3D Printing Integrated Circuits: What's Possible Now and in the Future? - <AUTHOR> https://www.nano-di.com/blog/2019-3d-printing-integrated-circuits-whats-possible-now-and-in-the-future <comment><USER2> While possibility of creating ICs in a "homelab" remains years or decades in the future, it is an innovation that is very important to strive for. The world of information has become increasingly dangerous, and trust is in short supply. We need stronger guarantees that our computational hardware is secure and backdoor-free and the best (but not perfect) way of doing it is to manufacture it yourself.

Libre Silicon [1] is one organization that is striving forward and I am hopeful they will make great progress.

Edit: when a high schooler can fabricate ICs in his garage [2], you know with enough effort, a lot of progress can be made on the problem

[1] [https://libresilicon.com/](https://libresilicon.com/)

[2] [http://sam.zeloof.xyz/first-ic/](http://sam.zeloof.xyz/first-ic/) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20657398](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20657398)

<comment><USER3> The last news in the news section of the libresilicon site you linked was from 2018 - is it in active development still?

<comment><USER4> There was a talk at CCC late last year where they talked about their std cell library [[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jA7BHuAo9u0](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jA7BHuAo9u0)]

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > researchers at the Air Force Research Laboratory and American Semiconductor > recently 3D printed microcontroller SoCs from polymers on a flexible silicon > substrate.

Then in the source:

"we took silicon IC chips and thinned them until they became flexible but retained their circuit functions."

So no, they did not 3D print an SoC from polymer.

Also, the chip manufacturing process is already, in a sense, additive (you deposit layers of material on each other). Unless the author is proposing printing billions of gates and wires one by one, I don't see where this is going. And if that's the case, the cost structure would exceed the traditional process many times, even if you are trying to make just a single chip.

<comment><USER6> The best actually-printed-by-an-inkjet-printer circuits I know of are simple ring oscillators of at most ten transistors or so (e.g., [1]---and they're pretty bad transistors at that), and even the simplest microcontrollers require thousands of transistors.

The paper [2] is a good review of the difficulties. Inkjet printing has at best a ≈20um minimum feature size (vs. 0.01um current transistor sizes), and the material choice is really hard: instead of silicon, you need to make semiconducting inks using funky organic molecules like 6,13‐bis(triisopropylsilylethynyl) pentacene (TIPS‐pentacene). [3] is a good recent paper trying to work around some of these limitations. So everything is still very much in the research phase.

Although inkjet printed circuits won't be anywhere near current silicon circuitry anytime soon if ever (and inkjetting transistors is the best (and kinda the only) method of 3D printing circuits we currently have), the different form factor may be useful. Circuits---even if only a few thousand transistors---could be printed on 3D geometry for interesting microfluidics capabilities, flexible circuits might make good healthcare sensors, and [4] is even studying flexible spacecraft via printed electronics for surprisingly economical space debris removal. And combining all this with 3D printed mechanical parts (via, e.g., the impressive PolyJet [5], which is basically inkjetting layers and lacks only the right materials to print electronics) will be fun.

(as to the source's Air Force Research Lab printed chips, yeah, I can't find further info, either, and agree it was probably sandpapering away most of the spare silicon bulk of an integrated circuit [impressive, useful, but not printing])

[1] [https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.6b06041](https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.6b06041) [2] [https://doi.org/10.1002/admt.201700063](https://doi.org/10.1002/admt.201700063) [3] [https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-01391-2](https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-01391-2) [4] [https://www.nasa.gov/feature/brane- craft/](https://www.nasa.gov/feature/brane-craft/) [5] [https://www.stratasys.com/polyjet- technology](https://www.stratasys.com/polyjet-technology)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I mis-read the title, thought it's about 3D printing the PCBs. That's something easily achievable and useful to hobbyists like myself.

<comment><USER8> That's relatively easily achievable, a stepping stone on the path to ICs, and serves a large market that already exists.

Yet, I think there are no commercial offers, and no companies focused on building it (differently from ICs). Go figure.

<comment><USER9> This does somewhat exist for commercial 3D printed PCBs (not ICs) : [https://www.lpkf.com/en/industries- technologies/electronics-...](https://www.lpkf.com/en/industries- technologies/electronics-manufacturing/3d-mids-with-laser-direct-structuring- lds)

LPKF sell a funky machine which will deposit 3D traces onto a printed part. We have one of these in a lab at our uni, along with a lot of other expensive LPKF kit, but it's so specialised that I doubt anyone ever uses it. They have lots of interesting demo parts made with it, the obvious use case is antennas that are embedded in the enclosure.

<comment><USER8> I was thinking more on the line of cheap one-off PCBs that you send from your computer and take from the machine in an hour or two, like what hobbyists are doing.

This one is so much cooler but more expensive too. I hope they find some large market to grow into.

<comment><USER9> Yeah LPKF's stuff is very high end. I'm 99% sure the only reason we have any of their machines is that someone had a massive budget to blow with a tight deadline. Or they had no idea what they were buying and got sweet talked by a rep. Or they _absolutely_ knew what they were buying and someone high up just signed off on it. We also have stuff like Metal 3D printers which are six- figures, so why not? The problem with using is that it's so expensive, so nobody is allowed to use it without training. Everyone else just submits jobs to the mech workshop and they'll etch it for you.

But.. when you think that a one-day turnaround on a small run of PCBs can cost easily $500+ if you need weird requirements, these sorts of machine can start to save money. They can do tolerances below most of the cheap fab houses (like BGA fanout, RF parts, etc). PCBTrain will charge you £400 for a 2-day turnaround on a 50x50mm 2 layer board!

At home I don't know why you'd want to 3D print a circuit versus milling or laser exposing it. You can get cheap mills with decent tolerances these days [1]. Of course LPKF also sell these sorts of machines with absurd tolerances and high prices!

In theory you can use conductive filament and a multi-material printer. One use case for that is actually making custom RF shields. Otherwise the only 3D printed circuits I've seen are kind of cheating - either using the printer to make the etch mask, or by printing channels which you can fill with conductive paint or epoxy (those are nice though).

[1] [https://wegstr.com/CNC-Wegstr-(English)](https://wegstr.com/CNC- Wegstr-\(English\))

<comment><USER8> > At home I don't know why you'd want to 3D print a circuit versus milling or > laser exposing it.

I have absolutely no requirement on an additive process. I also don't think "home" will net enough of a market, it's more for "design house". What I think is missing is some box you can buy where you just add the material, send the design from a computer and an hour later you have a usable PCB.

CNC mills do kinda solve the problem, on its most basic form. But it is very common that one would need at least two layers, and it would be a huge add-on if it could apply masks and silk. The mills are also not that well packaged for the job - it would make a lot of difference if it would just be enclosed.

But anyway, that's in no way a rant about the market or anything like that. It's just that it's unsettling to see somebody jump all the way into ICs when solving the same problem on an easier level is already a useful product.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Electron beam lithography for direct writing ICs has been around for decades. Put down a layer of resist, expose with a steered electron beam. It works fine, down to at least 7nm, but it's slow. It's never been cost effective for making ICs, except for occasional one-offs. It's mostly used to make masks.

<comment><USER6> Sure. Heidelberg's recently made [1] some cool tools ("maskless aligners") that can expose a ≈150mm wafer in an hour or so down to ≈500nm resolution, which is very convenient when rapidly iterating through one-off low-resolution designs or something in a research lab (for comparison, electron beam lithography does the same to ≈10nm resolution in maybe a day). It's still part of the whole fabricate-everything-as-2D-layers-on-a-wafer paradigm, though, and has the same limitations (e.g., temperature limits) as standard silicon circuitry made with conventional photolithography.

[1] [https://heidelberg-instruments.com/en/#products](https://heidelberg- instruments.com/en/#products)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> > To increase the printing resolution, the additive manufacturing industry may > need to devise a completely new printing process. Currently, inkjet 3D > printing provides among the highest resolution features for 3D printing > PCBs, but it remains to be seen if this process can be improved to provide > resolution less than 1 micron.The future of 3D printing integrated circuits > will likely adapt a photolithography process or functional self-assembly > process to produce integrated circuits with competitive resolution.

I thought the whole appeal of 3D printing is tool-less manufacturing. Photolithography typically involves using photomasks, which is not exactly suitable for prototyping or low-volume production.

<comment><USER12> There's been lots of progress on DIY/academic maskless photolithography by using TI digital micromirror devices from projectors to reflect light into a microscope for exposing photoresist. They even sell a UV version that is just for this purpose (maskless light manipulation in general). As usual, the bigger issue is alignment between steps and the etchants.

Still don't know what it has to do with 3d printing, except the article sounds like GPT3 mindlessly connecting lithographic resin 3d printers and semiconductor photolithography, with a Google Scholar search on those terms as a data set.

<comment><USER11> > maskless photolithography by using TI digital micromirror devices from > projectors to reflect light into a microscope

I just looked this up. It's incredible that maskless photolithography is even possible. Are these devices used in any high volume processes for manufacturing PCBs, for example?

<comment><USER13> The more common maskless route is laser direct write. That is capable to micron level dimensions, and multicolor variants have been proposed to allow submicron.

Ebeam direct write is capable to NM level features. Just slow.

[http://www.periodicstructures.com/](http://www.periodicstructures.com/)

Has some neat papers on this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Why does this post keep getting re-submitted?

<comment><USER15> I was curious too, and it turns out that Nano Dimension is publicly traded, has seen its market cap collapse over the last four years, and oddly seen a massive spike in trading volume over the last four months. I suspect this is another Microvision-like scenario where a stock on the verge of dropping into the pink sheets is getting gamed by people trying to convince others that it is the next big thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> 3D printing is hype but beyond a broad assertion that it would be cheaper for high performance LRIP devices I don't feel like a case for it being better than current manufacturing techniques is made in the article. They also completely neglect the fact that you can 3D print complex sub micron structures today using a FIB (a common semiconductor tool) and the technology to do so has existed for over 30 years. It hasn't taken over yet for a reason.

<comment><USER6> Both FIB deposition and its cousin Focused Electron Beam-Induced Deposition (FEBID) are pretty nifty; they can cut/add materials down to maybe 1nm (!) resolution. However, they're extremely slow: they can only affect a single spot at a time and move at maybe only 100nm/s movement, so patterning a useful circuit may take days; it's mostly useful for research work. I don't think I've seen anyone figure out the chemistry to use it to print doped semiconductors, so transistors might not be doable anyway.

Really the only other sub-micrometer 3D printing category right now is two- photon lithography (shine a laser to cure a liquid resin into a solid, like common resin 3D printing), which can generally only use a single, even-more- specialized-than-required-for-inkjet material---almost always an insulating polymer---for an entire structure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This article is really too lightweight. It's not as much a review of current research as it is something that would fill whitespace in an industry mag.

</comment><comment><USER18> As always, the problem in VLSI isn't technology--it's _tools_.

Places like X-Fab can run a mask set for you at around $50K. Tools will run you $150K+.

Side note: X-Fab, fix your !@#$ing site already. You got hacked on July 5th. Still being unable to log in a month later doesn't bespeak competence.

</comment><comment><USER19> I know its a bit off in the future, but imagine the possibilities of doing this from your garage. We could see all sorts of innovation.

</comment><comment><USER20> Back in the 1970's Page Burr at Photocircuits developed Multiwire.</comment>


Ask HN: Where can i find a co-founder? - <AUTHOR>

I'm a talented software engineer with CTO experience in 3 startups already. I'm looking for a new challenge but have no idea yet. I'm looking for a talented co-founder (doesn't have to be engineer) to start a new adventure. Where can i find one? <comment><USER2> Have your contact information on HN if you want to leverage this community.

Meetup has many groups around startups where you might find one.

[https://www.cofounderslab.com/](https://www.cofounderslab.com/)

If you were involved with any accelerators in your previous startups maybe reach out to them.

</comment><comment><USER3> Asking "where can I find a co-founder" is alot like asking "where can I find a wife?". There are no shortcuts. Those who would be willing to join you at a moment's notice are precisely the kind of people you will want to avoid.

</comment><comment><USER4> If you leave your contact details here or in your profile, someone will contact you.

Otherwise, you can try angellist or some founder dating sites. Or you can go to meetups. Depends on where you are located though.

</comment><comment><USER5> Be as carefull choosing coofounders as choosing a spouse.

</comment><comment><USER6> \- Your current company (co-workers), if any

\- Previous co-workers

\- Meetups

\- Founder dating sites

\- Old friends

\- Right here on HN</comment>


Stuff I said at Kansas City Startup Weekend that sounded smart (2011) - <AUTHOR> https://apenwarr.ca/log/20111116 <comment><USER2> I don't disagree with the spirit of doing user research before building things, which is sort of the rage now, but I really think that if people are reading this they should hear the counterpoint loud and clear:

Do not mislead your users.

Really, I can't imagine it makes such a difference to have coming soon. I doubt -- though I don't know for sure -- that simply telling people you already have the product is going to give you a company changing amount of information.

In any case we should have benchmarks that will help. (Example: Perhaps the "coming soon" tag costs you 50% of your signups, so just double the amount you receive as an estimate, and then remove the tag after you build it).

<comment><USER3> the idea behind telling people you have a product is it gets them into a presale funnel or at least mailing list which you can use as traction to raise money

if you are bootstrapping, you don't need to do this, but you do need to compete with people who do this

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> His MVP argument confuses me. I short, he suggests lying to your visitors, by making a lead capture page that looks like the product already works. He does not address the ethics, the karma or simply the bad business reputation of lying about minor details such as "it works". This surprises me.

<comment><USER5> It's a common tactic and very sensible. Figure out if you can sell first, if you can't, don't bother. If that bothers you, you probably shouldn't be in the game of running a business at all. If absolute truth is more important to you than a few fibs or a little half-truth, you'll find it difficult to run a successful business.

It's the difference between spending $10,000s making something to find out you're incapable of selling anything, or not.

I've made this mistake, twice too, getting too wrapped up in the dev.

It's stupid to do it that way round. I wasted a lot of money, and have got burnt by a business partner that simply couldn't sell what we made despite making all the right noises.

<comment><USER6> "If absolute truth is more important to you than a few fibs or a little half- truth, you'll find it difficult to run a successful business."

Another example of free advice being worth what you pay for it. As someone that buys things, I don't recommend this advice. (Maybe if the person that posted it had some evidence beyond a short story it would be different.)

"I wasted a lot of money, and have got burnt by a business partner that simply couldn't sell what we made despite making all the right noises."

Just throwing this out - maybe the inability to sell is correlated with the first part of your post.

<comment><USER5> Sure, go waste your money speculatively building a product.

You don't have to do this of course if your price point is $10,000+, you could go get agreement in principles if it's a bigger product.

But for smaller products that are online only signup? Getting all dewey eyed over someone not getting their $10 p/m new to-do app, and go spend months building it instead and then finding there's no market?

You're making the wrong call there. Test the market, prove you can sell it, then make it. A couple of people not getting their $10 p/m app vs you losing $10,000s on wasted time is worth that.

To be honest, as a professor what have you ever had to do business-wise? You've never left academia apparantly. It must be nice to critize but I have no respect for your advice.

<comment><USER7> I think there _may_ be a difference between ethical market research to determine demand, and "little lies" to potential customers that an application is ready to sell.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is there a big tech startup scene in the Kansas City area?

<comment><USER9> Not really, but they do exist, and I've exclusively worked for startups or small companies for 8 years now.

We only have a handful of large corp companies to supplement startup growth (Garmin, Cerner, etc). Another commenter lamented about wages, but I've never had an issue with that. The key is to position yourself as a big fish in the small pond that is KC. To maximize your wage growth: The usual strategy of "being an expert in X hottest sexy technology" doesn't work here, you have to respond to the market wants.

The main benefit of KC is the extraordinarily low cost of living, easy commute, and low population density. If you're an urbanite, you'll likely find it too small. The benefits though are low taxes, low housing costs, little government involvement in your personal life, quiet living, and the best barbecue on planet earth.

<comment><USER10> Great Mexican food, too, and our fine dining is surprisingly decent, considering. The rest of our food scene's kinda overpriced and hit-or-miss on quality but those are good.

Outdoors life's shit unless your into hunting or fishing. Worst part about living here, easily.

<comment><USER11> What would you like to see outdoors that you don't currently?

<comment><USER9> Nice set of mountains would be cool. Or move the Lake of the Ozarks two hours closer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Apart from a small point I think this is excellent. In particular I am disappointed by how easily people slip into thinking the name of the thing is the thing.

The small point (more than a nit) is on "making a fake web site that appears to crash." But indeed, be as minimal as possible so you can do a lot of rapid experimentation.

</comment><comment><USER13> Wait. I was there. That was you?

<comment><USER14> I was there too!

<comment><USER15> And you know what they said? Some of it was true!</comment></comment></comment>


Intel planning to get rid of DRAM on PCs - <AUTHOR> http://semiaccurate.com/2012/09/07/intel-to-do-away-with-dram-in-pcs/ Initially I didn't like the idea. But thinking it better it might be actually good. The big PC bottleneck nowadays is DRAM. A big on-die/stacked memory at many times faster bandwidth and lower latency could be a game changer.
And anyway, nowadays the usual advice to clients is to max out the RAM on purchase since it's a mess to replace (be it a non-technical user or a datacenter cluster with critical uptime) and the specific configuration of RAM will become pricer per GB in the mid term (because the market moves constantly forward to different versions).
And also note one of the main reasons some algorithms run faster on GPUs is the memory bandwidth bottleneck. If Intel gets rid of the BW problem it's a level game againsta Nvidia.
This move would allow Intel to have some custom performance tricks. For example, memset multiple GB in a fraction of the time. <comment><USER2> That article has no technical information at all, it seems to be pure click- bait.

Does anyone know more? Are they moving the RAM or replacing with some flash derivative? Something else?

<comment><USER3> I think they want to move the CPU into the hard drive so Oracle is faster (IA64)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I assume they mean memory will be integrated into the CPU package itself? If that provides for faster RAM, smaller computers, and greater power efficiency I would find it to be an acceptable trade-off. I've found over the years my RAM needs are tied pretty closely to my CPU needs. Today I can get by fine with 8GB but by the time I need 16 or 32GB I will probably want a newer CPU as well. So doing this all in one package wouldn't bother me. I'm guessing on desktops/servers there would be some ability to add slower modular RAM to compliment the faster RAM integrated into the CPU?

<comment><USER5> Wouldn't the slower RAM mean either inconsistent performance (yuck), or having to slow down the CPU memory? (like today's user RAM with a slow and fast card)

<comment><USER6> It would depend on how the slower RAM was treated. Boosting the memory to support memcache for example would seem to make sense.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> So what are they replacing it with?!

EDIT: from the comments I get the impression that they want to move the memory closer to the CPU.

<comment><USER8> Stacked DRAM, if I understand it correctly.

<comment><USER9> I hadn't heard of stacked DRAM. For anyone else looking for a reference, I liked <http://blogs.intel.com/research/2011/09/15/hmc/>

The description of "getting rid of DRAM" sounds misleading if this is what they are deploying.

<comment><USER10> From that article: "This groundbreaking prototype has 10 times the bandwidth and 7 times the energy efficiency than even the most advanced DDR3 memory module available."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> (argh)

1 point by alecco 2 hours ago | link | parent [dead]

Initially I didn't like the idea. But thinking it better it might be actually good. The big PC bottleneck nowadays is DRAM. A big on-die/stacked memory at many times faster bandwidth and lower latency could be a game changer. And anyway, nowadays the usual advice to clients is to max out the RAM on purchase since it's a mess to replace (be it a non-technical user or a datacenter cluster with critical uptime) and the specific configuration of RAM will become pricer per GB in the mid term (because the market moves constantly forward to different versions).

And also note one of the main reasons some algorithms run faster on GPUs is the memory bandwidth bottleneck. If Intel gets rid of the BW problem it's a level game againsta Nvidia.

This move would allow Intel to have some custom performance tricks. For example, memset multiple GB in a fraction of the time.

</comment><comment><USER11> I think they may be referring to non volatile (phase change) memory.

More details in this LWN article:

<http://lwn.net/Articles/498283/> and here: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-change_memory>

</comment><comment><USER12> Is not that DRAM is dead, it is simply Intel will be putting Memory Cube, or Stacked DRAM or TSV Memory what ever you wanted to call it in the CPU die itself. Stacked DRAM provides up to 1Tbit/s of bandwidth. More then the current Graphics Card has.

As SSD gets faster every year, we need less memory to cache off the content where we used to need for performance reason from a HDD. With Windows 8 i have been using less then 4GB of Ram including standby, with Virtual Memory turned off. ( I have 16GB of Memory ). The future CPU die could easily stack 4 1Gbit DRAM with 8 layers of up to 4GB of Memory. Coupled with a SSD that goes up to 2GB/s transfer.

</comment><comment><USER13> Any comments on why alecco's (seemingly informative) comment is dead? <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4496441>

<comment><USER14> The usual cause is double-posting. Submit the comment form twice accidentally, see two copies of your comment, delete one, now you see one copy and leave. HN auto-killed the duplicate, but your own comments never appear dead to you, only to others -- so you end up deleting the copy everyone else saw, while leaving only the dead one.

<comment><USER5> I don't know about you, but for my double-posts, one always appears as dead to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Even with intensive app usage (whole office/adobe suite), 4 web browsers with 2-5 dozen tabs in each, two dozen utilities, maybe SC2 or GW2 running, no reboot in months, I can maybe fill up half my 16GB. I see people really only needing 8GB unless you are doing VM.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Very relevant demo of Intel-Micron a year ago of a Hybrid Memory cube with stacked DRAM:

<http://blogs.intel.com/research/2011/09/15/hmc/>

</comment><comment><USER16> How much of the memory latency is in the connection between the CPU and the RAM, and how much is inside the RAM itself?</comment>


Open Library - <AUTHOR> http://openlibrary.org/ <comment><USER2> This is a terrible letdown. I know it's a beta but the search functionality is terrible and there is no way to browse in any intuitive way</comment>


Why I Believe Climate Change Is Not the End of the World - <AUTHOR> https://quillette.com/2020/07/08/why-i-believe-climate-change-is-not-the-end-of-the-world/ <comment><USER2> TL;DR:

Some people are making claims that "the world is going to end in twelve years" or something, but it isn't. Lots of stuff about the author's experiences traveling in the Congo even though most of it isn't that relevant to the questions of climate or its effects. We've got other problems the author cares more about than the climate. Human ability to adapt might surpass the effects of the change. A couple of weird and IMO not very good arguments about volcanoes and asteroids being threats to humanity, and of course the coronavirus epidemic which apparently somehow means we should care less about climate change. People are getting depressed and anxious about climate change, so according to the author, we should worry about it less.

\--

Sorry, but I don't think the article really makes good arguments. Taking someone's claim that the world is ending in twelve years (or something similar), making the obvious observation that that's not true, and thus implying that climate "alarmism" is wrong is pretty much a strawman argument.

Pointing out that many natural disasters aren't necessarily a result of climate change (or at least it's hard to tell how much of a connection there is) is valid and potentially valuable. It would be better and easier to take as a non-motivated argument if the general tone of the piece weren't discounting the effects of climate change.

And yes, people in the Congo probably are worrying more about their immediate survival and coping than about climate, and factors other than climate change quite possibly have a greater effect on their lives. That doesn't stop climate change from being an issue; it just means that people whose daily life is mostly about survival have other issues that are even more critical to them.

The paragraph about other non-climate threats to humanity ("Consider the other threats humankind has recently been forced to cope with. ...") is somehow so absurd and irrelevant that I have no idea why someone putting the thought and effort into writing a lengthy article would include it.

Additionally, the article is entirely focused on humanity and doesn't touch on the effects of climate change on other animal life at all. That's a possible value choice to make, but effectively saying that us massively disrupting the ecosystem is fine because we ourselves will somehow be able to manage falls a bit short of a responsible philosophy in my books. The lack of any focus on other life would make it very difficult for me to agree with the article's thesis even if it successfully argued that it were in our best interest to not worry about the climate as much.

<comment><USER3> I just found my mostly typed-out comment from yesterday in a forgotten tab and figured that I might as well finish and submit it, but it looks like you already made a lot of the same points.

I'm left wondering if the 'article'/excerpt is just not that compelling or if I'm simply not in its target audience. In the latter scenario, what might characterize those who would find it convincing?

<comment><USER2> It's hard for me to tell exactly what makes me feel about it the way I do.

Maybe the message is actually benign but the amount of denialist crap that I've seen in the past makes me react to it strongly as something similar and untrustworthy. Maybe it's that many of the the arguments it presents aren't, at least when picked apart analytically one by one, that good [0]. Maybe it's that parts of it feel more like rhetoric than actual arguments, and rhetoric always makes me a little uneasy.

Your other comment treats the excerpt somewhat more generously than my perhaps cynical gut reaction was, probably for the better.

[0] in the form they are presented in the excerpt; it's a good point that it's not originally a full standalone article

<comment><USER3> I was trying to be as even-handed as possible, but I'm not sure the cynical reaction isn't the right one. The reliance on rhetoric, as you point out, seems unnecessary for a topic that should be dealt with through relatively uncontroversial facts and figures. Whatever the case, the 'article' left a weird taste in my mouth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is an excerpt from Michael Shellenberger's latest book, which I haven't read and can't assess based on the linked content alone.

As for that content...

Shellenberger's central claim rings true - no, we're not all going to spontaneously combust (or something) in 2030 if we haven't met emissions reduction goals by that time. Taken at face value, though, it seems like any obvious, even unnecessary point - who actually thinks the world will end in a decade? He cites AOC (the US politician) being recorded as saying, _" The world is going to end in twelve years if we don't address climate change"_ and the existence of Extinction Rebellion movement as proof that some people really do believe the apocalypse is nigh. The problems with this argument are that:

      * a.) AOC is a politician who employed hyperbole for the sake of political rhetoric; she doesn't actually think the world is 'ending.'

      * b.) Notwithstanding the anecdote, featuring an Extinction Rebellion member, included in the article, the Extinction Rebellion (so named in response to the so-called sixth mass extinction (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction)) doesn't exist because its members think they will be dead in ten years.

Although he didn't exactly extend the same level of good faith to those mentioned above, I'll assume that Shellenberger's goal in writing this 'article' was to reduce the anxiety of those harboring excessive fears regarding climate change (rather than to 'prove' an obvious fact that nearly everyone already believes). I'll also assume that his target audience is the broader climate movement, rather than climate deniers looking for any 'evidence' they can use to bolster their position.

Along those lines, he makes _some reasonable points:

      * Those living in wealthy, stable nations have less to fear from climate change than the less fortunate

      * Increased levels of population and development make present-day natural disasters more costly than past disasters, regardless of any changes in the frequency or intensity of natural disasters (he denies any such changes, FWIW)

      * The global poor are more concerned with just getting by than the long-term implications of climate change (he uses the example of Bernadette, a Congolese subsistence farmer, to make this point)

_The article also includes _some errors, omissions, or irrelevant claims that weaken his argument (IMHO):

      * Despite the fact that climate dynamics are nonlinear, he implies that current impacts (or lack thereof) show that projections of future impacts are exaggerated (here he's contradicted by the same IPCC reports he cites throughout the piece)

      * He seems to claim, without context or justification, that economic growth is *the* solution to Bernadette's problems, but fails to elaborate in any way (Why hasn't the status quo produced an outcome where she has economic stability, what in the DRC does he expect to change, how does economic growth relate to climate change and/or the environment, could the earth support 8 billion people with American levels of consumption, why is he pushing economic growth in an article about the climate (non)apocalypse?)

      * He appears to view climate change as if it exists in a vacuum, not as one component of a complex system that's linked to other complex systems (while many people concerned with climate change are also concerned with related environmental issues such as biodiversity loss, resource depletion, pollution, water scarcity, etc., the article only seems to address the increase in global temperature due to the buildup of greenhouse gases)

_Overall, I would agree with the article's, perhaps superficial, message that (some) people should be less anxious about climate change, but found this book excerpt otherwise unconvincing. It's mix of anecdotes, cherry-picked data- sources, and - when convenient - inconsistent nods to the scientific consensus. Perhaps this shouldn't be surprising - it's essentially an opinion piece, not a lit. review, but I'd like to expect more of supposedly science- based nonfiction. This excerpt felt a bit like a vessel for (at least what I assume is) the author's ideological prejudices, as opposed to a dispassionate look at a specific topic. Distilled down to its most basic claims, it seems to be advocating reduced concern for the climate (and environment, by extension - I guess?) and an increased focus on economic growth. One can certainly make arguments for those priorities, but this excerpt really didn't do that. It just threw them into the mix after making a completely different argument. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, or perhaps the full book would address some of these deficiencies, but I'm not left with the impression that taking the effort to find out would be worthwhile.</comment>


Ask HN: Modern medical/elderly alert services? - <AUTHOR> Is anyone working on a new and improved medical alert system for older folks in the US? What's out there now seems expensive for what the services are. And the services feel a little used car salesman-like.
I live in a rural area and so relying on a mobile phone is not necessarily the best option AND landlines are common here.
Thoughts? Suggestions?
Thanks! <comment><USER2> My understanding is that the alert services run on cellular networks anyway.

It sounds like you'd need something that either connects either to wifi or the landline. It would also have to be small enough to be carried by the elderly person all the time, as well as have great battery life.

Does that sound right?

For some elderly people, voice-activated home assistants throughout the house might be a good option. There are no concerns about connectivity, batteries, or remembering to carry them around.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not sure about services running on cellular versus landlines these days. I would prefer a landline connection but cellular would be acceptable.

A wearable is important since fall detection is necessary.

My main frustration is that you have to be aware that change has happened in this space to find non-traditional medical alert companies. Unfortunately, internet searches do not always include some of the newer solutions. Not sure if this is a marketing problem with the new kids on the block or what.

Thanks for your help!

<comment><USER3> Would 911 access meet your needs?

In the US, my understanding is cell phones will connect with 911 so long as there is signal. No contract required. A (used?) flip phone would be cheap, have long battery life and work many places (but not in the shower). One without a password and with 911 on speed dial would be about as simple as any other wearable. On eBay, flip phones from reputable sellers are abundant. Good luck.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What Is the Equivalent of These API and Protocols for Non-Browsers? - <AUTHOR> In web browsers we can do:
XHR Polling
XHR Long Polling / Comet / Hanging Http
XHR Stream / Stream API
Server Side Events
Web Sockets
What is the equivalence of those things above for non-browsers? Also, how would you do real-time in non-browsers?
I'm trying to see options to send updates to clients that are not using a web browser. I know SNS and GCM are good options for non real-time updates.
Any suggested resource with working directly with TCP? <comment><USER2> Non-browser alternatives for all the things listed above websocket: some application-layer protocol running on top of TCP.

Non-browser alternatives for websocket: TCP

Specifically, you're looking for messaging protocols like AMQP, MQTT, XMPP, STOMP, or even HTTP because there are other HTTP clients than just the ones inside browsers. All these protocols describe some aspects of framing and semantics, and predictably, you need both a protocol-client and a protocol- server to run them.

Stuff like SNS and GCM is Messaging-as-a-Service, where they host the server, and give you a client to integrate into your code.

<comment><AUTHOR> Brilliant, thanks for this! I'll go check them out.

<comment><USER2> I should expand my point by saying that all the XHR stuff and Server-Sent Events are simultaneously Javascript APIs exposed in the browser's script context, but also techniques/"protocols" that an HTTP client can implement by adhering to a specific behavior.

For example, any HTTP client can receive server-sent events in the wire-level HTTP sense, like curl [1], which will just print all data being streamed to it until you abort; but it doesn't provide an API equivalent to the onMessage semantics like you get in the browser. To understand the distinction, see this github issue about adding "support" for Server-Side Events for another HTTP client here [2]. If your HTTP client library of choice doesn't provide the semantics you want, you may be able to build them in yourself.

[1] [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/31238626/](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/31238626/)

[2] [https://github.com/square/retrofit/issues/1029](https://github.com/square/retrofit/issues/1029)</comment></comment></comment>


Spreading Hayek, Spurning Keynes - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052748703418004575455911922562120-lMyQjAxMTAwMDIwNzEyNDcyWj.html <comment><USER2> Here are my observations as a layman:

1) The economy is really, really complex, to the point that people who study professionally are about as good at predictions as a dartboard. 2) Therefore, monkeying with it means pulling levers on a machine you don't understand. 3) While pulling those levers (via stimulus, bailouts, etc) may or may not help, it DEFINITELY costs lots of money.

My conclusion: as much as possible, leave it alone.

Exceptions: "referee" kinds of issues - no stealing from your customers; banks can't have a bunch of CDO debts off the books, etc. Then let the market work it out.

House prices falling? Well I guess we built too many houses. Sucks for the people that are trying to sell, but it's awesome for the people trying to buy. Leave it alone and it will work itself out. Propping up the market just wastes money and delays the inevitable day of reckoning.

<comment><USER3> I tend to take this approach with medicine too - the human body's a pretty complex machine.

<comment><USER4> Anatomy, physiology and pharmacy are susceptible to investigation via the scientific method. The economy is not.

Furthermore, the layman had best not mess with his own treatment in many cases: "Give me antibiotics, they worked last time I was sick!"

<comment><USER5> _Anatomy, physiology and pharmacy are susceptible to investigation via the scientific method. The economy is not._

Tell that to Esther Duflo, the only rational economist. Unlike just about the entirety of the rest of her field, she actually conducts controlled experiments and gathers _data_ , rather than arguing from a priori assumptions.

<comment><USER4> Really? She conducts _controlled_ experiments on economies? Gives stimulus money to one city and simultaneously does not give money to an identical city in the same economic climate, something like that?

<comment><USER5> Basically, yes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Austrian economics always struck me as kind of hand wavy. I never made it more than 1/3 of the way through the Wikipedia article on it before realizing I didn't know what it was talking about.

Does Austrian economics make an testable predictions? Is it based on empirical data? Does it have models? It seems more like a statement of beliefs to me.

What am I missing?

<comment><USER7> [http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2009/05/03/austria...](http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2009/05/03/austrian- business-cycle-theory/)

Also,

[http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/04...](http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/04/krugman- on-austrian-business-cycle-theory.html)

And, this is the most readable, but keep in mind that it's written by a Keynesian:

<http://www.slate.com/id/9593>

Austrian economics, at its core, is based on praxeology and mostly rejects models, math and science.

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

<comment><USER8> Praxeology doesn't reject models or science at all. It rejects reductionism - the claim is that you can't predict human behavior in a complex system based on observations of human behavior in simplified systems.

Praxeology simply claims that you can't predict the economy based on experiments where you stick 30 college students into some iterated prisoner's dilemma scenario.

Austrians strongly favor models, math and science. They just want robust models which are not sensitive to parameters, and econometrics of revealed preferences rather than highly controlled experiments.

<comment><USER9> I'm a big fan of Austrians (I'm a complete Hayek groupie). But I don't think this is quite correct. It seems to me that Austrians really do stay away from _mathematical_ models, at least. But they do have very strong _logical_ models. The praxeology you refer to is really rooted in inductive logical reasoning.

The difficulty is that these logical arguments depend on the rationality of the actors in the economy. And while Mises acknowledges that the _real_ reasons for a person's actions may not even be known to one's self, more recent experimentation seems to show that at least in some situations, people really do not behave rationally.

Anyway, if you're concerned about a lack of _mathematical_ rigor, but are interested in Austrian ideas, you should look at the Chicago school, with luminaries such as Milton Friedman. The Chicagoans started from Austrian roots, but if anything, their attitude toward mathematical models is the opposite of the Austrians: they virtually invented much of the mathematical techniques that are employed by modern economists.

<comment><USER8> I think we disagree only on definitions. I'm treating Chicago as a subset (the majority, from what I've seen) of Austrians, you seem to be treating them as a separate group.

I'm also not sure what you mean when you distinguish logical from mathematical models. Could you explain?

<comment><USER10> Chicago and Austrian schools are separate groups, despite both being on the side of less government intervention. They have different philosophical/methodological roots, and have different histories of their interaction with government.

<comment><USER8> I stand corrected.

<comment><USER11> I think monetary policy is the primary axis upon which these two schools are separated. Chicago is under sway Keynes when it comets minatory policy-- but note this is not the same as keynsianism which is a modern political theory that ignores the repercussions of easement that Keynes warned about.

Austrians are pretty much hard money. There are some interesting comments made by rothbards and Friedman about each other ot illustrate the split.

The schools reach similar conclusions on a number of issues, though.

You already accepted they are separate, I'm just trying to add flavor here, not win a point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> 'Peter J. Boettke, shuffling around in a maroon velour track suit or faux- leather rubber shoes he calls "dress Crocs," hardly seems like the type to lead a revolution.'

The Austrian school is not new. Why does Boettke have to be leading a 'revolution' to justify the article? It should be enough to be interesting. Or even just right.

<comment><USER13> Agree that the Austrian school is not new. The revolution is that it had been out of favor at most US academic institutions, and he's been trying to bring it back. It's a bit of a story that goes along with people beginning to question the standard story line of the great depression, bias in academia, and failures of purely quantitative approaches. Of course, the whole concept of behavioral econ is a bit of a paradigm shift as well, and the intersection of the "imperfectly rational" actor with business cycle theory is quite useful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> So, you're either Keynesian or Austrian? Doesn't that simplify a bit too much or is current economic science really that easy to put into different camps?

Other than that, debates about that issue always remind me of debates about food. Some people seem to have simple models, but can't explain a lot. Some people (Pollan et al.) say that it's too complicated anyway, so here's my personal wisdom. And while some people in white labcoats might know a bit more, people just listen to those selling the hamburgers or the organic tofu.

</comment><comment><USER15> I find economics, more than almost any other topic of discussion amongst techies, elicits an incredibly strong Dunning-Krueger effect. Mention economics, particularly something like Austrian economics which doesn't have complex mathematical models, and all of the sudden everybody is an expert.

I don't pretend to understand the vagaries, and I tend to read Paul Krugman columns, but the vehemence in which people who are completely unqualified in the field will attack expert opinions is stunning to me.

<comment><USER11> The error is to assume that krugman is an expert and that people who disagree with him are unqualified.

This is because much of what passes for economics is rationalizations given with a political purpose, and the primary propagandist in that effort is krugman. Remember. This is the guy who advocated that we should have a housing bubble, the denied we were in one, etc.

He is, to be sincere, and embarrassment to the science of economics.... But he is the government designated esparto and so there are millions of people who believe his nonsense because they don't know better and trust the experts.

Actually, the science of economics isn't that hard, nor is it complicated enough to need ot listen to an expert. You can teach yourself. Economics in one lesson is the tittle of a book that im sure you will find enlightening.... And it was written by an expert.

<comment><USER15> This is exactly what I'm talking about. I only mentioned Krugman because he's often vilified by the same people who get wound up in economics threads.

People on the Keynes side of the equation also get wound up over mentions of Chicago School stuff.

That said, it is weird that you're saying Krugman is some sort of government designated expert when almost every column he writes is critical of the economic policies being made in Washington. He disagreed with the size of the stimulus (he wanted it to be larger), he thinks the Fed has its head in the sand, etc. . . .

And as far as Paul Krugman being an expert, I find it very strange that you would disagree with that. You might disagree with his policy positions but he is most definitely an expert in the field.

Notice I never made any judgements about policy itself. My remark was that people who are not qualified in economics dismiss people who are right out of hand: Krugman is just a good example because he really seems to rile up libertarians and Austrians.

Personally my favourite opposing viewpoints to Krugman are made by Tyler Cowan, I like to read them both. Anyway, it's not my objective to get into a policy discussion, I was interested more in the meta-observation which you so handily provided reinforcement for.

<comment><USER16> Economics, especially macroeconomics, is a little too big to say which such certainty that " _... he is most definitely an expert in the field._ "

We're talking about the problem of recovering from a leverage based bubble, an area where Ben "Helicopter" Bernanke (Chairman of The Fed) is an expert. If you look at what Wikipedia cites for Krugman's areas of specialty, they will touch on some of the issues of this but they don't seem to be directly related: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Krugman>

<comment><USER15> Expert; meaning he's studied macro economics, holds a PHD, teaches at Princeton, and is widely regarded as such, I'm aware his specialty is currency crises but it's not exactly like that's the only thing he knows.

That doesn't mean he's right (any or) all the time but it does mean that his opinions, even when wrong usually have a strong basis in established research. I'm using it in the same way that I'd say Bernanke, Paulson, Tyler Cowan, Greg Mankiw, etc. . . are experts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Does anyone else think that the surge in sales of the Road to Serfdom stemmed from the viral youtube rap battle? <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0nERTFo- Sk>

<comment><USER16> Depends on how you score it. A big (% wise, bigger than that of _Atlas Shrugged_ ) sales increase preceded the video, e.g.: [http://www.cato-at- liberty.org/soaring-sales-for-road-to-ser...](http://www.cato-at- liberty.org/soaring-sales-for-road-to-serfdom/) suggests by about a year.

On the other hand, hitting #1 on Amazon in the middle of this year...: [http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/hayeks-road-to- serfdom-1-on-a...](http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/hayeks-road-to-serfdom-1-on- amazon/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> _"What I'm really worried about is an endless cycle of deficits, debt, and debasement of currency," Mr. Boettke says. "What we've done is engage in a set of policies that's turned a market correction into an economy-wide crisis."_

Which is what a lot of people believed made the 1930s depression Great: first Hoover (an engineer) and then FDR engaged in massive and unprecedented intervention in the economy (pre-Keynes-ian, seeing as how his major work presenting his theories on the subject was published in 1936). (Which is not to say that recovering from over-leveraging is ever easy.)

Those didn't exactly take the shape of the above (from memory, aside from FDR seizing the nation's gold at the traditional $20/oz price and the repricing it at $35/oz), but certainly we're entitled to question a "stimulus" bill that cost more than the Iraq war ([http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/08/does_barely_true_mean...](http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/08/does_barely_true_mean_true.html)) that doesn't even look it will accomplish the traditional (e.g. FDR) goal of it winning elections for the party in power.

<comment><USER18> Except Hoover didn't engage in either a massive or unprecedented spending. All his public pronouncements and actions show that he was concerned with keeping the budget close to balanced over stimulus, whereas FDR was the opposite.

EDIT: Here you go: <http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/year1929_0.html#usgs302>

Total federal spending went from 3.8 to 4.3 billion under Hoover over the 4 years from 1929,1930,1931,1932. Hopped to 5.1 billion in FDR's first budget. 15% is "increased spending", 3% is really not, in the context of rolling over a large institution, it's basically holding even or cutting a little.

Far lower rate of increase under Hoover than under, say, Reagan. Hoover also lobbied for a big tax increase in 1931 to "balance the budget", and typically in economic contractions the states and municipalities cut spending, because they have to run balanced budgets by law most of the time.

Also, the recent stimulus bill was over 1/3 tax cuts -- so it's not really like like they're spending more than the Iraq war. More fun with statistics.

<comment><USER16> " _Except Hoover didn't engage in either a massive or unprecedented spending_ "

Then I guess it's fortunate I said "massive and unprecedented _intervention_ in the economy".

As for "tax cuts", in Washington that's scored as spending, e.g. you can't in theory cut a tax (rate, of course D.C. ignores dynamic scoring) without making up for it elsewhere. When you apply the "money is fungible" rule and you're running an annual deficit, it comes out the same, either requires the same amount of money to be borrowed to cover it.

Your last (now edited out) point is a bit off since the fight over interpretation of the Great Depression has been going on from the very beginning and looks to be without end. There was certainly a CW, after all the (political) victors write the history, but that doesn't mean it's The Truth.

I don't remember your including Reagan's budgeting in your first draft, so I'll just point out that he was fighting and winning an existential war, something that didn't burden Hoover.

<comment><USER18> Even on intervention, what'd he do, he held the federal budget pretty stable, he did the Smoot Hawley tarriffs which were large but I wouldn't call them "massive" or "unprecedented"..

What's the huge intervention? I see perhaps slightly more active than the typical President but, considering the massive and unprecedented circumstances, I don't see a whole ton of activity.

Regarding the never-ending debate on the topic of Hoover vs FDR, sure, although I'd say the victory was well-earned, and that documented statistics on government spending are a pretty solid fact.

<comment><USER16> The two big ones I'm somewhat familiar with are:

"Jawboning": convincing companies to not decrease wages in the face of deflation, so they just went bankrupt instead. (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Hoover#Great_Depression>, first paragraph.)

And then there's the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstruction_Finance_Corporat...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstruction_Finance_Corporation)

There's lots more although many not as consequential _and_ unprecedented (i.e. excluding Smoot-Hawley and the massive tax rate increase), as a quick read of the first link will indicate.

<comment><USER18> Fair points, I could nitpick at those too but I can see where you're coming from. I guess I just see his actions as more "reactive" rather than "intervention". If the economy's falling apart, and the government's intertwined with it, then you're going to see some increased activity from the government.. I tend to differentiate between whether the person's running around sticking their thumb in various holes in the dike (Hoover) or rebuilding the whole dike (FDR).

Subjective measurement, though, so YMMV.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Great profile of a weak academic spreading his economic religion.</comment>


Show HN: Rap Connects – Find every rap collaboration - <AUTHOR> http://www.rapconnects.com

<comment><USER2> This is awesome! Definitely will be able to utilize this to find new songs. Sadly, not every song between 2 artists shows up.

<comment><AUTHOR> OP here, thanks! Which 2 artists are missing songs?

<comment><USER2> You're welcome. An example is: I searched Eminem, clicked on Royce da 5'9" and the only song that came up was Bad Meets Evil even though they have done an entire album together. Same goes with D12. There's only 3 songs, but they've done 2 albums worth of songs together.</comment></comment></comment>


MLB SHould Replace the Ballpark App with a PWA - <AUTHOR> https://love2dev.com/pwa/mlb-ballpark-tickets/ <comment><USER2>
      There are 32 teams, which means no more than 16 games in a day.

No, MLB has 30 teams. There are numerous other factual errors (no, some teams don't even sell out Opening Day), but the broader problem with the Ballpark app is _friction._ Installing the app (even when it works, which is sporadic) means giving them your location at all times (it force loads at phone startup), all SD card access, and even your Google configuration.

MLB attendance is in a tailspin as it is... yet they throw this at fans without adequate instruction or warning. Some teams don't even issue physical tickets to season ticket holders! Result: tickets become much harder to resell, season ticket holders abandon their seats, that revenue certainty vanishes while attendance continues its death spiral.

Why endure all that friction when you can go watch at the bar or sit at home for free, bantering with fellow fans on the subreddit?

Teams have lost all context. None thinks to compare back to 12+ years ago, before the abysmal StubHub deal, when buildings were Fuller despite the recession.</comment>


Releasing my book "Hacking the Xbox" as a free PDF in honor of Aaron Swartz - <AUTHOR> http://nostarch.com/xboxfree <comment><USER2> For those who don't know, Bunnie is an absolute rockstar in the hacking/reverse engineering space. His detailed research and clear explanations are an inspiration. If you'd like a quick idea of what you're getting into, read this: <http://web.mit.edu/bunnie/www/proj/anatak/AIM-2002-008.pdf>

And thank you Bill Pollock! No Starch Press is a revelation in the tech publishing space. The books they choose to publish have always been clear and useful. A friend was showing me a book he just bought this weekend and I saw the logo on the cover. He did look at me strangely when I said - "No Starch, must be great!" :).

<comment><USER3> Learn you a Haskell and Land of Lisp will always remain amongst my favorite books!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Love your book! I already own the dead tree copy. Any idea about how hard/costly it would be to sniff the PS3's XDR bus? Even better if you can modify just one 4-byte write. Before the lv0ldr keys were released publicly, it was thought that a well funded piracy group had figured out a way to dump XDR RAM because they could only resign games for lower firmwares, they couldn't patch out key checks in new firmwares (no lv0ldr private key).

At one point in time I was trying to figure out how to use the XDR bus calibration routines to write arbitrary memory at startup through the Cell BE's SPI configuration ring. Fun times!

While having fun with the PS3, I got a DMCA takedown notice for an "anti- circumvention tool" that decrypted and reencrypted a sort of "sandbox profile" for the PS3's OS. I hadn't even interpreted the data yet! That scared the crap out of me, especially since Sony went after a German PS3 hacker to the tune of €750,000. [0] I have no idea how Aaron felt with a federal prosecutor after him. =(

[0]: <http://geohotgotsued.blogspot.com/2011/02/grafchokolo.html>

</comment><comment><USER5> bunnie's book launched a revolution in hardware hacking. I hope it will continue to be the start of many more.

Aaron's death cannot and must not be forgotten. Support the people and organizations who work for our freedoms and keep the fires burning, always.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>--- Bill Pollock, Founder No Starch Press

</comment><comment><USER6> Slightly offtopic, but THANK YOU BUNNIE for being an all around awesome person. Not just this one thing, but your blog and all the cool stuff you've done in the past. It's an honour to be on the same planet as you. Welcome to HN.

</comment><comment><USER7> From the book:

> This is a book about hacking in the traditional sense: about the process and > methods of exploration.

Probably HN is the most appropriate forum to post this. Thank you bunnie for making this excellent work available to all!

</comment><comment><USER8> There are times I wish there was an option to use some of my karma points to upvote a submission further. This would be one of those times. This is the kind of thing I come to HN looking for that I'm unlikely to find other places.

</comment><comment><USER9> Someone please edit the title: it is "Swartz", not "Schwartz".

<comment><AUTHOR> oops! good catch.

<comment><USER10> Thank you for the book. You are an inspiration to us at <http://sascase.com/projects.html/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> By the way, what happened to MIT's probe into their handling of Aaron's case? They said it would take a few weeks but it's been almost 2 months now.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm not very experienced with circuits in the slightest bit. EE 101 is about the extent of my experience so I was expecting this to be way over my head...Man, was I wrong. You did an amazing job with this, I'm blown away that you can make such a complex subject easy to understand.

</comment><comment><USER13> Hey Bunnie, you are by far the best in inspiring me to be Computer Engineer. I started hacking the first Xbox and couldn't believe that was because of you. I am actually really interested in your open laptop idea. I am hoping to work on my own laptop.

</comment><comment><USER14> I bought your book way back when Borders was still a solid company and devoured it. As an impressionable young teen, "Hacking the Xbox" inspired me as much as 2600 ever did. Looks like it's time to re-read it, again.

Thanks for everything you've done, not least of which is serving as a powerful role model! We may have lost one of our own, but your leadership by example shows we can become stronger for it.

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm not a hacker, but took a peek out of curiosity and was "disappointed" to see that this is (apparently) about the first Xbox and not the 360.

<comment><USER16> Don't let that stop you - This book is far more about _thinking_ about how to hack than it is about actually hacking the XBox. The lessons learned here apply far wider than Microsoft's game machine and console hacking in general. I bought this in dead-tree form many years ago and it's one of the few tech books that's managed to survive the several "great purges" since then.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm halfway through this book, and just wanted to stop by to say it's a very good read! Thank you for releasing it for free.

</comment><comment><USER18> Is the book available somewhere in epub/mobi format? Seems like even if you pay for it you get only a PDF?

</comment><comment><USER19> Do you have a way to send donations?

</comment><comment><USER20> Welp. I almost purchased this book last week in addition to the IDA book, but decided to purchase one at a time. I hope the EFF enjoys my money; you forced my hand.

</comment><comment><USER21> Good for you. It's content that you wrote and you, as the author and copyright holder, made a decision to release it for free.

That's not exactly what Aaron Swartz stood for, though.

<comment><USER12> I noticed that Bunnie attended MIT, maybe he was a friend of Aaron.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I don't use Xbox. However, I appreciate your generosity.

<comment><USER23> The book illustrates the different techniques bunnie used to hack the xbox. Great read if you're into hardware hacking. Many of the techniques can be applied to other systems. No Xbox required!

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Can someone provide a mirror for the pdf file please ? I can't download it. Seems too much load on the server.

<comment><USER5> I'll check in with bunnie to see how he'd like to handle.

Bill

<comment><USER5> I'm posting new links to our site now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> First thank you for making your work available for free. Looks like very interesting to read. And second, you can't exepect anything else from a capitalist economy Justice system. (Almost?) all life aspects in a capitalist economy suffer from this "self-agrandishment" (also known since inmemorial times as "greed") illness. It's the basic concept of capitalism, so nothing new actually.

<comment><USER26> If political/economical views are reduced to its basic concepts, then communism is about sharing and socialism is about the state caring about its citizens. Capitalism isn't about greed either, but about individual freedom.

But that might be a bit too reductionist (let Stalin spread the love).

IMHO this is not about "capitalism". It's about "human greediness". Homo hominis lupus.

<comment><USER27> I think you mean "homini" (dative), not "hominis" (genitive).

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_homini_lupus>

<comment><USER26> Yep, I should probably refresh my Latin skills :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Thanks a lot bunnie!

</comment><comment><USER29> The author is inspired by the show Suits!</comment>


Experienced Users View Reddit Differently - <AUTHOR> http://www.gazehawk.com/blog/experienced-users-view-reddit-differently/

<comment><USER2> Using a rainbow spectrum for heatmaps is bad design. Blocks of color become visual categories rather than quantities.

The only good use for them I can think of is if the graph is on a log-scale and the changes in color represent orders of magnitude difference. For a simple heatmap though it'd be much better to just have a smooth gradient between two colors.

Sorry to nit, the article was interesting. That's just a peeve of mine.

<comment><USER3> Your comment reminded me of this excellent article from an IBM researcher:

"Why Should Engineers and Scientists Be Worried About Color?" <http://www.research.ibm.com/people/l/lloydt/color/color.HTM>

Some very excellent examples of how using a different set of colors in your heatmap has a huge impact on how it's perceived.

<comment><USER4> GazeHawk intern here. These are really good points. We're aware that heatmaps can be problematic and we think about tweaking the way we build them quite a bit. Maybe in a few blog posts time you'll notice that we're using a different-looking visualization. I've put that IBM study into our "food for thought" reading list.

<comment><USER5> You should, because I was wondering why experienced redditors seemed to be fixated on blank space according to this image: [http://www.gazehawk.com/blog/wp- content/uploads/2011/07/redd...](http://www.gazehawk.com/blog/wp- content/uploads/2011/07/reddit-noobs-vs-pros-thumb.png)

...The two red hot-spots to the right and further down the page.

Is it an emergent distortion because of the heat map? Is it an aggregate spot between the link above and the link below that ends up being significant? Do experienced redditors rest their eyes on blank patches of the page??

<comment><USER4> It's the heatmap. The threshold between red and white in the heatmap appears to be more meaningful than it actually is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Additionally, the veteran users scope out the source domain of each link as a quick indicator of the type of content, whereas the other users rely more heavily on the headline.

<comment><USER7> More specifically the check if it's an imgur.com link

As they are images, always available, quickly loaded, imgur links kind of optimise the thrill/time factor

<comment><USER8> For super-optimal Reddit viewing speed, use the HoverZoom Chrome extension: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/nonjdcjchghhkdooln...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/nonjdcjchghhkdoolnlbekcfllmednbl)

Then you don't even have to click the link to see cat pictures, you just hover and move on when it's not very funny.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "...we can easily demonstrate that reading reddit is a skill that develops and changes over time..."

Actually, you've failed to demonstrate that. A better test would be to record first time visitors and then come back after they've become long time users and record again. That way, you could rule out the mitigating factor that you mentioned earlier in the article:

"...indicating that either only certain types of people become redditors, or that the veterans' reading patterns had changed..."

</comment><comment><USER10> As a veteran redditor (6 years now), I wouldn't even be looking at that frontpage without logging into my account where I'm unsubscribed from all the default subreddits.

<comment><USER11> Same here. The heatmap for the pro users should be all on the "sign in" box.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> _Veteran redditors barely paid any attention to the "welcome to reddit" header, whereas the new users stared at it for a long time_

I'm really not impressed with this conclusion.

</comment><comment><USER13> From other things deriving I would guess, that veteran users become more efficient, looking for what they really care about instead of letting their eyes and brain parse every letter. It's the same for me here on HN. I don't care about 90% of the content, even from the front page. So I don't even read it just scroll until my eyes find words they consider interesting. But I spend more time researching other sources to an interesting topic and actually spent some meaningful time writing meaningful comments (or at least try to).

 _edit_ I even end up more often these days using the browser search function to not need to read every entry.

</comment><comment><USER14> The problem with heatmaps like this is that they don't actually give any information to what is the cause of the changed attention. Has the attention span become shorter, has the knowledge of where the better posts are and how to identify them become internal or is regular visitor to reddit simply not interested in too many stories because they know they come back in a few minutes?

Only with some causal correlation between user behaviour and your site you can change your site to adapt to your users. I really would like to see more research on this.

</comment><comment><USER15> Wouldn't veteran users, in many cases, have already looked at the front page? They check the top 2-3 articles to see if anything is new and then can skim/see the thumbnail for any link below the top few. I feel like this would make a big impact as the first time I look at the frontpage in the morning I read it differently than later in the day.

</comment><comment><USER16> I wonder why the concentration right at the bottom-right of the page (which contains site links and FAQ) is present for experienced users but absent for others.

<comment><USER17> Personally, I look at it quite often while I'm waiting for RES¹ to load a new page of content. But I assume RES wasn't used in this test.

¹ Reddit Enhancement Suite (<http://reddit.honestbleeps.com/>)

<comment><USER5> Agreed... the RES 'loading next page' cog icon is directly above the 'reddit tools' footer in my setup, and I'm guessing it's above the 'help' for people with smaller monitors, and above the 'about us' for those with larger monitors.

I'm finding this fascinating.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Would you folks consider reviewing the assertions made by uxmovement.com sometime?

<comment><USER4> What assertions in particular did you have in mind?

<comment><USER18> He typically says X is faster than Y with a visual workflow. It'd be interesting to test that with GazeHawk.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> How do they track where the users are looking?

<comment><USER20> GazeHawk is a YC startup that does eye tracking using webcams. More about it here: <http://www.gazehawk.com/>

Presumably they got a bunch of people who were willing to participate in the study, then showed them the same screenshot of Reddit and tracked their eyes using their technology.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Are you still using a feed reader? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Yes. Inoreader. Tried Feedly, but at that time Inoreader seemed to have most of the features I needed + it was really multi-platforms.

I wanted to self-host, but the time committment required for maintenance (not of the service, but with other services already running on the VPS) made me choose Inoreader.

Every now and then I look around to see if there's a new player in the feed reading game, but often stick with Ino.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting. Are you looking around just to see what's out there, or are there things you don't like about Inoreader?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Yes. Self hosting tt-rss[1] and using it for close to an year now. No problem what so ever; It's so low maintenance that I would've quite possibly forgotten about it if I wasn't reading the feeds everyday. Before this I was using elfeed[2] which is a great piece of software, but I read things across various devices and elfeed had some issues with that (after all it's supposed to run inside emacs).

For podcasts (since these are also technically feeds) I use AntennaPod[3] on my Android phone, but don't use it too often because of all the time commitment required with podcasts.

[1]: [https://tt-rss.org/](https://tt-rss.org/) [2]: [https://github.com/skeeto/elfeed](https://github.com/skeeto/elfeed) [3]: [https://antennapod.org/](https://antennapod.org/)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's cool. Why did you decide to use something self-hosted instead of a service like feedly?

<comment><USER3> I think it's mostly about drinking too much Kool-Aid of owning my data.

But probably because ttrss's pretty nice with quite a few plugins, so I can mold it based on what interests me. For example, I am also self hosting wallabag, and there's a single key shortcut to export the stuff from ttrss over to wallabag. Then there's a plugin to pull the data from the source websites and change it using XPaths. I use that to pull down the entire content instead of a single paragraph summaries, and to pull down the actual comics that I'm reading instead of the descriptions that are being sent to the readers. (As an aside, I donate/fund the makers in whatever capacity I have so that it compensates with me not getting their ads).

Did you know that even Youtube, HN & Reddit host their updates via RSS feeds? I have Youtube feeds for some of the channels that I find interesting, so that I can watch the stuff whenever it becomes available. For some low volume subreddits, you can use that as well.

With elfeed running in Emacs, I had bound a single key to download the youtube video via youtube-dl into my archive folder. I miss that stuff with ttrss, but I guess there would be some plugin somewhere to do that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh, awesome, I didn't realize youtube still let you subscribe to an rss feed.

When I've self-hosted I've found I occasionally have to do maintenance that I find annoying. Most recently, I had a nextcloud server I needed to move to a bigger hard drive, which was a huge pain.

Have you just not run into those kinds of hurdles, or is it worth it to own your own data?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yes. I normally don't access hn any other way. A feed reader is still the best way to handle information

<comment><AUTHOR> I was subscribed to HN for a while, but found it was a bit overwhelming. Do you just make a point to spend some time on it, or do you have a way of cutting through the noise?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Yep, I just figured out Feedbin after all these years lol. I was using something different before that.

<comment><AUTHOR> What do you like about Feedbin? I've never heard of that one.

<comment><USER5> I mostly like that it meets my design criterias for a web-based RSS reader. Other than that, the fact that it will let you subscribe to newsletters, and make a feed for each of them, is a cool feature.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I personally never used RSS and I think mostly because I always use Twitter.

<comment><AUTHOR> Huh, I think I'd feel like I'm missing out on too much that way. How do you handle that blog from a random friend who never got around to creating a Twitter account? I wish I could say that's a hypothetical in my case :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Yes. I use newsboat.

<comment><AUTHOR> What do you like about newsboat? This is another one I haven't heard of.</comment></comment>


Product Hunt for Mac - <AUTHOR> https://www.producthunt.com/apps/mac <comment><AUTHOR> From first glances it seems that this is a "proper" Mac app, rather than something that is essentially a Chrome web view packaged as an app.</comment>


Ask HN: I'm not sure where to ask this question. (SOLVED) - <AUTHOR>

(First an apology, this question adds little to the HN community, and am only asking it here as an almost last resort.)
I'm trying to find an article on Hacker News that I read recently about arguing tactics. It mentioned that when you argue with someone on a subject that they've based their life philosophy on, they are more likely to push back hard. But if you try some of your more weaker arguments on them, they are more likely to be receptive.
I've tried googling, scrolling through Hacker News and DuckDuckGo, (which is actually surprisingly good!). My next step is Ask Metafilter then set up a paid task on TaskRabbit.
As an aside, I wish Google had a multi-line search box and I could just throw "search clues" in until I find what I'm looking for -- it's annoying having to google, then perturb your keywords, re-google, perturb, re-google etc.
EDIT: big thankyou to _pius and arink <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6276171](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6276171)

By the way, you should see a search box on the bottom of every page on HN. I searched stories for "weaker" and it was among the first results.

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome. Brilliant, thanks. Completely missed the search box. If I could transfer a hundred or so karma to you, I would.

<comment><USER2> I've been there before ... glad I could help out. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Try hnsearch.com</comment>


Investigative Journalist Claims Her Public Tweets Aren't 'Publishable' - <AUTHOR> http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130203/18510621869/investigative-journalist-claims-her-public-tweets-arent-publishable-threatens-to-sue-blogger-who-does-exactly-that.shtml

<comment><AUTHOR> The journalist (Teri Buhl) has a response: [http://jimromenesko.com/2013/02/05/teri-buhl-responds-to- tec...](http://jimromenesko.com/2013/02/05/teri-buhl-responds-to-techdirts- post/)</comment>


DIR-610 exploit attack on a Honeypot - <AUTHOR> https://jsonsecurity.blogspot.com/2017/01/dir-610-exploit-attack-seen-on-honeypot.html <comment><USER2> This post is unclear... it assumes prior knowledge, here's an article that explains it a bit better:

[https://www.protectwise.com/blog/observing-large-scale- route...](https://www.protectwise.com/blog/observing-large-scale-router- exploit-attempts.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> The significance of the article is left unclear. Is this evidence of a new exploit targeting D-Link DIR-610? If so please report it to [https://cve.mitre.org/](https://cve.mitre.org/)</comment>


Adding Personality Back into UI Design - awwwards. [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_Qjhqeq8tU <comment><AUTHOR> For me the takeaway of this talk is that in our race of making UI design more and more consistent our websites and apps lost personality. This has gained us a lot (improved accessibility, cheaper, more performant), but during our path to optimize all UIs become so homogeneous that they lose personality.

It's a trade-off, however sometimes it might be better to be bold enough to explore and innovate to try to find something better than to stick with what is known to be working and copy whatever everyone else is doing.</comment>


Why We Learn More From Our Successes Than Our Failures - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090729121557.htm

<comment><AUTHOR> If this holds for the vast majority of people, that most people don't learn from their failures, then it should also hold that if you can learn from your own failures you will be able to get a nice head-start on life.

It would then also be good to reflect and make sure one learns from each of their failures instead of continuing on the worn and useless path.</comment>


A Cyber-Attack on an American City - <AUTHOR> http://perens.com/works/articles/MorganHill/

<comment><USER3> When I was a young hacker (I presume readers of _Hacker_ News will understand my meaning of this term), I had a reputation for finding out how to crash any system--a useful skill when building fault-tolerant real-time distributed systems.

The president of the software company I was at suggested that "no doubt _you_ could break into our new secure file system and down, but please don't." I told him that if I _really, really_ needed to bring down his fancy new server, I would go get the fire axe, break down the door, and kick the server over.

Everyone focuses on securing the bits, but no one worries about the wires. It's disturbing hearing about this kind of attack.

<comment><USER4> >Everyone focuses on securing the bits, but no one worries about the wires. It's disturbing hearing about this kind of attack.

There's a distinct difference between obtaining information and destroying it. While being an anarchist can be useful to some extent, getting 'inside' is far more useful to the thoughtful deviant.

That being said, still agree with your point. It's still frightening how much said anarchists can shake up the world.

<comment><USER5> Where do anarchists come into this? I hope you're not using that word as a synonym for "saboteur".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The extent of the infrastructure vulnerabilities that Perens talks about (not to mention the recent US power grid attacks) really highlights how unprepared civil government is in the face of dedicated attackers. Its all fine and dandy when your servers are the latest hardened SELinux, but when someone cuts your cables, you're really on the out. (You could try communicating via RFC 1149). I suspect that "disaster management" today really means wait for the military to come and take over...

<comment><USER7> +1 for RFC 1149 :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > The old Bell System used to arrange cables in a ring around a city, so that > a cut in any one location could be routed around. It's not clear how much > modern telephone companies have continued that practice.

I remember being fascinated in one otherwise boring computer networking class by the self-healing concept of SONET fiber optic networks. I didn't know it was pre-dated by copper wire.

On a piece of scrap paper, draw two concentric rings. Draw bridge points (a line bisecting both of the two rings) at ten or twelve points along the rings. Draw CW-direction arrows on the inner ring and CCW-direction on the outer. Simulate a cable cut by erasing part of the two rings. SONET will automatically heal itself by detecting the cut and bridging its traffic at the closest bridge point and going the opposite direction until it goes all the way around and hits the cable cut from the other direction (and auto-bridges and forms a new closed comm loop)

SONET would not have helped, as it is too expensive to be deployed outside a metro area (redundancy).

"Self-Healing Ring Architectures for SONET Network Applications" [http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~nd/surprise_96/journal/vol2/dm9/art...](http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~nd/surprise_96/journal/vol2/dm9/article2.html)

<comment><USER9> The modern solution to that is RSTP, or somtimes, similar proprietary protocols. It also works on arbitrary networks, not just ring topologies. We use RSTP for failover in tunnel control and emergency systems here in Norway, usually arranged into hierarchial ring-like structures.

<comment><USER8> Would RSTP have survived this situation (eight cables cut)? I think it was a single point of failure though (no other branches for the graph).

<comment><USER9> I was addressing the poster's point about SONET. Of course no recovery solution will survive if the graph is really split into parts.

In case of the tunnels there normally isn't a single point you can slash and bring down the whole system. The failover requirements, recovery times etc are dictated by national road authority and fire safety regulations.

<comment><USER9> The poster being you of course :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "Email from others in your office should continue to operate."

We use hosted Exchange where I currently work. Sounds good until you actually want to do anything useful. Today, I got in a battle with their support because I wanted to forward email from one email address to another -- which they wouldn't let me do because I wasn't an "administrator" of one of the domains from which I wanted to forward email, even though I am the network infrastructure manager for the entire company.

So, having this service out in the cloud turned what would have been a two minute job if I'd had a local Exchange server into a five-hour battle with tech support (which I eventually lost because I gave up). In my limited experience so far, cloud computing is ok until you actually need to do something useful.

</comment><comment><USER11> This story makes me want to go get my ham radio certification. I've taken the training courses but just not taken the test. I need to get on that.

</comment><comment><USER12> And the internet was supposed to route around damage...

One way to do this is to make wifi laptops and mobile phones into routers - <USER2> ad hoc network <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_ad-hoc_network>

So far, research in this is academic/hobbiest.</comment>