New Oculus Rift dev kit goes on sale for $350 today, likely ships in July - <AUTHOR> http://www.polygon.com/2014/3/19/5524336/new-oculus-rift-dev-kit-price-july <comment><USER2> I can't help but laugh with glee a little when watching the video at [http://www.oculusvr.com/dk2/](http://www.oculusvr.com/dk2/) , specifically at the part where John Carmack comes on.

I'm _still_ so excited that he joined Oculus VR. When I see him in a video like this, it's like a giant "100% Guaranteed" stamp that this whole thing is going to eventually be everything we could possibly hope for.

<comment><USER3> I had a similar reaction.

They say in the video that they brought together the "best developers in the industry" which sounds like generic marketing embellishment until they cut to Carmack. Hard to argue that statement at that point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A (likely terrible) idea that just occurred to me-

How cool would it be to use a VR headset to help you navigate a vehicle? Yes, I mean to say wearing this while driving essentially.

Given a fast/good enough sensor/input system, you could scan your environment, know the dimensions of your vehicle (I'm mainly thinking boats and huge trucks here) and be able to "see through" massive blind spots on your vehicle to enable for tighter maneuvering.

Imagine a boat. Sometimes with a large enough boat it can be hard to see all around it. And frankly, its almost impossible to see under it. But given depth finding/scanning and sensors, you could make it so you could see the virtual hull of the boat and anything under the water, making navigating through areas with dangerous stumps or other things under the water much easier.

Anyway, this is kinda silly... but neat to think about. Also, ordered one :)

<comment><USER5> My understanding is that this _" see through the vehicle"_ capability is built into at least some helmet-HUD/Helicopter combinations that the military has.

If it suffices for an attack helicopter, I'd say that the idea probably has serious potential for automobiles as well. I wouldn't expect to see it come to standard consumer cars yet, but for commercial drivers (particularly truck drivers who have _massive_ blindspots) this could be invaluable. Imagine being able to see through the back of your box truck while backing up!

<comment><USER4> Yep, that's pretty much what I'm thinking. It started all with thinking how terrible of an idea it would be to wear this while motorcycling...

Someone at Google with access to one of the self driving cars should see what this would 'look like' from a passenger perspective with the data.

<comment><USER6> Feasible to cross dev with glass? Hmmm... I think I have a new project to work on!

<comment><USER4> I've joked that the ultimate tech hipsters need to use the Rift + Glass at the same time to look at a virtual Pebble watch on their arm...

<comment><USER7> what purpose does Glass serve?

<comment><USER4> So you can see your tweets ;)

<comment><USER8> It's so other people can watch you seeing your tweets without being able to actually see your tweets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Awesome news... on a related note, John Carmack had a couple of recent, Sony- related Tweets with regard to their Project Morpheus announcement:

"Trivia: I had suggested to Sony that they try to hire Palmer Luckey before the Oculus kick starter." [1]

"Calibrate PS4 VR expectations: a game that ran 60 fps on PS3 could be done in VR (stereo 1080 MSAA low latency 60 fps) on PS4." [2]

[1] [https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/446122463747776512](https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/446122463747776512)

[2] [https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/446271995668217857](https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/446271995668217857)

<comment><USER10> Could anyone with more background elaborate on what you think Carmack means with the second tweet? The PS4 already outputs 1080p with (varying algorithms of) antialiasing for several of its launch titles. I'd expect some rendering pipeline shortcuts to cut down on the latency that some operations incur and to achieve a constant 60 FPS, but a generational drop in graphical fidelity seems steep.

<comment><USER11> Stereo rendering requires rendering the scene twice, once for each eye. Off the bat, this is almost twice as computationally intensive as rendering it once.

<comment><USER10> It's rendering it twice, but at only half the resolution.

Thinking about this more, the closest analog to stereo rendering would seem to be games with a split-screen mode. Which, in my experience, often does entail a performance hit (though certainly not a generation-sized one).

My guess is that how much a second viewport affects performance is highly engine-dependent. Ironically, the one game I remember having the biggest delta from single-screen to split-screen is the Dreamcast version of Quake III: I distinctly recall the sharp drop in poly-count on the otherwise curvy rocket launcher.

<comment><USER12> Rendering the scene twice has overhead, so it would take extra time even if it was the same number of pixels total. But that's far from the only reason VR requires more power.

Due to the distortion caused by the lenses the scene must be rendered at about 1.4x the normal resolution. Then there's a warping step that performs the inverse of the lens distortion, which is an additional cost. Also, good VR requires rendering at 90 Hz, not 60 Hz, so that's another 1.5x. Furthermore, frame tearing artifacts and FPS hiccups are much worse in VR, so you need extra headroom to eliminate them even in worst-case scenarios.

<comment><USER13> I remember being surprised that the bottleneck for some modern devices (like cell phones) wasn't the number of vertices one could push, but rather the fill rate and number of draw calls. Do consoles these days hit performance bounds as a function of the number of draw calls rather than the number of polygons/vertices?

I ask because I can completely understand how doubling the number of draw calls could be problematic in a VR situation.

<comment><USER12> Mobile devices are often limited by memory bandwidth, and by OpenGL driver overhead. Consoles have very little driver overhead, so number of draw calls is not as big a problem, but state changes are still costly, so doubling the number of state changes hurts performance. I could imagine some clever techniques to avoid doubling the number of state changes (perhaps a geometry shader that duplicates triangles to render both eyes at once) but I don't know how well that would work. VR rendering is still mostly unexplored!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Fresh new Oculus Rift Development Kit 2 FAQ is here:

[https://support.oculusvr.com/hc/en- us/articles/201835987](https://support.oculusvr.com/hc/en- us/articles/201835987)

Here's an excerpt:

      Q: What is the Oculus Rift Development Kit 2, its features,
      and what does it come with?

      A: The Oculus Rift Development Kit 2 (DK2) is a development
      kit meant for developers that want to create virtual reality
      content for the upcoming consumer version of the Oculus Rift.

      New features:

      - Positional Tracking

      - Low Persistence OLED Display

      - Built-In Latency Tester

      What's included:

[...]

<comment><USER15> Apparently it supports the "Linux 12.04 LTS operating system"!

<comment><USER16> Good catch. I've let the web team know.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Tested.com got their hands on one at GDC 2014. They interviewd Nate Mitchell and did a short review in this video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4d3Wli7s6KY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4d3Wli7s6KY)

</comment><comment><USER18> For those that have the first dev kit, how appropriate is this for a curious engineer who wants to play with Alpha titles? It is hard for me to imagine a scenario where I would actually have the time to develop something, but man, playing with it seems well worth $350.

Am I going to be disappointed in what is available?

<comment><USER19> I think you'll find a large proportion of people who have ordered the dev kit have done so just for a taste of what's to come. And I'm sure OculusVR don't mind at all because the sales generate additional revenue and PR without all of the responsibility that comes with shipping a consumer product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Does the latest versions make people sick after prolonged use?

How similar does it feel to looking at real far away objects? Is it easy to tell it's not 3D and the screen is flat?

If I tied a passed out "friend" up and put on the Oculus Rift glasses and played a movie of them being thrown out of a helicopter from 1st person, would they be able to tell that it was fake or is there a perceived feeling of it being real?

<comment><USER21> I got the chance to play with it a few weeks ago, along with several others in our office.

1) It didn't make any of us sick, but I could see how it still would for users, particular if they didn't try to move their body in roughly the same direction as they would if it was IRL. If you have ever sat in a vehicle and watched the outside via a mirror - it's like that.

2) For me, while it was immersive (we had several users scream at things and dance around), it is still nothing like real vision. It still gives you one real focal point (or lack of one at all), which immediately makes it different from real life vision - particularly over long distances.

3) Unlikely. It would probably severely freak them out. Perhaps the rapidness of it would leave enough confusion that they worked it out, but it is still obvious it is computer generated graphics. See the focal issue above as an example.

Having said that, it was amazingly fun and I wish I had one now. I'd love to experiment with a 'Virtual Programming' environment. I'll leave what that means as an exercise for the reader :)

<comment><USER22> I wonder if it would be possible to detect from user eyes where he is focusing and adjust the focus point accordingly. Would you think that would add another level of immersion?

<comment><USER23> From what I've heard from the Oculus folks, it won't happen any time soon. Your eyes move way too fast for a VR system to react to them.

It will happen eventually, but it seems like we need cameras/computer vision systems/drawing pipelines with an order of magnitude lower latency for that to actually work.

<comment><USER24> It's pretty close to happening; they can already track your eyes fast enough to render at higher resolution at the fovea area as your eyes move around:

[http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/redmond/projects/fove...](http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/redmond/projects/foveateddisplay/foveated_display_siggraphasia2012.mp4)

Also, your eyes are very slow to focus relative to your eye movements, so it is probably doable now. It still will not feel like real life, just sort of eye tracked depth-of-field. Your eyes will still be focused at infinity, but near things will blur when you look in the distance, and vice versa.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Ordered! Being as this is a developer kit and I am a developer I guess I better develop something for it :-)

Just super happy to be getting my hands on one... I think this thing is going to change the world.

</comment><comment><USER26> No doubt it's going to be fantastic.

I used my DK1 to death, tried every demo I could. Palmer is a pretty frequent poster on Reddit (they even got an early DK2-order heads up, before the e-mail went out), and it became fairly obvious a big announcement was coming at GDC. On that, offloaded my DK1 for $500 here in the UK just last week.

The positional tracking and the low-persistency display have what we've all been screaming for, and IMO is what's made, most people I've seen, feel sick.

</comment><comment><USER27> Maybe a stupid question, but: I'm not a game dev nor even a gamer, but I kind of want to buy a dev kit. How well will it work with a rMBP, and are there lots of fun demos already available?

<comment><USER28> Judging from my experience with the dev kit, even on my gaming rig there was a little bit of trouble running some of the games fast enough.

Your machine needs to be capable of running your game at 1080p 60fps. Not sure how the rMBP stacks up, but for most of the demos you should be able to play on low.

I found the best demos were more about an experience then games. The novelty wears off after a while, but I think when the real games come out, that's when things are going to get interesting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Do you guys think the consumer version will launch this year or in 2015 ?

<comment><USER30> All signs are pointing to 2015.

<comment><USER31> 2015 would make sense. People that really want it can get it now and regular consumers will have there socks blown off when/if the gen 3 comes as a consumer version.

<comment><USER29> I hope so! I really want to get the Dev Kit but don't want to spend that much money if consumer version is released in just couple of months after that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Generally not an early adopter, but after backing, using and being blown away by the original kit this was an easy decision.

Interestingly, the checkout page reflected my Oculus Store Credit discount, but the confirmation email I received did not.

Can't wait.

<comment><USER33> How much was your discount?

<comment><USER24> kickstarter purchasers got around a $30 discount because it was supposed to include Doom 3 BFG with VR support, which didn't end up being ready in time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> It's beyond commendable that Palmer et.al. seem to have no problem at all employing people smarter than he is wherever they can be found and enticed away from what they are doing. I've gotta wonder, though, if he's looking up at everyone around him and seeing not only stellar talent but stellar ambition and ego how he'll stay on top of it.

I've got a DK1 and had a whole lot of fun with it despite its laughable resolution but as much as I want to play with the DK2 and follow application development (which is all I'm capable of) I'm going to await the store shelf version. I think. :-)

<comment><USER35> I don't know if you are praising Luckey or calling him just a figurehead. Don't underestimate his intelligence, he is a really smart guy.

<comment><USER34> Praising, for sure. I was afraid my comment might be taken as an underestimation. Not so, I'm just blown away by the extraordinarily accomplished people he has brought on board and know that, smart though he may be, many of them have accrued far more impressive technical track records.

His early work demonstrated potential with contemporary, off the shelf technology along with a visionary template. His growing team is taking it so much further. I consider that kind of talent acquisition and management a form of genius.

I just expect it to be a really tough herd to manage in a collective fashion and for it to get increasingly difficult as time makes room for the inevitable ego expansions and the elbowing for power, influence and credit. But then it also appears that he has placed some very alpha managers at the top of the executive team.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> My dream device:

Take the Razer Edge - a little 10" gaming tablet. Create a keyboard peripheral that can be attached to the Edge at any angle - it can be used as a laptop or a tablet, or:

Put the keyboard _next_ to the tablet, laid flat. Then emulate a mouse-input with the touchscreen - a full 10" mouse-pad-like area for your fingers to simulate a mouse - your middle-finger is the mouse-position and you can l-click and r-click with your ring and index fingers a-la magic trackpad. Boom, we've got a lapboard keyboard/mouse.

Then use the Rift with that. The ultimate _portable_ PC gaming experience.

</comment><comment><USER37> Dev Kit in the news: [http://techwatching.com/page.php?i=22975](http://techwatching.com/page.php?i=22975)

vs Sony: [http://techwatching.com/page.php?i=22780](http://techwatching.com/page.php?i=22780)

Oculus' focus is on latency; Sony's looks like its on packaging. At least Sony has cut its lead time on cloning other's products, compared to Sony's "Move" following the Wii.

<comment><USER38> sanitize GET variable!

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> This is one of those rare moments where reading hacker news is not just worth while but makes me really really happy. I ordered mine!

</comment><comment><USER40> Does anybody have experience using the Rift with the Ibex window manager[1] (esp. on OS X)? Or another similar solution? I'm very interested in using it as a gigantic monitor!

[1] [http://hwahba.com/ibex/](http://hwahba.com/ibex/)

</comment><comment><USER5> > _" you now connect the headset to your computer using a single cable that > includes an HDMI and USB connection"_

My computer only has a mini-displayport port. Does anybody know if a minidp->hdmi adapter would be suitable for this HDMI/USB pairing?

<comment><AUTHOR> I was able to get the DK1 working using a hdmi -> regular displayport adapter for my Thinkpad X220 on Ubuntu 13.04

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I don't know what the center of gravity is for that thing, but at a glance, what about the idea of less (or less tight) strap, more counter-weight on the back?

P.S. Although that would represent more mass to accelerate/decelerate with head movements...

</comment><comment><USER42> Oculus, pah!

[http://venturebeat.com/2014/02/02/technical-illusions- aims-f...](http://venturebeat.com/2014/02/02/technical-illusions-aims-for-low- cost-augmented-reality-glasses-with-castar-interview/)

<comment><USER43> > Fortunately, Gabe [Newell, Valve's managing director] just let us have it > all. It wasn't exactly easy to get it past the lawyers, but we were able to > negotiate, free and clear, all the technology

That was really nice. Not many companies would do that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Am I the only one who thinks the motion sickness is something good? Like, "it feels so real that you get motion sickness" and that the new version feels less realistic. I hope I'm wrong though!

<comment><USER45> I'm pretty sure the motion sickness is caused by conflict between what you see and how your brain knows your head is moving.

Even a slight delay between your head moving and eyes seeing a reaction can cause nausea

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> This is the moment I have been waiting for, for more than a year!!!

</comment><comment><USER47> Any info as to what the input lag on the latest dev kit is?

</comment><comment><USER48> I guess a lot of people won't buy a VR system if they get forced to set up a camera for it.

<comment><USER49> I guess they wont "need" to set up the camera. But it is recommended as it is there to help with head-tracking. So your movements inside the 3d environment will feel more natural with more degrees of freedom.

<comment><USER48> Too bad it's a camera by Facebook now. No, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Has anyone used it for coding?

<comment><USER51> The DK1's resolution is way too low for reading large amounts of text, and I'm somewhat skeptical that the DK2 is good enough to be used as a monitor replacement.

Different applications that place less emphasis on text may be a better fit for VR - think photoshop and autocad for a start.

<comment><USER35> This. There is an article by Michael Abrash that goes into good detail about this:

[http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/when-it-comes-to- resol...](http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/when-it-comes-to-resolution- its-all-relative/)

quoted:

"Given which, the obvious question is: how high does VR resolution need to go before it's good enough? I don't know what would be ideal, but getting to parity with monitors in terms of pixel density seems like a reasonable target. Given a 90-degree field of view in both directions, 4K-by-4K resolution would be close to achieving that, and 8K-by-8K would exceed it."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Plus 55 USD shipping and about 80 USD VAT when shipping to Germany -- ouch.

<comment><USER52> Not too bad if you have any remotely serious plans of developing for it.

Personally, I'll be waiting for the second generation public release before seeing how my badly unbalanced far-sighted vision handles the experience. I'm happy to give them plenty of time to sort out all the little problems and upgrade the hardware.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> What's this missing that the consumer version will have?

<comment><USER54> From what I've heard, at least a higher resolution, 90 Hz display.

<comment><USER55> They'd indicated that they working on some kind of integrated audio as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Anyone successful in using paypal checkout? Failing for me.

<comment><USER57> Failed for me as well, decided to just put the credit card in.

<comment><USER16> There were some issues in the order processing system earlier this morning, but PayPal should be working now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> Any idea why they charge sales tax? (just curious)

<comment><USER59> Some companies cover sales tax for their customers or they do some trick to avoid sales tax, some don't. Some states require sales tax over online order. See [http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=4...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=468512)

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Is DK2 shipping in July or consumer?

Not entirely clear.

<comment><USER60> DK2 is expected to start shipping in July, no date has been set for consumer release but people seem to expect a consumer product release date either at the very end of this year or sometime in 2015. Any dates around the consumer product release date is pure speculation at this point though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> any particular languages that you should be good at to deal with this dev kit? my dad codes a lot in c/c++, i want to buy him this as a surprise gift

<comment><USER62> If I recall correctly, a devkit comes with a limited license key (1 year?) for Unity 3D. That was the case for DK1.

<comment><USER57> From the FAQ: [https://support.oculusvr.com/hc/en- us/articles/201835987](https://support.oculusvr.com/hc/en- us/articles/201835987)

Q: I received a Unity Pro Trial code with my purchase of the original Oculus Rift Development Kit. Will I receive another code after my purchase of Oculus Rift Development Kit 2?

A: There are no plans to offer a Unity Pro Trial code with Oculus Rift Development Kit 2 purchases at this time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> so how many % off is the sale?

<comment><USER64> I can see the confusion of "on sale" versus "for sale", but they're both commonly used terms to represent the ability to purchase.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> So is selling stuff before it actually exists the new norm?

I get it when you have a kick-starter, but when you're already established doesn't it come off as a bit shady and scummy?

Are they low on money and desperately need to cash-in asap? Are they worried their product will be poorly reviewed b/c they aren't confident in the quality - so they're trying to lock-in buyers?

EDIT: I'm just putting out the question "Why do they have a preorder system? What's the rational behind it? Why just announce it when it's available?"

Preorders are a way of locking in buyers. You can trick a few people into buying it, that may have otherwise not bought it when it was actually released (maybe due to negative reviews, or a change in their financial position). Except... why would you ever want to do that with developers? So why are they trying to do that? I don't get it

<comment><USER66> It's a dev kit. Things have always been done this way. Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft do it too. It just typically costs thousands of dollars and you have to already have a business relationship with them. So you rarely hear about it. Most PC guys hate this model, hence this...

Example: [http://www.retrotrader.com/catalog/product_info.php?products...](http://www.retrotrader.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=2667&osCsid=d9ba8afc8ac3dd9f1887ad92a83d2a1a)

If consumers want to be dumb and ignore everything that states very clearly that this is a product for developers, that's their business.</comment></comment>


First physiological test for autism proves high accuracy in second trial - <AUTHOR> https://news.rpi.edu/content/2018/06/19/success-blood-test-autism-affirmed <comment><USER2> This is quite interesting. Being on the spectrum myself, and many of my friends being so as well, it is very important how different everyone on the spectrum truly is. For high functioning people like myself I see Autism more akin to a mental super-power that can be crippled by small things. The difference in thinking is magnificent, and it aids in my success in most things that I do, but is an absolute disaster when it comes to socializing with people near me. In a town of 300 people, there aren't really any tech nerds or otherwise. Which makes socializing awkward since technology and game are a massive portion of my life. Even to just go to the doctor the interaction is anxiety inducing that my heart rate can raise by a good amount. (I've seen 133 on a bad day, when normally I hang out around 100.) Having to rely on analysis of people and memory of what people think is acceptable is absolutely exhausting.

Having a clear test for autism is wonderful, but the spectrum is of infinite width and infinite height.

<comment><USER3> my son ( 7 ) is like this, his brain lets him do interesting things, like from early on, you could hand him some paper and ask him to write things, then you could rotate the paper any way you like and he'd just carry on writing so it was fine when rotated back to normal. But he has a ton of trouble with socializing and has never made a friend, he is also a super realist. He doesn't like to pretend to be anything but himself. "If you could be an animal what animal woruld you be? - Human Boy". Any suggestion to pretend to be something else tends to be met with a reaction of "why on earth would I want to be anything but who I am". Or even if you over emphasise something like "Wow Ethan,you are super awesome" "no... I'm not awesome, I'm just normal"

<comment><USER2> It's quite interesting the differences. I wish you and your son the best of times in the future.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If this test becomes widespread, I'd love to take it. I bet many of us in the tech industry have some sort of autism markers. It is a spectrum, after all.

<comment><USER5> I doubt most (vast majority) have more than a statistically meaningless set of any hypothetical autism markers. A predilection for technology, math or science and social immaturity are commonly identified items techies use to contend they "may" be on the spectrum, but the reality is even mild autism includes so much more abnormality than that.

<comment><USER6> And yet tech hubs are crawling with people who are on the spectrum, and have autistic children. Of course not everyone on the spectrum works in tech industry and not working in tech is on the spectrum, but correlation can be seen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Very surprising result. I don't think I've ever heard of a blood test for a mental disorder -- at least, not one that actually works.

<comment><USER8> Be careful about that kind of wording. I and friends who're on the spectrum don't consider it a "mental disorder". It's simply a physiological difference, one that theoretically can be tested for.

<comment><USER9> Doesn't that reasoning apply to any disorder? Medically, a disorder is simply "a disruption of normal physical or mental functions." So, having any disorder makes one abnormal, unique, special, and possibly above average or below average, but certainly not average.

"Disorder" and "special physiological difference" are synonyms.

<comment><USER10> Disorder is deviation from a declared healthy norm. "Difference" is more symmetric.

A disorder is a condition that causes suffering.

<comment><USER11> But that suffering may be the result of attempting to function in a system set up for a different type of person. "Disorder" is, in many cases, a biased way to look at it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> wu-ikkyu Perhaps I missed it, but I did not see anything about controlling for the potential effects of those persons with ASD having taken drugs to mitigate symptoms. Couldn't the biochemical effects of ASD drugs themselves be the primary indicating factor? I've seen studies on biochemical indicators for schizophrenia also make this same mistake.

<comment><USER12> No, read the source article.

 _The validation data are taken at baseline from three previously published studies investigating pharmaceutical interventions to normalize metabolic abnormalities of children with ASD31: (1) a combination of methylcobalamin and low dose folinic acid32, 33 (2) high dose folinic acid,34 and (3) sapropternin.35 Given that these studies all focused on evaluating treatment strategies for ASD, all participants had a confirmed diagnosis of ASD. FOCM /TS metabolites were available for 154 (76% male) participants with ASD with a mean age of 8.8 years (range 2–17 years). These ages are different than reported by Delhey et al.34 because this study only required that measurements be available at baseline, rather than both at baseline as well as the conclusion of the treatment phase. Furthermore, stratifying patients by age or gender did not reveal any differences in the univariate metabolite distributions. The first two studies were approved by the IRB at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and the third study was approved by the IRB at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. All parents gave written, signed consent and patients provided assent when appropriate.

2.3 Metabolites

The metabolites under investigation are presented in Table 1 and additional details of these measurements and derivations are presented in Melnyk, et al.30 This is only a subset of the measurements investigated previously29 because "% DNA methylation" and "8‐OHG" were absent from the validation data set and were therefore removed from this study to ensure that a consistent set of metabolites are used for training and testing._

(Table 1 - 22 metabolic variables considered)

[https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/btm2.10095](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/btm2.10095)

I'm curious if these metabolic abnormalities apply to adults as well. I had an ADOS at the UCD MIND Institute come back with a 7 (1-14 scale IIRC) about 10 years ago.

PS: PKU treatment sapropterin (Kuvan) costs $100k USD/yr

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> > Hahn said the difference between the original accuracy rate and that of the > new study can likely be attributed to several factors, the most important > being that two of the metabolites were unavailable in the second dataset. > Each of the two metabolites had been strong indicators in the previous > study.

Another issue could be overfitting.

<comment><USER14> It sounds like they were using leave-one-out cross validation. My machine learning is a bit rusty, but I don't think that overfitting is the issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Does this also work in reverse? I.e. take supplements/drugs until the test is negative, and then be (temporarily) autism-free?

<comment><USER15> I don't know, but there's preliminary evidence that autism can be reversed by dosing children with oxytocin and by using TMS on adults.

Because those approaches are considered to be fairly low-risk, I suspect research will continue in those directions until they hit a wall of some kind.

<comment><USER16> What does it even mean to "reverse autism"?

<comment><USER15> Most famous example: [https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/03/18/an- experimental-au...](https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/03/18/an-experimental- autism-treatment-cost-me-my-marriage/)

It allows people to read faces and emotional context in a way they couldn't before. Some people find that their decision-making becomes less logical and more emotional. For others, nothing changes.

If you search "tms autism" there are other firsthand accounts that you might find interesting.

<comment><USER13> Have there been any scientific experiments already to validate this method?

<comment><USER15> As of 2 years ago, there were more than a dozen clinical trials. Evidence is preliminary -- populations are small, and measuring how autistic someone is is not easy.

[https://www.autismspeaks.org/blog/2016/03/25/transcranial- ma...](https://www.autismspeaks.org/blog/2016/03/25/transcranial-magnetic- stimulation-autism-evidence-benefit)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Does nobody care about specificity?

</comment><comment><USER18> Statistical reporting is often pretty frustrating.

> "We are able to predict with 88 percent accuracy whether children have > autism," said Juergen Hahn, lead author

> It is estimated that approximately 1.7 percent of all children are diagnosed > with ASD

        def has_autism(child):
          return False

apparently has 98% accuracy.

<comment><USER19> It's 88% correct classification on a validation data set consisting of 154 patients diagnosed with ASD. Their validation dataset did not contain a "typically developing" population since there's only one dataset for that data and it was consumed in their model generation. Their training data resulted in a 5% misclassification rate of their controls - that is 5% of patients that were not diagnosed with ASD in current tests would be classified as having ASD in this scheme.

The full paper is here: [https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/btm2.10095](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/btm2.10095)

<comment><USER17> If you give the test to everyone, your results are:

~4.9% incorrectly diagnosed with autism (0.05 x .983)

~1.5% correctly diagnosed with autism (0.88 x 0.017)

Thus, 76% of those diagnosed would be diagnosed incorrectly.

<comment><USER20> That's true in a statistical sense. Or it's possible that the human-observers are less accurate about autism than this brain scan.

It's unclear if those who have the odd brain structure but aren't diagnosed are entirely asymptomatic.

Also they may be non-autistic in spite of this brain pattern, but nonetheless have a genetic predisposition to pass it on. Big step.

<comment><USER17> It's not a genetic test, and it isn't a test for something that _defines_ autism, so you're begging the question IMO. Sure, human observers are imperfect, but that doesn't mean you can choose an arbitrary test that is precise and make it the standard just _because_. "We need something better than human judgement, and this is _something_ , thus it is better"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Isn't it hard to define the accuracy without knowing more about the condition?

<comment><USER22> The generally accepted definition of autism spectrum disorder is that in DSM-V. This physiological test is compared against ASD diagnoses based on DSM-V, and based on that comparison, the accuracy of the test (for the given sample tested) is calculated.

As more is known about the condition, the diagnostic criteria listed in the DSM could be updated, which would mean that this test would then need to be evaluated again. But that doesn't prevent its current accuracy being measured.</comment></comment>


Japan researchers warn of fingerprint theft from 'peace' sign - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2017-01-japan-fingerprint-theft-peace.html <comment><AUTHOR> Rather than the film they developed, why not just let AI handle removing fingerprints in the photo apps? We have "red eye" filters, why not fingerprint sensing and blurring filters?</comment>


Let's Encrypt Stats - <AUTHOR> https://letsencrypt.org/stats/ <comment><USER2> As their verification process already requires DNS to be correct, can we get a way to verify directly via DNS?

Maybe I could put a public key in DNS, sign the CSR with the private key, they'd poll the DNS for the key, verify, and approve it?

That would improve the ability to automate it for me a lot, without having to use a webserver.

<comment><USER3> DNS verification is already in the ACME spec, but not yet supported by the live servers. So the answer is "soon".

<comment><USER2> Sad that they don't support it yet, I'd have loved to use it. It seems so simple and logical.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Am I the only one a bit annoyed by the 90 day expiry limit? Although the reasoning for automation is sound, I don't see how a small expiry limit actually improves security [as stated in one of the reasons] in any way.

Especially given the cert is basically now a requirement to get onboard with http2 at all.

I truly appreciate the heroic efforts of let's encrypt, however that seems to be an annoying middle step before DNSSEC.

<comment><USER5> The security argument makes sense.

The background is the following: Right now certificate revocation is essentially broken. There are two mechanisms (CRL and OCSP), and both don't work. CRL for obvious scalability issues and OCSP because you'd need near 100% uptime of the OCSP responder for it to be reasonable and never have any firewall (think of captive portals) that blocks the conncetion to OCSP. Therefore browsers decided either to implement OCSP insecurely with a soft fail (mostly pointless) or not at all.

So we have no working revocation. Someone hacks into your server and steals your key and uses it to attack your users. What do you do? Of course you revoke your cert, but it doesn't really make a difference.

People have been thinking how to fix revocation. One way would be OCSP Stapling + must staple. But that's still a long way till this will work (the ocsp stapling implementations of both apache and nginx would need a huge overhaul, they are pretty bad and not up to the task). Short lived certificates are a way to make revocation less important, because it reduces the time a hacked key can be used.

And if this really bothers you a lot: There are two other free CAs that will give you one year certs: StartSSL and Wosign.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is there a particularly large marketing presence for LE in Germany? or am I just misinformed re: the popularity of the .de TLD?

<comment><USER7> LE has been covered for months now in all major (online) trade magazines and web sites, like Heise's c't and iX, Golem, Chip etc.

Additionally, .de is the most popular CCTLD, second only to .com, according to Wikipedia (I'm not sure what that is based off, new registrations or total registrations, though).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Very nice. Now do wildcards!

<comment><USER9> I know wildcards are useful and all, but they enable bad practices and increase risk. Now that LE makes it easy to mass-request certificates, excuses for using a wildcard are wearing thin. I'd rather LE never allowed them.

<comment> X-Istence Wildcards allow me to serve all of my sub-domains over the same HTTP2 connection rather than causing the client to reconnect/renegotiate TLS/SSL.

This allows me to use domain sharding for those browsers still on HTTP 1.1, yet not have a performance penalty for doing so in the case of HTTP2.

<comment><USER10> Let's Encrypt does not support wildcard certs but they do support SAN certs, so if your list of subdomains is fixed then you can still benefit from socket reuse with HTTP/2.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Rats! When I read the headline, I thought the article would be about a proposal to encrypt the statistics generated by web servers.

</comment><comment><USER12> I should probably switch to Apache. :-/

<comment><USER13> Why? The client can work pretty well with the --webroot issue method on any webserver. Hell, if you can take your webserver offline for a short time you can use the --standalone option's built in server.

Even where you webroot is wired into something else (a proxy, fastcgi, uwsgi/django, etc), you can rig it to try to see if a file exists in another directory before handing off.

        location / {
            root /web/$site/webroot;
            try_files $uri $uri/ @django;
            access_log off;
        }

        location @django {
            include uwsgi_params;
            uwsgi_pass unix:/web/$site/socket;
        }

Simple! I reuse this in many sites (hence the $site variable) but you could decouple this and use a single directory for all sites/certificates (it doesn't have to be in the webroot, just something nginx can read).

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Thanks to the ISRG and to all the sponsors (Except facebook. I don't like them :)) for making Let's Encrypt.

This does not fix the CA problem, but it does a whole lot to make the internet a safer place as it is now.

<comment><USER15> You don't have to like Facebook to thank them, I'm not a fan of Facebook either but appreciate their sponsorship of something so fundamental to the web.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to get good at spotting oppurtunities? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> read Amazon product reviews

edit: to add to that, you can also try doing things you are not skilled in, you will find lots of problems that way. You can also contact me for even more ideas. [https://www.linkedin.com/in/mcsweeney/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/mcsweeney/)

</comment><comment><USER3> By creating one</comment>


Ask HN: Agressive flagging and downvoting today? - <AUTHOR> I think I have seen an unusual amount of downvotes and dead comments today.
Is it just me or is there something going on?
PS: this is not about me. I seem to get more and more upvotes by the day : ] <comment><USER2> If you think you see abusive behavior on HN, the place to let us know about this is firstname.lastname@example.com. We'll take a look and get back to you.

It's not an appropriate story for HN, despite (or because of) the crack-like power of meta.</comment>


Inside the Fortified, Nuke-Proof Bunker that's Now Hosting Wikileaks - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/mimssbits/26095/?ref=rss

<comment><USER2> "...one wonders why Swedish Bahnhof would take on the challenge of hosting a site that will probably be under permanent attack for the foreseeable future.

Unless it's for the PR value"

That's a good example of allowing one's imagination of possibilities to wander over very short distances. Is it that inconceivable that a company might be motivated by something other than the bottom line? Arvinjoar commented earlier on the principled character of the Bahnhof's founder: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959961>

<comment><USER3> Indeed. It's a little depressing that we live in a world where someone driven by principles instead of profits is regarded as extraordinary.

<comment><USER4> Such a sentiment says more about the speaker than the world.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As far as articles go, I'm not impressed with this one. Although I'd be willing to admit that my interest in all things Wikileaks is seriously waning.

That said, there was little to no information about the actual data center, other than a link to a Forbes article about the first time Wikileaks moved there. They even embedded the same video from that original article.

Throw in an offhand and speculative comment about Amazon bowing "to political pressure" and a few Flickr pictures and presto! I almost felt like I was reading another one of Shaun Gallagher's "I wrote this article with one mouse click" experiments.

</comment><comment><USER6> Bahnhof is pretty amazing. They have great interior design too, almost like a movie set (although I haven't visited in person yet).

While for reasons of principle, hosting controversial content is great, and if it's legal in your jurisdiction, it is up to you if you want to do it, as a practical matter, a site getting >10Gbps DDoS while paying presumably close to nothing is going to potentially impair the usability of other sites in the datacenter. Even if you don't put profits above principle, you have a responsibility to your other customers to not fuck them over.

A pure colocation (vs. managed or hosting) facility in a legal to host jurisdiction, near or at a carrier hotel where you can cheaply buy bandwidth from a bunch of different providers (on their core networks), and with great filtering agreements in place with the upstreams, is probably the only way to go. The colocation facility is just renting you space and power, and it's a much more arms length relationship; you can rapidly turn up network connections from other providers within the facility, vs. your own building somewhere (where running fiber often requires digging up the streets).

Back in 2000 I did this with ~2Gbps of aggregate transit/peering to people inside London Telehouse, and 4xE1 + WiFi to the hosting location, with VPN over VSAT as a backup.

You want to be able to put "problem" customers on their own subnets, potentially on their own routers and even transit connections, to isolate them from the rest of your customers. Combined with the regulatory constraints, Stockholm and Amsterdam are probably the best places to do this right now (or SFBA if it's a customer who will not be a legal problem in the US).

</comment><comment><USER7> Back in the late 1960s, and early 1970s, AT&T built a series of nuke resistant bunkers. The typical specs were concrete walls 36" thick, self contained turbine generators, water and air purification, plus rations to last up to 6 months. Some of those facilities are still around and operating (including one not far from me). I would expect that the switching gear of todays vintage takes up much less space and power than it did in 1971. Back then the interconnections were via long-distance coxial cable and microwave. Today there are fiber huts adjacent to the bunker.

I wonder what AT&T uses all that extra floor space for now.

<comment><USER8> I don't think you were referring to these, but there are actually a few windowless, fortified concrete skyscrapers in New York that were built as telephone switching centers. Here's one in Lower Manhattan that is 29 stories:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/33_Thomas_Street>

They were likewise designed to withstand nuclear fallout. Because telephone switching equipment has shrunken over the years they now rent out some of the floor space as a hosted ultrasecure datacenter.

<comment><USER9> That building looks like something right out of blade runner.

<comment><USER10> The article calls it 'extreme brutalism'

[http://maps.google.com.au/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&...](http://maps.google.com.au/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=33+Thomas+Street,+manhattan&sll=-33.886413,151.118261&sspn=0.022836,0.016201&g=33+Thomas+Street&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=33+Thomas+St,+New+York,+10007,+United+States&ll=40.716799,-74.00565&spn=0.000966,0.001523&t=h&z=20&layer=c&cbll=40.716799,-74.00565&panoid=kxOcRk6jH3sMR-4XaNyn1w&cbp=12,208.86,,0,-36.67)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is this a black eye for Amazon, or do they get a pass due to the pressure that we assume was applied to them as a company domiciled in the USA?

<comment><USER12> They get an easy pass. The idea of this ever going to Amazon in the first place just seems extraordinarily ill-conceived: There was no way it was going to stay up.

Wikileaks is pursuing a remarkably old-school method of releasing these, with the whole centralized distribution point.

They should release the entire set via P2P with collections symmetrically encrypted. They could then -- via the most rudimentary methods -- release individual keys at chosen intervals to still obtain the same throttled response. And one day when the feds are kicking in the doors, just drop the entire key collection.

<comment><USER13> I wonder why they're not doing that.

<comment><USER14> It's far less visible to normal, ordinary people, who they need to reach. The success of WikiLeaks depends in part on being highly visible and accessible by anyone and everyone- ironically, much the same as terrorism. (Not that I believe they are a terrorist organization, but they definitely function kind of like one, at least superficially)

I imagine the day somebody figures out how to make a HTTP-compatible P2P network that allows you to browse web pages hosted on bittorrent will be the day WikiLeaks moves to P2P.

<comment><USER15> > It's far less visible to normal, ordinary people, who they need to reach.

There's no reason they can't do both.

<comment><USER16> I think there is more to it than a desire to space the releases to get better PR.

They may want to verify the authenticity of the documents to avoid fake leaks. They may also want to edit some documents to remove data that would put individual persons at risk, like they did with Cablegate.

Doing this takes time, and may not be short-circuited easily.

They can't simply encrypt the files, release them using P2P, and _then_ edit them / check them for authenticity. I guess it would be useful as an insurance, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Can anyone with more technical knowledge comment on this facility's connectivity to the internet, and how damage-resistant that is? If someone were to forcibly take Wikileaks offline, I would think internet connectivity would be the easiest attack vector, especially if they're located in a remote bunker which probably limits their options.

<comment><USER18> We're not quite at the level where anyone is going to risk war by throwing cruise missiles into a major metropolis just to shut down Wikileaks...

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> No bunker is really completely nuke-proof - even Cheyenne mountain had multiple SS-18s with single 25 _megaton_ warheads targeted at it - it would not have survived.

You might survive a near miss or fallout in a bunker - but in the age of precision delivered and/or high yield bombs nowhere is 100% safe.

<comment><USER20> Yes, the author of the article must not have watched the video he linked to. The CEO of Bahnhof himself jocularly admits it wouldn't survive a direct hit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> More pictures of the Bahnhof datacenter, from the pingdom blog. [http://royal.pingdom.com/2008/11/14/the-worlds-most-super- de...](http://royal.pingdom.com/2008/11/14/the-worlds-most-super-designed- data-center-fit-for-a-james-bond-villain/)

</comment><comment><USER22> This is a 360 tour of the place <http://www.bahnhof.se/panorama/>

<comment><USER9> I found the Tintin moon rocket in the conference room quite awesome ;p

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I think now is an appropriate time to mention "When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth": [http://baens- universe.com/articles/when_sysadmins_ruled_the_...](http://baens- universe.com/articles/when_sysadmins_ruled_the_earth)

</comment><comment><USER24> Crypt anyone?

Just finished Stephenson's masterpiece last week.

I bet that's Randy in that last pic. ;)

</comment><comment><USER25> Looks like a place that Jack Bauer would break into.

</comment><comment><USER26> Utterly insane. Neat. Holy shit. I don't know what to think.</comment>


Women Like Being Valued for Sex, as Long as it is by a Committed Partner - <AUTHOR> http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26626185 <comment><USER2> I'm expecting a strong correlation with my upcoming study "Women Like Their Partners to Spend Time Hanging Out With Their Buddies, as Long as it is by a Committed Partner", and its follow-ups "Women Like Their Partners to Tinker With Their Motorcycles, as Long as it is by a Committed Partner", and "Women Will Put Up With a Load of Stuff From a Committed Partner Which They Otherwise Wouldn't".

Eventually I hope to get funding for "Newly Married Women Who Feel Their Partner is Uncommitted Dislike Pretty Much Everything That Person Does".

</comment><comment><USER3> Social creatures like being valued. What they don't like about being objectified is having everything else about them disregarded. I hope it's not callously dismissive to ask: what new, surprising thing does this article tell us about the universe?

</comment><comment><USER4> The abstract provides zero information. There is some effect, apparently. Who knows how big. For all we know 51% of women match the headline, compared to 50% of men.

Yet to the world, the news is "women like this".

Apparently I would have to pay $40 of I wanted to know the truth.

Because Academia is not a business.

</comment><comment><USER5> Another "Well DUH!" moment in scientific research. I wonder who's grant money got pissed away to report the obvious.

<comment><USER6> Someone should really compile a list of the shittiest research taht got funded. There is some real nonsense out there that gets funded.

<comment><USER5> This is just some random google results on wasteful research money sinks, the duck penis research is just asking for the facepalm:

[http://www.politifact.com/truth-o- meter/statements/2013/mar/...](http://www.politifact.com/truth-o- meter/statements/2013/mar/22/tweets/federal-government-funding-study-duck- penises/)

[http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/30-stupid- things-t...](http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/30-stupid-things-the- governemnt-is-spending-money-on)

[http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2012/05/02/the-10-dumb...](http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2012/05/02/the-10-dumbest- ways-the-government-wastes-taxpaye.aspx)

[http://nypost.com/2013/12/17/duck-penis-studies- lifecoaches-...](http://nypost.com/2013/12/17/duck-penis-studies-lifecoaches- for-senate-staff-30b-in-government-spending-questioned/)

There's LOTS more, although some of the links seem to come from political sites, dumb spending deserves to be ridiculed and I don't care who calls it out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Maybe that's because one can be reasonably confident that one's committed partner doesn't value one _only_ or even _primarily_ for sex.

<comment><USER8> Or maybe it's that "commitment" is the desired reciprocity, and it doesn't matter how it is acquired - even if it is being "only or primary" valued for sex.

We don't know.</comment></comment>


What a Year of Job Rejections Taught Me About Pitching Myself - <AUTHOR> https://hbr.org/2015/09/what-i-learned-from-a-year-of-job-rejections <comment><USER2> Woah, I actually liked this article and raised some valid points for a first generation immigrant.

I will definitely put the tools you used in my arsenal.

edit: errr OP is not the author</comment>


NASA Picks Qt For International Space Apps Challenge - <AUTHOR> http://www.drdobbs.com/mobile/nasa-picks-qt-for-international-space-ap/240166953

<comment><USER2> Qt and particularly now QML (Qt Meta/Modeling Language), is an awesome framework and really happy that NASA picked Qt.</comment>


About Ukraine - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/01/30/9-questions-about-ukraine-you-were-too-embarrassed-to-ask/ <comment><USER2> Here is an ELI5 version of what's going on in Ukraine:

Ukraine doesn't have any money, it needs to borrow it. It can ask the west, but the west gives back a list of conditions to be satisfied (human rights, economical, etc) that are incredibly hard for the governmnet to achieve given deeply rooted corruption on all levels.

There is another source for the money: Russia (which, despite some westerners' beliefs, is a very rich country). In return Russia's demands are to make sure that the deeply rooted corruption on all levels works in Russia's favour. That is _much_ easier to achieve.

Hence the recent $15 billion loan from Putin, that officially appears to be unconditional.

Another point I'd like to make is that many people in the east (I come from one of the big industrial cities in the south-east), don't just dislike Europe and like Russia. It's that their jobs literally depend on Russia, most of the industrial exports go straight to Russia, that's why people there are terrified of any sanctions.

<comment><USER3> > Ukraine doesn't have any money, it needs to borrow it.

Most of the places where something like that's said, it's disingenious. Are people there starving? (From the news, it does not look like so.) If they are not, they have no such need to borrow.

Of course, even if they don't need it, it might actualy be a godd idea to borrow some money. But looks like the people don't think it is.

<comment><USER4> Do you suggest that if people are not starving but the country has no money to maintain the infrastructure (which in turn is what allows businesses to grow, and creates jobs) they should be made to give up their personal money before any money is borrowed from elsewhere? That's a pretty socialistic approach.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> One thing that wasn't mentioned in the article was about the reasoning behind Putin's customs union. Putin is very pro-Soviet Union. He wants to make customs union to make it resemble Soviet Union with Russia as the leader country and others (such as Belarus), former Soviet Union members as satellite countries. He also sees it, as mentioned in the article, as a counterweight to EU, which he views as a threat. So his personal interest in Ukraine goes beyond "care for Russians living in Ukraine". He basically wants to rebuild Soviet Union, and Ukraine is a key component.

<comment><USER6> Putin's longing for USSR is overrated. I don't believe he gives a rat's ass about USSR.

Customs Union is a block on countries that have deeply integrated economies, common language (unofficially it is Russian) and common background. CU is just as natural and logical as, for example, European Coal and Steel Community formed after 2nd World War. Whether CU will evolve into political union, like EU is trying to do, is unknown. Probably not. So there is no reason to freak out and fantasize about menace of USSR2.

<comment><USER5> > Putin's longing for USSR is overrated. I don't believe he gives a rat's ass > about USSR.

I believe he gives quite a rat's ass about USSR. Remember that Putin saw USSR fall under his own eyes. He not only blames Gorbachev for the destruction for USSR, but basically considers him a traitor for things like not approving violence against occupied states during independence uprisings. Besides the sentiments for USSR, he also is aware that his political power is going to end in some, time, so he wants to be remembered for something big. And he believes that creating something that resembles USSR is that thing. That's why he cares so much about customs union and is willing to basically bribe other countries to join it despite lacking money for Russia itself. That's what happened with Armenia - he "bribed" the country by offering big loan and lower gas prices before it joined EU economic treaty, like Georgia, Moldova did. That's why he offered money for Ukraine in exchange not even for customs union, but just not signing EU economic treaty, which was already prepared and ratified by president of Ukraine.

<comment><USER6> Putin's main concern after he quits politics is his personal safety, not rebuilding USSR. Nobody in Russia wants back into USSR, an attempt at rebuilding would be futile and suicidal.

As for "bribing" the countries to join CU - that is the whole point of CU, which implies deeper integration, lower trade barriers, lower prices for gas etc. If you don't want to be "bribed", it is simple - don't take the money (and don't blame corrupt politicians, as if there is any other kind). We may question the motives - some countries are natural fit for CU, like Belarus or, potentially, Ukraine. Some, like Armenia come cheap and are more for the show to create an image of successful regional integration. EU does the same thing - Greece is going to be the major headache for years to come, the role of countries like Bulgaria and Romania in EU is entirely unclear (does EU "bribe" them by transferring money to their budgets?). While having core European countries in a union makes perfect sense.

I hope you realize that Ukraine is never going to be an EU member, which makes the whole argument surreal.

<comment><USER5> The thing is, from economic point of view, Putin makes mistake to pay so much money just for them to participate in the union. And what Putin is known for is careful, very calculated political moves, certainly not charity. So he expects something more from it later.

Besides, saying that Ukraine will never be EU member just exposes your clear bias. Everyone knows it won't join EU for a long time, but if they elect people that work towards it (which is unlikely knowing how chaotic the opposition is) it would be a matter of time till it joins EU.

<comment><USER6> He expects to build a regional structure based on economics rather then politics in which Russia will play the main role. Portraying it as the second coming of USSR is plain wrong. It is also wrong to assume that there are plans to turn this union into political one - Russia doesn't need the headache of managing Ukrainian, Kazakh or any other nation's internal affairs. To achieve that Russia is willing to spend a few bln here and there to push them in the direction of CU. Again, EU did the same thing with Eastern Europe by accepting them on a super fast track.

I don't have bias, I am trying to see things as they are without cliches. EU is not likely to survive in its current form. One of the main issues with EU is that some countries made it there for political reasons, for which EU is beginning to pay dearly and has no appetite for Ukraine whatsoever. Putin may be making same mistake with say Armenia, but again he is just a bureaucrat like his European colleagues.

<comment><USER5> I still think Putin is not telling the whole story about his CU yet, and I think EU is in quite good shape. Only some financial problems in southern countries (Portugal, Spain and Greece) and migration problems in UK and maybe to some extent Germany. So it will most likely not only survive, but thrive further.

<comment><USER6> Well, if I am wrong - good for EU and all the best to them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _Even if Putin can 't bring Ukraine in, he'd like to keep it out of the European Union, which he sees as an extension of a century-old Western conspiracy against Russia. _

It's no secret that U.S. foreign policy is guided by _The Grand Chessboard_

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grand_Chessboard](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grand_Chessboard)

U.S. control over Ukraine would be a checkmate in controlling Europe and the middle east.

I hate to use the old adage, but this crisis presents a real opportunity. Russia and the EU could work together to sort this out instead of remaining divided. I don't see why the US has a say in the destiny of a country that's divided between Russia and the rest of Europe.

</comment><comment><USER8> Are Americans so ignorant to justify the publication of such an article?

(OK, I must admit, I had never heard of Mykola Lysenko before.)

* * *

EDIT: it seems this post is getting misunderstood, because I tried (and apparently failed) to shorten the following interrogation.

1\. _The Washington Post_ is an American newspaper.

2\. The article explains a situation by giving a basic history lesson, and does not contain any new or exclusive information.

3\. The title of the article, and the four first questions, are clearly aimed at people who ignore most about Ukraine, including its very existence.

So the target audience is: Americans who do not know anything about Ukraine. My initial assumption would be that this is a small group. However, the average weekday circulation of _The Washington Post_ is above 400,000.

Summing up, it looks like some editors at _The Washington Post_ believe that a lot of Americans are ignorant of facts about Ukraine, possibly including the very existence of a country called Ukraine. In my opinion, such a belief is questionable, hence my original interrogation.

* * *

To go further, I believe that another article could have been written, with all the interesting information from this one, and without the obvious in- case-you-are-not-aware-of-Ukraine part.

I also believe that an equivalent event would not be published in an equivalent newspaper in France, Spain, or The Netherlands. This is why I am wondering whether that kind of articles is specific to American newspapers.

* * *

This all started with me having a question. Despite all the downvotes, I am happy about all the answers that help me better understand American press.

<comment><USER9> > Are Americans so ignorant to justify the publication of such an article?

Yes. They will also uncritically read everything what is written there.

<comment><USER8> Hard to tell because of the written means, but I hope you are being ironic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Why so much Ukraine on HN? Protests are happening almost everyday in some european country. No Thailand protests covered here. Why the hysteria about Ukraine here?

<comment><USER11> From what i can see here - there is a lot of hackers among protesters. They do they day work and go throwing rocks in the police afterwards.

<comment><USER4> Case in point: [https://github.com/fre5h/DoctrineEnumBundle/pull/12#issuecom...](https://github.com/fre5h/DoctrineEnumBundle/pull/12#issuecomment-33023169)

<comment><USER12> bwahahahahah that's awesome:

 _I will take a look later. Much much later. Because I 'm Ukrainian and we have revolution right now. Sorry_

And then the supportive comments. <3 open sores software.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, that comment also reminds me of [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0WStLAYB9Q](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0WStLAYB9Q). OK, I'll stop redditing all over the place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Besides the language issue and the politics, I suspect there's also an age issue. From talking to friends there, the younger people want to gravitate towards Europe, as Europe is seen as more progressive and open. While the older people prefer the stability of going with Russia.

</comment><comment><USER14> >8\. Why haven't the U.S. or Europe fixed this?

Seriously?

<comment> at-fates-hands Obama's administration has been getting hammered for getting involved in these types of conflicts. Not sure he wants to stretch the US resources any further and is already hesitant to involve US military resources.See Egypt as exhibit A.

Also, it's pretty frustrating when you see countries crying for help, then when we finally send in military and financial aid, they're called "occupiers" and told to leave the country and stay out of their affairs.

I'm of the opinion these places need to figure it out themselves. The US shouldn't be in the position of being a global police force and jumping in every time something breaks out somewhere.

<comment><USER6> I agree with you, except "countries crying for help" part. Did Afghanistan cry for help? Or Iraq?

<comment> at-fates-hands Sometimes I wonder when people say, "Why isn't the US helping out in (insert country here)?" Then turn around and say, "Well, we never should have been in Iraq." and forget about all the things Saddam Hussein did to his people:

[http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/2000/02/iraq99.htm#repression](http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/2000/02/iraq99.htm#repression)

Iraq has refused to allow the UN's Special Rapporteur for Human Rights to return to Iraq since his first visit in 1992. The government of Iraq has refused to allow the stationing of human rights monitors as required by the resolutions of the UN General Assembly and the UN Commission on Human Rights. The regime expelled UN personnel and NGOs who, until 1992, ensured the delivery of humanitarian relief services throughout the country.

Iraqi authorities routinely practice extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions throughout those parts of the country still under regime control. The total number of prisoners believed to have been executed since autumn 1997 exceeds 2,500. This includes hundreds of arbitrary executions in the last months of 1998 at Abu Ghraib and Radwaniyah prisons near Baghdad.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the Iraqi regime destroyed over 3,000 Kurdish villages. The destruction of Kurdish and Turkomen homes is still going on in Iraqi-controlled areas of northern Iraq, as evidenced the destruction by Iraqi forces of civilian homes in the citadel of Kirkuk

Iraq's 1988-89 Anfal campaign subjected the Kurdish people in northern Iraq to the most widespread attack of chemical weapons ever used against a civilian population. The Iraqi military attacked a number of towns and villages in northern Iraq with chemical weapons. In the town of Halabja alone, an estimated 5,000 civilians were killed and more than 10,000 were injured.

Or maybe we should review life under the Taliban in Afghanistan prior to the invasion?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban#Human_rights_abuses](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban#Human_rights_abuses)

According to a 55-page report by the United Nations, the Taliban, while trying to consolidate control over northern and western Afghanistan, committed systematic massacres against civilians

UN officials stated that there had been "15 massacres" between 1996 and 2001.[28][29] They also said, that "[t]hese have been highly systematic and they all lead back to the [Taliban] Ministry of Defense or to Mullah Omar himself."[28][29] "These are the same type of war crimes as were committed in Bosnia and should be prosecuted in international courts", one UN official was quoted as saying.[

n 1998, the United Nations accused the Taliban of denying emergency food by the UN's World Food Programme to 160,000 hungry and starving people "for political and military reasons".[152] The UN said the Taliban were starving people for their military agenda and using humanitarian assistance as a weapon of war.

On August 8, 1998 the Taliban launched an attack on Mazar-i Sharif. Of 1500 defenders only 100 survived the engagement. Once in control the Taliban began to kill people indiscriminately. At first shooting people in the street, they soon began to target Hazaras. Women were raped, and thousands of people were locked in containers and left to suffocate. This ethnic cleansing left an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 dead.

Maybe you're right, it would've been better to just stay out of both places. . .

<comment><USER6> Your long list qualifies as "asking for trouble". The original question was whether Iraq and Afghanistan were "crying for help".

Besides none of the items in your list was the real reason why US invaded those countries.

<comment> at-fates-hands >>>> Your long list qualifies as "asking for trouble"

SPEECHLESS.

So summary executions, starving your own people and using chemical weapons qualifies in your mind as "asking for trouble"? I'd love to see the rest of your Human Rights scale and what you think it takes to get to a level where you think interdiction is needed.

<comment><USER6> My scale is simple - do not intervene at all. US pretense that they intervened purely on humanitarian grounds is a pathetic lie obvious to the whole world. After they intervened they left a mess that is worse then before. Besides, after infamous appearance by Mr. Powell at the UN providing undeniable evidence of universal evildoing, I think US would be a bit more, ...how should I put it..., _careful_ about spreading justice around the globe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Why is dividing the country peacefully apparently out of question? It seems to have worked somewhat decently for the Czech and Slovac republics.

<comment><USER16> I think it is because there aren't two distinct nationalities in play here. Even the Russian-speaking Ukrainians do not want to rejoin Russia; they would prefer to be Ukrainian.

The situation is much closer to the situation in the United States than to those in other central and eastern European cold war countries. While there are strong regional divisions between Democrats and Republicans -- divisions that are rooted in history and culture -- members of each party have large contingents everywhere. And separatism/partition isn't seriously on the table in the USA.

<comment><USER6> I believe that Crimea (peninsula in Black Sea) wouldn't mind to go back to Russia since it has never been historically a Ukrainian territory. East of Ukraine may not be keen on becoming Russian, but sure as hell they don't want to be ruled by Western Ukraine. Differences between East and West of Ukraine run deep and go far beyond political preferences. West sees East as scum. Period. For example, when Western protestors in Kiev catch youths from the East (they call them 'titushki', or provocateurs), protesters write the word 'SLAVE' on easterners' foreheads with permanent marker: [http://icdn.lenta.ru/images/2014/01/27/13/20140127131837914/...](http://icdn.lenta.ru/images/2014/01/27/13/20140127131837914/detail_8d01dd6cb2f9103dd0cfc544aae2d3df.jpg). I don't think East and West in Ukraine have any future together.

<comment><USER17> East also sees West as a land of rural people who do plumbing/maid work in Europe for food and are wicked nationalists/Nazis.

The titushki you mentioned are not shamed just because they're from Eastern Ukraine, but of what they did in Kiev for government money (beatings/vandalism to discriminate Maidan).

So I have to admit that there are some deep cultural differences, indeed. But when I try to imagine two Ukraines, there are so many questions (where to put the border - _in any place_ it would tear apart close regions, there's no clear border, it's a huge gradual gradient from West to East) that I see no feasible answer.

<comment><USER6> "beatings/vandalism to discriminate Maidan"

You have to try really hard to discredit this (opposition in action):

[http://votarea.com/uploads/posts/2013-12/1385948933_1328475....](http://votarea.com/uploads/posts/2013-12/1385948933_1328475.jpg) [http://img12.nnm.me/e/c/c/b/7/2dfacaf7de32a36db9cf7794f86.jp...](http://img12.nnm.me/e/c/c/b/7/2dfacaf7de32a36db9cf7794f86.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> One other interesting fact about Ukraine: their national hero ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taras_Shevchenko](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taras_Shevchenko)) is a poet.

<comment><USER17> It's a common trait of Europe in XIX century: Pushkin in Russia, Adam Mickiewicz in Poland, Byron in England, Schiller/Goethe in Germany - they're all poets-heroes of the Romanticism Age - they all virtually determined their national cultures for decades. But I agree that Shevchenko's influence was much more profound for Ukraine than Pushkin's for Russia - maybe because the culture and language of Ukraine were the only its remnants at that time whereas Russia always had its state and its history, its army, bureaucracy and its own religion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> '(Other scholars, though, believe it means "homeland.")' krai means "country", not homeland

etymologically speaking, all of these words come from kroiti "to cut" \- okraina is literally "the edge resulting from a cut, border"

while kraina is literally "cut out piece, area, country"

</comment><comment><USER19> Strangely, the article seems to omit this one detail that Kiev is the birth place of Rus (Русь) statehood. Russia, as ruled by the Rurik family begun there. Moscow only came to prominence because the Tatars/Mongols burned other great cities of the time.

This makes assertions of Russian conquest a lot less black and white. Even the languages diverged relatively recently. When you look at spelling of Russian pre-Soviets, same mix of Cyrillic and Latin letters can be seen.

This article presents the narrative from the Zapadentsi (Western Ukraine) view point, but does little to present the other side of the story.

It is an incredibly difficult and complex matter, and the opportunistic politicians and outright crooks are taking advantage of the strife of the population.

</comment><comment><USER20> Much of true and much of false. E.g. that Stalin is the cause of starvation. Note that starvation was at Europe and America too at that time.

</comment><comment><USER21> [http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/perspectives-ukrainian- protes...](http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/perspectives-ukrainian-protests)

</comment><comment><USER22> So even the Washington Post has decided to adopt Upworthy-like titles, I guess that's the sad future of online news.

<comment><USER23> Headlines starting with numbers have been around for ages. Often they're seen as lazy or clickbait, but from time to time they can be used appropriately.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> The fact that his article has made it so high on HN is interesting to me

1) is it a sad reflection on society today, and an early sign of monetisation of the WP, that a 'distractify/mashable/tweetable' title makes it up the ranks

2) is it scary that a east-west divide story makes it higher than a 'Syria torn in half' story?

3) ... Why am I afraid that intellectually vacuous titles such as ELI5 actually get upvoted?</comment>


Web Design Pioneer Hillman Curtis passed away - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/21/technology/hillman-curtis-a-pioneer-in-web-design-dies-at-51.html?_r=1 <comment><USER2> What breaks my heart is that this kind of tragedy is avoidable. He was only 51; died of colon cancer. All we need is to design a wearable device which continuously monitors your body for changes that correlate with "might be developing cancer". (An undershirt, for example.)

This is a solvable problem. Cancer causes measurable (but typically unnoticed) changes to the rest of your body. If it can be measured, it can be monitored; and when that change is detected, a quick trip to the doctor's office would likely save the next 30 years of your life (if it was indeed the very early stages of cancer).

Cancer is beatable; we simply need to beat it before it has the chance to incubate.

This is a problem that I would like to personally work on, but unfortunately it would take at least a year to arrive at a feasible design. It'd need only a small investment (~$1M) but I doubt any investor would be interested in "zero profitability for at least 12 months".

<comment><USER3> I'd say this is a good project to get funding via kickstarter.com. Have you checked it out?

It will be risky for the funders, but the risk is small compared to potential benefits for each individual. Several much less useful projects garnered higher funding than the amount you mentioned.

<comment><USER2> Using Kickstarter is a good idea, but I'm struggling with the moral implications of it. The chance that I'll succeed is inherently small, and I'd feel absolutely awful if that $1M wound up not resulting in some useful contribution.

Still, I have ideas, along with the skill necessary to test them. And if I were independently wealthy, then this is how I'd spend my time...

If I were to Kickstart this, then I'd keep a public daily journal of my efforts and short-term goals. There would be a webpage showing exactly how the money was being spent. I'd make everything as transparent as possible.

The thing is, most of my ideas will turn out to be impractical, but there's no way to know _which_ until I test each of them. That process would require money from people who are okay with gambling on the off-chance that one of my ideas turn out to work. (Sidenote: if I happen to succeed, then I want to repay the people who funded me, at the very least.)

Here is a glimpse into the future I envision:

\- A sensor in your bed scans for tumors as you sleep.

\- If you have a heart attack, a sensor in your clothing immediately detects it and pushes an alert to your phone, which dispatches emergency services to your exact GPS location. (Most people keep their phone in their pocket or purse, so this seems doable.) A speaker embedded in your belt yells out step- by-step CPR instructions to the people around you.

\- Your toothbrush takes your temperature and absorbs a sample of your saliva, which it analyzes for deviations from your long-term norm. It uses wifi to upload this data to your computer, along with a map of the surfaces of the teeth you brushed. The next time you use your computer, you'll see a visualization of your teeth; any surfaces which you missed when brushing are highlighted in red. (e.g. if you aren't brushing behind your molars, then those areas are highlighted.)

\- As you're driving, a sensor on your rearview mirror will detect if you fall asleep at the wheel (your eyelids close for more than one second) which triggers an audible alert to wake you.

I'd love to spend my life coming up with pragmatic ways to use technology to benefit your health / monitor for emergency conditions. I'm just not sure it'd be ethical to use Kickstarter to fund possibly-crazy endeavors like this. I don't know.

<comment><USER4> It sounds to me like you have a pretty good idea of the technical details and challenges in such a project. You'd need to find someone with medical experience that you could work with to figure out the details, but you could find quite a bit of that expertise just by chatting with your local medical school. And at least in the short-term you won't have to worry about medical device certification, since most of the ideas you've mentioned would not directly get used for medical treatment; any actual diagnosis would still get done by a physician.

If you're serious about being willing to work on this proportionally to how much funding you get, then please by all means start a project. Pick a couple of appropriate ambitious-but-likely-possible goals, set expectations very clearly, and see if you get any takers.

<comment><USER5> Would this project need FDA approval? If so, the timeline would be quite long and a million bucks would come nowhere near covering it...

<comment><USER4> Long-term, some of these devices would need FDA approval, but many of them wouldn't.

Speaking as a non-expert (only familiar with FDA approval processes through the experiences of friends and colleagues): none of these devices would constitute a class II or III medical device, since they'd only act as an early-warning system rather than as a primary diagnostic tool or direct treatment system. Some of these devices might fall under class I (which also includes things like tongue depressors), but meeting class I wouldn't necessarily prove insanely onerous, and some care would likely allow avoiding class I as well in some cases.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm so disconnected from Flash work now, that it's easy to almost forget about the hundreds and hundreds of hours I spent doing it. But 10 or 12 years ago it was a really exciting area, and Hillman Curtis was incredibly inspiring. His stuff and Joshua Davis' Praystation were on another level. He left a real mark. And he had the courage to walk away for something new when he needed to. Sorry to hear about this.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm very saddened by two things: confirming that great artists usually die young and by the ever-extending specialization of labor in our industry. Generalists like Hillman Curtis, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are becoming more and more uncommon.

Hillman was truly the "Michael Jordan of Flash", a great web designer without parallel in our industry. Inspired by Hillman's books, I changed careers and became a web architect (a mixture of programmer, designer and producer). What inspired my about Hillman's work is that he wasn't afraid of going the distance, and constantly pushed the envelop on the limits of technology, by integrating design, development and architecture in a very cohesive theme. He designed and developed websites in the old days of 14.4K modems!

David Hillman Curtis amassed dozens of important awards and wrote books that were translated to 14 languages. His book MTIV (Making The Invisible Visible) changed my life more than any other professional book I've ever read. I'm saddened to see our field devoid of such visionaries, nobody's pushing the envelop anymore. Most technicians and entrepreneurs are working for a quick exit and are forgetting about having any sort of legacy.

If you are reading this, please try to become an ARTIST at your craft. Don't just write C, C++, Node.js or Ruby. Push-the-envelop and write the most bad- ass and revolutionary code you can, create a signature style (for Steve Wozniak it was simplicity, for Walt Disney, imagination, etc).

Please enrich, enrich this industry, make no f'in compromises. Push the damn envelop until you've made history. You know who you are, you have that fire inside, you make no compromises, you want to make a difference, a real difference. Like Curtis did.

On Hillman's words: "The reason for designing new media is simple — to subtly and quietly change the world." From music, to design, to web design and film making, Hillman created a signature style that defined his career. His obsession with animated portraits, simplistic and memorable animations made a huge impression on all of us (the old new media designers that started in the late 90s).

Even today, memorable design is an afterthought found only on a limited collection of very distinguished websites and apps. When I browse from TC to VentureBeat, for example, I feel like going from McDonald's to Burger King - Nobody gives a damn anymore.

We respect SEO, we bow to latency and concurrency... yet nobody gives a damn to art direction and interaction design. If Eric Ries talks to you about A/B testing, you listen. But if Nathan Shedroff gives a lecture about "Experience Design" half of the room is empty before his talk is over - nobody cares anymore. Nobody.

The Web is chasing Hollywood. And we have no Scoreseses. I'm sorry to curse, but I most: get a fuckin soul, make history in your work. Care, care about every pixel, care about the theme of your work, care about your legacy. Hillman taught us to care. He inspired us to be our best and to create a new web.

Hillman will always live in the memory of all his book readers, associates and fans. I know he will always be present in my work. I owe too much to him. Especially, I owe to him the discipline to make zero compromises.

Please, if you're a generalist, become an artist. If you're a coder, learn about design. Care about the final product, the whole product. Care about the experience you're delivering. Feel your work, and raise to be a director of experiences, not only a coder or corner-cutter.

Become the Steve or the Bill of our industry. Because nobody cares anymore. And all the great generalists that used to care are dying.

More About Hillman Curtis

<https://vimeo.com/38130536>

<http://hillmancurtis.com/>

<comment><USER8> "Generalists like Hillman Curtis, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are becoming more and more uncommon." "Nobody cares anymore."

Where I am coming from this is certainly not true. At a small company I know they (still, traditionally) hand out copies of MTIV if you succeed for your internship. And I am coming from a school where you can also specialize in Experience Branding and Nathan Shedroff. A lot of young people want to become the next John Lasseter, _why or Kevin Kelly.

The names you are talking about are special though. They were pioneers, but not only because of their own merits but also because it was just the right time.

<comment><USER7> As for the field, I'm referring to new media design for entrepreneurs invested in high-growth ventures. As for luck or timing of Hillman's success, I think that "Energy finds its way to the right time and place". These pioneers created their opportunities. Specially in the case of Jobs and Curtis, because they reinvented themselves a couple of times.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Sad. I really admired him - _MTIV: Process, Inspiration and Practice for the New Media Designer_ was a huge influence for me when I was starting out.

</comment><comment><USER10> RIP.

This was posted a few days ago and didn't get any votes.. glad it finally made it.</comment>