The Internet's Secret Back Door - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/id/2265204 <comment><USER2> I don't understand how SSL can be secure. Aren't the keys for encrypting and decrypting transferred in the open before encryption can take place? If so, isn't a man-in-the-middle able to snoop those keys?

<comment><USER3> I like this analogy for how keys are exchanged and never exposed in transit:

I put my secret in a box and put a lock on it for which only I have the key and ship the box to you. When you receive the box you put your own lock on the box for which only you have the key and send the box now with two locks back to me. When I get the box I take my lock off and send it back to you. Finally you open the box by taking your lock off. The box is always locked in transit and no keys were ever out of the owners hands.

<comment><USER4> I don't think this is the method SSL uses, because what you're describing is just a variant of symmetric-key encryption. I think SSL uses asymmetric-key encryption. The better metaphor for that is a lock that anyone can lock, but only one person can unlock.

<comment><USER5> That's how SSL/TLS does the authorization step, but the typical encryption of the actual content sent back and forth uses a symmetric-key block cipher (the two sides negotiate and it's pretty modular, so I think you can do whatever kind of encryption you want on the messages, even just sending plain text after a TLS handshake if you want).

See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cipher_suite>

<comment><USER4> True, but my point was that the actual key exchange (that is, the exchange of the symmetric keys used for the bulk of the encryption) is done using asymmetric-key encryption. Since this was in response to the question of how keys are exchanged, I thought it was the relevant phase to discuss.

<comment><USER5> Except, not necessarily, no. Sorry, my grandparent post should have been clearer that using a public-key method is only one of the ways to do authentication in SSL/TLS. Either way, some symmetric cipher is used for all the content.

See: <http://www.ipa.go.jp/security/rfc/RFC2246-AFEN.html>

Search down for Diffie-Hellman.

The Wikipedia article might also be useful:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffie-Hellman_key_exchange>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't know enough about certificate revocation lists (CRLs) to be sure, but isn't it possible for individual browser users to import them?

In that case, couldn't the EFF or similar organizations take matters into their own hands, and release lists of certificates they think users should be cautious about?

I suspect libel laws make this more difficult, but perhaps not impossible, if revocation providers are careful not to overstate their case, but just say "here's a list of certificates of organizations who have been documented to meet the following criteria...".

[Edited to add:]

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revocation_list#Publishing_Revo...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revocation_list#Publishing_Revocation_Lists) says that "To prevent spoofing or denial-of-service attacks, CRLs usually carry a digital signature associated with the CA by which they are published. To validate a specific CRL prior to relying on it, the certificate of its corresponding CA is needed, which can usually be found in a public directory." It's not clear whether the browser checks this signature, or whether the user is expected to. In the latter case, a CRL could be signed by the 3rd party revocation provider instead.

</comment><comment><USER7> tl;dr - the article is about the susceptibility of SSL protected websites to man-in-the-middle attacks due to the CA trust model being only as strong as the least competent/trustworthy CA that a given browser, well, trusts.

Background: Browsers check for a man-in-the-middle attack by verifying that: a) remote site's certificate is signed by a certificate authority (CA) that the browser trusts; b) the URL matches the common-name attribute (CN) in the site's certificate.

So, for an attacker to get around this check, they need to: a) forge/spoof DNS (relatively easy); b) get a cert signed by a CA the browser trusts with a matching CN of the site to be spoofed (supposed to be relatively hard). (There is also Extended Validation, I won't go into that here.)

Unfortunately, these days, browsers trust _a lot_ of CA's, either directly or via chained certificates. Some of these chained certificates may be surprising to you.

<https://www.eff.org/observatory>

<comment><USER8> The good news is that this isn't a problem with the SSL protocol so much as it is a problem with how the CA's and browser vendors have decided to configure SSL. Which means you can fix a lot of this by removing certs from your browser configuration.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Whenever you're sending sensitive information online—say, your credit card number to Amazon or a message over Gmail—the content is encrypted before being sent and then decrypted by the Web site you sent it to. (Sites using this secure mode have URLs that start with "https," and browsers add a padlock icon as well to demonstrate you're communicating securely.) Every vendor has its own rules for how to scramble information so that only it, the intended recipient, can decode it."

SSL does not encrypt content and vendors don't all ahve their own rules about how SSL works. It's a standard. I really wish that journalists covering technical matters would do enough research to explain things properly.

</comment><comment><USER10> So long as Verizon happily issues new CAs to Etisalat, the following is a weak measure, but for the moment: is there a way in various browsers to declare that you don't trust specific CAs? I can't practically remove the Verizon certificate (in my Certificate Authorities tab, I don't see Verizon, but I do see GTE Corporation which was its previous name, so I'll guess they're the same...), but could I declare "don't trust certificates containing _these_ certificates"?

<comment><USER11> Yeah, you can usually delete certs, at least in third-party browsers, even if they're built in.

I'm not sure if you can delete any of the OS's built-in certs ('cept maybe on Linux); and I'm not sure I'd want to risk that. Verizon/GTE/whoever probably authenticates a lot of really useful people too... (Which is a risk with deleting the browser's root certs as well.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Interesting. Also interesting was that SSL has been hacked before, although I've not heard much about it after then. For example: [http://hackaday.com/2008/12/30/25c3-hackers-completely- break...](http://hackaday.com/2008/12/30/25c3-hackers-completely-break-ssl- using-200-ps3s/)

</comment><comment><USER13> Dup: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1640117>

Having said that - no comments there.

<comment><USER14> Dup detection isn't terribly good here. Trailing /'s, Google Analytics link- junk all aren't detected.

<comment><USER11> The source code for the news.yc website is open source, right? We should patch it...

<comment><USER13> I'm pretty sure the live version has mods that aren't in the public version. PG has said that he makes mods to improve various aspects, particularly things like detecting voting rings and other such gaming of the system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Was anyone else scared that the link was to goatse?</comment>


Marvel Mogul Stan Lee Dies at 95 - <AUTHOR> https://www.thedailybeast.com/marvel-mogul-stan-lee-dies-at-95-report <comment><USER2> Stan Lee had a profound influence on both my childhood and adulthood. I can't even imagine how many other people he's inspired and touched through his works. Rest in peace Stan Lee; you will be remembered by all of us.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The article at The Hollywood Reporter is better: [https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/stan-lee-marvel- comic...](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/stan-lee-marvel-comics- legend-721450).

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm sure this was just a clone or a body from an alternate dimension and we'll see the character resurrected in the next season.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is so sad for all my life I have been following comics and have been an avid marvel fan, life its not fair, here is a drink for you captain Stan if you are watching from upstairs!

</comment><comment><USER5> Just wrote an article to memorize him. [https://medium.com/boosto/stan-lee- excelsior-the-hero-behind...](https://medium.com/boosto/stan-lee-excelsior- the-hero-behind-heroes-3715adf918de)

</comment><comment><USER6> RIP Stan Lee (1922 - 2018)

</comment><comment><USER7> Damn... RIP

</comment><comment><USER8> I don't know what this has to do with HN, other than he's a prolific figure from American male culture. I guess it's a "nerd culture" thing too? Is this a nerd culture site?

<comment><USER9> > I don't know what this has to do with HN

From the guidelines on what's topical: "Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups."

Given the amount of non-topical stuff that makes it to the front page ("Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon.") I'd say this is more closely aligned with the interests of many HN readers.

> Is this a nerd culture site?

I'd say yes.

<comment><USER8> What do Stan Lee comic books have that would interest hackers though, any more than any random book?</comment></comment></comment>


Is it safe to send my deck to investors? - <AUTHOR> http://www.venturehacks.com/articles/sending-decks <comment><USER2> It isn't safe to have a _deck_

</comment><comment><USER3> what is a deck?

<comment><USER4> A PowerPoint presentation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Straight, clear, and very helpful. Thanks!</comment>


Does Firefox private browsing still work? - <AUTHOR> A few months ago I logged out of Facebook and cleared out all known Facebook cookies from Chrome. Then I moved my Facebook account to a separate account container within Firefox. Use that container for FB and FB only. And I never access FB from Chrome. Yet somehow ads relevant to very specific searches I did on Chrome still appear on FB. Can someone explain how this is happening?<p>P.S. On my mobile phone, I never installed FB app, and I use Firefox Focus as my default browser. <comment><USER2> No idea but I would love to know why. Anyway I ain't facebook user and would not do any deal with this beast.

</comment><comment><USER3> They could also be using your IP address.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't have a static address. I go through an ISP...

<comment><USER3> My experience with ISPs is that your address isn't static enough that you'd what to attach DNS to it, but it does persist for several days at a time. I had one cable provider that changed up IPs every week, but most seem to change only when you reboot the modem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> There are a myriad of ways to track people online. Cookies are only the simplest one.

And maybe it's just chance.

<comment><AUTHOR> definitely not chance. It happened several times. The most recent is me doing a search for Talend on Chrome. The next time I open up Facebook on the Firefox container, a Talend advertisement is right there...</comment></comment>


OpenAI bots competing against Humans right now - <AUTHOR> https://www.twitch.tv/openai <comment><USER2> In the last game of the series the bots were forced to play an intentionally terrible hero lineup. The humans finally got to win a game but more interesting for me was that the times when the AI did seemingly crazy things were much more common.

I wonder if this is an artifact of the training methodology: maybe if your team is very weak then your choices are also weaker, and reinforcement learning doesn't work as well?

<comment><USER3> It reminds me of the Go AIs going on tilt when they're far behind.

When the win percentage for Go AIs gets to around 5%, every action it can take results in a losing game so it can't make the difference between normal play and super strange moves anymore.

When every choice is really bad, humans tend to still go with their normal strategy and wait for their chance to turn things around, but bots assume the opponent is playing perfectly, so they act like their winrate is going to stay near zero no matter what they do.

<comment><USER4> If this is true (which it might be, I haven't studied these systems in detail), then an obvious fix is to get the AI to randomly train with 'weaker' versions of itself (perhaps while the strong instance is handicapped) in addition to the latest generation.

Several levels of weak opponents should be used, with varying probabilities, to tune the AI's robustness against real-world, imperfect competitors.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Very impressed with the bots. The main strategy I see from the bots that is different from pro meta is how they spam abilities aggressively. Now the main limitation is 5 unkillable couriers which enable this. Watching, I do feel like given more practice humans would beat this version of the ai easily. It looks exploitable, and still having many rules limitations it has a ways to go. It will win in the end though, that much has become obvious.

<comment><USER6> The bots also have perfect knowledge of enemy hp/mana and the relative positioning through the API. In fact the bots are gifted perfect micromanagement through the API. This enables them to do things most humeans wouldn't try, because the risk of messing up and giving the enemy a huge advantage is too high.

<comment><USER7> The API does not give the bots extra information compared to a human player. The micro- and reaction time edge is also being dulled to being more human- like. They still have superhuman team fight execution though.

"We've increased the reaction time of OpenAI Five from 80ms to 200ms. This reaction time is much closer to human level, though we haven't seen evidence of changes in gameplay as OpenAI Five's strength comes more from teamwork and coordination than reflexes."

<comment><USER8> Part of the advantage in teamwork and coordination is presumably that they don't have a limitation on what data they can view at once?

Dota & HON had people mod their client to give an optional bigger FOV resulting in bans for cheating.

I'd assume the bots don't have to specify their screen position, plus no orientation response means a limitation on this wouldn't be meaningful anyway. What I'm saying is there's a big difference between 'I see lion on the mini- map down there' and 'lion showed for 1 frame on the other side of the map, his HP is 324, he has a TP scroll, no boots and a health pot.'

Something I noticed is the bots seem to like range and AoE far more than the normal human meta. The humans being limited in the distance they can see to one screen were frequently just failing to appreciate how dangerous 2-3 bots half a screen away were to them.

Quite a few teamfight wins came from the bots inevitably causing far more damage to the entire enemy team via heros like DP & Gyro. But this isn't really perfect teamfight execution. I'd have really liked to see a mirror match.

<comment><USER6> Correct, the bots "see" the entire map. Well, the parts that are not hidden by 'fog of war'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> What the cases so far tell us: Once an AI beats humans who have spent 10,000 hours practicing a skill, it is a matter of time before it beats the best professionals in the field.

Cases it already happened: board games such as Chess and Go, Poker, diagnostics of certain diseases using medical images

Cases where AI is still clearly inferior: video understanding, natural language _understanding_ , motor control esp of hands and legs, general medicine, driving

Hard-to-classified cases (AI is better for some instances, worse for others): image tagging and classification, speech recognition (speech-to-text), diagnostics of certain other diseases using medical images (which might need to take into account other information outside of images)

More examples esp counter examples are welcome.

<comment><USER9> > Poker

This is a misnomer.

The only variant of Poker where AI beats humans is heads-up (two-player) variant, which is simplest form of poker and also rarely played. The AI was (marginally) beating humans there by playing a game-theory-optimal strategy. For poker games with 3+ players, the GTO strategy (Nash equilibrium) no longer exists, so AIs need to use more standard techniques (search-based, reinforcement learning etc.), which are, at the current state of the art, laughably weak at poker.

Not to mention, that in poker the actual hierarchy of players' skill is not 100% obvious. You could distinguish at least two areas of skills:

\- play vs other experts

\- play vs amateurs/weaker players. Here' the goal is not to come out ahead (which, in long term, is a given), but to _maximize_ the dollar amount taken from these players, which is a skill in itself.

<comment><USER4> Thanks for the clarification. I do not know much about poker.

The observation applies to a given variant of poker (or any other domain). So if an AI beats humans with 10000-hour experience in that variant, the best experts in that specific variant are not far-off targets.

Superficially similar problems might in fact require very different techniques to solve as your example illustrates.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> A good thing to read to know the basics of the game and what to pay attention to: [http://smerity.com/articles/2018/n_things_to_look_out_for_in...](http://smerity.com/articles/2018/n_things_to_look_out_for_in_openai_benchmark.html)

<comment><USER11> I watched the game against audience members, and the bots seemed to overextend at times. Also weird courier scouting glitches (which makes sense if all couriers are currently invulnerable for the purpose of this generation of bots). Another funny thing was watching them use smokes for no apparent reason.

<comment><AUTHOR> They overextended in the enemy safelane. Maybe killing the enemy carry is #1 on their priority list :D

<comment><USER11> Yeah, I was thinking more in the lines of the aftermath, after diving – getting stuck in the forest behind the enemy tower. But you are correct, they seemed hella determined to get that Slark kill!

<comment><USER12> haha yes I saw that, it seems forest navigation is a strength though, tho sometimes they dont search

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is indescribably exciting. Can't wait to see OpenAI Five tear through the human players just like what the single bot did to 'Dendi' \-- a professional gamer -- during the International 7 tournament in August last year. [0]

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiOopO9jTZw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiOopO9jTZw)

<comment><USER14> It's not that exciting and it's very easy to beat humans at games when your reaction times are far faster and you have access to more information at a single moment in time. It's like being impressed by a calculator.

<comment><USER15> dota 2 is not as extreme about this as, say, starcraft. in starcraft, most "strategies" are heavily scripted build orders that almost never deviate from a handful of openings (similar to opening moves in chess) and a large amount of winning comes from the ability to quickly give orders to your troops ("micro"). This is an example of a strategy that is not viable without superhuman reactions: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKVFZ28ybQs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKVFZ28ybQs) if you directly attack 20 siege tanks with 100 zerglings you will only kill about two siege tanks, but an AI can kill all the siege tanks with some zerglings left over.

There's some of this in dota, but there's a cap on the skill level for most playable characters that pros generally get "close enough" to, and beyond that the strategic depth comes from area control decisionmaking. Theres over 100 heroes and many of them have really weird abilities, like the possibility of creating a temporary wall (earthshaker) or the ability to teleport anywhere on the map every 20 seconds (furion). I could be wrong though, maybe the AI is winning games by playing heroes with long range and perfectly microing them to harass and prevent the other team from ever getting gold/xp.

<comment><USER16> > in starcraft, most "strategies" are heavily scripted build orders that > almost never deviate from a handful of openings (similar to opening moves in > chess) and a large amount of winning comes from the ability to quickly give > orders to your troops ("micro")

As somebody who plays StarCraft casually (gold/low plat in ladder), this is not true. It's even less true for pro players. The level of strategy in StarCraft is impressive, it's really hard to guess in which direction games will go when two very good players are playing against each other.

Sure, perfect execution when it comes to one strategy (say, mech-heavy Terran) will give you the largest advantage against your opponent, but failing to scout appropriately and guess what your opponent is up to means your strategy is dead. You also have to decide when to attack, how much you're willing to sacrifice to damage somebody's economy, when you want to focus one economy vs building units, ...

The video you sent with zerglings is a gimmick made for fun (it's a hard-coded AI using the siege tank's aim logic to divert zerglings from that). That would _not_ win you a game. (because most likely a pro Terran would have destroyed your base before that)

<comment><USER17> I wonder how far you'd get with a bot that macros perfectly but also A-moves 2-3 groups.

<comment><USER16> What does "macro perfectly" mean? If it does the same strategy over and over, you just scout, find its strategy, and go for the counter. Its macro will be useless if it has the wrong type of unit.

In a way, the built-in AIs "macro perfectly", but they are terrible at strategy and fighting (because even fights are not just a matter of gimmicks, you need to split units in a special way, send diversions, attack at the same time from multiple fronts, etc.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Only one LSTM per bot so there is no "master strategy" neural network. Interesting, if I'm not wrong, bots are learning independently.

<comment><USER19> During training they were given access to each other's reward functions, and the extent to which they weighted total team reward over their own was gradually increased.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Expecting 3-0 slam dunk here. Consistently surprised at the ability of tried and true basic reinforcement learning at completing challenging tasks. I totally expected some kind of neccessary breakthrough in the RL field before a real time game like Dota 2 could be beaten.

<comment><USER21> I would love to know why the third match turned sour. I suspect (as an amateur with no ML background) that that matchup was under-trained.

Like I could imagine OpenAI getting stuck in a subset of the draft pool for which it trained against, like maybe the top 10 of 18 champs. And then picking outside of that meta causes it to fall back on much less robust training/strategy.

<comment><USER22> Because the first two matches were so lopsided, the bot lineup was selected by twitch chat + audience members. We drafted them a pretty terrible lineup, and from the start the bots estimated their chance of winning to be about 2.9%.

<comment><USER23> Indeed. And to explain further: not all hero combinations are equal. Meaning: you cannot select any arbitrary set of 5 heroes and expect them to perform well. Different heroes have different strengths and synergies that make them stronger or weaker depending on the specific teammates and opponents that are present. This is why drafting is considered such an important (and difficult) portion of the game. In match 3, a purposefully-bad team was selected. It would have been VERY impressive if it was able to win.

<comment><USER21> > Meaning: you cannot select any arbitrary set of 5 heroes and expect them to > perform well.

When I think of AI, I think of something crawling its way out of purposefully adversarial situations such as this one. I would have loved to see optimal play from 5 wacky heroes.

I just have this suspicion that that wasn't optimal for that team comp.

But of course the matchup itself is a thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> If there are any OpenAI folks hanging out here, I'd be really curious to hear about the (apparent) tactical pause by the AI in game 2.

<comment><USER25> It wasn't a bot, it was an observer. A bot would have it's name appear.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Other thread: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17692577](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17692577)

</comment><comment><USER27> My thoughts on the AI's performance so far knowing a bit about both DOTA and machine learning:

\- Item-usage for things such as smoke and wards (which were recently added to their reportoire) are not well captured by the bots yet. And the buying of wards were confirmed as a scripted event. It seems hard for them to capture the long term sparse reward of these. Smoke might not be needed by a perfect agent, but wards should be. The developer interview noted that it's not very clear what the reward for an agent warding even should be.

\- Some of the big advantages OpenAI gains are in team fights, where it's 200ms reaction time (upped from 80ms to resemble human reaction time more) still strikes me as something that tilts it into a solid mechanical advantage. On several occasions OpenAI's Lion managed to disable a human player performing (what I assume to be) a move which shouldn't be interruptable. (blink-->shift+ctrl ultimate ability on earthshaker) This could have tilted teamfights in the human team's favor a few times if it wasn't stopped by the "machine-like" reflexes of OpenAI.

\- Positioning before team fights by OpenAI are scary. There are very few openings, and every individual agent is protected by its team.

\- Likewise is the map movement scary most of the time. Being able to recall just enough agents back to defend while simultaneously taking out strategic objectives of the human team. Also Blitz(caster) has noted earlier OpenAI's ability to focus on the winnable lanes and sacrifice the others, prioritizing well. (and exploiting map mechanics unknown to most pros until a few years ago)

\- When the AI takes down a tier 1 tower, they seem to be very quick to take down the remaining tier 1 towers, instantly capitalizing on their map control advantage, and expanding it.

Some interesting things / bugs:

\- Sniper bot throwing multiple spells on the same location right away (even though the damage doesn't stack) effectively simply wasting his mana and cooldowns, for no gain.

\- Sniper using his ultimate ability to pressure the lower hp characters of the human team continously. Usually it's more often used more as a finisher, and might be an artifact that appears from the AI having access to an unkillable courier that ferries a lot of healing/mana regenerating items.

Some additional info learned from the interview of some of the devs:

\- Incentivizing killing Roshan (a boss character in the middle of the map, which yields a one-time ressurection item for one player, after being killed) is done by varying roshan's HP down to a really low amount, making sure the AI experiences the upside to this. Otherwise it would require all 5 agents gathering there, expending their magical abilities and investing a lot before actually seeing a reward. (which is unlikely to happen)

\- Game length in self-play sessions are above 60 minutes around 1% of the time.

<comment><USER28> > Lion managed to disable a human player performing (what I assume to be) a > move which shouldn't be interruptable

Fogged (the human player) commented on this and said he messed up. If he had shift-queued the spell, or just used it immediately after blink, it would've landed [0].

Cancelling an initiation with instant spells (Lion hex, Rubick lift, etc) does happen frequently in high level human play as well, where you continuously pre-cast the spell, cancel, walk back slightly, repeat, on the out-of-range initiating enemy, to have the spell interrupt the initiation as soon as the initiating enemy blinks in to range. I do agree that the bots have a solid mechanical advantage, just pointing out that this specific scenario does frequently happen in human play as well (albeit not on every single initiation).

[0] [https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/94vdpm/openai_hex_wa...](https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/94vdpm/openai_hex_was_within_the_200ms_response_time/e3ofipk/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Congrats OpenAI on game #1

<comment><USER30> And game #2!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> hi,does anyone know if openAI release an up to date state of learning for their open AI dota code?

Basically can I run the same sim on my laptop and watch them play? I can see some code on Github but dont know if the actually neural net data is available too.

If anyone knows the answer that will be great thanks

<comment><USER31> Even if they did release the likely-very-big model, your personal computer is likely not fast enough to make 2-3 actions per second (x5) and update weights in real time without a beefy GPU.

<comment><USER32> You don't need to update any weights, the model is already trained.

<comment><USER33> Ignorant here. How do you take an already trained model and execute it elsewhere? Isn't the training phase part of the whole (ongoing) simulation?

<comment><USER34> The training phase is when you are trying to minimise your loss function by trying different weights each iteration.

Once that is finished, you have a trained model which you can use by providing input and getting an output (with the weights frozen).

The training phase is very expensive computationally because you have to calculate the gradient of your loss function on potentially huge tensors.

The execution phase is not that expensive and commercial laptops will be likely able to run the model without any problems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Chat deciding heroes can be so cool! We may see new strategy, AI out of the safe lane confidence!!

</comment><comment><USER36> clicked on the stream, title should be changed to "getting destroyed by Humans"

<comment> c- Let's just ignore the first two 25 minute games in favour of AI

<comment><USER37> And that the AI was handicapped in the game it lost, as they let the audience draft for the AI team and of course they deliberately picked a bad lineup to see what would happen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> First match is over, human pros got wrecked, and very fast.

<comment><USER39> They were audience members, not pros.

<comment><USER40> The marketing on this whole effort is strong and the training budget was insane. That said until it defeats the best of the best it's just really amazing machine learning as opposed to game changing machine learning IMO. Also keep in mind that there's a game state API here, this is not at all like learning 2600 games from learning the screens alone which would make me fear we were on the verge of the robot apocalypse personally.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> AI winning due to super human abilities is about as impressive as a Counter Strike bot with perfect aim making headshots every time.

<comment><USER42> Check the DeepMind Quake bot: [https://deepmind.com/blog/capture-the- flag/](https://deepmind.com/blog/capture-the-flag/)

Even when reducing tagging accuracy to below human level, they still performed better.</comment></comment>


Does anyone even read posts? - <AUTHOR> I submitted our startup cambassy.com, and noticed that no clicks have been made, this means that users don't really look for new interesting posts, but instead flock around popular posts, if you read this post click upvote so we know if there is a point in posting here. <comment><USER2> I almost exclusively look at the "new" section of HN, so I see almost every new post, whether people clicked on it or not.

I'd suggest instead that "Cambassy – Your People Around the World" doesn't really tell us anything about why we'd want to click. What does it even mean? I have zero idea what it is, what it does, or why I'd want to know more about it.

</comment><comment><USER3> _" this means that users don't really look for new interesting posts"_

It's also possible that people do look for interesting posts, but didn't find yours interesting.

I just looked at your URL, cambassy.com, and it asks me to download an app without giving me any clue as to what it does. No thanks.

 _" if you read this post click upvote so we know if there is a point in posting here"_

Asking for people to upvote your article is frowned upon around here. People should upvote articles because they think they're interesting. (Please read the Guidelines and FAQ links at the bottom of the page if you haven't done so already.)

I like gus_massa's earlier suggestion about writing a blog post that says interesting things about your app.

One more thing: A user ID that matches the name of a product (like "cambassy") suggests to me that this is a drive-by posting by someone who is not (or doesn't intend to become) a member of the HN community, and is only using HN for advertising. (Indeed, your user history shows that you created the ID specifically to post this one article.) I tend to ignore posts like that since they're frequently of low quality (and often spam). Just my personal bias, perhaps.

</comment><comment><USER4> As a rule of thumb, you will usually get 50 + n * 100 visitors, where n is the number of upvotes (i.e. points - 1), but it may vary a lot.

Try resubmitting again, one or two times, but wait a few days between resubmissions. (more details in the FAQ: [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html) ).

If that fails, you can try with an interesting blog post. Do you have an interesting real use case of a real user? Did you solve an interesting problem while writing the project?

</comment><comment><USER5> My anecdote: I once had a Medium article posted over here and had hundreds of people coming from HN reading the post. I think, as others are telling you, the title needs to arouse the interest of people for them to click the link.

</comment><comment><USER6> your app looks good :D</comment>


Apple, Samsung Agree to End Patent Suits Outside U.S - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-05/apple-samsung-agree-to-end-patent-suits-outside-u-s-.html

<comment><USER2> Because as their rampant patent trolling gets called out and smacked down in more sane courts, the US will become the lone lunatic and double down on patent reforms so as not to look like the village idiot.

Of course we'll still look like the village idiot, but Apple and Samsung will at least deny the rest of the world the opportunity to prove they can do better.

</comment><comment><USER3> Good. Unfortunately, other phone manufacturers aren't in this pool.

I'm not sure if you include Microsoft in that assessment, but they're certainly a big patent risk now that they did the Nokia & Nortel things, and they know it.

</comment><comment><USER4> Why not in US?

<comment><USER5> Probably because settelments are high and patents are more serious in the US.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> So now it's down to a game of slapsies, but with borders.</comment>


Mitigating MIME Confusion Attacks in Firefox - <AUTHOR> https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2016/08/26/mitigating-mime-confusion-attacks-in-firefox/ <comment><USER2> 1) adopt a standard for specifying MIME type.

2) realize people are not using the standard correctly, disregard the specified type and auto-detect the type.

3) realize this creates a security problem, adopt a new standard that adds a stronger MIME type specification.

4) go to 2)

<comment><USER3> nosniff is opt-in for websites that want the security benefit. If they do that and still irresponsibly send the wrong content type then I can't sympathize with them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > While MIME sniffing increases the web experience for the majority of users,

What does 'increases the web experience' even _mean_? Using a phrase like that is clear evidence of confusion.

Browsers should obey the media type they receive, per the context in which they receive it; content-sniffing is just _wrong_.

Yeah, it means that the brokenness of broken sites will be made evident to users. Broken sites are broken, news at 11.

<comment><USER5> It's all based on idea that users want sites that are broken beyond repair to still magically work - because _user experience_.

And that's the story how we stuck with a giant pile of hacks the modern web is.

<comment><USER6> Every single browser vendor has exit polling showing websites being broken is one of the top reasons for users changing browser. This isn't some idea, we have solid data that breaking stuff just causes users to move to a browser where the site works.

<comment><USER7> This.

Most users do not think that their favorite website is broken; the believe the browser is at fault. Therefore, they find a browser that renders said website correctly and stick with it. The problems are manifold, and it's the browser that supports both the standard and many non-standard ways of describing content that wins out: Chrome today; IE before the "second coming of web browsers".

<comment><USER6> And if every browser breaks it, you find an old browser that it works with and stick to that forever, which is _really_ bad for everyone.

<comment><USER5> Is this also backed by research?

Because I sort of doubt this. An old browsers become a nuisance quite fast, with "sorry, you need a browser that supports $feature and yours doesn't". Well, I mean, I had to stick with 2 years old browser for some time and this certainly wasn't a good UX.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> That still seems overly specific in that the content server must opt-in by using nosniff, but I guess that's the reality of backwards-compatibility.

</comment><comment><USER9> I remember trying to explain that checking the file extension of a file doesn't mean that it is actually an "image" file. I was an intern at my first internship, but wasn't taken seriously when I proposed [to the senior dev] that we do actual file validation (bytes) and not just extension validation for the uploaded images. Yes, it would take more time. But, since I was just low on the pole, I think I wasn't taken seriously.

Also maybe it wasn't my place to suggest design solutions, and or my approach wasn't as good as it should have been.

<comment><USER10> What Mozilla is proposing here is that metadata (the mime header if not the filename) is respected and guessing based on the contents is eliminated. So the proposal is more similar to your professor's idea than to yours.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> So this is a hack in the browser to fix a security problem in the server. And it requires the same server to send an additional header.

I wonder if they ever evaluate the effectiveness of their work over there at Mozilla.

<comment><USER12> This is not a mozilla invention. The only thing Mozilla should be ciriticzed for is that they are the last implementing this. All other browsers already support this header.

It's a bad situation, but it's based on bad decisions that were made in the 90s when the web was in its early days ("be liberal what you accept"). Hard to fix in a general way without breaking lots of stuff.</comment></comment>


70% off for 2 years of hosting at Dreamhost - <AUTHOR> http://www.dreamhost.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> Warning - expires January 4th.

And it was even better: 95% off: [http://www.quickonlinetips.com/archives/2009/01/dreamhost- ne...](http://www.quickonlinetips.com/archives/2009/01/dreamhost-new-year- hosting-sale/)

</comment><comment><USER2> Sometimes ya get what ya pay for, though.</comment>


14-year-old startup founder turned down a $30M buyout offer - <AUTHOR> http://money.cnn.com/2016/05/10/technology/recmed-taylor-rosenthal-techcrunch-disrupt/index.html <comment><USER3> "14 year old CLAIMS to have rejected $30m offer for startup that has yet to launch. But can't share details because of an NDA." is the actual story.

And a follow on story a few weeks later is that he would "accept $50m" and wants to buy a "Bentley with a chauffeur".

Keep hustling kid.

(1) [http://www.cnbc.com/2016/05/11/the-14-year-old-who-turned- do...](http://www.cnbc.com/2016/05/11/the-14-year-old-who-turned-down-30m-now- wants-50m-for-his-start-up.html)

<comment><USER4> If that is true, I believe that falls under fraud when a company is publicly traded. No idea when privately owned!

<comment><USER5> I believe that falls somewhere between 'clever marketing' and 'exploiting gullible journalists who publish anything related to teenagers and entrepeneurship'.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I hope his parents are already loaded, otherwise they have done a VERY poor job of guiding him down the appropriate path. At $30 million you can live a VERY comfortable life unless you're a complete idiot with it.

I get "chasing your dream" \- but I struggle to believe an idea he came up with for a school science fair at the age of 14 was any kind of lifelong dream.

<comment><USER7> He may not have had a concept of what $30 million really is. I know I don't, even at my age.

If he has his needs met, what does it mean to him to have his needs met more? I know logically this can be worked out that lots of money buys lots of comfort, but thinking back at that age, I personally didn't know squat about the value of a dollar. I grew up with less money than most of my peers (not "food insecure poor", but "all I got for Christmas was cloths and 1 small toy poor") but never thought about it. I just thought my parents were careful spenders.

However, to your point; where were the adults in the equation?

<comment><USER6> >He may not have had a concept of what $30 million really is. I know I don't, even at my age.

I would be shocked if he had any concept at all. Most adults have no concept of what it means to have that kind of money which is why most lottery winners are broke within 5 years of winning the lottery. You literally can live an upper middle-class/lower upper-class lifestyle without working another day in your life off that interest alone.

<comment><USER8> Point taken, and I'm not trying to pick apart your post with pedantry, just curious how the numbers come out. 2% gives you 600K/year. If you go with the retirement fund concept of spending "only" 4%/year, that's 1.2M/year. I don't know how you're defining "upper middle-class", but I'll bet most would define it much lower than that.

Finally, a money market fund at 0.5% has an annual yield pretty close to what I make working 40 hours/week. And in my opinion, we live pretty well on what I make in an expensive city like Seattle.

All that, of course, assumes that one does not lapse into lottery winner syndrome because one _doesn 't_ have a concept of how much money $30 million is, therefore views it as a bottomless pit of cash, and blows it all on velvet Elvis paintings, bad business ideas from your cousin, and "helping" out your meth-head sister.

All of _that_ assuming assumes the $30 million dollar offer is real. And I'm convinced a vending machine idea is worth a couple of orders of magnitude less than what is claimed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> That is an extremely easily replicated technology. Turning down a buyout was a horrible idea, but good for him for making it that far.

<comment><USER10> Apparently he has a patent, although its not clear what he has actually patented. If the patent is sufficiently effective to keep other players out of the market that would explain the high price tag.

<comment><USER11> On Quora a vending machine operator commented: "It's a design, not a utility, patent which have less stringent requirements for granting.

His idea is not new, things like aspirin and bandaids have been sold through vending machines for decades. What is unique about his system is that its dedicated to first aid and medical supplies and its interface with the customer is exclusively via a touchscreen. You can't see the product through a window." [1]

Maybe there's something unique to the interface, though I see nothing in this little video interview that strikes me as earth-shattering [2].

It is also entirely likely that this is another case of 'child genius myth- makery' like we've seen so many times before. Remember the 72MM high school kid trading hoax? [3]

[1] [https://www.quora.com/How-did-Taylor-Rosenthal-get-a- patent-...](https://www.quora.com/How-did-Taylor-Rosenthal-get-a-patent-for- his-vending-machine-which-dispenses-first-aid-kits/answer/Chris-Bracher)

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmxkUxEr81w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmxkUxEr81w)

[3] [http://observer.com/2014/12/exclusive-new-york-mags-boy- geni...](http://observer.com/2014/12/exclusive-new-york-mags-boy-genius- investor-made-it-all-up/)

<comment><USER12> As it is, such products already exist, in physical form:

[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003JQL2HM](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003JQL2HM)

is a first aid kit that has pre-packaged pouches for "bleeding", "spine", "burns", "bites and stings" such that the individual pouch can be replaced upon use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> He has a patent, yet a brief Google search shows plenty of companies offering similar machines.

Here's a record of a machine in Germany in 2007: [http://www.toytowngermany.com/forum/topic/59813-first-aid- ve...](http://www.toytowngermany.com/forum/topic/59813-first-aid-vending- machines/)

<comment><USER14> Having a patent is very easy in the U.S.

Getting one that can have its claims stand in court is the hard part - <USER2> course, you can play chicken with would-be claimants, and it's usually cheaper to just pay and avoid expensive lawsuits. Even here in Uruguay, lawyers are advised to always settle instead of going all the way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Vending machines in Japan already sell much more, variety of goods seems only culturally limited in the west. With recent push to automation you'll expect more of this: [http://kotaku.com/5988536/the-wild-and-wonderful-world-of- ja...](http://kotaku.com/5988536/the-wild-and-wonderful-world-of-japanese- vending-machines) [http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/bizarre-vending- machines/](http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/bizarre-vending-machines/) [https://www.dramafever.com/news/25-things-youll-only-find- in...](https://www.dramafever.com/news/25-things-youll-only-find-in-vending- machines-in-japan/)

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm a little more disappointed that someone didn't provide him a bit more guidance on this. I, like many here, find the rejection crazy. But you can't go and blame a 14 year-old for it, it's the adults surrounding him.

His parents are really to blame for that rejection. Hell he must have a patent attorney, who at some point mentioned this would probably be easily challenged. This has a ton of risk with what upside?

</comment><comment><USER16> I'd have a very hard time turning down anything over $10m at any age. Even if I thought my product might be worth billions.

<comment><USER17> Even if you don't think specifically about how much money it is, you basically could fund any idea you ever want to do for the rest of your life. Instead you get to have one idea that your stuck with whether or not it makes 100k even.

<comment><USER18> > Instead you get to have one idea that your stuck with whether or not it > makes 100k even.

Six Flags ordered 100 machines putting him at 550,000 revenue for a single customer. As more momentum picks up and they pull in more customers, he'll be well over 30m revenue in a few years time. Smart move from this kid. Bill Gates didn't get his wealth by selling out at the first offer, regardless of his age.

<comment><USER17> "As more momentum picks up"

This is the crux of what is being discussed, as with the risks involved in that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > _Rosenthal sketched a design and consulted with his parents, both of whom > work in the medical industry._

> _By December, he had a working prototype and had acquired a patent._

Parents did all of the work, and are using their kid for marketing purposes. Look at all this free press! Buyout offer doesn't exist. Pretty good marketing plan but I think the business idea is stupid.

</comment><comment><USER20> I'd normally roll my eyes at this if this were a teen in the Valley, but a 14-year-old from small-town Alabama? That's pretty gutsy, good for him.

<comment><USER21> This is stereotyping.

<comment><USER20> How so

<comment><USER21> You're generalizing a group of individuals. Not everybody in Alabama is backward (whatever the negative stereotype is, I'm not American). Which state a person is from is a weak estimator of their socioeconomic status.

<comment><USER20> Where in my statement did I say that Alabama is backward? If you're not from America, perhaps you're not familiar with the geographical and geopolitical distance Alabama has from the entrepreneurial strongholds of Silicon Valley and New York. I'm from a small town in the Midwest myself and can attest to how far removed you can be from what happens on the costal big cities.

<comment><USER22> don't feed the troll!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Anybody know if this buyout offer has been verified? Who made the offer? Are we sure this is not just a PR stunt?

</comment><comment><USER24> > Rosenthal is the youngest CEO at Round House, where he has an office and > access to mentors in exchange for a 20% stake and a $50,000 investment.

Exploitative local incubator strikes again.

<comment><USER25> Looks like he took the deal at 250K.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Who made the 30 million dollar offer?

<comment><USER27> Sounds fishy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> 20% for $50,000 (aka seed), but shortly after with no improvements buyout for $30M? Sounds more like a marketing stunt.

</comment><comment><USER29> The idea of charging someone for a plaster when they need it feels totally alien to me.

<comment><USER30> If all people felt that way no one would run drugstores, and there'd be ZERO plasters / bandaids available on the market.

"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest." \--Adam Smith

...and thank goodness for that!

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> A 14 year old can't sign a contract, so how does he own a business? I don't doubt he's done all the work, and I've nothing but admiration for him, but there's no way this is the complete picture.

</comment><comment><USER32> Press coverage of the offer:

Miss America inteview: [http://www.oanow.com/news/opelika/opelika-s-mallory- hagan-in...](http://www.oanow.com/news/opelika/opelika-s-mallory-hagan- interviews-recmed-ceo-for- blog/article_fb618456-93b6-11e5-bdff-a7973d61bd9b.html)

August 2015: [http://www.wltz.com/story/29846919/13-year-old-opelika- entre...](http://www.wltz.com/story/29846919/13-year-old-opelika-entrepreneur- aiming-for-over-9-figures-for-start-up-business)

</comment><comment><USER33> > The 14-year-old is exhibiting his startup idea -- a vending machine that > dispenses first aid products -- at TechCrunch Disrupt this week in Brooklyn.

How long before we see articles decrying him for being a profiteer?

(N.b.: I think that this is actually a great idea, but I also think it's difficult to underestimate the economic illiteracy of the general populace and journalists in particular.)

</comment><comment><USER34> We don't have enough information to really say if the $30mm buyout was a good offer. Maybe there were some ridiculous strings attached to it. It could be a very good decision his parents helped him on.

</comment><comment><USER35> The question is: how a 14 yo kids have the knowledge and capability to build such a company?

PS:looking at their website it seems to be a school project rather than something more.

<comment><USER36> Both of his parents are in the medical profession. I think that if you have a child with the right temperament you can coach them into something like this. I've been asking my daughter (who would make someone a good COO) about her thoughts in business.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> The $30MM if real is probably just skewed for marketing.

It might just be a royalty deal on the patent, and the dollar figure is based on potential over the patent's lifetime

</comment><comment><USER38> First aid vending machine? Should've taken it kid

</comment><comment><USER39> We also didn't see the terms of the offer which could have had significant clawback provisions and performance expectations.

</comment><comment><USER40> If that is indeed true then both the fact that someone offered 30M for this and was turned down is mind boggling :)

</comment><comment><USER41> A vending machine? I don't understand how its new at all.</comment>


Why Kickstarter Won't Sell - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/174/why-kickstarter-wont-sell-or-go-public

<comment><USER2> I love the idealism. It's an essential, yet abstract one if your not an artist, to view your labor as love. Nothing is more of an art form than to not "sell out". Hopefully the suggestion which may be seen as hubris will keep kickstarter running for the 1000 year company which the founder considers his end game. Ironically it may be interesting to view the growth, or decay, of the company over the next decade whereas it's business model is not to pivot outside of the founders vision nor open up to other art forms outside of film, music etc. Time will tell whether Chen may be the next Carnegie.</comment>


How doctors choose to die (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/society/2012/feb/08/how-doctors-choose-die <comment><USER2> This is anecdotal evidence from a small (2) sample. But not all doctors die without treatment at home. Some (many?) are aware of the drugs they need to hasten their demise in a way that minimises their suffering. One doctor I discussed this with said that assisted suicide, in a very limited and measured way, isn't uncommon, if you know what to look for.

As someone with a degenerative incurable condition, I'd like the option of being able to make informed decisions about the end of my life, beyond just refusing treatment. Because spending years dying of starvation (as MS campaigner Debbie Purdy recently did, because she was unable to cope with her symptoms, and there was no other legal recourse to help her die), doesn't fill me with excitement.

We have an insane attitude to death in our culture at the moment. We seem to want to find any way to avoid the fact that being alive has a 100% mortality rate. I think our collective attitude needs to change. And the more articles like this the better.

<comment><USER3> It's really hard to change perceptions about death when it requires considering one's own mortality. It is in this only that I understand the desperate quest for religion. The idea of going dark forever is terrifying to me, and considering I'm pretty much an atheist, I don't have much hope of anything else. When people ask me if I'm religious, I usually tell them I'm hopeful that I'm proven wrong.

I know we all die. I know our lives on a cosmic scale are infinitesimal. But even I - as rational as I am, am extremely scared of facing that reality head on.

So convincing the entire nation/world to do so... Well, good luck with that.

<comment><USER2> It doesn't frighten me. It won't go dark forever. Just as there was no 13.5bn years of darkness before I was born. There will be no qualia of time.

I think attitudes are changing. The campaign to be able to determine how and when we die is shaping up to be a significant battle for a fundamental civil right. I think we'll win it. Whether it is soon enough for my wife to avoid threat of prosecution if she is with me when I choose to act, I don't know. I suspect not.

<comment><USER4> > It doesn't frighten me.

I don't think that's entirely true - it's just that all functioning members of society displace or ignore their fear of death with some method. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_anxiety_%28psychology%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_anxiety_%28psychology%29)

<comment><USER5> Why in gods name would I be frightened of oblivion? Dying is terrifying, because it comes with implications of suffering. No longer existing is simply enthralling. I will simply be gone. A just reward for making it through a lifetime imo.

<comment><USER4> I can't tell you why the thought of ceasing to exist would be frightening. It simply is to me, and I believe to most people. And most people, including me, ignore it and focus on the joys of life. There are of course different degrees of this displacement, some people may still acknowledge the idea but others might completely convince themselves that there is nothing to be scared of - or maybe there really _is_ a way to enjoy a finite life span.

Mind you that this a very intimate and subjective topic, and I am not saying that you are fooling yourself, but from someone who is indeed scared of death (the end of life), it does seem plausible.

<comment><USER2> _I am not saying that you are fooling yourself, but_

The mirror image is that we aren't fooling ourselves, we've just been able to rise above our heavy inculturation to such fear. An inculturation that you're still stuck in. That seems plausible too.

That's meant in good humour btw, my point is really that speculation that other people disagree because they are in denial, or ignorant, is pretty tempting, but usually not very helpful to discussion.

<comment><USER4> I don't mean to say that "other people are ignorant". I myself ignore and displace this constantly... until at some moments I am reminded. I actually didn't intend to sound condescending, I should have made clear that I actually ignore death myself.

Regarding inculturation: I believe it is actually right the other way round! That a child when first encountering the thought of death and its implication, is naturally terrified, and that _our society /culture_ provides means of coping with this fear.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> And the bowl of petunias said: Oh no, not again.

For those interested in the collective wisdom of the HN community, here are some previous discussions:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3313570](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3313570) : 1206 days ago | 177 comments

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4865742](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4865742) : 841 days ago | no comments

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5017104](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5017104) : 807 days ago | no comments

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5104430](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5104430) : 790 days ago | 94 comments

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6040804](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6040804) : 618 days ago | 1 comment

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6767385](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6767385) : 489 days ago | no comments

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7446014](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7446014) : 368 days ago | 2 comments

<comment><AUTHOR> While that certainly is an intimidating set of links you have there, only two of those have any discussion -- one over two years ago, the other nearly four years ago.

<comment><USER6> Indeed - has anything changed?

If not, then those discussions are still relevant, and there would be value in skimming them rather than simply repeating all the points again.

If so, then it would be of value to see what has changed, possibly by reading the previous discussions. Perhaps the mood of the audience has changed, perhaps the general opinions of the HN community have shifted.

Either way, being aware of the past is of value.

        Those who cannot remember the past
        are condemned to repeat it.

            -- George Santayana

_EDIT:_ People often misunderstand these back-links. They are not intended to scold people for submitting things that have been submitted before. On the contrary, I believe some things should re-surface from time to time, bringing them back either for the informing of the newer community members, or for re- evaluation in case things have moved on and should be re-considered. My main concern and motivation is that previous contributions should not be wasted.

<comment><AUTHOR> The two with discussion are certainly relevant. The others were not. To me, they served only to give the false impression that this has been discussed a lot more than it actually has.

> They are not intended to scold people for submitting things that have been > submitted before

So I guess that explains why you began with 'oh no, not again'

<comment><USER6>
        > The two with discussion are certainly relevant.
        > The others were not. To me, they served only to
        > give the false impression that this has been
        > discussed a lot more than it actually has.

That's why I said how many comment there were - to give the data that there were lots of submissions, not all of which had generated discussions.

        > So I guess that explains why you
        > began with 'oh no, not again'

Yeah, OK, point taken. I guess I've just been around too long and read too much stuff. I went away for a while and have only just started to read again, but I guess I'm still too jaundiced.

I'll go away again. Sorry.

Do you want me to delete the comment? I think there's still time.

<comment><AUTHOR> I didn't realize you quoted the number of replies, I thought HN did that automatically.

>I'll go away again

haha i never said to go away. play it like it feels. i'm biased since you were responding to my submission.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> When facing terminal illness, doctors probably differ little from comparably educated subsets of the population. I don't know of studies specific to physicians, but my guess is quality of life is a priority that shapes decisions about treatment for life-threatening conditions.

After decades in practice, doctors have faced death of patients many times. It's not an experience one ever really gets used to. As a result, doctors tend to be realists about illness and its likely outcome.

It's no surprise that doctors might choose "death with dignity". Oregon, where I live, was the first state in the US to pass a law legalizing physician assisted suicide. The _Death with Dignity Act_ went into effect in 1997. Studies have consistently shown that the leading motivations among those requesting lethal prescriptions are the desire to maintain independence and minimize reduction of QOL.

Comprehensive data/stats related to DWDA can be downloaded--the most recent report (2014) is here-- [http://public.health.oregon.gov/ProviderPartnerResources/Eva...](http://public.health.oregon.gov/ProviderPartnerResources/EvaluationResearch/DeathwithDignityAct/Documents/year17.pdf)

Additional info is available-- [http://public.health.oregon.gov/ProviderPartnerResources/Eva...](http://public.health.oregon.gov/ProviderPartnerResources/EvaluationResearch/DeathwithDignityAct/Pages/index.aspx)

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm a little frustrated with this article, but not for the reasons in the article. The doctors were angry at their patients' family members for putting them through the suffering; but, ... that form of suffering is just where medicine is right now.

Medicine is evolving, and growing; and, it's that desire to keep living and to keep those around you living, and to improve their well-being that has, in part, grown our medical abilities to the point they are now.

It feels like some of those improvements that, right now only provide a '15% chance of survival, and include pain', will be the stepping stones for 20, 30, 80 or 90% chance of survival, with varying levels of pain, including 0.

The article seemed to suggest that the doctors didn't approve of those intermediate steps, but ... those are the steps medicine takes, aren't they?

I dunno. I respected the rest of the article. That part of it bothered me.

<comment><USER9> It isn't the doctor's job to improve medicine, it is a researcher's job.

Doctors can only prescribe to you the 15% chance of survival, knowing that there's no greater benefit to medicine. They're too busy seeing patients to improve medicine.

<comment><USER8> I'm not sure this is accurate, especially in the case of cancers. Doctors were part of the studies with at least one person I know.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Atul Gawande, who's written extensively on end of life issues, had an excellent one hour Frontline special that covered the same topic. I highly recommend watching it if you're interested at all in how terminal illness and dying are handled in the United States today: [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/being- mortal/](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/being-mortal/)

<comment><USER11> His book on the same topic is absolutely enlightening and surprisingly enjoyable to read, despite the sobering topics.

Being Mortal.

[http://www.amazon.com/Being-Mortal-Medicine-What- Matters/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Being-Mortal-Medicine-What- Matters/dp/0805095152/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> A few years ago, I heard an NPR interview with a doctor who's friend was terminally ill. Rather than opt for treatment, the friend spent his remaining time living with his doctor friend. He died a few months later. The doctor said that this is how she wanted to die, too. I've tried a number of times to find the story, but I haven't been able to. Does it ring a bell for anyone? I'd love to listen to it again.

Thanks!

<comment><USER13> That does not specifically ring a bell, but Radio Lab did a piece on this topic once. Perhaps it's in there:

[http://www.radiolab.org/story/262588-bitter- end/](http://www.radiolab.org/story/262588-bitter-end/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This reminded me of an article I've read a long time ago which had a really strong impact on me. I've just found it by googling a couple of words that were still in my head after all these years.

Here it is (probably not where I originally read it): [http://www.nbcnews.com/id/21643646/ns/health- behavior/t/what...](http://www.nbcnews.com/id/21643646/ns/health- behavior/t/what-we-learn-dying/#.VRJtuDTF-l0)

<comment><USER15> Fantastic and relevant read.

This was surprisingly well written for an NBC or Men's Health article for those who are skeptical.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I thought this was thoughtful and well written but all I see is anecdote...there is no data presented that MDs choose different options than non-MD patients.

<comment><USER17> Adding to the anecdote, I'm a paramedic who has also opted for 'no heroic measures'. Even with CPR survival rates in this county being amongst the highest in the country.

<comment><USER18> Is breaking of the ribs really a requirement of CPR done correctly? My understanding was that it is possible for ribs to break but by no means a requirement of correct CPR as the article implies.

<comment><USER17> It depends. Depending on the age of the person and the fragility of the bones. It's not a "requirement" in any sense, more "if it's not a risk, you're not going deep enough" \- typical standards call for 1/3 to 1/2 the chest depth.

As often as that - it's much more (almost guaranteed) that you'll tear the cartilage between the ribs at the front.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> It isn't just how they die. Similar articles could be written on "How doctors loose weight", "How doctors pick their doctors" or "What do doctors do when their kids are sick". Insider knowledge and the education to effectively employ that knowledge always has advantages.

I do take issue with the concept that these docs are dieing "without treatment". They get treatment. They are diagnosed (a big deal) and have ready access to a host of pain management drugs. Having a full understanding of your condition, along with the knowledge that any pain can and will be managed very quickly, is a massive stress reduction. That's a form of treatment imho.

</comment><comment><USER20> Can't speak for other people, but the fascination for me is a combination of decisions that are difficult and universal and then watching to see how subject matter experts (who view this stuff on a day to day basis) choose for themselves.

I think this invariably results in deeply moving meditations on mortality and dignity from both sides of the table (care provider and patient). Or maybe I'm just suffering a recency bias from this: [http://med.stanford.edu/news/all- news/2015/03/stanford-neuro...](http://med.stanford.edu/news/all- news/2015/03/stanford-neurosurgeon-writer-paul-kalanithi-dies-at-37.html)

<comment><USER21> There's also a factor of compliance and regulation that affects what doctors are able to say to their patients.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I had a conversation about this with a friend yesterday.

What I would like to understand, is what the difference is between one incurable terminal condition and the next is, and why we're culturally stuck on trying to divide things up into "approved" and "not-approved" categories.

Death happens for everyone. Most everyone, if they make it to very old age, will have degenerated physically and mentally from where they once were. I wonder, if our sympathies are telling us to consider whether a person with X condition should be allowed to end their life, whether that same thought process shouldn't consider all end-of-life conditions to be equal, given their shared terminality and expectation of degeneration.

Or, on the flip side, should we think terminality and expectation of degeneration in these cases is not enough, whether it is appropriate to accept it in this subset of cases.

</comment><comment><USER23> There's one thing they left out of the article. Yes, we are all going to get sick, and eventually die. Doctors--know the expected survival rates. Doctors do seem to end up with the right medications to really make those last days comfortable, or take the right amout and overdose properly?

Now, their patients, especially the poor, stereotyped, etc. are sent home, and when a doctor feels like they need Hospice, they give their approval.

I had a poor friend die. It was obvious he only had a few months left, but the doctor wouldn't o.k. Hospice? We went to two clinics, and a pain clinic and neither would give him the medications (Opioids and Benzodiazepines) he needed. One pain clinic(noted one of the better ones--in San Francisco) offered to cut some nerves?(I still don't know what these Blow Hards wanted to cut.)

Why didn't he get the right medications; well in the states we assume everyone is going to abuse drugs. It's just getting worse. Doctors are not taking away pain.

O.K., but once you have Hospice, everything is fine these fine? Doctors are trained in Pallitive care--if you get lucky. My experience watching my father die of liver cancer was a week of Hell. Hs last words to me before he went onto one of his last comas was "Son--when will this end?" Yea--no shit!

The nurse finally came around. She then let my sister manipulate his medications which made his discomfort even worse.(my sister thought he should spend more time with his grand kids, and she wanted him to give her more things?) There I said it. Yea, she's a piece of work.

I know this. When I am given that diagnosis of death. I used to think I would go to the bad part of town and buy smack, crack, whatnot, but as I've gotten older and I don't have the fight in me like I did in my 30's; I will probally just suffer through the agony of death like my father endured? Or, I might do what Robin Williams felt he had to do?

Robin's wife said she was glad he picked up his ipad when he walked by her. She said, Robin hadn't watched tv, nor went on the Internet for the last six months.

Robin was found in his stepson's bedroom with a belt around his neck. A towel was wrapped around the belt. I'm assuming to make the suicide more comfortable? Crude knife marks on his wrists--from a pocket knife. An ipad was found near the body with websites open to the the various side effects of the drugs he was given. I don't know all the drugs he was given, but they found a bottles of Seroquil? and a drug used to help with the neurological disorder he had.

Why did I repeat this story. Because this is how we are forced to die in the United States. I don't know why Robin committed suicide. He sounded like he was suffering for a long time, on many levels? I don't know if the prescription drugs he was taking made things worse? Either way, he shouldn't have had to die like this. I'll pass this along too. Don't think suicide is easy. I knew a guy who tried to blow his head off with a shot gun. He blew his frontal cortex off, and spent the next 30 years paralized in a rest home. He died of a lung infection. I didn't know him personally. I worked for the Cororners office at the time, and picked up hs body.

Enough, I feel sick from even writing about this gruesome stuff, but nothing changes. Doctors should treat the pain of their patients, and the government shoud not harass them.

And we need a "right to die with dignity" law like Oregon passed. They passed it a few years ago, and very few decided to use the kit. Most decided to go naturally, but it must be reassuring knowing you have an alternative? I yacked on, but it's something I think about often.

</comment><comment><USER24> This has been posted a number of times in different iterations on HN. I'm curious why the user group here has such a fascination with medical doctors.

<comment><USER25> Engineers have a peculiar relationship with doctors. When they have need of one, and the doctor decides on a treatment plan for them, they think about the complexity of the problem space the doctor had to navigate to reach that decision. They wish the doctor would chart the parameter space for them, so they can agree or disagree with the choice in an informed manner, and have more of a clue about the competence of the doctor. This is usually not what happens, not to their satisfaction anyway, and it's deeply unsettling having to trust rather than know when it comes to something that appears so much like engineering on the surface.

An alternative title for this article might be "what doctors really think", and thus strikes to the heart of this issue.

<comment><USER26> Or, as a (former) doctor, I love telling my engineer friends:

Intuition can't be formalized.

Part of the reason simply being the "system level" thinking that has to be developed, practiced and honed by any doctor worth his/her salt. And when you think of it, even with our current understanding of the human organism and the phenomenon called life, we are primarily working using 'heuristics', barely glimpsing the ultra-complex jigsaw that makes everything tick. Someday, when the _ken_ of this knowledge is complete, we may be able to formalize the logic, albeit, the 'computer' it runs on, may well be as complex as our own brains!

<comment><USER27> Want to bet? I'll bet that in 20 years we will have programs that can diagnose a patient and explain how it came to its conclusions.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The American Experiment - <AUTHOR> http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/1995/09/06/01postma.h15.html

<comment><USER2> > The American Constitution is not a catechism but a hypothesis.

That is a very catchy line. I enjoyed reading this, even if at the start I was wishing for a bit more of a top down / newspaper style construction. But it works, once you get a bit further into it.</comment>


So what's really in the TPP for Tech? – No software patents - <AUTHOR> http://techblog.nz/981-SowhatsreallyintheTPPforTech

<comment><USER2> The ISDS makes everything else moot.

I do not consider plain packaging laws for cigarettes to be anything like nationalisation of an operating mine, but it is plain paper packaging laws in Australia which Philip Morris is using ISDS to pursue.

There is not enough good that can possibly come from the TPP to make up for the ISDS trap.</comment>


AMD's master plan to topple Intel - Back to the top on a radical GPU - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/07/07/amd_graphics_core_next/ <comment><USER2> Strangely, AMD had almost always better technical talent/product in terms of architectural design, but always stumbled on intel's business practices (see computer history museum panel) and manufacturing weaknesses.

For the better part, they made a better x86 for their time: 386, 486, K5 (core), 3DNow (all the SIMD intel lacked, and the MMX patch in response was a joke), 64bit (which intel was late by years) etc. comes to mind. I hope it will be different this time.

<comment><USER3> Intel wasn't just late to the game for 64bit, EMT64 == AMD64. The cross- licensing that Intel was bemoaning for years finally worked in their favor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've been waiting for them to make more official announcements to this effect, and more details - there's been more than enough info to imply this is their goal for quite a while now. And I feel I must say: WANT. If this succeeds, it'll be a game-changer in almost every way.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'd love to be able to go back to the diverse ecosystem we had in the 80's, but I don't see how an architecture that deviates significantly from the x86 norm could gain traction in this Windows world.

<comment><USER6> I don't think this is meant to replace the x86 ISA, but rather SIMD units like MMX/SSE and traditional GPU shaders. The article was a bit muddled -- I'm waiting for the Anandtech version.

Successful adoption will be dependent on good tooling. Auto-vectorizing is really hard in compilers, mostly because current languages aren't really built for it. But if AMD were to introduce something purpose-built (eg, with a Matlab-like syntax), then that might compel devs who aren't assembly or GPU gurus to develop against this.

<comment><USER7> > But if AMD were to introduce something purpose-built (eg, with a Matlab-like > syntax), then that might compel devs who aren't assembly or GPU gurus to > develop against this.

Does anyone know if it's possible to program GPUs today _without_ using a new, special purpose programming language? That would be the killer app for GPUs.

I see your point about most languages not admitting auto-vectorization. But couldn't you take a compilable functional language like Gambit Scheme, Clojure, or Haskell and emit GPU code for constructs like map and fold on numeric vector types?

<comment><USER8> > Does anyone know if it's possible to program GPUs today without using a new, > special purpose programming language? That would be the killer app for GPUs.

Haskell has an embedded domain specific language for it. (It's probably a monad.)

<comment><USER7> Hmm. Are you referring to this?

<http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~chak/papers/acc-cuda.pdf>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> How about Bulldozer sometime soon? I've been putting off my upgrades to see how it compares to Sandy Bridge, but that Q2 2011 launch didn't exactly happen.

<comment><USER10> Same here. bulldozer got pushed out again, some folks are saying the silicon was underperforming by more than anticipated so they have to keep it I the lab and rev stuff NOW that they had planned for the refresh in 2012.

Then we have ivybridge at the end of this year promising just under 4ghz with 8 core desktop chips from intel.

I expect AMD to stay behind until 2013. They are rushing right now, and not hitting their marks BUT their tech and teams are strong. As that wobble evens our and this new platform (first redesign in like 7 or 8 years) settles down, they can shrink die, point forward and speed up.

I expect 2013-2015 to be a goddamn bloodbath between the big chip makers at the top (intel, amd) and Samsung, Qualcomm, nvidia and Apple shooting up from the bottom with ever faster and lower power multicore RISC chips.

I imagine by 2015 the landscape will be a hodgepodge of every kind of tech out there and then the acquisitions and shakeout will take us to 2020 where things get more homogenous again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The architecture reminds me of the PS3's Cell processor, but not as insane.

</comment><comment><USER12> Many interesting designs over the years appear and then faded. If they don't get distribution, nothing will happen.

As consumers are often saying today. "I don't want a tablet, I want an iPad"</comment>


Seriously, don't use icon fonts - <AUTHOR> http://blog.cloudfour.com/seriously-dont-use-icon-fonts/ <comment><USER2> So the Opera Mini argument doesn't ring particularly true and looking deeper it appears that while it DOES rival iOS Safari worldwide it it used almost only in Africa. As far as screen readers go honestly trying to fully support these is nearly impossible IMHO.

I'm not trying to say that Africa/Screen readers/etc don't matter but unless you are a massive international company I can't see supporting this being a good use of time. Most startups are barely making it by as is and it's a much better idea to support the majority of users.

I'm really sorry if I'm coming across as harsh but trying to support screen readers feels like a never ending battle and unless you are doing business in Africa, Opera Mini doesn't matter. SVG might be better or just as good as icon fonts but icon fonts are BY FAR easier to use at this point. If you want to make a difference then produce a better/easier way to handle it instead of acting like icon fonts are pure evil.</comment>


Ask HN: What online services do you use to calculate and file sales tax? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> If you're in the US or Canada, Avalara is a solid solution. They offer sales tax calculation and filing (in some states) and integrate into the popular shopping carts/accounting software. The agency I work at has done numerous implementations for large online retailers. Last I checked pricing was at $350/yr for up to 700 transactions.

</comment><comment><USER3> I might be an old fashioned Canadian, but I refuse to use online services for my taxes because I don't know where, or with whom that information is being hosted. So I buy a disc or download the software every year to do the taxes and I file them by sending them over the net to the CRA.</comment>


Show HN: EOS SDK – write apps for your datacenter switches - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/aristanetworks/EosSdk/wiki

<comment><AUTHOR> I know Show HN's are usually reserved for small, personal projects, but I'm pretty excited to finally make EOS SDK public. Essentially this gives you Python and C++ bindings to write apps that hook directly into Arista's networking stack. Also, since EOS is Linux (Fedora), you can use your standard environment and debugging routine during development, then test on an EOS VM (called vEOS), all of which keeps the barrier to getting started a lot lower.

We're still expanding the number of modules that are available, but already we've seen agents ranging from simple event-driven monitoring, to full-blown controller-driven custom routing protocols. It's pretty awesome to see what people can do when you give them a proper interface to the networking stack!</comment>


Why Alexa Won't Light Up During Amazon's Super Bowl Ad - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-02/here-s-why-alexa-won-t-light-up-during-amazon-s-super-bowl-ad <comment><USER2> Could probably also have done something like this to modify the audio...

[https://nicholas.carlini.com/code/audio_adversarial_examples...](https://nicholas.carlini.com/code/audio_adversarial_examples/)</comment>


What is value proposition? Does your startup has good value proposition? How to measure it? :) - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Value proposition is a term used to refer to the benefit(s) received (or perceived) by a user of your product or service . A more precise and useful measure is the economic value of your product or service to a user. In an ideal world it is defined as the difference between the amount of money the user can make or save using your product less the amount that they can make/save without. In the real world an estimated economic value (EVA) is normally used. It is used for both pricing decisions and value communication to potential users.

<comment><USER3> good explanation</comment></comment>


The First Step for Ruby on Rails - <AUTHOR> http://www.jamesjohnson.me/

<comment><USER2> I've been following through the online version of Michael Hartl's RoR book: <http://ruby.railstutorial.org/ruby-on-rails-tutorial-book>

It's proven to be a GREAT way to learn the basics from the ground up while building an actual app at the same time.

<comment><USER3> Thanks! Glad you like it. As you probably know, there's already a Rails Tutorial chapter (and screencast) on Rails 3.1, but I'm also working on a full 3.1 update as well. Look for the new book in November or December, with the screencasts to follow a couple of months later. Sign up for the news feed for the latest updates: <http://feeds.feedburner.com/railstutorial>

<comment><USER4> Hi Michael, got a few questions for you:

1) Will the update to 3.1 be free for existing customers?

2) Would you mind to share a bit of your process of making the screencasts?

Thanks!

PS: I have the print book, the pdf, and the screencast. Love them.

<comment><USER3> The supplementary Rails 3.1 chapter and screencast were free for existing customers. The full revision won't be free, but existing customers will receive a substantial discount on the new product.

As far as my publication and production processes go, I have big plans in this direction. I need to make the 3.1 update first, but after that I'll have more details for you. Stay tuned. :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5>
      copy and paste in the following command:
      /usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/gist/323731)"

It is getting more and more popular to come across such installation recipes. "Just execute this command", which will download some code from the net and run it on your machine. Yes, it's easy and quick but it's terribly insecure, especially without HTTPS. Just take a look at <http://npmjs.org> . Just imagine the results if npmjs.org gets compromised. This trend is troubling.

<comment><USER6> At some point you're downloading something and executing it. Unless you pick through all of the source code or decompile the binaries you download, you could get caught at any stage.

For a beginner, it makes no difference if they get burnt by a gist or by a compromised package or binary. And they can at least attempt to read <https://raw.github.com/gist/323731> in plain text.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Nice guide, I wish I had it when I first started rails. However, vim? I love vim, and suggest everyone learns it. But if the point of a guide is to teach the basic installation of ROR, I wouldn't suggest making them open vim, too.

<comment><USER8> especially when it can be replaced with one line

echo "[[ -s $HOME/.rvm/scripts/rvm ]] && . $HOME/.rvm/scripts/rvm" >> ~/.bashrc

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> After using rvm, I'd suggest using rbenv (<https://github.com/sstephenson/rbenv>) instead.

It doesn't try to do as much, so a little less magic. The biggest thing I like is that it doesn't try to do anything with gems, which is good - I've been trying to use bundler for everything.

<comment><USER10> I hate to single you out, but it's become really hard for me to listen to any Ruby developers decry "magic" as a bad thing in RVM. RVM is an excellent tool that was taken down a notch by a hit job needlessly perpetrated by the author of rbenv.

RVM is no more magic than rbenv, and to listen to Ruby developers (who treasure "magic") talk about it as if RVM commits some cardial sin by overriding `cd` tops out my nerd-rage-meter. Ruby, home of the monkey patchers, has no place calling out RVM for overriding `cd`.

RVM and rbenv serve similar purposes. RVM gives you gemsets as well. You may not need them today, but they're there if you do. I use Ruby for a lot of system administrative tasks. These tasks run inside cron jobs and other places where a bundle really doesn't make sense. Despite the fact that they're no longer in vogue, gemsets are still very useful.

Should you check out rbenv? Yes. But the "little less magic" is a really poor basis by which you should evaluate it as a tool.

<comment><USER11> Monkey patching in ruby has well-known problems (what happens when two libraries patch the same object?), and now good library maintainers know not to monkey-patch standard libraries. Neither should RVM.

The monkey-patching of `cd` is the main reason I'm not using RVM. I depend on `cd` to work, every time, rock solid, _especially_ when my system is unstable. I can't risk having a dependency or bug in their `cd` script breaking my most commonly used shell command.

rbenv has demonstrated that it's not necessary to override `cd` to manage ruby versions, so why does RVM still do it?

<comment><USER12> Can you explain to me how did RVM cause cd to interfere with your work experience? Im curious because Ive been using it forever and other than it executing my .rvmrc files, havent noticed a bit of difference

<comment><USER11> RVM's overriding of cd isn't portable to other shells. I can't use it in my favourite shell (fish).

Yeah, there's <http://beginrescueend.com/integration/fish/>, but I tried that and it started printing errors every time I used cd due to some bug (this was over a year ago, there's a good chance it's been fixed, but it just left me really shy about overriding cd).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I did the step up to "[[ -s $HOME/.rvm/scripts/rvm ]] && . $HOME/.rvm/scripts/rvm", and then tried "rvm install ruby-1.9.2-p290" but it said "rvm: command not found". Ideas?

<comment><USER14> I dont belive that bashrc is being executed on a mac as standard. Try:

source ~/.bashrc

If that worked add this to your .bash_profile

[ -f ~/.bashrc ] && . ~/.bashrc

<comment><USER15> Yes, that worked! I am on OSX Lion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A nice style, but for beginners, why would you suggest going into Vim (or any editor) with the potential for screwing up? Even RVM's _actual installation documentation_ says to just do this:

      echo '[[ -s "$HOME/.rvm/scripts/rvm" ]] && . "$HOME/.rvm/scripts/rvm" # Load RVM function' >> ~/.bash_profile

(from <http://beginrescueend.com/rvm/install/>)

</comment><comment><USER16> This seems a bit oversimplified and misses opportunities to teach a lot of the fundamentals about Rails as part of the installation process. I still recommend Agile Web Development with Rails for learning rails: [http://pragprog.com/book/rails4/agile-web-development- with-r...](http://pragprog.com/book/rails4/agile-web-development-with-rails)

</comment><comment><USER17> Quick tip: A Rails IDE like RubyMine (paid) or RadRails (free) is well worth the money if you are just starting out.

</comment><comment><USER18> Why you added VIM and RVM into the mix? Those are distractions.

<comment><USER19> I agree with you on vim (gedit would have been a better choice), but RVM had been a huge help when I first started with Rails (and Ruby development) in general. It took away the need for sudo gem installations, for one.</comment></comment>


What you call integration testing, I call sloppy programming - <AUTHOR> http://blog.tmorris.net/what-you-call-integration-testing-i-call-sloppy-programming/ <comment><USER2> Pretty shallow article. Must have been good for his ego though.

</comment><comment><USER3> The classic sign of someone unable to explain their point of view is screaming "You aren't smart enough to understand what I'm saying!"

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Amusing and lacking detailed examples, but there's an underlying idea in there that gave me pause.

</comment><comment><USER4> Very simplistic look from someone who has obviously never performed said "integration testing".

<comment><USER5> I happen to know that Tony used to work for IBM on their Java implementation. I find it difficult to imagine that he hasn't been involved in some kind of integration testing.</comment></comment>


AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2920X and 2970WX Linux Performance Benchmarks - <AUTHOR> https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd-2920x-2970wx <comment><USER2> And before anyone asks, the Windows performance is still bad with Threadrippers in many situations, so it is better to use Linux with these [https://www.anandtech.com/show/13516/the-amd- threadripper-2-...](https://www.anandtech.com/show/13516/the-amd- threadripper-2-cpu-review-pt2-2970wx-2920x/8)

<comment><USER3> Doesn't the 'performance for dollars' section at the end also seem to say that for most uses a 2700x is a better option? I have been considering going that route, so I was happy to see that.</comment></comment>


The bonding of optical elements - <AUTHOR> https://www.optical-cement.com/cements/manual/manual.html <comment><USER2> This is an internet gem. In the pre-internet days, you would only gain access to this information if you knew this person, or someone like them, and happened to ask them the right questions. Something like this would be too trivial to write down in a book, and not novel enough for a monograph. Even if it did happen to get published, what are the odds that your community library would have a copy of the relevant book, or that you would be able to find it through a card catalog search?

In 2019, @killjoywashere will be able to repair his microscope optic by theirself, with just a little Googling and reading, scary page design aside.

</comment><comment><USER3> I feel like this page can send even fighter pilots scrambling for accessibility features on their browser. Impressive feat in its own.

<comment><USER4> Blue text in a blank + blue background... What's not to like?

At least it's readability-mode friendly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Straight forward practical technical notes for those of us amateur telescope makers who might venture away from the typical reflector to an achromatic refractor or to attempt eyepieces. nice simulated graph paper background

</comment><comment><USER6> Why am I reading this?

<comment><AUTHOR> I came across it because I have a microscope component that was left sideways and learned that the inner lens of a doublet had slid on it's bonding media, rendering the component useless. Trying to warm it and gently slide it back into place didn't work (pulled an air bubble in), so I ended up on this deep dive into lens bonding. And I just really enjoyed this guy's total obsession with the trade.

It's definitely not presented as a case-study in adaptive design. It's a case study in great, edge-case content.</comment></comment>