The Population Bomb Has Been Defused - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-03-16/decline-in-world-fertility-rates-lowers-risks-of-mass-starvation <comment><USER4> _Some of the most spectacularly wrong predictions in history have been made by those who claim that overpopulation is going to swamp the planet. Thomas Malthus, a British economist writing in the late 1700s, is the most famous of these. Extrapolating past trends into the future, he predicted that population growth would inevitably swamp available food resources, leading to mass starvation. That didn't happen - we continued to develop new technologies that let us stay ahead of the reaper._

Why are people so eager to point out that Malthus was wrong all the time? As far as I can tell he was not. He said if population growth continued as in the past, then we would starve, not that we necessarily will. I also think it is wrong to say we engineered us out of starvation, at best it bought us some time to get the fertility rate down. As the article admits, exponential population growth can never be finally solved by technology.

<comment><USER5> Because he believed that population would be limited only by resources, and that fertility rate was nearly invariant. These have both proved to be wrong. The popular imagination of the Mathusian prediction of inevitable mass starvation (which is not really that mis-characterized) was also wrong. So classifying him as wrong seems fair.

<comment><USER6> Population remains limited by resources. How could it not be? We've been adept over the years at finding new resources or extending old ones (the expansion of ranching and farming in the Americas in the 19th century, which greatly increased the global food supply, or the invention of artificial fertilizer, for instance), but it is a bit of hubris to say that this is a solved problem for all time.

<comment><USER7> _Population remains limited by resources._

No, it's not, and that's what's so surprising. As nations become wealthier, the birth rate goes down, not up. And it goes down by a lot; more than 50%. All the way down below replacement rate.

The US passed "peak baby" in 2007. Outside of Africa, all the major world regions are past "peak baby".[1] Population seems likely to level off around 2050.

[1] [https://ourworldindata.org/fertility- rate](https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate)

<comment><USER8> > it goes down by a lot; more than 50%. All the way down below replacement > rate.

Some quick systems-level analysis shows that this state of affairs cannot possibly be stable. Societies reproducing at below replacement rate are quickly replaced by societies reproducing above replacement rate. What will happen then?

Counting on societies to hold their birth rate down _that_ far is fundamentally at odds with the theory of evolution. It's not a good basis for predictions of the future.

<comment><USER9> > Societies reproducing at below replacement rate are quickly replaced by > societies reproducing above replacement rate.

"Societies" are about memes, not genes, and humans are powerful imitators of things that visibly are associated with success.

<comment><USER10> Fine, but the future still belongs to those who show up. Evolution need not be about DNA. Memes (such as religion) will do the job just fine. Those who think "success" involves low reproduction are taking the evolutionary off-ramp to extinction. Those who do otherwise are selected for. They have the correct memes, or genes, or whatever -- the mechanism doesn't matter.

<comment><USER11> > "the mechanism doesn't matter"

Makes me think about this old article in ForeignPolicy I read. I could interpret his provocative statements about the success of patriarchy as a sort of "correct meme" to borrow your terminology. Interesting thought. [http://foreignpolicy.com/2009/10/20/the-return-of- patriarchy...](http://foreignpolicy.com/2009/10/20/the-return-of-patriarchy/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> ...if we can get through the next 20-30 years. Peak danger for societies isn't when there's a bulge in birth rates, or when the population starts to fall. It's when there's a bulge in the rates of young, unmarried men who don't have the wherewithal to marry and pass on their genes. That's when you tend to get an increase in crime, violence, warlike behavior, and other things that tend to rip a society apart.

<comment><USER13> "Peak danger for societies ... [is] when there's a bulge in the rates of young, unmarried men"

Could you provide a source for that? There are more unmarried men per capita now than almost any time over the last 100 years [1], yet violent crime has been declining steadily - most people can't seem to agree why, though. [2]

[1] - [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/06/23/144-y...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/06/23/144-years- of-marriage-and-divorce-in-the-united-states-in-one- chart/?utm_term=.eb73afcaa5aa)

[2] - [https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/04/what- ca...](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/04/what-caused-the- crime-decline/477408/)

<comment><USER12> I've read it in several places, but here are a couple articles with charts and references to other studies:

[https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/03/an...](https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/03/angry- young-men-are-making-the-world-less-stable/284364/)

[https://www.economist.com/news/special- report/21688587-young...](https://www.economist.com/news/special- report/21688587-young-single-idle-males-are-dangerous-work-and-wedlock-can- tame-them-men-and-mayhem)

I should also point out that the sort of violence I'm talking about is things like wars, civil disorder, gangs, terrorism, failed states, anarchy, and other _group_ forms of violence, not individual crimes like premeditated murder. The latter has a lot of conflating factors (a sibling comment mentions lead, and there's also abortion, better policing tactics, economic growth, etc), but to get a critical mass of people who are so disaffected by their current situation in life that they want to burn the whole society down, you usually need some form of major demographic or environmental change.

<comment><USER13> Seems like "A Clash of Generations" is what the economist is referencing:

[https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-2478....](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-2478.2006.00416.x)

And does focus on political violence in particular (terrorism, rioting, and one more I couldn't pick out of the abstract). Would be interestig to read the whole thing, but thanks for following up! I wonder if the amount of young men in the US that were swayed by Russian influence operations over the last several years would be in-step with this logic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Shocker, Noah Smith pens yet another of his "whig history" takes. The reality is just a few short years ago the UN updated its population estimates for the end of the century from less than 9 billion to a more likely 11 billion, and as many as 13 billion people. [1]

Nearly the entirety of that increase is because fertility rates in Africa _have not fallen_ anywhere near what was expected, so the population there is set to quadruple from 1->4 billion people over 100 years. The 4 billion figure _assumes_ fertility will begin to rapidly fall in line with the rest of the developing world - nearly all of the growth is already "baked in the cake" due to the extremely young population, and if TFR doesn't drop the population could well soar significantly higher. The population of Nigeria _alone_ is expected to be more than the entire population of Europe by 2085.

Whether the fertility rate can actually be brought down is very much an unsolved question, with a history of optimistic mistakes Noah Smith is smart enough to be aware of. Combine with climate change, resource depletion, the utterly dysfunctional nation-states where this is occurring and the the meteoric rise of neo-fascists after Europe accepted something like 1/100th of the potential economic migrants/refugees as want to come, and this vapid "forward march of history" perspective looks at best cherry-picked and facile, if not disingenuous in the extreme.

[1] [https://static.scientificamerican.com/sciam/assets/Image/art...](https://static.scientificamerican.com/sciam/assets/Image/articles/sa1214Gsci31_web.png) [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/world- population-...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/world-population- will-soar-higher-than-predicted/)

<comment><USER15> > The population of Nigeria alone is expected to be more than the entire > population of Europe by 2085.

Do you think that's realistic? The population of Niger is expected to be 200 million in 2100 (20 million today)[1]. Have you seen Niger? Its a desert with little natural resources.

1\. [https://www.populationpyramid.net/niger/2100/](https://www.populationpyramid.net/niger/2100/)

edit: I'm aware Niger and Nigeria are different countries. I'm changing the subject to Niger intentionally. 10x population growth _in the Sahara desert._

<comment><USER16> That would be Nigeria, not Niger.

Two different countries.

<comment><USER15> I'm aware. I'm changing the subject to a different country.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> f- Not long ago, a significant proportion of the scientific establishment - <USER2> with a number of celebrities and policymakers - believed that the "population bomb" is an inevitable, imminent, and apocalyptic threat. There was talk of "point of no return", calls for worldwide China-style fertility restrictions, and so forth.

Instead, what happened over the past several decades is not just a drop in birth rates, but also dramatic improvements in our ability to grow cheap food at a scale (something that the article doesn't really talk about).

So it is a very interesting take to claim that the population bomb has been "defused" \- since this implies it wasn't an episode of pathological science flirting with mysticism (with frequent allusions to the pristine "natural" order contrasted with the evils of Man), but just some sound science that turned out to be a bit off.

(Please don't read into this as a critique of any contemporary scientific debates; that's not my point, but I think we should be more willing to recognize our past mistakes.)

<comment><USER17> > but also dramatic improvements in our ability to grow cheap food at a scale

Are those improvements sustainable? Agriculture that is generating high yields from converting very fertile natural ecosystems into deserts and then moving on is almost like eating through fossil resources, only that the timescale for replenishment is a few orders of magnitude closer to being relevant for humanity (but still far or of reach). Failure ecosystems that have been farmed out of existence in antiquity are still as barren as thousand years ago. If you ignore the yields of unsustainable farming, our ability to feed billions looks a lot less rosy.

<comment><USER18> "Are those improvements sustainable?"

Available evidence suggests yes.

[http://plantsci.missouri.edu/grains/corn/graphs/USA-corn- yie...](http://plantsci.missouri.edu/grains/corn/graphs/USA-corn-yield.jpg)

"Agriculture that is generating high yields from converting very fertile natural ecosystems into deserts"

Iowa didn't look much like a desert the last time I was there.

"Failure ecosystems that have been farmed out of existence in antiquity are still as barren as thousand years ago"

Yeah, that's why you don't want to rely on "organic" farming. Good thing we don't do that any more.

<comment><USER17> > Iowa didn't look much like a desert the last time I was there.

I don't know the specifics of Iowa, but European soil can only keep up with the rising yields thanks to the dung of a rising headcount of livestock that is fed with imported feed that is at least in part from slash-and-burn farming or from depopulating the oceans. If those animals consume more than the local yields could supply, the farming is still unsustainable despite local soils not depleting.

I'm not saying that there are no improvements (three certainly are), but that they might be much smaller than we think.

<comment><USER18> > slash-and-burn farming

Slash-and-burn farming is a "traditional", "organic" method.

They don't do slash-and-burn in Iowa.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The population is so high we need to stop having kids, and the population is so low we need to import low skilled workers, and the job of the future will be fully automated.

Modern policy is a cognitive dissonance minefield.

</comment><comment><USER20> 6 billion people burning coal to keep their refrigerators running is not what I would call defused.

<comment><USER21> And what are the consequences of that? I would guess significantly milder than the predictions of mass starvation that we managed to avert.

<comment><USER22> Nobody knows, the destruction of the entire planet most likely.

The earth is dying, you can see it everywhere you look if you open your eyes.

<comment><USER23> The earth isn't dying. It may become uninhabitable for humans, but that is quite different than the earth being dead.

<comment><USER24> Read between the lines. Nobody is that dumb to literally say that the earth is dying.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> not in subsaharan africa. nigeria alone is set to hit ~1 billion by the end of the century, even if current birthrates slow dramatically. if china is the centerpiece of the 21st century, africa is the stage for the 22nd:

[https://i.imgur.com/9obArWa.png](https://i.imgur.com/9obArWa.png)

<comment><USER26> 140K in 2006, 185K in 2016. 1B in 2100? That seems a big jump.

Africa does need an economic super power however to avoid hundreds of millions of economic migrants moving to China, the EU and the US.

<comment><USER25> i believe those numbers are meant to have an 'm' instead of a 'k'? lagos alone has over 20m.

the US had a population of ~76m in 1900, and severely restricted immigration for much of the 20th c

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I feel like all these estimates of "overpopulation" are massively overblown. These issues are almost entirely political/social.

The capacity for Earth to hold humans is massive.

Currently only a tiny sliver of the surface has people on it and if that becomes a problem we can build vertically (up and down).

We're barely capturing relatively free energy such as sunlight, wind, geothermal, and tidal. Think of how much of the Sahara isn't a solar energy production plant.

If the labor of 1 human can feed at least 2 people you can have a society. With technology 1 human can work to feed thousands if not millions with increased automation. Food production can be fully automated with the ambition to.

The only real bound of food production if you consider vertical hydroponic farming alongside nuclear and freeish energy, is the amount of nutrients plants and insects require to produce adequate amounts of human nutrition. Virtually all plant nutrients have evolved to be highly recyclable through natural processes, most of which can by accelerated with technology.

<comment><USER28> [https://www.worldcat.org/title/how-many-people-can-the- earth...](https://www.worldcat.org/title/how-many-people-can-the-earth- support/oclc/898942239)

<comment><USER29> Tldr?

<comment><USER28> He's a, or the, highly definitive source. L. R.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> As worldwide population increases, resources become increasingly stretched and per capita income goes down (relative to the cost of living). This, in first world countries will probably result in a decline in the birthrate.

You only need to look towards CA to see where this is already happening. CA with it's excessive regulations has decreased the prosperity of it's people to the point of where it now has x3 times the number of poor people per capita than the national average (that's living cost adjusted ~ mostly due to housing cost and excessive energy costs and countless other regulations that increase living costs). I suspect this has played a roll in the decline of the birth rate in CA, now at the lowest its ever been since the great depression (it's been going down for the last 3 decades). As life becomes increasingly harsh, people have less babies - it's kinda hard to have a kid when your sharing a room in your parent's house, or live 6 to an apartment.

<comment><USER31> Another reason why California has 3x the homeless people is because it is friendly to homeless people - weather and services inside big cities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> >the ultimate, final victory

Famous last words. What happens evolutionary is that genes that make it more likely to have children in the industrialized society setting - whatever they are - are getting an enormous boost.

<comment><USER33> We know exactly what those genes are - or more accurately their phenotype.

<comment><USER34> What is the phenotype of the genes that increase chances of having children in industrialized society?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Terrible title. "Population bomb" is not defused, only "birth rate" is decreasing. There are already too many people on Earth. It's big problem in developing countries.

<comment><USER36> > "Population bomb" is not defused, only "birth rate" is decreasing.

This is all that needed to be said about the article. The author doesn't (want to) understand the difference between a number "getting smaller" and the number "increasing less quickly".

When someone gains 10 kg in January and then gains 9 kg in February, we don't say that they are losing weight.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> One of the reasons that is not tracked here is the fact that in developing countries as more and more people get educated. They tend to have 1 or 2 children and they try to ensure their kids have good education and upbringing. These parents realize that if they have more children they might not have enough resources and money to push them through higher education.

<comment><USER38> There's significantly less randomness now. Less disease, more economic mobility, higher standard of living, and more safety nets then 150 years ago.

The only way to succeed when the odds are disadvantageous and out of your control is to make many attempts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> > eventually, population growth will overwhelm the Earth's ability to provide > calories.

Really? When? And how? Because I don't see how a planet that can support at least a factor of 10 times our population size currently is going to realistically start running out of calories, short of moronic political decisions, some of which are perpetuated by statements like that.

Where are these calories going? They're evaporating into the ether, never to be reclaimed?

Or is it possible that we're losing out on massive amounts of human capital because, like NIMBY activists that argue against new housing development, we're trying to maintain a status quo out of fear?

</comment><comment><USER40> So, in the next 30 years, we're adding about 2 billion more people (net) to the planet.

The odds that it goes smoothly is small. First, 30 years is a long time to not have a big population event. Second, 2 billion people will strain resources considerably (its a 25% increase over today).

The impacts on disease, pollution, war, etc., are significant even if food supply can handle it. And what about climate change, or increasing algae blooms (due to pesticide use)?

There are so many things that's ave to work to _not_ have a population event, that it's a pretty scary proposition. Sure, the birth rate has declined dramatically, but Malthus may yet be proven correct.

</comment><comment><USER41> It is interesting to contrast the decline in fertility rates in China and India. Would China have had a similar dropoff if not for the One Child policy? Will we see the number increase again given enough time after the 2013 easing of that policy? I'd be curious to see these numbers again ten years from now.

<comment><USER42> I'm sure I remember reading that fertility rates had already declined significantly before the one child policy was introduced.

<comment><USER43> Indeed -- you just need to take a look at the graph in the original article for further confirmation (the one-child policy was instituted in 1978, and fertility rate was in definite decline by that point).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> India had a population of approx 79million in 1000 CE

[https://i.stack.imgur.com/2928N.png](https://i.stack.imgur.com/2928N.png)

After successive invasions, by the Mughals, Dutch, Portuguese and British it shot up to over 300 million, a much bigger rise say compared to other countries. Largely due to the poverty it was left in, people ended up having more kids to make sure they survived. Anyhow I agree it has been refused as the poverty levels are now being tackled and mass education programmes in place.

<comment><USER45> "After successive invasions..."

You draw this clear line between invasions and population growth for India... but India doesn't look a whole lot different than others (considering it started off with a higher base than other countries also): [http://visualeconsite.s3.amazonaws.com/wp- content/uploads/po...](http://visualeconsite.s3.amazonaws.com/wp- content/uploads/popgrowthsince_1500.jpg)

It was the 2nd largest by population even in 1000 CE: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_populatio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_in_1000)

India, like every other country, was affected by vaccines and other developments that reduced the death rate and caused population to explode.

<comment><USER44> My point is the rate of growth rather than the baseline, were these vaccines you mention available in 1700? To the general poorer population? Highly unlikely.

<comment><USER45> India was the worlds 2nd largest population in 1000 (60m), 2nd largest in 1500 (90m), the 2nd largest in 1700 (160m), the 2nd largest in 1900 (330m), and the 2nd largest today.

It had 19% of the population in 1000; 20% in 1500; and 17.5% today.

And you say that last part is someone elses fault. What surprise that the worlds 2nd largest population for over 1000 years would be the 2nd largest today... with nearly exactly the same percent of the world population it had over 1000 years ago. Clearly some outside force has caused India to grow from 2nd largest in the world a 1000 years ago all the way up to 2nd largest today. What else could explain it? /s

Do you realize that the US from 1900 to today has had a higher growth rate than India? 428% vs 401%

<comment><USER44> You didnt answer the vaccine question, nor the rate of growth topic, look at the chart again, it looks more exponential than linear:

[https://i.stack.imgur.com/2928N.png](https://i.stack.imgur.com/2928N.png)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> The late (and quirky) Julian Simon wrote on this topic, and on the related notion of ostensibly limited resources. Worth checking out if you are not already familiar with his viewpoint:

The Ultimate Resource, 1981, Princeton University Press, ISBN 069109389X.

The Ultimate Resource 2, 1996, Princeton University Press, ISBN 0691042691. [http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/](http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/)

</comment><comment><USER47> For anyone that wants a deeper look Charles C Mann's recent publication The Wizard and the Prophet covers the figures behind over population concerns & modern environmentalism as well as the figures behind the green revolution which played a large role in pushing famine and food insecurity down to the level that exists at today, even with a growing population.

</comment><comment><USER48> A few other taboo "bombs": water wars and climate change.

Same basic mistake, assuming nothing will change.

For example, for water wars: desalination using solar power (see Israel)

For climate change: carbon sequestring strategies or market pressures - <USER3> credits, reputational risk (being "green"), ...

</comment><comment><USER49> Has anyone else here made an active decision to not reproduce? Even with low birth rates in my country and small families being the norm, I still find myself being pressured to have children, as if my genetic code was critical to the survival of the species.

<comment><USER50> good luck finding wife with same attitude

<comment><USER49> Already done.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> The article is very happy to point out that the trend changed 50 years ago. Then shown a graph with a 100 years forecast, based on that changed trend.

Sure, from now on the fertilization will play nicely along.

<comment><USER52> Did you read the supporting arguments for why the rates have historically not gone back up?

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> I never understood this logic, population growth is 100% dependent on the amount of resources the system is able to produce, not the other way around. Resources are the precursor to growth. It is not possible to grow unabated then one day realize we're 50% short on resources. Population necessarily has to stabilize at around 100% resource utilization.

<comment><USER54> And when resources are depleted? That's the bomb.

<comment><USER53> What would get depleted?

<comment><USER28> Core strategic resources.

A set of 14: [http://i.imgur.com/L5qWNN9.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/L5qWNN9.jpg)

Rainforests, coral reefs, ag land, coal, oil, gas, aluminium, phosphorus, tantalum, titanium, copper, silver, indium, antimony.

Sources:

[http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120618-global-resources- st...](http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120618-global-resources-stock-check)

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbc.com/future/BBCF_infoData_stock_chec...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbc.com/future/BBCF_infoData_stock_check.pdf)

A list of six: [https://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2011/oct/31/six...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2011/oct/31/six- natural-resources-population)

Longer general discussion: [http://pubs.iied.org/pdfs/G01035.pdf](http://pubs.iied.org/pdfs/G01035.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Here's the non-AMP link, for anyone not viewing on mobile:

[https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-03-16/decline-i...](https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-03-16/decline- in-world-fertility-rates-lowers-risks-of-mass-starvation)

<comment><USER56> Changed to that above.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Better link (non amp version): [https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-03-16/decline-i...](https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-03-16/decline- in-world-fertility-rates-lowers-risks-of-mass-starvation)

<comment><USER56> Changed to that.</comment></comment>


Hacking for Defense in Silicon Valley - <AUTHOR> http://steveblank.com/2015/03/31/hacking-for-defense-in-silicon-valley/

<comment><USER2> For a fun anecdote, I once heard a very cool Red Hat employee talk at the LUG in Washington, DC.

This was years ago, when Iraq was even worse than now (ironically "the first second time" I would call it). He said there were a handful of techs, ironically maybe reservists stateside who were sysadmins, who became very high demand individuals. They would, for instance, go to a base with very poor network connectivity, and would set point-to-point wifi systems so duty soldiers could communicate with each other on the far ends of the base about shifts and operational intel. The other story he had was they used Red Hat or Fedora, I forget which to make a homebrew PVR system for a base on the Iraqi- Kuwaiti border because this inspection station had a FLIR thermal imaging system, and thousands of trucks were coming through this point. Two soldiers on shifts would sit all day and watch footage, making sure all of them were free of what might be contraban or explosives. Prior to these Linux rockstars, these dudes would hold the whole line of trucks to take a leak, answer the phone, anything that involved taking their eyes off screen. After they set up a PVR using a Linux box, they could pause, and the line could keep going, as the base was miles wide in the middle and the flow of traffic meant with a PVR they could flag it on exit with more than enough time with bathroom breaks and everything thanks to this. This RedHat guy gave these and other examples, IIRC, and said they were being flown in C130s a few times because their solutions, as simple COTS ideas, always worked and cost almost nothing.

God, do I want to meet want of these dudes. They are perhaps, despite the layer of filth their services' collective activities abroad have done to tarnish their rep as org and reps of the US, the only dudes in the military I respect, the FOSS Special Forces.

Now that is a TV series, no matter how bad, I would watch.

EDIT: I wanna say, after some difficult archive searching, the Red Hat guy was Greg Dekoenigsberg. Was anyone there? Maybe he frequents here and he could chime in.

[http://dclug.tux.org/200907/](http://dclug.tux.org/200907/)

[https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Gdk?rd=GregDeKoenigsberg](https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Gdk?rd=GregDeKoenigsberg)</comment>


Show HN: Python Machine Learning – A Crash Course - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/machinelearningmindset/machine-learning-course <comment><USER2> The tutorials introduce how the different algorithms work, but the code just uses the libraries rather than implementing what's in the library from primitive operations.

For me, this type of tutorial doesn't stick. I found the explanations in Joel Grus' book, which were accompanied by succinct, idiomatic Python implementations of the algorithms, much easier to understand.

</comment><comment><USER3> Really nice series of tutorials that are code-focused! I think one of the things that surprised me most about ML is how simple a lot of the code is.

<comment><USER4> The code itself is indeed simple, thanks to the combined efforts of very smart and capable researchers and developers across the world. But the time taken to write the actual code to perform ML is negligible compared to:

\- choosing the right algorithm(s) for the specific task and data at hand

\- tuning hyperparameters

\- interpreting preliminary results and/or the output of statistical tests

\- chasing down and cleaning data(!!)

\- deploying the resulting ML pipeline into something more maintainable than a GitHub repo of inconsistently named Jupyter Notebooks strewn with hardcoded paths to CSV files and dangerously obsolete documentation written by employees who have since left your company.

<comment><USER5> Do you have any references that could help with 'choosing the right algorithm'? That seems to be something that comes with experience, or knowing how a particular algorithm works, or more importantly, does not work.

<comment><USER6> One possible strategy is:

1\. Find out what kind of information that is wanted from the model and what kind of data you have available that could help with this. 1b) And note down other requirements for the solution.

2\. Find out how to formulated the information needs in terms of a well- understood and well-researched problem.

3\. Find out what the current best performant and well-understood solutions are for this problem. Usually through a literature search.

4\. Choose a few candidates, and rank them wrt your particular requirements.

5\. Test out 1-3 of them

This is a business-needs-first, top-down type method. Prior knowledge of the details of a lot of algorithms not needed. Ability to understand terminology and quickly identify relevant material/papers critical. A good overview of common problem formulations and methods will build over time, and speeds things up immensely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wonder if there is some course that would cover a bit more advanced topics in a comprehensible manner. There are hundreds of courses/books/tutorials that cover pretty much the same stuff again and again.

General ML: supervised vs unsupervised, K-means clustering, linear regression, logistic regression, maybe several enseble learning methods based on trees.

NNs: backpropagation, gradient descent, tensorflow, a bit about meta-param selection, CNNs (basically, just ImageNet), sometimes RNNs are _mentioned_.

This is all pretty entry-level and covered many times over, but, surprisingly, that's pretty much it. Discussion of models pretty much stops at ImageNet. I rarely see RBM or autoencoder, and pretty much nothing about how real problems are encoded into inputs and outputs.

I am ashamed to admit, but I still don't really understand how AlphaZero, AlphaStar or various language models (GPT, BERT) really work. Is there something good on that, maybe?

</comment><comment><USER8> Speaking of Machine learning, I love the docker images of tensorflow. Got Tensorflow running with an IPython UI in less than 2 min with only one command just 5 minutes ago:

>> docker run -it --rm -v $(realpath ~/notebooks):/tf/notebooks -p 8888:8888 tensorflow/tensorflow:latest-py3-jupyter

<comment><USER9> You can actually add nightly-gpu-py3-jupyter if you'd like GPU level tensorflow as well :D

<comment><USER8> Yup but it also needs the nvidia-docker image for the driver, but got it working in less than 10 minutes too !

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Really nice! One suggestion would be to have a list of resources for slightly more theoretical materials, so curious students can be exposed to deeper parts of ML (of course, such materials need links to applied tutorials like this). Perhaps can be done through the pull requests of the community.

</comment><comment><USER11> Nice tutorials and reference resources.

One note, which may be confusing for beginning learners: why to choose one fitting method (e.g. least squares) over another (e.g. gradient descent)? Especially so, as libraries often pack a lot of alternatives.

</comment><comment><USER12> I swear an AI crash course gets posted to HN every other day..

<comment><USER13> It certainly does seem that way, especially with python. I wouldn't be opposed to a fun tutorial in a different language. Also not trying to be pedantic (is anyway) but ... should always have three .'s. (I learned that recently)

<comment><USER14> Not trying to be pedantic, but the "Also" in your third sentence should be followed by a comma.

Wait, that was annoying and didn't contribute to the discussion. Huh, really makes you think.

<comment><USER13> Hey, well, at least my comment also added input to the conversation.

You could have let it be, but instead you derailed things further. All good, I learned something new about ellipsis + periods from someone else's response.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Error loading RubyGems plugin  - <AUTHOR>

So I have been trying to remove and reinstall RoR. Reason for that is, something bothered me the first time I installed it last week but I was just trying to learn it and wanted to remove it as soon as I got the book; Railsspace.
And now I am stuck with this:
$ gem install bundler Error loading RubyGems plugin "/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/open_gem-1.4.2/lib/rubygems_plugin.rb": Could not find launchy (~> 0.3.5) amongst [abstract-1.0.0, actionmailer-3.0.10, actionpack-3.0.10, activemodel-3.0.10, activerecord-3.0.10, activeresource-3.0.10, activesupport-3.0.10, addressable-2.2.6, arel-2.2.1, builder-3.0.0, bundler-1.0.18, capistrano-2.8.0, capistrano-ext-1.2.1, colored-1.2, configuration-1.3.1, erubis-2.7.0, git_remote_branch-0.3.0, heroku-2.5.2, highline-1.6.2, i18n-0.6.0, launchy-2.0.5, mail-2.3.0, mime-types-1.16, mysql-2.8.1, net-scp-1.0.4, net-sftp-2.0.5, net-ssh-2.2.1, net-ssh-gateway-1.1.0, open_gem-1.4.2, polyglot-0.3.2, powder-0.1.6, rack-1.3.2, rack-mount-0.8.2, rack-test-0.6.1, railties-3.0.10, rake-0.9.2, rdoc-3.9.4, rest-client-1.6.7, rubygems-update-1.8.10, sqlite3-1.3.4, term-ansicolor-1.0.6, thor-0.14.6, treetop-1.4.10, tzinfo-0.3.29] (Gem::LoadError) ERROR:  While executing gem ... (Gem::FilePermissionError)
    You don't have write permissions into the /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8 directory.
How to solve this? Been googling and figuring it out for the last 4 hours! <comment><USER2> Hacker news really isn't the best place to ask this sort of question.

You will receive a lot more help if you posted this question to stackoverflow.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I totally forgot about SO.

Sorry if this caused any problems. :)</comment></comment>


Size shouldn't matter: tiny kitchens - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/oct/19/cooking-small-kitchen-advantages-change

<comment><AUTHOR> There is wisdom for startups here.</comment>


Where There's Smoke, There's Stagecraft - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/27/theater/where-theres-smoke-theres-stagecraft.html <comment><USER2> One of our clients is a fog machine manufacturer, and working with them made me realize the importance fog has in the entertainment industry. You don't realize it, because fog is rarely supposed to be the star of the show but rather a support for other effects.

I also did not know that there are different qualities of fog... I thought fog is fog, but it seems that some fog machines are really better than others. One of the aspects of fog quality is being able to breathe even when there's lot of it. One one occasion, we fogged a studio so much that I could not see my own hand 6inches from my eyes, and I was still breathing normally as if the air war pure. I couldn't say if it has long-terms effects if you breathe too much of it though, but I can say that not coughing with so much fog is quite impressive.

Also, don't get caught speaking of "smoke" to these people, who take a lot of pride in their product :) It's fog and haze... not smoke!

</comment><comment><USER3> I worked as the lighting guy at a large outdoor amphitheater as a teenager in the 90's. We had four fog machines. Take all the problems mentioned in the article, and add wind.

Everything lighting in the show we had preprogrammed before the show season. The only decisions I made during each night's show were when to go to the next look. Except for the fog - I ran the fog machines manualy from faders on my control board. It was one of my favorite parts of the show because required on the spot, improvisational artistry.</comment>


Why the Shipping Forecast Is So Beloved in the UK - <AUTHOR> https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/shipping-forecast-popular-culture-united-kingdom-sleeping-nostalgia <comment><USER2> Broadcast from Droitwich Transmitting Station[0] on 198kHz using amplitude modulation, still with large vacuum tubes at 500kW in order to reach shipping in the large area of ocean around the UK.

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

</comment><comment><USER3> There used to be a similar weather forecast in France, called "Météo marine". It was broadcasted until 2016 on one of the national radio station (France Inter) and had a cult-like following, even (especially?) among people that had no relationship to sailing (or to the sea in general).

It's funny to see that both countries had a similar weather report that was beloved for the same reasons. Even funnier is that some of the "sea areas" described in the OP were mentioned in the french report (eg. Viking)

Marie-Pierre Planchon's voice is a _madeleine de Proust_ to many of my friends.

<comment><USER4> The sea area names were mostly harmonised across the North Sea a while ago.

See the section on [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shipping_Forecast](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shipping_Forecast)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Robert FitzRoy, who founded the warning service in 1861, was captain of the Beagle on which Charles Darwin sailed in the 1830s.

</comment><comment><USER6> One song that samples the shipping forecast (that isn't mentioned in this article) is this Tears For Fears track from the 1980s:

[http://youtu.be/FDUk11Z0bkQ](http://youtu.be/FDUk11Z0bkQ)

Gives you a good idea of the cadences in the shipping forecast itself. It can be strangely relaxing listening to the shipping forecast on BBC Radio 4.

<comment><USER7> For completeness I've uploaded last night's shipping forecast here: [http://oirase.annexia.org/tmp/Shipping_Forecast_-_2017-12-27...](http://oirase.annexia.org/tmp/Shipping_Forecast_-_2017-12-27_b09jqt9n_original.m4a) [Out of date - Don't rely on it if you're sailing a boat!]

Of course it's not quite the same unless you put on Sailing By beforehand and listen to it in the dead of night.

<comment><USER8> I was curious what it sounded like but couldn't find any source.

Thanks, from a fellow Islander (PEI, Canada).

And Biscay is in for a rough night force 11!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Ah... When I hear the shipping forecast at 1am on BBC Radio 4, I've stayed up too late. It's interesting how Radio 4 is used... The shipping forecast and also apparently how it's used as one of the ways to see if the UK is still standing.

But now I'm reminded, it's 1:33, so I'm going to sleep now.

</comment><comment><USER10> The shipping forecast is the best resource for surfers in Britain. Especially those on the north east, or north coast. /me <3s the shipping forecast, and I ain't lived in Britain for nearly 2 decades.

</comment><comment><USER11> I think the title is stretching it a bit. Almost no-one actually listens to it and as time goes on, I suspect fewer people have even heard of it. I brought it up in conversation in my office recently and had to explain what it was as it wasn't even on the modern cultural radar.

<comment><USER12> For a good part of my life it's been something I've fallen asleep to after the "Late Book". I suspect it's the same for many people who have a radio in their bedroom permenantly tuned to Radio 4. (A habit I picked up from my parents, and one I was pleased to discover that my wife shared). Given the popularity of Radio 4, I suspect that this is more common than you might think.

But I also suspect that you're correct in your assertion that few people (outside of those for whom it is actually relevant) actually listen to what is said.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> It can be a surreal experience when driving late at night on an inland road and the shipping forecast comes on. If you are on a coastal road, it becomes rather more real.

It is a much loved institution for all Brits who are old enough to listen to Radio 4 8)

<comment><USER4> "Old enough" being about two days old, no?

My mum appears to have had Radio 4 playing almost non stop since well before I was born.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is one of the reasons I still enjoy listening to test march special on radio 4, even if it meant missing an over from the pavilion end

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm going to propose as a conjecture that (maritime) radio weather reports are universally soothing and nostalgic, were they written by Met Office and broadcast by BBC or not.

I don't know specifics of the UK culture, so maybe they have cultivated the veneration of the Shipping Forecast to immeasurable heights unmatched by its counterparts in other nations, but I'd require some comparative evidence to persuade me that there really is something special about Radio 4 maritime report or how it's experienced (aside from the fact that it's the British weather report and not some other weather report, and thus the populace of Britain finds it more enjoyable than the continental alternatives).

The thing is, I'd expect that _every_ country with a coastline has maritime weather reports and forecasts. And the claims about the connection to Brexit island ethos notwithstanding, the description of the evocative feelings and whatnot didn't sound alien to me at all despite never listening to the BBC Radio 4 Shipping Forecast. However, I do have heard FMI's daily "Weather report for shipping" numerous times, and it sure is part of national "radio mythology" (I remember how some years back patrons of relatively popular internet forum decided try their hand at amateur internet radio: They played music and then read aloud the weather report for shipping.)

1\. Weather reports are one of the oldest type of radio content all across the continent. Their format probably has not changed much since the idea was first introduced. (After all, distilled to their most rudimentary basic form, a weather report is a series of numerical readings, and there's only so many ways you can read a collection of numerical readings aloud on radio. The poetic repetition is bound to be soothing.)

2\. In countries with a national public broadcaster, such regular programming becomes part of the shared cultural experience; the daily weather report is always in the background, and because of part 1, it remains unchanged as decades pass by. This explains the nostalgia.

3\. Why maritime reports could be special? Different from the regular weather reports, the condensed format and terminology of the maritime forecast communicate information whose purpose and use might be slightly alien to non- seafaring populace. At least this is my experience: I understand what kind of implications of "x degrees Celcius" would entail in my daily life; but what about the more, should I say, nautical information (wind speeds and wave heights and alike)? Not so much. Where are the measurement stations with obscure, poetic-sounding names located? No idea. In short, maritime weather reports have certain mystique to them.

4\. However, I wouldn't be surprised if the Met Office and BBC were the original forerunners of this kind of public service; BBC is one of the biggest and best-funded public broadcasters in the world, of course everyone has copied them.

Someone should write a monograph on international cultural history of maritime weather reports?

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm not sure why alexi23's comment is dead, but it's very poetic.

" _The Shipping Forecast turns our landscape into a slightly ethereal world, inhabited by communities we are connected to but know nothing about "I feel chastened on nights like this when I see storm force 11, and think there are people out there contending with that weather, putting their lives at risk in pursuit of their livelihood – be it in the navy, on fishing boats or just lone travellers."_ "

<comment><USER17> Because many new accounts are dead. Some are so dead, you can't even vouch for them.

<comment><USER6> You can vouch for alexi23's comment (just click on the timestamp beside the comment to find the vouch link).

<comment><USER16> Did not know that. Thanks!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Block Ad-Blocker? - <AUTHOR> http://techstream.org/Web-Design/Block-Ad-Block <comment><USER2> I find this truly bizarre that people are still writing about this. Look at where you adverts were supposed to be, check the height. If they're zero, something has probably stopped that ad loading. You don't need a third party script to manage this.

I wrote this over 9 years ago: [https://thepcspy.com/read/how_to_block_adblock/](https://thepcspy.com/read/how_to_block_adblock/) and it's somehow still cutting edge.

Publishers need to realise that static spatial ads are a lost battleground. They'll only ever take that back with the most aggressive means. The format is dead because they broke it (eg allowing hackers to deploy exploits over it).

They either need to be mandatory and interactive ("How many sips of ice cold refreshing Coca Cola Zero did the model have?") or straight up PAY people to interact. Google manages this with surveys already.

<comment><AUTHOR> That actually was my thoughts when i wrote that, and you had it 9 years ago, at the time i was in middle school :D.

I can just say this, we can find more like this again until the publishers realize it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I've disabled ad-blocking a few times for understanding people need to make a living on ad rev. The problem in doing so is that they then abuse me... Typically it's not one or two or three ads well placed and somewhat out of the way. It's full on intrusive bullshit.. ads flying from the left the right, drop down ads, scroll up ads, and then the ads that i accidentally click that take me to malware websites. These types of ads are found on even "well known" websites.. THAT is why I adblock. Use me but don't abuse me. Until that practice can be reigned in then there is nothing that will stop me from adblocking, or disabling your little adblock disable attempts with scripts, or lastly just not reading your content because it's not that important to me. There i said it :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Same with me.</comment></comment>


A Dead Simple VPN - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/jedisct1/dsvpn <comment><USER2> Is there going to be a section that explains the encryption method used?

Does this program protect against buffer overflows? i.e. safe to expose to the world or does it need port knocking?

<comment><USER3> See: [https://github.com/jedisct1/charm](https://github.com/jedisct1/charm). That is what it uses.</comment></comment>


Belarus said it will release detained protesters after reports of torture - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/belarus-releasing-detained-protesters-reports-torture-rigged-election-2020-8 <comment><AUTHOR> More here: "Belarus state TV broadcast chilling footage of bruised protesters promising to give up after the election was widely condemned as rigged" [https://www.businessinsider.com/belarus-state-tv-bruised- pro...](https://www.businessinsider.com/belarus-state-tv-bruised-protesters- promise-give-up-election-fraud-2020-8)</comment>


British student may be extradited to US on copyright charges - <AUTHOR> http://boingboing.net/2012/01/13/british-man-who-hosted-site-wi.html <comment><USER2> How exactly do we hold people in other countries accountable for US law? Isn't this US imperialist bullshit getting a little out of hand? And for what, to uphold the Entertainment Guild.

Next thing you know we're gonna be extradited to Britain for insulting the queen.

<comment><USER3> This case is a bit unusual; if you read the judge's findings ([http://www.judiciary.gov.uk/Resources/JCO/Documents/Judgment...](http://www.judiciary.gov.uk/Resources/JCO/Documents/Judgments/us- v-odwyer-ruling.pdf)) extradition depends on the fact that the judge is satisfied that his conduct is also an offense under UK law. It's quite similar to what happened to the NatWest Three (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NatWest_Three>).

<comment><USER4> So... urge the Brits to prosecute. A violation of US law, committed outside of the USA, by a non-American, is none of the USA's business.

Since it's illegal in Britain _also_ , would it not make more sense (and be _way_ less sketchy) to prosecute the guy in Britain?

<comment><USER5> You could make the case there are victims in the US though, no?

I don't support the concept of extradition (period, I think?), but there is a case to be made that the U.S. is aiming to protect its citizens (the media companies in this case) against wrongs.

<comment><USER6> So before you say/publish anything in the internet you should read the laws of every country in the world? That is just plain nonsense.

<comment><USER5> I suppose I'm talking morality more than legality.

<comment><USER7> I hope for your sake you never say anything derogatory about the Thai monarchy.

<comment><USER5> I'll concede my claim requires a belief in an absolute morality, which I don't necessarily, but take it my claim in the following form:

1\. You believe that copyright infringement is a "wrong" committed by one party on another party (the victim).

2\. A British national commits copyright infringement where the victim is in the United States.

3\. The United States conceivably has a moral right to seek punishment against that British national.

I mean, to say otherwise would be to say that copyright existed within a border. We have treaties explicitly so that isn't so - if there were a place in the world where copyright law didn't apply, you couldn't post things on the Internet and expect it to retain its copyright.

I don't support extradition in this case. Don't get me wrong. I don't believe in an absolute morality, and I'm not even sure I believe that intellectual property is a good idea on balance, but the moral argument can be made if you're willing to speak in more concrete terms (i.e., if you're willing to accept the premise that copyright infringement is a global "wrong")

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I had mentioned this before but I think it bears repeating. This case was the last straw for me. Aweful movies and bad theatergoing experience aside, I refuse to patronize an industry that targets people across international borders simply for having links on a website. And I used to watch some 8-10 movies monthly so I hope this case is worth it to the MPAA. Goodbye, hollywood. Your greed condemns you.

</comment><comment><USER9> It's one thing to watch from a distance as the US legal system becomes more and more unnerving. It's completely different to think that even in your own home nation such as the UK that US law can cross international boarders and ensnare you. This is wrong.

</comment><comment><USER10> Next: US Government to extradite Chinese dissidents for saying bad things about the Chinese Government on the internet.

All of this is just wrong.

<comment><USER11> Except saying bad things about the Chinese Government isn't illegal in the US. Yet. But still, you've misread the original post.

<comment><USER12> Not exactly true. In exchange for their support in the War on Terror, China managed to get a number of vaguely-defined domestic opposition groups (particularly ethnic separatist ones) listed as international terrorist organizations.

I'm not sure the point at which anti-China activities would fall under the purview of anti-terrorism laws, but I'm not sure the issue is as clean-cut as you think. A Chinese individual who sent money back home or canvassed for support might get nailed on quite a few grounds assuming the United States was willing to be consistent in applying its policies regarding Islamic terrorism to anti-China groups.

<comment><USER11> Oh wow. Okay.

But I still think

> A Chinese individual who sent money back home or canvassed for support might > get nailed on quite a few grounds assuming the United States was willing to > be consistent in applying its policies regarding Islamic terrorism to anti- > China groups.

seems a bit unlikely. Has it happened yet?

<comment><USER10> Misread? All I'm saying is that the extradition is just wrong. You don't need to be patronising.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The student has never been to America in all his life, yet the laws in Britain has allowed America to grab anyone from anywhere in Britain, and try them.

<comment><USER14> Do you get a visa after you serve the term?

<comment><USER15> Surely not! That's the most retarded part of it all: people who can, and want, to contribute to the US economy are not welcome in. Now, someone who pissed off some small-time mafioso running some shitty movie studio? Oh yeah! Bring them in, try them here and spend a ridiculous amount of money and effort to punish them!

Tax payers should be breaking things over stuff like this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I hope that the appeal _does_ go through. This is a dangerous precedent for our legal system to be setting. I do not like the idea that US law can be applied to me here in the UK despite having no business in the US itself.

</comment><comment><USER17> So true:

"[T]his sets a terrible precedent. If a UK citizen can be extradited to the US because of the content of their web pages hosted in the UK, why wouldn't US citizens be able to be extradited to Thailand on charges of disrespecting the king or to China for undermining the government by being critical of it? To even press this case at all shows either a fundamental undervaluing of the freedom of speech of everyone, including US citizens, or, more likely, a belief in the most fundamental of American hypocrisies: the idea that the rules that the US applies to the rest of the world shouldn't be applied to the US."

</comment><comment><USER18> For their next trick, the IRS will be sending tax bills the to British citizens...

I hear dumping a ship-load of tea into a local harbor is a good way to make your point about this sort of thing.

<comment><USER9> Am I not mistaken that if you hold dual-citizenship or even a Green Card but are not living and declaring income in the US that the IRS still expects you to pay tax in the US?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> "why wouldn't US citizens be able to be extradited to Thailand on charges of disrespecting the king or to China for undermining the government by being critical of it?"

This sounds like a clever point, but really isn't. Extradition requires that the crime is also a crime under the local laws. Which is why Swiss Bankers would never be extradited to the US for tax evasion, and why Americans would never be extradited to Thailand for making fun on the King.

I don't think copyright infringement should warrant extradition, but I don't have a good reason why I hold that belief.

<comment><USER20> _This sounds like a clever point, but really isn't. Extradition requires that the crime is also a crime under the local laws._

The argument is being made (quite rightly I think) is that what he did was not illegal under British law.

So perhaps it is a good comparison :)

<comment><USER19> If he committed no crime under British laws, I guarantee he would not have been eligible for extradition. The article is so thin on substance that it is hard to formulate an intelligent opinion on the matter.

Edit:

I just skimmed the PDF, and the kid argued that he shouldn't be extradited for three reasons: 1) Not illegal in both countries 2) US copyright punishment is "unjust or oppressive" 3) An extradition would be "disproportionate" relative to the crime.

I agree with points #2 and #3, but not #1. I think #3 is the strongest argument. Copyright infringement is not a severe enough impediment to other's natural freedoms to merit sending a citizen to a foreign country to face charges.

<comment><USER20> Absolutely. In this case I think it is possible to _argue_ (rather than it being cut and dried) about the legality in the UK - at least to a reasonable degree.

If the judge decides it is then, fine, that's what he rules :)

I agree; #3 is the most compelling. If anything it's the same reason the CPS declined a UK prosecution (because to do so would be disproportionate).

<comment><USER19> This whole thing is nuts. A case where there are proportionally as many UK victims as US victims, but the UK declines to prosecute should not be eligible for extradition. It does't pass a stink test, nor a "disproportionate" test.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> So people can be jailed for copyright violations now? What happens to a corporation when it violates copyright? Seems we should all become corporations simply as insurance.

<comment><USER22> Now? Criminal copyright infringement possibly lead to prison time since long before the interwebs existed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> The British goverment has drop its pants.

Dangerous precedent... You have to obey British and USA laws.

<comment><USER24> His lawyer tried to argue that his offense was not illegal under UK law, among other arguments including that it was disproportionate to his crime to be extradited.

The ruling spends several pages discussing it, and the ruling concludes "Accordingly in my judgement I am satisfied the conduct alleged in the instant request meets the dual criminality test and would be an offence in this jurisdiction."

In other words, he only has to obey British law. The only reason the ruling was in favor of extradition was because the crime he committed is also a British law punishable by at least one year.

<comment><USER25> However, he hasn't been prosecuted in the UK. Why not?

There's a saying that, if your dog must be shot, it is best to do it yourself. Farming it out makes the act worse, not better.

If a UK citizen is suspected of committing a crime in the UK, (s)he must be tried in the UK under UK law and, if found guilty, punished in the UK. The suspect should never, ever be extradited to a foreign power and punished by them.

<comment><USER24> It isn't so trivial to say where the crime is committed when the internet is related. He is being prosecuted for facilitating copyright _in the United States_. The people who committed actual copyright infringement in this case were in the US when they committed their crime, and he was facilitating them remotely.

The issue is being argued the same as if someone was selling pirated CDs in the US, and he was facilitating those people and making money doing so in the UK. Regardless of how you feel about the nature of digital copyright law, it's really not quite as ridiculous as you are making it sound.

<comment><USER25> I disagree. He's British, and allegedly committed a crime in Britain, against British law. He should be tried and, if found guilty, punished in Britain. Why is that not happening?

It may be the case that he has also committed a crime in the US. If Britain feels that the crime he is supposed to have committed in the US is heinous enough in nature to extradite him, then the proper procedures should be followed of course. However, if the crime is not heinous enough to cause a prosecution of him in Britain, it is not heinous enough to extradite him to the US.

In Thailand, I believe it is illegal to insult the person of the King. If someone in the UK insults the Thai king on the internet in a racially- aggravated way (and funding the site via advertisements), but not heinously enough to cause a prosecution in the UK, should they be extradited to Thailand to face prosecution there? I'd argue that they shouldn't and that this fictitious case is almost identical in nature to the one under discussion.

Your allegory is flawed (I believe) as I cannot imagine how one could facilitate copyright violation for pirating CDs remotely, in a way that is _merely_ speech and is illegal in the host country and would cause extradition to face prosecution. Can you fill that detail in for me?

(The idea that there is a crime of _facilitating copyright violation_ is nauseating, by the way. That's similar to the UK's offence of _possessing information that may be of use to a terrorist_. In practice, almost anything can be outlawed that way; the law is so broad as to be useless for punishing any single offence and capable of punishing _any_ offence.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Quite despicable. Potentially ruining somebody's life because of alleged, highly questionable, loss of profit.

I wonder what would have happened had a smaller country made the same request.

<comment><USER27> Well some European countries have had use the European arrest people for sealing a sheep in poland.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Essential we want to ruin his life over nothing. The net impact of TVshack was certainly not enough to warrant extradition of a foreign citizen and sending him to federal prison. Unfortunately, its impact may have even been positive; encouraging people to be more engaged with new media releases. We're behaving like true bullies on this case and I think it does a lot to tarnish the idea that the US is a resilient country of civilized humans.

It's honestly quite shameful.

</comment><comment> colin-de-vries There is a Stop Extradition Fair UK Trial for Richard O'Dwyer" petition.

[http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/stop-extradition-fair- uk...](http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/stop-extradition-fair-uk-trial-for- richard-o-dwyer/sign.html)

<comment><USER29> And an e-petition for the amendment of the extradition treaty with the US.

<https://submissions.epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/22467>

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> If he was Muslim, the US would probably ship him to straight to gitmo. I'm only half joking.

</comment><comment><USER31> <rant> I hereby demand that all US citizens that violated the law of any other country to be allow to be extradited into said country.

And also congratulation to "great" Britain to once again confirm that it is nothing more than the US' lap dog. </rant>

</comment><comment><USER32> I never thought I'd see the day where I'd become embarrassed of my country, but we're moving perilously close to that, in more ways than one.

</comment><comment><USER33> The extradition treaty between the US and the UK would seem to be bizarre as hell. On the one hand, a person who hacks into US government computer systems isn't extradited, and on the other hand a minor and specious copyright violation does merit extradition.

<comment><USER34> Gary McKinnon looks all but set to be deported. It's just an incredibly long process of appeals that has stopped it thus far

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I'm pretty sure extraditing British citizens to the US for prosecution is illegal. British citizens are subject to British law and British law alone. Hence, he can be prosecuted in a British court and if sentenced he might be extradited to the US but there's no way he can be legally extradited before proven guilty.

</comment><comment><USER36> If he'd travelled to the USA and committed a crime, that would be one thing.

But he's a British citizen in Britian. He's not subject to US laws, he's subject to British laws.

If the British government can't be bothered to protect its citizens against this kind of overreach, isn't the british government failing at the most basic purpose of a government-- to protect people's rights?

The idea that a .NET or .COM domain name subjects you to US laws is asinine beyond belief. The only degree to which this is true is domain disputes or the management of that domain name. Nothing else.

A big part of the problem here is that US judges have become errand boys for the federal government, and are inclined to let federal prosecutors get away with asinine arguments like the claim that ".COM means US presence.".

<comment><USER19> I don't mean to be rude, but how is this the top voted comment? Extradition exists for a reason, and this comment lacks a serious depth of thinking and belongs on reddit.

Start here:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extradition>

Form arguments based on the restrictions outlined.

<comment><USER37> His argument is based around jurisdiction, which _is_ one of the restrictions outlined.

<comment><USER38> I think part of the grandparent posters's complaint is that nirvana's claim seems more like wishful thinking on what nirvana wants the law to be, rather than how it works in practice. The comments below discuss the issues surrounding this extradition, while the top comment is relatively content- free. I'm guessing about this, of course, but if that's what motivated his post I'm inclined to agree.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Highcharts – JavaScript charting framework - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/highslide-software/highcharts.com/ <comment><USER2> We paid a lot of cash for Highcharts (Highstock actually) a couple of years ago as an up-front investment for a process manager we were building - an OEM licence. This was about a month's salary, straight after I quit my FT job. The product is now ready to go live almost three years later, and there still isn't a charting library, free or otherwise, that offers us the same functionality that this did back when we licenced it.

Not to mention the fact that the CTO himself will fix bugs for you within a week or so if you ask him nicely. Great company and great model. I don't get how people can complain about the fact it costs money. The costs are passed on to your client who will gladly pay for a better product, and you're supporting the ecosystem. I'd have paid double what we paid.

<comment><USER3> Can you comment on highcharts performance?

It looks like highcharts uses SVG under the covers. Canvas based visualizations may fare a little better than SVGs once you're trying to render thousands of data points.

<comment><USER4> SVG performance degrades based on the amount of data that you are drawing. If you are rendering basic charts you will never run into any issues, if you are doing scatterplots with thousands of points or some other visualization with lots of separate nodes then you run into performance issues.

Canvas performance is limited by the size of the canvas, the larger the canvas, the more time it takes to redraw it.

SVG lets you tie into the DOM and DOM manipulation methods allowing for simple event interactions. Interactive canvas can be done but is more time consuming and difficult, though there are now canvas charting libraries that provide you with some basic "click" or even "hover" functionality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Every page on that site returns a 200 status code, and the same content as the homepage.

This means that [http://www.highcharts.com/license](http://www.highcharts.com/license) (linked to from GitHub) is currently failing silently - you get content, but it's not the licensing information.

Note that [http://www.highcharts.com/licenseoneutahenuo](http://www.highcharts.com/licenseoneutahenuo) returns the exact same content again.

404s are useful! Don't disable them.

<comment><USER6> You mean like: [http://mikewills.me/sucka/](http://mikewills.me/sucka/) ? Jekyll and S3.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Highchart has been so good for our work we HAD to pay for it. We've looked at almost every single charting library (mostly open source) but in the end, the power & flexibility of Highcharts coud not be beaten.

Another awesome thing is their support. Ask a question on their forum or SO, then you'll most likely get an answer with a working JSFiddle example either from the community or the developers of Highcharts.

This is #1 on our JS library list.

<comment><USER8> +1 to this. I use Highcharts in my product and have saved much more work than their licensing fee cost me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I like Highcharts a lot and we are paying for and using it, but be careful with the licensing. Chances are you'll need to pay $390 for it unless you're using it on a single domain, in which case it's $90. And that's for a single developer. 5 developers and multiple domains = $1500 without support, and there's nothing in between. And if you don't get the license and support you don't get hotfixes and updates, which seems odd.

There are a lot of other charting libraries out there. Look at the licensing before you commit to any of them.

<comment><USER10> According to the site the 90$ price apply when:

"For use on a simple webpage that is not considered a web application. A web application is a website that has customer specific data or charges for its use. This requires a Developer license."

[http://shop.highsoft.com/highcharts/highcharts-single- websit...](http://shop.highsoft.com/highcharts/highcharts-single-website- license.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's too expensive and there are plenty of free alternatives like

[http://c3js.org/](http://c3js.org/)

[http://www.chartjs.org/](http://www.chartjs.org/)

[http://nvd3.org/](http://nvd3.org/)

and plenty more

<comment><USER12> If you are building a commercial product and 590$ is too expensive, I feel sorry for you.

In western countries you could get at most 2-3 man days for that money, I highly doubt that even the best coder could implement Highcharts in 3 days and provide support for it afterwards.

If all you want is one or two simple charts then I agree, it is a waste of money to buy something like Highcharts, but if you really need most of what it has to offer then it is a good investment.

I have integrated Highcharts into a commercial project and it was a success.

<comment><USER13> The pricing policy is more obnoxious than the price itself. $390 (or $590 for "maintenance and support") gets you the ability for one single developer to do any kind of work with it. The next tier is $1,500 (or $2,250 for "maintenance and support") and gets you the ability for up to 5 developers to do any kind of work with it.

Having to pick between (A) sneaking around behind your vendor's back to violate their licensing terms by having more developers work on it than you paid for and (trivially) concealing that from them, (B) paying $1,500 instead of $590 (!) just so more people can legally work on it, and not even getting support, or (C) micromanaging your team such that literally only one human being can actually work on that part of the code base...

...makes for a real bad customer experience, which is surely to the detriment of sales.

<comment><USER14> As a freelancer, I disagree that the pricing is obnoxious, it seems like a fairly typical business model for programming components. I view the 1 developer licenses as more of a discounted version for one-man shops like myself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> NVd3 ([http://nvd3.org/](http://nvd3.org/)) is the good opensource alternative without the problem of highcharts licensing [https://shop.highsoft.com/highcharts.html](https://shop.highsoft.com/highcharts.html)

<comment><USER16> The fluent API looks a lot nicer than highcharts' API. This is definitely going on my shortlist of the next project that needs charts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I am a developer and i approve of this message. This is hands down the best graph money can buy..

in a half-day test our webapplication suddenly was top-knotch, we immediately payed them a licence.. it saved us over a week of workhours and it wouldn't even be near half that good!

The configuration via the JS array is simple but extremely versatile, and the (interactive) zoomable time-series graphs are my favorite. Another great thing is that it supports image exports by our local (not always internet connected) webapplication server.

</comment><comment><USER18> Here's my plugin to integrate Hichcharts with AngularJS:

[https://github.com/pablojim/highcharts- ng/](https://github.com/pablojim/highcharts-ng/)

</comment><comment><USER19> We used it in my previous companies and our developers were very happy about it. Previously we were using [http://www.amcharts.com/](http://www.amcharts.com/) good product (but we switched because at that time amcharts was flash only - I think), but my dev colleagues told me that Highcharts was more powerful.

P.S. at that time (4-5 years ago) it was possible to use Amcharts for free in commercial app but with reduced features (for example you couldn't handle a click on the graph because in the free edition it would open their site) and showing a link in the bottom of the chart. It seems it follows the same rule now according to their download page, so consider it if you want a good free charting library (I used also amMap and it was ok)

<comment><USER20> I implemented amCharts earlier this year on an internal project. The version we used is not rendered in flash. They use SVG (and VML for IE6-8 support). Been very pleased with their look/feel and feature set. The documentation on their site was organized and helpful. Concluded on amCharts as a result of a personal analysis of eight charting libraries. amCharts does allow free (with conditions, link) and pay options.

I think highcharts is a top contender but ultimately felt amCharts had better aesthetics. The updated highcharts is certainly looking good.

(here was the analysis breakdown done in February 2014: [http://i.stack.imgur.com/efgoR.png](http://i.stack.imgur.com/efgoR.png))

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> If you are working on a commercial product that you have to support its very good value for money.

Saved us all time and effort and allowed us to focus on building other stuff, without worrying about IE8 support. This is something which the other free alternatives, generally, don't do very well.

</comment><comment><USER22> Unfortunately, this isn't free for commercial use, so perhaps something like Google Charts is more suitable (depending on your use case). There are _plenty_ of alternatives out there.

<comment><USER23> Will you be kind enough to list some examples please. I am working on some of this stuff.

<comment><USER9> Chartist.js just had a lot of support on HN, although I haven't used it. I've used Raphaël but customizing it can actually be a bit hard. Chart.js is simple, easy to use, and just powerful enough for most cases.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> A fascinating thing about Highcharts is that they are located in a supertiny, remote town in Norway called Vik. Only 2900 live there. Highcharts employ 10 people + a few remote workers.

You can read about this tiny remote place on the founder's personal webpage here: [https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=no&sl=no&tl=en&u=h...](https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=no&sl=no&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fvikjavev.no%2Fomvik%2F)

</comment><comment><USER25> Have been using highcharts now for a few years. It's easy too start with, with preset examples (but who wants default colors anyway haha). I had to write an extra layer though to render charts more easily, directly from the dom.

Took quite some work but I don't want anything else now. Just set some data attributes and I can create pie's, line charts, and bars all on the fly!

It almost never failed me to customize it, editability is good and API doc extensive.

</comment><comment><USER26> 4 years ago I had to make a small webapp that displayed sensor data with up to 20000 points. At the time this was the only graph library I found that could handle so many points in a reasonable time, the library has some nice options for quickly summarizing large dataset to a smaller subset for visualizing.

Possibly there are better alternatives today for such datasets, I haven´t looked into it recently.

</comment><comment><USER27> The old youtube analytics page was using Highcharts I suppose and it was styled well. Currently they switched Google Charts to visualize data. I'm not sure because all the js code is obfuscated but when I look some values are not obfuscated the functions remind me the variables in these libraries.

Edit: Yes, currently it is definitely Google charts now but I think it was Highcharts in the past.

</comment><comment><USER28> A bit Offtopic: Somebody have used [http://js.devexpress.com/WebDevelopment/](http://js.devexpress.com/WebDevelopment/)? I between it and highcharts for a dashboard-type app for Desktop + IOS browser.

I have used DevExpress before and is a good company but never the JS products. Is less expensive and bundle a JS grid, that I need too.

</comment><comment><USER29> I'm using Highcharts for all the charts on [https://zenobase.com/](https://zenobase.com/). There are a lot of open source alternatives, but none I've seen so far handle axes labels as well as Highcharts does out of the box (i.e. ensure that there isn't a mess of overlapping labels).

</comment><comment><USER30> [https://github.com/highslide- software/highcharts.com/issues/...](https://github.com/highslide- software/highcharts.com/issues/3405)

</comment><comment><USER31> Old news is old, but highcharts is GREAT! Worth paying for.

</comment><comment><USER32> HighCharts + Internet of Things: [https://thingspeak.com/channels/3](https://thingspeak.com/channels/3)

</comment><comment><USER33> I have absolutely loved using Highcharts on past projects. Just avoid the headaches and use Highcharts.

</comment><comment><USER34> That's a lot of open issues…

<comment><USER31> A lot of open issues means a lot of active users.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Note that v4.0.4 was released today, which I assume is the reason for the submission.

</comment><comment><USER36> How is this news?

<comment><USER37> Hi and welcome to HN. HN is not just about news but also generally things that its community considers worth reading/looking at. If you are only interested in news, I would suggest you either find yourself a suitable news website or execute the mental strength to skip over content you are not interested in. Have a nice day!

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Thoughts on Highcharts vs Google Charts?

<comment><USER39> Google Charts is hosted, like [https://app.chartblocks.com](https://app.chartblocks.com) \- you can download or save the charts that get produced but it's not a charting library that can be used offline. If you want hosted charts you've also got to give someone access to your data.</comment></comment>


Getting reporters to call you - <AUTHOR> http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/09/getting-reporte.html

<comment><USER2> I signed up a while ago, after seeing it mentioned on This Is True. I've been underwhelmed. It's a lot of email (3 or 4 a day) and takes too much time to digest.

A sample from today^Wyesterday:

"Looking for a woman cheesemaker to profile from the general rural region outside Washington DC, Baltimore, Pittsburgh or State College, PA."

"Punjabi-American Politically Active Folk"

"I'm looking for any information on awkward friendships. For example, you hang out with a friend (of the same sex) and it is uncomfortable, stiff and almost like a really bad date."

"I'm working on a story about the trend of unusual hotels that used to be prisons, banks, caves, etc."

</comment><comment><USER3> Should be rephrased.....getting "lazy" reporters to call you.

Any editor I've worked for would be ticked if he/she knew I was begging for sources on a list like this.

</comment><comment><USER4> Hmmm seems like a clever email list gathering scheme. It's also apparently working quite well with over 23,000 sources.

<comment><USER5> Normally I'd agree but I don't think Godin would be doing that. But what do I know?

<comment><USER6> He owns one of the largest spam websites ever, Squidoo.com.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What sort of questions do they ask?</comment>