Racial bias in Zoom's and Twitter's algorithms erase black faces - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/colinmadland/status/1307111816250748933 <comment><USER2> It's not racist and to say as such is just stupid. The model might be a poor but it has no concept of race.

And actually think implying that the authors of the algo and model are racist equally stupid.

<comment><USER3> While I doubt that this was the intent of the programmers responsible, it doesn't change the fact that people are being discriminated against because of their skin color.

<comment><USER4> This is not racial discrimination, it's a bug with a piece of software. There are many bugs with software, because behind it are human beings that are being pressured in many ways to ship said software.

Behind all of this is a pretty badly tested library that someone took off GitHub and dumped into Zoom. There is no ill-intent.

If we consider every little thing as racism, we remove the weight of the word and what it actually should be used for. The end of that road being that everyone cries racism for everything and we all become indifferent to hearing the term.

<comment><USER5> It's more than a simple bug. It's a design flaw that results in mistreatment for people of certain skin colors.

You are likely correct that the intent was not malicious. This is no excuse. Throughout history, everyone believes they are doing the right thing or are properly justified, even when heinous acts are being committed. We are master story tellers, and we tell the most twisted stories to ourselves.

At the end of the day, the impact that our actions have matters a lot more than our best intentions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Related Wired and NY Times articles linked further down the Twitter thread: [https://www.wired.com/story/best-algorithms-struggle- recogni...](https://www.wired.com/story/best-algorithms-struggle-recognize- black-faces-equally/) and [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/24/technology/facial- recogni...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/24/technology/facial-recognition- arrest.html)

</comment><comment><USER6> We can do so much better than this

Racist algorithms, and faces that we miss

</comment><comment><USER7> Its easy to criticize this crappy, trash, algorithm. Before one declares something trash, they had better have an alternative that fits the use case.

<comment><USER8> The alternative is not to do it. Companies that produce these algorithms have said not to deploy them against people.

You don't need to have something better in mind to criticize something. Criticism alone can be useful if the endeavor didn't need to be attempted at all.</comment></comment>


Large UK Solicitor Firm Suffer Google Whiplash  - <AUTHOR> http://www.davidnaylor.co.uk/irwin-mitchell-suffer-google-whiplash-google-penalty-knocks-index.html <comment><USER2> Looks like their penalty was fully deserved. It will be interesting to see if they are back in a few days like RapGenius was. I'm guessing that since Matt Cutts doesn't have any investments or connection to this UK firm that they probably won't be.

<comment><USER3> Does Matt Cutts have investments or connections with RapGenious, or is that just a slur?</comment></comment>


CloudFlare CEO says his Daily Stormer takedown was "arbitrary" and "dangerous" - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/08/cloudflare-ceo-the-people-behind-the-daily-stormer-are-assholes/ <comment><USER2> In the company blog post[0] one can read: _" The tipping point for us making this decision was that the team behind Daily Stormer made the claim that we were secretly supporters of their ideology."_

If this is true, then I agree with the takedown, because the Daily Stormer crossed the content neutral line first. But in this interview, the CEO says something totally different. This is what annoys me, because this is breaking the trust I have in CloudFlare.

[0]: [https://blog.cloudflare.com/why-we-terminated-daily- stormer/](https://blog.cloudflare.com/why-we-terminated-daily-stormer/)

<comment><USER3> You're free to let Ars' editing of the interview determine your trust level for CloudFlare. Ars used to be a Bastion of Truth, but slowly after the acquisition by Condé Nast, a bias started to appear. And then it started growing.

My take on this is the idea that any tolerance of free speech by extremists goes completely against Ars' bias. And that's why they didn't print the passage you highlight, despite Ars linking to that exact blog post.

I can see both being true; the decision to terminate based on the Stormer saying that CF and Prince supported them and Prince saying the decision was arbitrary. They pissed him off and he exercised his right to refuse service to anyone. Pissed off = arbitrary.

<comment><USER2> Quoting the quote:

> "My rationale for making this decision was simple: the people behind the > Daily Stormer are assholes and I'd had enough," Prince wrote. "Let me be > clear: this was an arbitrary decision."

I understand your point that being severely annoyed can lead to arbitrary decision, but nowhere it says in the interview, something like - I'd had enough _because they even implied we supported them_ \- here I would have understand. My problem is that it looks like either:

1\. Ars removed this from the interview or

2\. CloudFlare added this line in the PR blog post even so it was not the case

I cannot tell which one is true or both or none...

Note: Updated for formatting.

<comment><USER3> The possibility of revision is an important thing to consider. Here's a data point, though not concrete proof. The first pass by the Wayback scraped that quote: [http://web.archive.org/web/*/https://blog.cloudflare.com/why...](http://web.archive.org/web/*/https://blog.cloudflare.com/why- we-terminated-daily-stormer/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> There's a chilling effect to this. If checks and balances at cloudflare are so nonexistent that the CEO having a bad mood results in the company violating its own policy - well, you set the precedent no matter how much you're claiming that you didn't. Precedent is determined by your past actions, not by what you claim.

Blogging what appears to be post hoc rationalizations doesn't make this any better.

<comment><USER5> You might compare this to a governor's power to pardon people. It's arbitrary (not rule-based and not based on letting the judicial system work). But it's limited to special cases mainly because the governor has better things to do than issue pardons all day.

<comment><USER6> This is less like a governor pardoning people, and more like a governor condemning people without due process.

(The logic being that a pardoned criminal is a much lesser evil than a condemned innocent.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> > "It's important that what we did today not set a precedent," Prince added. > "The right answer is for us to be consistently content neutral."

Huh? What changed then – why even do it? Cloudflare's action today could set a dangerous precedent. Prince now seems to be arguing for a committee of some sort to arbitrate who gets taken down. To me, that's not much better.

IMO the internet should be free. Let filtering be conducted at the edge and driven by users.

<comment><USER7> They clarified why they changed their position in this instance. Daily Stormer started telling people that Clodflare and Prince supported them, this took away from the neutral content provider stance that cloudlfare took. If daily stormer had not mentioned cloudlfare they would still be able to use its services.

<comment><USER8> What exactly did the Daily Stormer say about Cloudflare and Prince? I haven't found a source for it anywhere.

<comment><USER7> I believe it was on their site as the articles usually say something like:

"the web blog's administrators suggested Cloudflare was protecting them because it secretly agreed with the site's neo-Nazi articles."

So you need to visit the site to confirm why cloudlfare dropped them and their site is down because Cloudlfare dropped them. Joseph Heller would be proud.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Whatever happened to:

"the Internet detects censorship as damage, and routes around it" and

"the answer to speech you don't agree with is more speech"?

I guess, like "don't be evil", those concepts have ended up on the trash heap...

<comment><USER10> What _did_ happen to it? Why is the Daily Stormer site down?

<comment><USER7> Go daddy suspended their registration, then they went to Google who also suspended it. So they went to a Russian host, all the while they had cloudlfare protection. Then they said they had cloudlfare protection because cloudlfare supported them, thus taking cloudlfare from an independent, neutral party to being involved and a supporter. So cloudlfare withdrew services from them and hackers DDoS the site to oblivion.

<comment><USER10> Ah, DDoS, that makes sense, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This invalidates all of their previous statements. A very bad PR move. I think we all knew it was at their whim, based on some of the other sites they continue to host. Just more greed masqurading as virtue. That seems to be the speed of progress these days.

</comment><comment><USER12> Has anyone even heard of this website before all of this? What's the point of all this free publicity for them? Streisand effect is real.

<comment><USER13> People following the rise of the far-right (and to some extent the MRA movement since there's a strong overlap) have, yes, because it's been a focal point for a good long while now.

<comment><USER14> MRA? You mean the group of mostly men pushing for equal rights to custody and/or visitation of their kids? Wasn't that group started by a male feminist scholar?

What do they have to do with this fringe hate website most of us never heard of before?

<comment><USER13> Well, for a current example, there's Christopher Cantwell - Daily Stormer writer, helped organise "Unite The Right", was at the rally waving guns around, unabashed racist, etc. - and also quite a popular contributor to A Voice For Men (until he fell out with Elam.)

Also many articles along this theme, eg: [https://www.vox.com/culture/2016/12/14/13576192/alt-right- se...](https://www.vox.com/culture/2016/12/14/13576192/alt-right-sexism- recruitment)

<comment><USER14> And Hitler himself was a big believer in no smoking spaces. That doesn't mean that anti-smoking groups have anything to do with the genocide Nazis engaged in, just because Nazis were also officially against smoking.

<comment><USER13> Ok, I can't even understand how you've got to this analogy.

<comment><USER14> Giving you the benefit of the doubt that you're trying to understand, I'll restate the logical fallacy a bit more formally:

        Person A believes thing 1.
        Person A believes thing 2.
        Therefore people who believe 1 also believe 2.

This line of reasoning can be rhetorically powerful but it's flawed and, IMO, toxic to the discussion.

<comment><USER13> > the far-right (and to some extent the MRA movement since there's a strong > overlap

What I actually said was:

        People in set A believe thing 1.
        People in set B believe thing 2.
        There is a strong overlap between set A and set B.

You'll note there's nothing about a causal connection, only a correlation.

[edit for formatting]

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is the first week in my life I've been genuinely afraid for the First Amendment. Charlottesville is the one event that pushed government content neutrality outside the Overton window. Up until now, most people (or at least the loudest) treated groups like the EFF and ACLU as kind of like garbage collectors: they do an unpleasant job, defending people who say wicked things, in order to protect the rest of us from government persecution when someone we don't like has the reins. This is the first time I've seen this view being described as literal Nazi sympathizing. It's the first time when hate speech laws are considered so necessary that we're willing to give that power to the Trump administration of all people.

<comment><USER16> You are right in your fear.

I don't know if you have already linked it yourself, but this is why there has been orchestrated removal/damage of confederate monuments in multiple cities recently. They are trying to taint and delegitimize the original writers of the constitution by associating them with slave ownership/racism, in order to then delegitimize their product, i.e. the constitution and especially the 1st and 2nd amendment rights.

</comment></comment><comment> Greg-J I am clearly in the minority in my opinion here, but I'm happy for this. CloudFlare is a private business and as such have a right to refuse service to anyone.

"It's important that what we did today not set a precedent," Prince added. "The right answer is for us to be consistently content neutral."

</comment><comment><USER17> > one that gives publishers a right to due process and doesn't put power over > those decisions in the hands of a few CEOs like Prince.

Fox and CNN have the final say in the content they host, they don't give publishers due process. I don't see how google is any different, other than scope.

</comment><comment><USER18> I really hope this isn't the beginning of the end

<comment><USER19> Me too, but it wouldn't be bad if it takes Cloudflare down a notch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> This entire ordeal has had many other hidden consequences, for me personally for example I've made the decision to never ever voice my political opinion ever again, whether offline or online. It is simply too dangerous, I do not consider my political opinions to be anywhere near as important as my livelihood or internet access. Take that as an overreaction if you want, but that's a real consequence that I've drawn for my life. I cannot risk accidentially running afoul somebody's idea of 'unacceptable opinion to hold'.

</comment><comment><USER21> There is no "neutral" when people are questioning other people's right of self determination, existence and value as a human being.

To quote Elie Wiesel: "We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."

<comment><USER22> There is a big difference between speech and action. People can "question" things all they want.

I'd also note, If Nazis are banned, then they will simply no longer go by that label - then their right to self-determine means you won't be able to call them Nazis.</comment></comment>


Facebook Updates Its Policy Documents Regarding How It Uses And Shares Your Data - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/29/facebooks-new-rules-change-how-it-treats-your-data-and-who-can-access-it

<comment><AUTHOR> Link to the official announcement: [https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook- site-governance/1015...](https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-site- governance/10153167395945301)</comment>


P vs. NP and the Computational Complexity Zoo (2014) [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YX40hbAHx3s/

<comment><USER2> I definitely got a sense of mathematical awe out of that. Thanks for sharing.

I'm always impressed when I see someone who can communicate ideas, especially complex scientific concepts, clearly and effectively, using analogies in a proper way that doesn't just overwhelm the viewer (as a lot of popsci stuff does). It's a talent I know that I need to work on; as a fledgling academic attempting to write papers clearly I struggle with it. Does it simply come with practice or are there resources anyone here can recommend for improving one's ability to make hard ideas understandable?

<comment><USER3> Sometimes these videos can over simplify to the point of not providing a complete understanding. For example I don't think he explains what a Non Deterministic Turing Machine is, or even mention the words Turing Machine. Also not mentioned is the fact that if a Non Deterministic Turing Machine can solve a problem in polynomial time, a Deterministic Turing Machine can solve the same problem in exponential time. So (correct me if I am wrong) a problem that can only be solved in factorial time on a Deterministic Turing Machine for example cannot be part of the class NP.

He also includes Traveling salesman in the class NP. I think there is some debate about whether traveling salesman is NP-Complete, as that would require a polynomial algorithm to check whether in fact your solution was the shortest. [https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/blogs/jfp/entry...](https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/blogs/jfp/entry/no_the_tsp_isn_t_np_complete?lang=en)

<comment><USER4> There is no debate, plain travelling salesman is defiantly not known to be NP- complete. The usual solution for optimisation problems is to turn them into a decision problem, by saying "is there a path of length k or less?". Then it is in NP-complete

<comment><USER5>
      > There is no debate, plain travelling salesman
      > is defiantly not known to be NP-complete.

Actually, there is no debate, plain TSP is specifically _not_ NP-complete and cannot be, because it's not a decision problem. So it's not just, as you say, "not known to be" but instead is "known not to be".

However, by using binary search you can convert a decision version of TSP into the optimisation version in polynomial time. In this sense it is perfectly reasonable to refer to TSP as being NP-Complete.

I agree completely that these sorts of differences actually matter when dealing with the technicalities, but in practice it makes sense not to worry too much when trying to explain the broader concepts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Reddit's thread: [https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/372634/the_n_v...](https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/372634/the_n_vs_np_problem_explained/)

The video is very well structured and goes from very basic explanations of the concept of complexity up to the different classes of complexities.

<comment><USER7> Thanks for the link. Found this great comment:

 _My expectation, however, is that either P!=NP or if it isn 't, we will probably find out because some day, some guy wanted his program to run a little faster and he just happens to solve A NP-complete problem in polynomial time, therefore collapsing NP into P (remember, solving one of them solves all of them). Who knows, maybe the source code for some random Indie game someone programmed in his basement already contains the solution and nobody has noticed, a bit like back in the day with quakes "fast-inverse square root", which was so great it's now integral part of graphics computing. And we only noticed because the water looked so great._

[https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/372634/the_n_v...](https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/372634/the_n_vs_np_problem_explained/crj9h4d)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Simplicity is the final achievement" \-- Chopin, according to the video.

After a bunch of Googling the only source I can find for this is a 2007 religious apologetics book with no Amazon reviews. I can't even find a French version of the quote. Anyone know if it's legitimate? And a more interesting question: if no one has ever even reviewed this book, how is it all over the Internet as the source of this quote?

EDIT: Oops, looks like it is not religious apologetics. Still, I'm curious how a (presumably manufactured) quote like this spreads from such an obscure source.

</comment><comment><USER9> What about the problem of a solution to P and NP being ambiguous for practical uses? I read this argument somewhere, but can't find it now:

Case 1, it's proved that P = NP, and the complexity of solving an NP problem is N^1000. Case 2, it's proved that P != NP, and the complexity of solving an NP problem is N^log log log log N.

In both cases, the result is technically correct (case 1 is polynomial, case 2 is exponential), but from a practical standpoint this proof that P != NP is much more world changing than this proof that P = NP. For example, you'd have to have a problem size that's measured in hundreds of digits before even getting to N^3!

<comment><USER10> In practice we find that algorithms in P usually have small exponents. And thus P is a good shorthand for tractable. If case 2 happens, we'll have to change our shorthand to what we actually care about: tractability.

Similar arguments apply to case 1. (We know quite a bit about how a proof of NP ?= P could _not_ look like, because people already proved that certain strategies for a proof don't work. I am not sure if we can already rule out N^log log log log N, but it wouldn't surprise me.)

<comment><USER9> So, "P" and "NP" are just one possible set of precise definitions for "tractable" and "intractable", and so far they have aligned nicely so they can be used interchangeably (and it's unlikely to change much).

<comment><USER10> Actually, NP isn't too intractable in practice. We are routinely solving huge instances of NP hard problems these days.

There are problems that we hope are hard in the average case. Like breaking cryptography.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The video is misleading when it spreads the idea that "polynomial time" equals "practical," or "fast".

It's nice and simple to talk like that, but I don't think it's particularly useful or helpful.

For example, there is a linear time algorithm for deciding whether two planar graphs are isomorphic (Hopcroft,Wong 1974). But the constant of the asymptotic time bound of their algorithm so large that it was not useful or practical (see end of abstract, [http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=803896](http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=803896))

Only in 2004 did Kukluk, Holder, Cook publish a quadratic time algorithm, "suitable for practical implementation." [http://www.eecs.wsu.edu/~holder/pubs/KuklukJGAA04.pdf](http://www.eecs.wsu.edu/~holder/pubs/KuklukJGAA04.pdf)

More such examples are listed at "Polynomial-time algorithms with huge exponent/constant," [http://cstheory.stackexchange.com/questions/6660/polynomial-...](http://cstheory.stackexchange.com/questions/6660/polynomial- time-algorithms-with-huge-exponent-constant)

<comment><USER12> I think the video addresses it in a fair and approachable manner. It makes it clear that the value is in scaling algorithms to larger inputs, and even shows so in a graph. When dealing with unbounded scaling, the constants typically do not matter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This definitely stirred up some of the dust in my head that has settled since I took Algorithms in college. Specifically, I forgot about how different the world would be if P is actually NP. It's interesting to think about, kind of in the same vein as trying to comprehend the size of the universe.

<comment><USER14> How would it be any different? It is what it is...

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> That video helped a lot, but I'm still struggling to understand what the N=NP question means and how to prove it.

I think that all problems with a set definition for "solved" is solvable as in "P".

For example, the rubik's cube is solved if all sides have a solid color. And is thus a "P".

<comment> Ar-Curunir NP = Set of problems for which candidate solutions can be checked for correctness in polynomial time in the length of the input.

P = Set of problems for which we can find a solution in polynomial time in the length of the input.

Clearly, P \subseteq NP. Proving P = NP would require proving NP \subseteq P, something which most people would believe to be a) highly unlikely b) difficult.

<comment><USER15> So basically I have to find a problem that categories as P but not NP!? Kinda like the Planck constant in quantum theory. f(2) = 4, f(3) = ?

/brainstorming

<comment> Ar-Curunir Well no, every problem in P is in NP trivially.

To prove P = NP, you would have to prove that one of the many NP-Complete problems has a polytime algorithm. Well that's not the only way to prove P = NP, but that's one approach.

<comment><USER3> To prove that P does not equal NP you would have to prove that a problem thought to be NP Complete was in fact NP Intermediate. That is, the problem meets the conditions of NP, but NP Complete problems cannot be reduced to it.

<comment> Ar-Curunir No, not really.

There are many NP-Complete problems, and there are many NP problems that are thought to be neither NPC nor in P.

In fact, if P != NP, there are infinitely many such problems.

So proving P != NP could proceed by finding _some_ problem in NP that is not also in P.

<comment><USER3> Which problem do you think is NP but is not NP Complete?

<comment> Ar-Curunir See:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NP- intermediate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NP-intermediate)

<comment><USER3> Great link I particularly like the part that says, "P = NP if and only if NPI is empty." seems to indicate that if there are any NP Intermediate problems P would be proven not to equal NP.

<comment><USER16> That's pretty far from your original statement. Which isn't to say that's not what you _meant_ in your original statement; just that it's not how I (and minimally the GP) read it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Can anyone suggest further reading on the topic? Anything from Computational Papers on P vs. NP to "Computation Complexity Classes for Dummies" is fine with me.

<comment><USER18> I studied this topic mainly from Algorithms text by Kleinberg/Tardos[1]. Like everything else, if you interested in proving problems NPC, read few examples from book and practice some on your own. Proving problems NPC of some common problems isn't very hard once you get hang of it.

[http://www.amazon.com/Algorithm-Design-Jon- Kleinberg/dp/0321...](http://www.amazon.com/Algorithm-Design-Jon- Kleinberg/dp/0321295358)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Lets say I want to solve a problem, but I have no idea if it is solvable in polynomial time. Is there a website or a book where I can look that up?

<comment><USER10> Complexity Zoo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Amazing, thank you for sharing

</comment><comment><USER21> I found this paper to be an excellent discussion on the implications that Physics has on the complexity question, [http://www.scottaaronson.com/papers/npcomplete.pdf](http://www.scottaaronson.com/papers/npcomplete.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER22> To start, yes, I do like the question of P versus NP and regard it as a very important research question.

My reaction to the video lecture: Wow. Amazing. Gee whiz. P versus NP. What a biggie! Or is it?

There does seem to be a little, tiny, itsy, bitsy point where the lecture went off the track:

The lecture gave a big list of some of the amazing things we could do if we could prove that P = NP. Some of the items on that list were protein folding (to cure cancer) and scheduling.

Right? Not so much:

If someone has an important problem in scheduling, protein folding or any of the NP-complete problems, bring forward that actual, specific, instance of the real problem.

Why? Because there's no proof and little evidence that finding a solution will be too difficult for "current computers".

To this claim I can hear the complaint now:

"But, but, but, the problems in NP-complete are too difficult to solve for current computers because as the problem size increases, the best known algorithms have running time that grows as an exponential in the size of the problem, and exponential growth limits us to problem instances of just small down to tiny size."

Yup, can hear that complaint.

Good news, guys: The complaint is false and does not correctly explain the challenge of NP-complete.

E.g,, 0-1 integer linear programming is in NP-complete, but I can write down, as fast as I can type, such problems about as big as you please that I, or anyone, can solve quickly just by simple inspection.

It's true.

E.g., for any positive integer n, consider the 0-1 integer linear programming problem

         max z = 1 * x1 + 2 * x2 + ... + n * xn

         subject to

         x1 + x2 + ... + xn = 1

         x1, x2, ..., xn = 0 or 1

So, the error in the complaint is that actually the question of P versus NP has to do with _worst case_ instances of the problems. But practical instances are not all worst case, and for many of the practical instances we can get solutions.

So, for any particular actual, specific, instance of a real problem, bring it forward -- you might be able to get a solution.

And, wait, there's more!

For a problem like scheduling, mostly what is desired is just to save money in the actual operations, say, airlines where we need to schedule the planes for the planned flights, the crews, and maintenance for the planes.

Since the planes do fly, tough to convince me that the scheduling is impossible.

So, if spending $200 million a month on operations, an optimal schedule could save $20 million, can find a schedule that is _approximately optimal_ and saves all but the last $100,000, then take the $19,900,000 savings and be happy.

The claim "we want to show that P = NP so that we can solve all these important problems" has been going on since the cartoon early in

Michael R. Garey and David S. Johnson, 'Computers and Intractability: A Guide to the Theory of NP-Completeness'.

where the mathematician stood before the business executive and admitted that he could not solve the executive's problem but neither could any of the mathematicians in a long line.

Likely nonsense: The mathematician was likely just looking for a long term job and actually not at all interested in solving the executive's problem.

Why? Because there was no indication that the executive's problem was large and worst case and needed an exactly optimal solution instead of a nearly optimal solution. The executive's problem might have been relatively easy to solve, with a nearly optimal solution and maybe with an exactly optimal solution.

Indeed, the book was from Bell Labs where one of their interests was network design. Well, since the phones did work, somehow Bell did find feasible solutions. Optimal? Maybe not.

So, what was "the executive's problem" that was in NP-complete and "too difficult to solve?". Maybe he just wanted to design a telecommunications network to have the needed performance and reliability and, otherwise, get the cost down as much as possible or nearly so. Finding an algorithm that shows that P = NP is very likely a significantly different problem, not his problem, and not necessary for his problem.

This erroneous belief that all _large_ instances of problems in NP-complete are too difficult to solve is too common: E.g., once I got a problem in allocation of marketing resources. The instance was 0-1 integer linear programming with 40,000 constraints and 600,000 variables.

I thought for a day or so, typed in some software, did some _Lagrangian relaxation_ , and in 905 seconds on a 90 MHz PC got a feasible solution guaranteed to be within 0.025% of optimality. Close enough for gumment work!

Then, later, as I was considering network design for the Internet, I got an interview at a network design startup in Texas and mentioned the problem with the 600,000 variables.

Well, the whole technical staff was on the other side of the table, had heard the horror stories about NP-complete in college, and concluded to a person that I was claiming to have done the impossible and had to be lying.

I left without a job offer, and they soon went out of business.

By the way, Mother Nature does protein folding, right? Hmm ....

<comment><USER23> _" The lecture gave a big list of some of the amazing things we could do if we could prove that P = NP. Some of the items on that list were protein folding (to cure cancer) and scheduling."_

Moreover, while the most obvious way of proving P = NP would be to find a P solution to an NP-complete problem, it's possible that someone will show existence of such a solution without being able to identify the particular solution. In that case, we don't get to do anything we couldn't do before.

It's also possible that we'll find a solution to an NP-complete problem that's O(n^million). That's in P, but may be substantially more out of reach than our O(2^n) approaches on realistically sized problems.

<comment><USER22> While I don't know the latest research results on the question of P versus NP, it's long been easy to guess that a _polynomial_ algorithm with a high degree polynomial, say, your million, would on most real problem instances be as much of a challenge as an _exponential_ algorithm.

But my post was not really about your

"way of proving P = NP".

Instead I was considering the statement in the video that showing P = NP is important because it would let us make progress on protein folding (for curing cancer), scheduling, etc. I object to that statement because for a significant fraction of such problem instances, including some impressively large, we have a significantly good chance of getting solutions now and do not have to wait for more research on P versus NP.

My point, then, was, if someone has some actual problems in protein folding, scheduling, and other NP-complete problems, likely they do not have to wait for an algorithm that shows P = NP. Instead there's a significant chance that current algorithms, software, and computers can solve their problem instances.

Again, NP-complete problems of size n clearly are too challenging for "current computers" for exact solutions to _worst case_ problems with large n. Here note the _worst case_. Instead, and as I illustrated, there are instances of NP-complete problems, e.g., 0-1 integer linear programming, where it is quite routine to find optimal solutions to real problem instances with impressively large n.

Important names for such work include G. Nemhauser, E. Johnson, R. Bixby. That is, the field of operations research has been attacking and solving important, practical instances of problems in NP-complete for several decades.

Again, if there are some important instances of some NP-complete problems, then don't have to wait for P = NP and, instead, should bring the problems forward now -- solutions may be reasonably easy to find now.

That is, where the video clip was essentially claiming that to solve problems in protein folding, scheduling, etc., we have to wait for a proof showing P = NP was wrong -- for optimal solutions to worst case instances of large problems, we have to wait, but not all practical instances are worst case, and sometimes we are quite happy with nearly optimal solutions.

<comment><USER23> I got your point, and I wasn't disagreeing with you; I was expanding on what you said along the axis of "... and here are some other ways in which we might learn P = NP and have that solve nothing for us."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> P=NP!=MAD

</comment><comment><USER25> Remember quantum computing ? a lot of NP problems will become P

<comment> Ar-Curunir No, they'll become a part of BQP (or rather are already).

P is defined as the class of problems decidable in polynomial time on a classical Turing machine.

P doesn't change with the advent of quantum computers.

Also it is suspected that BQP \not \subset NP, i.e. there are problems in BQP that might not be in NP.

<comment><USER10> And almost certainly, NP \not \subset BQP. In fact, there are only a few problems found so far where quantum computing gives a speedup compared to classical computers.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Text note taking app? - <AUTHOR> Is there a note taking app that allows saving proper text notes to the cloud and is available on all platforms (Linux, OS X, Windows, Android, iOS)?<p>Basically something like Simplenote, just with a monospace font. <comment><USER2> ssh and vi in a terminal would probably work well in this case.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, on a computer there are certainly nice options, but on a phone this is always very cumbersome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Keep</comment>


Mark Pincus on Metrics - <AUTHOR> http://www.homethinking.com/brontemedia/2010/01/07/marc-pincus-on-metrics/

<comment><USER2> Great share, very much in line with my post today, but with some additional spin. Massive parallel testing!</comment>


An architect's defense of open-plan offices - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcompany.com/90218754/in-defense-of-open-offices <comment><USER2> But does having multiple types of spaces really change the psychology of the employees in the open office?

And what percentage of companies using open offices actually bother with anything beyond one giant open room and a few meeting rooms?</comment>


It's like "Da da dah-duh..."  Simple notation and web search for tunes in your head. - <AUTHOR> http://ken-jennings.com/blog/?p=564

<comment><USER2> Interesting encoding. It's so lossy (no absolute pitch, no relative pitch, no rhythm) you're bound to run into problems. The space of a 5 note gesture is only 81 unique song snippets.</comment>


Show HN: Markov Contact – a dynamic audio journey - <AUTHOR> https://demos.samgentle.com/markov-contact <comment><USER2> The most coooool thing I saw these months, Bravo!</comment>


Ask HN: Dyslexic co-founder – any practical tips? - Kepler-295c I have a dyslexic co-founder. Does anyone know of a cheap service that can proof-read emails for him on short notice? Perhaps zirtual, although it looks to have scope that goes beyond just proof-reading (also it's kind of expensive).<p>Any other tips to help dyslexics? <comment><AUTHOR> I'm dyslexic. Have you noticed this being a problem for your cofounder? With spelling and grammar checkers that are frankly rather brilliant, I haven't had a lot of trouble in years. I still make mistakes (read back on my comments on hn and you'll find examples). I even occasionally make mistakes in important business settings. I generally just explain I am dyslexic and then correct the mistake. It has never caused a problem.

When I was in college (I went to law school) I wrote a lot. I learned two things from this. First, as a dyslexic I can practice spelling and writing just as I practice my coding skills and improve on my skills. Second, if something, like a legal document, matters a lot, have it proof read by a lawyer. Most documents, emails, etc, do not need a massive amount of proof reading. Even non-dylexic people make mistakes when writing!

</comment><comment><USER2> I've found that preferring voice communications is helpful (better that text, slack, email etc)

Also, if they are customer facing, try and have them use templates when possible to minimize the amount of text to write.

If they misspell things, just try to let it slide and focus on the bigger issue.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm dyslexic as hell. I'm pretty sure I can type. Even worse I'm a developer :)

</comment><comment><USER4> Maybe use text expanders with pre-written snippets. Spell check should be native in the OS no?

</comment><comment> video-host As a non-native speaker, I find Grammarly pretty handy.</comment>


After twenty years, what Marc Benioff got right and wrong about the cloud - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/17/after-twenty-years-of-salesforce-what-marc-benioff-got-right-and-wrong-about-the-cloud/ <comment><USER2> > Adobe Suite successfully made the switch from the upfront model to thriving > subscription businesses

I hope this new trend of crippling software, after a set time period, comes to an end. I can understand web apps like Microsoft Office 365 becoming inaccessible, but apps that are installed on my PC and that I paid for ? That is a bad trend

<comment><USER3> I think that a lot of this is actually being driven by new accounting standards (ASC 606 - Revenue Recognition), basically the new rules state that for subscription revenue to be recognized over time, the software must be materially disabled at the end of the period. This matters mainly b/c it has tax implications. If companies don't disable the software the entire value of the customer's contract must be recognized up front (as well as taxed upfront), this is true even if the payments are still made monthly. Paying taxes now on revenue that comes in later isn't good for cashflows and as such it creates a business problem that trickles down to consumers.

<comment><USER4> While that may be a factor, I think it was inevitable to go to a subscription business rather than one time sale. Consistent cash flow, vendor lock in, no risk of piracy, ability to raise prices quickly (or slowly), not having to support everyone's Windows installations or whatever OS they may have full of malware.

Who wouldn't want to have a rent seeking business, given the option?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Benioff is undoubtedly a great CEO, but I wonder which other early employees deserve credit for the paradigm shift in B2B to SaaS.

Surely cofounder and CTO Parker Harris had a lot to do with multitenancy and countless other technical innovations, yet he gets very little play in the media. Maybe he likes it that way.

<comment><USER6> Yeah. Like Craig Silverstein at Google ( now at khan academy,last I heard). Even for Tesla, Straubel deserves much more recognition, but I think he himself doesn't appear much in public. IMO, Larry and Sergey are also seldom in public for the past few years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Not mentioned in the article, but Salesforce was a pioneer for Developer engagement:

        * Free developer sandbox instance of Salesforce
        * IDE plug-ins (Eclipse, ...)
        * API first. SOAP and REST APIs for everything
        * Object oriented database manipulation language
        * Visual DB schema designer
        * "App store" distribution model

These features are considered table stakes for any new SaaS/PaaS vendor.

<comment><USER8> It's been a decade since I've tried writing any queries against their "database" but at the time you couldn't do any sort of JOIN. Has that changed?

<comment><USER9> In SOQL you can do it with a nested SELECT, but it's not as intuitive as your standard outer join in SQL:

[https://developer.salesforce.com/page/A_Deeper_look_at_SOQL_...](https://developer.salesforce.com/page/A_Deeper_look_at_SOQL_and_Relationship_Queries_on_Force.com)</comment></comment></comment>


Netflix crackdown on border hoppers could kill some unblocking companies - <AUTHOR> http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/netflix-crackdown-unblocking-1.3487368 <comment><USER2> I realise that they're probably just covering their asses, but it really sucks to live in a small country that none of the distributors care about.

The Estonian netflix catalogue is on the order of 500? titles... ridiculous compared to the US catalogue. In the US you have "watch on amazon prime" buttons in imdb. In Estonia, no such luck.

Essentially, there is _no legal way at all_ to watch the vast majority of movies here. And people wonder why piracy happens a lot around here...

<comment><USER3> >no legal way at all to watch the vast majority of movies here.

You could buy them.

<comment> nommm-nommm Most of the time you can't. You can't buy something that's explicitly and on purpose not available for purchase in your country. That is the whole point. Even if you were to find someone willing to import American DVDs to Estonia, the movie studios have region code lockout codes on DVD players to prevent that!

<comment><USER4> > Even if you were to find someone willing to import American DVDs to Estonia, > the movie studios have region code lockout codes on DVD players to prevent > that!

So use a computer to play your DVDs. Region lockout works on the honor system.

<comment><USER5> This sub thread is about legal ways to watch movies.

People seem to be missing the fact that importing DVDs is not necessarily legal; and turning your DVD player to region free is arguably not legal (under the various "interfering with rights protections mechanisms" laws.

To you and me "buying the DVD from some other region" is legit, while "pirate the movie" is less legit, but to the rights-holders there's not much difference. See, for example, this submission which is talking about rights holders asking Netflix to stop people buying content from a different country.

<comment><USER6> Well then, if there are no legal ways to watch a movie, "pirating" is the only option, right? What possibilities remain? Should people take vacations to watch movies?

<comment><USER5> My opinion is that people should make their own choices. If it were me I'd try to buy the DVDs, but I'd also pirate the DVDs I had bought (for a backup) and I'd consider pirating the DVDs that are not available to purchase.

But the industry has different ideas, and they are well funded and influential. We see the results of that influence in international copyright agreements and laws like DCMA.

See for example the Japanese games that have "NO RE-SALE" printed on the back of the box. Japanese publishers pushed pretty hard to make second-hand sales of games illegal. (I don't think that succeeded). It is (or was?) illegal to rent games in Japan.

In the face of this kind of vigorous assertion of rights of IP holders it's can be difficult to stick rigidly to the law.

<comment><USER6> I just don't get it. If some film is unavailable in some region, piracy in that region has no conceivable impact on sales. And so how can there be any damages? Do you argue that piracy notwithstanding, people would be migrating to places with better licensing deals?

<comment><USER5> In this region: Movies are not available legally, and so people pirate them. When those people come to HN to say why they pirate movies other people say "just buy the DVD", or "just go without".

"Just buy the DVD" doesn't work for the reasons given; just go without is dumb for the reasons you give.

I don't think I'm arguing for the position you think I'm arguing for.

<comment><USER6> What are you arguing for?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm frustrated that Netflix is cracking down in this way. And yet, I can't say that I'm surprised. They are trying to amass as much content as possible, and doing so means that Netflix has to demonstrate that they're trying to enforce the regional exclusivity agreements.

For me, as a consumer who has been using an unblocking system for more than two years, and who would like to continue to see Amazon's content, I'm rooting for the unblockers.

But I wonder whether the cat-and-mouse game between Netflix and unblocking services is almost inevitably in Netflix's favor, at least as things currently run.

Which leads me to ask if a "cloud VPN appliance" SaaS could work, technically and/or as a business: Customers would click to indicate the country where they want to have a VPN server hosted. The appliance would use Digital Ocean, or some other hosting facility with cheap machines that can be created and destroyed via an API. For a $5/month DO server, charge $15/month. Have the appliance update its software, and/or relocate to another hosting system or IP address, as Netflix detects and blocks that machine.

I have to assume that it would be harder for Netflix to block thousands of such privately used VPN machines than blocks of AWS servers being used for such services.

But yeah, it's unfortunate that because of agreements between movie studios and distribution firms in each country, individuals have to play these sorts of games.

<comment><USER8> Others have reported Netflix blocking IP ranges owned by cloud hosting companies. So this solution might not work. What if it was a peer-to-peer service? Whereby the ultimate exit point was the home internet connection of another subscriber?

<comment><USER9> I think most people's asymmetric bandwidth rates would get in the way of a p2p solution being usable.

Maybe if there were some way to break the stream up into individual media files, and then you could download one identical file from lots of different users at the same time.

<comment><USER10> BitTorrent?

<comment><USER11> BitTorrent works because uploaders only ever upload a small piece of the file. This works well for downloads but not at all for streaming.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The ability for and dedication to self sabotage is really astonishing with these old media companies (in this case channeled through Netflix). The sad thing is this affects only people who are still somehow determined to actually buy their content instead of straight-up pirating it.

<comment><USER13> It is likely a requirement of some contract they have with content producers, who have Netflix over a barrel. I can't see them just deciding to do this all on their own.

<comment><USER12> "[...] with these old media companies (in this case channeled through Netflix) [...]"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is whack-a-mole with VPN's.

We'll start to see VPN companies setup auto-rotating IPv6-only networks registered to residential addresses and pseudonyms shortly (if they haven't already) with 2-3 customers per/IP.

VPN's will cater and advertise as "for Netflix" and then the "fight" will shift to copyright takedowns and proxy-lawsuits.

If Netflix continues to crack down and push harder you'll see a lot more false positives/user complaints about being blocked than we currently do.

I sincerely hope they start using their weight to push back.

<comment><USER6> > A residential vpn doesn't use a standard data center like traditional vpn > services do. A residential vpn service uses the same local internet service > providers that offer dsl and cable to home users. This type of service is > very unusual in the vpn arena because normal providers of vpn services do > not offer this type of service. It is generally unheard of in the vpn world.

> IAPS Security Services, LLC. has gone outside the normal channels and has > contracted directly with residential internet service providers to make this > type of service possible.

[https://www.intl-alliance.com/store/cart.php?gid=15](https://www.intl- alliance.com/store/cart.php?gid=15)

I have no idea whether or not this is legitimate. Maybe this is another Hola scam. Or worse.

Edit: See [https://www.lowendtalk.com/discussion/27897/vpn-service- that...](https://www.lowendtalk.com/discussion/27897/vpn-service-that- provides-ip-s-that-look-like-a-residential-isp) for amusing discussion.

Edit2: OK, I get it. It's whois games. See [http://www.hacker10.com/other- computing/review-scam-vpn-prov...](http://www.hacker10.com/other- computing/review-scam-vpn-provider-iaps-intl-alliance/) Easy to detect :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> While everyone's busy blaming Netflix, the reality is they're just covering their own asses, complying with the content laws of the jurisdictions in which they're operating.

<comment><USER16> This is not really about compliance. They license their content from their media partners and these licensing agreements state in which territories they are allowed to use the licensed content. Their media partners are contractually requiring them to take steps to block the usage of their content outside the licensed territories.

Keep in mind that the party who has licensed Netflix a production to be used in e.g. the US might not even have the rights to the same production in e.g. the UK.

<comment><USER17> Licensing can get really lame. Amazon has (or at least had) seasons 1, 2, and 4 of a show I watched. I had to go elsewhere to find season 3. I never went back for season 4.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I setup a VPN on a private AWS EC2 instance in Tokyo. Netflix still detected it. They are not messing around.

<comment><USER19> They didn't detect your VPN connection, they simply block AWS IP ranges.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Out of sheer curiosity: Does anyone know/suspect if Netflix is actually using techniques in addition to blocking IPs of known proxy/vpn/unblocking services? Because I would imagine that is a bit like fighting a hydra, very labor- and cost-intensive, yet they are getting excellent results (apparently, still, the sample of people who complain and thus get media coverage is pretty biased).

Is anyone with a 'homegrown' vpn tunnel experiencing issues? I could also think of a solution involving cookies/fingerprinting that detects if someone's geolocation moves around quicker and more often than is physically possible.

I'm sure the technology is under tight wraps, and I'm also sure that other companies will be dying to license this from Netflix if they get it right, even if it's just a lengthy list of IPs (e.g. the BBC for iPlayer).

<comment><USER21> It's not super hard..

Customer has an address in country X, they're accessing from country X and Y in the same day. Probably block.

<comment><USER22> I'm currently ueing my family's account while abroad in France. Should I get blocked?

<comment><USER23> DVDs used to be region-locked, so probably.

Not the answer you wanted, not the answer that seems fair, but probably the technically right answer right now, until this situation changes.

<comment><USER24> The EU were looking at abolishing this as against free trade, much like they are waging war on roaming charges within the EU.

They were talking about it a year or two ago, not sure what has happened since then as different countries in the EU have different censorship so it's not that simple (e.g. games in Germany are usually less gore).

This is the only thing I can find about it, but I'm sure it was reported on here on better known sources:

[http://www.thesixthaxis.com/2015/03/30/european- commission-l...](http://www.thesixthaxis.com/2015/03/30/european-commission- looking-to-remove-digital-region-locking-within-eu/)

<comment><USER25> From the european commission itself:

 _What does the Commission plan to do about geo-blocking?_

 _Addressing unjustified geo-blocking will give more choice of products and services for consumers at lower prices. The Commission is planning to make legislative proposals in the first half of 2016 to end unjustified geo- blocking. Action could include a targeted change to the e-commerce framework, and to the framework set out by Article 20 of the Services Directive (on non- discrimination of recipients of services). As a result, traders will have only limited possibilities to deny access to online services.In parallel to legislative proposals, the Commission today launched a Competition Sector Inquiry to analyse the application of competition law in this area (press release and factsheet)_

[http://europa.eu/rapid/press- release_MEMO-15-4920_en.htm](http://europa.eu/rapid/press- release_MEMO-15-4920_en.htm)

There's lots to this behind that link, and at the digital single market site ([https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en](https://ec.europa.eu/digital- single-market/en)) but it seems like some DSM legislation will be proposed later this year, but not all of it (since the eCommerce report isn't scheduled to be completed until 2017)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Netflix may well win this, but then everyone just goes pirate and Netflix loses masses of subscribers. These companies just do not get it....

<comment><USER27> Netflix "gets it" very well, they have to tiptoe between satisfying their content providers with plausible-enough looking action and at the same time trying to not alienate their end-users. They probably know the exact numbers of their chosen paths and have chosen optimally (for now).

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I closed my Netflix account because of this.

They blocked a VPS which is used by me and only me entirely from within the US.

</comment><comment><USER29> I seriously don't understand what the movie companies are trying to do. People who think going to the cinema is special and add something to the experience already go to the cinema. For the rest of us, we see it on Netflix or Amazon or whatever or we will either not see it or pirate it.

<comment> L-four Most of the time another company has a exclusive license for the region.

<comment><USER30> So the movie companies are making deals they know 1. goes against everything the market wants and 2. will promote piracy.

And then they complain about piracy. Cry me a river. Seriously.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> For now, the few times I've used it with a vpn it still worked fine. The day when Netflix blocks me completely, I will cancel my subscription

<comment><USER29> Same here. The catalog in Canada isn't worth it. Once the proxy companies lose, I'll cancel Netflix. No I will not go to the cinema, I will not buy the DVDs. The media company will just lose the revenue from me and people similar to me for those movies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I live in France and have been subscribed to Netflix for many years, with a fake US address (but a French debit card). I access Netflix over a VPN provider.

When Netflix arrived in France I was able to access Netflix without VPN from France, with a different catalog, but retained the access to the US catalog via VPN (without doing anything else: same account, same browser, same session even).

I have seen no change since this move was announced, and therefore doubt if it's real??

<comment><USER33> >I have seen no change since this move was announced, and therefore doubt if it's real??

Are you doubting that they're blocking users who access through a VPN? They certainly are. Maybe your VPN hasn't been blacklisted, but that's not to say it won't be in the future.

<comment><USER32> My VPN is very mainstream (I'd rather not name it, though, just in case) so it seems unlikely it's not blocked when others are.

The other explanation would be that blocking doesn't apply to "US customers" but only to customers with a non-US physical address?

<comment><USER33> As far as Netflix is concerned, I'm a US customer with a US address and I'm still blocked from using the US site.

That also doesn't hold water when US-residing customers are blocked from using a US VPN simply to prevent their scummy ISP from throttling Netflix.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I'm in Vietnam and unblock-us has been flawless through this whole thing. Except for PayPal cancelling their account.

</comment><comment><USER35> I just buy DVDs/Blue-rays. That way I own the medium, can watch it any time at superior quality (video + audio) and get some bonus content (behind the scene, interviews, deleted scenes, etc.) too. And I watch amateur short clips on YouTube. It's amazing how short sighted average joes are.

<comment><USER36> You also get unskippable content and a relatively perishable medium that's difficult to back-up. And region blocking.

<comment><USER35> Really? Tell me more about that.

Btw. I can play some 1983 audio CDs just fine, multimedia CD-ROMs from 1990 and DVDs from 1996. Neither a hard disk nor flash-drive nor an internet service will last that long. Triva: Did you know MySpace.com used to be a online storage service (think of DropBox) during the dot-com bubble, it resurfaced as social media website years later, and years later it rebooted as social media website again (with little success) and you know both first two iterations of content are lost forever. Welcome to reality.

The first new 4K _Ultra HD Blu-ray_ (max 100 GB) just came out on March 1th.

<comment><USER37> > _I can play some 1983 audio CDs just fine_

"Some" is not acceptable for preservation.

> _Btw. I can play some 1983 audio CDs just fine, multimedia CD-ROMs from 1990 > and DVDs from 1996. Neither a hard disk nor flash-drive nor an internet > service will last that long._

A hard drive is much easier to back up and transfer to fresh storage than a stack of CDs.

<comment><USER38> Did these ever materialize? [http://www.pcworld.com/article/2106260/sony- panasonic-develo...](http://www.pcworld.com/article/2106260/sony-panasonic- develop-300gb-optical-discs-for-enterprise-storage.html)

Edit: yes, looks like Verbatim (tbh the only company I'd trust to manufacture these aside from TDK or Sony) makes M-Disc in 25, 50, and 100GB: [http://www.amazon.com/Verbatim-Disc-BDXL- Jewel-98912/dp/B011...](http://www.amazon.com/Verbatim-Disc-BDXL- Jewel-98912/dp/B011PZALWA?th=1&psc=1)

$70 for 25x25GB archival discs is pretty reasonable. Almost 9GB per dollar. The 100GB discs are ~5.8GB per dollar, but if taking up 1/4th the space and 1/4 the disc-swapping is worth it, those could be a good option ($425 for 25x100GB)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> While I've not been using VPNs for this, and can see why this sucks for a lot of consumers, I can't really feel sad for any unblocking companies that die over this. They were providing a service that were strictly against the TOS of Netflix, akin to creating cheats/bots for online video games. They had to know that this could come to an end.

It's also very clear that Netflix didn't want this, and that it was forced to make this move. (Couldn't find the exact quote, but newspapers have reported this).

The availability is quite sad now, though. Looking at uNoGS[0] and gk2[1], you can quickly see the disparity. USA pays $7.99 to access 5649 videos. Germany pays ~$9 to access 1412. Scandinavia (little to no dubbing) pays ~$9.5 to access 2038 videos. Most countries have _half_ the content of the US, but pay above US prices on average.

So for some time now, EU has basically been subsidizing Netflix for America and Friends. I really hope that our licensing laws will get straightened out soon, although I can't see the movie business wanting to get rid of the middle-man businesses anytime soon. It generates a huge amount of cash.

[0] [http://unogs.com/countrydetail/](http://unogs.com/countrydetail/)

[1] [http://gk2.sk/netflix-content-by-country/](http://gk2.sk/netflix-content- by-country/)

<comment><USER40> At least part of that price difference is the EU VAT tax, no? Isn't it something like 15%

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> As much as this looks like a result of Netflix attempting to cover their asses with content licensing, the story going around is that this is actually a result of Netflix's freedom and responsibility doctrine. Apparently some asshole engineer internally said he'd be willing to build a proxy blocker, but only if he could do it right.

<comment><USER42> is he an asshole because he was willing, only willing if he could do it right, because he is an engineer, or some other reason?

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I cancelled my netflix account last week because they cracked down on both my VPN providers. In my country, we legally get around 12-13% of the shows available on the US Netflix.

Paying customers get shafted, and the mega-corps wonder why piracy is rampant.

</comment><comment><USER44> So netflix has gone full circle, people want to move away from cable companies because price/content is crap. Netflix is killing off region hopping thus making price/content crap. Long live piracy

</comment><comment><USER45> Someone should build a p2p service to share bandwidth and streaming content

</comment><comment><USER46> Internet-based companies want borders when it benefits them, and want the network to be without borders or geographic locations when _that_ benefits them.

<comment><USER47> Actually, the Internet-based company (Netflix) probably doesn't want this, as they'll lose money. The media companies want this, and Netflix has to deliver if they want to keep their distribution rights.</comment></comment>


Thank You CrowdTilt (w12) and Friends. We're Going to Long Fucking Island - <AUTHOR> http://blog.earbits.com/online_radio/thank-you-crowdtilt-and-friends-were-going-to-long-fucking-island/

<comment><USER2> that's my hood!</comment>


The First Windmills - <AUTHOR> https://delanceyplace.com/view-archives.php?3929 <comment><USER2> >"No one knows who first conceived the simple and extraordinary notion of harnessing the wind to grind corn, but it seems to have taken place in Persia sometime around the sixth or seventh century.

Except there was no corn in Persia in the sixth or seventh century, since corn came from the Americas.

<comment><USER3> There was no maize, but traditionally the word corn can refer to any grain.

<comment><USER4> Which is still the primary sense in UK English [1], if I'm not mistaken (I'm a US speaker, so I can't confirm firsthand).

1\. [https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/corn](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/corn)</comment></comment></comment>


Decoding Zuck's doublespeak - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/andrestaltz/status/1084947956548149248 <comment><USER2> He does have a point. Re-reading Zucks post and looking at the questions, I get the feeling that the questions are just rephrasing talking points of the goodness of FB (from their perspective). Seems the post is not an earnest "here's what interests me and I'll focus on this year" but more "this is how I want you to look at FB, meaning you'll think better of us".</comment>


Why I love hacking at LibreOffice - <AUTHOR> http://randomtechnicalstuff.blogspot.com/2016/01/why-i-love-hacking-at-libreoffice.html <comment><USER2> Oh! I wasn't expecting this to get onto HN :-)

If anyone wants to contribute to LibreOffice, hope onto Freenode #libreoffice- dev and say hi :-) it's a massive project, but there are bite sized projects that you can tackle, and even if you struggle at first nobody will mind. It's a fun project, so give it a try!

Any Australians in Sydney who might be interested in hacking at LO, let me know!

<comment><USER3> Well done all of you, I use your work every day.

Please, please be _very_ conservative with UI changes.

<comment><USER2> Late reply: thanks :-)

I'm certain the design team are being very careful in the changes they are making to the UI.

The design team's page can be found here:

[https://www.libreoffice.org/community/design/](https://www.libreoffice.org/community/design/)

Their blog can be found here:

[https://design.blog.documentfoundation.org](https://design.blog.documentfoundation.org)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > the incremental improvements have been increasing at a rate of knots and > folks are beginning to notice the positive effects

Right on. I see this at $DAY_JOB too; after a certain amount of cleanup and dead code deletion and whatnot suddenly things start getting implemented faster, small bugs are fixed more easily, TODOs and FIXMEs start disappearing from the codebase, etc. Good stuff!

</comment><comment><USER5> I had to install LibreOffice recently to generate some forms and PDFs and I was very impressed. It's come a long way since I last messed with it several years ago. Makes me want to contribute but it's been way too long since I last touched C++ and I'm mostly a Java developer now.

<comment><USER6> If you are also comfortable with Python, you could help with this task of converting unit tests from Java to Python: [https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Development/GetInvolved/...](https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Development/GetInvolved/DeveloperStepByStep/javapython)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> tl;dr? The people. The author indicates that the LibreOffice community is filled with people of good humour who help those not as expert as themselves.

</comment><comment><USER8> I love hacking on LibreOffice because nobody else lets me do static analysis on 10 million lines of code and make it better. Most places just throw up their hands in despair and become too afraid to touch anything.

Also, the people are great!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm the guy Chris mentioned who noted 5.0 feeling noticeably faster than 4.4 (because they cleaned up the VCL timers) and how fascinating the details of a project doing an apparently-boring job can be :-)

<comment><USER2> You are seriously our biggest fan :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Its a pretty important project.

</comment><comment><USER10> I wonder what the simplest changes to the codebase are that would make it much smaller. I wonder if there are tools that would make suggestions.

<comment><USER10> A detailed post related to this: [https://people.gnome.org/~michael/blog/2013-06-13-under- the-...](https://people.gnome.org/~michael/blog/2013-06-13-under-the- hood.html)

<comment><USER6> More:

[https://www.gnome.org//~michael/blog/2014-01-30-under-the- ho...](https://www.gnome.org//~michael/blog/2014-01-30-under-the-hood.html)

[https://www.gnome.org//~michael/blog/2014-07-29-under-the- ho...](https://www.gnome.org//~michael/blog/2014-07-29-under-the- hood-4-3.html)

[https://people.gnome.org/~michael/blog/2015-01-29-under- the-...](https://people.gnome.org/~michael/blog/2015-01-29-under-the- hood-4-4.html)

[https://people.gnome.org/~michael/blog/2015-08-05-under- the-...](https://people.gnome.org/~michael/blog/2015-08-05-under-the- hood-5-0.html)

Keep an eye on 5.1 as well :) [https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleasePlan/5.1](https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleasePlan/5.1)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> For people who want to get involved, is there a list of starting points? (like low hanging fruit type of tickets to get into the codebase)

<comment><USER10> [https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Development/Easy_Hacks](https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Development/Easy_Hacks)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> what programming languages do i need to know to hack on libreoffice?

<comment><USER13> Mostly C++ and a string search utility (like grep) since the codebase is massive. There are others languages (I recall Java and Perl) but their use are marginal.

<comment><USER6> Python is used as well: [https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Development/Python_Unit_...](https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Development/Python_Unit_Tests)

Web developers and sysadmins are also most welcome!

[https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Website](https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Website)

[https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Infra/AdminTeam](https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Infra/AdminTeam)</comment></comment></comment>


The Strange Inevitability of Evolution - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/20/creativity/the-strange-inevitability-of-evolution <comment><USER4> "Evolution need only take a random walk along a web of neutral (or at least almost neutral) mutations, that, without impairing the fitness of an organism, surrounds it with very different neighbors: innovative solutions to selective pressures that are there for the taking when the circumstances compel it."

Wow, that starts to explain the amazing creativity of rapid evolution (like whale evolution in 10 million years). So how to turn this into software? This seems like it could be a new class of evolutionary algorithm.

<comment><USER5> Gerry Sussman's [http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/gjs/6.945/readings/rob...](http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/gjs/6.945/readings/robust- systems.pdf) has some related ideas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Wow, this was a very good article (I don't often say that).

I have long had a rather uncomfortable feeling about this idea that many chance mutations eventually produce some that are close to some objective function -- for essentially the same reason given in the article. There's just too many combinatorial possibilities to explore in the rather small time that the universe has been around (I mean, we're comparing like 10^50 to like 10^(10^(...)) here).

But this makes a lot of sense to me. Essentially what he's saying is that input sequences (vectors) pass through some kind of surjective mapping into a lower dimensional space of "networks" (I'll just call them a different space of vectors).

If I had to guess (and this is purely speculation here), this is probably due to some symmetry property.

<comment><USER7> A long time ago, I was trying to imagine how complex structures could evolve out of randomness, I came up with something I called "hinge evolution." Let the relevant behavior of a system be a function of the contact area between the two planes of the hinge, and the genetic variation be represented by the action of hinge. You can vary the hinge angle a lot while only causing minor shifts in the contact area, but if you _close_ the hinge, there will be a giant discontinuous spike in the contact area. So I believed it wasn't absurd to think that things didn't have to evolve in continuous fashion: you could have 'silent' evolution happening in the background, but when certain conditions are met, a major shift in structure could happen all at once.

This article elucidates a much better explanation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Maybe a reformulation in terms of the familiar can be enlightening:

DNA can spontaneously "refactor" itself, i.e. use vastly different internals without changing behaviour. For some "implementations", an appropriate change in behaviour can be much easier than in others.

</comment><comment><USER9> This is _redundancy_ : many different sequences (genotypes) give the same shape (phenotype). Redundancy can be boring, such as non-significant whitespace in C code: different spacing compiles the same (and gives the same behaviour).

It is also _local_ , in that equivalent genotypes are just one step away - <USER2> or remove a space - and you can continue with further steps. So a set of equivalent genotypes/programs are connected by being adjacent (one "step" away). [\tangent maybe not all the equivalent genotypes are connected]

But this is _interesting_ redundancy, because some of those equivalent genotypes are just one step away from dramatically different phenotypes. This doesn't happen with C whitespace (though maybe it happens with other equivalent implementations, different names, ways of looping, but I can't think of an example]

Using the metaphor in the article, one set of equivalent connected genotypes is like a network of roads, on which you can take steps to move around the system without penalty, because they are all equivalent and each step is neutral. Extending the metaphor for the "interesting" aspect, another set of equivalent connected genotypes with a dramatically different phenotype is like a railway network. Mostly, the two networks are separate, but sometimes, they are very close, so that in one step, you switch to another network, like a railway station. [For correctness, we disallow level crossings, because there both road and rail would have the same phenotype. We could disallow any crossings, making it planar, or introduce the third dimension and have bridge crossings, where the position in 3D is the genotype.]

There would be a great many such networks, with distinct phenotypes.

There would be networks that have no adjacency; but it might still be possible to reach them by moving to intermediate networks (e.g. travel by car then rail then bicycle path then footpath etc), provided the phenotypes of those intermediate networks were neutral or advantageous.

I like _both_ the article's hypotheses: that all complex systems have this property; or that evolved biological systems only have it because evolution is faster with it.

2\. The second appeals to me because it helps explain accelerating evolution by the establishment of platforms: e.g. the body-plan collection of genes may have taken a long time to come up with, but once it did, body plan diversity exploded. Though the article complains about the number of body plans possible, it's dramatically fewer than all possible raw sequences. It's configuring a body-plan instead of coding it from scratch. Having many different possibilities is good as it makes it a powerful expressive platform - perhaps like an algebra or programming language, once it gets complex enough, it is very powerful. The key quality is that within this configuration language, the density of "useful" results is higher than without it [e.g. a random configuration is more likely to be useful than random raw code - <USER3> platform is somehow specialized to its purpose]

Similarly, perhaps this system of RNA with this quality was not the first to evolve, but several arose... and this is the one that took off.

1\. But maybe all complex systems have it too, provided they have redundancy. Perhaps, if there are many sets of connected equivalent genotypes, and each set is very large, there are likely to be many adjacencies between networks? Note: It's not necessary for _all_ networks to have adjacencies, just enough of them. You could imagine varying these properties of the system (number and size of networks, relative to the total space) and come up with parameters that give "enough" adjacent networks [though I'm not quite sure how to define "enough".]

My feeling is that getting those parameters good enough by chance might be pretty rare - something that could take a few billion years over the surface area of a planet to have reasonable chance at...

<comment><USER9> tl;dr having multiple genotypes for the same phenotype is inevitable if the genotype space is smaller than the phenotype space; the mapping is not injective (it's not one-to-one); a projection.

Making this local, where adjacent points map to the same phenotype can be trivial, e.g. ignoring one dimension of a 10 column row in a database. But an interesting local mapping seems much rarer: where you can change one dimension in one step (and still get the same phenotype), then change a different dimension in the next step, etc, so that the path through space is not just one dimension varying, but a jagged winding path.

This is important for the "path" (or connected genotypes with the same phenotype) to have a large surface area, which increases the chance of contact with the path of another phenotype (and that phenotype has some usefulness).

That's the main problem: that there be adjacency "transfer points" between useful phenotypes. It seems to me that in the huge exponentially large spaces we're talking about, they would be very rare, unless the mapping had some special qualities (which would make sense if the mapping itself had been selected by evolution - so the "selfish gene" is only secondarily in charge; the mapping is the primary one - and possibly, mutation strategies, like sex, and other as-yet undiscovered ones, that might be analogous to factoring or expanding, so the genotype can change dramatically in one step, but remain equivalent).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> A quote from the article: "You don't have to be a benighted creationist ..." Can we please keep these type of articles off HN please? I don't come here to be insulted. I have other sites for that!

Sir Isaac Newton was not a simple nor stupid man and he gave honor to the Creator. Just because science has not figured God out, does not deny His existence.

A whole lot of reasons for what allowed the Internet, HN, science, and technology to be where it is at today came out of a nation (silly apparently to the writer) which put "In God We Trust" on everything.

<comment><USER11> _Just because science has not figured God out, does not deny His existence._

Science isn't trying to figure god out any more than it's trying to figure fairies out. Science focuses its efforts on understanding reality.

<comment><USER12> Science describes reliable _models_ of reality. Its language is mathematics.

Religion wonders about the ultimate _meaning_ of such models. Its language is philosophy.

The first religions bundled model and meaning out of necessity. However, post- Roman Christians were keen logicians and experimenters who laid the foundation of the modern sciences. They would be ashamed of creationists' shallowness.

<comment><USER13> > Science describes reliable models of reality. Its language is mathematics.

That's not right. It's language is... well, language. Including, but not limited to, mathematics.

> Religion wonders about the ultimate meaning of such models. Its language is > philosophy.

I don't think this is really being fair to philosophy. I do view religion as a kind of proto-philosophy. Philosophy is what religion should have been.

<comment><USER12> Sorry for the late reply. I like your choice of words, _proto-philosophy_. I think of religions of the past as proto-philosophy and proto-science (the world is flat and at the center of the universe, Heaven is structured so and so, ...). But you're right, my framework does not fully reflect the complexity of modern faith. Unlike trained priests, the overwhelming majority of believers don't learn philosophy to challenge their own beliefs.

imho too many people _consume_ religion like painkillers for the big questions. Without a critical eye, faith becomes anti-philosophy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> On a slightly unrelated note, I recommend the new Nightwish album "Endless Forms Most Beautiful", named after the Darwin quote in the first paragraph.</comment>


A Small,Cost Effective Server for Your Home or Small Business to Host Files  - <AUTHOR> http://icydock.blogspot.com/2010/05/tonidoplug-review-with-icy-dock-mb561us.html

<comment><USER2> Interesting write-up, but short on important details about performance. I see from the Tonido website that it has a gigabit ethernet port, but with a single USB 2.0 interface, you're never going to come anywhere close to saturating the network link's potential. An eSATA port would make a lot more sense for something that is going to live its life as a NAS appliance.</comment>