Inside the Soviet Army, what kind of weapons - <AUTHOR> http://militera.lib.ru/research/suvorov12/06.html <comment><USER2> This article makes a good argument for simplicity. Yet two of the topmost examples-- that simplicity in the MIG-25 made it fast, and that simplicity in the transmission of Soviet tanks makes them more easily repaired, even if they're harder to drive-- fly in the face of a specific tactical approach developed by the US Air Force during the Korean War.

The OODA loop concept breaks down decisions into a cycle of Observation, Orientation, Decision, and Action [1]. The theory was developed by a John Boyd, who flew F-86 aircraft against faster and more maneuverable Mig-15s during the Korean war. Nevertheless, his unit supposedly achieved a 10:1 kill ratio [2].

He attributed their success to American pilots' ability to make and act on decisions faster. "Time is the dominant parameter. The pilot who goes through the OODA cycle in the shortest time prevails because his opponent is caught responding to situations that have already changed." [3]

And in part he attributed this ability to the F-86 being easier on the pilot:

 _During his research he found that Fatigue was also a factor. He and his pilots were flying F-86's and although they were slower and less maneuverable than the Mig 15's they were flying against, The F-86 was fully hydraulically controlled and the Mig 15 was only hydraulically assisted. This meant that Boyd's pilots could operate their aircraft with easy and gentle manipulation of the controls, while the Mig pilots had to work harder to maneuver their aircraft. Boyd found that the more his pilots maneuvered and the longer a dogfight persisted the more fatigued the Mig pilots became and the slower their reaction time became until the F-86 pilots were able to maneuver their aircraft into a position of dominance._ [2]

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

[2] [http://www.tacticalresponse.com/d/node/226](http://www.tacticalresponse.com/d/node/226)

[3] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Boyd_(military_strategist)...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Boyd_\(military_strategist\)#The_OODA_Loop)

<comment><USER3> The other big issue which was not fully understood until the Americans had captured some Soviet aircraft was that the MiGs were not built to be used regularly for training and other flights. The Soviet aircraft simply could not withstand the number and type of flight hours required to train a pilot to the level of proficiency that the western allies achieved. This is best demonstrated by India's experiences with the MiG-21 and General Dynamics F-16, where using both aircraft similarly has proven to be very dangerous to the MiG pilots.[1]

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan- Gurevich_MiG-21#India](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan- Gurevich_MiG-21#India)

<comment><USER4> And yet, despite the superiority of the air stuff, the ground war didn't go so well--that being the main focus of the article it would seem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is an except from the book "Inside the Soviet Army" by Vladimir Bogdanovich Rezun, writing under the Suvorov pseudonym. You can find it on Amazon here: [http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Soviet-Army- Suvorov/dp/00261550...](http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Soviet-Army- Suvorov/dp/0026155001/ref=sr_1_1)

It's an interesting and fairly easy read, but should be taken with a grain of salt. Rezun was a captain in Soviet military intelligence (GRU) who defected to England in 1978 with his family. Rezun provided much intelligence to western planners, some of which came into dispute under later examination. Notably, many feel Rezun overstated the capability of the Red Army in the late 70's and early 80's, leading directly to the Reagan-era military buildup to counter a much larger threat.

<comment><USER6> Well, on the upside the Reagan-era build up worked, at least.

<comment><USER5> 'Worked' is a matter of perspective, I'm afraid.

<comment><USER6> 'Worked' as in 'won the cold war and the Warsaw Pact collapsed liberating millions of people from Communism'. Not sure how that could be perceived as a negative.

<comment><USER5> Many of those people who were 'liberated' didn't feel so great about the Yeltsin years, 'shock therapy', the rise of the oligarchs and ultimately Putin.

[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b2/Russian_male_l...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b2/Russian_male_life_expectancy.jpg)

Not to mention the damage the Reagan years did to the economy and society of the U.S.

<comment><USER6> I bet the people of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Hungary, Czech Republic etc etc feel pretty good about it though.

<comment><USER7> Hungary and Czech Republic invaded USSR as part of Hitler's coalition. They had it coming.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The opening line of the post:

"I adore weapons. Of every sort."

From Excession, by Iain M. Banks:

"It could see that - by some criteria - a warship, just by the perfectly articulated purity of its purpose, was the most beautiful single artefact the Culture was capable of producing, and at the same time understand the paucity of moral vision such a judgement implied. To fully appreciate the beauty of a weapon was to admit to a kind of short-sightedness close to blindness, to confess to a sort of stupidity. The weapon was not itself; nothing was solely itself. The weapon, like anything else, could only finally be judged by the effect it had on others, by the consequences it produced in some outside context, by its place in the rest of the universe. By this measure the love, or just the appreciation of weapons was a kind of tragedy."

<comment><AUTHOR> Man that hurts. I know it is totally off-topic but the fact that there will be no more sequels really hit the other day when I was in a bookstore looking for something new to read. I'd gravitated to the area where Ian M. Banks books are on display and it took me a full minute to realize there never would be anything new in that section again. What a pity.

<comment><USER9> I'm going even further off-topic, but I saw a blog posting by David Brin where he describes the Culture as "a humanity-that-succeeds" \- which is a description I loved.

[http://davidbrin.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/science-fiction- lame...](http://davidbrin.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/science-fiction-lament-then- optimism.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The article mentions some weapons that were mounted on Jeeps - but doesn't mention that there were Jeep mounted nuclear weapons! The Davy Crockett "tactical nuclear recoilless rifle":

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_%28nuclear_device...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_%28nuclear_device%29)

<comment><USER10> I think that is because by the time this was written (1982) Davy Crockett and other tactical nukes had been phased out due to both sides being capable of a "second strike".

[0] [http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is amazing. I have no interest in weapons or whatever. However, from a design perspective, the obsessive focus on simplicity is very cool. Also, they are remarkably optimized around their constraints: multitude of forces, scarcity of resources. So a tank is designed not to be comfy for the soldier but for the other resources.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is the most bloody stubborn practical sys-admin like conduct of war and ops of which I have ever read.

Tanks are cool, but planes are more mobile: should we just use planes? Nyet! Add rotor; is now flying tank!

Reuse calibers? Nyet! Dumb peasant Ivan can confuse 120mm howitzer with mortar with tank round--better to just have different calibers and avoid that entire logistics problem entirely!

Mortars can be made of steel and rifled, and have twice the accuracy: can we use those? Nyet! Build _ten_ mortars for price of one fancy-pants mortar, get _5 times_ the accuracy!

It's amazing.

</comment><comment><USER12> The design that literally saved the world:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-34](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-34)

Soviet designers understood simplicity and reliability in military design... if only that understanding had extended to the realm of government and administration...

<comment><USER13> For the same reason, the Soyuz is by far the most reliable way to pretty much anything into space. The technology is old and trusted and more or less "just works".

The Shuttle was practically a much more useful research spacecraft, crammed with useful things like living quarters, but all the creature comforts and usability mean reliability takes a nose dive and costs sky rocket, pun intended.

Sadly government administration is to blame for the failure of the Buran, Russia's Space Shuttle clone. In many ways it was superior to the American Shuttle, but ultimately bad management and funding cuts meant the project was shelved and they weren't even able to house the retired ship properly.

"Buran could stay in orbit for 30 days, while the American shuttle had a 15-day time limit. It could deliver into orbit 30 tonnes of cargo, compared to the US shuttle's 24 tonnes of cargo. It could carry a crew of 10 cosmonauts, while the American shuttle could carry seven astronauts. Preparation for the Energia/Buran launch at Baikonur Cosmodrome only took 15 days. However, it took one month of preparations before the US shuttle was launched from Cape Canaveral.

The Energia rocket booster could be used to launch various payloads into orbit, whereas the American shuttle's booster was one-task. A year and a half before the Buran launch, Energia was launched with a full-scale mock-up of the Skif-DM orbital combat laser platform weighing 77 tonnes, measuring 37 meters long, and over four meters in diameter. Though the mock-up failed to reach the desired orbit and fell into the Pacific, the Energia booster did its job fine, delivering the huge space platform into intermediate orbit, 110 kilometers above the earth's surface. But the most important difference from the American model was that the Soviet spaceship could perform the flight and landing in totally automatic mode, which it brilliantly demonstrated on November 15, 1988.

Buran's American counterpart used to land with switched-off engines, meaning it could make only one landing attempt. The Soviet spacecraft could take several tries if needed. When Buran approached Baikonur Cosmodrome and started landing in 1988, its sensors registered too strong side winds and the robotic system sent the huge machine for another rectangular traffic pattern approach, successfully landing the spacecraft on a second try. The Buran shuttle was designed to perform 100 flights to space, while its engines were ready to do 66 flights without replacement. During its flight, it lost just eight of its unique thermal-insulation tiles out of 38,800."

<comment><USER7> Another interesting thing I read about Buran is that apparently (some of?) its computers were ternary, not binary. Unfortunately, I cannot find any English mentions of that, and a quick search in Russian did not produce anything reputable, so take it FWIW.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Setun](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Setun) \- Soviet ternary computer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The chiefs of staff of all divisions were immediately summoned to Moscow. They were given a day's instruction in the technique of sleeping out in snow at freezing temperatures, using only a greatcoat. Then each of them was required to convince himself that this was possible, by sleeping in the snow for three nights. (It should be remembered that March in Solnechnogorsk, near Moscow, is a hard month, with snow on the ground and temperatures below zero.) Then the chiefs of staff returned to their divisions and immediately the entire Soviet Army was put to a very hard test-that of spending a night in the open in numbing cold and without any extra clothing. It seemed as if those who were stationed in deserts in the south were in luck. But no-they were sent by turns to either Siberia or the north to be put through the same tough training. Thereafter, spending a night in the snow became a part of all military training programmes.

Two years before this, following the shameful defeats in Sinai, when it had become clear how much Arab soldiers fear tanks and napalm, urgent orders had been issued, making it compulsory for all Soviet soldiers and officers, up to the rank of general, to jump through roaring flames, and to shelter in shallow pits as tanks clattered by just above their heads, or, if they could not find even this protection, to lie on the ground between the tracks of the roaring vehicles.

The Soviet Army re-learned its lessons within a single day. I have felt napalm on my own skin, I have crouched in a pit as a tank crashed by overhead, and I have spent terrible nights in the snow.

<comment><USER15> This is in its entirety a quote from the article. I think that should be indicated by quote marks at least.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The author: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Suvorov](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Suvorov)

</comment><comment><USER17> The section about "cost" was eye-opening. Indeed, if you are getting a state organization to do something needed for another, why should money exchange hands anyway, only to be refunded?

Granted, that applied to the Soviet Union, not Russia. Still, how difficult would be to apply that among government agencies nowadays?

[EDIT: Of course, some form of accounting needs to take place, the article is wrong in saying that it is all "free". It is not free, but not actual money needs to be exchanged. ]

</comment><comment><USER18> And yet Russian tanks got fitted with auto-loaders, eliminating a crew member. This increased the numbers of systems that could breakdown whilst simultaneously reducing the number of crew members on hand to fix any problems (not just the autoloader but now there is one less person to fix tracks/service the engine etc)

<comment><USER3> One problem with the auto-loaders on the Soviet tanks was that they often loaded a gunner's arm, and closed the breech.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Everyone knows the fastest recon aircraft was the SR-71 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_SR-71_Blackbird](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_SR-71_Blackbird)

There is so much bias in this article I have to go wash my eyes with bleach now

<comment><USER7> DISCLAIMER: I myself never read any of his books.

Rezun's books are not a reliable historical source. Back when they first appeared, there were huge discussions and dissections on Russian military/history forums about his inaccuracies and weird theories (e.g. "offensive" strategic bomber vs a "defensive" one). He can provide interesting leads to base your own research on, though.

Also, this particular book seems to be poorly translated, because some passages don't make sense at all (I don't believe Rezun himself is that incompetent). Example:

"The design of this Soviet tank was taken as a basis for the `Panzer' and shortly afterwards for the `Tiger-König'. "

"Panzer" simply means "Armor" in German. What he wants to say here is "Panther", a German tank which many feel was heavily inspired by T-34.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> > Soviet generals have never been faced with problems of this sort. They have > always known that victory in a war can only be achieved by advancing. To > them defensive operations spell defeat and death. In the best case, such > operations can only produce a deadlock, and not for long, at that. Victory > can only be achieved by means of an offensive-by seizing the initiative and > raining blows on the enemy's most vulnerable areas.

Very interesting. This reminds me of Clausewitz, who 200 years earlier had tried his best to convince those around him that just defending "stuff" by holding positions on mountain passes was a sure way to get defeated.

<comment><USER3> Clausewitz specifically states that defense is a stronger form of war than attack, and makes a very good case for why. "On War" did make the case that having two rows of soldiers simply standing on the side of a mountain, shooting at the enemy was a poor use of forces, but still goes on to use numerous examples from the Napoleonic wars and seven years war to demonstrate the advantages of defense.

<comment><USER20> Strange, that means I remembered incorrectly :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> "No, it will be one of the thousands captured by the American marines in Vietnam and used in their desperate attempt to halt Communism and to avert the calamity which threatened the Vietnamese people."

I'm sure that the Vietnamese people have fond memories of American marines to this day. After all they didn't just help them against Communism, they also helped them manage their problems with overpopulation by exterminating 4 million Vietnamese!

</comment><comment><USER22> Haven't read this book but read this author's "Icebreaker" which has some interesting viewpoints, mainly that Stalin was the true 'evil genius' whose plans to conquer Western Europe were preempted by Hitler.

This video goes into some details here with the author presenting it himself:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbBnRZoTHFs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbBnRZoTHFs)

</comment><comment><USER23> I'm a bit stumped as to why I'm getting down-votes for this. Judging by the discussion that followed I am not wrong in pointing out the creepiness here. Also I never said I won't read it, only that I feel as if I'm crossing a strange line by doing so (difficult does not mean I won't do it. in fact it usually will mean the opposite for me)

</comment><comment><USER24> This kind of relentless simplicity should be the aesthetic of all engineers. Personally, i think if we had gone to war with the USSR, they would have won just by surviving the dust and breaks in logistic chains. (Assuming, for the sake of rhetoric, that the human race wasn't exterminated by radiation.)

<comment><USER25> >they would have won just by surviving the dust and breaks in logistic chains.

Where did this myth come from where US/NATO weaponry were these delicate things but for some reason Soviet weapons were wonderfully engineered. We saw the US go into various conflicts against various enemies during the cold war and get a real life test of its methods and equipment in Korea and Vietnam and later in the Balkans and Iraq.

The Red Army saw action in Afghanistan where an largely unfunded resistance fought them off. Later, in Georgia, we saw how delicate the Soviet-era equipment is and how poor Russia's ability to maintain a supply chain is.

If I had to go to war tomorrow, I'd want NATO's weaponry, not Putin's. I'll carry the AR15 instead of the AK47, thanks. It has longer effective range, better accuracy, and less weight.

<comment><USER26> AR15 cannot survive harsh environments. I saw many photos of American soldiers using AK47 in Iraq. Israeli Navy Commando probably still using it(try to dive and then shoot with an AR15). And from my personal experience with M-16 you need to spend a lot of time cleaning this plastic toy, and when you jump from tanks, apcs and hit it on some metal by mistake.... good luck. I could take my Galil(Israeli "clone" of AK47) and just throw it on down on sand from a story high, pick it up and continue shooting. Can you put AR15 on the ground and drive a tank on it and then pick it up and continue shooting ?

And the sentence about Afghanistan is completely bonkers. US /Saudis spent many billions on arming islamists against SA. On the other hand NATO just lost to a bunch of drug traffickers over there ...

<comment><USER25> Anedcotes aren't data. I've seen pictures of broken imacs, but that doesn't mean its a poor product. The biggest problem with the AR15 in in Iraq/Afghanistan was soliders not getting ammo fast enough or prefering its higher fire rate for suppressing fire and eating through ammo quickly. Nor is it plastic, the body is 7075 aluminum plate. These modern materials save 3 lbs of weight compared to the wood casing of the AK product.

>US /Saudis spent many billions on arming islamists against SA.

Still unfunded compared to a nation state on par with the USSR and all its resources. A largely unfunded rebel movement chased off the Red Army. That's a fact.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Interesting article. For info on the infantry units primary weapon I recommend The Gun by C. J. Chivers. It bills itself as a history of the AK-47 pattern rifle but it also covers early Soviet weapons such as the Mosin family of rifles.

</comment><comment><USER28> My list of crazy Russian weapons:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Canada_VZ-9_Avrocar](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Canada_VZ-9_Avrocar)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-119](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-119)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lun- class_ekranoplan](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lun-class_ekranoplan)

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

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

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VA-111_Shkval](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VA-111_Shkval)

<comment><USER5> Neither the Avrocar nor Project Pluto are Soviet designs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I must say that I find it difficult to read beyond the first sentence which says "I adore weapons. Of every sort." This honestly creeps me out a bit.

<comment><USER29> It's a great opening line: personal, informative, and establishing a credential - who would want to read an article about weapons written by someone with no interest in the subject? It lets the reader know that the author has an opinion and narrows the topic so that the question of whether a person should be interested in weapons does not interfere with what the author wants to say.

I found it creepy, too. But I also have a habitual interest in the cold war and weapons are where I first encountered the fascinating world of technical specifications. It was something I shared as a child with my father - who was a small boy during the Second World War and a research scientist for the USDOD his entire professional career. That doesn't make me a fan of killing or war. It just means that I have contradictory interests. So obviously I read the article and enjoyed it.

I also puzzled over my enjoyment. The human toll at Stalingrad [celebrated by the author] was immense, and as I have aged I have lost the convenience of demonizing other people through stereo-types. There but for the grace of god, go I - without any belief in the concept of god which it might suggest.

So I appreciate the writing and struggle to find a place for the enjoyment I gained from reading and still mull over what it ignores and celebrates. That's what makes it good - it has a take and doesn't suck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Stuff that stuck out for me from a technical perspective:

      - make interfaces that connect different things so different
        that you're not tempted to fit the one into the other
        and so that communications about these are unambiguous

      - KISS with a vengenance, better two simple things than one
        complicated

      - the supply lines are more important than the accuracy of
        your weaponry

      - better to make your high performance jets from a  material
        that you can procure during war

And a whole pile of minor elements. Weapons are not to be enjoyed unless for target practice, but the lessons in there are (judiciously) applicable to any kind of engineering.

<comment><USER29> The concept that really struck me was setting aside technical/engineering autism and calling 130mm mortar rounds '132mm mortar rounds'. It's the required amount of complexity and no more - it exchanges about one bit of additional information on the design side for many many bits of information on the implementation side. It is as close to free as communication gets.

It's the quintessential business decision - it manages laziness and hubris of staff for a vast improvement in user experience. The downside of such decisions is dealing with grumbling snowflakes. Like a Hero of the Valley, Stalin was known for ruthlessly expedient methods for handling dissent.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Testing WebP compression for app icons - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/EverythingMe/webp-test

<comment><USER2> This repo is the code used for this blog post: <http://geeks.everything.me/2013/04/24/why-we-like-webp/></comment>


Ask HN: What do you do with your iPad? - <AUTHOR>

I got my iPad a few days ago and I've found that all I really do with it is surf the web while watching TV.
I was hoping to be able to take notes with it during meetings but I haven't found an app that lets me do that easily.
What interesting things do you use your iPad for?  Any killer apps so far? <comment><USER2> I'm using it to take notes in class and it's awesome. It fits really nicely on our desks (much more so than my 15" MacBook Pro). I haven't found a very good notetaking app either though. Currently, I'm just using Pages with headings and bulleted lists. It would be nice if Apple brought over Pages for Mac's outline functionality with gestures for changing the indention level.

<comment><USER3> Which keyboard do you use for taking notes?

<comment><USER2> Landscape, because I find using the portrait keyboard difficult for long periods of typing. Unfortunately, this means that the formatting controls are not visible unless I turn the device. Hopefully Apple addresses this in a future update.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Main uses so far... book reader, and watching video courses while being able to code/take notes on the laptop.

I think we'll need to wait a few months for the real killer apps to show up. The really great ones take time to code, and it takes time for people to come up with brilliant new ideas. When the iPhone first came out it was not very interesting either - it became an indispensable device only 3-6 months down the road, as amazing apps started coming out.

</comment><comment><USER5> Sight Glass Coffee is using it as a POS.*

<http://www.flickr.com/photos/mager/4487454328/>

*I don't have one

</comment><comment><USER6> I preordered mine. Despite the first couple of days of unadulterated enthusiasm, I'm thinking about sending mine back this week. No killer app. Not a meaningful proxy or replacement for my iPhone or laptop. And, I get bad eyestrain if I use it to read for longer than 20-30 minutes. It certainly hasn't lived up to the marketing mantra of 'magical'.

<comment><USER4> Up your font size? I've read 6 books on mine already (in iBooks and Kindle app both), no eye strain problems. [And strangely enough, I like the Kindle app better. Just wish there was a way to put my non-kindle ebooks into it].

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've been reading a lot more on it than I thought I would.

I thought that having a multi-purpose device would create distractions, but instead it gives me more opportunity to read since I bring my iPad with me more than I did the Kindle.

</comment><comment><USER8> Reader (iBooks, Kindle, Stanza, Marvel, ComixOlogy, IDW)

Browser (Safari)

News (Bloomberg, NPR, NYTimes Editors Choice, Paris Match, BBC News)

Doodle (Adobe Ideas)

Video podcasts (TED talks, GOLD, Lawrence Lessig, White House Music & the Arts)

Education (MIT Open Courseware)

Big frost so far: Numbers

</comment><comment><USER9> You mean the iWipe? I wipe my ass with it, just like Steve Jobs had intended.</comment>


Kindle sales have "disappeared", says UK's Largest Book Retailer - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/11328570/Kindle-sales-have-disappeared-says-UKs-largest-book-retailer.html

<comment><USER2> A little misleading: Kindle _device_ sales in physical stores have dropped off. There are no numbers for sales of e-books themselves here. There is good news that (physical) book sales are up. A more balanced article (from the same newspaper) seems to be: [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/11335718/T...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/11335718/The- Kindle-is-dead-the-book-is-back.-Or-is-it.html)

Personally, I'd want to know if Amazon.co.uk simply had better pricing or a similar promotion on Kindles.</comment>


Ted Chiang's Soulful Science Fiction - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/ted-chiangs-soulful-science-fiction <comment><USER2> I've been a huge fan ever since I stumbled upon one of his stories here on HN 5 years ago. "Stories of Your Life and Others" is one of the first Kindle books I bought.</comment>


Transitioning from Chrome apps on Windows, Mac, and Linux - <AUTHOR> https://developer.chrome.com/apps/migration <comment><USER2> I wonder what this means for Chrome Remote Desktop: will it become integrated in Chrome itself? It's basically the only app (not extension) I use daily.

<comment><USER3> That and Secure Shell. Having cross-platform SSH on any computer I can log into Chrome on is fantastic, and was incredibly useful at school.

<comment><USER4> SSH is an extension isn't it, rather than a Chrome app? I hope so because i'm so embedded in using it it will be a problem for me.

<comment><USER5> SSH is implemented as a Chrome App, using Native Client.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Love how they are still using OSX as the OS name. #noshitgiven</comment>


Twilio Sued by Authy (YC W12) Founder Over Merger Compensation - <AUTHOR> https://www.bna.com/twilio-sued-authy-n73014451236/ <comment><USER2> Complaint: [https://www.bloomberglaw.com/iframe/document/X1Q6NR78D282/do...](https://www.bloomberglaw.com/iframe/document/X1Q6NR78D282/download)

TL;DR: earnout disagreement, with the key earnout definitions completely redacted.

This is why earnouts are SO hard: too many external factors.

</comment><comment><USER3> Actual complaint (PDF): [https://www.bloomberglaw.com/iframe/document/X1Q6NR78D282/do...](https://www.bloomberglaw.com/iframe/document/X1Q6NR78D282/download)

<comment><USER4> Am I reading that document correctly? He had a clause for accelerated vesting upon termination and so vested 507885 shares immediately when they fired him in December (par. 36), and this suit is about the remaining 127386 "earn-out" shares that were dependent on hitting revenue targets? On the one hand that sucks and it sounds like he had a terrible time at Twilio; on the other hand he just got an extra 2.5 years' worth of stock without having to stick it out and is basically set up for life if he wants to be. Puts this in a slightly different light. (I have no connection to any of these people or companies, just interested in the story.)

<comment><USER5> It's common to have this sentiment, but it doesn't actually put anything in a different light, anymore than the fact that you're getting a salary of (say) $150,000/year makes your landord stealing your $5,000 deposit "in a different light". (If it looks completely unrelated to you, think about the deposit story from the point of view of someone who lives on $20/day).

I have not read the complaint, and have no knowledge of this case. But when you've been treated unfairly (in the legal sense), it is your right to seek compensation for that through the courts, and the fact that other agreements were honored (and put him in a good financial position) should not put anything in "a different light".

<comment><USER4> Absolutely - I'm not saying he shouldn't take action if he thinks he's entitled to that compensation. But I think most people coming to this thread with just the news article will be reading it more as "twilio acquired and fired so they could claw back promised equity" rather than "head of acquired company thinks twilio made it hard for him to hit revenue goals, affecting 1/6 of his equity compensation."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> i wonder how often this happens in the valley.

<comment><USER7> I wonder how often this happens outside of The Valley too.

<comment><USER8> A friend of mine works for a large M&A advisory firm. Apparently it happens all the time and the acquiring companies often make it deliberately hard for an acquired company to meet their earn-out targets, e.g. by hitting them with a lot of bureaucracy.

<comment><USER9> I've been bought twice. Each time the acquiring firm's bureaucracy was massively impactful. It's not done intentionally- larger companies need the structure. I have always thought of it as "gearing" \- as in a large gear can make a small gear turn very fast simply by barely moving. Or put another way what happens when everyone in the larger company just needs 10 minutes of your time? You are booked for six months.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Advice for applying to Y combinator - by Justin Kan (Kiko co-founder) - <AUTHOR> http://jkanstyle.com/2006/09/13/advice-for-applying-to-y-combinator/ <comment><USER2> It is my understanding that the application process puts less initial weight on the demo than the application itself (based on the text preceding the application itself). However, Justin says that a good demo is the key to acceptance. Should a good application not come first, based on the wording of the application?

Jason Berlinsky

<comment><USER3> I am betting that competition is so stiff at this point that you'd seriously hurt your chances by not having a slick demo.

<comment><USER2> Well, the demo is not everything. According to this article, you must also be able to change ideas and trains of thought. What good will a demo do if you are ultimately going to change your train of thought and move on to something else?

<comment><AUTHOR> Demos are great to crstallise thoughts and really build the platform for your application. Don't underestimate the value of the experience gained by putting put a demo. Afterall, you want to build something people use - you can't do that with an idea.

We've got a number of applications around the same core bunch of ideas. prototyping one application and getting people using it couldn't be a better validation of one's ability to execute when it comes to Y combinator. Lying back on an idea and waiting doesn't show anyone you want to make it happen.

If your idea changes - well it just means you've proved you can execute before. Get a demo out even if its very rough (anything is). Just start!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I believe the application is the more important part. But a demo can let the know that you've done more than dream. It would say that you have, at the very least, gone further than conceptualize and thought about implementation.</comment>


Swift vs. C - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/swift-programming/swifth-vs-c-5be7d0398f4f?section=%5Bobject%20Object%5D

<comment><USER2> Would we get different results using a more compute intensive primitive operation (a multiply or divide) with a double variable instead of an add?

Would the result in the first iteration just be due to some runtime overhead of Swift vs C (I am not sure what those are if any)?

I can't imagine its just a loop optimization issue. I may be wrong though.

</comment><comment><USER3> What? All that proves is that random number generation is now the dominant time consumer and says nothing about how well the loop code is generated

<comment><USER4> Some developers are delusional.</comment></comment>


British Museum makes 1.9M images available for free - <AUTHOR> https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/2020/04/28/british-museum-makes-1-9-million-images-available-for-free/ <comment><USER2> This article is misleading in one important aspect - the license for the use of the collection of British Museum in commercial settings.

The article states that the collection of the British Museum can be downloaded for free under the Creative Commons license CC BY 4.0 ([https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)). This international license permits the use of the subject licensed materials for commercial purposes. But a deeper look into the British Museum license proves that CC BY 4.0 is not applicable here. The Museum defines its license in specific terms ([https://www.britishmuseum.org/terms-use/copyright-and- permis...](https://www.britishmuseum.org/terms-use/copyright-and- permissions)): the Museum's license specifically excludes commercial use in its license and even gives examples of sites and blogs that promote services, etc. So watch out! Don't rely on the Creative Commons license in this case. If you have a blog and you use one of their photos you may get in trouble. Go into the Museum's site and specifically read their license terms.

<comment><USER3> The article correctly states that the images are licenced under one of the Creative Commons 4.0 licences, and correctly states that only non-commercial use is allowed in the third paragraph, but the author of that article mistakenly links to the CC BY 4.0 licence instead of the correct one.

The British Museum webpage you link to specifies the licence as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.

<comment><USER4> Yes but it should be added that "only non-commercial use" excludes almost all practical usages. Even wikipedia doesn't allow to use non-commercial, since it's a legal minefield.

<comment><USER5> I'm a big fan of CC in general. And I can sort of get behind No Derivatives even though it goes against the "remix" idea that was some of the impetus for CC in the first place. (I actually learned the other week that even the FSF uses ND for media.)

However, Non-Commercial is really bad. Yes, it encourages people to put their work into the commons with the knowledge that no one can legally profit off it. But it's essentially a feel-good license that lets people get warm and fuzzies for putting works into the commons even if, in practice, almost no one can use it.

It's telling that CC spent literally _years_ trying to define what NC meant and as far as I know never got to any sort of official definition.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This isn't new, the 1.9M were already up. It was one of my favorites and its in a list I keep of "High Quality Collections of Digitized Art and Archival Finds" (here: [https://simonsarris.com/art- collections](https://simonsarris.com/art-collections))

What's truly new here is a detailed search function that works FAR better than the old one, which would sometimes have a warning/apology box that it didn't quite work!

<comment><USER7> Wow your site is gorgeous!

Its a shame some of your stuff is linked off to Medium. But I've just discovered your home build posts, and that's something that fascinates and inspires me too, so I have a to go now and read through all that stuff.

Thx for real content!

<comment><USER8> Your comment in turn piqued my interest - very much enjoyed seeing Simeville and now having a great list of browsing material.

Virtuous circle!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is actually an unfortunate, but common abuse of the Creative Commons licenses.

Most of these objects are old enough to be in the public domain. Unless the photograph itself can be considered a work of art (which you may argue for 3D objects, but for simple replications of a 2D picture - hardly reasonable) a digital replication of them is in the public domain as well. Applying a "noncommercial" clause to a public domain image is trying to restrict freedoms that copyright law grants.

The Creative Commons FAQ even mentions this case explicitly: [https://creativecommons.org/faq/#may-i-apply-a-creative- comm...](https://creativecommons.org/faq/#may-i-apply-a-creative-commons- license-to-a-work-in-the-public-domain)

<comment><USER10> Copyright law specifies that a photograph or a scanned copy becomes an original work of art if there's a discernible original creative element present.

Copyright law doesn't define that creative element though. It's entirely subjective. And for good reason because copyright laws are intended to be universally applicable. Another legal principle is the principle of equality when applying a legal framework. A lot of discussion ends up halting in struggles over equal treatment.

This can be avoided in the context of digitization of historical objects though.

When a photographer is contracted or employed, part of the procurement process or the employment contract could include a waiver of photographer copyright.

However, this is a policy choice, not a requirement.

On 26 March 2019, the European Parliament adopted the Copyright in the Digital Market directive. Among all the upheaval about internet freedom, it also contains legal changes that make it more clear for member states on how to deal with cultural heritage in the public domain:

[https://pro.europeana.eu/post/copyright-reform-passed-by- eur...](https://pro.europeana.eu/post/copyright-reform-passed-by-european- parliament)

Now, Article 14 sounds like it's banning the practice of acquiring revenue through copies of public domain works. However... it's - again - far more complicated:

[http://copyrightblog.kluweriplaw.com/2019/06/27/the-new- copy...](http://copyrightblog.kluweriplaw.com/2019/06/27/the-new-copyright- directive-article-14-or-when-the-public-domain-enters-the-new-copyright- directive/)

Ultimately, the hard part about copyright law is that it tries not to differentiate between specific formats and representations. And so, if copyright law bans the sale of reproductions of public domain works it would also, unintentionally, ban the sale of other reproductions: postcards, printed t-shirts, coffee mugs and so on: it would put a lot of souvenir shops out of business as well.

<comment><USER11> > Copyright law specifies that a photograph or a scanned copy becomes an > original work of art if there's a discernible original creative element > present.

This varies from country to country. Thank you for the discussion of Article 14 of the EU CDSM directive!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Random facts I found googling around:

Site redesign completed by Numiko (agency) for £146,593. Uses drupal, elasticsearch on the backend.

[https://www.digitalmarketplace.service.gov.uk/digital- outcom...](https://www.digitalmarketplace.service.gov.uk/digital-outcomes-and- specialists/opportunities/7179)

[https://twitter.com/numiko/status/1255102332704096264](https://twitter.com/numiko/status/1255102332704096264)

<comment><USER13> Almost 200K USD. That seems like quite a steal, almost a reverse heist. Amazing that the museum was able to work that out. I wonder about the size of the team, how tight the spec was, etc. It's been fun to search around...a very impressive collection for sure.

<comment><USER12> Near the bottom of the UK bid site is public Q&A with some interesting technical tidbits, such as integrating with a Magento web shop, etc.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, that's pretty interesting for sure:

> A previous project to replatform and rebuild the site that was aborted in > early 2017, has yielded a significant amount of development work on the > design, creating multiple assets including content models and front-end > design that we would like to repurpose.

> Earlier this year we conducted a new discovery phase to re-establish what we > were setting out to achieve and this has culminated in a new vision and > objectives for the website, high level requirements, user stories and > technical options and recommendations.

Phew. Reading that and trying to imagine the circumstances, I feel for those previous-platform people too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > are being made available for anyone to use for free under a Creative Commons > 4.0 license.

I wonder why are they not public domain? IIRC if the image itself is public domain, a non-artistic picture of it is public domain as well because the act of making the picture isn't an act of art any more but an act of craftmanship.

<comment><USER15> Museums really try to hold on to the 'copyright' on their reproduction, for example by claiming that the act of reproduction can be seen as creative, and not purely technical. See for example this response by the Van Gogh museum [1].

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21671790](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21671790)

<comment><USER16> _Some_ museums try to do that. It's not a very well-regarded practice.

<comment><USER17> If your museums and galleries are free to the public, like most are in the UK, it's a reasonable part of the funding model

<comment><USER18> Don't many museums run on donations and tax money?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Important note: CC BY-NC-SA is a non-free license since it discriminates against fields of endeavour.

[https://www.britishmuseum.org/terms-use/copyright-and- permis...](https://www.britishmuseum.org/terms-use/copyright-and-permissions)

<comment><USER20> ...which makes it really a shame when people use it, since it fragments the commons -- you can't combine it with CC-BY-SA content.

For anyone considering, please just use by-sa. The share-alike requirement is probably enough to discourage the exploitative type of commercial use you probably want to avoid.

<comment><USER21> I think CC-BY-NC-SA is quite good: basically the NC means that if you want to make money from this content then you should share with the creators, or at least ask for extra permission, that's reasonable IMO. You can still share my content, just not make money by sharing it (unless you ask).

Is that really bad?

<comment><USER22> The problem with any Non Commercial licenses is where you draw the line. Say you want to mirror these images, can you show ads on the site to cover hosting costs ? What about asking for donations ? What if you want to print them and distribute to schools - can you get reimbursed for the paper ink and distribution costs ?

It gets murky pretty fast, often preventing people from even using such media as they fear possible issues down the line due to uncertainty. At the same time, any bootleggers won't care.

Due to this NC clauses are generally not recommended and are for example not part of any OCI accepted open source licenses.

<comment><USER23> "What if you want to print them and distribute to schools - can you get reimbursed for the paper ink and distribution costs"

That does not fit my mental definition of "commercial", which I would define as for profit. I'm sure there are corner cases but I don't think that is one of them.

Running ads whilst mirroring them - that might be hard to justify unless the revenue was only enough to support the website. Then you should wonder why mirror them at all? Now what about using them in a novel way which is ad supported? Probably OK, provided its at cost and you attribute the source.

<comment><USER24> Commercial usage includes any exchange of money, even if you're taking a huge financial loss by using the images, so this license prohibits all of that.

<comment><USER25> 'For profit' status isn't about actually making a profit, but about specific commercial arrangements. A money losing company doesn't suddenly become a 'non-profit'.

But no clue whether the license care about this?

<comment><USER22> That's the main issue as I see it - it makes many uses quite murky so people will just avoid those all together rather than risk someone deciding later on it was a comercial endeavour and thus breach of the license.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> FWIW most of these images are plain 2D reproductions of already-public-domain images on which the museum can't claim any copyright.

<comment><USER27> Under British law they can claim copyright of the photograph.

<comment><USER28> Or so they claim. The legal arguments that museums rely on to assert this are ... really bad. I mean really bad. But taking on the combined might of the UK museum sector is not a good idea. So we have to pretend that a couple of irrelevant old judgements mean that "sweat of the brow copyright" isn't the nonsense it so plainly is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Link to collection: [https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection](https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection)

</comment><comment><USER30> Still applying copyright to digitized versions of public domain works. That's NOT OK.

</comment><comment><USER31> I've read so many of these announcements over the years. I always end up being disappointed.

Lithmus test:

1\. Is there a .torrent?

2\. If not, is there a batch download mechanism?

3\. Why not?

IMHO: I think museum curators do it this way because they feel doing it more liberally would strip them of their power.

(Also: why would anyone downvote this? I'm puzzled.)

<comment><USER26> For me the most disappointing thing is the licence: they all use the NC clause which makes the licence non-free, and thus these images can't be uploaded on Wikimedia Commons.

Having a .torrent or a batch download mechanism is just a technical issue, which can be solved.

<comment><USER11> Probably most of them can as long as US copyright law doesn't start permitting sweat-of-the-brow copyright.

<comment><USER32> What does US Copyright law have to do with it?

<comment><USER33> These images are not subject to copyright in the US.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Serious question for HNers -- is this the biggest shithole on the Internet? Dang has gone to great lengths to ensure that only far-right anti-science, anti-intellectual noise sustains.

If you want to deny AGW, the impact of COVID-19, hail the president, etc -- this is the place for you.

I'll email Paul Graham about this. Does he realize how his baby has become such a shithole?

<comment><USER35> If there is any evidence for your accusation, you should be able to link it. Do you have any?

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I'm personally happy with the licence, which makes it easier for people to use without being pursued by Getty or similar as happens with public domain images.

People here are complaining about it not being public domain, but as soon as image set is made public domain, HN posters complain about how Getty will abuse it. Can't win!

<comment><USER28> That doesn't make any sense.

You can win, just don't claim things aren't in the public domain when they are.

This includes you, Getty.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Hello rightswashing.

Sticking an NC license on faithful reproductions of 2D images is a bit low.

</comment><comment><USER37> I wonder when Getty Images will come claim them and then sue to Museum for $1M

</comment><comment><USER38> Thank you for posting this. I had missed this -- I am excited to improve Desktop Pictures collection with Egyptian, Roman and other beautiful artefacts

</comment><comment><USER12> Sample API query URL (undocumented)

      https://www.britishmuseum.org/api/_search?keyword[]=greek

<comment><USER39> And in case anyone's interested, the relative locations the API gives are relative to [https://media.britishmuseum.org/media](https://media.britishmuseum.org/media)

<comment><USER12> Thanks, marked off my todo list.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> As an aside, the excellent

 _History of the World in 100 Objects_

is currently available for download.

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00nrtd2/episodes/downloads](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00nrtd2/episodes/downloads)

<comment><USER41> For context, this series of radio programmes is presented by a former director of the British Museum and features 100 objects from the collection of the museum (full list here: [http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/about/british- museum...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/about/british-museum- objects/)). The objects range from the prehistoric (2 million years ago) to the modern (10 years ago).

<comment><USER40> Thanks, I was going to add this context, but my anti-procrastination app- blocker kicked me off before I could do so. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I'd like to see an AI have a look at these and spit out what the average image looks like in this collection.

<comment><USER43> > average

My money's on brown splodge. And I don't think you can call that AI.

<comment><USER44> One goal of AI/ML for this kind of task is to discover a latent space of the source images, such that the "average" in that space is always a "valid" image (not splodge).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Animal Crossing QR code generator or it didn't happen (joke)</comment>


Flappy Circle - <AUTHOR> http://www.flappycircle.com

<comment><USER2> I was on a pretty good run and died unexpectedly. The collision detection felt a bit off as I'm pretty sure it shouldn't have hit the edge. Still it's a fun little random diversion.

</comment><comment><USER3> The colors don't offer enough contrast between the clouds and the missles (?) to tell when their is a collision sometimes.

<comment><AUTHOR> Will fix.</comment></comment>


Will people leave Facebook for Buzz? Fat chance - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10451278-36.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

<comment><USER2> I was gratified to note that this submitted article was on the top of my Google News feed. It's a good discussion of the trade-offs between Google Buzz and other social networking possibilities.</comment>


Google: 5 Reasons to Stay, 5 Reasons to Leave  - <AUTHOR> http://blog.bincsearch.com/?p=225 Why is Google so special?? And even more importantly, why should employees leave now before it's too late??<p>Listen, don't get me wrong I love Google, but hey, people are leaving and I'm here to make sure you know why. <comment><USER2> Gas prices argument was particularly lame.

<comment><USER3> Agreed, especially when they provide the free shuttle. The author of the blog post does not seem to have a clue.</comment></comment>


Think Complexity - free book on complexity science, data structures & algorithms - <AUTHOR> http://www.greenteapress.com/compmod/ <comment><USER2> Here's a version optimized for 6" e-readers:

[https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/23436680/Think%20Complex...](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/23436680/Think%20Complexity%20-%20Allen%20B.%20Downey.pdf)

(from this Reddit thread: [http://www.reddit.com/r/learnpython/comments/18hdv6/ereader_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/learnpython/comments/18hdv6/ereader_optimized_versions_of_think_python_and/) )

</comment><comment><USER3> Looks a little more digestible than CLRS [http://www.amazon.ca/Introduction- Algorithms-Thomas-H-Cormen...](http://www.amazon.ca/Introduction-Algorithms- Thomas-H-Cormen/dp/0262033844). :)</comment>


Is reddit experiencing the consequences of losing their founders? - <AUTHOR>

If the reddit team is resorting to donations, this seems to indicate no one is successfully arguing for their worth inside Conde Nast. The remaining employees are now responsible for operations but lack the ability to fight for resources. If things continue on this path I can't imagine things lasting long before everyone wants to move on to other opportunities. <comment><USER2> Probably the more significant factor is the bottom line.

Reddit doesn't make much money from advertising. They have 4 salaried (I assumed) full time employees, a bunch of servers, and other miscellaneous expenses. It's not like they're a startup looking for that burst of growth to take them to the next level. What you see is what you get in terms of revenue. Conde Nast isn't going to start dumping more money for nothing, it needs to see some sort of return on investment to justify that.

Their "donations" experiment was really just a test for a subscription based model for premium users. This is a business model struggle, not a leadership/vision one IMO.</comment>


Purewrite.net for songwriters and poetry - <AUTHOR> http://purewrite.net/ <comment><USER2> If you are interested in feedback, this might make a good "Show HN".

Was it written to "scratch your own itch?"</comment>


"Science and democracy have always been twins." - <AUTHOR> http://nytimes.com/2009/01/27/science/27essa.html?ref=science

<comment><USER2> So that's why a democratic Athens killed Socrates?

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

There's a good reason the USA isn't a democracy.

<comment><USER3> Socrates wasn't a scientist. We don't really know what he was, but presumably he was a political philosopher and metaphysician.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> An interesting essay, excited by President Obama's pledge to "restore science to its rightful place," that considers the relationship between science and democracy and how the health of one influences strongly the other.

"If there is anything democracy requires and thrives on, it is the willingness to embrace debate and respect one another and the freedom to shun received wisdom. Science and democracy have always been twins."

<comment><USER4> this is democracy blatantly taking credit for capitalism.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> democracy is social constructivism. this is diametrically opposed to science. it doesn't matter how many people disagree with you if you're right.

</comment><comment><USER5> Democracy = Wisdom of Crowds

Science = Meritocracy

</comment><comment><USER6> This is the most stupid essay I have read in my life. Most scientific advances have not been made in democratic governments - The old Islamic Discoveries, the old Chinese Discoveries, the old European Discoveries were all made under King-like dynasties. A huge number of inventions were made under Fascist Germany.

Democracy is in fact really bad for science, because in a democratic society, you need to convince many people you are right. In a fascist or monarchist society, you just need to convince the king.

And then stupidly equating this with china - china is where it is right now because of a very strong central government with tight control. Without this government, the chinese people would have collapsed into civil war and split up - it would not have been at the level it is at now at all.

Old men with limited experience should not go meddling with systems they do not understand and that seem to be working, based on their ideology. The alternative could mean the death of millions - look what happened when they thought to bring 'democracy' to Iraq.

<comment><USER2> That is not a good model either. Sure, you get a lot of problems solved, but they are all very immediate and pragmatic. Plus, America would have been defeated by China, USSR, Nazi Germany, etc. if this were true.

The best way is to decouple science from politics as much as possible.</comment></comment>


Theresa May pushes for greater surveillance powers - <AUTHOR> http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-28013805 <comment><USER2> _" Over a six-month period the National Crime Agency alone estimates that it has had to drop at least 20 cases as a result of missing communications data," she said in a speech on Tuesday. "Thirteen of these were threat-to-life cases in which a child was assessed to be at risk of imminent harm._

This is utter nonsense. If evidence is absent, you cannot just assume that it would have helped your case.

<comment><USER3> And later on in the article: "Therefore, if the home secretary is stating that communications data was unavailable in specific cases, then that would suggest that a warrant was either not submitted to, or was rejected by, the companies in question. The question therefore should be why is this the case?"

Or is she citing cases where the authorities did not seek a warrant, or the judiciary refused a warrant? And if so, why?

<comment> mike-cardwell Presumably in some of those cases, the argument was that if they could scan a large number of peoples email for keywords they might have been able to find some evidence as to who was involved.

You generally can't get a warrant to scan a large number of peoples email. Especially if that large number amounts to everyone.

I don't agree that they should have the ability to do this, even if it saves lives. Because handing over this sort of power to a government only leads to the creation of a police state, which ultimately will probably ruin more lives.

Freedom costs lives.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4>
       "The home secretary says internet phone systems Skype and Facetime, as well as
       social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, have become "safe
       havens" for organised criminals and terrorists"

and ..

       "It would also have extended laws to cover new online forms of communication, such as
       Skype, and there were suggestions it could also give intelligence services real-time
       access to the data."

In a world where recent controversy has caused a greater proportion of traffic to make use of increasingly strong encryption, it's hard not interpret this as a plaintive demand to subvert free enterprise, law and technology -- so that all the old fun toys work once again.

What they really want is to render privacy and encryption moot by making it a legal requirement that any service that facilitates communication, in any form, be required to backdoor or log everything and provide it on a whim.

And how're they going to sell it? The age old "think of the children" refrain. Class.

</comment><comment><USER5> "The home secretary says internet phone systems Skype and Facetime, as well as social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, have become "safe havens" for organised criminals and terrorists."

How exactly do you coordinate a terrorist attack over _Twitter_?

<comment><USER6> ISIS routinely use Twitter to publish stuff. I don't personally think that's a problem, but I expect that's what she's talking about.

<comment><USER7> I suspect that she hasn't given it much thought at all and just lumped all internet media together. I suspect if you told her ISIS was spreading their messages by using paper leaflets she would brand the post office as a 'safe haven' for terrorists too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> If this sort of thing bothers you, please support the Open Rights Group: [http://www.openrightsgroup.org/](http://www.openrightsgroup.org/)

<comment><USER8> I admire the work of the Open Rights Group, but it bothers me that they try to funnel you towards making Direct Debit (recurring, straight from your bank account) contributions and make it difficult to find the one-off donation button.

Six links to recurring payments on [https://www.openrightsgroup.org/join/](https://www.openrightsgroup.org/join/) and only one to one-off donations. And even after clicking on that, I have to scroll past more Direct Debit links to get to the one-off payment section.

Perhaps I'm just cynical, but I never give charitable donations on a recurring basis. What if I don't support their actions in the future? Or I deem another cause more worthy, at a point in time, of my donations? I have to take action to cancel the Direct Debit.

I know it's probably cheaper for them, and it encourages people to sign up and forget that they're contributing, but it feels too much like their website is pushing you towards that and your one-off contribution isn't good enough.

<comment><USER9> On the other side, if I were running a business on donations I'd sleep far happier at night and concentrate on my goals a lot more with smaller steady recurring donations. As opposed to being on a constant funding drive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> We begin therefore where they are determined not to end, with the question whether any form of democratic self-government, anywhere, is consistent with the kind of massive, pervasive, surveillance into which the Unites States government has led not only us but the world.

This should not actually be a complicated inquiry.

[http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/27/-sp- privac...](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/27/-sp-privacy- under-attack-nsa-files-revealed-new-threats-democracy)

Surveillance is not an end toward totalitarianism, it is totalitarianism itself.

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/europe-24385999](http://www.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/europe-24385999)

</comment><comment><USER11> Wow somebody get this lunatic lady out of power.

First of all 20 cases over 6 months is not bad however they neglected to say what the total amount of cases processed over these 6 months was. Was it 100 or 100000?

What is the reason they could not get the data did they not have enough evidence to get a warrant all cases are not created equal.

"She dismissed as "nonsense" claims that the UK's secret listening post GCHQ is exploiting a technical loophole in legislation that allows it spy on YouTube and social media messages that are routed through foreign servers"

Now that is just living in your own little bubble it's pretty obvious by now that this is true.

I don't want delusional people making laws for me.

Anybody supporting this will not be getting my vote that's for sure.

<comment><USER12> The problem we have is that Labour have historically proven to be even more draconian and anti-libertarian than the Conservatives. The only realistic alternative the Conservative government is a Labour government.

The best we can hope for (IMHO) is another coalition government - this time with Labour and the LibDems, such that we reverse some of the recent nonsense, but it doesn't escalate due to the semi-moderating liberal presence.

<comment><USER5> Well, we're not going to get it; the Liberal Democrats are a dead party walking. One the one hand, I think it's a bit unfair that they're taking so much heat for what are effectively Conservative actions - on the other, their choice of coalition partner effectively put the Conservatives in power in the first place, and they had exactly one job (reign in the worst excesses) which they have in many instances failed to even pay lip service to.

As far as I can tell though, however much we all hate them, the career politicians aren't really responsible for all this bullshit - they just go along with it for political expediency. I've been watching carefully and it all comes from the Home Office (and to a lesser extent, the Met). And the thing is, those civil servants aren't elected. We can't get rid of them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I absolutely agree that in cases where it can be proven, or it is reasonably suspected, that there is criminal or terrorist activity afoot that the various law enforcement agencies should be able to get access to online communications.

Luckily, this is the case already and additional laws won't strengthen this - they will simply remove the need for the burden of proof or suspicion.

It all still boils down to a "trust us, we're on your side" refrain, yet at the same time there is no acknowledgement of the already exposed over-reach that is going on - and in fact, there is an explicit denial/rubbishing of one specific claim.

They can't have our trust and lie to us at the same time - what they're effectively saying isn't, "trust us, we're on your side", it's "you can't trust us, but don't sweat it we're not coming for you yet".

</comment><comment><USER13> Currently I am outraged by this proposal. But the sad thing is I won't do anything about it. I'll watch the World Cup tonight, I'll worry about traction for my startup and then I'll make plans for the weekend. This apathy is present throughout UK society. None of my friends give a damn to challenge the proposal. The politicians seem like they don't give a damn either.

<comment><USER14> Bread and Circuses always win, usually.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Modern communication technology also introduces more pressure on governments to behave correctly, which takes power away from them.

<comment><USER16> I don't see much evidence of that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Do they really think people planning to commit such crimes won't simply encrypt their data?

<comment><USER18> Playing devil's advocate a little, the value in the data from an intelligence perspective is probably in the network it uncovers. If you know a circle of people are regularly exchanging encrypted messages, then you can try to target one member and get them to compromise the group by turning them into an informant. Similarly, if you suspect someone, you can look at their records to discover the networks of potential conspirators, then fan-out for each member until you have a big picture of interactions between different networks.

There's a great example of exploiting simple person-person interaction graphs to generate this information here: [http://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2013/06/09/using- metada...](http://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2013/06/09/using-metadata-to- find-paul-revere)

<comment><USER19> If they're smart, it feels like the shady groups would try to push for adoption of something like BitMessage to stop this kind of side-channel information leakage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> A full transcript of the speech can be found here: [https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/home-secretarys- defen...](https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/home-secretarys-defence-and- security-lecture)

</comment><comment><USER21> If you still don't run your own mailserver or use a service like safe-mail or mykolab in this day and age, you're mad.</comment>


How America Made Donald Trump Unstoppable - <AUTHOR> http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-america-made-donald-trump-unstoppable-20160224?page=2 <comment><USER2> I don't think I've liked a Matt Taibbi piece in a while, but this really has some gems. Thanks for sharing.</comment>


Corporate cultures in Japan - <AUTHOR> http://www.japansubculture.com/2010/05/shafuu-101-choosing-a-company-for-the-new-generation/

<comment><AUTHOR> Charisma-kei businesses are common; I had a client that was clearly such.

The president of the company was constantly spying on all his programmers, and often switched the strategic direction in order to conform to the latest trends that he spotted on Digg. No one was paid more than about USD25k/year, despite having a huge office in Akihabara and backing from a large angel investor in Korea. (There was no business equity or anything like that for the workers, and no housing assistance either)

That isn't really a big deal; just another failing IT company with no direction. However, the "Japanese Charisma Kei" twist is that 25% of the company gross was given to a fundamentalist church the president belonged to, and that he continuously recruited people to join his cult. My gf, who I met there, had joined and subsequently left that church because she thought they were insane. The President let church members come to the office and hassle her about going back to that church without remorse. (She eventually left the company to work at a bank.)

All of this changed when I joined the company, mainly because they had a new director that was appointed by the angel investor. I can't say it changed much for the better. You see, the director believed he was receiving direct communications from aliens about zero-point energy and that it was his mission to create a new civilization based on that knowledge. He also refused to take baths (he used a peroxide solution to wipe his body with instead). As far as employees went, he frowned on the use of doctors (preferring instead to tell them to learn the secrets of "Ki healing").

I stopped working with them after 6 months. I have never regretted it.

(As an aside, I don't have any problem with people's personal religious beliefs or the fervor with which they practice it; it was the personality cult and the organized harassment in a place of business that was completely bizarre and far beyond anything I have ever encountered in Canada or the US)

-edited for terrible grammar. Ugh.

<comment><USER2> > No one was paid more than about USD25k/month

I'm assuming that should be per year?

<comment><AUTHOR> Doh! Thanks, fixed :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> As an American living in Japan for an American firm, it's always a culture shock when I talk to other dad's at my kids school events. If I find the person I'm talking to is working for a "Militant" + "Work == Life" company, I need to shut up, lest I shatter the illusion of the security of lifetime employment. It's also a bit strange when I run into people that have worked for the same firm I'm in right now and left because it was too "Liberal".

Japan is just not changing fast enough and is going to be left behind by the more aggressive, mobile, and "liberal" workforce and companies. Traditional Japanese companies are like the dinosaurs, not able to adapt to change. Darwinism at work.

<comment><AUTHOR> Here here.

I also previously worked at Fujitsu's mobile division and can attest to that.

They still have an entire floor dedicated to developing for Symbian. Their main translator is hamstrung by rules that indicate they must re-use old (incorrect) translations so that there is no loss in "language continuity" between phones.

It isn't the fault of my immediate superiors there; both were open, intelligent and hard-working. It is middle and upper middle management. They are relics from the bubble era ( subject to less stringent entry conditions) and were promoted 3 or 4 levels above their competence. The fact is, their underlings are of significantly higher quality. (My superior was one person picked out of 500; as opposed to her superior, who was chosen out of a group of 5 or 6)

Fujitsu's previous president was thrown out of the company on trumped-up charges about being aligned with the Yakuza (<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8606515.stm>). Why? Because he tried to spin off parts of the company that had been losing money for years.

I loved my coworkers there and part of me wishes I could be working with them today. Unfortunately, they won't adapt until an entire generation is in their grave.

<comment><USER4> "Hear, hear"

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hear,_hear>

(semi-apologies, incorrect cultural idioms are a pet peeve of mine)

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry about that, I'm a bit embarassed because I feel the exact same way (particularly about misuses of "I couldn't care less")

<comment><USER5> Honest question, how is "I couldn't care less" usually mis-used? Using a made- up example, it's often said like this, "I couldn't care _less_ how much you like XYZ, I don't want blah blah blah."

The person is saying that they don't care at all. As in, they couldn't care less... seems right to me! Just curious how it's typically mis-used.

<comment><USER6> A lot of people say "I could care less"

<comment><USER5> Ah, of course. I misunderstood the grandparent. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I did 2 internships at Sony in Japan... work relationships were professional (not personal), and the managers were very polite to the subordinates. Looking at this chart, I realize now how atypical this is for Japanese companies!

<comment><USER8> _Looking at this chart, I realize now how atypical this is for Japanese companies!_

It is atypical for a _certain segment_ of Japanese companies. Its a big country, with all kinds of folks in it, much like America. I get worried when folks assume that the stereotypical salaryman life is universal in Japan -- compare it to Japanese people assuming that all American companies are like Google. (Incidentally, I have met people with that misconception.)

Anecdotally, my previous employers were solidly within the ambit of a corporation on the top left of that chart, and managers were instructed to (and to my experience generally did) address employees "consistent with professional etiquette and the traditional expectations of polite society."

<comment><USER7> Yes good point. I guess I meant comparing Sony with the other electronics makers like panasonic or hitachi.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> How much is apple a charisma-kei company? The media and some customer segments treat it like that, but I wonder how it is as an actual employee?

</comment><comment><USER10> Japanese culture is a type of _cult_</comment>


Shuttleworth: Free software zealots are antisocial muppets who love to hate - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/article/ubuntus-shuttleworth-free-software-zealots-are-antisocial-muppets-who-love-to-hate/ <comment><USER2> Oy vey, what to say about this. On one hand, the "people who don't like my stuff are crazy loons with an agenda" sounds like something you might hear from a fringe politician (or a mainstream one these days). It's just a bad way of putting it and the paternal condescension it indicates is part of the reason people hated on Ubuntu projects.

On the other, I'm brought to mind of when Tollef Fog Heen left the Debian project. He complained that the community had forgotten its important creed "assume good faith". And I'm inclined to agree with him, the amount of vitriol surrounding systemd was way out of proportion to its actual impact. The amount of shit thrown at Ubuntu for simply writing software is uncanny. If you don't like it, don't use it, even express your criticism; but Ubuntu comes in for criticism for experimenting and trying to move software forward, and that's unfair. Ubuntu and Canonical are willing to take risks. I don't always like them (I don't use Ubuntu), but I can respect them for trying.

EDIT: Here's the post from Tollef: [https://hackerfall.com/story/resigning-as- a-debian-systemd-m...](https://hackerfall.com/story/resigning-as-a-debian- systemd-maintainer)

I think he puts the same sentiment in a much more diplomatic way.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is flamebait. There's nothing actionable here, just a rant. The only takeaway I can see is that I should avoid Ubuntu because its founder no longer believes in its core mission.

:(

</comment><comment><USER4> Here is the full quote that the author is taking these quotes from:

> +Martin Kozub we have lots of IoT projects using Mir as a compositor so that > code continues to receive investment. I agree, it's a very fast, clean and > powerful graphics composition engine, and smart people love it for that.

> The whole Mir hate-fest boggled my mind - it's free software that does > something invisible really well. It became a political topic as irrational > as climate change or gun control, where being on one side or the other was a > sign of tribal allegiance. We have a problem in the community when people > choose to hate free software instead of loving that someone cares enough to > take their life's work and make it freely available.

> I came to be disgusted with the hate on Mir. Really, it changed my opinion > of the free software community.

> I used to think that it was a privilege to serve people who also loved the > idea of service, but now I think many members of the free software community > are just deeply anti-social types who love to hate on whatever is > mainstream. When Windows was mainstream they hated on it. Rationally, > Windows does many things well and deserves respect for those. And when > Canonical went mainstream, it became the focus of irrational hatred too. The > very same muppets would write about how terrible it was that IOS/Android had > no competition and then how terrible it was that Canonical was investing in > (free software!) compositing and convergence. Fuck that shit.

<comment><USER5> >The very same muppets would write about how terrible it was that IOS/Android had no competition and then how terrible it was that Canonical was investing in (free software!) compositing and convergence.

He seems to imply iOS/Andoid competition and compositing/convergence have something to do with each other. Neither iOS or Android have it. Windows 10 Phone has it, but no one is buying those, so it's obviously not the killer feature he thinks it is. The complaint is that a ton of resources are being wasted around a feature no one asked for. Phone sized computer with a blob of icons that runs 1 application at a time, without the walled garden, make sure C/C++ code can be utilized, that's all anyone is asking for. Developers will deal with having to redo the UI for their application, it's not a problem that needs solving anytime soon. No walled garden is the feature that would set Canonical apart, there's no need for a silly gimmick to entice potential buyers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Reporting of this by _The Register_ was headlined yesterday at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14077029](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14077029) . It is interesting how the ZDNet headline manages to be more tabloidesque than _The Register_ 's.

</comment><comment><USER7> "The very same muppets would write about how terrible it was that IOS/Android had no competition and then how terrible it was that Canonical was investing in (free software!) compositing and convergence. F __* that s __*. "

Sure Mark, if you want to pretend all the criticism of Canonical was just because it "was investing in (free software)", you go ahead and do that. Just be aware it's still pretending by burying your head in the sand, and ignoring the very real and well reasoned criticisms.

</comment><comment><USER8> [https://plus.google.com/+MarkShuttleworthCanonical/posts/7LY...](https://plus.google.com/+MarkShuttleworthCanonical/posts/7LYubpaHUHH)

That's the post, either it has been edited or he doesn't say anything like that or that quote came from some other interview that I can't find a source for (but which seems to be widely cited in various news items so you'd expect there to be an original somewhere).

<comment><USER2> It's in the comments of the post.

<comment><USER8> Ah right, found it, those are by default collapsed and search doesn't find them on the page. Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> _Very_ misleading title.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'll openly admit that I'm a Free Software zealot, but Mark's characterisation of zealotry doesn't quite apply to my way of thinking:

> When Windows was mainstream they hated on it. Rationally, Windows does many > things well and deserves respect for those. And when Canonical went > mainstream, it became the focus of irrational hatred too.

I hate on, and have no respect for, Windows for precisely one reason: it's proprietary. My zealotry is so fierce, that I don't consider Windows to do anything well; because whatever it does, it does unethically. Of course, I acknowledge that _if we ignore the ethics_ , then it may have some good solutions to various things, but I consider the ethics to be so important that there's no way for any other aspect to make up for it. I basically consider Windows to be a fancy tech demo, like Duke Nukem Forever, which so far has still failed to ship anything useful (where "shipping something useful" == "contributing software to the public good").

On the other hand, Canonical have shipped an awful lot of useful stuff, which I respect them for. They've also shipped stuff that I may not find useful, but still thank them for. They've also failed to ship some stuff too, like the server software for UbuntuOne, which remained in the tech demo stage (i.e. proprietary) until it was discontinued.

My opinion of Canonical has never depended on whether they're "mainstream".

> The very same muppets would write about how terrible it was that IOS/Android > had no competition and then how terrible it was that Canonical was investing > in (free software!) compositing and convergence. F __* that s __ _.

iOS is only a tech preview, so I'll focus on Android.

Android ships a fair amount of stuff, which I respect. I understand that many copies of Android also throw some unethical components into the mix too, which is a shame. It's also a shame that many mobile phone manufacturers are shipping tech previews rather than user-controlled general-purpose computers.

Based on my own usage of Android (I built it from git for my OpenMoko in 2008), it was nice but sluggish. The fact it exists at all is enough to satisfy my ethical concerns about FOSS mobile software: whether or not it gets bundled with proprietary stuff, on crippled remotely-operated spying devices, is a different (but important!) concern that may or may not benefit from competition. On desktops we have Linux, the BSDs, Haiku, FreeDOS, etc. yet many machines still come bundled with Windows and OS X; having many FOSS options didn't neccessarily help FOSS adoption.

Regarding Unity: I see the point of it, as a very user-visible way for Canonical to differentiate themselves from being a "mere vendor" (like, say, Debian). Yes, it's "non-standard", but that's part of the point. I don't actually use it, or GNOME, XFCE, etc. (I use xmonad with no DE) but I've run across it and didn't have any problems.

As for Mir, it _could* be a differentiating factor, but it's mostly hidden from the user. It's one of those situations where nobody notices it unless it goes wrong. The same goes for Wayland, and Xorg. For that reason, it's probably better to pool resources into a common, "works everywhere" graphics implementation. Wayland seems to have won the developer mindshare at this point.</comment>


Ask HN: Can you help me find a certain web product? - <AUTHOR>

Hi, everyone. Several months ago, I believe someone made a Show HN post about a startup that allows a person to submit a press release to more than 100 news sources at once. With this startup you fill out one form and pay a fee, and then the application submits your press release to lots of news sources at one time. Does anyone know the name of this product? Thank you so much! <comment><USER2> [http://pitchpigeon.com/blog/peterpings-rebrands-as- pitchpige...](http://pitchpigeon.com/blog/peterpings-rebrands-as- pitchpigeon.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you so much!</comment></comment>


Minority Neighborhoods Pay Higher Car Insurance Premiums with the Same Risk - <AUTHOR> https://www.propublica.org/article/minority-neighborhoods-higher-car-insurance-premiums-white-areas-same-risk <comment><USER2> If they were just looking at a 30yo woman with a safe driving record, did they account for things like property crimes committed in the poorer neighborhoods? If I'm more likely to live in a poorer urban neighborhood, I'm probably parking on the street in an older, cheaper car like a Honda or Toyota (the car most likely to be stolen). If someone steals the car or there is a break-in, premiums might not go up for you but they might go up for everyone around you (i.e. your zipcode). Now take a look at a white neighborhood, the area is more likely to be wealthier so the cars are probably newer and more expensive so they aren't as high up on that list of most stolen. There may be more break- ins but when that whiter, wealthier neighborhood is more suburban, there going to be more cars parked in garages so less break-ins.

I've always assumed zipcode had to deal with where you keep your car at night and the crime that happens around your car. Based on the data they show, my hypothesis still hasn't been disproved. If anyone can show me that minority neighborhoods have less car thefts and car break-ins than whiter ones, I'll gladly change my thinking.

I'm not ruling out the possibility of their being some systemic racism in insurance premiums but I'm looking at if there is any statistical reasons as to why things are the way they are. Perhaps insurance premium models are outdated like the past article on the relationship between office AC temps and the changing of the gender ratio in the workplace.

</comment><comment><USER3> "...some major insurers charge minority neighborhoods as much as 30 percent more than other areas with similar accident costs"

If this effect is true, any insurance company can make a many millions by charging these neighborhoods 10% less than the competition (which is still 20% more income per policy ), for the same payout rate.

Given that this apparently has not happened yet, I wonder if there is some other factors involved.

For example my car insurance policy has a discount because my house insurance policy is with the same company.

In addition most companies give multicar discounts as well.

Heck, I also get a good discount for paying in six month chunks, rather than monthly.

Could the effect in the article just be that white people tend to own more cars per household, tend to have a higher rate of owning their own houses, and tend to pay in longer was than monthly?

<comment><USER4> Reminds me of this joke: An economist and a normal person are walking down the street together. The normal person says "Hey, look, there's a $20 bill on the sidewalk!" The economist replies by saying "That's impossible- if it were really a $20 bill, it would have been picked up by now."</comment></comment>


Groupon Board Will Meet Tomorrow (Wednesday) To Decide On Google Deal - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/30/groupon-google-2/ <comment><USER2> Groupon would be Google's GeoCities. Not worth 2 billion and certainly not worth 5 billion.</comment>


Pierre Deligne wins Abel Prize for contributions to algebraic geometry - <AUTHOR> http://www.nature.com/news/belgian-mathematician-rewarded-for-shaping-algebra-1.12644

<comment><USER2> I've submitted a link to Gowers' blog which has a paper describing his work:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5406796></comment>


What Moves Markets: The Seven Hundred Million Dollar Man - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.netapp.com/dave/2009/10/what-moves-markets-the-seven-hundred-million-dollar-man.html <comment><USER2> > In particular, he showed a slide saying that by Q3, we expect to be back to > our normal operating profit of 16%.

I don't feel there is anything astounding about the stock price shooting up based on one person's presentation. While it seems what Steve did was such a simple thing, he was simply the messenger here. The message itself is huge. Profits of 16% are staggering, especially during recessions. That number is calculated from thousands of variables that affect the company's sales, growth, and overall performance. It is the end result and is all short-term investors care about.

It would be like having a loved one in ICU and hearing a nurse discuss for an hour about how they're trying to save the patient vs. the doctor coming in an saying "he is going to be ok." I don't think the hour-long explanation on the dedication of hospital staff will give you even 1% the relief that hearing the doctor's "ok" will give.

So what moves the market? Profits and projections thereof.

<comment><USER3> Wait a minute, the guy is proud of his bosses manipulating their stock price with hype and expectations?

This is ridiculous at best and criminal at worse.

Good that now I know NetApp is one more company I wouldn't invest in. At 90+ P/E I wouldn't probably contemplate it anyway. In fact, here I have another perfect short candidate.</comment></comment>


Blogging – Between a rock and a hard place - <AUTHOR> http://keyholders.ghost.io/blogging-being-between-a-rock-and-a-hard-place/

<comment><USER2> Who is this meant to be of interest to?

Is HN turning into Twitter? If so I've got a great link where someone discusses his reasons for choosing which pair of socks to wear.

</comment><comment><USER3> Why does the name and picture on that page not match the name and picture of the twitter account he links to? Is this someone we're supposed to know?</comment>