Ask HN: Can signal processing experts contribute to sustainable food production? - <AUTHOR> From the outside I've always seen the field of sustainable food and artificial meat production as extremely important but am not aware of any ways someone with my skills can contribute to it. My training is as a communications engineer. I've thought about information theory, signal processing and statistics. Is there any demand for these skills in that sector?<p>Thanks <comment><USER2> Efficient controller design for the processes, can you optimise a feedback loop / control system (It's all signals coming from instrumentation).

You could be optimising the irrigation schedule / climate control system to produce things better/faster/cheaper etc.

</comment><comment><USER3> Yes.

Information theory leads to information retrieval

Signal processing can be used to measure health of food

Statistics can be used everywhere</comment>


Nvim-colorizer.lua: The fastest colorizer for neovim (and no dependencies too) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/norcalli/nvim-colorizer.lua <comment><USER2> While this seems like a nice effort the roadmap for Neovim has Tree-sitter¹ integration² planned for the next release (0.5).

Tree-sitter - A New Parsing System For Programming Tools

"Developer tools that support multiple programming languages generally have very limited, regex-based code-analysis capabilities.

Tree-sitter is a new parsing system that aims to change this paradigm. It provides a uniform C API for parsing an ever-growing set of languages. It features high-performance incremental parsing and robust error recovery, which allow it to be used to parse code in real-time in a text editor.

We're in the process of integrating Tree-sitter into both GitHub.com and the Atom text editor, which will allow us to analyze code accurately and efficiently, paving the way for better syntax highlighting, code navigation, and refactoring." \-- Here's an interesting talk about it: [https://www.thestrangeloop.com/2018/tree-sitter---a-new- pars...](https://www.thestrangeloop.com/2018/tree-sitter---a-new-parsing- system-for-programming-tools.html)

¹ [http://tree-sitter.github.io/tree-sitter/](http://tree- sitter.github.io/tree-sitter/)

² [https://github.com/neovim/neovim/pull/10124](https://github.com/neovim/neovim/pull/10124)

<comment><USER3> > _While this seems like a nice effort the roadmap for Neovim has Tree-sitter¹ > integration² planned for the next release_

Well, one is an existing syntax highlighter one can install and use now, the other is something new, we haven't seen, that might or might not come with the next release.

Does anybody use it atm on any editor?

<comment><USER4> Tree sitter? It can be used with an extension in VS Code:

[https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=georgewf...](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=georgewfraser.vscode- tree-sitter)

It works just fine, although it is not a _massive_ improvement by any means, from the dev experience we have today.

I do not know if any editors are shipping with it yet.

<comment><USER5> Presumably also Atom and GitHub's online editor, for which Tree-sitter was written.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Ahh, this is why I love Neovim: plugins in virtually any language.

<comment><USER7> iirc Neovim has been trying to pretty much totally supplant Vimscript with Lua

<comment><USER8> Which is a good thing.

Better to use a more established language than reinventing the wheel

<comment><USER9> One thing to consider is that Lua is not a programming language that honors the seamless evolution. Essentially there are three flavors of Lua identified by their versions (5.1, 5.2 and 5.3), almost identical to each other but different enough that a migration is unreasonable. If it were not the case, there is no reason that NeoVim uses Lua 5.1 [1] even though 5.3 is the latest and 5.4 beta is on the way [2]. I think this dependency on 5.1 can become a huge problem later.

[1] [https://neovim.io/doc/user/if_lua.html](https://neovim.io/doc/user/if_lua.html)

[2] [http://lua-users.org/lists/lua-l/2019-10/msg00003.html](http://lua- users.org/lists/lua-l/2019-10/msg00003.html)

<comment><USER3> NeoVim doesn't care about Lua, they care about LuaJit, which doesn't (and probably wont ever) support lua syntax > 5.1 (or 5.2).

> _almost identical to each other but different enough that a migration is > unreasonable._

There's nothing unreasonable, and all versions of Lua mentioned are backwards compatible, so there's not even a problem about migrating. Going to a new version is as simple as installing it and running your program.

<comment><USER9> > Going to a new version is as simple as installing it and running your > program.

Not true. Each minor version of Lua tended to inject incompatibilities that can't be trivially resolved. Lua 5.2 had made a catastrophic change to the environment [1], and Lua 5.3 was less severe but there are subtle issues with integer-number conversions you won't ever want in your large codebase [2]. And that is not a theoretical matter, we had to stick to Lua 5.1 exactly due to the environment changes even though 64-bit integers would have made our codebase much cleaner. And Lua 5.1 and 5.2 are no longer supported [3] (though as you have said, LuaJit may be supported) despite of all remaining issues.

[1] [https://www.lua.org/manual/5.2/manual.html#8](https://www.lua.org/manual/5.2/manual.html#8)

[2] [https://www.lua.org/manual/5.3/manual.html#8](https://www.lua.org/manual/5.3/manual.html#8)

[3] [https://www.lua.org/versions.html](https://www.lua.org/versions.html)

<comment><USER3> True, the environment change was a big one.

But otherwise many codebases do move up Lua versions (outside of LuaJit), it's not a Python 3 "wait 10 years", Perl 6 "Wait 20 years" situation/

<comment><USER9> Python 2.7 was supported for a decade, providing a reasonable environment when Python 3 was not really matured enough. And while it didn't work, Python 3 tried to provide the migration path.

Perl 6 requires the full p5 compatibility as far as I recall. It was designed to coexist.

Lua only provides _some_ C preprocessor flags for partial backward compatibility.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Related with this: does anyone know of a good Lua indent file for Vim? All the ones I have tried have trouble with indenting things (writing `busted` specs in particular tends to be really annoying, the space on the next line after the `describe` is never right).</comment>


Synchrony Game – Can your brain control both of your hands? - <AUTHOR> http://synchronygame.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Synchrony is a game inspired by physical exercises that put your brain to control simultaneous movements with both of your hands, also known as bimanual coordination exercises.

This game is a personal experiment on human interaction. It is not the typical 2d game that you may expect, but I promise you that it is an incredibly challenging game.

Download (iOS) [https://appsto.re/cl/OkBJjb.i](https://appsto.re/cl/OkBJjb.i)

Video [https://youtu.be/QxzPfiOhM9M](https://youtu.be/QxzPfiOhM9M)

Website [http://synchronygame.com/](http://synchronygame.com/)

Feel free to play and leave suggestions/opinions.</comment>


My Resume - the Best in the World - <AUTHOR> http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2012/07/my-resume/

<comment><USER2> i cant stand this guy</comment>


John McAfee: Cryptocurrency Is Next Cuban Revolution - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cuba-usa-mcafee/fugitive-u-s-tech-guru-cryptocurrency-is-next-cuban-revolution-idUSKCN1U028D <comment><USER2> Does McAfee still have a set fee to shill coin? Basically I invert the logic of almost anything he says and consider it more likely. In this case, cryptocurrency is the next _bay of pigs_</comment>


The Handmade Tech That Powered Apollo 11's Moon Voyage - <AUTHOR> https://www.history.com/news/moon-landing-technology-inventions-computers-heat-shield-rovers <comment><USER2> _TIL only three people in the nation were qualified to hand-pack the parachutes for Apollo 15. Their expertise was so vital, they were not allowed to ride in the same car together for fear that a single auto accident could cripple the space program._

[https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/ed192w/til_o...](https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/ed192w/til_only_three_people_in_the_nation_were/)</comment>


Live Completely Off-the-Grid (for Only $65,000) - <AUTHOR> http://www.deliberatism.com/article/live-completely-off-the-grid-for-only-65000/

<comment><USER2> The title of the article is misleading -- one can "live completely off-the- grid", but not with what's being sold (an inexpensive housing kit), and the outcome also depends on where you live. What works in Hawaii won't work in Montana.</comment>


Show HN: Defeating the Snooper's Charter by Visiting Bad Sites All the Time - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/twak/hot-fuzz <comment><USER2> Very interesting, but it needs critical mass before the response would be anything other than "Clearly this guy/girl is a deviant if they use this extension". How many people are brave enough to do that?</comment>


A Scenario for News - <AUTHOR> http://www.buzzmachine.com/2008/11/24/a-scenario-for-news/

<comment><USER2> A year ago I was a huge raving fan of Jeff Jarvis and his theories about what "the new news" will look like.

Then I just spent the last year actually creating a metro news site and watching carefully to see what other folks are doing.

I still admire the guy's verve, but he's dead wrong about "write what you do best and link to the rest."

News organizations that take this advice will be at an immediate disadvantage against the Huffington Post's, Gothamists and Gawkers of the world. While the Jarvis-ites are linking to stuff, these other sites are copy and pasting 1-2 paragraphs from the original story, tossing a few sentences before and after the quote and the passing it off to Google as an original article.

Google eats it up and sends them traffic.

Meanwhile, when it looks at your links, it classifies them as just links and sends you no traffic.

In today's online news environment, you must steal to get ahead or even to just stay in the game.

Jarvis needs to take a year off and try to actually start a news site. Let him see how it really works.</comment>


Rust on the ESP32 (2019) - <AUTHOR> https://mabez.dev/blog/posts/esp32-rust/ <comment><USER2> I've been playing with Rust on the ESP32 using these tools on and off over the last couple of months or so, relying more in linking to the existing FreeRTOS/C HAL for accessing the peripherals.

One thing I haven't quite figured out: a substantial number of onboard features are configurable at image build time, which then change the effective C libraries via preprocessor definitions. So, it doesn't quite work to naively run bindgen on the header file once, and then embed that in a -sys crate and put it on crates.io

I think you can hand craft a -sys crate with all the appropriate config options as cargo features, but that seems both very time-consuming and likely to drift from the newest esp-idf versions. The alternative of running bindgen periodically (e.g. as part of the build process) works fine for one project, but then how do you publish reusable libraries online?

<comment><USER3> The ESP32 API surface is huge, and the libraries have many configuration settings. Rust-ifying this is a huge endeavour. One way could be to just interface with the vendor HAL using Rust wrapper, but doing that in a safe way that respects the lifetime rules can't be easy? Also AFAIK some lower level radio APIs are locked and hidden behind a binary blob, so the ESP32 can't be misused as a jammer.

Its very tempting to try this due to the huge amount of resources the hardware has, but it is a huge amount of work. Just being able to access the registers isn't very valuable, the ESP is about Wifi, BT and I2S. If there are no ergonomic Rust APIs for those, why even bother?

<comment><USER4> It's true and a bit surprising how much of the ESP32's API's are configurable or change based on config options. Espressif has built an impressive amount of functionality on top of FreeRTOS. It'd be nice to see Rust more widely adopted, but it seems to require an entirely rewritten SDK as so much of the API are C macros and defines.

Given that I decided to go a middle ground and use Nim with its new ARC (GC reference counting and move semantics). In theory it's less efficient than compile time Rust memory management but it works well in practice. Wrapping the C API is trivial and handles all of the C defines as well as writing in C, since it compiles down to it. And you can use any Nim or C libraries. It's surprisingly effective!

Except you still get data races from the C API's which Rust would likely help prevent. So it's cool to see someone toying with an xtensa llvm backend. I wish LLVM still fully supported a C backend so you could compile Rust to C and build that. Hopefully in the long run, more native rust libraries will exist for more full functionality embedded.

<comment><USER3> Was looking at Zig for the same reason, manual memory management but less error prone due to "defer", and a design ethos that is very reminiscent of C. Can even compile C directly! I really, really like the aesthetics of the language, but there is no xtensa backend yet.

Rust might just be a leap too big and can only work in blank-slate scenarios.

<comment><USER4> Zig seems promising too! But it's still LLVM based (?), which seems to be a limitation in the embedded world. Nim's templates/macros are nice for fiddly stuff. Not sure how Zig handles places where compile time macros can make things nice. Yah I figure in ~5 years Rust might be better positioned in embedded work as a goto solution.

<comment><USER3> If you like macros, Zig might not be for you. Part of its mission statement:

"There is no hidden control flow, no hidden memory allocations, no preprocessor, and no macros."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I would really love to see more interest in Rust from the embedded industry. With the influx of new developers into embedded programming I think there is an opportunity.

<comment><USER6> Even C needs more love from the embedded industry, given how many still use C89 dialects, even if the tooling might already support something better, let alone languages that attempt to replace C.

<comment><USER7> C versions after 89 doesn't bring much to be honest. So either you want more than what C can offer you, and usually the option is C++, or you're fine with what you have.

<comment><USER8> Bieng able to declare variables after statements in a function is huge, letting you make them const as needed.

Also declaring the index variable in a for loop like for(int i =0; i < 10; i++) is extremely helpful.

Those two alone are extremely beneficial.

<comment><USER7> True, they are however often available as part of compiler extensions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Follow up post [https://mabez.dev/blog/posts/esp32-rust-svd- pac/](https://mabez.dev/blog/posts/esp32-rust-svd-pac/)

</comment><comment><USER10> Does anyone know what the situation with Rust on the NRF is? It's all so new that there's no "getting started" guide, but even figuring out which repos to check out is hard.

<comment><USER11> There are crates for that [1]. But if you are new to rust and embedded, I would recommend to read through the rust embedded book [2] and practice with the stm32 board.

[1] [https://github.com/nrf-rs/nrf-hal](https://github.com/nrf-rs/nrf-hal)

[2] [https://rust-embedded.github.io/book/](https://rust- embedded.github.io/book/)

<comment><USER10> Ah, thanks. I'm not new to embedded, just to Rust on embedded. STM32s are a bit too overpowered for me, I usually use ESP8266s, that's why I thought the NRF might be a good bet (and better supported by Rust).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Lol. I was expecting the article to be about how to clean up metal corrosion from the terminals of an ESP32 chip.

</comment><comment><USER13> There's also this guide [https://rust-embedded.github.io/book/](https://rust- embedded.github.io/book/)

Although, I'm more interested in learning STM32 development, due to recommendations that it is far superior to ESP32 boards. Anyone have some tips on how to get started on this front as a hobby?

<comment><USER14> I ordered one of the STM32 development boards when this was first published. It's fairly straightforwards to get basic blinky demos working, but it was about at this point that I ran out of steam, and you're basically left to fend for yourself, implementing anything more complex from scratch.

It may have changed since, but rust embedded definitely isn't hobbyist friendly unless the goal is to make things work, rather than to just make things.

<comment><USER13> Right, that's ultimately what I am worried about.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Was learning a lot of rust and now c and Mabez and everyone else is really helpful on the esp-rs matrix channel.

</comment><comment><USER16> would this presumably also run on the esp8266?

<comment><USER2> The compiler toolchain can cross compile to esp8266, but I think the pure Rust HAL is less developed there. If you use Rust to write components/code that link against the ESP-IDF, I'd imagine that would work?

I have the toolchain in a Docker container if you want to try it out.</comment></comment>


Doing Business the Chinese Way: Facebook Develops a Censorship Tool - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/xiangwang/2016/11/24/doing-business-the-chinese-way-facebook-develops-a-censorship-tool/#7bd858e62caf <comment><USER2> So does this mean that everything posted on Facebook will run through China's content filter? Does Facebook have any regard at all for the implications of this, particularly for people living in Taiwan, which the PRC regularly threatens to invade?

Will the communications of Falun Gong worshippers and followers of the Dalai Lama also be presented to the Chinese filter? How about the million plus people in HK who protested after China repeatedly reneged on its promise of universal suffrage on the island? Will their group communications also be handed over?

I've long loved the developer tools coming out of FB but it's hard to see anyone rationally trusting their communications to the platform after this.

</comment><comment><USER3> ...And it's not just for Communist regimes, either!</comment>


RSA conference bans scantily-clad "booth babes" - <AUTHOR> https://fortune.com/2015/03/30/tech-conference-bans-scantily-clad-booth-babes/

<comment><USER2> I think sales people wanted these more with customers. An opportunity to hang out with pretty girls, customers be damned. The tech community is pretty male dominated. So maybe they should instead get girl interns (professionally dressed of course) to participate in these conferences to encourage more STEM participation for girls.</comment>


NASA Flew Gas Detectors Above California, Found 'Super Emitters' - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-06/nasa-flew-gas-detectors-above-california-found-super-emitters <comment><USER2> As an individual I'm happy to make sacrifices for the greater good, and this is an example of why we should not accept the narrative that consumers bear the brunt of reducing emissions.

Maybe California should do a few more of these flights before finding something else to ban?

<comment><USER3> Per the article, most of the sites were landfills, dairy farms, and natural gas facilities. All of those are directly controlled by consumer demand.

<comment><USER4> This is demonstrably false, please stop perpetuating it. CO2 emissions are 90% down to tragedy of the commons.

I can have the exactly same lifestyle in Saudi, in USA and in France, yet per capita emissions in France are 3 times lower than those in USA, and 5 times lower than in Saudi.

People in Saudi do not have 5 times better lives. In fact a huge chunk of the population is an underclass, some work as slaves on construction sites.

Competent management and regulation matters, a lot.

<comment><USER5> 41% of US emissions come from the power industry while in France, where nuclear power is widespread, it's only 13% from power. But very rarely do I hear calls from people who care about this stuff call for switching the nation's energy to nuclear.

[https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/us- co2-emissions...](https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/us- co2-emissions/)

[https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/france- co2-emiss...](https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/france- co2-emissions/)

<comment><USER6> Every discussion of energy I've ever seen has had a large portion of people making pro nuclear comments.

<comment><USER7> Because that's the transition power that has the math and history to back it. Its window is closing though. It would have made a ton of sense in the 80s or 90s but the antinuclear have won: we stayed 40 more years in the fuel economy until renewables matured enough to be a credible alternative.

We are not there yet though: intermittence (and to some extent construction speed) still favor nuclear power but maybe not for that long.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> In Norway we place plastic over the (food) landfill, gather the methane and use it for electricity production. When there is no more methane the same landfill is used as soil for food production.

<comment><USER9> I interned for a landfill gas capture company a long time ago. Apparently it's quite tough to make payback on the investment.

If value is applied to the degradation and GHG abatement, some groups might find it worthwhile.

<comment><USER10> In this case it sounds like something that could be subsidized by the government if it provides a net benefit to the general populace (by reducing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere).

<comment><USER11> Flaring it early would produce most of the GHG reduction benefit. The resulting CO2 has a tiny fraction of the total warming potential of the unburned CH3. For cases where it isn't economical to recover the methane, the public still benefits.

<comment><USER12> Most of the GHG reduction benefit in terms of the GHG contribution of the methane itself. However, there is also the benefit of the fossil fuel combustion that is displaced if you collect and burn for power. This is exactly the sort of thing that a carbon tax would incentivize if it were at all economically sensible.

<comment><USER13> So long as there's a positive carbon return on adding the extra infrastructure.

There very well may be, but adding pipes to burn off excess methane is way easier than generating and transporting electricity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Some very smart friends of mine do this with airplanes to find leaks in natural gas plants and pipelines: [http://kairosaerospace.com/](http://kairosaerospace.com/)

<comment><USER15> Their wing strut mounting of that sensor pod causes me a lot of concern... I don't think Cessna ever expected crazy torque loads on strut meant for tension.

<comment><USER16> In the PyCon video (link posted elsewhere), a questioner asked if they had thought of making the pod able to be controlled during banking to keep the data from being tainted with outlier values. The speaker described that FAA rules determine what can be attached to the airplane so it was better to make the pod dumb and fix the data in post processing. Presumably they built the pod as light as possible to fit under FAA regs.

<comment><USER17> I'm not sure there is a weight regulation beyond the general guidelines provided by the manufacture which probably don't cover major alterations like this. Its probably more like what they could get the local A&P to sign off on. Part 43 ([https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/part-43](https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/part-43)) is mostly about how the alterations are to be made than dealing with the specifics of the alternation.

Beyond that, its likely is a permanent mark against the air-frame which makes it basically impossible to resell. Including the fact it might have added an additional inspection interval at the strut attachment points. Might even have ended up as an experimental cert due to not conforming to the type any longer.

Also, i'm not so sure there is a lot of formal engineering going into a mod like this on a GA plane. More likely someone has a rough set of parameters for air-frame shear/etc stress and a quick calculation said that the additional stress at 120MPH and landing shock was a small percentage of the total.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The most interesting sentence isn't the headline, but rather:

> Landfills accounted for 41% of the source emissions it identified, manure > management 26% and oil and gas operations 26%.

i.e. perhaps the best reason to recycle or compost is to avoid the methane emissions from natural decomposition.

<comment><USER19> Compost IS natural decomposition, my dude.

<comment><USER20> A composting operation could potentially capture its gasses though, compared to landfills.

<comment><USER21> There are landfills that capture methane too. Some even turn it into onsite power source (in which case it's re-emitted as co2 but oh well)

<comment><USER22> It's still good news, since methane is a more potent greenhouse gas - depending upon the timeframe and calculation method it's generally reckoned to have between 30 and 100 times the warming potential of C02 [1]. Moreover a power station then has a CO2-rich exhaust stream, which is probably the best place for industrial carbon capture.

[1] [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-bad-of-a- gree...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-bad-of-a-greenhouse- gas-is-methane/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> 272,000 sites surveyed. 0.2% of the sites account for 46% of emissions. 272,000 sites * 0.002 = 544 sites.

544 sites account for 46% of the state's emissions.

Yet the article states, "A handful of operations are responsible for the vast majority of methane emissions."

<comment><USER24> is your contention that 46% does not constitute a majority? I think the distribution is pareto enough that the headline is not so crazy.

<comment><USER25> To be a pedant it might be a plurality (biggest one), but not a majority (>50%)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Here's a quick and dirty notebook that uses NASA's published data to visualize where the 'Super Emitters' are located around California:

[https://observablehq.com/@jashkenas/californias-methane- supe...](https://observablehq.com/@jashkenas/californias-methane-super- emitters)

</comment><comment><USER27> Where is EPA in all this?

Mountain View Shoreline (right behind Google HQ) used to be a landfill site for 3 decades before being turned into a park. Plenty of families visit it for the nature walks, kiddie play areas and water activities. Then few weeks back I heard a bang and hissing; a methane release valve opened [https://youtu.be/kq3CnXU5OtU](https://youtu.be/kq3CnXU5OtU)

I don't know if this is normal for it to be so low but since then I've learnt the whole area has these to stop it from combusting. Methane is also a dirty gas that affects cognition.

Add to this the SuperFund sites water & land pollution and one has to question what the heck is going on here.

It gives a whole new perspective on how we are killing our earth hoping the problem will be solved by someone else in the future :(

</comment><comment><USER28> Almost feels like running a code profiler to find the hotspots

</comment><comment><USER29> 80/20 rule [1] strikes again?

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

<comment><USER30> I feel like this is brought up every time a minority number is responsible for a majority number, regardless of how far off 80/20 it is. That seems silly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> > _The report doesn't identify these "super emitters," but notes that > landfills give off more methane than any other source in the state. NASA's > equipment found that a subset of these landfills were the largest emitters > in California and exhibited "persistent anomalous activity."_

Is the problem here that the trash is breaking down, or it's breaking down in a suboptimal way (such as anaerobic activity) that's causing methane to be released instead of a more benign gas?

</comment><comment><USER32> We really need automated continuous monitoring and alerting of these things. It doesn't take much time for an event to release huge quantities of what was thought to be contained gas into the atmosphere.

I'm surprised to not see any reference to the Aliso Canyon leak in this thread yet:

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

</comment><comment><USER33> There's also currently a push by many countries to have carbon monitoring satellites above their countries.

For example: [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/meet-the- satellit...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/meet-the-satellites- that-can-pinpoint-methane-and-carbon-dioxide-leaks/)

</comment><comment><USER34> So what can be done about landfills? Burying stuff seems expensive/energy intensive.

<comment><USER35> Many European countries (Germany, Sweden, Norway, etc) don't allow landfills for common household trash. The solution obviously has many facets. Mostly it breaks down to waste separation (e.g. different bins for plastics, compost and paper that are emptied for free, with high fees for the rest to encourage people to separate), recycling what you can and burning the rest. Burning trash produces energy and you can deal with produced gases at one central location, what's left after burning is easy to landfill because it's much less volume and basically doesn't decompose.

<comment><USER36> The result of what's incinerated is often used for construction, like for road bases. So it's turned into a valuable material instead of being wasted.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> this is interesting data... im not a scientist, but what causes the methane from the garbage dumps? rotting organics or just everything in general? is there not a better way to dispose of specific types of trash creating these gases?

Obviously not a small problem to solve. I think if the gov started identifying and fining these emitters, they would invest more into these types of solutions.

</comment><comment><USER38> So most importantly, how can we follow up and ensure the state works to capture/fine these locations? The article is paywalled, is it likely this will be actively followed up on?

Maybe all of us HN readers should write a note to Gov Newsom?

</comment><comment><USER39> [https://outline.com/97yPNJ](https://outline.com/97yPNJ)

</comment><comment><USER40> Are there any composting services in the US? I'm living in Bali right now and I found a local service that gives me a bucket, I put all my organic waste into it, and once a week they come to replace it with a clean bucket.

If I wanted, I could request the compost back - but I don't have any use for it and would rather other consumers get a bit extra.

I pay ~$2/mo for the service (Again, Bali prices).

<comment><USER41> Yes, large and medium sized cities in California mostly have them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Great example of gathering and using data to effect change.

</comment><comment><USER43> The following says that methane is not an important greenhouse gas:

[http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/04/11/methane-the- irrelevant...](http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/04/11/methane-the-irrelevant- greenhouse-gas/)

Can someone who knows better tell me if that's good science or not?

<comment><USER16> A website that quotes Breitbart is a signal that they are not serious about providing accurate scientific information.

<comment><USER43> OK, let me change my question to:

Some random person told me that the parts of the spectrum that are absorbed by CH4 are already absorbed by H2O, which is way more prevalent, so the CH4 doesn't matter much.

Is that true/valid/scientific?

<comment><USER44> Nearer the top of the atmosphere, the concentration of H2O is much less, and the argument breaks down, because it's the top layers that radiate to space. Lower in the troposphere, photons are being absorbed and re-radiated, but not escaping.

In general, this stuff is complicated, and it's easy for people using "motivated reasoning" to come up with the answer they want. Lots of comments reflecting such misinformation appear on HN — it's frustrating.

So, listening to random people isn't such a good idea. Much better to read a report from people who study this stuff, like: [https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/](https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/), which I recommend to technically interested nonspecialists.

(I eat lunch with one of the co-authors of the technical paper in _Nature_ linked to the OP, the press release is: [https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7535](https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7535), paper is: [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1720-3](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1720-3))

<comment><USER43> Thank you for a simple, intellectual answer.

Obviously I am not taking in information without skepticism, otherwise I would not have asked the question.

But if I can't read something like that and refute it, then obviously I don't understand the issue very well. The best way to remedy that is to ask (not ignorant silence), so I'm a bit disappointed with the other replies who ridiculed me for asking.

<comment><USER44> Without a lot of background (some mix of grad school, regular interaction with experts at conferences, reading journal publications) you will be easily misled by motivated reasoning, which is everywhere in this domain. People spend their careers on this stuff. Undergrad physics, chemistry, and earth science is not enough.

Resources like the overview report I linked are critical.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


These pictures are on the voyager spacecraft, meant to represent all of humanity - <AUTHOR> http://imgur.com/a/CvEvO

<comment><USER2> We are here. We are rich in resources, and an excellent source of protein.</comment>


Proposed schedule change for JDK 9 - <AUTHOR> http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/jdk9-dev/2016-September/004887.html <comment><USER2> So, one of the complexer part of Java isn't completely finished, and they want to postpone the release instead of releasing something buggy. I'm fine with that. Everybody survived with Java6 for half a decade as well. And three years with Java7.

<comment><USER3> Me too, specially on Android where we still need to survive with Java 6 and cherry picked pieces from Java 7 and Java 8.

Most likely it will never see 100% support for Java 8, or anything else that comes afterwards.

<comment><USER4> If you can get away with using it Kotlin fixes almost everything I dislike about Java and works for Android development today.

<comment><USER3> Actually I spend most of my time on C++ side, which also has its own share of issues regarding Android tooling.

Still checking in how Kotlin support evolves, my experience using languages like Turbo Pascal, Delphi and Oberon made me weary of using using languages that aren't directly supported by platform owners for production code.

<comment><USER5> Kotlin is amazing. It takes the best parts of Scala while keeping the simplicity of Java.

It may not be supported by Google but it was created by Jetbrains, the developer of Ideaide which is what Android Studio is based on, so it's support is top notch.

The best part of Kotlin is there is near zero cost to using it. You can learn it in a day and is fully interoperable with Java. :)

<comment> premium-concern That's kind of nonsense. Kotlin adds some syntax sugar to Java, but it's not related to Scala in any reasonable way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In short, Mark proposes a four-month extension of the JDK 9 schedule, moving the General Availability (GA) milestone to July 2017, and the reason is because number of open bugs that are new in JDK 9 is quite a bit larger than it was at this point in JDK 8.

<comment><USER7> ..and they still need to iron out some details of project jigsaw (the new module system, which was originally planned for Java 7)

<comment><USER8> The work currently being done on Jigsaw is not details at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is anyone eagerly awaiting JDK9?

<comment><USER10> One thing I am looking forward to in JDK 9 is the new API, called JVMCI, that lets you replace HotSpot's JIT compiler with one written in Java. Oracle Labs is working on a compiler for this called Graal. We're using this to make languages other than Java running on the JVM, like JRuby, run faster by using the JIT compiler API directly.

(I work for Oracle)

<comment><USER11> Do you know the guy who did the talk about optimizing Ruby for the way Ruby devs use Ruby? They used an example if an image library clamp function which was a mess. Using sort to clamp a value.

Whoever that guy is, I'd like to be able to say he did an amazing job. Good work on your groups.

<comment><USER12> That talk was by Chris, who you are replying to.

<comment><USER11> Well shit I've got to say that he is amazing! Chris keep up the good work. I look forward in seeing where you take it from here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> OFF-TOPIC:

I am the only one who is not that happy that Java is so popular?

I don't even know where that feeling come from.

<comment><USER3> I am happy that Java is popular.

I know it since Sun introduced it and it was a saner experience than C++ back in the day, when each compiler implemented their own vision of the ongoing working standard.

There are only three things I don't like about Java, proper AOT compilation is only available in commercial JDKs and lack of value types, and use of @Overrides annotation instead of adding a proper keyword.

The first two will hopefully get addressed in Java 10, assuming Oracle doesn't change their minds about the language.

<comment><USER14> I agree with your points, but would like to add another one: runtime generic type erasure needs to go. Whether it is through reification or some other means, I don't care, but it feels like every single time I sit down to write some solid core-of-the-program basic code, I run up against erasure.

It's probably not every time, but you get the point.

That said, I think that Java 8 is in a good state, and I really liked its improvements. For Java 9, the new modularization system seems interesting, and I'll be happy to ditch classpaths!

<comment><USER3> > runtime generic type erasure needs to go.

Is is part of the value type related changes.

[http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/community/jlss...](http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/community/jlssessions-2016-3114175.html)

How it will actually look like is still WIP.

<comment><USER15> I think you should be very careful with statements like that. The Valhalla work adds a mechanism by which generic types can be reified, but reference types in Java are not proposed to be reified as that would cause big interoperability problems with existing code. However the mechanism introduced for reifying value generics could be used by other JVM languages to provide reified reference generic types.

So HashMap<MyRefClass> will always remain the same class as HashMap<Object> when created in Java code, but might not be the same in another JVM language, and HashMap<MyValueType> will never be the same class as HashMap<Object>.

<comment><USER3> True, but nothing prevents them to have an ImprovedHashMap<any MyRefClass>.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How many plants would you need to generate oxygen for yourself in an airlock? - <AUTHOR> http://io9.com/5955071/how-many-plants-would-you-need-to-generate-oxygen-for-yourself-in-an-airlock <comment><USER2> I am not a biologist but my recollection of high school biology is that photosynthesis is basically carbon dioxide + water + light energy = oxygen + glucose. So saying, "About 300 to 500 plants would produce the right amount of oxygen, but it's much harder to estimate the amount of carbon dioxide the plants absorb" is wrong - the quantity of oxygen produced will be exactly proportionate to the amount of carbon dioxide consumed. (There is also an issue of how much oxygen the plants' respiration would consume but let's not get into that).

 _And finally, some plants only "breathe," at night in order to save water_ \- I also remember this (many if not most plants control water loss through transpiration by shutting down their stomata during , but I'm pretty much sure that no plants are able to photosynthesise at night! That _would_ be an interesting species...

Overall, seems like some relatively serious misunderstandings of the basic science if even I (not a great GCSE mark in biology...) find myself wringing my hands...

<comment><USER3> > but I'm pretty much sure that no plants are able to photosynthesise at > night! That would be an interesting species...

There are three types of plants, and instead of explaining them, let me just provide links.

The type of plant that breathes at night are the CAM ones.

* <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C3_carbon_fixation> \- most common, almost all plants are like this

* <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C4_carbon_fixation> \- very efficient, corn is the most common example

* <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAM_photosynthesis> \- night breathing, pineapple is the example

<comment><USER2> Very interesting! Although as the other reply points out only some of the photosynthetic reactions take place at night. However I assume (but it's not exactly clear from scanning the article linked) that the actual emission of oxygen is likely also happening at night as this would require stomata to be open, although the actual production of oxygen is one of the light-dependent reactions in the photosynthetic chain. Is this correct?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> _"[...] but it's much harder to estimate the amount of carbon dioxide the plants absorb, especially if every time a person breathes out, they inhibit oxygen production."_

Not having scrolled down far enough to see the end, this is the moment where i hoped this article would burst into a wild jungle of different scenarios and scientific data analysis. But it ended... :(

Still nice thing to ponder about though...

</comment><comment><USER5> Algae, would prove a much better oxygen producer than plants.

There are many studies being done, and done previously, on the viability of algae oxygenating artificial atmospheres.

<http://www.ecology.com/2011/09/12/important-organism/>

<comment><USER6> I read through the article a couple times, but couldn't find any pointers regarding the efficiency of algae as an oxygen producer - only that there is a lot of it out in the ocean. Do you have any citations that would suggest algae would be better in an airlock than a potted plant? (starts off on his 90 minute google/wikipedia distraction of the day)

[15 minutes later - this is the best link I've been able to find - from a Navy research paper in 1963, no less: [http://torpedo.nrl.navy.mil/tu/ps/doc.html?dsn=7590785&h...](http://torpedo.nrl.navy.mil/tu/ps/doc.html?dsn=7590785&hi=1&p=1)

\-- snip --

The results obtained with a small pilot plant containing 6200 ml of algal suspension have been evalu- ated; the effects of light intensity, rate of stirring, rate of carbon dioxide supply, and other variables were part of this study. Light energy was supplied by six 1500-watt incandescent lamps which extended through the suspension and were encased in 50-mm O.D. cooling jackets. When the light intensity at the surface of these jackets was 34,000 foot-candles (the limit with the equipment at hand), the oxygen production was 4500 cc per hour. Oxygen production increases with light intensity, but the oxygen produced per watt of electrical en- ergy expended is constant over a wide range of light intensities. The amount of electrical energy re- quired to provide enough oxygen for one man is between 30 and 50 kw, depending on the design of the gas exchanger. This high requirement makes the process prohibitive at present; but the development of more efficient high-intensity light sources could change the outlook. The dependability of the algal system in providing a constant supply of oxygen has been assured by this study; also, the volume requirements of the algal system are competitive with existing systems for carbon dioxide removal and oxygen production.

\-- snip --

<comment><USER7> That's nice, because it pays some attention to alternative means to use energy to sink CO2, which is one way to look at the plant example.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> One simple rule of thumb -- get enough plants to produce 100% of the food you consume. Your body converts food into co2, and plants convert co2 into food (yeah, a bunch of details are left out, but that is the simple version).

</comment><comment><USER6> Photosynthesis really seems to be this weeks "what if" scenario: <http://what- if.xkcd.com/17/>

</comment><comment><USER9> I wonder if you can scale this down to be scientifically accurate for Sandy from Spongebob, one tree per squirrel seems like it would be alright.</comment>


Wikipedia is blacklisted in Russia - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/08/24/russian-wikipedia-editors-weighing-options-after-site-is-blacklisted-in-russia/ <comment><USER2> Techcrunch missed a very interesting point about Roscomnadzors tactic here - they actually bothered to get a court order! [1] This is not something they normally do or, I think, are even required under the laws they tend to us in such cases.

The sad part is that the way that legal regime works, they are following the letter of the law and the general populous is not likely to object, since the article covers content related to a controlled substance, and since Soviet times, controlled substances carry heavy stigma, especially among older generations.

[1] [http://m.lenta.ru/news/2015/08/24/wiki/](http://m.lenta.ru/news/2015/08/24/wiki/) (sorry in Russian)

<comment> guard-of-terra Nobody blames Roscomnadzor too much - not much more than sorry fellows who dug the graves for people killed in concentration camps.

The current illegitimate parliament is to blame. Being appointed to their chairs by Putin's grey cardinals instead of popular vote, they did every thing to please the dictator. Probably won't get any punishment for that other than karmic rebirth into a frog in their next life.

<comment><USER3> @guard-of-terra please take your "self-hating Russian" schtick elsewhere. your comments don't belong on hacker news.

<comment><USER4> You're being downvoted because you've crossed inappropriately into personal attacks. Please don't do that here.

On HN, when someone is wrong, politely show how they are wrong. If you feel too provoked to be able to do that, it's best to wait until you can.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Drug making instructions are a gray area. Most countries have laws restricting what you're allowed to publish - and they're all a bit arbitrary and different. It sounds like Wikipedia is trying to push American values onto everyone else.

Imagine if Wikipedia was based in a country that didn't respect copyright. Would people in America be upset that it was getting banned for hosting pirated content?

<comment><USER6> American values? While I would agree in many cases of disputes about wikipedia content, this is not one of them. How is free and unrestricted access to information an American value?

<comment><USER7> The legal standards for suppression of information and the categories of information that can potentially trigger those standards are stricter and narrower in most respects in the U.S. than in most other jurisdictions. Also, many segments of society often express pride in the breadth and depth of U.S. legal protections for free expression, and argue that it's something that makes the U.S. or the U.S. legal system great.

Foreign law students sometimes find it hard to believe that some of the rules are so protective of speech (source: three different U.S. law professors have told me this).

A few examples:

* All fictional depictions of violence are protected.

* There are no restrictions on blasphemy or insults to religious doctrines, religious beliefs, religious believers or communities, or religious believers' feelings.

* Advocacy and glorification of any kind of illegal action (including war crimes and genocide) are fully protected if they aren't reasonably likely to lead to a specific imminent lawless action.

* Advocacy against the state or its powers is mostly completely protected for citizens, as is teaching that the prevailing political or economic system is inherently wrong. Urging resistance to or evasion of military conscription is mostly understood as protected now (unlike during World War I). Same thing with taxation, if you're not teaching people how to do it with the intention that they act on your advice.

* Detailed information about how to commit crimes is usually protected if the person publishing it didn't have a sufficiently specific intention to help people actually commit them in practice and didn't have some other responsibility to keep the published information secret.

* Insulting present or past state leaders or the virtue or legitimacy of the state or any political party is fully protected.

* It's protected to advocate regional or ethnic secession or territorial separatism (though not to conspire to effectuate it by force). It's protected to display flags or emblems of militant groups, even those that the U.S. is trying to oppose or suppress or is engaged in armed conflict with. It's protected to show disrespect to national symbols or emblems of the United States.

* Contrary to increasingly common popular belief, there are no restrictions on "hate speech" or group libel (for example saying that a particular group in society is bad, using slurs against a group, saying that some negative stereotype is true or that members of some group commonly or always have a negative characteristic, or wishing for or justifying ill treatment of a group).

* Most sexualized depictions of adults (and most sexualized depictions of fictional children) are now legally protected in practice, although there can theoretically be restrictions in various circumstances that seem to be becoming increasingly rare and exceptional.

* It's hard to punish people for downstream republication of leaked or misappropriated information.

* It's hard to punish people for repeating truthful negative information about other people, especially if they weren't originally involved in obtaining that information.

I'm sure there are other examples!

<comment><USER5> That's very clear. It sounds like Wikipedia is following one of the loosest sets of rules available.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Approx. 30% of Russian internet providers will block Wikipedia.org entirely, because Wikipedia.org use HTTPS (and Deep Package Inspection is too damn costly).

Runet, as usual, is full of tragedy jokes: [lang=ru] [https://tjournal.ru/p/rkn-wikipedia-block- bloggers](https://tjournal.ru/p/rkn-wikipedia-block-bloggers)

<comment> guard-of-terra Deep Packet Inspection won't help you versus HTTPS (unless you're CIA and have crypto backdoors).

<comment><USER8> Or the private keys to a tonne of Certs from the cert authorities.

The massive elephant in the room is the cert authorities..

<comment><USER9> CA private key won't help classic (passive) DPI systems. You have to perform active MITM attack.

And if anyone's aware of any ISP anywhere in the world, doing a MITM with a certificate that passes validation, they should really shout about this as loud as they can (or at least whisper to someone who can shout), because it concerns virtually everyone on the Internet.

<comment><USER10> Well, CINNIC and the French CA both did this before

<comment><USER7> Resulting in a lot of shouting. :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This has already happened with github, reddit, and several other lesser known sites. In all those cases access was restored very quickly, within hours/days, as soon as site admins complied with the Russian law. What's different this time?

<comment> guard-of-terra Wikipedia is non-profit, chance it's not going to cave.

<comment><USER11> Buzzfeed has Wikimedia Foundation's full statement (in the end of the article):

[http://www.buzzfeed.com/maxseddon/russia-says-its-banning- wi...](http://www.buzzfeed.com/maxseddon/russia-says-its-banning-wikipedia)

<comment><USER12> Is there a list of the removals/alterations requested by the US government (and granted as indicated in the official statement)?

<comment><USER13> The statement says "U.S. law," it says nothing about requests by the U.S. government. Copyright, libel, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It has been removed now: [https://github.com/zapret- info/z-i/commit/482f8014b15cb0ef1b...](https://github.com/zapret- info/z-i/commit/482f8014b15cb0ef1b5d05689f532e4aae95c0a2) (3 hours ago)

>-ru.wikipedia.org;[https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%E0%F0%E0%F1;](https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%E0%F0%E0%F1;)

So it was in the register for 8 hours.

</comment><comment><USER14> FYI, Wikipedia for Chinese languages has been inaccessible for months in China.

</comment><comment><USER15> It looks like the Russian government find HN notable enough to unleash it's army of little internet commentators here.

</comment><comment><USER16> I do find this to be disgusting, but I'd like to point out Wikipedia articles have become quite biased in the past years.

If content was based on purely factual information and opinions were contrasted/highlighted, Russia would have a much harder time finding a suitable argument.

<comment><USER9> Doesn't matter. Even if Wikipedia would be full of outright lies it still won't justify censorship and blocking. But considering your argument, now it at least makes sense why the Absurdopedia was blocked among the first sites, hah. /s

<comment><USER3> >it still won't justify censorship and blocking

do you deny countries the legal right to set their own limitations on free speech?

<comment><USER17> That is the prevailing attitude here, that there should not be any limitations.

<comment><USER3> Those are our ideals but the reality is that countries have long restricted free speech. And each countries makes its own judgements and decisions on what kind of speech can and should be restricted. Personally I find "free speech zones" in the US disgusting.

<comment><USER6> That's how reality works. Our ideals are that people don't murder each other. Even if they do, it's not a reason to throw away the concept and agree that some murdering is ok since people do it anyway.

So yeah - free speech is a thing we should aim for. Some disrespect it more than others and Russia is definitely not a great example to follow.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: GOAT Jobs - job board for eSports (built with no code) - <AUTHOR> https://www.goatjobs.com/ <comment><USER2> Ben keeps surprising me, showing how much can be built without code already. As a front-end dev I even planned on using Typeform, Zapier & Airtable for my latest quick side project before I canned it, as it's just so much quicker for me than wiring it up myself.

Even as a coder I'm contemplating whether going the no code route for MVP'ing new projects. These days we can create fully functional prototypes without touching code and I'd bet in quite a bit less time.

Ben's the best guy on the internet for teaching how to do this stuff, so if I do go this route I know who I'll be looking to learn from.

<comment><USER3> If you're looking for something in between, where you can utilize those front- end dev skills but still setup things extremely quickly, take a look at Form Gadget - [https://www.formgadget.com/](https://www.formgadget.com/)

It's a Form Builder tool that also offers a list of integrations, and is built with developers in mind.

Also feel free to reach out to me for information.

Disclaimer: I'm part of the Form Gadget team.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to open LLC/C corp in the US as a foreigner - <AUTHOR> I'm in the EU and want to take on contracting or do a SaaS B2B (completely bootstrapped, no funding) startup but don't want to be taxed in my home country because of very high taxes.
I've seen many resources on the web about opening a company in the US, however I haven't been able to get a clear answer for several questions.
I guess many people in HN have dealt with this before so I thought of asking here:
1. Is there a service that can handle everything for me end-to-end? Including a bank account in the US.
2. What are the taxes that I have to pay in the case of LLC and C corp (Delaware)?
3. What are the costs of establishing/having (not just opening) an LLC/C corp for a year? Including opening, accounting, lawyer fees etc. Also, if things don't go as planned, what is the cost for closing it?
4. How do you deal with double taxation? By double taxation I mean being taxed in the US and your home country. Is there a way to only pay taxes in the US while still living in the EU? <comment><USER2> > don't want to be taxed in my home country because of very high taxes.

But you want to enjoy all the benefits of those taxes, like roads, schools, hospitals?

When you take money out of the company (LCC, Ltd, etc), e.g. as monthly salary, you're taxed based on where you live (income tax). If anything you might have to deal with two jurisdictions and double-taxation agreements between countries now.

> Is there a way to only pay taxes in the US while still living in the EU?

Only if you live in the US longer than 183 days per year. Burden of proof is on you and you have to deal with two tax authorities.

</comment><comment><USER3> Stripe Atlas lets you open a bank account and incorporate in Delaware as a C Corp : [https://stripe.com/atlas](https://stripe.com/atlas)

Don't bother asking for tax advice here, talk to a professional.

<comment><AUTHOR> AFAIK not anyone can signup for Atlas, you have to be selected.

Any recommendations for a professional? There aren't any that know the US landscape where I live.

<comment><USER3> > AFAIK not anyone can signup for Atlas, you have to be selected.

Contact HN user patio11 for an invite. I think his email is patio11 at stripe.com.

> Any recommendations for a professional? There aren't any that know the US > landscape where I live.

The Atlas forums have people that might be able to guide you, but I think it's only open to people who signed up for Atlas.

Note: Not affiliated with Stripe.

<comment><AUTHOR> With Atlas I would still have to pay taxes in my home country, right?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Problems on the Blockchain - <AUTHOR> http://benbyford.com/articles/problems-on-the-blockchain/ <comment><USER2> Ethereum will move to proof-of-stake, as described in a blog post yesterday [1].

I agree with the author that blockchain-based tech is more appropriate for small networks at present, yet the tech (e.g. Lightning network) will only get better and enable bigger and bigger networks.

BTW, what the hell is up with capitalizing 'blockchain' as the article does? It's like capitalizing 'database'.

[1] [https://blog.ethereum.org/2015/12/28/understanding- serenity-...](https://blog.ethereum.org/2015/12/28/understanding-serenity- part-2-casper/)

</comment><comment><USER3> _The size off this endeavour is starting to consume more effort than is sustainable, not only for most peoples wallets, but also for the planet generally._

This is a common misconception, and only really is a "problem" in the initial distribution phase of the currency. Economically, all other things being equal, the cost of electricity spent on mining will approximately equal the mining reward.

The mining reward is approximately equal to (Fees + 50/(2^(floor(Years/4)))), where Years is the number of years since the network's inception. As time passes and the block reward drops off, the security of the network (equivalently, the amount of energy spent on mining) will approach the transaction fees paid for the use of the network.

<comment><USER4> Unless the hashrate of the sum of miners declines once they stop creating the cryptocurrency and start only validating transactions, the amount of energy spent on mining will always be high and will always be ecologically- unfriendly.

<comment><USER3> Sure, any energy expenditure over and above what would be necessary to run a centralized database can be considered inefficient, and therefore "ecologically unfriendly". However, the hashrate isn't burning energy for no utility: the security of the network is directly proportional to the energy expended in hashing.

Considering that the energy is being expended for a purpose (security against malicious actors), and that it is economically infeasible to expend more energy than the marginal fee revenue in a given moment (once we transition from the current block subsidies to a pure fee market), I question whether calling mining "economically unfriendly" is fair. The energy usage will scale linearly (not exponentially) with usage, which seems perfectly alright to me.

<comment><USER4> I completely agree with everything you said; however to clarify what I meant originally, I say "ecologically unfriendly" because of all the ways to do distributed consensus, proof-of-work is the least efficient mechanism when compared to the various proof-of-stake algorithms and Ripple/Stellar's cascading consensus model.

They all have their own individual tradeoffs (some technical, some political), but when talking about energy consumption, there's no argument that PoW is the most costly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I was wondering if instead of having all the miners churning away at a proof- of-work there would be a simpler way to validate a block.

For instance, could you have a defined chain of authoritative servers, where the authority passes in a way where it cannot be abused?

Example: A mines a block by signing it with a key, throws up random number corresponding to B. B then does the same and nominates C. C stopped working, so authority passes to D.

Is there a way to do this so that the obvious attacks are thwarted?

<comment><USER6> if you have defined authoritative servers, they can just hold ballance amount and you can dispense with the rest of the blockchain entirely

<comment><USER5> I don't mean defined as in static. Of course if you did that you could just use an old fashioned database.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Did anyone bother to calculate the inefficiencies caused by a centralisation or federalisation and whether they justify all the effort that is going into bitcoin and other decentralization technologies?

Who is to say that a more transparent federalised system wouldn't be more or less on par with the bitcoin blockchain in terms of power centralisation?

<comment><USER8> Bitcoin is now effectively a federated system anyway. Miners coordinated to fix a hard-fork situation, which means they have the power to favor or disenfranchise certain people. They don't seem to have that motivation at the moment, but it's very possible. E.g. [https://twitter.com/Datavetaren/status/631080568487342080](https://twitter.com/Datavetaren/status/631080568487342080)

<comment><USER7> That's was exactly my point. Bitcoin is not as decentralized as it was envisioned to be so maybe there are other sorts of federalized systems that can be just as good and easier to implement.

<comment><USER9> Further down the twitter convo: [https://twitter.com/TheBlueMatt/status/631715218788360192](https://twitter.com/TheBlueMatt/status/631715218788360192)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > The higher the consumption the harder it is for the general public to > participate in the spoils

I don't think the purpose of bitcoin is for the public to get "spoils", such as from mining. The public only needs the exchange utility of bitcoin, not to make money from it.

</comment><comment><USER11> Agreed with most comments in this article except for the ecological comment. A good perspective where the author is just pointing out need for improvement in certain areas.

</comment><comment><USER12> > Presumptions: at this point I'm presuming that the reader has a basic > knowledge of Bitcoin and the concepts in the Blockchain technology.

At this point I presumed that the author had a basic knowledge of Bitcoin, but we all know what happens when you presume.

<comment><AUTHOR> Love to hear any additions or pointers you might have. This article was mainly to point out the obvious to much of the cryptocurrency industry (but not necessarily to the average Joe) and as discussed in the comments there are efforts and alternatives. My main worry is that people can sometimes put blind faith in a technology, when they should really knock it down and build on its sturdy foundations

<comment><USER12> There's a bit of irony in my statement as I don't assume you know or _don 't_ know. We, as a population, depend heavily on trust for day-to-day life. As an author of an article like this you might consider that speaking as trusted authority on something which provides computed trust will affect the trust the general population has in said technology and in you (and the rest of us Bitcoiners). The general assumption is the value of Bitcoin is linked to how much people trust it. When you post things that negatively impact it, perhaps intentionally or perhaps altruistically, there's going to be trust issues between people who disagree with you.

The best way I can describe this effect with cryptocurrencies is "it's a polarizing topic". :)

Blockchain technology, no matter the implementation, will always have some degree of risk associated with the trust it embodies. Nothing will be made to be perfect. The question I'd like to know the answer to is whether or not it's providing enough value for the applications it currently runs, and what other applications can be improved by adding the blockchain's natural immutability to them.

Thanks for writing something interesting!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Proof of Stake does not work.

[https://download.wpsoftware.net/bitcoin/pos.pdf](https://download.wpsoftware.net/bitcoin/pos.pdf)

<comment><USER14> That's not a proof that no Proof of Stake system can work. It's a list of possible attacks, at least some of which are mitigated by recent Proof of Stake designs. See Vitalik's post here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/3y0ysi/understand...](https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/3y0ysi/understanding_serenity_part_i_abstraction/cy9wz6e)

A fairly detailed description of that system is here: [https://blog.ethereum.org/2015/12/28/understanding- serenity-...](https://blog.ethereum.org/2015/12/28/understanding-serenity- part-2-casper/)

<comment><USER13> > That's not a proof that no Proof of Stake system can work. It's a list of > possible attacks, at least some of which are mitigated by recent Proof of > Stake designs.

I have yet to see a design which mitigates all of the attacks.

Indeed I do not believe that such a design is even possible.

Would love to be proven wrong though.

<comment><USER15> Some people don't believe that bitcoin works or is possible even though it literally is working right now.

<comment><USER13> All of the currently "working" "proof-of-stake" systems have central trusted third parties signing blocks.

<comment><USER15> Until bitcoin was created all currencies used centralized trusted parties too. These things are in their infancy. Saying something can't be done at this stage is begging to be on the wrong side of history.

<comment><USER13> As I said.

>Indeed I do not believe that such a design is even possible.

>Would love to be proven wrong though.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


For South Korean Hockey Team, Unity with North Is a Sacrifice - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/22/sports/olympics/south-korea-hockey-north-olympics.html?partner=rss&emc=rss <comment><USER2> Some of these people cannot see the bigger picture... sigh</comment>


Ask HN: What are the best resources to improve public speaking skill? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Look into Toastmasters. It is a successful community that is specifically designed so you improve this skill.

<comment><USER3> I'll give a good example about how toastmasters helped me, I hope it encourages those who are very afraid of public speaking.

I have always been a very strong public speaker (loud, booming voice, native English speaker) and decided to do toastmasters to get better at talking about very technical things - I have ADD so I tend to fall over myself a lot when explaining things. I have had a very stressful last few months (organised a marketing conference, moved house, organised two gigs that didn't work out so well) and I was asked to present at a meetup a few days before the conference.

I felt really dizzy in the afternoon of giving the talk and thought a drink or two would settle me (the meetup was at a pub.) Turns out it didn't and 3 slides in I became very disorientated. I decided to professionally stop the talk and ask the MC if the next speaker could go first as I needed to get some air. I came back half an hour later and performed the talk.

The reason I was able to handle this so professionally was 100% due to Toastmasters. So many people in my club were not native English speakers who had very stressful reactions to public speaking. Every single person given a task would always show the upmost respect for those who struggled and act in a supportive manner, so when I had a rough time I knew how to act appropriately.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A lot of people have good input here already, so I'll offer a more "organic" response.

Keep it simple- to improve your public speaking skill, there are 2 main ways. #1, do more public speaking! #2: listen more.

Obviously, the more you do something with a mindset of growth, you usually get better at it. However, if you want to get really good, study other talks/events/conferences etc. Pick ones that are extraordinary, and study their talk- listen and watch.

What's the flow? How do they link ideas? How do they keep the audience engaged? How does the audience react to what they say and do?

I recently had the opportunity to speak to a friend who is an amazing speaker. He told me about how he would prepare his talks, how he would time himself and practice over and over. He would link ideas in his mind, and lay it out strategically.

One thing he said stood out- he watched the response of the audience. When he would study other talks, and people would say "hmm", he would write down what the speaker said. He trained himself to become an amazing listener- to hear what was said, as well as what wasn't said, but still communicated.

If you wanna get better at public speaking, do it more. If you want to be an amazing public speaker, listen more.

</comment><comment><USER5> I just spoke at a dev conference for the first time last weekend. Here's what I found, in addition to randomly checking out Youtube videos:

\- [https://speaking.io/](https://speaking.io/) \- [https://www.pluralsight.com/courses/hanselman- speaking](https://www.pluralsight.com/courses/hanselman-speaking) -> Mr. Scott is really good, I like his talk: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FS1mnISoG7U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FS1mnISoG7U).

I think you have to just keep on practicing actually speaking, like even in front of a mirror, I didn't do this enough (I practiced, but in front of my machine). Also just look at a few people in the audience, think of it like you're chatting with 1 person 100 times/5 people 20 times as opposed to chatting 100 people.

</comment><comment><USER6> The best resource for improving your public speaking is to find events that are looking for speakers and to volunteer. The _only_ way to improve your public speaking is to do more of it.

<comment><USER7> Totally agree with this.

A couple of other things I've found help me in case they help you:

\- public speaking is a skill, not a talent. You can learn to be good at it with practice.

\- if you are the type of person that gets nervous, you may never completely cure that, but you will learn to get through it. Many good public speakers still feel a little anxiety before speaking.

\- if you have a bad presentation, don't stress too much. The key is to not let too much time go by after a bad performance, get back out there.

I personally dread public speaking, but I have to do it regularly enough that I continuously have to work at it. I like to memorize the first few lines of any talk. Once I get a few sentences in everything falls into place. I just need to get through the first 90 seconds before my nerves pass. And it only improved through live action.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The other suggestions provide great starting places for public speaking. Toastmasters and the like are very good. (Personally I took several college speaking classes, but I have a number of friends who attended toastmasters)

I will add a different idea: Improv Acting classes.

Toastmasters and speech classes gets you comfortable in front of an audience and how to prepare for various forms of presentational public speaking.

Improv gets you comfortable with FAILING in front of people AND recovering from that failure. You learn to think on your feet and keep going. I believe I went from a competent public speaker to a much more engaging speaker due to Improv.

</comment><comment><USER9> I like Andrew Ng's short article ([https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140320175655-176238488-lear...](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140320175655-176238488-learn- to-speak-or-teach-better-in-30-minutes/)) about this topic. Recommends taking short videos of elements of your speech and then watching them, tweaking, and repeating.

</comment><comment><USER10> I took a comedy class just for this exact reason a few years ago.

<comment><USER5> This sounds cool. Was it really helpful? What do they teach in comedy class?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> You need audience feedback. So the Andrew Ng's solution to film yourself is half good. If you know great public speakers (friends, colleagues, your boss, etc.), ask for feedback when you train, pull them in, ask them to come and judge you.

</comment><comment><USER12> a mirror :)</comment>


DropFuse - FUSE based fs for DropBox linked folders - <AUTHOR> http://github.com/arekzb/dropfuse

<comment><AUTHOR> Submitter here -

It's my first submit and I wasn't sure how to submit it, doh! I'll treat this as the text explanation.

You might remember the newly added feature in DropBox that allows a user to create a link to a folder and share it with friends. Ref. here: [http://forums.dropbox.com/topic.php?id=21441&replies=3](http://forums.dropbox.com/topic.php?id=21441&replies=3)

Over the weekend I decided to make a FUSE fs to access these links in a regular file browser. Feel free to give it a try. To test it out, I have created a shared folder on DropBox and the link to it is included in the README file.

Cheers,</comment>


Ask HN: Did you ever help your SO learn to code? How did you avoid frustration? - <AUTHOR> I am helping my SO learn how to code (JS).
She has started and stopped countless tutorials. She has taken part into a mini bootcamp to learn React but we both agree that it was mismatched to her abilities because it assumed more knowledge than she had.
After over a year, she still doesn't have the basics: there is confusion as to what is an object, the difference between a value and a function, how to access an object's values vs an array's, etc.
I am trying to help her with code exercises or interview questions when it includes a coding component but it feels like we're going nowhere: We spent hundreds of hours over time on these and because she doesn't have the basics down, she runs into the same issues over and over and over again.
I get frustrated and tend to be more curt than I'd like, this also makes her frustrated and hinders enthusiasm + progress.
Did you ever help your SO learn how to code? How did you go about it? How did you avoid the frustration and tension? <comment><USER2> I am not familiar with your situation, so the following questions you should ask her/yourself are:

1\. Does she really want to learn to code, or does it come from you? 2\. Can she write any code? Does she have trouble with just defenitions or coding in general? 3\. Maybe JS isn't for her? Maybe show her Python or another language? What I mean is that maybe syntax is a bit confusing to her. 4\. Has she tried any books? How does she learn other stuff most efficient? 5\. Maybe just let her code and search for problems on the Web? Maybe you are trying to teach her too much stuff at once.

IMO give her more space and help only in the most critical errors at the moment. Let her code, code, and code. You could help her by creating some snippets or cheatsheet that she could print and use next to a keyboard.

When I was first learning Java (at college) I had trouble with understanding a lot of concepts and it took me a long time to finally grasp them. Don't think about that clickbait articles that are all over the internet about people that have learned to code in a few months. They are just clickbait articles, that's all they are. Learning to code is not easy, it takes time, for some a lot of time. If it was easy, a lot more people would be programmers and that's not the case.

</comment><comment><USER3> Maybe this talk helps: [https://media.ccc.de/v/35c3-9800-how_to_teach_programming_to...](https://media.ccc.de/v/35c3-9800-how_to_teach_programming_to_your_loved_ones)

Disclaimer: I haven't had the time to watch it myself yet.</comment>


Printer: an open source kit for exploring internet-of-things printing - <AUTHOR> http://gofreerange.com/printer

<comment><USER2> Somebody asked for a live stream - <http://www.ustream.tv/channel/freerange- printer>

Send a message or a picture using the demo apps

<http://printer-mail.herokuapp.com/send/freerange>

<http://printer-paint.herokuapp.com/send/freerange>

</comment><comment><USER2> You can poke around the source on github: <http://github.com/freerange/printer>

There's also some fairly comprehensive documentation on the github wiki, including an architectural overview, and building your own printer: <http://github.com/freerange/printer/wiki>

<comment><USER3> James, I met you a couple weeks ago in the pub with Chris Roos. I would love to come over and check this out. Looks dope!

<comment><USER2> That would be great! Just send us an email and we'll figure out a good time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> So this is an open source BERG Cloud? <http://bergcloud.com/> (aka receipt printer)

<comment><USER2> I suspect that BERG have much grander plans for BERG Cloud than this, and of course BERG Cloud will be much more polished and suitable for normal people. But that said, it's a tool that might help explore a similar 'space' of possibilities, yeah.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> How much does an appropriate printer cost? eBay seems to indicate between $100-$300.

<comment><USER2> The actual printer unit I'm using (i.e. not including the Arduino components) is $50/£40 and is increasingly available:

<https://www.adafruit.com/products/600> <http://www.sparkfun.com/products/10438> <http://proto-pic.co.uk/thermal- printer/>

See [https://github.com/freerange/printer/wiki/Making-your-own- pr...](https://github.com/freerange/printer/wiki/Making-your-own-printer) for more information...

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wonder if you could print to this using a Rasberry Pi with a Gertboard?

<comment><USER2> You definitely could, and it would be much easier to write the HTTP client code on a Raspberry Pi than it is on the Arduino!

If you look at the Arduino code (<https://github.com/freerange/printer/blob/master/printer.ino>), all it does is download a stream of bytes, doing some very rudimentary validation (Content-length), and then sending the bytes out on a serial port.</comment></comment>


How Facebook Catches Bugs in Its 100M Lines of Code - sneeze-slayer https://www.wired.com/story/facebook-zoncolan-static-analysis-tool/ <comment><AUTHOR> Simply: don't catch bugs</comment>


How can it be Sustainable? Kiva's Social Lending Campaign - <AUTHOR>

I am confused how Kiva's Social Media lending campaign can sustain itself if it goes viral.
Quick rundown on the campaign is that if you get a referral link, you post it on FB/Twitter etc. For every person that signs up you get $25 to lend and the referrer gets $25 more to lend. If my referral link gets a thousand sign ups, then Kiva is responsible for $50,000 worth of loans. Is this user acquisition strategy sustainable? Its not like they are giving out free software trials. I suppose the hope is that people signup and then throw their own money into the pot and continuously lend over time thus Kiva earns interest over time to make up for this. Yet it seems like the amount of money could balloon in this campaign really fast.
Here is my Kiva referral link via Facebook: http://bit.ly/PEtET3 Non-Referral: https://www.kiva.org/portfolio/invites
In case you don't know Kiva - its a Micro-financing platform - signup and choose a third-world person/cause to lend to. Maybe the loan is repayed, maybe not. If it is you can lend again. <comment><USER2> They might have received an investment of $X which will allow them to offer Y free invites. When they reach that number they will stop providing you with free tokens.

I would assume getting the early users would be great for them. Once the campaign stops those links won't die and it will lead to free sign-ups.

<comment><USER3> Yep, this is correct, at least to my knowledge.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Should startups hire recent college grads? - jamey-aha https://blog.aha.io/startups-are-no-place-for-most-new-grads/ <comment><AUTHOR> New grads need mentorship, and most start ups probably don't have the bandwidth to offer the right amount of mentorship to help a new grad thrive in that environment.

Nice read!

</comment><comment><USER2> The article is correct in principle, but if targeting individuals and mitigate the risks, can be super valuable. Need to have a good strategy in place and funnel. The upside is that graduate is the only level where you can compete with big companies as a startup. If grad likes your idea enough, he will take a shot.

</comment><comment><USER3> Eh. All jobs would benefit from someone with experience; therefore, absolutely nobody should hire someone with no prior full-time work experience.

Done and done.</comment>


Researchers Hack Blood cells into Stem Cells - <AUTHOR> http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-08-blood-cells-stem-cell-state.html

<comment><USER2> Link to article? (I think it's the right one)

[http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjourna...](http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0011373)

 _These T-cell derived iPSCs ("TiPS") retain a normal karyotype and genetic identity to the donor. They share common characteristics with human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) with respect to morphology, pluripotency-associated marker expression and capacity to generate neurons, cardiomyocytes, and hematopoietic progenitor cells. Additionally, they retain their characteristic T-cell receptor (TCR) gene rearrangements, a property which could be exploited for iPSC clone tracking and T-cell development studies._

<comment><USER3> I think this is the article referred to in the article:

[http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjourna...](http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0042838)

And here is the other article, referred to as "Chapter One", where the researchers differentiate the induced blood stem cells into heart cells:

[http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjourna...](http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0018293)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yes, this is really cool. But it is an improvement on earlier techniques: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_pluripotent_stem_cell>

<comment><USER5> There are new techniques involved here.

 _Generally, out of hundreds of blood cells, only one or two might turn into iPS cells. Using Zambidis' method, 50 to 60 percent of blood cells were engineered into iPS cells._

 _Traditionally, scientists use viruses to deliver a package of genes to cells to turn on processes that convert the cells from one type (such as skin or blood) back to stem cell states. Zambidis' team uses plasmids, rings of DNA that replicate briefly inside cells and then degrade._

<comment><USER4> Sure, Zambidis' group used electroporation to deliver the genes that convert adult cells back to a stem cell. But it appears that is the only new thing that they did. The 4 genes that they delivered to revert the adult cells back to stem cells were discovered back in 2006 by Yamanaka's group. It is the 4 genes that do all the magic, and identifying those genes was the really amazing step forward in the field.

Electroporation, which it looks like what Zambidis et al used, is not without problems too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So is anything not "hacking" anymore? Or can we just use that verb for anything?

If so then I'm hacking pretty hard in this comment section right now.

<comment><USER7> By 2050 the set of all verbs will be pared down to just "hacking" and "trolling".</comment></comment>


Algorithmic Bias Was Born in the 1980s - <AUTHOR> https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/tech-history/dawn-of-electronics/untold-history-of-ai-the-birth-of-machine-bias?href= <comment><USER2> Apparently, the creator of that algorithm literally and consciously added bias against females and non-caucasian to his program, which made it pretty much an open and shut case.

The modern approach would be to take some NLP machine learning kit, which would do a wonderful job learning and reproducing the human assessors' biases, without any overt evidence (because the reasoning is always opaque), without ever being explicitly instructed to do so, and possibly even without the author of the program being aware of it.

<comment><USER3> This is where the creator has a very specific duty of being careful about what features are fed into the learning algorithms - including names, gender and other protected category info is a huge no-no.

The NLP part is complex because language and dialect differences can reveal a lot about the individual and her/his background.

If you have to analyze non-standardized inputs, some personalized data is going to leak. The question is how much does it affect the outcome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> On two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" In one case a member of the Upper, and in the other a member of the Lower, House put this question. I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.

-Charles Babbage, _Passages from the Life of a Philosopher_ , 1864

<comment><USER5> I don't like this anecdote. A charitable reading of the question would be whether the machine has any means of input verification, error detection/correction mechanisms etc. Things that are pretty common and reasonable.

<comment><USER6> I don't like it either.

I think Babbage saw the machine as implementing a mathematical function, which is why he thought the question was ridiculous.

I suspect that the people who asked the question did _not_ realise that it just calculated a function and were thinking of the behaviour of machines more generally, e.g. their ability to take in rough materials and produce a fine result, or maybe also some kind of canalization whereby approximate inputs would produce a valid and precise output.

<comment><USER7> Babbage fairly clearly knew this and was playing up his public persona of "irascible genius who must have everything precisely quantified" for laughs. His autobiography is full of this kind of self-aware self-mockery; another funny example is "Every moment dies a man, every moment 1 1/16 is born" ([http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi879.htm](http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi879.htm))

In other words, the quote isn't written to illustrate the stupidity of politicians, it's written to have a laugh at contextually-oblivious engineers like Babbage.

<comment><USER6> Looking at the context, I don't buy this explanation. It's ingenious but a bit too subtle to be true.

[https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Passages_from_the_Life_o...](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Passages_from_the_Life_of_a_Philosopher.djvu/83)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> a-dub They say that those who don't learn from the past are doomed to repeat it, yet somehow statistical data driven algorithms that literally learn from the past provide guarantees of repeating it.

<comment><USER8> Nice paradox! It is resolved, I think, by there being two different concepts of 'learn' here.

<comment> a-dub Seems that the next iteration of the Turing Test will account for this...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Algorithmic bias really was born a long time before then. There were "computers" and "algorithms" long before the 80s. Perhaps algorithmic bias in the age of personal computers was born in the 80s.

Is the code available for review? I didn't see any mention of it being available in the article. Maybe if ieee has it, they can post it to github? Did the guy hard code a list of "european" names directly into the code or did he store it in a file or even a db? Did it just check the surnames or the first and middle names also?

Also, is bias still in the college admissions system in the UK? I know we have a form of it in the US.

<comment><USER8> To be clear, the existence of bias for "european" names or against women does not necessarily imply a store of explicitly "european" or feminine names. If the training data reflects that bias, the program derived from it is also likely do so.

</comment></comment><comment> Sol- Seems a bit different from modern day algorithmic discrimination. In the 2016 pro publica example, for instance, the algorithm doesn't explicitly consider race but just picks up the fact that black inmates more often have other features correlated with reoffending (they are younger, for instance). Now that might very well indicate that there's a systematic bias against younger black people in the training data and that they are more likely to be singled out for arrest than others, but the algorithm did an okay job given the unbalanced arrest prevalence in the training data. Of course, there's still a lesson of not blindly trusting the algorithm but trying to understand why the data caused it to make its decisions.

But at least no one went to such lengths as to encode ethnicity as a separate feature to weigh in the process. I wish the article gave more detail about the algorithm - was it a manually constructed decision tree or what? Because I wonder what the guy was doing. Surely even in the 70/80s you should have been aware that encoding ethnicity as some explicit variable is very discriminatory.

</comment><comment><USER10> It would be interesting to see how the code classified names as European/non- European. Given that apparently no ML was involved, I assume it was based on a list of European names, and if your name is not on the list, you're not European and you lose 15 points ? Or some kind of pattern matching (Reged or similar), again if your name doesn't match, you lose 15 points ? It seems very strange that someone would go to such lengths to explicitly code this kind of bias.

<comment><USER11> >It seems very strange that someone would go to such lengths to explicitly code this kind of bias.

It's a fun intellectual exercise - like any other in academia. It's not as if they were working in a cutthroat commercial venture with hard deadlines.

A simple rule would be to rule out certain orderings of characters. A name beginning with "Ng", or "Kp", etc. Also, given that this is the UK, just put in lots of popular Indian names (Patel, Singh).

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> > After all, Franglen had tested the machine against humans and found a 90 to > 95 percent correlation of outcomes

</comment><comment><USER13> False. Algorithmic bias was present from the very beginning. One way or another, directly or indirectly, algorithms only do what people tell them to do.

<comment><USER8> This is too trite a dismissal. The problem is that it is all too easy to not fully comprehend all of the implications of what you are telling the algorithm to do.</comment></comment>