Trump order strips privacy rights from non-U.S. citizens - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/26/trump-order-strips-privacy-rights-from-non-u-s-citizens-could-nix-eu-us-data-flows/ <comment><USER2> We need to wake the fuck up in the EU and start aggressively building European-based competitors to US tech companies that actually respect user privacy. A good area to start would be in the data storage industry, and perhaps social media too. Obviously, non Silicon Valley based startups face certain challenges[1], but we should at least _try_. It would arguably benefit US consumers also, if they could choose products that are designed to compete on privacy, a good example being Switzerland-based ProtonMail[2] (ok, non-EU but still).

I wasn't aware of Privacy Shield before now, but after reading a little bit about it[3], it reads like something that only gives a fig leaf of protection to EU citizens.

[1] [http://paulgraham.com/america.html](http://paulgraham.com/america.html)

[2] [https://protonmail.com/](https://protonmail.com/)

[3] [http://ec.europa.eu/justice/data- protection/document/citizen...](http://ec.europa.eu/justice/data- protection/document/citizens-guide_en.pdf)

<comment><USER3> My hope - perhaps naïvely so - is that President Trump will be the kick in our complacency that we so desperately need. Even if for all the wrong reasons. Both in the US and the EU.

<comment><USER4> I .. feel the same. Which conflicts me a lot because he's despicable in many dimensions. But he'll act as the wall(sic) we'll hit to react. He's driven and polarizing, even in the worst sense of the term.. that's still "coherent energy".

ps: that said, I can't wait for the U.S to kick him out.. he seems unfit to do anything.

<comment><USER5> Just a note, that's not how you use (sic)

It's usually used when quoting an original statement that's doubtful or knowingly incorrect

I don't know which term would be more appropriate to use, probably "pun intended"

<comment><USER4> True, but even Wikipedia lists irony as a usage [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sic#The_.22ironic_use.22_of_si...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sic#The_.22ironic_use.22_of_sic)

<comment><USER5> Good, I assume that was the writer's intention then

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My fear is that this gives the EU commision a justified target (US tech companies) when they look for something to bargain with once Trump fires first shots at EU (German) car companies (which he will).

A EU directive could look something like:

* EU citizen data must not leave the EU to the US since EU citizen privacy is not respected there

* If US tech companies are not able to segregate data (difficult for small tech companies and e.g. Facebook) they will be blocked

And there we have it. The balkanization of the (western world) Internet.

<comment> mike-cardwell This doesn't seem like a bad thing to me. I think countries in the EU are being incredibly stupid by allowing a foreign nation to maintain databases of pretty much all of their citizens movements, conversations, plans, history and relationships.

<comment><USER7> Yes, each country having its own internet is bad. When I'm as a European are prohibited by law to talk to an American because I might transmit personally- identifiable information, and you as an American are prohibited from talking to me because you can't exchange data with a foreign entity that has not been totally scrutinized by your government, that's bad.

I believe most big companies already want this, they're just waiting for an excuse to pull the trigger. The big web companies already segregate people by origin IP address, serving them different content. In many cases, GeoIP even has precedence over the language settings in your user account when logged in. Totally separating each country or region, imposing new pricing schemes and locally-maximized restrictions on content, and preventing people from exchanging information across borders sounds like an absolute corporate utopia to me.

<comment> mike-cardwell I don't feel like you addressed my concern. Which is a foreign nation having a database of my nations citizens movements, conversations, plans, history and relationships.

Apparently you don't see as that leading to any problems?

<comment><USER7> > Apparently you don't see as that leading to any problems?

That's not exactly a charitable assumption, and it's also untrue. First of all, that database is already in American hands. Don't for a second assume those "equivalent privacy" rules _actually_ apply behind the scenes. It should be perfectly obvious how these rules cannot possibly be honored even in principle. What's prompting the supposed withdrawal from the data exchange agreement now is not how data is treated in _practice_ , it's merely the loss of an already-weak public _declaration_ that provided plausible deniability up to this point.

So yeah, I see problems from in every corner of this thing, but arguing for a balkanized internet is not the solution either. For starters I don't quite like the fact that my government feels the need to treat me like a child by preventing me from sharing information on Facebook under the pretense of "protecting" me, but then turns around and exchanges all the official data it has on me with the American intelligence community anyway.

When it seems like every move is about shafting the private citizen, the problem needs to be addressed on another layer. Plunging the world into a new information dark age is not a price I'm willing to pay.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I am actually the Lead Developer at a medical device company making software that manages patient data from EU citizens. Our answer to this is really easy: Do not host anything in the US. We intend to use AWS. Frankfurt will do just fine, even if it is a bit more expensive.

<comment><USER9> Medical data and AWS? Urks. If you host with an US-company, your data is no more secure then if they were physically in the US. Not if preventions of overreach like Privacy Shield (which was mostly a joke anyway) are dismantled.

Get a EU data-provider!

<comment><USER8> AWS is 27001 and 27018 compliant: [https://aws.amazon.com/compliance/iso-27001-faqs/](https://aws.amazon.com/compliance/iso-27001-faqs/)

<comment><USER10> Onli is talking about the potential for US authorities to order US companies to disclose information hosted by them regardless of the location of their services, not the actual security of the data. The issue of US companies being compelled to disclose is the subject of ongoing litigation between Microsoft and the US. I believe the Supreme Court will hear arguments this year.

Of course if you are encrypting hosted data and AWS has no access to the keys, then that gives comfort over the disclosure. The relevant authorities/local authorities would have to come to you for disclosure of the keys and you would have any protections applicable under local laws...

<comment><USER8> That would exclude AWS from an awfully large segment of data hungry industries. Operating in the EU AWS has to comply with GDPR for at least the operations they have located in the EU. Frankfurt is safe.

<comment><USER9> It is not. See [https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/186302-us-government- ass...](https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/186302-us-government-asserts- unilateral-right-to-access-private-data-even-if-its-stored-outside-the-us) for a popular explanation why.

AWS being excluded from business is exactly what those companies are arguing.

<comment><USER8> Still being litigated [1]. Last ruling was for Microsoft's position.

      [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Corporation_v._United_States_of_America

<comment><USER9> That's a good caveat. Still: Being litigated means the US is trying to achieve a state which is explicitly unsafe. Which for me means already that AWS- Frankfurt is not safe. Especially for something like medical data. The potential danger is way too big, especially since we know that the US-agencies will siphon the data anyway, regardless of what the court rules.

Think business: Do you really want to face the media backlash when your competitor lances the story that the medical data you collect goes directly into the tiny little hands of Trump, and to the NSA?

<comment><USER8> If they are using extra-judicial means to get at the data I have no recourse anyways. I will have to store it somewhere and a dedicated attacker will always (eventually) find a vulnerability. The standards I have to implement do not state that I must keep the data out of the hands of attackers. They state principles and methods that make it less likely. When the regulators come knocking after an 'incident' their levying of fines will depend on standards and regulation compliance, not the leaked documents. You have an unreasonable expectation of what can be done.

<comment><USER9> Not hosting private medical data on a server controlled by a country with no regard for privacy of those patients is not an unreasonable expectation. It is a basic requirement for this kind of business. There will come a crackdown on that kind of malpractice. I hope you reconsidered till then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> At this point I can't take any Trump news seriously. Everything is "could" or "might". I can't even tell what's real and who's just working their Trump derangement out.

<comment><USER12> I do understand to a point: Sometimes I can't actually tell the difference between a piece of _actual_ trump news and satire - and this isn't a new thing. I get the feeling Trump is playing the country like he'd play an audience for a drama, complete with cliffhangers and reveals and plot twists.

Not to mention it all seems so very _surreal_.

And the truth is that I find this frightening. I don't want government to mimic entertainment.

Some of the stuff _should_ be verifiable at this point: If he's signing executive orders, surely there are copies. Not that we'd be able to see all of them, since I'm sure some are classified. This article seems to be speculation and worries based on something somewhat verifiable. And it is stuff like this that somewhat helps me keep some sort of grasp on things, as much as possible.

<comment><USER2> > Some of the stuff should be verifiable at this point: If he's signing > executive orders, surely there are copies.

In this instance the second word in the Techcrunch article literally links to the executive order text, hosted on whitehouse.gov:

[https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press- office/2017/01/25/presi...](https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press- office/2017/01/25/presidential-executive-order-enhancing-public-safety- interior-united)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The EC has already gone on record saying that this EO does not apply to the Privacy Shield.

[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/01/26/trump_blows_up_tran...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/01/26/trump_blows_up_transatlantic_privacy_shield/)

One of the provisions for the EU to agree to the Shield was that the Privacy Act would be extended to citizens of the EU plus certain non-EU European countries. The Shield and the Privacy Act extension goes into effect Feb 1.

That said, I don't think this executive order will alleviate the concerns of ordinary European consumers giving American internet companies

</comment><comment><USER14> The original TechCrunch article was wrong, and they updated it with the statement from the EU Commission that tells them it was wrong.

There's a law now called the Judicial Redress Act, and it passed as a compromise made to the EU before enabling the Privacy Shield data-sharing deal between the EU and the US.

I still don't think it goes far enough, because I don't think the US Privacy Act gives "essentially the same protections" as the EU privacy laws do (per CJEU requirement), but at least it gives non-U.S. citizens the same protections Americans have.

So this executive order means nothing. The administration may act as if it does, but if sued, it can be ruled unconstitutional/invalid.

I guess this could be a problem if Trump continues to sign multiple unconstitutional executive orders every day for the rest of his term. There are only so many lawsuits people can start against his administration, so many of the unconstitutional executive orders may get ignored.

<comment><USER15> The problem lies in tossing new demands out every day, how is any agency even supposed to understand how they apply to their policies? Mass confusion might be great in campaigns but it isn't very useful for governing a country. When it may or may not affect interactions with foreign countries, lots of mistakes will happen, and often those lead to wars, both economic and otherwise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The article has been updated:

 _The spokeswoman has now sent us a statement in which the EC asserts that Privacy Shield "does not rely on the protections under the U.S. Privacy Act"._

Since the impetus for this article was an executive order[0] regarding the Privacy Act, it seems that there's no immediate need for concern.

[0] _Privacy Act. Agencies shall, to the extent consistent with applicable law, ensure that their privacy policies exclude persons who are not United States citizens or lawful permanent residents from the protections of the Privacy Act regarding personally identifiable information._

</comment><comment><USER17> >Except in many ways the EU was conceived by US planners to eliminate popular control and provide a negotiating partner for the US that could be dealt with as a whole.

Not exactly true. The EU was logical evolution of the common European trading bloc. One of the conditions of the Marshall Plan was that European nations had to xome together to receive aid and xould not deal with the US on a nation by nation basis... in order to foster cooperation and not repeat the horror of constant warfare that plagued the European continent for 1000+ years

</comment><comment><USER18> The so called "Privacy Shield" was from the start just a renaming of the previous existing contract between the US and the EU. Thus it did not protect anything more than it was protected before.

Until the EU stops to make such "show politics" for the masses, nothing will change and we will get such contracts that essentially have no effect at all.

</comment><comment><USER19> Is there any good alternatives to Gmail? Self hosted or hosted is EU, both works

</comment><comment><USER20> What will happen with non-EU citizens? I'm from south america. How does this affect me?

Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER21> Based on the European Commission's guide to Privacy Shield document, it does not appear that Trump's order affects it.

Privacy Shield sets requirements for how US _companies_ must deal with personal data that they transfer from the EU to the US. These requirements are:

1\. The company must inform you about:

\- the types of personal data it processes,

\- the reasons is processes personal data,

\- if it intends to transfer your data to another company and why,

\- your right to ask for access to your personal data,

\- your opt-out right to having the data used in a way "materially different" or disclosed to another company,

\- how to contact the company if you have a complaint about the use of your data,

\- the dispute resolution body in the EU or US where you can bring a complaint,

\- the US government agency that is responsible for investigating and enforcing these obligations,

\- the possibility that the company may have to respond to lawful requests from US public authorities to disclose information about you.

2\. If the company wants to use your personal data for a different purpose than the one for which it was originally collected or has been subsequently authorized by you:

\- this is not allowed if the new purpose is incompatible with the original purpose,

\- if the new purpose is different but related to the original, they may only do so if you do not object (but in the case of "sensitive data" you have to actually consent).

\- if the new different purpose is close enough to not be considered "materially different" the use is permitted.

3\. They should only receive and process personal data to the extend that is relevant for the purpose of processing, and only keep it as long as necessary for this, with some exceptions allowing longer keeping for the public interest, journalism, literature and art, scientific or historical research, or statistical analysis.

4\. The company must secure the data.

5\. Protect the data if transferred to another company.

6\. Provide you with access to your data and a way to request corrections.

Trump's order says that _agencies_ , which means Federal government agencies, have to exclude from their privacy policies people who are not US citizens and not lawful permanent residents.

These agency privacy policies were not covered under Privacy Shield, and so this change to them appears to be irrelevant to Privacy Shield. It doesn't change the obligations of _companies_ under Privacy Shield.

Note that I'm basing this analysis on a document written by the EU to explain Privacy Shield to ordinary citizens. It is possible that there are subtleties or complexities that they left out of that document that may be relevant.

<comment><USER14> I'm not sure how accurate that is that it doesn't affect agencies at all. The whole reason the old Safe Harbor deal fell at the CJEU was because of Snowden's documents and accusations that US is indiscriminately accessing European's data through companies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm seeing a lot of talk from Europeans about how they need European competitors to US companies to protect their data.

The question I have to ask is:

 _What makes you think your European competitor company won 't start doing the data-harvesting and privacy-invading methods that their US counterparts do ?_

Your answer might be: European laws and regulation

But then, just like in the US with GooFace, your European competitor will setup their lobby groups and get their preferred candidates into Europe- governance

<comment><USER23> They (lobbyist) will obviously try, if they will succeed is up to the people of the EU countries, nothing is a given. So far the right to privacy is strong is several countries, others less so. But lobbyists appear to have a somewhat hard time to influence the entirety of EU, maybe with the exception of agriculture.</comment></comment>


Droid Incredible's and EVO 4G's 2.2 Source Code Released by HTC - <AUTHOR> http://phandroid.com/2010/08/11/droid-incredibles-and-evo-4gs-2-2-source-code-released-by-htc/

<comment><USER2> This will be a big boost to the modding community. Most of the reason that we don't yet have stable froyo mods is the lack of 2.2 source.</comment>


The Evolution of Blogging  - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2009/08/13/the-evolution-of-blogging/# <comment> onreact-com Indeed, we need data portability to rescue our content from dying services.</comment>


Why #Gamergaters Piss Me the F*** Off - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/the-cauldron/why-gamergaters-piss-me-the-f-off-a7e4c7f6d8a6

<comment><USER2> (In case the title didn't tip you off, TFA contains coarse language.)</comment>


GYM and fitness application - <AUTHOR>

What do you think about an application of GYM customer and services management. It could be a mix between Fitness Tracking app, GYM activities schedule, GYM payment and duties, and motivational stuff. The app could be free-downloaded but the GYM must be give credentials to the GYM customers. The GYM could be access to users data and records, goals tracking and schedules goals and classes. What do you think? <comment><USER2> IMO, its a good idea of blending Fitness Tracking & GYM training app. I didn't understand your point : The app could be free-downloaded but the GYM must be give credentials to the GYM customers. The GYM could be access to users data and records, goals tracking and schedules goals and classes. Can you please explain it.

Also, If you have a sample of your app then i would like to try it.</comment>


With a Mighty Hand and an Outstretched Arm [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.convexitymaven.com/images/Convexity_Maven_With_A_Mighty_Hand.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> I think this is a great commentary on the current status of the economy, with a focus on the US but global implications.

This passage alone is worth some merit:

> There are only two ways to resolve a debt crisis – either default or inflate > with the caveat that inflation is simply a slow-motion default. (Yes, strong > real GDP growth can also extinguish debt, but let's stipulate this avenue as > closed.)</comment>


Static single assignment for functional programmers (2011) - <AUTHOR> https://wingolog.org/archives/2011/07/12/static-single-assignment-for-functional-programmers <comment><USER2> This article (and a number around it) miss the underlying point of SSA entirely.

SSA exists (or at least, was done) because of bitvector dataflow time bounds. All the other interesting reasoning about blah blah blah is mostly just people making up reasons they think people did stuff. It also promotes an NIH view of the world that didn't exist.

(CPS wasn't even introduced until 1976, and i'm not aware of anybody proving any of the nice properties of SSA about it until after SSA existed. If someone has a reference otherwise, i'd love to see it)

I can state this with such flat assertion because Zadeck was my officemate at IBM for a few years, so he told me why it did it. He hated staring at bitvectors because he is dyslexic. Motivation is funny sometimes.

For a large class of problems, bitvector dataflow can be done in O(N) bitvector operations. However, each operation/iteration requires N time to perform the bitvector union/intersection/whatever. Hence the total time bound was N^2 overall.

It was proven in the early to mid seventies this was the best you can do by Tarjan, when he wasn't busy efficiently solving every _other_ graph problem known to CS at the time: [http://i.stanford.edu/pub/cstr/reports/cs/tr/76/547/CS- TR-76...](http://i.stanford.edu/pub/cstr/reports/cs/tr/76/547/CS- TR-76-547.pdf)

That was thought to be the end of it. There were elimination dataflow approaches still left open, but these are complicated. (Wegman was, among other things, an expert in elimination based dataflow methods)

There were approaches to incremental dataflow, and complex ways to try to work around this for specific problems.

Zadeck's thesis was on ways to start to approach breaking these barriers with techniques different than used before. You can see most of SSA in it: [https://scholarship.rice.edu/handle/1911/15877](https://scholarship.rice.edu/handle/1911/15877)

In fact, when he initially suggested it, he was told it was "impossible and i can prove it", but he explained, correctly, that Tarjan/et al proved a very specific thing, and he was using a way not encumbered by those proofs.

(The later parts of this story reduce to "two groups of IBM researchers discovered the problems they were trying to solve were the same even though they appear different". I'll skip this)

In practice, SSA was the first real approach that made it easy and trivial to break bitvector bound for large classes of dataflow problems (constant propagation, etc).

 _That_ is why it is used in compilers.

As mentioned, despite this article (and a few others) claiming CPS did it first, i'm not aware of anyone in CPS land claiming or proving anything related to this until well after SSA became popular.

<comment><USER2> Sigh, the time bound here requires explaining.

It's O(N) where N is the number of edges.

It's O(N^2) where N is the number of blocks (vertices).

(In a complete graph of N vertices, there are N^2 edges) Papers switch between the two (elimination based methods are often in terms of edges, non- elimination in terms of number of blocks)

Also, if you read papers from these days, bitvector operations are considered to take constant time. (see footnote 2 in [https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/82093362.pdf](https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/82093362.pdf)).

They do in fact take constant time if they are constant size independent of program, but they are often not. They are usually linear in the number of variables/blocks.

For those linear in the number of blocks, the total time bound comes to N^3 (and N^2 log N for a class of problems).

For those linear in the number of variables O(V*N^2).

For those constant sized, the time bounds are correct since the operations take constant time.

(and FWIW: This group of people has probably forgotten more about program analysis than the rest of us will ever know)

<comment><USER3> I am very happy to see this re-posted if only because it evoked the exposition above.</comment></comment></comment>


52-hertz whale - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/52-hertz_whale <comment><USER2> That's sad, yet beautiful in some way. My first thought was "wow, this whale managed to survive the japanese whalers for that long" but perhaps the japanese don't hunt that far north in the pacific and the fact it's a lone whale doesn't attract much attention. Since they are social animals and the individual is not malformed I would guess the deafness theory makes a lot of sense, but so does being a hybrid (thus a rejected individual). That is quite a story, thanks for sharing.

</comment><comment><USER3> I would fund an expedition to put a device on this whale that emits a normal range frequency whenever it hears a a call of ~52 hz

<comment><USER4> This sounds like a violation of the prime directive.

<comment><USER5> After abducting a humpback whale from the past and delivering it to an unknown spaceship, I say the prime directive is moot regarding whales.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Evidence that it is a whale and that there is only one: [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096706370...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0967063704001682)

<comment><USER7> I read all 13 pages of that article and didn't find any discussions refuting the possibility that it could be something else, like some piece of equipment on a submarine. The fact that it's very close to 50Hz mains frequency and is otherwise very "un-whale-like" in behaviour suggests to me that it's man-made.

This is probably getting into the realm of conspiracy theory now, but what better than to disguise a submarine to make it sound like a whale, and moreover convince everyone else that it is? Of course if it is actually some highly classified stealth submarine, we may never know...

It somewhat reminds me of this: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peryton_(astronomy)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peryton_\(astronomy\))

<comment><USER8> If someone were trying to disguise a submarine as a whale, why wouldn't they give it a normal whale voice?

<comment><USER7> Because 52Hz might be easier and have some other advantages (like perhaps masking some other more identifiable sounds)?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If anyone is interested to learn more about the history of recordings, see the following, the first of which has some .wav files holding discussion and recordings, and the second of which is an obituary that reveals much of how such work got started.

Schevill, William E., and William A. Watkins. "Whale and Porpoise Voices: A Phonograph Record." WHOI unnumbered reports. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (contribution 1320), 1962. [https://hdl.handle.net/1912/7431](https://hdl.handle.net/1912/7431).

"William A. Watkins." Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Accessed July 7, 2018. [https://www.whoi.edu/mr/obit/viewArticle.do?id=1579&pid=1579](https://www.whoi.edu/mr/obit/viewArticle.do?id=1579&pid=1579).

</comment><comment> iso-8859-1 Previously: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11185764](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11185764)

<comment><USER10> More comments on this: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4531563](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4531563)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> >moves out of range of the hydrophones in January–February

I would have thought the entire ocean is covered by now?

<comment><USER12> The ocean is so big that some people call it "the last great frontier." There is so much of the ocean we have not explored.

<comment><USER13> yet I read that every meter of ocean floor was physically 'plowed' multiple times over by fishers, on average.

<comment><USER14> Where did you read that? It can't possibly be right: the Pacific alone is 160M km^2.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The 10x sped-up recording reminded me of the dial-up handshake tones (this example [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dial- up_Internet_access](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dial-up_Internet_access) is not a very good match)

</comment><comment><USER16> Is there a non sped up version somewhere?

(Yes, I know how low the frequency is, but a good sub-woofer speaker should be able to play it audibly)

<comment><USER15> [https://www.google.com/search?q=slow+down+sound+online](https://www.google.com/search?q=slow+down+sound+online) -> maybe [https://www.conversion- tool.com/pitch?lang=en](https://www.conversion-tool.com/pitch?lang=en) if you feel like DIY

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Just read Fluke by Christopher Moore if you want to know what this is REALLY about.

<comment><USER18> Could you give us a quick summary of the relevant ideas?</comment></comment>


The Single Most Important Secret to Success - <AUTHOR> http://www.singlefounder.com/2010/03/16/the-single-most-important-secret-to-success/

<comment><USER2> My version of "The Secret" comes in two parts:

* Do _lots_ of stuff

* Make failure fast and cheap

Also, this was submitted 6 months ago:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1195535>

which in some way is a validation that it's an itme of (at least passing) interesting. Comments are closed there so you can't add to that (rather minimal) discussion, but it's interesting to see the points of view.

<comment><USER3> How specifically did this help you succeed?

<comment><USER2> By making sure failure is fast and cheap I become unafraid of trying things. Each thing I try, I try to work out why it will fail. As I explore options some things really do fail fast, others are more difficult to make fail. Some simply refuse to fail, and as I push them through, they succeed.

There are corollaries.

You need to have things try, so you need ideas and the means to pursue them.

You need to be _sure_ they'll fail - it's important to understand that I'm not giving up on things because they seem hard (although that happens too), I'm exploring hard, testing hard, stressing hard. Only when I'm convinced it simply cannot succeed (which includes being too hard to implement for the calculated return) then I turn to the next idea.

I usually use this in the context of the research division of my company, but the same has worked for me as starting a business, and for friends in other contexts.

As with all the "Silver Bullets" it takes work to make it work, and it's not suitable in all contexts. But perhaps you can try it and see if you can make it fail ...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> There are two rules for success in life.

Rule #1: Don't tell anyone everything you know.

<comment><USER5> If you even have the ability to tell someone everything you know, then you don't know enough.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I knew that answer! but there is something else for we, the mortals:

\- Try, and try, and try, and try... producing goals in the world championship cup is not easy... but keep trying. Also, a minor league can be enough for you or for me.

\- If you want an epistemologic suggestion, think in bounded rationality and context bound realities, balancing (don't know how!) rules of thumb, thinking and ignorance is good.

\- Maximize information (customer feedback, clicks, A/B tests) and talk with different kind of people, don't believe in the wisdom of crowds.

</comment><comment><USER7> "There is no secret ingredient" - Po from Kung Fu Panda. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0441773/quotes>

</comment><comment><USER8> > "So the secret to success is to realize that there isn't a secret."

Disingenuous title.

Allow me to contribute a short and glib alternative: "Keep failure cheap."

</comment><comment><USER9> I believe that the secret to success is determination. You're bound to be successful sooner or later, it's just that some people would need 50 years or more to be successful and as far as i know, there aren't many people with that kind of determination. So the ones who have the ingredients necessary to become successful do so in a decade or less and don't even get the chance to quit out of despair.

</comment><comment><USER10> I think everyone wants to know "the secret" when they can't figure out how to do it themselves. "The secret" they are looking for will be specific to their needs. It may not be secret at all, it is just not something they personally know or understand yet. Lots of little stuff adds up overtime and then one day, suddenly, it all gels. Then people start asking you what YOUR secret is.

Also, I would say one of the biggest secrets is learning to deal with yourself: What are you good at? What are you bad at? What is your personal Achilles heel? What is the missing ingredient for this specific project that you have a blind-spot on?....etc.</comment>


Zynga's shares plunge more than 30%; Facebook stock down 7% - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/25/zynga-earnings-idUSL2E8IPJFS20120725

<comment><USER2> I really don't see the utility in posting stock updates for Facebook on here every single day. We get it. Facebook is IPO. Stocks go up and down. Up and down. Guess what, it will go up again in a few days. Then down. This is not news. This is like reporting on the sun rising and setting.

If I care, I'll follow the ticker.</comment>


Open-sourcing Sorbet: a fast, powerful type checker for Ruby - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Looks like you accidentally left out the URL. Discussion is currently at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20235527](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20235527)</comment>


Autism and Agile Software Development; pt 2 - <AUTHOR> http://asdjobsink.blogspot.com/2011/06/aspergers-asd-agile-customers.html

<comment><USER2> There's a guy with Asperger's syndrome where I work. He's rather normal, if you weren't told you'd find a hard time deciding if he's just a geek or has a medical issue.

The problem is that the lead dev has decided this guy can only do "general", "abstract" code, and is pushing him to do so. But having talked with him, he'd be just fine writing specific, to-be-rewritten code like the rest of us. He only has a distate towards unclean code, not unlike mine.

<comment><AUTHOR> That is horrible. I imagine he has a hard time being assertive with the dev lead too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is a great series. I'd recommend anyone who doesn't consider themself an agile veteran (And many of the people I've met who do) read and understand these blog posts. If anything, they do a superb job of providing a low-level primer on the "tactical" experience of coping with an Agile workplace, specifically how it differs from more, historically, orthodox shops.

Additionally, they provide some keen observations on how to sniff out frauds when interviewing with a prospective employer who claims to be Agile (which is quite fashionable, as the author notes)</comment>


Chrome and Firefox Pull Stylish Add-On After Report It Logged Browser History - <AUTHOR> https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/software/chrome-and-firefox-pull-stylish-add-on-after-report-it-logged-browser-history/ <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17447816](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17447816)</comment>


Programmatically Managing an Evergreen Facebook Marketing Campaign - <AUTHOR> https://blog.clearbrain.com/posts/programmatically-managing-an-evergreen-facebook-marketing-campaign <comment><USER2> It's fascinating to read about the power that Facebook's advertising apis provide. I've always wondered whether Facebook ads are just based off of facebook's internal data or whether businesses can combine facebook's data with their own internal data on their customers - it seems like the latter would provide better targeting.</comment>


Bitcoin Attacked, Fees Up 25x, Peaks of 200TPS: A Post-Mortem - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/blockcypher-blog/a-bitcoin-spam-attack-post-mortem-s-la-ying-alive-654e914edcf4

<comment><USER2> Interesting fact // It would cost ~$2.5M annually to flood the network and make it barely usable. That is petrifying to think about how easily crushed it could be. Forgetting about banks and regulation squandering it's growth, this can be done by any corporation with a hunch. Core developers are under a lot of pressure, but with any new tech evolving, panic is not the best way to create decisions.

</comment><comment><USER3> "Bitcoin solved the Byzantine Generals problem, but it hasn't solved the Byzantine Core Developers problem."

</comment><comment><USER4> Great article.

Given this spam attack, do you think it's a realistic goal for BTC to displace traditional payment networks. Visa routinely handles 2000 TPS. At this volume, wouldn't miner fees =~ cc fees?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I do, but there needs to be some evolution for the protocol to adapt while still maintaining relatively low fees. Not sure if it'll be Lightning Network, bigger blocks, and/or IBLTs, but I know what it won't be: bitcoin- core 0.11, as it exists today.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> "$4,536 a day buys you a Bitcoin denial of service attack."</comment>


How an episode of the Simpsons is made - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2015/10/25/9457247/the-simpsons-al-jean-interview?curator=MediaREDEF <comment><USER2> _In the world of animated TV, The Simpsons may be the last of its kind, an expensive, high-touch, slow-paced production built on formulas dating back to Walt Disney and Hanna-Barbera._

"Hanna-Barbera" and "expensive" do not belong in the same sentence. Their Saturday Morning cartoons were so cheaply made that they were mocked by the industry.[0]

[0][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanna- Barbera#Production_proce...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanna- Barbera#Production_process_changes)

<comment><USER3> The reason Yogi Bear wears a collar and tie was solely so they didn't have to animate the head-body transition and save money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Korean inbetweeners have it rough. In fact, all inbetweeners have it rough! That's kind of like getting a C code from a senior animator (Keyframe) and hand-coding asm from it.

It's interesting they've mentioned discontinued software from ToonBoom. I thought they would be using a full blown Harmony by now or DigiCel Flipbook, at least for animatics.

<comment><USER5> Why would they be having it rough? Many jobs involve repetitive actions with little to no creative element. But still these animators will have built up a substantial skill and the work output ought to be modestly satisfying.

If code compiling couldn't be automated, the people tasked with performing ASM translation would eventually become extremely skilled at it... to a point where it might seem impossibly magical to the rest of us.

<comment><USER4> Inbetweening (we call it phasing in Europe) is not repetitive work in a sense of factory work. It's a line of work that requires extreme focus and is repetitive. It's a rough job that taxes your mind, wrists, and back. You have to have a special mindset if you're going to work that for a career. Everybody starts at that step, but not everyone goes further.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "The process is called original equipment manufacturing; Akom is one of many OEM studios in its nation."

Ha ha I think that's very clearly the wrong meaning of that abbreviation.

<comment><USER7> Overseas export market?

<comment><USER5> Correct.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I often have a hard time placing the exact episode, in which The Simpsons jumped the shark, but for me, the "22 Short Films Abount Springfield" episode [0] in season 7 was the first one I distinctly remember having mixed feelings about, while watching it.

By the eighth season for sure, there was even in-show acknowledgement, that the characters were becoming over-developed and being painted into unimaginative corners by established and beloved continuity, while simultaneously being victimized by groupthink, in the Poochie episode [1]. That was probably the last "good" episode, in my humble opinion.

Also, in season 8, with the airing of the Guatemalan Insanity Pepper episode [2], I found that more episodes were frequently disappointing and unfunny, including that episode, and I tuned out.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/22_Short_Films_About_Springfie...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/22_Short_Films_About_Springfield)

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Itchy_%26_Scratchy_%26_Poo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Itchy_%26_Scratchy_%26_Poochie_Show)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Viaje_Misterioso_de_Nuestro...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Viaje_Misterioso_de_Nuestro_Jomer_%28The_Mysterious_Voyage_of_Homer%29)

<comment><USER9> It's interesting how different people draw the line in different places.

I think Behind the Laugher is the last truly good episode. That's a deeply unusual format, of course. I'd count Homer Simpson vs. the City of New York as the last truly good normal episode. I mark the decline as the beginning of season 9. I think season 8 holds up as well as any. I think I've seen others draw the line as late as season 13ish, and as early as around season 4.

<comment><USER10> Season 8 was fine. The last good episode was definitely the NY one and even then that was very iffy. The Armin Tamzarian episode was what did it. Everyone at school was talking about how it made no sense and I agreed. Although, I saw the episode recently and it's still much better than anything since.. And not as bad as I remember it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Honestly, at this point they should just start showing old ones and claim they are new. There's so many I bet most people wouldn't even notice!

<comment><USER9> The huge jump in quality would give the game away!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Just wanted to point out a link between AKOM and Star Wars (lightsabers actually).

AKOM was founded in 1985 by Nelson Shin, the one who came up with the special effects of the original lightsaber in Star Wars Episodes 4, 5, 6.

Here's an interview with him by CNN in 2007. I remember watching the video on youtube while back but cannot find it now. But here's the text of the interview.

[http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/10/18/talkasia.nelsons...](http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/10/18/talkasia.nelsonshin/index.html)

And this in the interview caught my attention.

 _I went to the States in 1971. When I arrived in U.S. at that time, the three major networks -- ABC, CBS and NBC -- started Saturday morning shows on a very large scale for children. This was a new movement in U.S. to bring the animation industry to life, but also to educate the children through this. But despite this large movement, there were no people who could actually work on the animation, which is why most of the work went to Taiwan, Korea and Japan. So because of this reason it may seem that Korea was playing a large role in the animation industry, but a lot of the animators in Korea actually started off by learning and working for these American shows._

Star Wars. Simpsons. Who knew?

</comment><comment><USER13> It is interesting to see that even animation studios outsource critical parts of the process to other parts of the world, albeit the last stage of animation after most of the creative process is complete. I think that really does prove how flat the world has become over the years.

</comment><comment><USER14> It seems AKOM's willing to further outsource its animation jobs, including to North Korea: [http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/IC14Dg03.html](http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/IC14Dg03.html)

</comment><comment><USER15> When they went from actually drawing the cartoon to computer-aided animation techniques the Simpsons lost something very essential and organic. I love the Simpsons up until about the fifth season. Beyond that I consider them progressively unwatchable.

</comment><comment><USER16> _" His job is to take all of the digital character layout scenes, along with the timing and everything [else], and he prints them out on paper and those are shipped to [South] Korea."_

Why? Don't they have printers in South Korea?

</comment><comment><USER17> I thought family guy and bobs burger followed roughly the same production structure.

<comment><USER18> Bob's Burger is CG, so I imagine it has a production structure closer to South Park (also CG) than the Simpsons, in that certain kinds of animation changes are much cheaper to make even late in production.

<comment><USER19> > _Bob 's Burger is CG_

No it's not, it's hand drawn using Toon Boom Harmony[1]. They offshore to South Korea in a similar fashion to The Simpsons. Sometimes they'll use cel- shaded CGI for static and complex objects (which The Simpsons do as well), but character animation is all regular 2D cel.

[1]: [https://www.toonboom.com/news/bob-s-burgers-goes-fifth- seaso...](https://www.toonboom.com/news/bob-s-burgers-goes-fifth-season-toon- boom-animation)

South Park is animated in Maya, but it's really the style of animation that makes South Park so quick to produce rather than the fact it's CGI (lots of CG animation is equally as time consuming as 2D cel).</comment></comment></comment>


The curious link between Francophone countries and extremism - <AUTHOR> https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2016-03-24/french-connection <comment><USER2> "Log in or register for free to continue reading."

</comment><comment><USER3> a tl dr would help</comment>


Two thirds of Covid-19 patients improve after Gilead drug - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-gilead-remdesivir/two-thirds-of-covid-19-patients-improve-after-gilead-drug-nejm-idUSKCN21S24G <comment><USER2> Sadly this is not a randomized, double blind trial meaning the that we don't know if the patients wouldn't have improved on their own.

The underlying paper is this: [https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2007016?fbclid=I...](https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2007016?fbclid=IwAR0BKqopChXwoMI3eOmgunJ2a4dac9A_VQA5SDVVCbaYI2hOk0QA_7NO6QM)

Interesting reddit comments here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/comments/fyn1da/compassiona...](https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/comments/fyn1da/compassionate_use_of_remdesivir_for_patients_with/)

</comment><comment><USER3> > The analysis, published on Friday by the New England Journal of Medicine, > does not detail what other treatments the 61 hospitalized patients were > given and data on eight of them were not included — in one case because of a > dosing error.

It also did not include a control group.

Also:

>Twelve patients, 23%, had serious side effects including multiple-organ- dysfunction syndrome, septic shock and acute kidney injury.

But:

> 36 patients, or 68%, had an improvement in oxygen-support class, including > more than half of the 30 patients receiving mechanical ventilation who had > their breathing tubes removed.

</comment><comment><USER4> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22836923](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22836923)</comment>


Ask HN: Whatever happened to Spotify lossless - <AUTHOR> A long time ago I read that Spotify were testing a lossless option called hifi but I've never heard any more, is it still alive? <comment><USER2> I'm not sure, but I can't imagine that many users really wanted it. Or cared.

I have a minor in acoustic recording/physics so I fully understand the lossless desire for some people, but we're a minority.

My counterpoint: I use Spotify for the super convenient downloading of music. Hit 2 buttons, save + download, bam I got music on my phone.

... with mobile are you actually carrying around high fidelity headphones anyways? I sure don't, it's annoying versus small earbuds.

</comment><comment><USER3> Under preferences, enable "High quality streaming"

<comment><USER4> That's not lossless.</comment></comment>


Windows 10 console subsystem again supports ANSI and VT100 escape sequences - <AUTHOR> http://www.nivot.org/blog/post/2016/02/04/Windows-10-TH2-(v1511)-Console-Host-Enhancements <comment><AUTHOR> Yay.</comment>


Loneliness could be changing your brain and body - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnet.com/news/how-loneliness-could-be-changing-your-brain-and-body/ <comment><USER2> had a breakdown from loneliness which wasn't a fun time. Something flipped a switch and it felt like system1 shut off system2 for like 4-5 days... Went on a rollercoster ride of pure emotional/reactionary cause and effect[Thinking fast and slow]. Lucky I didn't blow my brains out, I think if I had been treated worse or I had been a worse human I might have.

anyway now that I've brought everyone down~... the upside is it made me realize how important the different ways of being happy are! Not just focusing on other people, not just focusing on myself, not just focusing on what's pragmatic, not just focusing on feeling good in the moment, having happiness in being dominant, having happiness from being submissive etc etc

Previously most of my happiness had come from masculine internal thinking [Carl Jung] type activities.. understanding the world, formulas for making money, formulas for how things work, making myself better etc.. So I drew a matrix of different types of happiness and went from there..

eg: Feminine external feeling: Latin Dancing

(Feminine in my meaning being 'equal' vs masculine (dominant/submissive)

Not the smartest dude here, not putting this on anyone, just thought I'd share~</comment>


They resent the fact I'm not a robot - <AUTHOR> https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-27/amazon-australia-warehouse-working-conditions/10807308 <comment><AUTHOR> I had a similar experience working for a food distribution wholesaler in Melbourne. We rode pallet trucks and time pressure was so intense that there were guidelines on the number of steps where it was more efficient to walk next to the pallet truck rather than ride on it. I couldn't keep up and lasted all but 2 weeks. This was 25 years ago and it's disappointing nothing has changed.</comment>


Schoolboy invents computer system - <AUTHOR> http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/schoolboy-invents-computer-system/article5700785.ece

<comment><USER2> Can somebody feed more information on this: 1\. Technical details of the new machine 2\. About the new OS 3\. Who is the German company

Here is a interview video I found [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRO8OKAgTPE](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRO8OKAgTPE)</comment>


VistaDB shutting down because of business operating costs - <AUTHOR> http://infinitecodex.com/post/2010/07/07/Closing-VistaDB-Office.aspx

<comment><USER2> > _Option – Open Source the Product_

> _No, Not really an option at all. Who would work on it? Sure lots of people > love to consume open source projects, but very few people contribute to > them. And I have put a LOT of money into this product, I am not going to > just give it away until I can at least break even. I have to put my kids > through college, hopefully reclaim part of the money I have put into the > company, etc. And lets face it donation type projects never, ever make > money. Advertising on the site, etc are all pointless wastes of time._

Um, how is this not an option when terminating the project is? I'm not saying that he should open source anything, but this justification is silly, especially when compared to his previous explicit option of killing and burying the project.

<comment><USER3> D. Richard Hipp, the SQLite creator, makes a very good living from consulting and support contracts from what I can tell.

"SQLite consortium" membership costs $75,000 a year: <http://www.sqlite.org/consortium.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Every time I see a vendor abandon a product without open sourcing it it becomes that much less likely I'll touch a non-open source product. Got burned that way with Joel S. (CityDesk), not going to happen again if I can help it.

<comment><USER5> At least he is offering the option to buy the source for some 'fee' while he figures out how he can recover some of his investment. He will also release the 4.1 version without 'activation' so that it will continue to function even if the company shuts down. I think that's reasonable if not an ideal situation.

<comment><AUTHOR> He has a user on his forum threatening legal action because the user feels like he is being extorted to pay the $699 source code fee to get the latest version with no licensing activation.

He should offer a free upgrade to v4.1 so all the users can still use the software once the company closes down their activation servers. Maybe not a free source code version, but a free upgrade to v4.1 would be in order.

All of the older version users have to activate their version of the software and it will be useless once the activation servers go offline.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think Jason killed his company himself. He went and moved into a new office and hired a bunch of people. If you don't have the money for that, then don't do it. I believe that if he stayed lean he'd be able to survive.

I am an owner of a VistaDB license and I truly love it, but I am not about to pay $699 for a version that has no activation. I bought the product and if he is going to go out of business and shut down the activation servers, the product I bought will be useless. Garbage! If he is going under, we should be able to get that last release without activation for free. Ridiculous. Jason definitely isn't handling this appropriately. I never liked his paranoid licensing to begin with.

<comment><USER7> Yes, I believe this, too. He killed his company and his software not focusing on the VistaDB strength being an excellent website database, Xcopy deployable and first of all running in Medium Trust on shared hosting servers. But he wanted simply to high subscription fees and concentrated on implementing his paranoid licensing system to enforce it. No wonder that, as he writes himself, the revenues decreased constantly. Many developers would be ready to pay yearly about $100 without problems but not the amounts he wanted. So his company collapsing is his doing and not caused by wrong behavior of other people (software developer in this case). Geo

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I had never really heard of these guys before. But, I'm a huge fan of .Net and wish they could keep going. Open sourcing it would be great but I know I would have a hard time letting it go. I wonder if this thing could have worked in Azure as an in memory DB. You could use it as an interesting type of mem cache.

<comment><AUTHOR> With you being a fan of .Net, do you have any recommendations for a simple database to use with .Net that can easily be installed onto a customer's computer.

VistaDB was very simple to install. You only had to copy the .dll to the installation directory and it worked.

<comment><USER9> The new web-enabled version of SQL Server CE that shipped with WebMatrix is shaping up to be a good option. Going that route gives you a great upgrade path from embedded, to the free SQL Server Express, to the more powerful versions of SQL Server if your needs grow.

I'd guess that the new SQL Server CE release this week had something to do with this VistaDB development.

<comment><USER10> What does "web enabled" mean?

SQL Server CE 4.0, you deploy the DLL with your app, that's it, no configuration, no setup required.

"WebMatrix" not needed.

<comment><USER9> The version of SQL Server CE bundled with WebMatrix is the first version of SQL Server CE that will run on a web server. Older versions were good for things like desktop apps, but were restricted from functioning in a server environment.

WebMatrix definitely isn't needed to _use_ it afterward (WebMatrix is just an IDE), but is the easiest (only?) way to get the new version of SQL Server CE right now.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


300,000 hits per second make Indian election website crash - <AUTHOR> http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/3-lakh-hits-per-second-make-EC-website-crash/articleshow/4543753.cms

<comment><USER2> I can vouch for the fact that the Election Commission's web site crashed early in the morning of counting day and stayed that way till the next day. Even _now_ there is no detailed data available on the voting - the number of registered voters per constituency, the number of votes each party got, etc (there is only the winners vote count, 3 days after the election!). With the large number of candidates in each constituency, the candidate/partywise listing is critical for any detailed analysis.

From what I've seen of government websites( I do a lot of work for the Indian Defence Dept) most of them run on single Win XP "servers". The EC server was a (set of) Windows machine (s)(I got an ASPX error saying (effectively) "IIS crashed" :-P). The local subcontractors that write programs for the government have atrocious development skills and are usually people who can't get jobs in the Indian IT industry (the standards are low there too, but that is another story)

The one department that gets its backend right is the Indian Railways (the front end design is completely unusable, as with other govt departments).

Oh yeah the government spokesman is clueless, as someone else pointed out already.

<comment><USER3> That is because the railsways make tons of money with that. It is the largest ecommerce site in India by value and possibly volume. Plus, the entire reservation system was online for a long time. So they definitely have some experience is running massive systems

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If anyone else has the same comprehension problem I found in the article, a 'lakh' is 100,000. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakh>

<comment><USER5> The article is utter nonsense. They took a peak number, 100,000, multiplied it by 86,400 seconds in a day and came up with 8.64 trillion; should be 8.64 billion. Possibly Indians name their number groupings differently; the British do.

<comment><USER6> No we don't, 1,000,000 is how we group. India, however, does group by two digits, with the exception of the first hundred: 10,00,000

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> These numbers just don't make sense. Rounding the population of India to 1 billion the implication is that each person made over 8000 requests. Which works out to 1 request every 10 seconds.

What I think they've done is taken the peak value and extrapolated out for the entire day but even that doesn't reach 8.64 trillion.

<comment><USER8> news channel crawlers, generating real time tickers in the news rooms??

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> what they needed was a static page generated offline and pushed online every few minutes and a cdn like amazon aws.

Hah! good luck telling all this to the NIC (national informatics center) webmasters who are running this off ASP.

I'm getting this completely unusable page <http://eci.nic.in/results/>

Almost all the indian govt websites, both at the central level and the state level are beholden to 90's web design, programming and microsoft technologies.

It's almost a testament to the general incompetence of microsoft web developers who still think that programming against IE is good enough.

<comment><USER10> Wow, a MARQUEE tag! Stay classy, NIC ;)

<comment><USER9> Behold <http://irctc.co.in/> \- the ticket booking website of the largest train network in the world -- Indian railways.

A mishmash of images for text, deeply nested tables, mandatory login even to query available trains... The earlier avatar was even more horrible, and that's the only good thing I have to say about IRCTC website.

Even with all this, I'm thankful to have online booking for the trains. The other alternative was to spend 2 hours in reservation counter or pay 40-50 bucks to the local travel agent to do the booking for you.

<comment><USER11> Try <http://cleartrip.com>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Complete baseless conclusion in the article and the HN submitter has manipulated title to create false interest.

\- Indian numbering system: it is not a problem with short range or long range because even if you consider the smallest number 8.64 trillion is huge.

\- Given the active internet penetration in India (note most Indians don't/still cannot access internet from home) 3L hits per second on one of the internet sites is way high a number.

\- That leaves us with bots of all the election oriented websites that would have popped up and the election commissions' website failed in configuring for how frequently can bots hit, better couldn't they have exposed feeds or API's for this.

Beyond all this is the India journalism which is constantly looking for 'breaking news' or <create> 'controversial news' or anything that can raise eyebrows.

So the editor here must have made the mistake of reverse mapping 80.4 million to 2800 without using "avg" in hits/sec and the mistake with extrapolating 3L to 80.4 trillion. Note that the actual headline on the article is appropriate.

Server capacity is spoken in number of concurrent hits it can handle at its peak not over a window. Possible that the EC spokes person too did not understand this.

</comment><comment><USER13> "Shukla said even heavy-traffic websites like Google did not get as many hits. He said NIC had budgeted for 80.64 billion hits in eight hours on the basis of 2,800 hits per second but with 3 lakh hits per second, it received 8.64 trillion hits."

This makes no sense.

8 * 3,600 * 2,800 ~= 80 million.

3 * 100,000 * 86,400 ~= 26 billion.

<comment><USER14> Substitute 80.64 billion for 80.64 million and 8.64 trillion for 8.64 billion and it makes sense

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I can believe they got a lot of hits and site crashed.

I just really don't believe they got 300,000 hits in any single second. Also how would they have even known? since the site would have crashed a long time before that number if they weren't prepared for it.

</comment><comment><USER16> Ok, fun making fun, but if you had to solve the same problem (official site with unknown but probably large traffic), how would you do it? Other then google "amazon ec2" or "amazon hosting" and see where it goes.

<comment><USER17> 1\. Generate some static pages and cache the shit out of them.

2\. Regularly update the important info and push that out at specified intervals

3\. When your number of hits returns to earth switch back to dynamic content...

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I've flagged this article as inaccurate..

Even with the numbering scheme differences, to take your _peak_ traffic and pretend that's what you got steadily all day long is nonsense.

</comment><comment><USER19> Hits is a meaningless number (if you're measuring visitors), I don't think I need to explain why to this crowd. Maybe the author/source got confused?

<comment><USER20> hits is more important than visitors when determining ability to handle load. when I see "concurrent users" in a load test it makes me want to puke. a user can click once a second or once every 10 minutes. each page load can load 1 resource or 100. hits is what matters.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> _NIC had budgeted for 80.64 billion hits in eight hours on the basis of 2,800 hits per second_

That tells you the story...sigh!</comment>


Google Now's Staff Exodus Reveals Hurdles for New CEO Pichai - <AUTHOR> http://recode.net/2015/08/24/after-staff-exodus-microsoft-apple-pressure-next-for-google-now/ <comment><USER2> Historically, given Google's flexibility in transferring from project to project, and the lack of promotion benefit in working on a project that has already 'shipped', a "staff exodus" isn't really indicative of anything other than the engineers were moving on to something new to add to their Google Resume.

I think the article was trying to couch this more as a "barbarians at the gate" piece with Microsoft in the role of the Huns, but that analogy falls pretty flat given the amount of innovation going on in both companies.

What I found really interesting is that Apple isn't really mentioned. Yesterday I got a push notification on my iPad about all the new things Siri could do. I'm not entirely sure how to interpret that but I'm guessing the race is on to make the voice inputs more functional. That, for me at least, is a part that makes something like Google now useful or not. I've been developing a habit of adding reminders for things to do when I get into work and that helps keep things from dropping off the plate, prior to location based reminders it really wasn't frictionless enough for me. And the pre- processing of things like flight iteneraries has stuff like the flight confirmation code easily accessed.

The bottom line is I can see the path to a mobile device I talk to, and it talks back, much like an executive secretary, to keep the important bits in order so I can focus on other things. Is Cortana winning that battle? Siri? Google? Hard to say, but the battle is definitely engaged.

<comment><USER3> Can we stop talking about market competition as a battle where the only outcome is a single winner? That is almost never the result and almost never what you want as a customer/user/consumer.

<comment><USER2> Sure we can stop, although it is a competition. Its a competition for dollars, it has territory, it has strategies and tactics, and it generally is amenable to the same analysis you would use when analyzing armies attempting to capture, defend, or hold territory.

<comment><USER3> I called it a competition myself. My issue is only with the part where people look for an overall "winner". It's an evolutionary process, there is no winner. Your ending question will likely never have a meaningful answer.

<comment><USER2> But there are extinctions, which is kind of like losing. But more importantly there are technologies that become widespread (VHS) and those that never do (BetaMax) and understanding the successful technology as the area where additional investment is merited is often, if imprecisely, called the "winning" technology.

I can absolutely guarantee that my ending question will have a meaningful answer, either one or none of these systems will be the one that everyone uses, the other two will be the "niche" ones that hardly anybody uses (and I say this as a diehard Amiga fan boy). And as much as I might dislike the choice the market makes, I understand that once critical mass is achieved, it becomes economically unviable to continue investing in the "losing" technology.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Question: Who here uses Google Now?

I tried to use it while in the US. The information it pushed to me was right more than half of the time, useful about 5% of the time.

Here in Europe it's pretty useless. No cards or no relevant cards.

<comment><USER5> I can't live without it.

Day to day, I get all my weather (current location and upcoming locations based on travel itinerary), my financial interests' status (based on google finance portfolio), traffic (based on calendar event locations).

Occasionally, it _really_ saves my bacon. I was about to head over to JFK in a few hours to board a flight to the west coast when Washington DC suddenly became a massive no-fly zone and dozens of flights got cancelled on the spot[0]. I had no idea, and probably wouldn't have known until I got to the airport a few hours later and reached the gate. Except—Google Now alerted me that my flight was cancelled the moment it happened (even before news broke about what caused it). Immediately we hopped on the phone and got another flight booked, before the airline itself even started rebooking flights. In fact, the airline never even bothered to alert us that the flight was cancelled.

Similar situations have happened with traffic through construction, presumably pulled from Waze alerts ("hey your next appointment is at X, and normally it would take 25min to get there but today it'll take 40min because this freeway is completely closed").

Google Now is basically a collection of a dozen services that I rather not bother manage independently, all without any interaction or signup. Yes, it "reads my email" and my calendar and the queries I make through it.

Another fun example: I was researching which phone I wanted to buy next, so I was googling a bunch of phones that haven't been released yet. Few weeks later, it pops up on Google Now "hey, you searched for this and there's news about it today."

Lots of cute little surprises when you travel, too. Entering a new country? It'll show you the local currency exchange and the timezone difference (and nearby attractions that I often ignore).

Anyways, it's a great integrated experience and just keeps getting better over time.

[0]. [http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/aug/15/dc-new- york-...](http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/aug/15/dc-new-york-flights- hold-air-traffic-control-issue/)

<comment><USER6> Although in your world that might feel like an app that everyone would use ... most of us go to a job in the same city in the same location day after day.

The problem may be that those apps are actually aimed at such a small portion of the earth's population (read: frequent business travelers) that maybe it is not sustainable.

<comment><USER7> The traffic alerts, weather, game scores, and appointment reminder are pretty nice, even if you don't travel. The events near by could be useful too. It is very convenient if you have an android phone, but I doubt I would miss it much if it wasn't there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Question - how many of you use google now's voice functionality, vs the inbuilt push notifications/card interfaces? A lot of comments here focus on the latter, but I'm surprised not many mentioned the former.

To me, siri/cortana are aiming to be the method of conversational interaction for your phone in the future whereas Now is trying to be the intelligent/interactive notifications platform.

That seems like the fundamental difference.

<comment><USER9> I agree, and I'm very glad that Google Now is doing the latter. I have no desire to interact with my phone by voice and honestly, every time I've tried it I've been deeply underwhelmed. Maybe it's because I live in a city where no-one drives - I can see it being useful while driving.

Presenting cards/notifications about something _before I ask for it_ will always be a superior interface to one that requires you to act, IMO.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Google now seemed interesting when it was launched... but it doesn't seem to have gone anywhere. Never seems to display anything useful at all.

<comment><USER11> The transit alerts for NYC are pretty brain dead. I get alerts at lunch alerting me that my commute home has service disruptions on the subway. I'm not leaving for 6+ hours so the notifications are useless.

<comment><USER9> Odd, I don't get that at all. I only ever get notifications around the times I leave home or the office.

<comment> nevi-me I visit my girlfriend and friends in predictable schedules, and I always like the gesture of it telling me how long it will take to get to each of them on those days and times.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> On the note of all the comments bashing the usefulness of Google Now in the first place, I think it would be helpful is Google had some visuals on use, growth of use and genre of cards, and some survey feedback about it.

I like

1\. stepping out of work after a 13 hour day and pulling up my phone and google telling me which way I need to drive home because there is a 20min delay due to an accident. It's not something I think about everyday to check, just like checking the weather at 6am in the morning. Sure if my life was perfect I would but it's not. Google does these simple tasks for me and turns bad days into better ones but not adding on another 45min on the way home when I have already had a long day.

2\. airports/new city? I wake up in the morning google already knows if my flight has been rerouted, the potential for delay due to weather, and whatever airport or new city I'm in, it tells me where there is to eat and what to do. Sure there are plenty of additional apps I could download if I was in the "in crowd" in san fran and knew the best ones for each city, but I'm not, and usually I'm busy so I want to have 15 highly ranked restaurants give me the best selection.

If I'm there on vacation sure I'll put more effort into finding off the beaten path places but honestly google now is helpful for people distracted with their everyday life.

3\. At one point I was with visiting my boyfriend while he was on a business trip in Flagstaff. Google obviously knows we are dating. My phone was dead but the reminder for my flight came up on his phone. Sure there is a separate "app" just for that, per airline and then I could share my flight with my bf but WHY? Google already knew where he was, knew I was most likely flying there to visit him and gave him updates on my schedule 24hrs before hand all the way until I got home safely, as well as myself. Easy, one less thing to worry about in 2 peoples busy working lives. Once I send him my flight info, google picked right up on it. No "extra" apps needed. Didn't have to think to remember to do this.

4\. I use google keep notes like an OCD freak as well so its nice to have what I've decided it important to me as well as things that I'd like to check if I remembered but google already has it staring back at me on my screen when I wake up in the morning or walk into a crowded airport or think I'm having an normal ride home.

I also (and for most young kids in big cities) have a busy social life and go to lots of music shows, but I go to alot so I don't remember the time date and price of every one so it's just nice to have if I don't do the same thing everyday.

It makes driving home, navigating airports, remembering to wish your college roommate happy birthday on the way to your rerouted terminal and also knowing you have an extra 10minutes to go to jamba juice that you didn't know was around the corner so you don't have to live off airplane food.

These are things that make my day alot nicer, alot more functional. I don't know what all the fuss about google now is...

That being said, the implications on privacy and how this data is stored and shared is an entirely different story from how convenient it is, but I am commenting on its usefulness, which other people don't seem to agree with.

</comment><comment><USER13> The interesting subtext to all this is that Android wasn't originally a Google project at all - Android was originally a project started by some ex-Danger workers. Google bought them out because they didn't want to be locked out of mobile search (and give them credit for prescience because the iPhone hadn't been announced yet).

Pichai didn't work on Android, or even search or AdWords or what have you. He worked on a browser toolbar before working on Chrome. Chrome seems to have constantly won internal battles at Google (look at how long Google resisted making Android tablets in favor of giving ChromeOS tablets time to develop), even as Chrome is probably the less successful of the two. It shouldn't be surprising that he lets search take over a project that started in Android.

<comment><USER14> > _give them credit for prescience because the iPhone hadn 't been announced > yet_

Eric Schmidt was on the Apple board. I wonder how much credit goes to their prescience and how much of it goes to their inside knowledge of the facts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> He is a manager by trade. What is his vision? Why would he inspire developers?

<comment><USER16> "We're going to put out a lot of new products, and cancel most of them leaving our users high and dry. This will inspire yet more developers to jump on board."

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The original Google Now team leaving is not indicative of a problem. Google Now is more a search product than an Android product, so it makes sense for it to be taken over by Search engineers.

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm on a developer preview version of Android M, I just installed Bing Search, can't seem to get it to work. Perhaps there is a conflict? I enabled Bing in accesibility but when I long-press the circle button it still opens Google Now.

</comment><comment><USER19> Not a regular on re/code but is it a google-hostile territory? It looked like the author tried too hard to prove a point on Pichais' leadership, Now on Taps' future sooner than it is possible. And that drawing contrast to Bings' feature is uncanny too.

<comment><USER9> It isn't hostile just because it draws a conclusion about something.

<comment><USER19> yeah, a terrible conclusion with slim data, isn't it? thats where opinion and propaganda (and downvoting) come into picture. and ggle is not my favorite company, even by long shot.</comment></comment></comment>


Software Patents and the Return of Functional Claiming - <AUTHOR> http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2117302

<comment><USER2> I propose a different solution. If I may briefly quote Wikipedia (from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inventive_step_and_non- obviousn...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inventive_step_and_non- obviousness)):

 _The factors a court will look at when determining obviousness in the United States were outlined by the Supreme Court in Graham et al. v. John Deere Co. of Kansas City et al., 383 U.S. 1 (1966) and are commonly referred to as the "Graham factors". The court held that obviousness should be determined by looking at

        1. the scope and content of the prior art;
        2. the level of ordinary skill in the art;
        3. the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art; and
        4. objective evidence of nonobviousness.

In addition, the court outlined examples of factors that show "objective evidence of nonobviousness". They are:

        1. commercial success;
        2. long-felt but unsolved needs; and
        3. failure of others

_

I think software patents pose several problems for the Graham factors:

(1) Prior art is too hard to locate. The generativity of software is so great; it is so easy to invent new things; and so many things were invented before anyone even started patenting many of them, that it is very difficult to be confident that one has found all the prior art relevant to a particular patent application.

(2) The field is vast and continues to grow, with many subfields. No one person can know everything that has been done in software. This renders the very notion of "ordinary skill in the art" problematic.

(3) Because of those two factors, assessing the differences between the prior art and the claimed invention -- which was always a subjective process anyway -- becomes intractable. Anyone can line up experts to say that the invention is or is not obvious.

Thus, the only one of the Graham factors that is workable for software patents is #4: objective evidence of non-obviousness. I suggest that to obtain or prosecute a software patent, one should have to show objective evidence in at least one of the three categories in the second list quoted above. Such evidence could take many forms. The best, perhaps, would be multiple published academic papers showing an attempt to solve the same problem and presenting clearly inferior solutions. Another kind of evidence might be reviews of products complaining of the problem that the invention purports to solve.

Commercial success is in some ways the best metric and in other ways the worst. The biggest problem with it is that one has to file the patent application before releasing the product; at this point, evidence of commercial success is obviously unavailable. Another problem is that there are, of course, other factors that play into it ("execution" as they say) and that are often even more important than one's technology. Still, if one manages to build a business around an invention where others have tried and failed to do so, I think that has to count for something.

I believe that requiring objective evidence of non-obviousness would solve, or go a long way toward solving, the software patent quagmire because in my opinion, the majority of software patents these days result from the application of relatively well-known techniques to novel _problems_. That is, it's usually the problem that's new, not the solution; once one has noticed the existence of the problem, the solution is not hard to come by. Obviously, for a novel problem, there is not going to have been time for anyone else to attempt to solve it and fail, leaving behind some public record of their attempt.

Although IANAL, it also seems to me that the change I'm proposing is incremental enough -- close enough to the rules that the Supreme Court has already enunciated -- that it could actually be accomplished.

EDITED to fix formatting, and also to add: I wanted fo get the above posted because I've been thinking about it for a while, but I don't mean to dismiss Lemley's point at all. We clearly need to clamp down on functional claiming as well.

</comment><comment><USER3> I googled Lemley, and came across this discussion thread:

[http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2011/10/09/defending-the-myth- of-t...](http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2011/10/09/defending-the-myth-of-the-sole- inventor/id=19648/)

There are some interesting quotes:

"As for communism, it is a great analogy. Let's look at one of those websites that promote "free love": creativecommons.org. They are talking about "commons," from which commune is derived. From the front page of their website: "Creative Commons helps you share your knowledge and creativity with the world." Sounds like a statement out of Chairman Mao's "Little Red Book."

"Another great statement: "Creative Commons aspires to cultivate a commons in which people can feel free to reuse not only ideas, but also words, images, and music without asking permission — because permission has already been granted to everyone." Again, sounds like communism to me – the entire commons/commune benefits from the labor of the individual. Moreover, since everybody has permission to use the "ideas, but also works, images, and without asking permission," no money need change hands (i.e., the individual doesn't get paid)."

 _\-- This is the first time I've seen a direct comparison of CC to communism. The sneering tone is palpable._

"Separately from Lemley, your posts indicate an anti-software patent leaning. I grant that your primary legal stand may not be the same as the US legal stand, so some of that leaning can be graciously accepted. But my tolerance for that type of thinking is very short when it comes to US law. US law is explicitly different in the wide scope of patent eligible subject matter, and I firmly believe that US lawyers need to fight to protect that legal stand from the encroachment that many academics put forth in whatever sheepskin they dress up in."

 _\-- Apparently the 'explicit' legal stand is the province of lawyers and not legal academics, whose wily and perverted encroachments are a blight and threat to the mighty and unambiguous law._

 _The Supreme Court, in a case called KSR:_ "…as progress beginning from higher levels of achievement is expected in the normal course, the results of ordinary innovation are not the subject of exclusive rights under the patent laws. Were it otherwise patents might stifle, rather than promote, the progress of useful arts."

 _\-- This is interesting - if I'm reading this right, the Supreme Court apparently distinguished between "ordinary innovation" and inventions worthy of patent protection. A point rather in accord with software patent reformers' opinions_

"He is not an engineer, and he hasn't worked as an engineer. Had he, he (and SCOTUS) would have realized that ordinary workers are not particularly inventive. Most people, when their only tool is a hammer, treat all problems as nails. Few people will "look outside the box" to find a different tool for a problem that isn't readily solved with a hammer.

"Had Lemley any real world experience, he would have recognized that "the expected skill of ordinary workers in the arts" generates very, very few inventions. Moreover, those inventions are the ones for which prior art is readily found."

 _\-- This was a response to the previous Supreme Court quote. I don't know if the software world fits it - software engineers jerry-rig solutions all the time, I imagine, because the flexibility offered by the toolset is so great. Even more ironically, the entire ethos of the field is to re-use methods and libraries that have been discovered and refined already, relying on labor- saving through specialisation. So programmers basically only invent when there's a need or inclination to - and when they choose to, they can easily come to the same solutions that their fellows would if posed the same problem._

I've read pages of arguments between patent advocates and reformers on PatentlyO (an IP law blog), and it always leaves a bad taste in my mouth. There's too much acrimony, with more attacks on ideology and ad hominems from the patent advocates. It's too bad we don't have more overlap between lawyers and developers, more multi-talented judges like Alsup, more (any) legislators who also code.

<comment><USER4> Just for clarification - it looks like the odious remarks you quote are by some random commenter, not by Mark Lemley, the author of the piece. (I wasn't sure whether you were claiming that or not)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> There is an infoworld article that has a more detailed summary[1].. I tried to post that first but it immediately went dead. Infoworld is banned or something?

[1]: [http://www.infoworld.com/d/open-source-software/the- software...](http://www.infoworld.com/d/open-source-software/the-software- patent-solution-has-been-right-here-all-along-202299)

</comment><comment><USER5> The observation that a lot of the conflict comes about because of the "functional" language employed in patents, where the end result of the invention is described, rather than the "technical" language which describes the method to achieve the desired function, is an important one.

It still seems that abandoning software patents altogether would be a more reasonable solution. There are exceedingly few software inventions that are significantly different from their technical predecessors that would require patent protection and could not be instead served by copyright protection or by being kept a trade secret.

</comment><comment><USER6> So does that mean that only the prescribed "methods" for accomplishing a goal can be patented?

If so, could you ever have a UI patent (such as the rubber band effect), or just patent methods to accomplish a rubber band effect?

If it's just the methods, then doesn't that make it incredibly easy to work around? Or would any set of methods that accomplish the specific effect be legally equivalent to the patented method?

</comment><comment><USER7> How do you get behind something like this? The author of the paper is my new hero.</comment>


Ask HN: I've lost all motivation, please help - <AUTHOR>

Dear HN community,
I am a fellow hacker who has been working on mobile games for various platforms for a while (4 years). The games have been modestly successful and I do not have to worry about money for the next 10 years.
I've have always wanted to work on a "big game" - not the small puzzle games that I have worked on but on a big 3d game. However, not that I have the time to pursue such project I have realized that I am no longer interested in making games at all. I find them fake. I have turned 31 a few days ago and somehow feel that these games are probably not what I'd like to do.
I am totally lost - I can't find anything interesting worth hacking - how would you deal with this? How should I reignite my desire to work on stuff (like I used to a couple of years ago). How can I find this thing? I have been searching for a long time but can't find nothing...It seems like no project interests me. And I feel like I'm just wasting my time doing nothing...
Thank you so much for your opinions. <comment><USER3> I have the exact opposite problem, I'm trying to stay focused on my budding startup and not get too distracted by other projects and ideas (one of which is a game, btw!)

If it were me, I'd go work at a temp agency as a receptionist or something and try to get into as many local businesses as possible for short periods of time. My goal would be to ask a ton of questions about the business, their processes, what works, what's a pain, what software are they using and how well is it working for them (and how much did it cost). My end goal would be to try to figure out what problems could be solved with software. Nothing gets me energized like solving someone's problem, and being able to see how much better their lives and work are because of my solution.

Another thing I might do if I didn't have to worry about money for the next 10 years would be to get into hardware hacking. I've been a software guy for years, and hardware has always been that great unknown over the horizon. I might take a few classes at the local community college on electronics, or I might just pick up a few arduinos and start messing around. I'd love to build clip on hardware for phones, or home automation components, now that smart phones are everywhere, I think home automation makes more sense than ever before.

Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you so much for your reply. I am really happy you took the time to write this up!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> As someone who started making "big games" out of high school and then moved to making mobile ones, with remote teams, I feel like I am near the polar opposite of your tale.

I know your feeling about games. It seems that if you want to create something which satisfies you, you'll be doomed to have no sales. However if you just make what the market wants, no matter how 'dumb' or 'simple', you'll do just fine. Or at least that's where I'm guessing your 'seems fake' comment comes in.

My main trade is game design, so directions to move have never been my problem. If anything it's been finding the dedicated talent to walk the mile with me. As my projects are typically too big to do alone. That's why I'm finally learning to code myself, and to that end, it's not in games.

I'm now 33 and I want to get down to solving real problems. The more I travel around the net the more I find that's ripe for improvement.

While I personally don't know what to suggest for your own endeavors. I think coming here and talking to like minded individuals is a great first step. ^-^

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your reply. One of the problems I have is that I wanted my "big game" to be something that I myself would like to play and appreciate - <USER2> the stupid kind of games for teenagers - such as Assassins Creed / GTA / Halo etc. However, I started to think that maybe a game as itself will always be sort of a "toy" and that no matter how hard I try it will always be "just a game". Am I wrong?

Maybe the problem is the "topic" for the game? I just really don't know....

<comment><USER4> No. I don't think you are wrong. Games are for entertainment first, but that doesn't mean you can't also have them be about something else.

It all depends on what you want to do. What message do you want to get across? What do you want to define as the project's success? and a host of other questions. From there you should be able to whittle things down until you get to something that sticks.

You have the buffer to figure these things out. However, I kind of like the first suggestion too. Go become Batman! Go educate yourself on a ton of different topics that interest you. It'll only make you that much more dangerous as you progress in life.

Out of all the things I've gained in my last 14 years, experience has been the most valuable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Take a year off and take some classes that will expose you to other areas that might need people with software skills, e.g. bioinformatics.

</comment><comment><USER6> There's no contact email. I am in a similar boat albeit slightly different. We should connect.</comment>


Is the mobile web, Web 3.0? - <AUTHOR>

I know labels are just that and don't really mean anything else. Interested to hear if people think that mobile web is "Web 3.0"? <comment><USER2> No. I don't think there IS a Web 3.0, but if there is I think it's cloud computing to a degree that we can't imagine yet because there's nothing available to interpret such a thing in its pure form. Mobile web is something else entirely, though it certainly does have a bright future ahead of it.</comment>


Do you really know Lisp ? - <AUTHOR> http://jng.imagine27.com/articles/2010-02-26-100553_do_you_really_know_lisp.html

<comment><USER2> That post is going to be very hard to follow for anyone who doesn't have the context of your comments on Dons's recent Haskell posting. (Also, saying over and over again that the people who disagree with you "don't know Lisp" is getting old fast. It may even be true, but just argue the facts, please.)</comment>


Tin Can by Tiffany and Co - <AUTHOR> http://www.tiffany.com/accessories/desk/everyday-objects-tin-can-60559139 <comment><USER2> Pretty clever. Also, they have $1500 paper clip [0] and $9000 Ball of Yarn [1]. Other than that, they actually have rather likable and varied collection of 'Everyday Things' [2].

[0] [http://www.tiffany.com/accessories/mens- accessories/everyday...](http://www.tiffany.com/accessories/mens- accessories/everyday-objects-paper-clip-bookmark-35917179)

[1] [http://www.tiffany.com/accessories/everyday- objects/everyday...](http://www.tiffany.com/accessories/everyday- objects/everyday-objects-ball-of-yarn-60558779)

[2] [http://www.tiffany.com/search/Everyday-Objects/sort- relevanc...](http://www.tiffany.com/search/Everyday-Objects/sort-relevance- search)</comment>


Great day for Freedom Of Science - <AUTHOR> http://jackofkent.blogspot.com/

<comment><USER2> Which entry am I supposed to be reading for this news? All of them?

<comment><USER3> It was originally the one dated October 14th, but things have now changed dramatically with the BCA defaming Simon Singh.

As with all legal proceedings there is a lot going on.

[http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=simon+singh+chiropractors+l...](http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=simon+singh+chiropractors+libel+sued)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Outstandingly good news for science, and partly - we suspect - due to the enormous attention this has been receiving in the blogosphere.</comment>


HK man arrested for possession of flag - <AUTHOR> https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3091175/national-security-law-hong-kong-police-make-first-arrest <comment><USER2> It looks like the most concerning expansion of power here is that under the new law (download the PDF and read for yourself, Chapter 3: "Offences and penalties"), advocating for or organizing events for the separation of Hong Kong from China is an offence.

As is, potentially, someone donating funds to persons organizing such events or publishing such opinions. "...A person who incites, assists in, abets or provides pecuniary or other financial assistance or property for the commission by other persons of the offence..." That is quite an expansion.

The penalties range from < a few years to > 10 years prison.

The rest of the law is not that different from anti-terrorism and sedition laws that other countries have.

I'm sure it will be of significant concern to see whether protests for the freedom of speech and related civil activities (aside from HK independence or separation) get swept up under this law or not.

<comment><USER3> Show me a man and I'll find you the crime.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Op, did you even read the article? It says the police raising a new signalling flag as a warning. It has nothing to do with anyone possessing a flag and being arrested.

<comment><AUTHOR> Looks like SCMP changed the link on me!

Here's a backup from the bbc

[https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia- china-53244862](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-53244862)

And here's the tweet from HK police

[https://twitter.com/hkpoliceforce/status/1278201222457987073...](https://twitter.com/hkpoliceforce/status/1278201222457987073?s=21)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is what communism does. A few controlling the many, making everyone equal in their misery.</comment>


Ken Robinson, Who Preached Creativity in Teaching, Dies at 70 - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/11/world/europe/ken-robinson-who-preached-creativity-in-teaching-dies-at-70.html <comment><AUTHOR> He gave the most watched TED talk of all time, "Do Schools Kill Creativity?" [1]

[1] [https://www.ted.com/playlists/171/the_most_popular_talks_of_...](https://www.ted.com/playlists/171/the_most_popular_talks_of_all)</comment>