No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57479781-93/no-credit-for-uncle-sam-in-creating-net-vint-cerf-disagrees/

<comment><USER2> Why would anyone try to revise history, casting doubt on the _verifiable fact_ that the U.S. government deserves credit for funding and helping create the Internet? Why would the Wall Street Journal publish this garbage?

Short, simplistic answer: because the mere existence of this article, published in a newspaper widely perceived as reputable, is "evidence" of debate about the government's role for all those politicians, ideologues, and other interests who want to cut government spending.

<comment><USER3> > verifiable fact that the U.S. government deserves credit for funding and > helping create the Internet?

Because it's NOT verifiable.

Some of us believe in historical determinism. Moore's Law meant that chips were getting better and cheaper. Telecommunications was growing. People were already using modems to build ad-hoc networks.

I argue that there was going to be an internet in the year 2000 whether or not the US government pushed a piddly amount of funding into Arpanet or not.

This is distinct from my take on rocket technology: I think that the market would NOT have perceived human spaceflight as worth doing, and if the US and Soviet governments had not pushed it, there might not yet be a person in orbit.

Reasonable people can differ on whether the US government "caused" the internet or merely jumped in front of a parade and then later declared itself the leader.

...but your opinion that one of these is "verifiable" is nonsense.

<comment><USER4> What the WSJ is trying to do here, and what you're doing by carrying their water is incredibly insidious.

You can claim that there would have been a global communications infrastructure anyway, but that ignores the vitally important question of what assumptions that network would rely upon, and who would push its growth, and to what (or whose) ends.

There's a Deep Space Nine episode which touches on an alternative to the universe we live in where global communications terminals in 2024 are locked down and require a license to publish to ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Past_Tense_(Star_Trek:_Deep_Spa...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Past_Tense_\(Star_Trek:_Deep_Space_Nine\)) ). What stopped _that_ from being our internet, instead of the internet we have now?

I certainly do _not_ take for granted the government's role in shaping what our network looks like.

<comment><USER3> > what you're doing by carrying their water is incredibly insidious.

You lost points for assuming the worst possible motivation of my actions.

"Carry their water"? Meaning "To do someone's bidding; to serve someone's interests."

PLEASE!

First, this is tremendously insulting; it's not saying "you're wrong", but "I distrust you so much as a human being that I don't even trust that the words coming out of your mouth are your own - I ASSUME that you're on someone else's payroll".

Second, if you project this sort of thing on anyone who disagrees with you, you're committing a harm against yourself - you're assuming that you're on the force of good and light and those who disagree with your are not just wrong but are EVIL.

How likely are you to EVER correct an erroneous opinion of yours if you assume that everyone who disagrees with you is evil?

I've changed my opinions on tons of things (to ones that I think are more correct than my old ones), and a central tool to do that is not immediately assuming that the other side is made up of liars and stooges.

I've got an actual opinion, based on actual reading.

It happens to agree with something the WSJ says.

Go jump in a pond.

<comment><USER4> I was concerned that you might misconstrue my post, and for that I am sorry, I should have made my point clearer.

I am not making aspersions about your motives. I am perfectly willing to believe that you are sincere.

I might even be convinced that the author of the WSJ opinion piece is sincere (I at least lean towards the likelihood that he's probably using evidence like the proverbial drunk uses lampposts, i.e. for support rather than illumination). That does not change the insidiousness of his piece, or your defense of his piece.

I have serious problems with revisionism (the WSJ piece) or efforts to downplay its seriousness (your post).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The republicans want to frame the presidential race as Big government vs. small government. "Romney wants to let the free market fuel America's success while Obama wants the government to your money and spend it how they see fit" Obama has recently tried to point out that the success of the free market in America has been dependent on the US Government. "Someone built the road and bridges and someone educated your employees, and someone built they internet that you use. Those things were funded by tax dollars." In this editorial this guy is hoping to convince people that the government was not responsible for setting the foundation of the internet.

<comment><USER6> _"Someone built the road and bridges and someone educated your employees, and someone built they internet that you use. Those things were funded by tax dollars."_

All of that's true, but it's also true that the guy who didn't build a business also gets to use those roads and the internet. It's also true that private spending on telecommunications infrastructure in this country utterly dwarfs public spending. And nobody serious is arguing we shouldn't have roads and bridges.

How any of this is a justification for $1T deficits and real marginal tax rates that will approach 50+% is anyone's guess.

It also sounded really bad coming out of the President's mouth. "I'm always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. . It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there." Hey, maybe being "so smart" and "working harder than everyone else" doesn't guarantee success, but at least most voters think those are pretty helpful in America, and may not appreciate anyone, least of all the President, sneering at them.

<comment><USER7> It sounded bad coming out of the President's mouth because he did a very bad job of paraphrasing Elizabeth Warren. Warren put it like this:

" _I love small businesses. My daughter started a small business, my brother started a small business, my aunt Alice started a small business, I worked in it when I was a teenager. This is really about a basic question of fairness. And that is, when big businesses really make it big, should they get the special tax breaks so that they don't have to make the contributions to help support all of the basic infrastructure—you know, the roads and bridges and the schools and all those pieces, the basic infrastructure that lets the next kid make it big, and the next kid after that, and the next kid after that? You know, the way I see this, this is really about the basic question of how we build our future. The Republicans have given their vision of how we build our future—they've said, 'I got mine, the rest of you are on your own'. Our vision of how you build a future is that you make the investments forward, so every kid has a chance. That's what this is really about._ "

<comment><USER8> _The Republicans have given their vision of how we build our future—they've said, 'I got mine, the rest of you are on your own'._

Which is, in turn, a poor job of paraphrasing the actual small-government view, which would be better stated as 'I was on my own, I made it, and you can do the same.'

And not all Republicans/libertarians _have_ made it yet. For them it might be 'I haven't made it yet, but I will -- and so can you.'

Her line implies that the view is an asymmetric "benefits for me, but not for thee" philosophy, which isn't the case. It'd be great if more ideologues had enough confidence in their own views to accurately depict and dispute the opposition's, rather than relying on strawmen.

<comment><USER7> I think the GOP's voting record is enough to show that they can publicly proclaim support for public infrastructure, education, civil rights, and healthcare but then do exactly the opposite when it comes to legislation.

<comment><USER8> Sure. But now you're contrasting the philosophy with what politicians actually do in office. If your argument is that politicians engage in lying and hypocrisy, I don't think you'll find many takers.

But I sincerely hope you'd assert the same (with tweaked parameters) for Democrats.

<comment><USER7> No, I believe I was contrasting the GOP's line

'I was on my own, I made it, and you can do the same.'

With the reality:

'I was on my own, I made it _with the assistance of resources that government provides_ , and you can do the same _if we actually wanted to support that mode of government in the future, but we don't._ '

<comment><USER8> Fair. What resources did the average Republican take advantage of that s/he now wants to kibosh? Axing roads and bridges is nowhere present in the public discussion.

Of Warren's cited examples, schools are the only plausible answer. To say that school is valuable isn't an insight, and to say that school can only be government-funded and -run is baseless.

An argument can be made that government does it the best, but it's disingenuous to say that because Republicans (along with everyone else, and forcibly) had public schooling, they give up their right to upgrade what they got, for the next generation.

<comment><USER7> I don't think anyone's talking about kiboshing at this point, we're at the earlier stage trying to justify future kiboshing.

Remember that the original discussion here is over whether large government institutions are beneficial to the public or not in the long run.

What tide of public opinion is changing where the editor of the Wall Street Journal feels he needs to write an editorial _literally changing the history of the internet_ to convince people that large institutions were NOT involved in this information age and subsequent economic boom?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The article's focus is on the internet itself, which is the "inter-network" - the interoperation of individual networks. The first of these networks was ARPANET, which was developed by contractors by the request and under the management of ARPA (since renamed DARPA). ARPA proposed ARPANET in 1968. So the government's pioneering work in networking goes back further than this article discusses.

There is a complex history here; lots of people built on each other's work, inside and outside the US government and around the world. But it's silly to claim the US government gets no credit.

Of course, the government is always full of conflicting opinions. ARPA's funding of something so speculative and not specifically for military application had to be finessed and described in military terms to satisfy some congress members. But ARPA itself was created with the mission of advanced research after the Russians beat us into space with Sputnik, so computer networking was really quite well within its mission.

If anyone wants to learn more about this history, I recommend "Inventing the Internet" and "Where Wizards Stay Up Late." The former is a bit more academic and technical, but still easy to read, and the latter is a bit more focused on the people involved.

</comment><comment><USER10> Key quote: "Cerf: I would happily fertilize my tomatoes with Crovitz' assertion."

<comment><USER11> The claim he's referencing:

      Here for 30 years the government had an immensely useful
      protocol for transferring information, TCP/IP, but it
      languished...In less than a decade, private concerns have
      taken that protocol and created one of the most important
      technological revolutions of the millennia.

Is Cerf's argument against the notion that it was private concerns that _created_ the internet on top of a languishing protocol? That's valid, though it's certainly true that without the private sector investing in developing on _top_ of the internet that it wouldn't be where it is today.

<comment><USER12> Government funded the basic R&D; industry commercialized it. Has there been any real controversy about the history? It doesn't seem so. It's just that some ideologues don't like some of the facts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> A little funding for basic computer science research is not big government. Bailing out banks and giving private solar companies loans is big government.

<comment><USER14> A "little funding", are you serious? DARPA is part of the freaking DoD.

Are you really going to criticize the government for investing in American companies of which a couple ones failed on a VC news site.

Yeah, companies fail. Yeah, the American government invests in American companies. Yeah, the American government can afford it. Right now the US treasury bonds that are indexed to inflation have negative interest rates[1]. Investors are _paying_ Uncle Sam money to take care of their money. The market is telling the government: invest, invest, invest.

1\. [http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart- center/in...](http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart- center/interest-rates/pages/textview.aspx?data=realyield)

<comment><USER15> "Are you really going to criticize the government for investing in American companies of which a couple ones failed on a VC news site."

I am. The government is not a VC firm. It's investment are invariably political and not business based. There's a huge potential for waste there, not to mention conflict of interest. A DoD project that happened to have civilian applications is a different beast entirely.

<comment><USER16> The problem can't always be left up to pure market forces, though. VCs do not fund projects that they don't believe will stand a chance of producing a large return. They may fund several ideas with a small chance, but a business that will provide for the greater good, cost a lot of money up front, and only provide small returns simply won't get funded. Sometimes government must be used to provide for the greater good or it won't happen at all.

The greater good is often politically based, it's true. It may not be business-based at all. Fundamentally, a politician can use _any_ issue as a talking point, and certainly, a politician that funds an idea that creates something good will use that for their own gain or another's detriment. But simply because an idea is politically based doesn't mean it is not worth pursuing, or that the business world would do it any better.

In a way, this is what the government is doing in solar. Solar companies need to be funded and researched now _before_ the market makes solar (and alternative energies in general) viable on a large scale. Right now solar is too expensive to produce and the price of oil gives little incentive to change habits. For the greater good, companies must be founded and research performed that will ultimately decimate the entire energy sector of the economy. Few VCs are going to be interested in destroying value, and yet we must do this before it is forced on us by the limits of the natural world.

It is not a perfect vehicle but only the government has the pockets and patience to make that happen. Some will fail. That does not mean we should never try though. That means all those on the sidelines cheering for government failure should instead try to assist with better solutions and better oversight. Most are happier to criticize and make sweeping judgements though.

<comment><USER15> It's not a matter of free markets, it a matter of corruption. Solyndra's business model as a company was provably unsound years before it emerged as scandal but it still received funding from the government because people believed in the idea of a solar company. The thing is that Solyndra ended up not actually contributing much to solar as a business _or_ technology because their source of income was based on politics and not on making solar power workable. Seeing as Solyndra's founders were politically connected, it looks a lot like the real driving motivator here was political back-rubbing and _not_ actual improvement to alternate energy technology.

If you want the government to fund scientific advancement so that alternate energies can become reality, that's one thing, but the government shouldn't be funding provably unsound companies just because they happen to be in a popular field. It's comparable to investing in Pets Dot Com because the Internet is the new thing.

At best government funding of industry won't actually improve the industry and will just be a colossal waste of money. At worse, it will be yet another avenue for politically connected connected millionaires to get free public money put into their private ventures.

<comment><USER16> Heh, well, the private sector is immensely corrupt, too. Witness the news from Wall Street on just about any given day. It's not fair to point to one thing the government screwed up and say that government is wholly corrupt. It is imperfect but we're supposed to be working towards a "more perfect union," not that we had achieved it already.

The great thing about government is we can involve media, we can send FOIA, and we can scare politicians into doing the right thing if necessary. If government corruption was as bad as you seem to think, Solyndra would still be getting paid and none of us would know about it.

<comment><USER15> No, no. It's one thing if crooked business men steal from and lie to one another, it's another entirely if Congress, which is supposed to prevent that (on at least some level) has an active interest in those lying and cheating business deals.

The problem isn't that the government is currently actively corrupt (it isn't for the most part,) it's that the more it get's involved in the economy as member rather than a governing body, the more motive individual government members and workers have to be corrupt. We have an active free press and law enforcement agency which catches corruption but that's not a good reason to create conflicts of interest where there shouldn't be.

<comment><USER16> Hm, well I see your point. Direct investment in companies is risky for everybody, governments and individuals.

But what else is there? How is government supposed to create the right conditions for a market solution? The solution was supposed to be carbon credits by making using polluting materials gradually more costly over time and thereby creating the conditions for clean(er) energy to be viable in the market. But that was rejected outright as a "tax."

Government as a member in the market is bad, we can agree there. But outside of direct investment, it gets politically difficult to change anything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Wow. Crovitz says that Ethernet was invented to "link different computer networks". How embarrassing for his argument!

<comment><USER9> Yes. I was fascinated to learn recently that, as Cerf says, Ethernet was based on a broadcast network in Hawaii. Two interesting things about that:

1) Networking between local machines came _after_ larger, more distributed networks. This seems odd to us who might walk around with 3 computers on our person, but in those days, you might have 1 computer per institution, and networking's goal was to allow better sharing of those scarce resources. 2) The Ethernet method of "broadcasting" every message to everyone on the network (absent a switch to filter traffic for individual hosts) seemed odd to me when I first heard it, but there's no other way to do it in a radio network, which is what Ethernet was based on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Here's the thing about this entire debate: who gives a fuck?

Yes, the government, the private sector, and academia (which is funded by both government and the private sector) all had a hand in developing the technologies that collectively comprise what we know today as the internet.

But this debate isn't really about the internet. It's about the role of government and what constitutes a fair tax rate, which are two separate but related questions.

When Obama talks about roads and bridges, or public education, or the internet, or whatever, what he's really saying is 'see all this awesome stuff government has done for you? You really owe us more money.'

That might _not_ be complete and utter bullshit if (a) government actually spent more than a tiny fraction of its revenue on those things and (b) if it wasn't an abject failure at everything else.

Instead, the large majority of government spending goes to wars of aggression, debt service (aka extortion payments to major banks, or embezzlement, depending on how you look at it), and Social Security. As we know from the Bush Sr. era, Social Security is completely fucked. Much like the briefcase full of IOUs at the end of Dumb & Dumber, there isn't a single, actual dime in the program, because Congress has borrowed against every last one.

Which brings us to the fundamental stupidity of what Obama's suggesting. And, seriously? We should give these people _more_ money? Fuck _you_ , sir.

</comment><comment><USER19> WSJ should be embarrassed and fire that writer.

Getting basic tenets of history wrong and misleading millions? What a sham.

<comment><USER20> Fire him... Are you serious? Like the truth has ever mattered to Murdoch.

This writer is exactly on message, they'll give him a bonus.

<comment><USER21> Yes. Polemic columnists is a phenomenon _exclusively_ observed in the Murdoch- owned end of the world.

<comment><USER20> "BUT EVERYONE ELSE IS DOING IT!!!!" is not an excuse you'd accept from a child, so why does it become an acceptable defence in politics and journalism?

<comment><USER21> Good thing that's not what I said, then.

<comment><USER20> Your comment seemed quite sarcastic, and looked to be trying to equivocate responsibility. Not that I'm above using sarcasm myself, obviously.

The fact is, that in this instance, a Murdoch owned media company is clearly distorting the truth to further a political agenda. So in this instance, it is perfectly reasonable to criticise Murdoch in particular, without having to resort to qualifications.

In my opinion of course.

<comment><USER21> You implied causation between working for a Murdoch-owned media outlet and writing a column with a light take on the facts.

That's fallacious, and that's why I called it out.

<comment><USER20> No, I implied causation between working for a Murdoch owned media outlet and writing a column furthering a specific political agenda.

The lying part is incidental really.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This just goes to show that the Republicans are the Stupid Party. They should be embracing this! The Internet is but one of the many wonderful fruits of the military-industrial complex. Who was President when the Internet was created? Nixon/Ford! None of this would have been possible without close collaboration between the military and private industry, so we should give more public money to both of them.

</comment><comment><USER23> Personally, I believe that the Internet, as we know it, is a product of the ARPANET, the BBS communities, the UUCP communities, and the divestiture of AT&T.

<comment><USER24> And two of the four were the result of direct action by the federal government, so they deserve more than a little credit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> And Al Gore invented the internet. Seriously, he sponsored the legislation that set up and funded the internet as a separate entity from NSFNET and (D)ARPANET. More government meddling that benefited no-one.

<comment><USER26> That's merely administrative partitioning, though. On the wire there's one big reachable address space which predated his involvement, and the creators' names appear on RFCs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> From the article:

 _The U.S. government, including ARPA, NSF, DOE, NASA among others absolutely facilitated, underwrote, and pioneered the development of the Internet. The private sector engaged around 12 years into the program (about 1984-85) and was very much involved in powering the spread of the system. But none of this would have happened without this research support._

I have great faith in the human ability to trench forward and evolve solutions to problems as well as innovate. This also leads to a belief that if person A does not invent or discover something then B, or C, or D eventually will invent or discover that same thing. Proof of this exists across many fields where nearly simultaneous discoveries or developments happened across the globe (powered flight?).

It is clear that the interconnected network of computers that ultimately became the consumer Internet had its roots in a number of government-sponsored programs.

At the same time, interconnected networks of USERS had already existed for quite some time. Examples of this were Compuserve and AOL, the myriad of BBS providers across the world and services like Minitel in France.

It was this existing audience that provided the early adopters that made the Internet take off as a commercial product. Government couldn't have done that.

More to the point: The US Government couldn't have made the Internet a commercial success available in every home and every city of the world. It was entrepreneurial drive across the globe that made this happen. If the US Government had kept control of it all it would have remained at a level and a scale not useful to anyone but a few literally well-connected sites.

So, yes, kudos for letting go. Here's a perfect example of government getting the hell out of the way to see private enterprise take something well beyond anyone's imagination.

I wish they'd do that with a myriad of other areas that government touches that would do far better in private hands.

The Internet is a massive example of why government should not be involved in our activities beyond a very basic level. We can do a far better job.

Getting back to the invention and discovery issue. I have no doubt that the Internet would have been developed privately if the government had not had any involvement whatsoever. It would have been different, or not, but the human drive to innovate and invent coupled with the equally powerful drive to connect, share and explore would have made it happen. It really isn't too far of a stretch to see that BBS systems would have sought to create more efficient and scalable topologies to reach and service more people. And, as computers and technology evolved this would have pushed the need for speed in order to provide media services.</comment>


Apple's EULA Gives It License to Invade Your Privacy, Government Claims - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/10/apples-eula-gives-it-license-invade-your-privacy-government-claims <comment><USER2> Whether it gives Apple the right to violate your privacy or not, it's a stretch to claim that that right extends to the government

</comment><comment><USER3> Apple could license most of the software while selling a critical piece that enables privacy.</comment>


Unraveling HTML5 vs. Native - <AUTHOR> http://designmind.frogdesign.com/blog/unraveling-html5-vs-native.html <comment><USER2> We make an app written as HTML5 CSS3. We made this decision because with limited dev resources it allowed us to write once deploy many. That is powerful. Our app required more testing than a native app, and less.

With a native app if you write your code for Version X of the OS you can be 99% certain that Version X.1, X+1, and X+1.3 are all going to treat it the same. With HTML5 "fixes" to the renderer can mean that what was working will stop working. Or stop looking like it used to.

With an HTML5 app you should be able to write once and deploy many, but Mobile Safari, and Mobile Chrome, that do the renderings on IOS and Android don't handle all JS and CSS quite the same. So you may have slight differences. Much less than you would have with ObjectiveC vs Java, but differences none the less.

PhoneGap makes much of the stuff you want to do with the hardware easier, but not perfect. If you want to send a Text, or make a call or access the contacts you will have to at least touch a plugin, if not write some native code. Most of the time you can just clip a snippet from someone else, but if you want to do anything awe inspiring you will have to still get your hands dirty with native code.

<http://tldrstuff.com> shows what we were able to do with a single UI Core across Windows Phone 8, Android, and IOS.

We hit all of the platforms, and had less code to change, but our app doesn't "Feel" native. We don't have a UI that looks integrated with the OS, but we have concistency across platforms. Was our decision "right"? Hard to say. We spent less resources which was a major driving factor so I say yes. Did it keep us from being Wavii or Summly? I hope not. But it is hard to say. I don't know if we traded dev resources for glory, or if we saved money we will want and need to be bigger than either.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the interesting postmortem. I've been thinking along the same lines recently - HTML5 + app packager for teams with limited development resources, multiple parallel native apps for teams that handle it. Or native if you have some specific requirement that can only be met by native.

Fwiw, the Flat/Tiled/Metro design motiff seems to taking off enough that it's a satisfactory cross-device substitute for native.

Summly used it too; as such, yours doesn't look significantly different theirs, other than their use of transparency in places.

Maybe it was their mention of their use of genetic algorithms in their well- done launch video [1], and having a 15yr old founder, that did it for them. Of the Three T's they nailed two - team and technology. Attention, interest, and Traction were sure to follow.

[1]: <http://vimeo.com/52014691>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A few years ago Adobe open sourced flex <http://flex.apache.org/>

This is an "write once, deploy many" that has a bit different offering then html5, specifically, it deploys natively, allows offline usage, can be set up to use native ui elements, has a gpu accelerated animated vector engine available, etc.

<comment><USER5> I really like Flex. It's supposedly flowed and buggy and abandoned though.

Yet I can easily write a dozen lines of code with my 1990s GUI knowledge that display 20,000 items in a sortable table and work at full speed in any browser -- while having endless performance problems/memory leaks when using HTML and various "data tables" plugins.

Maybe in 10 years we'll have something that will let you build a GUI right in the browser and will work cross-browser properly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't think there's a good reason such a distinction exists. You have ChromeOS and FirefoxOS, which prove that web applications given access to system APIs are just as capable as ObjectiveC and Java. But there's still a "web" vs "native" distinction. Why can't Android or iOS launch a "web" application with JS having access to privileged API and HTML/CSS simply rendering the UI? When did we decide to build worlds where your programming language dictates whether your application is "real" or not?

<comment><USER7> ChromeOS is a strange choice, because of the box, ChromeOS is not especially capable. That's why there's interest in tools like Crouton.

What distinguishes native apps is not whether they are rendered with HTML (many native apps use HTML rendering for parts), or whether they have access to privileged APIs, but instead whether they conform to the behaviors and conventions of the platform. Getting that conformance requires using the APIs the platform gives you - you cannot adequately copy it, as Java Swing has proven.

For example, Light Table fits your criteria: it's a double clickable .app file with access to privileged APIs, with HTML and CSS rendering the UI. But it's obviously not a native app, and will never feel like one.

Note that I didn't say "real". Light Table is certainly a _real_ app. But the distinction is inescapable: it's impossible to miss the fact that Light Table is non-native.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think the "functionality" axis doesn't work. One could argue some high-value enterprise Web apps are more "functional" than Facebook Home, but that does nothing to capture why it is appropriate for the Web app to be implemented that way and why it is preposterous to suggest Facebook should be done in HTML5.

The importance of power consumption, fine-grained interactivity, the need to fit non-browser concepts in user experience such as AppWidget in Android, the desirability of sync vs. CRUD-over-IP etc. are among the decision points for choosing one or more client implementation approaches.

Then there is the fact that most high-value apps do not have a single answer for implementation approach, and that these high value apps were not born that way. When Facebook turned away from making mobile Web apps, they did not also start making native desktop clients.

This is how I would boil it down: Is your app valuable enough to be worth spending enough on a mobile client implementation than can do things a Web interface cannot do? That is, for a minimum viable product, you probably need to do almost everything your Web interface does, but in order to really justify the effort, you should, at least, have a road map to some place where the mobile app exceeds what the Web app can do. This might be as simple as notifications and an AppWidget. But preferably it's something app-specific.

</comment><comment><USER9> I have good experiences with writing HTML5 "apps" for phones and tablets. But the common factor is that they're not very advanced, just a website with some interactivity. If I were to make something advanced, like Facebook with chat, tracking, uploading/sharing etc. I'd reconsider my choice, though.

<comment><USER10> Exactly. Right tool for a right task. No hype.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> From our experience to develop the mobile app with HTML5/Javascript/CSS i.e. Cordova, not only that the mobile safari in iOS and webkit in Android sometimes not render js/css the same ( the point brandon_wirtz has raised), but another difficulty we found very hard is to debug the javasript (js that resides in the device, not on the server side) .

in iOS it's okay we could connect device/simulator and open the safari inspector to debug. But in android it's almost impossible to know what & where the javascript has gone wrong and fix.

The webkit in android 2.3.x version also will render differently on some css properties compared to 4.x version.

</comment><comment><USER12> On a related note: "No, I'm not going to download your bullshit app": <http://tommorris.org/posts/8070>

</comment><comment><USER13> Appcelerator Titanium is not a cross-compiler. In fact, you missed this entire category of "native" apps. They embed actual Javascript interpreters in your app to run your Javascript. They provide bindings in Javascript to native APIs so you can call native code via Javascript.</comment>


Architecture firm proposes NYC underground park - <AUTHOR> http://www.besttechie.com/2012/09/30/nyc-looking-to-build-an-underground-park/

<comment><USER2> So many issues with this post:

-The title implies that the city of NY is going to build an underground park; in reality, an architecture firm has written a proposal for such a park. Wether or not this will ever happen is yet undetermined.

-Where in the Lower East Side is the proposed site for this park? The author didn't think to include this little detail?

I propose we start using SA;LH = shitty article; linkbait headline.

<comment><USER3> Inside the Delancey Station (next to the Williamsburg Bridge - Manhattan Side) there is a huge underground open area which served as a small train yard up until the 60's/70s. This place has leaks, garbage, graffiti and rats. It would cost significantly more money to convert this area into a park than was spent on the highline.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> In the decades to come, a combination of infrastructure repurposing and good design will define the most livable American cities. Good to see the combination making more headlines today.</comment>


Physical attractiveness and careers - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/node/21551535

<comment><USER2> It's a very popular narrative that a strength must come with a weakness, either as a result of or at the cost of. It makes for interesting characters. Over the years this reasoning must have seeped into the public subconsciousness.</comment>


Interview: Luis von Ahn on Duolingo - large-scale, crowdsourced translation - <AUTHOR> http://www.cbc.ca/spark/2011/11/full-interview-luis-von-ahn-on-duolingo/

<comment><USER2> Technical note on the terminology here. Just FYI, this is not strictly speaking crowdsourcing. Just like outsourcing refers to replacing local workers with workers in a foreign country, crowdsourcing refers to replacing people who have a job with generic members of the public. Amazon's Mechanical Turk is crowdsourcing.

von Ahn's area of work is in _human computation_ , which specifically refers to the augmentation or replacement of some part of a computer-based computation process with human calculation. CAPTCHA is a good example of human computation, because it augments the problem of OCR by sourcing the identification of OCR-hard characters to people on a massive and automatic basis. Human computation allows you to formulate algorithms that are too hard for computers to do and too laborious for people to do into a sort of "average" between the two. This gives you a lot of leverage and allows you to do some neat stuff, like the above.

If you didn't know, von Ahn's main claim to fame is having founded re-CAPTCHA and then having marshaled the company through a successful Google acquisition. After that I think he became professor at CMU, where he is currently.

EDIT: a more scholarly examination of the differences between human computation and related fields is here:

[http://alexquinn.org/papers/Human%20Computation,%20A%20Surve...](http://alexquinn.org/papers/Human%20Computation,%20A%20Survey%20and%20Taxonomy%20of%20a%20Growing%20Field%20\(CHI%202011\).pdf)

<comment><USER3> He was a Phd student at CMU then a Professor first before Google.

Source: I was there and doing research for him when all this happened.

<comment><USER2> Yeah, he was one of Manuel Blum's students, with whom he invented CAPTCHA. Do you know if he did a post-doc somewhere?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Private beta seems to have started: <http://duolingo.com> The video is awesome.

</comment><comment><USER5> Duolingo related questions on Quora: <http://www.quora.com/Duolingo>

</comment><comment><USER6> The end result of Duolingo would be a multitude of translation examples, which should be a huge benefit toward teaching machines how to translate.

I listened to the interview, read the website, and read through the quora page, and didn't notice this even mentioned. Did I miss it?

<comment><USER5> It was in the interview.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is pretty awesome. I am very curious about language learning especially if it can be made more addictive(I have started playing with it myself <http://thedjpetersen.github.com/playground/language_game/>). I especially love the concept they are presenting I would like to see how they design the interface. How easy it is to go from sentence to sentence.

I have always thought that if you could simplify language learning enough and maybe add some of the addictive game elements that games like World of Warcraft have, people would not look at it as a chore but rather pour themselves into to it.

</comment><comment><USER8> von Ahn gave a talk at Carnegie Mellon last spring on Duolingo as well: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQl6jUjFjp4>

<comment><USER9> Yea, that was a great talk - I was there. I love the n-sided task arbitrages this guys comes up with. Is there a word for these? I mean "games for good" is a subset, crowdsourcing a superset, but is there anything more specific?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> this is a TED talk from the same guy <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQl6jUjFjp4></comment>


I want to run an agile project - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4u5N00ApR_k&feature=related This is funny.. <comment><AUTHOR> lol..</comment>


Tesla developing self-driving tech for semi-truck, wants to test in Nevada - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-truck-autonomous-idUSKBN1AP2GD <comment><USER2> and computers realized that ai didn't even have to be that smart to bring humanity to its knees. [http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/02/05/382664837/map-t...](http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/02/05/382664837/map- the-most-common-job-in-every-state)</comment>


Can You Learn to Code for Less Than $100? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@1de/can-you-learn-to-code-for-less-than-100-da06576e2bb5 <comment><USER2> Yes, since there's plenty of self-teaching courses online. The problem is figuring out what to learn and getting thru it. In bootcamps, you don't necessarily pay for the teaching but for the motivation, these programs give you to finish. We can all get the equivalent of a master's program from just books but how many of us have the motivation to do it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Dont have to read the article, yes you can.</comment>


Y Combinator's SocialBrowse Launches To The Public - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/25/y-combinators-socialbrowse-launches-to-the-public/

<comment><USER2> This is definitely not a particularly _new_ idea (I can't recall the name of the service, but there was one -- "Web 1.0" service if you will -- that existed a number of years ago), but I like this implementation. The plug-in, as opposed to a web-proxy method (which is what others I've seen have used), definitely has a more solid look-and-feel. As well, it'll undoubtedly work a lot better since there is no processing of the page involved. This isn't the type of service I would particularly use, but I can see the appeal of it.

Congrats on launching, I'm curious to see how you guys do.

<comment><USER3> Critsuite (<http://zesty.ca/crit/>) and Third Voice come to mind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've been using SB since alpha and its awesome. I just wish I had more time for surfing the internets right now...

</comment><comment><USER5> Congrats guys! Looks like a pretty cool idea. Installed it, will start "socially" browsing soon...

</comment><comment><USER6> I think it would be nice if there were a "Friends" tab so that users could filter links/articles/comments to people they know. Other than that, it looks cool and I'll keep trying it out.

<comment><USER7> You only receive activity from the people you choose to follow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Way to go, guys. I have a new favorite exclamation: Garbowza!

</comment><comment><USER9> I just started using Diigo last week. Is this somehow better?

</comment><comment><USER10> Wooohoo! Grats to Zack and Dave.</comment>


Turing Tumble: Gaming on a Mechanical Computer - saint-loup https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/871405126/turing-tumble-gaming-on-a-mechanical-computer/ <comment><AUTHOR> Discussed at some length two weeks ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14450158](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14450158)

That's not to say that it shouldn't be discussed here as well, it's just that many points will already have been made, so it might be worth reading that before starting a duplicate thread here.

The KickStarter, by the way, now has over 2k5 backers and has reached $235,038 of its $48,000 goal.

I guess it will happen.</comment>


Which startup would you work for? Or What are the criteria in selecting between multiple offers?
 - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> The previous comments are valid, but there is also something to be said about the tangent industry you'll be working in. Obviously, you are into web 2.0 and the culture but it really helps to be interested in more than that.

For instance, if you are deciding between last.fm (music) and pumpone.com (fitness), all else being equal you should choose the industry you're more interested in. Being able to relate to the users is ALWAYS beneficial.

</comment><comment><USER3> Couple ideas came to mind. I'm sure there are others.

1\. Would you be working on a product with a potentially huge market? Or is it simply a "cool" product?

2\. How do you like the founders and other people? Ask them: what are the 3 best things they like about the work, and the 3 things they detest the most? What's their history?

</comment><comment><USER4> What comes to mind initially: The start up has to have a clear intention: -demonstrates clarity in the unique tasks that need to happen -demonstrates trust in that others are creatively capable in doing specific tasks independently -demonstrates the simplest process for arriving to first prototype to be tested by users</comment>


Zynga Links Up With Bitpay For a Bitcoin Payment Test in Web Games - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/04/zynga-links-up-with-bitpay-for-a-bitcoin-payment-test-in-farmville-2-cityville-and-other-web-games/

<comment><USER2> Here is a video demonstration of the in-game purchase using the Kryptokit extension [1] in Google Chrome: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmN7UtXFRIU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmN7UtXFRIU)

Really shows the simplicity and speed which is great for these type of microtransactions.

1: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/kryptokit/lhhiping...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/kryptokit/lhhipingoaiddcoalochnbjlkifbpmoj)

</comment><comment><USER3> The article seems to conclude this is mostly a PR move, which I find plausible. I can't really imagine that an average Zynga customer would want to use bitcoin.

This is good news though, hopefully people will stop going bananas about the value of a bitcoin so using it as a payment platform becomes a viable option for everyone.

<comment><USER4> The Bitcoin network split and tanked when it exceeded, what, 500k transactions an hour?

<comment><USER5> The network split had nothing to do with transactions per hour. It was due to a very subtle difference between two versions of BerkeleyDB used in different versions of the Bitcoin client. Basically, a perfect storm:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1a51xx/now_that_its...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1a51xx/now_that_its_over_the_blockchain_fork_explained/)

<comment><USER6> Not really. The issue with BerkeleyDB was actually triggered by a new version of the Bitcoin client that didn't use BDB to store the blockchain and that simultaneously raised the number of transactions allowed in a block so that more could be processed. Older BDB-based versions of the Bitcoin client hit a previously unknown limit when attempting to process that many transactions, causing them to fork onto their own version of the network. The issue hadn't been noticed before because the number of transactions was previously restricted to a low enough level that it couldn't trigger the bug.

<comment><USER7> > and that simultaneously raised the number of transactions allowed in a block > so that more could be processed

Source? I don't believe the hard limit in blocks has ever been changed; bitcoin's devs are currently struggling to convince people to let them do it. The soft limit will NOT cause hard forks.

The only reason that fork happened was an unknown limit that existed with one database in one version and which didn't exist with an improved database in another version. It was a bug.

Here's an evaluation of the chainfork: [https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0050.mediawi...](https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0050.mediawiki)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wonder why Zynga chose Bitpay over Coinbase. Anyone know?

<comment><USER9> Probably because Bitpay does one thing and does it better than anyone else.</comment></comment>


RoomScan lets you create a floorplan by touching each wall with your iPhone - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/roomscan-app-that-draws-floor/id571436618?mt=8

<comment><USER2> If it works well then I can imagine it would be amazing however it probably uses the accelerometer (I assume) and so I doubt it can be that accurate (Although I may be wrong)</comment>


Why the Smart Reading Device of the Future May Be Paper - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2014/05/reading-on-screen-versus-paper/ <comment><USER2> Physical books give me the third dimension which is necessary for the ability to flip back and forth between sections or even pages very fast. This process, at least for me, is very critical to reading that is focused on knowledge- gaining rather than fun. Forget books; I find it uncomfortable and very little productive while reading academic papers on my iPad. These papers in my field are usually 15-30 pages long and often have double columns (so now I have to even zoom in).

</comment><comment><USER3> Am I the only one here who highlights, underlines, and writes furiously in the margins? I don't know how you can process a text or technical book without being able to touch it.

<comment><USER4> I did in language courses, but not in others. For math/CS courses I've found old books with dozens of pages of engineering paper stuffed in them, however. Probably the same sort of content you write in the margins. Paperbacks also lended themselves better to making notes within the text for me, but that was a psychological block (expensive hardback? keep it pristine! cheap paperback? meh, who cares?). I'm mostly over that now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> For years, before Instapaper and Readability, I used a little script that copied the text out of the current page and pasted it in plaintext, then printed it from TextMate monospaced and 4-up. I'd shove the pages in a pocket or the backseat and read them in my free time.

It's a great way to take notes, circle interesting bits, and compare them later. I haven't been able to replicate that system digitally.

<comment><USER6> Is there a reason you chose a monospace font? I recall reading that they have lower legibility for prose.

<comment><USER5> I remember it being a mix of tinyness, printer quality, and TextMate's limitations. It had the side effect of lending everything a particularly neutral tone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > The most influential factor, he found, was whether they could see pages in > their entirety. When they had to scroll, their performance suffered.

There are still no good electronic devices for large format, color books. Which includes most textbooks. If a larger iPad is released, that will presumably be the primary target market.

I'm looking forward to such a device myself, as a nerd with a large collection of tabletop RPG PDFs.

<comment><USER4> What I'd like is a folding tablet similar in concept to [1]or Microsoft's Courier [2] with two iPad sized screens. Given how thin the current iPad Air is, or the MacBook Air for that matter, and still possessing decent horsepower, this seems particularly feasible these days. Give it a stylus input device for note taking. You can turn it over laptop style and get custom input layouts for different applications. Balance the thickness/weight of each side by balancing battery on one half, processing power on the other. I've been imagining a device like this for 20 years, maybe one day it'll happen or I'll try my hand at hardware hacking.

[1] [http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/16/toshibas-dual-screen- libr...](http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/16/toshibas-dual-screen- libretto-w100-laptop-on-sale-in-america-fo/)

[2] [http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/05/microsofts-courier- digita...](http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/05/microsofts-courier-digital- journal-exclusive-pictures-and-de/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Paper: among characteristics not mentioned, _where a passage occurs in a page_ (or how far within a book or article) is part of the context, and I suspect that human's spatial memory comes into play with this. Online infinite- scrolling content lacks this particular clue, and even PDFs only offer the "where on the page" vs. "how far into the book" aspect. I can also often remember my place in a book simply by staring at the page number and committing it to memory -- at least for a few hours or overnight. Though bookmarks are useful.

Electronic: Over half a century into the digital age and I think a significant problem is that we still haven't settled on the "right" format for real information consumption. There are plain-text documents, simple HTML, word- processing formats, postscript and PDF documents, and now eBook formats. Absent its lack of text search, ghostview -- 'gv' on Linux -- is still one of the best reading clients I know of, particularly in how it advances through the text. The Internet Archive's online book reader is the best I've seen bar none, in particular its light-weight feel and auto-cropping of text so that the actual _content_ of the book is centered on the page. I've submitted a request to evince (the GNOME PDF reader) that it do similarly. Still, I find myself constantly fighting with even the best PDF readers at finding the right balance between text sized large enough to read and fiddling with positioning the page onscreen.

Electronic formats may not be as good for first encounter and deep studying, but they are _immensely_ useful for quick reference: the ability to 1) carry around a library of thousands of volumes and 2) instantly search to or open to a particular page or phrase is hugely useful. The ability to create an _external_ reference that will find the relevant passage _in whatever form of the work you have handy_ (similar to a URL, but not specific to a given instance) would be magical.

Some limitations of electronic formats can be mitigated somewhat: there are bookmarks, annotations, and other forms of marking up documents, though none match the immediacy of a penciled margin note, underlined passage, or dog- eared page.

</comment><comment><USER9> > And research finds that kids these days consistently prefer their textbooks > in print rather than pixels.

My students only look at their textbook for the assigned exercises. I'm sure they'd prefer not to have one at all.

<comment><USER10> What are they studying?

I find that scientific textbooks (machine learning, etc) are _much_ more usable as books than as pdf, as I need to often jump from one chapter to another and it needs to be the matter of a split second (or I won't bother to look for the information).

But perhaps mileage varies.

<comment><USER11> I still don't see how a book with text's "realness" helps. I don't see how flat paper with ink printings is "tactile" enough and not in fact just as abstract as any method of digesting information second or third hand (at a computer terminal, reading a newspaper, attending a lecture, etc.) vs. our evolution's first method of information gathering: experience; you know, going outside, feeling a rock, finding your way through town and mapping it out in your head... I'm 24, but I still remember before the internet became what it is today and even then, reading was considered "boring" by everyone other than nerds because, surprise! it was a pretty abstract activity.

I think the real factor is the preference for paper and the learned habits with reading on it. People simply have learned first to "deep read" with books, so they read/learn easier since they can tap those already familiar (perhaps subconcious) habits without having to figure out new ones. Unfortunately, phone and tablet screens are associated with mindless or at least light reading and aversion, not deep cognition, so perhaps that's why there is some observed deficit in reading on them.

Still, I'm going to accept the "science is not quite settled" part of the article. Obviously there is some deficit ninnsome cases but we don't know why.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I love my Kobo eReader, but I think it's important to note that 90% of the use it gets is reading fiction. When it comes to tech books or anything I hope to be learning and referencing, I go straight to paper.

</comment><comment> artumi-richard To add my anecdote of others, I feel magazines don't do as good a job with deep understanding as more 'academic' layouts. Is this a font & design issue hiding as a device issue?

</comment><comment><USER13> Asimov wrote an essay in 1973 "The Ancient and the Ultimate" about a portable reading device that didn't need power etc; it turned out it was the book.

<comment><USER14> That was an excellent essay. It started off speculating about the future of the video cassette. He speculated that they would eventually be mobile with a self-contained power source, and that they would be able to present their images to you without disturbing those around you. Controls would become almost automatic. They would stop when you looked away and resume when you looked back, and you could skip around or repeat sections at will, and play the cassette at your own pace. He finishes:

       You'll have to admit that such a cassette would
       be a perfect futuristic dream: self-contained,
       mobile, non-energy-consuming, perfectly private,
       and largely under the control of the will.

       Ah, but dreams are cheap so let's get practical.
       Can such a cassette possibly exist? To this, my
       answer is Yes, of course. The next question is:
       How many years will we have to wait for such a
       deliriously perfect cassette?

       I have an aster for that, too, and a quite
       definite one. We will have it in minus five
       thousand years--because what I have been
       describing...is a book!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Print is particularly important for learning and "deep" reading. I find my IQ is at least a few points higher when reading in print rather than on screen. eInk devices are kind of good, but made awkward by the 0.5 sec screen refresh delay...

There is something to be said about the versatility of hypertext, but I think we lose something in concentration, attention span, etc. because of the links.

<comment><USER16> I agree with everything except the screen refresh delay making things awkward. That has absolutely no effect on my reading and is barely noticeable in the last few Kindle generations (I've owned three).

What does bug me about ereaders is the software. I have 50 or so books on my Kindle and instead of just quickly grabbing a book off of my bookshelf and reading it until I want to grab another I have to scroll through and find the book- where the screen refresh DOES become noticeably annoying. Not to mention I own a ton of books on my Kindle that I've forgotten about simply due to the fact that they're hidden on page 10 of the library list.

<comment><USER6> While this is certainly possible, I'm surprised to hear it. I thought my reading was progressing at the same pace but then noticed that I took a week to finish a book that I'd otherwise finish in a few days.

Perhaps your eyesight is better than mine and you are able to use a smaller font (which permits more content per 'page'). The problem for me is that legibility suffers at lower font sizes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Anecdotally, I find this to be true. Also for note-taking. During projects where I used pen and paper for jotting down thoughts and ideas, the information tends to be stickier. There seems to be a direct connection between tactile senses and the thoughts and memories in the brain (and from what I recall from psychology, there's some truth to this.)

</comment><comment><USER18> I'd be very curious to see if it's age dependent.

I agree that I absorb more with the printed page, but I wonder if this is habit or conditioning. I didn't grow up reading material on a device.

Disclaimer: I'm old :).

<comment><USER19> I think the article can be summarized by this sentence: "When students preferred screen reading, they learned less when required to read from paper, and vice versa."

I'm pretty sure this is all just a matter of personal preference.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I think I'll probably be the last person alive still buying paper books!</comment>


HOW to BECOME a BAD THEORETICAL PHYSICIST - <AUTHOR> http://www.staff.science.uu.nl/~hooft101/theoristbad.html <comment><USER2> The problem for Mr Hooft is that his statements apply equally to him. So many simplifying assumptions made that do not exist in actuality and he ignores these factors. As every engineer is taught, one must understand what simplifying assumptions are made because the reality is that any one of those assumptions can be the cause of significant error in the theory being utilised.</comment>


No more keeping your mouth shut at meetings - <AUTHOR> http://sba.thehartford.com/business-management/a-new-meeting-platform-aims-to-help-introverts-get-their-ideas-heard

<comment><USER2> ahh, the hartford... where opening your mouth might get you punched.</comment>


Bitcoin legal guide: Seeking feedback from the HN community - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2i3sr3/help_us_opensource_bitcoin_law/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi Hacker News! Wanted to get your feedback on the following:

We're a group of SF based lawyers, engineers, and designers working on a series of legal guides with the goal of "open sourcing the law."

We're also huge Bitcoin enthusiasts, so we decided to create (and maintain) the ultimate Bitcoin Legal Guide.

[https://lawgives.com/guide/5423423377777744aa010000](https://lawgives.com/guide/5423423377777744aa010000).

This guide has two goals; to inform lawyers and the public about Bitcoin and to provide an overview of the legal issues relevant to Bitcoin (Both in the US and abroad).

For those interested in cryptocurrencies, we'd be eternally grateful if you'd consider:

* Critically reviewing what we've written so far, and give us feedback/questions in the comments section of this post.

* Letting us know what legal aspects of Bitcoin you would like to learn more about (especially ones we might've overlooked!)

This is just a first draft of the guide, but we wanted to get feedback early. Based on your input, we'll create a final version which will be released under a Creative Commons license.</comment>


Avast is terminating Jumpshot data collection - <AUTHOR> https://blog.avast.com/a-message-from-ceo-ondrej-vlcek <comment><USER2> > For these reasons, I – together with our board of directors – have decided > to terminate the Jumpshot data collection and wind down Jumpshot's > operations, with immediate effect.

Finally. And as a former Jumpshot employee (left 3 years ago) all I can say is good riddance. They were doing everything they were exposed of and worse.</comment>


deThread brings distributed computing to the browser with JavaScript - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/DeThread/dethread <comment><USER2> web workers!!</comment>


Hawaii Distributed Phony Image of Missile Warning Screen - <AUTHOR> http://www.civilbeat.org/2018/01/hawaii-distributed-phony-image-of-missile-warning-screen/ <comment><USER2> they claim they can't show an actual screenshot.. because "the system could then be vulnerable to hackers."

<comment><USER3> Then it's even more poorly designed than anybody previously thought!

<comment><USER2> Yeah my guess is that whatever it is, it's been deemed too embarrassing to release</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Other startups are cloning my startup - what should I do? - <AUTHOR>

As my startup becomes more successful I'm noticing that more of our competitors are wholesale copying our website. Page layouts, search features, registration flows, and business logic, to name a few. One site stole our tagline. Another posted on ODesk asking for developers to blatantly create a clone of our site.
Imitation is flattery, but I'd much rather this didn't happen.
Is there anything I can do? <comment><USER2> Stop and be flattered, you're clearly doing something right.

If they're just copying you, continue to innovate. If one of them actually manages to come up with a good idea, steal it.

Above all, realize that the idea itself is not sufficient. The value lies in you, not the idea. You have to deliver a better product.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's your opportunity to contact investors and present yourself as the Category Creator prior to the copycats - one of AirBnb's investors said they only invest in the category creator.

Clone them back - what are they doing that inspires you or you haven't thought of?

Call them out on your blog.

Find where they are leaving comments around the web and call them out.

</comment><comment><USER4> It's good news to see people wanting to do the same thing, as it's a kind of validation.

I can understand your being upset by the wholesale copying.

Sometimes the competitor can't actually deliver on what they promise: if you contact them, you could offer them affiliate marketing fees for sending traffic to your site (which presumably _can_ deliver on what it promises).

You can probably report the ODesk job offer to ODesk. Their policies / Terms of Service probably include something like "Don't post jobs which constitute intellectual property infringement."

Lastly, you could just be the best in your category, and beat your competitors regardless of their shady tactics.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the ODesk tip -- I'll check into it.

And I agree that the best way to win is to be the best. :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Developing your marketing may help you make the impression (stake your claim) that you _are_ that service- the others just echo your operation. But if someone doesn't know to think of you first when they need your service, you're easily usurped. Making a strong impression to your market matters as much as tour technology sometimes.

Best of luck...

</comment><comment><USER6> It means the barriers to entry in your market aren't high enough. Seek a new business model, or live with it.

</comment><comment><USER7> Execute better than them and keep innovating to stay a step ahead...

</comment><comment><USER8> 1\. Ignore

2\. Focus on your what you're doing and innovate

3\. Market better and faster

</comment><comment><USER9> URL please.

</comment><comment> rush-tea If you have not patent your business models, there is nothing you can do. For every Groupon, there is Living Social, and others... might as well keep innovating, and stay ahead of competition.

I am not sure about your website because I don't see the link, but if it's something you can patent, then you should do it, then you can sue. :)</comment>


Ask HN: How do you advance with a Machine Learning problem? - <AUTHOR> I wanted to know the thought process with which one tackles a machine learning problem. <comment><USER2> Understand your data

Establish a Baseline

Elect a machine

Elect an evaluation criteria

Determine appropriate normalization

Train machine

audit for bias and batch effect

Return to normalization step</comment>


7Day Roguelike Challenge 2019 Entries - <AUTHOR> https://itch.io/jam/7drl-challenge-2019/entries <comment><USER2> I love the concept behind:

Lord of the Mall (Lord of Them All)

The submission includes a trailer :-)</comment>


Librem 15: A Free/Libre Software Laptop That Respects Your Essential Freedoms - <AUTHOR> https://www.crowdsupply.com/purism/librem-laptop/updates/librem-13-and-more

<comment><AUTHOR> I just discovered this campaign and I like very much the idea on a laptop that runs with open source software and provides hardware switches to for camera, microphone, wifi, bluetooth, usb.

I would like to hear the thoughts from the HN crowd.

The only thing that I am personally missing is a trackpoint with physical keys (à la thinkpad).

</comment><comment><USER2> my person problem with librem laptops are the prices, they seem quite high for a free software product, but i guess its because they need capital to begin producing the laptops.

<comment><AUTHOR> They seem to be comparable to high end thinkpads like the X Carbon models.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Binary delta encoding tools based on bsdiff and HDiffPatch - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/eerimoq/detools <comment><USER2> I wanted something like this in the embedded space (m0/m4). One challenge I encountered was the amount of additional memory and scratch - what does that look like with this?

<comment><AUTHOR> The C code that applies a patch can do so using just a couple 100 bytes of RAM, depending on the chosen compression algorithm. Heatshrink is probably a good choice for an MCU.

There are two kind of patches; normal and in-place. The normal patch requires the old firmware to be readable until the patching procedure is completed. The in-place patch is designed to write the new firmware to the same memory area as the old is read from.

You can read more about in-place patches here: [https://detools.readthedocs.io/en/latest/#id2](https://detools.readthedocs.io/en/latest/#id2)</comment></comment>


Why are Europeans so hesitant to have children, and what does it mean for their future and for ours? - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/29/magazine/29Birth-t.html?partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all <comment><USER2> There are huge implications. Think about real estate - the demand to build new homes. That could impact millions of people in their employment. Think about systems like Social Security, where a large young working class pays for the retired class.

There is a trend followed very closely in robotics about the number of elderly people per worker. The larger that ratio gets, the more we'll need robots. And not in 30 years -- in 15 years. We need to support the baby boomers. They'll be 70+ in 7 years. It's even worse in Japan.

The cultural landscape will also change significantly. The Muslim minorities might not be minorities for long. This is a change of epic proportions.

<comment><USER3> Relax. A slowdown in birth rates is a temporary disturbance (the opposite of the baby boom, in fact). Over time, society returns to a steady state. Yes, the finances get complicated, and we're looking at a generation or two that may see substandard retirement income. But it's hardly a huge social problem; three generations back we were looking at every generation having _no_ retirement income.

And the "muslim minority" stuff is just alarmist (and, frankly, semi-racist) political spin. Past the third generation, minorities stop being minorities. They become culturally indistinguishable from the overall society, with at most a unique subculture. This is true of all cultures. They're malleable.

No one freaks out (here in the US) about the Polish Menace any more, nor about what all those greasy catholics (!) are going to do to our society, nor about all that lucre under the control of The Jew, nor about what will happen if we allow those awful Blacks to wed (!) our pure, white daughters.

Do you see the point? In 50 years, all this "ZOMG Muslims!" mania is going to look equally dumb. If all that scary stuff didn't kill us, what are a few muslims going to accomplish? :)

The saddest thing is how many of the people freaking out over things like muslim immigration (or, here in the US, mexicans) are grandchildren of people who saw exactly the same kind of discrimination.

<comment><USER4> > And the "muslim minority" stuff is just alarmist (and, frankly, semi-racist) > political spin.

Islam is not a race.

> Past the third generation, minorities stop being minorities. They become > culturally indistinguishable from the overall society

Where are you from? This has not been the case with Muslims in Europe at large.

> Do you see the point? In 50 years, all this "ZOMG Muslims!" mania is going > to look equally dumb. If all that scary stuff didn't kill us, what are a few > muslims going to accomplish?

How much do you know about Islam and its history? Islam and the Western culture are fundamentally incompatible.

<comment><USER3> You miss the point. A few generations back there was no "western culture". There were protestants (here in the US, the "good guys") and the Other People: catholics and jews, who didn't share "our" values. They were fundamentally incompatible with our culture, and didn't belong here.

The same is true now, it's just the faces that have changed. I know quite a few muslims, actually, of varying levels of religious devotion and professional development. You might be surprised to learn that none of them are terrorists or militants. I dare say I know more about Islam than you do, honestly.

<comment><USER5> > A few generations back there was no "western culture".

Huh? Try as far back as the Gallic Wars. There has been a concept of The West for over 1500 years.

You are aware of the Crusades?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm a Muslim. How many people here are going to start suddenly hating me because I'm part of the "grand conspiracy to take over the world?"

Oh yeah, I'm also American. I'm a practicing Muslim, raised in a western culture, contributing to western society, and fitting right in...

I'm really disappointed to see some of the hate and prejudice that plagues the ignorant portion of the offliners here on HN - I thought hackers were supposed to be more open minded and stuff!

<comment><USER7> Any religion that doesn't tolerate disobedience/non-believers deserves hatred from all educated people.

In my opinion (as a theist, but not an adherent of any religion) anyone who believes in the quran or old testament deserves to be shunned.

Those books (and yes, I've read english translations of both) are full of hate mongering vitriol. They urge 'believers' to gruesomely kill anyone who disagrees with their particular set of outlandish beliefs (even if the non- believer doesn't do anything to harm you).

So yes, a priori I do discount Jews and Muslims. Frankly, if you choose to associate yourself with the sort of racist, misogynistic, intolerant tripe that permeates the torah and quran, I place you on about the same level as neo-nazis and book burners. You should be allowed to spew whatever bullshit you want, but you're a moron and will be treated accordingly.

Just so we're clear, I'm all in favor of religion (or atheism, or agnosticism) in principle. I'm just _strongly_ against any world view and philosophy that demands you _kill_ people who disagree with you, but aren't trying to harm you.

<comment><USER8> People pick and choose their beliefs to reconcile it with a reasonable world view. Your equivalence of Judaism and Islam on this issue without considering the vast spectrum of beliefs in both religions shows your ignorance, or perhaps your desire to distort the issue to fit _your_ particular world view. Religions are more than their holy books.

<comment><USER7> That's a fair point. I've met many people that are ostensibly muslim or jewish and are perfectly reasonable and intelligent.

But, I've never really gotten a good answer on which parts of the said holy books followers are free to disregard.

Can I ignore anything I disagree with and still be considered an X? If so, what meaning does X really have and why should I consider myself an X? If not, then who gets to decide which parts of the holy book I can ignore, and by what authority?

The 'party line' that I usually receive is that every word of the holy books is true, but we must interpret it properly. However, there are huge portions of the the old testament and quaran that unambiguously advocate violence and intolerance (I can dig up example if you like). They really don't leave much room for interpretation.

To the best of my knowledge, religions/philosophies have a core set of beliefs that define them. I understand that there is some latitude, but once you stray a certain distance from a religion's core, I'd argue you are no longer a member of that religion. And, based on my readings of the quaran and old testament, I'd say that violence and intolerance are part of the core of islam and judaism.

By way of analogy, libertarians hold a very wide spectrum of beliefs. For example, two libertarians could disagree on whether or not elementary schools should be publicly funded. But, when one of them contends that all private profit should be taken and redistributed, I'd posit that he's no longer a libertarian because he has strayed too far from the core principles.

<comment><USER8> >I understand that there is some latitude, but once you stray a certain distance from a religion's core, I'd argue you are no longer a member of that religion

I agree. Once you sufficiently liberalize a religion, say, by being a Christian that believes there are ways to paradise without ever having a personal relationship with your Lord, Jesus Christ, I fail to see the point. But, there are very many people that arbitrarily pick and choose beliefs. So even if it seems improper to us to pick and choose beliefs, that is just how it is.

>And, based on my readings of the quaran and old testament, I'd say that violence and intolerance are the core of islam and judaism.

I won't speak for your interpretation of Islam, but your interpretation of Judaism is wrong. You can't read a religion's book and claim to know everything about that religion. The ancient Hebrews existed at a time when tribal violence was a way of life. They genocided/smited their enemies with the help of God and wrote about it. They have mellowed considerably since then, depending on how you feel about Israel.

There are thousands of years of interpretation since the books were originally written. In Judaism, interpretation of the Bible is sometimes considered as valid as the Bible itself. So Judaism was reformed over time by people interpreting the Bible and publishing their interpretations. The Talmud is probably the most important of these Jewish Biblical interpretations, but there have been many since. If you want to gain an understanding of Judaism, you can't just read the Old Testament and call it a broken religion that advocates violence and intolerance.

<comment><USER7> My point is that these various religious books are full of misogyny, intolerance, and violence (which you have agreed with).

At that point any reasonable person would say something along the lines of: "You know what, this book isn't very good. It may have been decent x years ago, and it does have some good ideas, but on balance it isn't that good. Let's keep the good stuff, throw out the bad, and come up with a new canon based on the best thinking of today."

But that isn't what happened. Islam and Judaism have chosen to keep their deeply flawed books at the center of their religions (and yes, they are the center). And we still have wackos using the text in these books to justify their violence and bigotry.

So, until Jews and Muslims openly disavow huge potions of the torah and quaran, I have very little respect for them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> My god, I could barely stand to skim that. So, so much nothingness in so many words. A few points:

1\. There is no crisis. Certain conditions produce certain effects. When smallpox is introduced into a population, the population declines, but subsequent generations resist it. The modern world has a perfectly consistent effect on population size, roughly the same as smallpox. The fittest, as always, will survive, and subsequent generations will not have the same problem.

2\. The United States is not a "sparkling exception", if you correct your samples. If you reduce Americans to their European subset, you see that _Birth rate was 11.6 for Non-Hispanic Whites_ [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Stat...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States) ... the lowest of all major groups.

3\. The subject of immigration should not come up. Europe will not "save itself" by replacing itself with North Africans. This point warrants no discussion. If you _hate Europe_ as much as the editors of the nytimes, that's another matter, and it's a valid viewpoint to the degree that it is open. It's not open, of course.

4\. Europe and Japan are both far too crowded. As long as the situation isn't treated like a crisis, with hopeless policies (mass immigration, mass boondoggles) the long-term effect will be positive.

5\. Three big groups who've reversed the trend: Mormons, Albanian muslims, and Ultra-orthodox Jews. A portend of things to come, and it's no surprise that the nytimes is troubled by the situation resolving itself.

<comment><USER10> > There is no crisis. Certain conditions produce certain effects. When > smallpox is introduced ...

Perhaps - just perhaps - people facing a massive die off due to something like smallpox might view it as a crisis.

What is viewed as the "crisis" in places like Italy, is that people do want to have children, but feel they can't, because of the many reasons cited in the article.

<comment><USER9> _people facing a massive die off due to something like smallpox might view it as a crisis_

First, "There is no crisis" refers to birthrates, not smallpox. Second, by "crisis" I mean existential crises, not personal. Even the black plague was not an existential crisis. For comparison, the Ottoman and Mongol expansions were.

 _because of the many reasons_

Every western country has had its birthrate drop as the economy and education levels improved. It's a very solid correlation, and almost certainly the real reason. But people still say, "I can't afford children" (or whatever), even if the real reason is their large and distracting discretionary income. People rationalize, and certainly don't understand their own motivations.

<comment><USER10> Obviously people aren't dying off or anything. What 'crisis' refers to is the fact that many couples in certain countries feel they can't have kids.

Clearly it's a complex issue, but the whole point of the article is that the birth rate varies quite a bit from country to country: Japan and Italy have very low rates, places like France and Sweden do better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Not entirely sure it's hacker news, but it's certainly a well written and in- depth article. It sums up a lot of things I've kind of known for a while: places with better social systems like the Nordic countries are better places to have children than in somewhere like Italy (where I'm writing from, on vacation) which is, very sadly, going nowhere fast. Having our daughter Helen in Austria was far easier, despite the language barrier, than it would have been in Italy.

</comment><comment><USER11> More evidence that like other animals, humans don't breed well in captivity?

(Offended europhiles -- I kid, I kid! Also, this quip is not original, but I can't recall where I'd first read it.)

</comment><comment><USER12> The future is bleak, but it's not what you think.

Birth control and education are like a virus that impacts fertility. Over time we will adapt. It used to the sex drive was enough to reproduce, in the future the specific desire to HAVE kids will replace that.

So the population will drop, then slowly turn around, but it will not end up in a balance. What you'll have is wealthy educated citizens of liberal democracies who absolutely have got have lots of kids.

We better have colonized space then.

</comment><comment><USER13> Oh please. Take a look at the charts of the world human population of all time : <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Population_curve.svg>

Where is the crisis now ?

(I'd started to write a long answer adressing this topic but it would have been too long. If you want to digg into this matter I'll follow you).

<comment><USER14> Reminder: we are talking here about Europe not the overall world population. Moreover whatever some moderate Muslims say, Islam is fundamentally intolerant of other religions and atheistic values. In case you doubt it take a look at Islamic societies across the globe.

The much enhanced birthrate of Muslims in Europe does therefore present us with a serious question as to how Europe will change as a result of this once Muslims are democratically able to alter national goals and cultural norms. This is nothing to do with racism or bigotry.

<comment><USER13> Let's see.

Since (all ?) europeans countries birthrates are agnostics, they include the recently immigrated people as well. Therefore, they include the muslims people. If everything above is true, and the birthrates are still low, then the article contradicts itself when it says : "[...] — mostly Muslim — who have yet to be infected by the modern malady called family planning [...]".

It appears on the contrary, according to our low birthrates, that they don't have as much childs as we fear. Whatever the reality is, there is a logical fallacy somewhere.

Since the science of demography knowns only 2 factors : (1) birthrates (2) migration flows (wich are continuous), we are left with the only other explaination.

Maybe you understand now why you are deluding yourself if you study demographics without considering the whole world population, because this is what is feeding the migration flows. Whatever the laws you pass, you won't be able to stop people from all over the world to try to escape their life of misery, people who have such hopes for a better life that they take insane risks to make it and more than often die in the journey. The first waves of US immigrants were people fleeding oppression too.

But the true problem isn't even here. The demographic doxa wich states that we should have everlasting high birthrates is closely tied the Economic Growth paradigm, and it is the true responsible for the great post-war immigration policies that european countries engaged in. This doxa (more people = more consumers = more taxpayers = more economic growth) is the true responsible for the situation you describe. If you're looking for an ennemy, then fight this doxa.

Maybe we can live in a world where "less is more". Malthus would have been probably right if he lived today : our earth has limited ressources and our problems are just starting as a lot of emerging countries are catching up with the Occidental lifestyle. A lot of our current problems could be solved by having less people around (from education to transportation and ravaged landscapes).

Even if our technology allows us to make it, there is no philosophical nor practical reason to be 20 billions on earth instead of 6 or 3 or even 1. Especially if the conditions of life are greater, common sense would suggest less quantity for more quality. Less misery in black Africa, less hopeless immigrants, and why not, less malls in Occident.

The more people reproduces in poor countries, the more they'll take their shot at trying to reach richer countries. That's just, well, human. In trying to produce too much wealth, the process just becomes destructive for the cultures at some point and benefits to nobody.

<comment><USER7> the parent isn't really coherent.

for example, could someone clarify/explain the following:

"Since (all ?) europeans countries birthrates are agnostics, they include the recently immigrated people as well."

"It appears on the contrary, according to our low birthrates, that they don't have as much childs as we fear."

"This doxa (more people = more consumers = more taxpayers = more economic growth) is the true responsible for the situation you describe. If you're looking for an ennemy, then fight this doxa."

I'm going to assume english isn't your native language. Please try to express whatever it is you were trying to express again. It reads like it was (poorly) translated by a machine.

<comment><USER13> Sometimes my english is really poor indeed, it is unfortunate because when you want to explain reality you also have to deal with complexity, this is where you need a very sharp usage of words.

I'll only explain the birthrates part, after a good night of sleep :)

The article states that muslims "have yet to be infected by the modern malady called family planning", wich roughly translates to : they make a lot of babies and will outnumber us in a few generations. This is a recurring argument.

But the article warns about the low birthrates in Europe. This is a contradiction, because europeans birthrates include the babies of everybody, including the recently immigrated people, wich means that if the muslims were making as much babies as they say, then our birthrates would not be so low.

There is a logical fallacy in this argument. Wich is confirmed by the fact that nearly all muslims societies are experiencing a decline in their birthrate, and some have even "catastrophic" (it's their word, not mine) low birthrates (Iran for example).

I hope it was clear.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Hugely informative article.

A sarcastic thought just popped into my head. To make a snide remark: at least we Europeans don't do "Procreation for recreation."

</comment><comment><USER16> _"It's insane to consider low birthrate as a crisis,"_

I could not agree more.

<comment><USER17> Care to explain yourself? Would you be happy if people stopped reproducing?

<comment><USER16> Not entirely no.

<comment><USER17> Ok -- thought I'd ask before I downmodded you.

<comment><USER16> Haha. Sorry my answer is very ambiguous. I would like to explain myself: I would not like it if everyone stopped reproducing. I would however like it very much if the human race stopped reproducing as much. To be more specific I would ideally like the human race to reproduce just enough so that the total human population began to gently decrease until we return to a sustainable population. And if it was up to me I would make me very happy if the population then remained constant indefinitely.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Which city has most electric scooters per capita? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Don't know about per capita but they're big in Hoboken.

[https://www.nj.com/hudson/2019/06/hoboken-scooter-program- is...](https://www.nj.com/hudson/2019/06/hoboken-scooter-program-is-a-hit-but- how-much-is-the-city-making-off-it.html)</comment>


These Futuristic Car Tires Never Go Flat - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2015/07/futuristic-car-tires-never-go-flat/ <comment><USER2> Are the huge companies in the tire industry going to let this happen or can we expect some lobbying so these tires won't be in accordance with regulations ?</comment>


If Google was Iran, wouldn't we be scared right now?  - <AUTHOR> http://www.inquisitr.com/3233/if-google-was-iran-wouldnt-we-be-scared-right-now/

<comment><USER2> the us would have been scared for sure and would have started a war on Iran on some or the other pretext... and such a technology would have failed to affect our lives as it has right now -- www.google.com

<comment><USER2> -1 points by ideamonk for freedom of imaginitive speech.</comment></comment>


Coronavirus could attack T lymphocytes like HIV [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/s41423-020-0424-9.pdf <comment><USER2> Pierre Little, in reply:"Look, it's really quite simple. Does the cov2 genome have HIV inclusions on the s protein or not? If it does, the theory of immunosuppression from Cov2 has plausibility, thereby motivating other teams worldwide to study T and B cell impacts."

Alexander Dent, in reply: "It doesn't have HIV inclusions. That's disinformation. I checked the sequence alignment myself."

thread: [https://twitter.com/CurlyJungleJake/status/12488112666357514...](https://twitter.com/CurlyJungleJake/status/1248811266635751424?s=20)

<comment><USER3> >theory of immunosuppression from Cov2

A lot of the people it kills seem to be getting attacked by their own immune system though, can both these things happen at the same time?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> >These results suggest that SARS-CoV-2 may enter MT-2 cells at 6 h post infection, but does not replicate, and then the viral RNA degrade.

So it infects the cells but it's a dead end for the virus.

====

I can't believe the journal published the article with that clickbait title, without mentioning that it's non-productive infection. I was about to dig up the transcriptomics paper (cited by this paper) and the pre-print about the virus decimating the spleen/lymphoid organs which show that T cells aren't infected (I guess they are technically infected, but not in the way most people think).

(Quick CP from Reddit)

<comment><USER5> If it does not replicate, does that mean it doesn't harm the cell it enters?

<comment><USER6> I also wondered that. Even if it doesn't replicate inside a T lymphocyte could it damage it thereby weakening the immune response as a side effect?

<comment><USER5> To a complete layperson (myself) it seems that anything entering a cell it's not supposed to isn't going to help that cell out much. I would appreciate some expert commentary though if anyone has some!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Nature publisher group is corrupted as many other main publication journals.

Don't bother, instead check the publishing researching team and their credentials to evaluate the authenticity of the claims.

I would also not trust any materials Chinese publishing teams provide.

Also pointing out, as today, 80% of the result published online are not reproducible solely following the "material and methods" section of the paper.

So yeah, welcome to biological sciences!!

"Repost since flagged for no reason, i'm a god damn biologist for the god sake"

</comment><comment><USER8> The data is of interest, but the editorializing is a bit heavy-handed.

"SARS-CoV-2 infects T lymphocytes" would do if one feels a need to shorten the title.

</comment><comment><USER9> I found in the news media anything with the words 'could' or 'may' in it is sensational and typically turns out to be false.

</comment><comment><USER10> It's not like HIV at all...</comment>


Ask HN: Is it time to give up? - <AUTHOR> So, I've been trying to get a developer job for months now, but just can't do it. I lack a degree, but have about two years of freelance work behind me. I've been looking all over the U.S. and at first, got some leads, along with a few interviews. However, its been over a year since I've done any sort of work related to IT, and the number of job leads I'm getting is shrinking.
I currently have one job I interviewed at a month ago telling me they're working on the "SOW" still, and another one I interviewed at month ago telling me they are still deciding.
I don't see anyway out. Should I give up and pursue something else? <comment><USER2> It's not clear to me how this is answerable.

Whether or not the degree (or lack thereof) matters depends a lot on where you're applying, and who there is doing the hiring.

 _I_ don't really look at that, but it's important to some people, and there are things you'll tend to learn in a CS program that you'll tend not to learn if you're just doing relatively simple work (e.g., simple websites).

If you have decent work history, and demonstrable programming skills, it seems like there are enough jobs out there--but that depends a lot on location as well (e.g., I'm on the US east coast near NYC and there are more jobs than qualified applicants AFAICT).

</comment><comment><USER3> Ask around your friends if any need some help in IT ? Start with helping out and getting back into the field, then cover ground.

</comment><comment><USER4> > _... have about two years of freelance work ..._

Doing what? Demonstrating what skills? In what domain? Front-end? Back-end? Big-iron? Embedded? Languages?

Also, why do you not have contact details in your profile page? Why is there no CV? No link to GitHub? No personal web site?

 _How_ are you trying to find leads?

<comment><USER5> Based on comment history and personal facebook page (won't link but not hard to find) "I work as a stocker at a grocery store." Previous freelance seems to have been PHP/wordpress plus some nodejs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> All you need is one door to open. Keep knocking.</comment>