www.quora.com/Startups/What-startups-or-tech-companies- are-using-Scala)

<comment><USER16> Are you suggesting that the metric of how powerful a programming language is is the quantity of companies using it?

<comment><USER11> He was asking: why should he learn Scala?

Getting hired by any of these companies can be a good enough reason for some.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I haven't looked at Scala lately. Has the compile speed of Scala improved? Is it comparable to Javac now?

<comment><USER11> The new SBT is a lot smarter now, my incremental builds are pretty fast.

Speed-up is part of the roadmap: <http://blog.typesafe.com/getting-down-to- work>

<comment><USER18> It's too bad sbt isn't actually simple and is generally a disaster.

I did scala in IntelliJ. The lack of tooling reduces the value a lot. I almost prefer plain java over the sheer simplicity it has comparatively...

<comment><USER19> Why do you feel that sbt isn't simple/a disaster? I actually think it is the nicest of the build tools on JVM. I can set up basic projects with no configuration. Also, its triggered build feature[1] combined with its interactive console is a killer feature set that I think all build tools should have.

[1] <http://www.scala-sbt.org/release/docs/Howto/triggered.html>

<comment><USER20> It is extremely inconsistent. The config file is a list of Scala expressions, however it is not a valid Scala code as a whole. And when you want subprojects, then suddenly the config file is not able to do that, you need to setup another directory with a totally different style of config to do that. On the other hand the interactive console is a killer feature, agreed.

<comment><USER19> I don't really think it is inconsistent. Sbt has two methods for configuring your projects. You can use a limited configuration file that has less boiler plate but also doesn't allow you to configure as much. The alternative is that you can use the full configuration that has more boilerplate but lets you configure everything. The reason I don't think this is inconsistent because the full configuration is a strict superset of of the limited configuration, both syntactically and semantically (with the exception that expressions need to be added to sequences instead of separated by blank lines).

<comment><USER18> Question, doesn't the full configuration require you to put your config stuff in multiple files? A lot of files?

The sbt 'directory of configuration' was always a bummer for me. The single pom.xml is a nice mechanism. Also maven has good CI compatibility.

The way I think of it is that maven has a good way of specifying a build. The mvn command is the slow, but complete, way of building. The normal development lifecycle is to load your maven model into an IDE then go from there, using IntelliJ's incremental build support, etc.

SBT in other words, solves a problem I don't have.

The other major problem is last year, SBT was a fucking train wreck between 0.7, 0.8, 0.9 and 0.10. Now that we are a YEAR out from that yeah sure maybe it's a lot better. I'd give it another year before I'd seriously try it again.

In the mean time, I am more interested in kotlin for sane static typed JVM languages, and clojure for real functional sauce. Scala is too slow for me :-/

<comment><USER19> SBT actually only requires 2 configuration files (even for multi-project builds). One for SBT plugins and one for everything else. You can use more files for organizational purposes but they are not necessary.

I actually like 'directory of configuration'. The SBT build configuration is actually an SBT project itself. So you can use a lot of the same tools to trouble shoot the build configuration that you would use to troubleshoot the build itself. Also, this means that in some cases (such as multi-project builds) you can use much fewer files.

I'm not sure about CI compatibility. I know that Jenkins/Hudson have SBT support but I have never tried to use it.

I actually think that way that most IDEs interact with maven builds is less complete than what you have with SBT. For example, frequently you need specify your build configuration again if you want your IDE to do incremental compilation or to run individual tests. This can be very painful if your build contains anything out of the ordinary. With SBT you just attach a remote debugger to a long running SBT process and then let SBT due all of the building and running. It takes care of the automatic incremental compilation and lets you run individual tests (which, unlike most IDEs, it can be configured to run tests automatically and it can probably run them much faster).

I can certainly understand if the previous 0.7 to 0.10 jump made you nervous about SBT. However, I think that SBT has matured a lot in the year and a half since then. I think it has finally reached a stability point where it is ready for general use. In particular I think the 0.12.x series is where this finally occurred. It has now has a steady release process and has fixed issues that SBT (along with Scala the language) had, in the past, with binary compatibility.

EDIT: lost a bunch of text in the submit, had to retype

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Anybody have any knowledge of how job prospects compare between Scala, Clojure and Haskell?

The article seems to imply Scala jobs are taking off (19 pages). Are Scala jobs really outpacing Clojure and Haskell?

<comment><USER22> Scala seem to have much more job results on every site than Clojure and Haskell: <http://www.simplyhired.com/a/jobs/list/q-scala+developer>. See also Dice.com. To see startup jobs, check Startuply or Angel.co: <http://www.startuply.com/#/scala%20developer/1>

(To get more accurate results, you should search in-title or by tagged skill.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Java 8 (coming out in 2013) is going to be sprinkled with functional programming features....

<comment><USER24> ...with emphasis on the sprinkled. No partial function application, for example.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Its Scala or Go in 2013 for me...</comment>


Reddit begins accepting bitcoins - <AUTHOR> http://blog.reddit.com/2013/02/new-gold-payment-options-bitcoin-and.html

<comment><USER2> Bitcoin as a payment option is now 2 clicks away from every reddit comment. [Give Gold >>> BitCoin (sic)]

</comment><comment><USER3> More impressive than accepting bitcoin is they using coinbase instead of bitpay ( that supports WordPress.com ), really good for fostering competition! Go free market!

<comment> w-ll Not really given Coinbase is YCW12 IIRC.

But still this is awesome, the word bitcoin is 1 click away on every comment. The community over in /r/bitcoin has been asking for this for what seems like forever.</comment></comment>


Ask HN:mother language or English  - <AUTHOR>

Hey HN, I'm about to open my personal blog, I plan to talk about technology, programming,maths, startups,personal stuff,etc. The thing is: I haven't decided yet in what language should I post in.My mother language is Spanish and my English is pretty well. Some advice? <comment><USER2> Your English could be tuned up a bit. Normal English usage would not say "maths" but would say "math", although there are those who'd say the language is changing in that regard. You should have said "my English is pretty good" since "well" is normally an indicator of a state of good health when used with a form of the verb "to be". But those are nits. Who do you want to read your blog? What language will those people be most comfortable reading? Answer that and you have the answer to your question.

<comment><USER3> _Normal English usage would not say "maths" but would say "math"._

Actually, that's a US/UK difference, not a language issue. Irish, British, Australians all studied maths in school, because 'mathematics' is a plural noun.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> \- English: larger audience

\- Spanish: less competitors

If you choose English, use an orthography and grammar corrector. This is a good idea for Spanish too.

<comment><AUTHOR> "Spanish:less competitors"<\--you are right, I didn't realize that one before!

<comment><USER4> I think it depends on how serious you are about blogging. A friend of mine started years ago a now very successful blog, and he now regrets having started it in Spanish, because he feels the blog cannot grow more in audience because of it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you're comfortable in both, why not offer both languages? You won't have to spend so much time on figuring out what you're trying to say in the second version, and it might even help to improve your arguments to write it again.

</comment><comment><USER6> alternate

<comment><USER7> There is a really cool website Ford has to advertise the new Fiesta, <http://www.readypatumundo.com>. It utilizes code-switching between English and Spanish, and there is an innovative slider in the top right corner that lets the user choose the English/Spanish mix. Maybe this could be worked into the blog.

<comment><AUTHOR> he he it seems like great idea for a publicity campaign, but maybe it would be kind of weird for a post, I'll think about it!, thanks!</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to respond to recruiters who barely speak English? - <AUTHOR>

I'm currently in the process of looking for a junior development job. As such, I have my resume up on a bunch of different sites (Monster, indeed, etc.)
I've lately been getting many calls from recruiters I think are in California (that's what caller ID said) who can barely speak English.
I'm having a hard time understanding what they are saying or asking me, and talking to them seems like a waste of time. Would it be poor form to tell them I don't want to chat, or what? <comment><USER2> > How to respond to recruiters who barely speak English?

Ignore them; overseas recruiters are indicative of low-rent clients and bottom feeders. Having your CV associated with them damages your brand.

A few suggestions-- Remove your resume from the job boards immediately. Instead, focus your search on companies and senior executives who you can help. Linkedin is good for this. (BTW, I'm assuming you've punched up your profile.) Do look for seasoned, established stateside recruiters who focus on your industry or market. Reach out to them selectively. One way to get on a serious recruiters side-- show interest in what they are working on, ask how you may be able to help them. There is power in a networking relationship.

<comment><AUTHOR> Alright, thanks for the advice. I had similar thoughts but wasn't totally sure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Ask them their native language, and start talking in it, of course.

</comment><comment><USER4> One of the best job offer I got was from recruiter that was exactly like that. He was some sort of front line caller that was hired by pretty decent enterprise.

In fact some of my worst interactions (lots of time wasted) were from perfectly english speaking, good looking recruiters.

Go figure, but as a rule of thumb there are not hard and fast rules here :)

</comment><comment><USER5> "I'm sorry, I can't understand you. Just send me an email thanks. Gotta go. Click"

</comment><comment><USER6> The correct answer is to not respond.

Seriously, they're not going to be able to sell you to a prospective client if their English is clearly that terrible. It does more harm than good to have your name associated with them.

</comment><comment><USER7> Don't?</comment>


Startup develops a syringe with tiny sponges that can stop bleeding fast - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2015/12/11/xstat-device/ <comment><USER2> The article doesn't mention this, but there are already similar products that quickly stop bleeding. The combat gauze QuikClot has been around since 2008 and contains a compound that quickly coagulates blood. The US Military uses it in Iraq & Afghanistan. Also, the foam pellets shown in the video won't replace gauze in all situations. You can see that syringe opening is fairly large and won't inject into wounds with small openings like those from shrapnel or small caliber bullets.

It's great to see people innovating to save lives but the article should mention competing products. Otherwise, this reads like an advertisement.

<comment><USER3> In the infantry, we stopped using QuikClot because of the permanent damage the chemical compounds do to tissue around wounds. Our medics carried it, but very rarely used it, and eventually stopped carrying it altogether.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _" The device is best for wounds in areas where a tourniquet can't be placed, such as the groin or armpit. The downside, however, is that the device isn't intended for many areas of the body: the chest, abdomen, pelvis or tissue above the collarbone."_

Seal the container. This is combat medic 101. Seal the container and move towards primary care. You can read about the context how this technology would work in _" The Golden Hour"_ (Logar Province, Afghanistan, 2010) ~ [http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/content/2009/s2820327.htm](http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/content/2009/s2820327.htm)

This technology will not work on head wounds.

good story, borked link, I tried this one: [http://mashable.com/2015/12/11/xstat- device/](http://mashable.com/2015/12/11/xstat-device/)

</comment><comment><USER5> There is something even better than sponges - "How mini sponges could save lives on the battlefield " .

Its called "Not waging war at all".</comment>


Bitcoin inventor, Satoshi Nakamoto's identity revealed? - <AUTHOR> http://ownlifeful.blogspot.in/2013/05/bitcoin-creator-satoshi-nakamoto.html

<comment><USER2> > "5. Same number of Hiragana symbols in first and last names of the two > identities."

Kill me now.</comment>


Stack Overflow – New Code License - <AUTHOR> http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/272956/a-new-code-license-the-mit-this-time-with-attribution-required?cb=1 <comment><USER2> Ummm. MIT doesn't have any guarantees about attribution.

Not sure how their legal team came to the conclusion that the MIT license could be adapted to cover what it's explicitly written _not_ to cover.

Why didn't they ask the community to vote on what they want rather make the decision in the echo chamber of narrow-minded toxic personalities otherwise known as meta.stackexchange.

<comment><USER3> > ask the community

That's what meta is _for_. If you want to be a part of the community that gets asked things, you have to participate on meta.

<comment><USER2> Except it's not because anything that doesn't align with the worldview of the SO elitists that hang out on meta gets trounced.

The saving grace of meta, is it gives those guys a place to blow off their steam rather than taking it out on regular SO users.</comment></comment></comment>


Building Facebook's Service Encryption Infastructure - <AUTHOR> https://code.fb.com/security/service-encryption/ <comment><USER2> > After several days, we finally narrowed down the issue to a bad Advanced > Vector Extensions (AVX) instruction on a single CPU in our fleet

This isn't even the first time I've heard of an issue at FB being caused by a single bad CPU instruction. Working at a scale where "Problem X is a one-in-a- million edge case" and "Problem X happens several times per day" are synonymous is weird...

<comment><USER3> At a previous organization I worked at that operated at this kind of scale, I came up with a couple of maxims:

1\. If you're only 99% automated, you're dead.

2\. Anything you can easily imagine going wrong is probably going wrong right now.

3\. Everything else that can possibly go wrong will go wrong at some point in the not distant future.

Some of the problems we ran into were pretty fun and challenging. The longest substantial one I'm aware of took a couple of years to figure out.

<comment><USER4> Can you share the problem that took a couple of years to figure out?

<comment><USER3> Sure. I didn't figure this out, but was relatively close to the investigation. My team provided a lot of data that ended up being used to come to root cause.

My team and extended teams managed almost 200,000 network devices, spread all over the world, most of which were Cisco, and most of which were installed in stores. And most of the switch ports were connected to customer facing Point Of Sale devices. Among these are employee facing registers and customer facing card scanners. That is, the devices you interact with whenever scan your card to pay for something.

With that many devices in that many locations in a largely unmanaged environment (the switches would be installed all over the store, often in the ceiling, and many of them experienced extreme temperatures), there were a constant stream of failures. The process to manage these failures was optimized, streamlined and largely automated.

However, it was discovered that switches were failing far more frequently in the northern Midwestern US than elsewhere, and then only in the winter.

So this wasn't a really big operational issue, but it had a substantial cost impact, and the rate was high enough that a lot of the affected stores did notice and were complaining.

Right. Very strange, very mysterious.

So, briefly, the root cause:

Apparently, people in the upper Midwest wear wool to stay warm far more frequently than other cold places, specifically the US northeast. And much of the time, the humidity is quite low. So, you have a lot of people wearing a lot of wool in low humidity air. These people generated a lot of static, which they would all too often discharge while interacting with the customer facing point of sale device. And, all too frequently, that pulse of static would end up flowing all the way back to the switch, often killing it.

I didn't follow the subsequent remediation efforts, so I don't know what if anything was done about that.

<comment><USER5> That's a fantastic anecdote. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when the results were reported to management.

<comment><USER6> Indeed, great story. I'd love to have seen the face of the person who finally figured it out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Does anyone know if they use encryption and access control to granularly regulate access to data? For example, the part of the system that feeds data to advertisements shouldn't have access to my private messages (in my view that would be a huge breach of trust with users.)

<comment><AUTHOR> There are several access control mechanisms. One such ACL as mentioned in the post is identity certificates which are used to perform access control. Other mechanisms for identity are CATs which have been talked about in the past [https://rwc.iacr.org/2018/Slides/Lewi.pdf](https://rwc.iacr.org/2018/Slides/Lewi.pdf) and [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kY- Bkv3qxMc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kY-Bkv3qxMc)

<comment><USER8> CATs at first sight look like Macaroons or JWTs. Thanks for the links!

<comment><AUTHOR> Ya they're similar in that they are all signed blobs of data, but different in the sense that they are specifically designed to send authentication information via several layers of proxies

<comment><USER8> I'm actually interested in this subject so I'll check out your links when I'll be able to. At first sight this sounds like wrapping tokens or third party caveats in Macaroons.

<comment><USER9> We presented about CATs again in Def Con 26. It's a 21 minute talk but if you're interested in how CAT differ from Macaroons, you can skip to 16:15 mark where Yueting explains [https://cryptovillage.org/cats-a-tale-of-scalable- authentica...](https://cryptovillage.org/cats-a-tale-of-scalable- authentication/)

<comment><USER8> I've seen both videos, nice explanation.

If you don't mind I wouldn't necessarily agree with the comment about JWT by Yueting. JWT is just a format, querying backend to get a new token is not necessary (this is only how people often use them). I actually built a small PoC that mints new JWTs on client side (in the browser) signing them with a non-exportable key (through Webcrypto).

As for Macaroons I believe they could also be adjusted to resemble CATs as I understood them (with layers for different services). I do have other issues with Macaroons though ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17878845](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17878845))...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wonder what the performance differences are with their approach vs using K8s + service mesh of your choice which includes all this.

I imagine Google runs a bigger scale operation on top of Borg and their internal service mesh.

<comment><USER3> Borg != Kubernetes k8s is based on Borg, but they are quite different.

Companies at this scale have integrations between all different levels and layers of the 'stack' that make the use of off the shelf software difficult or impossible.

<comment><USER10> yes I know they are different, but the lessons learnt/dev in both products probably end up influencing each other.

My point was encryption of services is built into K8s/service mesh and wondering how it fares compared to FB's approach.

<comment><AUTHOR> This would make a great comparison. I'm not certain whether or not K8's mutual auth supports session ticket resumptions and distribution of short lived ticket keys. The ticket rotation design would probably make a great addition to K8. There are a lot of intricate details in design which can make a major difference in not only performance but also whether or not the system wakes you up at night.

<comment> brown9-2 Kubernetes does not have a built-in mutual auth solution

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "After several years of trying to manage these issues with Kerberos, we decided to redesign the system from the ground up.." I am curious, is there anyone who went the opposite direction direction and implemented a new Kerberos library or setup?

<comment><USER12> So, several places, such as Stanford or Morgan Stanley, have sophisticated Kerberos setups using something like Russ Allbery's Wallet[0] (Stanford) or Roland Dowdeswell's OSKT[1] (Morgan Stanley, Two Sigma) stack.

For example, OSKT is a self-service toolkit that lets users build up access controls for clusters, "role accounts" (user accounts for running application automation), and what not. Users use "krb5_prestash" to indicate what hosts should have what role accounts' credentials (the user must own the hosts and role accounts) and krb5_keytab to get keys for services on hosts they are allowed to run. A nifty trick is to have wildcard DNS A RRs for hosts so that one can have HTTP/${USER}.$(uname -n) principals (and keys for them) on any host the user can login to.

All of this is high-performance and self-service. Users don't need to file JIRA tickets or whatever to get their keys for their services.

Self-service credential provisioning is absolutely _essential_ to successful deployment at scale of any authentication system one uses, whether that be Kerberos or PKIX or DANE or anything else one might find or invent.

      [0] https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/software/wallet/readme.html
      [1] https://oskt.secure-endpoints.com/
          https://github.com/elric1/

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> > We run one of the largest microservices deployments in the world, with > thousands of services that perform billions of requests per second.

Thousands? Does one truly need that many microservices, even if you are the size of Facebook? That is a lot.

<comment><USER14> That actually sounds about right from my perspective (and experience). Out of curiosity, why do you think that is a lot?

I would go a bit further and say most companies should only proceed with a microservice architecture if they have sufficient scale and automation such that decomposing their architecture will result in at least a high double digit number of discrete services.

<comment><USER13> I think I was reading _microservices_ but I was imagining _services_ and that's why it seemed like a lot. I guess it depends on the granularity of the decomposition.

I agree, scale and automation are two important factors when decomposing architectures. I think it would be really valuable if systems could decompose themselves to some degree, based on scale and other factors, without much of an operator's intervention.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It seems that they recreated a Service Mesh. Running Istio or Consul Connect takes care or the vast majority of issues listed in this post: Encryption, Identity, access control. And even trasparently for the developpers (no modification of the code...)

<comment><USER16> Only the scale that these solutions can support is different.

<comment><USER17> Isn't Istio implemented mostly as a sidecar container(Envoy Proxy) though? The article mentions they are running containers via their Tupperware orchestrator. If they are largely running containerized where is the scaling issue with adding sidecars to implement the service mesh? I don't have any experience with Istio but I'm genuinely curious along which axis it(or Connect, Linkerd etc) doesn't scale.

<comment><USER18> Envoy is so slow that deployment at this scale would be too costly, or if you could afford it would immediately present itself as a huge opportunity for cost reduction. People who are measuring their tail latency in microseconds aren't going to tolerate Envoy's marginal latency, which will be milliseconds even at the median.

<comment><USER17> Interesting, I wasn't aware that Istio has such performance issues. Isn't Google using this though as well or at least an internal version of it? Surely they are on the same scale as FB.

I'm curious at to what the cause of the latency is. TLS handshakes?

<comment><USER19> That report resulted in an update to Istio docs: _"Warning not to use demo profile for performance evaluation"_

[https://github.com/istio/istio.io/pull/4220](https://github.com/istio/istio.io/pull/4220)

More here, which basically suggests, don't stop Istio from scaling out before 500 rps, it doesn't like that at all:

[https://kinvolk.io/blog/2019/05/performance-benchmark- analys...](https://kinvolk.io/blog/2019/05/performance-benchmark-analysis-of- istio-and-linkerd/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Is this an engineering article to help prime the pump for discussing FB's approach to taking privacy more seriously (e.g. Zuckerberg's the "future is private")? The article does not explicitly state any connection to such larger FB company and product developments, but it made me think it's connected in some way.

<comment><USER21> Looks like a pretty typical "we solve hard problems and you should come join us" recruiting blog post.</comment></comment>


How to Count How Many Fingers You Have - <AUTHOR> http://www.wikihow.com/Count-How-Many-Fingers-You-Have

<comment><USER2> Pretty lame algorithm. I'm more a fan of base 2 and you count your L using your R fingers, then do a simple register transfer from R to L and continue the count on your R register, err, fingers.

Also they lamely demanded knowledge of counting as a pre-req whereas implementing a simple binary adder (count) is pretty trivial. Essentially every finger is a toggle flip flip aka a divide by 2 feeding its MSB neighbor.

I am not ashamed to admit in moments of extreme boredom I've implemented a 5 bit, even a 10 bit binary counter using my fingers on a tabletop. Aside from screwing around once I got good at this in my starving student / retail employee days I would occasionally count stock when accepting deliveries this way, which highly confused people, I usually did one hex per hand and paws held upward your LSB (aka highest count frequency) is your pointer finger which works well.

You can count easier without using little finger but then you're stuck with two octal digits and that really freaks people out. (octal... its a DEC PDP thing...)</comment>


Visualizing Facebook's PHP Codebase - <AUTHOR> http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10150187460703920

<comment><USER2> This is fascinating. I'm already pondering how to use the same technique for other domains of analysis. Way to go.</comment>


Leap Transit  - <AUTHOR> http://leaptransit.com/ Is this the future of transit? <comment><AUTHOR> It'll be interesting if this takes off.

Another company in the privatized commuting space is RidePal: <http://ridepal.com/>

</comment><comment><USER2> Bad name choice if you're going for originality.

<https://www.leapmotion.com/>

</comment><comment><USER3> From the site:

        Leap is a shuttle service for
        San Francisco commuters</comment>


Amazon cuts ties with Colorado Affiliates, without notice - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704869304575110040812179072.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Apparently the Colorado legislature tried to force Amazon to start charging sales tax to Colorado residents since it had affiliates that operated out of Colorado.

The Colorado law is bad and so is Amazon's handling of the situation (closing accounts on the same day they sent out the email notice).

</comment><comment><USER2> Amazon warned California affiliates that if such a law passed in California, it would be forced to sever its relationship with them; I find it hard to believe that it did not similarly warn Colorado residents prior to the passage of this legislation.

</comment><comment><USER3> See also: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1176039></comment>


Hilarious Ubuntu/Linux experience parody - <AUTHOR> http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Command_Line

<comment><USER2> Rule 1 of the Internet: If it's described as "Hilarious", it isn't.

</comment><comment><USER3> The concept is brilliant and filled with potential, but like every other joke on Uncyclopedia the delivery is pretty disappointing.

For example, they set up an awesome joke here:

      uncyclopedia@uncyclo-laptop:~$ help

        --help   Displays actual help.

        --i question   Interactive version of actual help

Then totally botch it with a lame juvenile punchline:

        --omgwtfbbq   Secret Feature

      uncyclopedia@uncyclo-laptop:~$ help --help

      NO HELP FOR YOU N00B.

<comment><USER4> it should ideally be:

uncyclopedia@uncyclo-laptop:~$ help --help

Displays help about help.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, exactly. The help command should also have a dozen useless esoteric options but no obvious way to actually get any help. Here are some suggestions :)

      -B Don't not use non-buffered IO for not displaying output
      -e Pipe help output through rot13 transformation
      -G Display output in psychedelic ANSI format
      -w Produce ASCII histogram of help task heap allocations.
      -Z Format output so that the number of columns is a prime number
      -Q Run help in daemon mode
      -X1 Translate help to Klingon
      -X2 Translate help to Esperanto
      -X12 Translate help to Esperanto, then to Klingon
      -X21 Translate help to Klingon, then to Esperanto

<comment><USER5> that made me laugh more than the article itself

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> FYI, this is how you do a user-interface rant/parody : <http://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/ed.msg.html>

<comment><USER7> Thanks that was actually funny, unlike the original link which was funny lite: Same great taste zero laughs.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's the other way around for me, but to each his own.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Why does the title mention Ubuntu? It's interesting to see how people now associate Linux with Ubuntu. And that's a good thing. It means that the desktop revolution is on it's way!

</comment><comment><USER9> is it reasonable to flag things for being unfunny?

<comment><USER10> _If you think something is spam or egregiously offtopic, you can flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link._

Seems to fit the bill. Or at least let it die away.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What technology are you sad to see going extinct in the wild? - <AUTHOR> Hardware or software or technique or best practices... <comment><USER3> Email. It's becoming more and more common for people to rely on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or other proprietary, closed systems.

Several times this year I've tried to get in touch with someone online only to find that they simply don't make an email address available.

<comment><AUTHOR> True. I'm starting to realize that these seemingly rock solid "places" are really just ephemeral watering holes. BBSes, AOL, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram... Let's drink up in comradeship before it dries away.

<comment><USER3> But more significantly (I think): it is socially acceptable to expect people to sign up to closed systems in order to communicate.

How can we reverse this trend?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Filemaker Pro. It is flexible and under-the-radar like Excel, so non- programmers can just get stuff done, but you wind up much less of a mess once it metastasizes into a critical business tool. It even has a client-server mode so you have share-ability.

Aldus PageMaker. This isn't going extinct---it's long dead. I did our college literary magazine with this, and it was so fluid. For professional work it lost to Quark, but it was so much better for ordinary people with small-to- medium projects. I've never seen anything like it since.

Knockout. This is really nice technology: so much simpler than Angular or Ember, more like a library than a framework. Made to play nice with lots of other small JS tools. But last I checked the mapping plugin was abandoned and had no replacement. I would love to use this for my projects but feel like it would be a disservice to my clients.

</comment><comment><USER5> IRC. I basically grew up on it.

</comment><comment><USER6> \- Plain HTML. Now even craigslist has succumbed to "web 2.0" pressure. Web 1.0 really wasn't so bad.

\- Drop shadows

\- TV stations. You used to be able to go to a friend's house and know how to operate the TV without needing a tutorial.

\- Microwave Knobs. Whoever decided that pressing "Time Cook -> 1 -> 0 -> 0 -> Start", and waiting about 55 seconds and then opening the door, and then still forcing me to press "Reset", instead of just supplying an old-fashioned timer knob (accurate to within ~5 sec), and selling that to literally billions of people, kudos to you. I want knobs back.

\- "Lack thereof". You used to be able to travel to developing nations and get away from all this junk. "No longer can you do this", which, eh, pouty-face, but "never again will this be possible", which really is kind of jolting to me. (And yes I, even in my years, do understand it creates a greater good (health) but does it? (souls))

\- "finger". Just because, "haha"

</comment><comment><USER7> Floppy disk and cd/dvd drives! When you need to recover files from an old pc and need a Windows XP startup disk.... it's no fun in 2015.

Worse, it was on an IDE Hard drive and I couldn't find an external hard drive case for it so I had to take it to a PC repair store that had an IDE adaptor. Charges $40 to copy any amount of data above 20 Gigabytes.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll kinda miss the portability there of those. Not the multiplicity. Too many "standards", especially as you piled on the megabytes. 50MG Optical disk? Yea, where do I get a drive for that?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Mobile phones that still work when you drop them.

P.S. Do American people call them cell phones or mobile phones now? A few years ago mobile seemed more a British thing to say, but with "mobile" entering the language of the web maybe it is different now.

<comment><USER9> In the old days we use to just call them cell phones. These days I just call it "my iPhone" or when I am referencing other people's phone, I just say "phone". If I am developing and talking about it in development context, then and only then do I reference mobile of any kind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Building your own desktop. I know this still exists but it seems more sub- culture than ever. I have such fond memories of planning the perfect rig. Now my laptop can pretty much handle anything (lower but acceptable specs) so the need is greatly reduced.

Thunderbird. As I said somewhere else on this thread I feel the market is ripe for a new email alternative. That said Outlook is a great tool if you take the time to learn beyond the basics.

</comment><comment><USER11> Extreme programming. When done right, it was an _amazing_ environment to work in. It was just too hard to do right...

<comment><USER12> Some of us are actually still quite active with Extreme programming :) it is hardly dead in the world. But there is a lot of truth to the idea that management and project management people tend to like scrum a heck of a lot more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Zip drives. Most of my work in college is still on those!

<comment><AUTHOR> whirrrrr.... click - <USER2>

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> It can all go. It was never useful, and was/will not be used to try to pass the beginner stuff in this world.

<comment><AUTHOR> > pass the beginner stuff in this world.

Sorry? What do you mean?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Gopher

NNTP

BBS's

WAIS

X11 (maybe, depending on how Wayland turns out)

OS/2 (esp. Workplace Shell)

MUDs

Payphones

</comment><comment><USER16> \- Gnome 2, KDE 3 - The old-style interfaces. Simplicity.

\- Old Slashdot

\- Old style Thinkpads

\- 4chan before it had captcha

\- Kazaa (do these networks still work?)

\- Suprnova (warez has gone downhill, since we now have open source alternatives)

\- Turntable.fm

\- Runescape Classic

\- Old Firefox (when it was light, phoenix 0.1

\- Utorrent (before they wrecked it with adware)

\- Windows 2000 classic interface, XP

\- Nokia N900 (debian phone, nokia abandoned linux and maemo for microsoft.)

\- Razr 3 / Old nokia "Dumbphones" \- built like tanks. Solid. Reliable.

\- I miss the old innocence of PHP Vbulletin, early CMS systems like PHP-Nuke - which at the time were cool.

\- Photoshop 6 (before they put CRM callhomes everywhere)

\- BZFlag - no one cares about this anymore :(

\- MySpace - I liked how you could customize it. It was more individualistic

\- AOL / MSN / Yahoo Chat. People were more open to making friendships online.

<comment><USER15> > Gnome 2, KDE 3 - The old-style interfaces. Simplicity.

Good one. The good news is, some alternate versions of some of those are still available and maintained. And, at least since they're OSS, worst case, you could fork it yourself. :-)

> BZFlag - no one cares about this anymore :(

I hear ya. I've been thinking about setting up a BZFlag instance on a Fogbeam server, alongside some other "classic" technologies and just put it out there for people to play around with.

> \- AOL / MSN / Yahoo Chat. People were more open to making friendships > online.

Don't forget ICQ. That said, I don't so much miss those, as just wishing people would use Jabber instead of Facebook Messenger or this other proprietary crap.</comment></comment>


Thousands of bird sounds visualized using Google machine learning - <AUTHOR> https://aiexperiments.withgoogle.com/bird-sounds/view/ <comment><USER2> As a birder, this looks like a failed experiment to me. Or I don't understand what their goal was. The groupings make little sense in terms of what these species sound like. I'm guessing that's an artifact of the way they sampled the sounds, losing macro properties. Kind of like grouping the words 'paramour', 'enmity' and 'hamster' together bc they all contain /m/ sound.

<comment><USER3> Another birder here, totally agreed. The audio samples are all really short and downsampled.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Unfortunately they only hint at the envisioned application in the video and don't provide any further links, but the idea is amazing: Use sounds to monitor bio-diversity. Imagine we'd not need cameras and lots of luck to "catch" proof of an animals existence but a grid of interconnected omnidirectional microphones. We'd get real time tracking of individual animals in 3D and could have smartphones literally point the way to yet uncatalogued or even undiscovered species.

<comment><USER5> Somewhat related, but there was a very good talk at MLConf 2017 about using sound to catch illegal logging in the Amazon. Similar premise: collect the sound, analyze the patterns, and classify.

<comment><USER4> Thanks for the pointer, found the video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlQyudLKJno](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlQyudLKJno)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> From the video, it appears this is an AI-plotted hugely multidimensional space t-sne'd onto two dimensions.

Would be interesting to do some kind of ML on how best to present hugely multidimensional spaces onto two _interactive_ dimensions. Where one AI is deciding how things are projected and how it can be manipulated, and another AI is limited to some virtual "mouse, keyboard, 2D screen" to make inferences. Such that it's optimized for faster, more correct inferences.

<comment><USER7> this has to end up in clustering, some color coding for the dimensions would have been nice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> more like sorting bird sounds, not visualizing...

The tiny images are just spectograms/fft as far as I can tell.

edit: it's very fun though to click+drag, haha

</comment><comment><USER8> There are some instances of the same bird in multiple locations (great horned owl). Presumably multiple recordings of the same bird. My initial reaction to them not being neighboring is to wonder about the quality of the result. Maybe better feature engineering needed to make this biologically relevant. Any other interpretations?

</comment><comment><USER9> If you haven't already, try zooming all the way out and drawing things using the grid as a canvas.

<comment><USER10> Neat, sounds just like my back yard in the morning!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I really want to map these to a MIDI controller

<comment><USER12> Stefano D'Alessio was able to make something pretty catchy [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8hwDD7mYH_k](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8hwDD7mYH_k)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Is there a better way to pan than click-dragging 100 simultaneous bird sounds?

</comment><comment><USER3> It would be interesting to see how similarity in bird call behavior tracks (or doesn't) the phylogenetic relationship between species. My hypothesis would be that bird calls are influenced by other birds in the same ecosystem (imitation or differentiation, and reflecting a high degree of cultural learning) rather than the null hypothesis of genetic transmission.

</comment><comment><USER14> Interesting, spammed a few bird lovers i know with it. Though they almost all replied the recordings are not good enough.

Though personally (jk) i was slightly disappointed when i zoomed out i didn't see a big bird (or other bird) likeness.

</comment><comment><USER15> Someone should make a Shazam/Soundhound app for bird calls, I'd definitely buy it if it could narrow it down to a subset of possibilities.

<comment><USER16> Been thinking of this but the library of birds sounds is private to Cornell if I'm not mistaken. The app , at least, should free and open source.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I poked around and also looked at a similar experiment, the Infinite Drum Machine: [https://aiexperiments.withgoogle.com/drum- machine](https://aiexperiments.withgoogle.com/drum-machine)

Does anyone know what they are doing t-SNE on? i.e. are they just doing t-SNE on the raw waveforms? Or the MFCC spectrogram? Or what?

</comment><comment><USER18> Next: add animal languages to Google Translate?

</comment><comment><USER19> It's interesting, at the very local level I think most humans wouldn't think two adjacent bird sounds are all that similar. But if you drag along a long line and listen to a series of different birds you can "hear" a definite organized progression that seems to be organizing rhythm and major tones into groups.

<comment><USER20> On touch screen it is very BBC Radiophonic Workshop, a nice toy to get some sounds from, to suit a play on Radio 4, that sort of thing. So you could make lots of 'instruments' by applying AI to organising sounds into some space that can be used as per this example and a touchscreen. It my make ornithologists cringe but I think the merit in this work could be elsewhere, as a creative musical instrument of sorts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Feature request: Play All

</comment><comment><USER22> This is my cats' favorite machine learning application so far!

<comment><USER3> Confusing my cat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> If you left-click and drag around on this (with short pauses), you can almost hear something that sounds very close to R2-D2.

</comment><comment><USER24> What? No Kookaburra?

It has the most unique call of them all.

</comment><comment><USER25> I see "Oops, sorry for the tech trouble. For the best experience, view in " for chrome on wayland...

</comment><comment><USER26> What task is made easier by this visualization?

</comment><comment><USER27> Wonder what it would do with a mockingbird?

<comment><USER28> Run unit tests?

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> It doesn't work in Firefox. How rude.

<comment><USER30> Worked in Firefox for me. However, it was a bit slow to load.

<comment><USER29> I got:

> Oops, sorry for the tech trouble. For the best experience, view in Chrome > browser.

But then, I block some stuff: ads, WebGL, WebRTC, and tracking.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> It's good to see Google in the last couple of weeks launching a bunch of [1]projects that are more in line with their mission of 'organising the world's information'.

[1] [http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/google- digitizes-30...](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/google- digitizes-3000-years-fashion-history-180963633/?no-ist)</comment>