LokiJS – Lightweight JavaScript in-memory database - <AUTHOR> http://lokijs.org/ <comment><USER2> Great!

I'm really no expert, but I think that language-specific persistent in-memory databases are the way to go.

Deep inside, what I really want on my backends is just a data structure. A single big tree (or graph) of objects. Some primitives to make it thread-safe somehow (immutable collections, or mutexes, or just old-fashioned single- threadedness like Node - whatever), and that's it. Requests from the client query and mutate that data. In _very many_ situations, I wouldn't need anything special to make this work fine with an application up to a pretty large number of users. Not all apps do big data analyses. RAMs are gigantic these days, bigger than the SQL datafiles of swathes of webapps.

However, there's that pesky problem of code upgrades and crashing servers. If my server would never crash and I could hot-swap the code, I wouldn't need persistence at all. But I do, so I don't just want an in-memory datastructure, but a _persistent_ in-memory data structure. I want to use this datastructure as easily as the programming language could possibly make it be for me while still guaranteeing some sane level of persistence and fault tolerance.

Redis is a nice idea, but the fact that it's a separate server, with a client and a protocol and data structures that _just not precisely_ map to my programming language's data structures force me to write a whole bunch of boilerplate anyway. Even more so with other databases like Mongo or Postgres.

If I understand it well, Loki doesn't entirely do what I'd want: it does not save the data to disk on every change, but less often, if I get it right. That might be good enough if my problem allows for many little independent Loki databases, but if the dataset is a gigabyte and persistence means flushing that whole gigabyte to disk after every data change, it probably won't work very well.

I'm really curious if other people here have similar ideas, maybe implementations, of these concepts. Maybe Loki could be extended with a snapshot+operation_log type of data storage like Redis has and then it'd be pretty close.

<comment><USER3> > If I understand it well, Loki doesn't entirely do what I'd want: it does not > save the data to disk on every change, but less often, if I get it right.

From a cursory glance at the source, it doesn't look like anything internal ever calls .save()/.saveToDisk(), so it is up to you to decide how often you want to be creating your on-disk checkpoints.

EDIT: Seems I am wrong: "In a nodejs/node-webkit environment LokiJS also persists to disk whenever an insert, update or remove is performed." [1]. But I still can't spot where .save[/ToDisk] is called in the source [2]. Anyone?

> That might be good enough if my problem allows for many little independent > Loki databases, but if the dataset is a gigabyte and persistence means > flushing that whole gigabyte to disk after every data change, it probably > won't work very well.

If you're looking at gigabyte+ datasets, then something designed to be in- memory is probably not your best bet. Aside from saving, (one imagines) this would also affect load times (reading->parsing->importing a multi-GB JSON file at launch can't be quick).

From [1]:

> LokiJS is ideal for the following scenarios:

* where a lightweight in-memory db is ideal

* cross-platform mobile apps where you can leverage the power of javascript and avoid interacting with native databases

* data sets are not so large that it wouldn't be a problem loading the entire db from a server and synchronising at the end of the work session

[1] [https://github.com/techfort/LokiJS](https://github.com/techfort/LokiJS)

[2] [https://github.com/techfort/LokiJS/blob/master/src/lokijs.js](https://github.com/techfort/LokiJS/blob/master/src/lokijs.js)

<comment><USER2> > _If you 're looking at gigabyte+ datasets, then something designed to be in- > memory is probably not your best bet. Aside from saving, (one imagines) this > would also affect load times (reading->parsing->importing a multi-GB JSON > file at launch can't be quick)._

Why not? I only need to load when my program starts, i.e. after a crash or maybe an upgrade when hot code swapping is not available. Sounds like there may be plenty of persistence schemes that make this not entirely painful (load latest data first, or fallback to disk reads if the data isn't entirely loaded yet, which makes the service slower but still available right after a crash).

Note, I'm really just dreaming here, and I appreciate you dreaming along. Dreaming is good! Some frontend dev dreamed "i just want to rebuild the entire page whenever data changes!" and then React happened.

Thanks for your dig into the code btw, nice findings! I can't find the save() calls either, so I suspect that they used to be there but aren't now, or the other way around. It's alpha, after all.

<comment><USER3> My (unseen) emphasis was on _best_ bet.

It would work, but I think it would be dangerous and/or inconvenient.

The danger part comes from having a sync-to-disk operation that lasts any considerable amount of time - the longer it lasts, the more the likelihood that an inopportune crash would leave you with an incomplete (read: corrupted) JSON file. A DB built for fast disk persistence would only update the relevant records, keeping the disk writes as small as possible. I don't think Loki has any option other than writing the entire thing each time (with the current JSON savefiles, that is). Since save() is an expensive op, you also can't be calling it at every update (it wouldn't even work! the first one would lock the file for writing and all subsequent save() ops, until the first one is done, would fail!) so it would be inherently unsafe _unless you committed GBs to disk for each update!_.

So, this might be somewhat dangerous, but we can mitigate that, right? We'll save frequently, but not too frequently, and somehow version-control our JSON file. Which is GB+ in size. So we'll also compress them? And when we need to restore, we'd.. hmm.. start reading from the latest until a valid one is found? (<\--inconvenience)

> Note, I'm really just dreaming here, and I appreciate you dreaming along.

Likewise!

> Sounds like there may be plenty of persistence schemes that make this not > entirely painful (load latest data first, or fallback to disk reads if the > data isn't entirely loaded yet, which makes the service slower but still > available right after a crash).

While those certainly exist, the one currently chosen by Loki can't do any of these things. Since you can't parse half a JSON file (especially in this format, which appends index info etc at the end of the file), you have to read the entire thing from disk, JSON.parse it, and then feed it into Loki. Only after all of that will you know that you are actually restoring from meaningful (and complete) data files and not junk.

The way I see this, it would be great for throwaway-prototypes on the serverside (or for few/unimportant data) but its real value would show on the client side. You basically get a mini-mongodb for 2K LOC that you can embed on anything that speaks ECMA3.

What's even cooler IMHO is the future - on their slideshare presentation they list replication and horizontal scaling on their roadmap. While I have no idea how they have envisaged implementing those, I would love to experiment with the meteor.js concepts and this - providing a full, fast cache of the user's data on the client side and then throw differential updates around.

edit: spelling

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Related: SQL.js, which is sqlite compiled with emscripten

[https://github.com/kripken/sql.js](https://github.com/kripken/sql.js)

<comment><USER5> Except that file is 10x bigger than loki…

<comment><USER6> So? It's also full-blown sqlite. Let's not pretend file sizes matter much in modern times.

<comment><USER7> It does if you're going to send that to a browser.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> From skimming the presentation it looks like a project similar to Meteor's Minimongo and Miniredis ([https://www.meteor.com/mini- databases](https://www.meteor.com/mini-databases)) used for browser caches. Minimongo, for example, implements a great majority of Mongo selectors (there are no secondary indexes, though).

(I contributed to both Minimongo and Miniredis)

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm curious why NeDB wouldn't suffice.

[https://github.com/louischatriot/nedb](https://github.com/louischatriot/nedb)

<comment><USER3> From the slideshare presentation on the homepage (p. 4)[1]

> Performs better than similar products (NeDB, TaffyDB, PouchDB etc.) and it's > much smaller

It would be interesting to see benchmarks.

[1] [http://www.slideshare.net/techfort/lokijs/4](http://www.slideshare.net/techfort/lokijs/4)

<comment><USER9> Thanks for sharing that. I jumped the gun before commenting.

<comment><USER3> No worries. I just noticed they include the benchmarks here [1]

[1] [https://github.com/techfort/LokiJS/tree/master/benchmark](https://github.com/techfort/LokiJS/tree/master/benchmark)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> How does this compare to DataCollection.js?

[https://www.npmjs.org/package/data- collection](https://www.npmjs.org/package/data-collection) [http://thestorefront.github.io/DataCollection.js/](http://thestorefront.github.io/DataCollection.js/)

They look fairly similar. What's the test coverage and do you have performance benchmarks?

</comment><comment><USER11> Out of pure curiosity, what are the common use cases for a fast in-memory database? Are they exclusive to server-side applications (e.g. caching)?

<comment><USER12> Cordova is a big one. The ability to have rich queries into some persistent data set is something that's difficult to achieve atm.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's precisely why I created LokiJS in the first place, then it grew much bigger than that but yeah - that is where it all came from.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Excellent project, there needs to be more focus in this space. I've been feeling a general trend of developers going back to basic embedded databases.

I'm working on a similar project, that is focused on ease of use combined with distributed/decentralized (concurrency safe) behavior. Http://github.com/amark/gun

</comment><comment><USER14> Has anyone used this is lieu of or in comparison to Redis? Am I correct in assuming that with LokiJS, one could move in-memory data storage from the server (with Redis) to the browser (with LokiJS)?

This project looks quite interesting. Thanks for sharing. Could be a great solution for single-page web apps (and mobile, Cordova, etc.).

<comment><USER15> If you want a simple key-value-store in the browser, why don't you directly use localStorage(+JSON)? It's supported since IE8. My guess is that this thing is using localStorage under the hood.

<comment><USER16> Presumably because LokiJS is faster. (I don't know if that's actually true.) And no, I just looked at the source code and Loki does not use localStorage under the hood. It's an in-memory database without a persistence layer, so you lose the data when you leave the page (in the browser).

Edit: Actually, reading more about Loki, it looks like the whole point of it is to provide querying/indexing capabilities to data in memory. So I don't know if there would be any value in using it as a replacement for key/value stores.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This looks interesting. Coincidentally I was just searching around for something like this to run in the browser.

I'll play around with it myself, but is there anyone who has used this that knows how well it does with memory usage?

<comment><USER18> Uhm, I'm pretty sure it can use all your ram if you want. It's an in-memory database, so all your ram will be used for data...

<comment><USER16> I think the question was more about how compactly it stores the data in memory.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I want a very fast, client-side, read-only database with rich query support. Is this the best choice?</comment>


The death toll for Covid-19 in Nembro, Italy - <AUTHOR> https://www.corriere.it/politica/20_marzo_26/the-real-death-toll-for-covid-19-is-at-least-4-times-the-official-numbers-b5af0edc-6eeb-11ea-925b-a0c3cdbe1130.shtml <comment><USER3> There a few possible (and reasonable) explanations in the HN comments, one more is that often covid-19 leads to pneumonia and that may be what is attributed as the cause of death, (nefarious or not).

I did hear rumors of Japan doing this intentionally to make it look more under control than it was.

Another possibility is that medical resources are being monopolized by covid patients, or people don't want to go to hospital for fear of catching it themselves. This situation is still caused by covid but wouldn't be shown in the reported deaths from covid.

The article brings up a valid concern, but doesn't explore any other possibile explainations which is irresponsible when people are already panicking.

<comment><USER4> The numbers really don't seem consistent across all the countries. Just one example is the death rate in Germany is 0.9% while the death rate in Spain is 8.5%, nearly a magnitude of difference with both countries have several 10s of thousands of cases, and that number varies between the two extremes all over the continent (and world).

<comment><USER5> I read that Germany is not testing the dead, so if someone wasn't tested while alive then their death is attributed elsewhere. Italy is testing the dead to get a more accurate picture. I find it baffling that there isn't an international standard for testing in a situation like this so that we can get a handle on what is actually going on. If we don't have data, how can we possibly draw inferences and learn anything?

<comment><USER6> There are international standards and the standard is that flu is not normally considered a cause of death. It's not realistic to expect autopsies to be performed and coroners reports to be written on every person who dies of pneumonia during an epidemic.

<comment><USER5> And yet I understand this is what is happening in Italy where the suspected cause of death is Covid19. If we don't make it realistic to expect this (during a pandemic), then how can we trust the numbers?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think when all the dust will settle, we will know the real death count by doing a delta of total deaths of 2020 vs. 2019 and 2018. There will be two main reasons of the extra deaths:

1\. Deaths related directly by Covid-19. (either the disease itself, or the underlying conditions got worse by the disease)

2\. People that didn't have the coronavirus, but died because they couldn't get the usual care due to hospitals being totally overwhelmed (things like heart attacks, strokes, car accidents, insuline/asma shock, etc... turn into death sentences)

Same as in war, while many deaths are caused directly by the fighting, a lot of the other extra deaths are indirect (famine, disease... etc)/

<comment><USER8> Potentially a 2020 vs previous years approach would even slightly underestimate the death toll.

I have to assume being in lockdown suppresses other 'normal' causes of death (fewer car accidents, or conventional disease spread). Depending on how long these lockdowns really last, it could actually dent the real impact of those causes of death, making the covid peak look slightly smaller vs the average.

<comment><USER9> We can subtract traffic accidents, homicides, suicides, falls etc and compare only remaining numbers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> That the official numbers underreport Covid-19 deaths by a factor of 4 is one hypothesis -- but it's also possible that this is how many people would be saved by quick interventions at the hospital, but who otherwise died.

For example, maybe the ICU beds were full for a month, and in that time they would've saved 96 people, but couldn't.

<comment><USER11> Are you saying a spike in _non_ -covid deaths — e.g., heart-attack, etc? That's certainly a possibility and one of the main dangers at the moment with an overwhelmed healthcare system. It also raises an interesting question of how you account for the toll of the disease: on one hand you have deaths due to the disease itself, and on the other deaths that could have been preventable had the disease not overwhelmed hospitals.

<comment><USER12> Depending on how you count, you could hypothetically end up with mortality rates >100%. I.e. a disease that kills everyone it infects, and also closes down a hospital causing deaths among people it doesn't infect.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> All the statistics seem like a mess for this - we know every single region is doing different amounts of testing with many only testing highly symptomatic people, yet all these are being combined together. Then different protocols for what counts as different levels of severity etc. It will be interesting when people have had more time to sort through the data and clean it up properly what the real estimates of mortality and transmission actually are. Right now everything seems plausible right through from 50% of the population already had it and is immune through to the death rate being drastically under-estimated and we are about to experience an apocolyptic event for humanity ....

</comment><comment><USER14> Excellent work, and I hope more people in other cities start running these calculations.

> In the hypothesis - not at all remote - that all citizens of Nembro have > caught the virus (with many asymptomatic, therefore), 158 deaths would > equate to a lethality rate of 1%. That is precisely the expected and > measured lethality rate on the Diamond Princess cruise ship and - <USER2> > proportionally by demographic structure - in South Korea. We have made > exactly the same calculation for the municipalities of Cernusco sul Naviglio > (Mi) and Pesaro using exactly the same methodology. In Cernusco the number > of anomalous deaths is equal to 6.1 times those officially attributed to > Covid-19, also in Pesaro 6.1 times. But even more staggering are the Bergamo > figures, where the ratio reaches 10.4.

This seems an unreasonable assumption, no? I don't think any models predict a 100% infection rate: herd immunity would kick in beforehand, at the least.

If true, then the death counts and death rates would be higher. E.g. with 50% infection, deaths are 4x, 12x and 20x, and the death rate is 2%.

Of course, you also have to account for local demographics.

Edit: I checked the numbers for Bergamo, and they're troubling. It's a city of 122,000, and it has a 0.5% death rate for the whole city.

Further, people are still sick and dying, so these death rates will only go up.

<comment><USER15> Naturally-occurring herd immunity is a temporary effect. Only artifically- imposed herd immunity (i.e. vaccination) is lasting.

<comment><USER16> Some diseases become endemic and pervasive in childhood and end up not causing issues in the elderly who already built up their immune system in childhood. Other times an exposure in childhood ends up cross reacting or something and makes things more deadly later on (I think that's one theory for the 1918 flu; elderly and middle age were protected from an earlier flu exposure, 20-30 year olds had exposure in childhood to something different with a shared antigen that ended up making the immune system overreactive and made things more deadly).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Wasn't there a thing were deaths were recorded for the place where the person died, not where they normally live? So maybe those people just died in a hospital in another city? (I don't remember if this was for Italy, but I remember reading that about some place in connection with Corona).

In any case, why not make an effort to reach out to the cities in question and ask for an explanation?

</comment><comment><USER18> Has anyone seen any data on how this has made the average daily deaths in the US rise? I know that number probably isn't updated real time like the Covid-19 numbers. I think that would really show how much this is affecting us if the numbers go up drastically over the expected amount of deaths per year.

I have found the averages from last year, but haven't seen any more up to date data on that.

[https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm)

</comment><comment><USER19> I know of deaths at the local hospital ER with overlapping symptoms but not being officially counted as the deceased were never tested. On a county level there's maybe one or two recorded. This testing debacle is hurting everybody in more ways than one.

</comment><comment><USER20> Epidemic Modeling 101: Or why your CoVID19 exponential fits are wrong

"Over the past few weeks, a terrible affliction has been spreading across the world. Otherwise healthy and productive members of society have been infected with this devastating illness that causes them to fire up Excel, Python or R and start extrapolating the latest numbers of confirmed CoVID19 cases in their town, state, country or even the world!"

[https://medium.com/data-for-science/epidemic- modeling-101-or...](https://medium.com/data-for-science/epidemic- modeling-101-or-why-your-covid19-exponential-fits-are-wrong-97aa50c55f8)

</comment><comment><USER21> I remember the death toll for H1N1 to have been reported in the thousands when it happened but recently read that after a few years they said it was more like 150,000. It's possible they were just reporting US deaths where the 150k number is worldwide. How come the response for H1N1 is nowhere near as intense as the response for COVID?

<comment><USER22> Based on current trends, Covid-19 is trending to be around 10x or more worse than the 150k figure. Current projections have the US alone at 100k-200k deaths.

That would be why this response is more intense.

<comment><USER23> Except the high estimate for H1N1 in 2009 from the CDC is 575,000 deaths worldwide.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_swine_flu_pandemic](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_swine_flu_pandemic)

<comment><USER24> > The Infectious Diseases Society of America estimated that the total number > of deaths in the U.S. was 12,469

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Moderators: is it possible to have "(in Italy)" added to the title?

It's not clear this can be extrapolated to other countries. (In fact, they reference South Korea as a benchmark for the true value.)

</comment><comment><USER26>
       Nembro should have had - under normal conditions - about 35 deaths. 158 people were registered dead this year by the municipal offices. That is 123 more than the average.

      In the hypothesis - not at all remote - that all citizens of Nembro have caught the virus (with many asymptomatic, therefore), 158 deaths would equate to a lethality rate of 1%. That is precisely the expected and measured lethality rate on the Diamond Princess cruise ship

The author appears to be using the total dead (158) rather than the excess dead (123) for this calculation. That suggests that rather than the 1% "exact match", the lethality rate should be 0.78%.

<comment><USER14> Good catch. Though I looked up the population of Nembro. Wikipedia has it at 11,518.

So would the rate actually be a bit over 1%? Bergamo's was about 0.5% by the same metric incidentally.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Good ideas here of why it could be happening.

Let me add another: fear and hopeless. These kind of emotions may make people more prone to get sick with other illnesses and depress the immune system so it does not fight back as it really could.

<comment><USER27> Some references:

\- [https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/amp/articles/324090](https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/amp/articles/324090)

\- [https://psychcentral.com/news/2014/05/22/study-probes-how- em...](https://psychcentral.com/news/2014/05/22/study-probes-how-emotions- affect-immune-system/70192.html)

\- [https://www.simmsmanncenter.ucla.edu/center_events/healing-a...](https://www.simmsmanncenter.ucla.edu/center_events/healing- and-the-mind-emotions-and-the-immune-system/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> So if the mortality rate of the decease is what it is in Germany or Korea - about 0.5% but the number of dead is 4x the official 10.000. Then about 8 mio - ca 15% - of Italy's population has had it. Is that really correct?

<comment><USER29> Korea's CFR is 1.6%. Germany is 0.9%. Both are climbing over time as the time lag from detection to death is on the order of weeks.

<comment><USER30> Korea's used to be, what, .6% when they stabilized the number of infections? At the time I was hoping the true IFR was that low but as you say this thing can take a long time to kill people and given what a good job Korea's done with staying on top of their testing I'm not holding out hope that the IFR is below 1%.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> The stats for this are all over the place. Speaking for the UK, no distinction at all is made between died _of_ cononavirus and died _with_ coronavirus. We've had a University of Oxford study claiming that 50% of us have already been infected (a figure so outlandish you might wonder if it was rather a University _in_ Oxford) in which case we should expect the died _with_ figures to be a great deal more already, and what's more that herd immunity should be taking the pressure of the system any week now. But I can't help but feel this belief in hidden large denominator is wishful thinking.

<comment><USER32> 50% does seem outlandish, but from what I can see, the numbers infected are a lot lot higher than officially reported. I would go as far as to say that the majority of cases aren't being reported, because almost nobody without severe symptoms has access to testing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'd be curious how much variation there is in previous years; are there any previous significant month spikes that have been washed out by the average?

It doesn't seem plausible that random chance could account for 2020's, though.

<comment><USER33> I don't know what the distribution of deaths looks like normally, but a 4x difference is going to be several sigma unlikely in any reasonable one.

Also, consider that it happened _exactly at the same time coronavirus deaths spiked_ , which seems vanishingly unlikely to be a coincidence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Problems attributing deaths to COVID-19 will probably be common worldwide. Radio Free America had this similar report about excess deaths in Wuhan being far out of line from the confirmed COVID-19 deaths:

[https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/wuhan- deaths-03272020...](https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/wuhan- deaths-03272020182846.html)

(Note: This article is much more speculative and weakly-sourced than the Italian one. Also, be aware that RFA is funded and overseen by the US government.)

</comment><comment><USER35> It is possible that more people than usual are dying from other causes (heart disease, cancer, injuries) because the overwhelmed medical system is unable to treat them.

<comment><USER36> If so, it's still indirectly caused by the pandemic.

<comment><USER24> but not an actionable statistic for other countries

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Is anybody familiar with the authors or the website? These findings are shocking if true, but how do we verify their numbers or decide if the source is reliable?

</comment><comment><USER38> Good one. Always compare the current death rates with the death rates from the prior year or two. That will explain anomalies in reports by various countries.

</comment><comment><USER39> I believe in asian countries where sickness(which can spread) is stigmatized(i definitely believe it is in India..), people will be hesitant to get tested/treatment. There has been several news reports of medic professionals being asked to vacate rental homes, miscreants calling out names in front of patient's home. Not sure why they do them. This will just cause people with symptoms to not get tested.

</comment><comment><USER40> Can anyone actually tell me what was the cause of death if an 85 yo already had 3 diseases prior to this virus?

If a person has a terminal disease and has N months to live, but dies sooner from a car accident, the net deaths did not increase. This person was on the death queue.

edit: bring the silent downvotes. Also, a number of my family have tested positive for this virus.

<comment><USER41> Pretty important to capture the terminal catalyst to help understand the lethality of a pathogen.

"They would have died anyway" is true of anyone and tends to mask critically important information.

<comment><USER40> It's true of everyone given 150 years. Sure, but an 85 yo with 3 diseases was on the front of the queue.

We need to test for those who had it and didn't die. All evidence is pointing at orders of magnitude that had it but didn't show

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Let me get this straight (all of these are straight from the article):

1) Nembro, in the province of Bergamo, is the municipality most affected by Covid-19 in relation to the population.

2) hypothesis - not at all remote - [is] that all citizens of Nembro have caught the virus ... Given the decline seen in the last few days after the peak, flock immunity has likely been attained in Nembro.

3) 158 deaths would equate to a lethality rate of 1%. That is precisely the expected and measured lethality rate ...

So, the worst hit city in the worst hit region, with collapsed medical system and elderly population; the absolute upper bound on possible deaths; and we get 1% until herd immunity? This, again, is the upper bound of ultimate worst case, based on the article.

Isn't this a huge revision DOWN from the previous 2.5-3-6-8-15% numbers people are throwing around?

EDIT: what's up with the silent downvotes? I'm quoting the central number and assumptions directly from the article and asking a question. Should I take it as "you are right but I dislike it"?

</comment><comment><USER24> it's bad science to pick out one small sample of the most affected town (especially when arguably they could have considered the entirety of deaths) and extrapolating that "death rate is 4 times" . There is no statistical testing here, no confidence intervals, nothing. The 4x number is unsubstantiated. The hypothesis that the numbers are misreported seems to be true, but statistical tests are missing.

</comment><comment><USER27> I think there are already a few good probable explanations here. However without more clear data it is hard to find the real drivers.

</comment><comment><USER43> Has anyone looked at the equivalent numbers in the US? Or South Korea, or other places with outbreaks?

</comment><comment><USER44> Was in the news that in China the funeral homes urn deliveries are suspiciously larger than expected. In Russia there is a spike of pneumonia looking like dicease and deaths...

<comment><USER45> The unexpected number of urns answered by the quote from the article that initiated that "news": There were 56,007 cremations in Wuhan in the fourth quarter of last year.

After a month or two of lockdown in Wuhan, the number of backlogged urns is tens of thousands, that is to be expected.

<comment><USER45> Now incorrect: Bloomberg lowered number from 56,007 to 13,856 in their article — see note at bottom of [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-27/stacks- of...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-27/stacks-of-urns-in- wuhan-prompt-new-questions-of-virus-s-toll) which says "(Corrects characterization of 2018 and 2019 cremations data in story published March 27.)"

Original pre-correction here: [https://archive.md/g1BDx#selection-2503.0-2507.171](https://archive.md/g1BDx#selection-2503.0-2507.171)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I wonder why no one is using Wuhan, China numbers. Not reliable?

<comment><USER47> The same phenomenon has been anecdotally reported there as well, with a lot of untested "pneumonia" deaths: [https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3050311/its-...](https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3050311/its- pneumonia-everybody-china-knows-about-many-deaths-will-never)

<comment><USER48> Evey time I see an article critical of Chines government in SCMP I feel a shock until I remember it's a Hong Kong paper. But then I feel a little confused over Hong Kong's semi autonomous status.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> This is beyond a spurious claim.

</comment><comment><USER50> [Retracted]

<comment><USER14> No. In four areas in Italy, including a mid sized city.

> We have made exactly the same calculation for the municipalities of Cernusco > sul Naviglio (Mi) and Pesaro using exactly the same methodology. In Cernusco > the number of anomalous deaths is equal to 6.1 times those officially > attributed to Covid-19, also in Pesaro 6.1 times. But even more staggering > are the Bergamo figures, where the ratio reaches 10.4.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Just wait until the deaths of despair hit from the crashed economy and isolation. Alcoholism, opiates.

<comment><USER11> Counterpoint: While suicide increased, life expectancy overall increased during the Great Depression:

[https://www.pnas.org/content/106/41/17290](https://www.pnas.org/content/106/41/17290)</comment></comment>


'Alarming' loss of insects and spiders recorded - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-50226367 <comment><USER2> Australia's "Foreign Correspondent" ABC TV program did a 30 minute documentary recently on this, interviewing the scientists involved, showing the methodology and features some beautiful German scenery:

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

The farmers had an interesting response - since farming without chemicals results in much lower yield & less income, they were letting people "sponsor" chemical-free areas of their farm (think Patreon for farming). The more sponsorship they received, the more areas of farmland they converted. At a certain threshold, people could even pay to have the farmland replaced entirely with flowerbeds for bees.

<comment><USER3> Essentially what you're saying is that farmers have convinced wealthy people to pay them to stop growing food. If this catches on in a major way then I can think of at least one reason this will turn out badly.

<comment><USER4> They're giving an opportunity for wealthier patrons to subsidize the pesticide-free production of food.

Yes, they can ask for all of it to be bee playground, but markets still exist and food prices still will fluctuate

<comment><USER3> My point is that if it becomes popular among wealthy people to sponsor the conversion of productive farmland into what is essentially wildlife preserve then food prices could go way up, threatening food security.

<comment><USER5> Highly unlikely, rich people give a significant amount of money to charities but in general it's a drop in the ocean compared to the overall economy and government spending. I wouldn't worry about it too much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Something I've come to think about when reading about the loss of insect biomass, and this is purely anecdotal, but it would be interesting to see if anyone else seen this. When I was young in the 70s/80s and the family was on a car vacation, it seemed like we often would stop to clear our windshield from bugs, the radiator would be full of them also, what is scary is that I do not see that now when my family is out on a car trip...

<comment><USER7> I remember this particular data point being refuted by cars becoming more and more streamlined. The bugs don't die anymore, they whoosh over ;) Anecdotal: after driving at normal speeds, very few bugs indeed, also compared to 30 years ago. After prolonged driving on the autobahn at high speeds (200kph+) there are more bugs on the front of my car than ever.

I am quite sure there is a significant decline in insects, and we should be worried and act upon that, but the bugs on car thing is not the best way to measure.

<comment><USER8> > I remember this particular data point being refuted by cars becoming more > and more streamlined.

I've been driving the same car for 20 years. I remember cleaning the bugs from the roof rack after each longer trip. There were so many bugs, the front of the rack was entirely covered with a dark coat. These days the roof rack stays completely free of bugs. I simply don't have to clean the rack any more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I would vote for any candidate who made this a pillar of their campaign. I wish we cared about important things :-(

<comment><USER10> I would too, and I believe the solution is to drastically change people's over-consumerists life-styles. I live a 'minimalist' life-style and feel finally happy, my environmental footprint is probably lower than 5% of the average, the planet could easily host 10 billions people like this, but can't sustain 2 billions over-consumerists

<comment><USER11> I like your approach, but have two small caveats: if you're living in a regular house or apartment in the Western world, with electricity, plumbing, heating etc., perhaps using public transportation several times a week, you might produce much less carbon than your fellow citizens, but probably not less than the average human. With current sources of energy, this is unsustainable for 4, let alone 10 billion people.

The other thing is: consumerism must go, but it's no easy feat. So many people in 1st world countries work in jobs that make zero sense in a post-consumerist society. Advertising is a huge industry. Even many tech giants like the FAANGs would become largely superfluous. There will have to be a gentle transition, not a "drastic" one, or 2019 politics will end up looking like a fairytale in hindsight.

<comment><USER10> It's not easy to fight consumerism, all governments goals are even to keep it high, sadly. But there must be new rules, with climate/environment in first role

I live in France, electricity isn't too dirty to produce (nuclear), and I can't say I abuse it, I don't heat a lot, I like to sleep in the cold, maybe 3 months a year, and I have no air-conditioning of course, this is a nonsense.

I use a bike for everything, so my main CO2 footprint might be from the vegetables/fruits I buy, they are still quite locally produced (France/Spain/Italy/Morocco for clementines sometimes) (I mean I wouldn't buy a pineapple/mango from another continent, this too is an absolute nonsense)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I know it's anecdotal but driving long trips in the summer usually ends with a splattered windshield of bugs. Nowadays not so much.

<comment><USER13> People keep saying this, and I have to wonder where they're driving. In cities and along highways I agree, but when I get into the weeds and drive by farms / orchards / prairies, my windshield gets to the point where I can barely see out of it. I might not have to clean my windshield once in several months of city/hiking drives, but when I explore it's a different story.

This article also says that the declines they observed were primarily driven by intensive agriculture. I wonder if it would behoove us to zone more wild spaces. Why not set up some new national forests, parks, and wildlife reserves? It's not like people don't also enjoy those things.

<comment><USER14> _Why not set up some new national forests, parks, and wildlife reserves?_

[https://thehill.com/regulation/lobbying/461860-trump-has- nam...](https://thehill.com/regulation/lobbying/461860-trump-has-named-more- ex-lobbyists-to-cabinet-in-3-years-than-obama-bush)

Specifically look at

EPA: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_R._Wheeler#Lobbying,_20...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_R._Wheeler#Lobbying,_2009–2018)

and Interior: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bernhardt#Legal_work_and...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bernhardt#Legal_work_and_lobbying)

<comment><USER15> We can do that, but pesticides are in the air, in the rain.

<comment><USER13> Yes, but aren't a lot of those pollutants localized? I was just at a national park which called out how air pollution was affecting lichens and other sensitive life in the area, but...the part of the park with informational hikes bordered a highway where huge trucks passed by every few minutes.

We forbid offroad vehicles from driving through wetlands for this sort of reason; those environments are very sensitive to the pollution, noise, erosion, etc. But we put freeways damned near everywhere.

I dunno. I agree, it doesn't seem like enough, but what can we do? Tear up all our roads and rebuild them on a carefully-planned "pollution grid"? And even then, the BLM allows grazing and hunting on most of their lands which is another deeply-ingrained tragedy of the commons. Good luck getting rid of those methane-rich cow farts in the area when everyone feeds their herds off of the 'free' land. And good luck keeping 4x4s away when hunting is allowed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Another anecdata-point: I am seeing waaaay more mosquitos than 20 years ago, but a lot fewer of every other kind of insect.

<comment><USER17> That may be because mosquito predators have been hit very hard by pesticides whereas the mosquitos have developed resistance.

A dragonfly eating mosquitos ends up with a higher concentration of a pesticide because it eats a lot of other insects that may have been exposed to a pesticide. The other problem for the dragonfly is that it has a longer lifecycle and produces less offspring per generation than a mosquito. So it has far less ability to achieve pesticide resistance than the mosquito does.

[https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/05/how-p...](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/05/how- pesticides-actually-increase-mosquito-numbers/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Unless and until most people are willing to accept that the earth's resources are finite and our massive overpopulation is not sustainable this problem will simply accelerate until we die off from starvation (or killing each other from the wars over resources that will inevitably occur). You can only squeeze so many people onto a spaceship with finite resources. At some point, no matter how efficiently or responsibly you try to allocate those finite resources there will not be enough resources to sustainably support an ever-increasing population. Earth is the spaceship. Unfortunately everyone would rather keep their head in the sand and pretend that technology will solve all of our problems while the ecosystem we literally depend on to survive is being depleted and destroyed in front of our very eyes.

</comment><comment><USER19> We need to tackle environmental issues at the local level too. Small cities are homogeneous and easier to deal with

<comment><USER20> This. Centralization causes many problems. Everything is nowadays decided "far away". Facing whatever problem, most now think that "the government has to do something" or one of the usual variants (the most common one being "with SOMEBODY as president, this would already be fixed!").

The government/president won't fix anything, as usual.

Gov/prez are too far away, too absorbed by being re-elected and cronyism, reigning on a too big and therefore heterogeneous and complicated territory...

Wherever something is wrong, something is too big. Leopold Kohr described it clearly (~60 years ago)!

<comment><USER21> The single biggest problem in America is excess consumption due to single family homes with garages and zoning separating residential and business areas. That's definitely not getting solved on a local level.

<comment><USER20> "zoning separating residential and business areas" is absolutely not "local".

Back to local, then most problems will be fixed.

<comment><USER21> When I've had to appeal zoning laws, I've had to do it on a city or county level. No state I've worked in has involved higher level governments, at least not for homes/small businesses, unless there were environmental concerns.

<comment><USER20> Are those cities or counties populated by more than a few hundred souls? They are too big. This is not 'local' in my book, whatever the denomination (city, county...).

Moreover some/many underlying principles of many "local" laws are induced by higher level governments, either by direct or indirect pressure (no funds granted without such and such law), or by "culture" (local public servants being, or willing to be/resemble, like the big guns).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> > However, some insect species, such as houseflies and cockroaches, appear to > be on the up.

If this trend continues, I wonder if we will see some species previously reliant on spiders for food (birds?) switch to more cockroaches and houseflies. More likely, we will see a radical restructuring of what we consider to be "common" species.

For instance, hedgehogs and sparrows - incredibly common in my own childhood - are apparently quietly disappearing from places where they were previously abundant. What will replace them?

<comment><USER23> Nothing will replace them, there will just be less life. It's the result of spraying toxic chemicals everywhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I am still old enough to remember "Silent Spring" and the fear that all the birds were disappearing. This lead to the banning of DDT. Unfortunately at the time there was not as good a substitute for mosquito control that matched the low human toxicity and persistence of DDT. As a result, millions of people, mostly children died from malaria and other mosquito borne illnesses.

<comment><USER25> Wow got a link? Millions and where was this?

<comment><USER26> Africa has been the hardest hit. Progress has been made in reducing deaths in recent years, but millions is not an exaggeration and children have often been the victims. While most of us have a negative attitude towards DDT because of its impact on the wildlife, it did play an important role in controlling mosquitoes and reducing malaria infections in the past.

[https://www.who.int/news-room/facts-in- pictures/detail/malar...](https://www.who.int/news-room/facts-in- pictures/detail/malaria)

[http://www.healthdata.org/research-article/global-malaria- mo...](http://www.healthdata.org/research-article/global-malaria-mortality- between-1980-and-2010-systematic-analysis)

[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ddt-use-to- combat...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ddt-use-to-combat- malaria/)

<comment><USER25> Thanks all, reading!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I sit on both coin sides of loving technology and loving the natural environment.

We have to decide what we want, and what is important to us. We're only just at the beginning of our civilisation's development. We, the AI, and/or the AI we'll be connected to will be able to recreate and terraform, to bio-engineer species, environments and food however we want.

I suppose until such time that we can do that, we do need to take the natural environment very seriously. I am increasingly concerned about climate change, but also human health. I also care about animals. We're only one of many, and I don't care how more 'evolved' I am than another species.

<comment><USER28> "We're only just at the beginning of our civilisation's development. We, the AI, and/or the AI we'll be connected to will be able to recreate and terraform, to bio-engineer species, environments and food however we want."

That seems wildly optimistic given current trends. What makes you think we'll make it that far, given that we(1), so far, have only managed to continually make things worse over time?

1-And by "we" I actually just mean the oligarchs who profit from environmental destruction...individuals have only marginal agency in this story. But, we keep letting them do it, for some reason.

<comment><USER29> Oligarchs don't go around cutting forests for fun, they profit from "environmental destruction" because other people need it to live and are ready to give their money in exchange for its results and receive money for performing it.

Communist countries do as much damage as capitalist ones, and even hunter- gatherers did a huge amount of damage, so you are looking for solution at a wrong place.

Which of current trends do you think justify your pessimistic outlook? We are not in a particularly bad state compared to hundred years ago, and recently we didn't cause more extinctions than we caused as hunter-gatherers. With genetic editing we are working to create much more efficient crops, in some places we learned how to use technology to drastically reduce use of pesticides, area, and water in agriculture (see Netherlands and Israel), gene drives that would eliminate main pest species are going to allow us to further reduce usage of pesticides, and we are learning to grow fish and algae in the ocean instead of simply exploiting wild populations. We are even working on restoring long dead species like mammoths, so i'd say there is every reason to be optimistic about the future.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Stop mowing your lawn for 6 months or more. And you'll see more insects than you have for decades

</comment><comment><USER31> Are we sure that it's not just a case of being able to measure more accurately?

<comment><USER32> Yes.

The academics behind the study are not idiots, and understanding measurement and the relevant measuring instruments is a foundation of pretty much every field of science.

<comment><USER31> Sure, which is why 60-70% of research findings are difficult to impossible to reproduce.

Which is why "economists" are all filthy rich from their highly accurate, highly precise predictions about economic trends.

Which is why stories about a software bug potentially skewing the results of thousands of studies was at the top of this site all of last week.

<comment><USER32> Throwing unfounded doubt onto the work of some experts is about as useful as shouting "fake news!".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> But let's use more insecticides. What can possibly go wrong?

</comment><comment><USER33> From what I can tell, all of the spiders have moved to my garage.

<comment><USER34> This site is turning into Reddit. Do the people with more informative comments now frequent another site? Back to slashdot?

<comment><USER35> Lobsters.

<comment><USER36> I'll second this. The only issue is that you don't get the wide variety of posts, but maybe that's GP's point. Lobste.rs is great for super technical posts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Why the BBC chose to quote the alarming word ? In my opinion, quote usage have the effects to minimize something (= strong decline in insect population) that is quite well established by facts.

</comment><comment><USER38> The main question is where have the spiders gone, and how far away from there is it physically possible to be?

<comment><USER39> Try this.

Go outside at night, and take your smartphone with you. Turn the flashlight on, and shine it away from your face while holding the LED right above and between your eyes. Look at the lawn.

If your lawn is like mine, you will see 4-5 shiny reflections from the grass in every square meter of your land. They're not dew drops. They're ground spiders.

<comment><USER40> Your last line carries the horrifying implication of air spiders. :S

<comment><USER41> I think that's mostly as opposed to, say, tree-dwelling spiders... but then again, you know about ballooning, right?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballooning_(spider)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballooning_\(spider\))

Key quote: "Even atmospheric samples collected from balloons at five kilometres altitude and ships mid-ocean have reported spider landings."

<comment><USER42> Holy shit. Someone needs to _do_ something! These little critters sneaked into that position with no one noticing. They are definitely up to something! Think about the children!!!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> So alarmist! Like after the Great Oxygenation Event, which wiped out the organisms who caused it, new organisms evolve. Life goes on, folks! Just, without us and our ecosystems.

<comment><USER44> So if there were (for sake of argument) a Great Cyanidation Event, we shouldn't be worried about it? :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> So they're taking one thing they can measure and then kind of hand-wavey suggesting agriculture is the problem, and that's it.

In the past, we have been overly eager to right the wrongs in nature, arrogant enough to believe we knew how, and as a result caused massive ecological destruction. Every time we intervene, we screw up, because we really don't have a handle on the complexity theory of nature. But none of that makes it into a story that's mainly there to fill the space that an advertisement doesn't take.

I'm sure that the loss of insect populations is a major problem. But I'm also sure we have no clue how to fix it, and that the attempts will be very messy, possibly even worse. To me that's more scary than the immediate problem.

<comment><USER46> We know exactly how to fix it: stop destroying their habitats and messing with the climate. Any other "fix" is going to be feelgood techno-fetishism.

<comment><USER45> We don't actually know how to do those things. If we try to, we cause unintended side effects. Complex problems do not have simple solutions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> But biodiversity loss has happened many times in the past, and the system is still here. More importantly, we are still here. The species loss has occured many times even in the recent history while Homo Sapiens were already out there, and a lot more times if we include very close relatives of most advanced primates. It's not just that "system continues", primates even continue.

Other species thrive, new ones come up and evolve, new niches form etc. Why would this time be any different? How do we know that this is somehow worse than the previous times? How do we know that this is not the natural process of evolution? Why do we assume that the graph of number of species has to go straight up all the time? How do we know there aren't supposed to be plateaus and dips?

So yeah, if you can you consider answering seriously before downvoting, that would be great. I can't understand what in the history of science of species should make me believe that this event is bery bad on the long-term scale? Will there be many adjustments and problems? Yes? Will we adapt? Most certainly? Or why not?

<comment><USER44> > But biodiversity loss has happened many times in the past, and the system is > still here

This could just be an observer selection effect, since if the system weren't still here, neither would we be here.

<comment><USER47> Arguably if there were other advanced species that just went extinct at some point, we would have found artifacts which are much older than what we have found made by previous homo sapiens-ish civilizations. And more advanced ones than just pyramids.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> I'm sorry to go against the grain, but forgive me for not shedding a tear at the impending disappearance of insects and _shudders_ spiders.

1: I am aware of the importance of insects in the food chain. I know that many animal species, like small birds, feed on insects. I fully accept the consequences. The extinction, or near extinction, of insects is worth the disappearance of some animals.

2: I'm carving an exception for bees. We need bees for pollination (for now).

<comment><USER49> I for one find insects and spiders to be a profoundly beautiful part of our world, and would severely regret their extinction even if it wouldn't be catastrophically consequential for humans (which to be clear, it absolutely would be). Some of my favorite insects/spiders are: dragonflies, butterflies, praying mantises, ants, cicadas, crickets and orb spiders. Appreciating their delicate beauty is an essential part of the human experience.

<comment><USER50> Not only beautiful, they are worth to study: the knowledge of spider's silk gave us better materials, spiders can fly with the electrostatic fields, Portia spider has a unique 3D-dimensional thinking of usually more complex creatures. And more secrets to discover in the future, I think.</comment></comment></comment>


Sam Aaron, Joe Armstrong – Keynote: Distributed Jamming with Sonic Pi and Erlang - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SUdnOUKGmo <comment><USER2> I like the idea of teaching distributed programming using music. I imagine some people are more auditory than visual.

Also like that Joe is still experimenting and coming up with outrageous stuff like "Instead of a process playing all the notes, spawn a process for each note and make it play that note and then stop".

It seems like a silly idea, but what he's getting at is with the ability to create independent concurrent building blocks you can start to think about problems in completely a different way. Quite often that models your problem space the closest, and then there is less impedance mismatch between your problem space the implementation.

For example you start with adding items to a shopping cart, and instead of worrying about business logic, you're now stuck debugging locks, threads, futures and promises, etc. At the end of the process you see that there are maybe 10 lines which describe the actual business logic but there are 1000 lines managing the impedance mismatch.

<comment><USER3> Yes, I might have thought of one process per instrument, but not one per note. Outrageous but fascinating.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What a fun duo – great presentation overall. I love the way in which they glue different software together in ways that were never intended to get some awesome results.

There's something really satisfying about hearing that Moog play the first note driven by Sonic Pi.

</comment><comment><USER5> Recently saw this dj live at Java1! Pretty amazing</comment>


The New Power Dressing - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/11/t-magazine/fashion/the-new-dress-code.html <comment><USER2> I was hoping that this would be about some new nootropics-enhanced, microbiome-friendly vinaigrette, but it's about fashion.</comment>


Amazon Segregation - I thought I came to a free country - <AUTHOR>

I am a last semester Masters student of Computer science with GPA of 4.0/4.0 in a US university.
After interviewing with Amazon, today I received a an offer from Amazon for summer 2013 internship. The recruiter had sent me a congratulations message and had asked me to schedule a phone call in order to discuss the details of the offer.
She called me tonight and told me that she has a question first.
Recruiter: Are you from an embargoed country?
Me: I am not sure what you mean. But I have friends who are of the same nationality as mine working in Microsoft, HP, Google, Facebook, etc.
Recruiter: I see you got your bachelor degree from an embargoed country. Me: Yes! And the she told me that based on Amazon policies, they are not able to proceed with the offer anymore!
What is an student role in his country's politics?
What he can do about what the politicians do in his country?
Have you decided where to born?
Is it what they are calling freedom and is it what Amazon means by "Amazon is an Equal Opportunity Employer"?
Isn't it what we call SEGREGATION???
I am just SAD! How I can get my offer back? <comment><USER2> It's quite possible that part of Amazon (e.g. AWS) is doing defense contracting, and that the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) is making Amazon jump through hoops Amazon haven't the stomach for. I'm aware of at least one DoD contractor that will hire Iranian born people, but there's a special background check that DoD requires, and, assuming that turns out OK, there are still some data/projects they're prohibited from getting access to. DoD assumes Iran will blackmail those with family in Iran with the welfare of their families, forcing them to breach confidentiality agreements.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree with your adjustment, but not all the Amazon employees are working on those contract projects or even are close physically to the departments where those projects are done...

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> "How I can get my offer back?"

Think of it as Amazon's loss. Look for another job offer. If other US companies do the same, look to Canada, Australia, Europe (and think of it as USA's loss).

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a very good and positive attitude...

<comment><USER4> Indeed. Good luck with your search!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As far as I know, not really... in Europe you might have been able to file a lawsuit for discrimination, but the US and especially its handling with the "axis of evil" states is ridiculous. I guess you're from Iran?

<comment><AUTHOR> It is ridiculous... I can not see the relation between what a programmer does and his nationality... Yes I am from Iran.</comment></comment>


Apple's new Find My app will find your devices even if they're offline - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/3/18647146/apple-find-my-app-tracker-friends-iphone-wwdc-2019 <comment><USER2> Wow this is totally cool, but also totally fucked.

Granted, anyone who's been unaware of the insane accuracy of inertial tracking (prevalent since the iPhone 4) is in for a rude awakening. In short, inertial tracking / positioning uses Apple's CoreMotion co-processor to figure out the relative direction and speed a device is traveling. This makes it possible to navigate for miles without cell service or GPS in maps (I've done this for over 30miles in google maps, while keeping the car icon on the road) and also works accurately enough to tell which floor or room of a building someone is in.

It's also been found that the co-processor can remain on for up to two days and stores info without needing the rest of the device to be on.

<comment><USER3> Where were you going that you didn't have GPS coverage for 30 miles?

GPS coverage works even without Network/WiFi coverage. I find it very, very unlikely inertial tracking using iPhone inertial sensors would be accurate up to 30 miles.

Could you provide a source please on the fact that iPhones use inertial navigation for predicting location (either public or private apis)

<comment><USER2> Sauce: [https://www.idownloadblog.com/2014/03/05/iphone-5s-m7-tracki...](https://www.idownloadblog.com/2014/03/05/iphone-5s-m7-tracking- dead-battery/)

I was driving through rural Kentucky shortly after the 2017 eclipse.

<comment><USER4> It doesn't really matter how rural the area is - GPS works pretty well outside of the polar circles. AGPS does use data connection to accelerate first fix time, but will be accurate after that without data.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is cool, useful, and makes business sense.

But Tile and its competitors could now (in some regards) be DOA.

If there were, say, a cadre of bureaucrats trying to build an Antitrust probe into Apple [0], this is landing on their desk tomorrow morning.

[0][https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/3/18650861/apple- department-...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/3/18650861/apple-department- of-justice-antitrust-authority-facebook-google-amazon-ftc-investigations)

<comment><USER6> I bought a Tile but refused to use the tracking feature because it felt very insecure.

Apple should not be penalized for offering something inherently more private than the competition.

<comment><USER5> What would you say are the reasons that Apple's implementation of this protocol is more private?

In other words, I am ignorant to how Apple's implementation is more private or feels more secure than Tile's.

<comment><USER6> Even Apple doesn't know what location was just reported. Only another of your devices can decrypt the location data.

[https://www.wired.com/story/apple-find-my-cryptography- bluet...](https://www.wired.com/story/apple-find-my-cryptography-bluetooth/)

<comment><USER5> This is pretty cool!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is there any papers/details on how it actually works?

<comment><USER6> [https://www.wired.com/story/apple-find-my-cryptography- bluet...](https://www.wired.com/story/apple-find-my-cryptography-bluetooth/)</comment></comment>


Coursera/Stanford online algorithms I course – a retrospective - <AUTHOR> http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2012/05/08/courserastanford-online-algorithms-i-course-a-retrospective/ <comment><USER2> It's funny how often people complain "too easy" but I've never heard someone complain "didn't learn enough", in regards to the coursera courses.

I think it's an indicator of how deeply broken our education system is that when assessing the value of a class people worry about how smart it made them feel (this is after all what it really means to pass a 'difficult' class), rather than how much they learned and could do with the materials after the class.

Sebastian Thrun even made a comment somewhere that he realized for years he'd be making his standford classes hard, not for the sake of learning but for living up to the reputation of being hard.

A class that feels 'easy' but which has a high amount of 'new stuff learned' should be the pinnacle of what a class can achieve. Difficulty should be a negative property of learning, sometimes necessary, but never desirable in and of itself.

<comment><USER3> Difficulty can be a good indicator that you're at the edges of your current understanding.

The MIT electronics class often poses questions during the lectures or in the homework that are based on what you've already covered but involve concepts which are still upcoming.

This is difficult, but it's vastly superior as a learning technique as you have to work your way through it for yourself.

<comment><USER4> Assignments that require you to extend beyond the covered material can indeed be extremely effective, though I'd qualify that with "for the right person."

The COMP 201 course at Rice University (intro comp sci for non-majors) was the experience that started me on a career path in software/web development. Several of my classmates dropped the course because the instructor used such challenging problems on chapter exams. Even though I hit/exceeded the exam time limit almost every time, I found the exams to be incredibly rewarding. I vividly recall grinding my teeth over an exam prompt asking us to write a set of controls for an RC car that could be driven with a TV remote control and also needed to elegantly remember macros of control sequences... only to show up the next day in the professor's office and be handed a remote control, driving the actual RC car with the solution from my exam. It's hard to beat engagement like that.

However, I still appreciate Coursera for what it is. I'm taking the machine learning course right now, and I feel that I'm gaining a fair amount of knowledge relative to the amount of time I can put in. If I were to dedicate more time to my post-academic education, I'm sure I'd want something that moved at a faster pace or set more difficult challenges before me. It just doesn't seem useful to judge Coursera negatively because it doesn't meet an expectation it wasn't designed to meet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Perhaps I've been out of formal education for too long (esp. on the mathematical side of things), but I did find the material quite challenging, more so the problem sets than the programming challenges. Part of that was emotional, I didn't do a computer science degree and thus find this kind of stuff almost... intimidating. It's the sort of stuff that gets asked at 'serious' interviews and thus I've had a sense of it being somehow too clever, beyond me.

It's not helped by posts like this, the arrogant 'oh it was all too easy' tone is frustrating. Not everything in life is a competition, and as others have said, it ought to be about actually learning something, not proving how wonderfully clever you are.

What's particularly frustrating in all of this is that I found this particular course _wonderfully_ lectured, and the material fascinating. Reading stuff like this takes away that sense of fascination at the material and replaces it with a sense of being a not quite good enough participant in a competition I didn't want to be a part of.

/rant

<comment><USER6> I'm gonna back you up here, though from a slightly different perspective. People like you are exactly why this course seems easy for some other people. As what is essentially an introductory course for this subject, it should not be aiming to really challenge the top quartile of the class (or whatever). It should aim to provide the best possible foundation for the next course for as many people as reasonable.

The fact that the course has managed to reach out to all sorts of people (including someone like you) is something that should be celebrated. That it was designed so that someone who isn't 'good at math' (whatever that means) struggled a bit, but still got through it all is amazing. That's something that really makes a great introductory course.

After all, it's stupid easy to make a course hard, or to assign shit loads of work. The real trick is making it just hard enough.

<comment><USER5> Not to make this too much about ego :-) but I am actually quite good at maths, did v. well at school, did engineering degree, etc. so I'm not sure I'm a great example, rather I am out of practice and not as comfortable with this stuff now as I once was :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7>
      > I still wish that the course would try to cater for the stronger
      > students as well, so that completing it with a high grade would give
      > a real sense of accomplishment.

Maybe the problem is that you were taking the course as a way to cultivate a sense of accomplishment? Isn't the most important measure the effectiveness with which it helped you develop the concepts and skills the course was targeting?

</comment><comment><USER8> If you're looking for a hard class, Probabilistic Graphical Models might suit better. The staff says that other than a small portion of the homeworks which they couldn't auto-grade, it's the same material as the real course at Stanford, where it's one of the hardest classes in the graduate CS department.

<comment><USER9> a million upvotes this class is killing me

<comment><USER10> The beauty of online courses is that people will hopefully have the opportunity to cheaply repeat lectures ad-nauseum until they finally feel they really KNOW their stuff.

This is contrasted to the brutal method of being forced to learn things within a short period of time, often forgetting what you learned or just picking up banal mechanics. The focus shifts back to thoroughly learning course materials.

Online education is a true equalizer.

NB: Been a fan of online education since OCW started up where the costs of the raw material plummeted to the cost of your internet connection.

<comment><USER8> That's exactly my plan for PGM. If I'd had nothing else keeping me busy maybe I would've kept up, but as soon as I fell behind it was clear I was in trouble.

Coursera's talked about maybe taking videos down for a while between courses, I hope they don't. I'm going to save them just in case, but it'd be nice to have the inline quizzes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think the course was at the right difficulty considering that it was an on- line course targeted towards an audience with different backgrounds and skill levels. In fact, in the forums there were a few people complaining about it being too difficult. Plus a course that is not targeted towards full time students can't really have the same effort levels as one that it is. If the course turns out to be too easy for you, maybe it wasn't designed for you.

<comment><USER12> I suppose one option would be to also have optional homework for those seeking additional challenge?

<comment><USER11> There were some optional theory questions (ungraded) which were more challenging and could be discussed in the forums.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm glad you found it easy. Personally, I found it _very_ challenging: although I thought I matched the requirements for mathematical background that Prof Roughgarden outlined in the intro lecture, it turned out to be a struggle to keep up with some of the concepts when it came to apply them in the theory questions.

The programming exercises were fun, but I don't think they were really the point of the course - this "part 1", at least, was much more about analysis than about design.

As a contrast, I've just started their compilers course: there the theory questions are slightly easier, whereas the programming questions are _much_ more involved - the first one has already taken me several hours and I'm nowhere near finished.

</comment><comment><USER14> You took a class called "Design and Analysis of Algorithms I" and complained that the problem sets were too easy. What were you expecting?

</comment><comment><USER15> thanks for the retrospective, eli.

we have a wide array of students to cater to and better setting expectations and providing challenges at the right level to the right students is something that we hope to iterate on and improve over time.

</comment><comment><USER16> I didn't catch algorithms but am dipping my feet into automata, logic, compilers and machine learning right now. I'm going to have to drop compilers and machine learning because it's too much work for my schedule right now but I will still follow the lectures. It's a mixed bag, I must say. The user experience of the website itself works a charm. The classes themselves, not so much. After being addicted to khan academy for a while and trying udacity, the dryness of the coursera classes feels like a big setback. I am watching the same slide for 2 minutes while a teacher throws a lot of technical lingo at me and the only way it feels like an improvement over a brick and mortar school is that I can rewind until I've figured out what he is trying to say. This is in opposition to other courses out there which do involve you strongly in ways that are more suited to the medium. I have no complaints about the difficulty level - I do, however, with the deadline system, since a lot of people taking these classes (including me) don't have the flexibility to spend the necessary amount of time every week, and once you are one week behind unless the class is under your level it's hard to catch up.

</comment><comment><USER17> It was a very well designed course and Tim is a fantastic teacher. I scored a 100 but I wouldn't say the course was easy. For the most part, it was obvious. I found some of the questions slightly tricky and I would have got it wrong if I hadn't taken the time to read/think. Overall, I'm extremely happy with the time spent learning from Tim.

That said, if you are looking for really hard challenges, you should take Daphne Koller's Probabilistic Graphical Models.

</comment><comment><USER18> "The exam included questions from the lectures" When I was a student I hated this practice from some professors.

<comment><USER19> I used to do this to put in at least one or two softball questions. It helped to weed out who was paying attention and helped when deciding if someone should get a C or C+.

<comment><USER20> You shouldn't be grading then. They are not taking a class in Paying Attention, they are taking a class in algorithms. If they know the material, that is what matters. I also cannot stand this practice.

<comment><USER21> And people who know the material should be able to answer those questions without any difficulty. What's the problem?

<comment><USER22> I'm assuming the problem is questions like this:

      Recall the Master Method and its three parameters a,b,d. Which of the following is the best interpretation of b^d, in the context of divide-and-conquer algorithms?

Alternatively, the problem might be questions that ask for the state of an algorithm at some point, when the algorithm can be correctly implemented in different ways and one is expected to recall/go back and check the exact implementation used.

<comment><USER21> Those kind of questions should be taken out back and put out of their misery, but I don't think there's anything to suggest that adestefan was asking those kinds of questions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> If you were looking for harder problems, I would suggest buying one of the books recommended on the home page. Kleinberg & Tardos Algorithm Design for example was used in an algorithms class I took, and the questions after each chapter were used for both homework and exams. I found them very challenging.

</comment><comment><USER24> I imagine that they are straitjacketed by the current technology that is available to auto-grade the assignments. But I bet this situation will improve with time.

</comment><comment><USER14> You took a class called "Design and Analysis of Algorithms I" and complained that the problem sets were to easy. What were you expecting?</comment>


New theory for how increasingly complex life evolves - <AUTHOR> http://today.ucf.edu/computer-scientists-suggest-new-spin-on-origins-of-evolvability/

<comment><USER2> So, a simulation lead to evidence for a new hypothesis? The simulation or algorithm could have been built in any infinite number of ways to produce a new "hypothesis" about evolution, but the validity of that hypothesis needs to be tested in other ways (hopefully non-simulated ways); like the error of prediction about how life evolves. Time to bust out the cultures!</comment>


Ask HN: As an Indian, how do I sell an app on the Android market? - <AUTHOR>

Google Checkout does not create a merchant account for Indians and a Google Checkout merchant account seems mandatory in order to sell on the Android Market. What's the way out? Is opening a US bank account the only option? <comment><USER2> Man Google just doesn't get it sometimes — I found this thread and it seems there is a mini-industry of people who are actually cashing in on this problem: [http://groups.google.com/a/googleproductforums.com/forum/#!c...](http://groups.google.com/a/googleproductforums.com/forum/#!category- topic/android-market/technical-help/MpNPmF55NR0)

Google needs to fix this...

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Looking into that thread, helpful. mini-industry indeed. I just don't get the fact how a company like Google is finding it difficult to allow Indian developers to see their apps in the Android Market. More so because Google has offices in India!

<comment><USER3> Even more funny is that Indian developers _can_ sell apps in Apple Store. If Google is in a mindshare battle for mobile devs, ignoring Indian devs is a dumb, dumb move.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I am guessing this is due to the fucked up Indian spying policies</comment>


In Heroin's White Thrall (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/in-heroins-white-thrall <comment><USER2> > In the case of, say, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," you sort of want > Hunter S. Thompson to just keep doing drugs, if only so he'll see more giant > lizards.

In the very first paragraph, the author makes abundantly clear that he experienced a major _whoosh_ while reading one of the greatest American novels and drug sagas of all time.

The "Fear and Loathing" books were only about giant lizards, Richard Nixon, or LSD on the thinnest of surfaces - the author needs to re-read.

> What most drug books don't do is make the reader, upon closing the book, > feel as though he or she really ought to think more seriously about > experimenting with drugs.

Really? The Invisible Landscape? Food of the Gods? The Human Encounter With Death? The Doors of Perception? The Spirit Molecule? PIKAL: A Love Story?

What exactly is the author reading? Of all the classic "drug books," the only one I can think of that matches the author's description is Be Here Now, which the author does not mention.

\---

I'm not sure, after reading this review, whether I'm more or less inclined to read Clune's book - probably less.

In this review, such as it is, Lewis-Kraus makes the (sadly still common) mistake of assuming that the reader has an identical understanding of what a "drug" is, and that the category of "drugs" is well-defined and discrete. Are LSD and heroin in the same category of thing? Is sugar in this same category?

It seems useless in this context to compare a book about the highs of heroin with other books that happen to feature "drugs" in completely different contexts or as metaphorical devices.

Reading this, I learned nothing except that pharmacological contrivances still have a grip on the editorial 'we.'

<comment><USER3> >Lewis-Kraus makes the (sadly still common) mistake of assuming that the reader has an identical understanding of what a "drug" is, and that the category of "drugs" is well-defined and discrete. Are LSD and heroin in the same category of thing? Is sugar in this same category?

That sounds like a reasonable assumption about the reader; that they understand how words are used in contemporary English. The answers to your questions are "yes" and "no".

The reader can also be assumed to know that, for instance, vancomycin and doxorubicin are also drugs, but that in this context the word "drug" is being used in a context which excludes them, just as the word "animal" is sometimes used in a context which includes humans and sometimes in one which excludes them.

<comment><USER4> Except you just proved that you're an example of the exact point that the commenter was writing about. LSD and Heroin aren't really in the same category. They have completely different profiles of experience.

<comment><USER3> And yet they're similar in several important ways (e.g. the legal framework around them, the fact that they should both be avoided for similar reasons), hence the fact that we have a word for them. I don't really care what the subjective experience of taking them is like.

They're certainly more similar to each other than they are to antibiotics or chemotherapy drugs, both of which are also labelled with the term "drug".

<comment><USER2> > similar in several important ways (e.g. the legal framework around them

You are mistaking noise for signal here.

> the fact that they should both be avoided for similar reasons

In no sense is this a "fact." Many people suggest LSD use. Many people regard themselves as better for having used LSD. I don't think LSD is something to be avoided at all - it's utterly benign and very, very interesting.

> They're certainly more similar to each other than they are to antibiotics or > chemotherapy drugs, both of which are also labeled with the term "drug".

In which ways? LSD is dissimilar to just about anything else on the planet, and has little in common, as far as I can tell, with opioids, antibiotics, or chemotherapy drugs.

And again, let me bring up refined sugar. Sugar is a refined white powder, made by solvent extraction form plant matter, and is consumed solely for its chemical effects on the nervous system. It seems far closer to heroin than either of them are to LSD or MDMA or psilocybin. Yet these three, along with heroin, are "drugs?"

I can't imagine a consistent taxonomy which casts such a wide net on behalf of the term "drug" as to include both heroin and LSD but exclude sugar.

<comment><USER5> > I don't think LSD is something to be avoided at all - it's utterly benign > and very, very interesting.

I take it you've never had a bad trip then?

I used to use mushrooms and LSD as a teenager and enjoyed it a lot. Until I had a bad trip, which was a truly horrible experience that at the time seemed like it would never end. I've never used any psychedelics since, and never will.

<comment><USER2> You're right. "Utterly benign" is too strong.

LSD is a very strong medicine, but it's possible to consume it in such a way that is profoundly helpful; what's more - it generally visits upon its users substantially less grief than heroin, to which it was being compared.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> William Gibson said it best: "All any drug amounts to is tweaking the incoming data. You have to be incredibly self-centered or pathetic to be satisfied with simply tweaking the incoming data."

[https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Gibson](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Gibson)

<comment><USER2> This stands in contrast to the scholarship of, for example, Terence McKenna, who suggested that certain plants and mushrooms actually delivered novel content via the presence of (and ratios between) various psychoactive compounds.

Like most of McKenna's ostensible empiricism, he didn't try to convince anyone that this was true in some objective sense, but rather that it was _useful_ as a mindset to withstand the psychedelic experience.

I find this view more effective at helping to explain how my neurochemistry interfaces with reality.

<comment><USER7> > _This stands in contrast to the scholarship of, for example, Terence > McKenna, who suggested that certain plants and mushrooms actually delivered > novel content via the presence of (and ratios between) various psychoactive > compounds._

It's not really in constrast though.

Gibson means: better tweak what you produce or how you act, instead of merely tweaking how your isolated self experiences reality.

That's the same whether it's a "slight tweak of incoming data" or something that can be seen as novel content (a full tweak).

<comment><USER8> This comes down to whether self-improvement is useful. You could "tweak" your brain into working better: giving you more raw data, filtering for more relevant data, making connections more quickly, etc. such that you can get better _knowledge_ from the same data, and therefore act toward your goals more effectively.

This especially applies to situations where the brain starts off "tweaked" into some messy suboptimal configuration (depression, ADHD, anxiety, etc.) where it's making very _bad_ use of incoming data.

(I always thought Gibson's real argument was just that your goals shouldn't be considered in terms of sensory inputs, unless you want to end up like AIXI, converting your own mass into paperclips because you don't realize that that will kill you.)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Baidu's "Software-Defined Flash" storage concept - <AUTHOR> http://forums.xilinx.com/t5/Xcell-Daily-Blog/Baidu-s-Software-Defined-Flash-storage-concept-departs-radically/ba-p/595658 <comment><USER2> This makes a lot of sense technically, but I fear for a world where I need a driver from vendor X to use my otherwise standard disk from vendor X.

It's the way with many server disk controllers today, but if it trickles down to cheaper machines, I would hope they figure out some way to standardize between vendors.</comment>


Linode-hosted DNS zones were down - <AUTHOR> https://status.linode.com/incidents/ly9hx0plrzxn <comment><USER2> I can confirm this was not a DDoS, and we are actively working to fix the issue right now. We'll be updating our status page as soon as we have more updates to deliver.

<comment><USER3> Do you have any ETA? Sorry, I don't mean to be an ass, it's just our entire business is currently down because of this.

<comment><USER2> I understand, and I don't have an ETA quite yet, but it appears that service is already starting to return. I've tested my domains hosted on Linode and a number of others that I know are and they appear to be working now. We're still working asap to ensure everything is coming back appropriately.

<comment><USER3> Everything seems to be back now in our case. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> My monitors started going berserk around 3:36 PM CT. Here's an example of the problem (I am not hostmaster for The Onion, but they are a well-known Linode customer):

        $ whois theonion.com | grep -i 'name server'
           Name Server: NS1.LINODE.COM
           Name Server: NS2.LINODE.COM
           Name Server: NS3.LINODE.COM
           Name Server: NS4.LINODE.COM
           Name Server: NS5.LINODE.COM
        $ dig @ns1.linode.com theonion.com ns +short
        $ dig @ns1.linode.com theonion.com a +short

<comment><USER4> I prefer DJBDNS tools:

        #dnsq a theonion.com NS1.LINODE.COM
         1 theonion.com:
         temporary failure

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is one reason why I'm moving our startup over to AWS. :/ They seem to experience less of these catastrophic DDoS attacks.

Edit: Err, not a DDoS attack apparently. But catastrophic nonetheless.

<comment><USER6> Route53 also:

A) Serves DNS from multiple domain names. A number of variants in .com .org and others etc

B) Serves DNS from multiple internet networks / sources. Queries from an end user don't all hit the same Anycast subnet.

<comment><USER7> Route 53 also has no IPv6 support, and no stated policy on how it deals with DDoS attacks, or if you get charged for the attack if it's directed at you. Good luck!

<comment><USER8> It might be more accurate to say R53 has partial v6 support. It'll return v6 records (AAAA) happily. The nameservers themselves do not respond on v6 (which is unfortunate and certainly means v6 support is lacking). Practically, however, it's pretty unlikely, that a v6 only host isn't going to also have access to a v6-to-v4 gateway. Not ideal, but generally transparent for most intents and purposes ...and generally used by just about anyone with a v6 address assignment today, everyday.

For DDoS attacks, I'm not sure what you mean by a "stated policy." They do a lot of countermeasures, some of which can be found via linked PDFs at [https://aws.amazon.com/security/](https://aws.amazon.com/security/) Various R53 items are included in their DDoS document there. Officially you get charged. Unofficially, it depends on the circumstances. There's also a world of difference between a DDoS attack against a fully managed offering (like R53) versus, say, an EC2 instance.

Have you seen a better approach taken by other providers? I don't mean technical approach (which is near impossible to compare other than by track record), but from a policy perspective?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> At one point, this said it was due to a Denial of Service attack. That text has since been pulled, unfortunately I didn't get a screenshot.

<comment><USER10> The email I received:

DNS Performance Issue Incident Report for Linode Investigating We are currently experiencing denial of service attacks that are targeting our DNS infrastructure. Aug 23, 20:48 UTC This incident affects: Hosted DNS Service.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I recently migrated away from using Linode as secondary when they pushed everyone over to Cloudflare. That Internet-destroying company already has enough power!

<comment><USER12> Why do you think Cloudflare is internet-destroying? Serious question.

<comment><USER13> They are growing into a very dangerous position of acting as a gatekeeper to the Internet. Try accessing any major website through Tor.

<comment> angry-hacker And try having a webserver being constantly attacked by TOR.

They are not doing it for fun. If you think they are bad, give them suggestions or new tech how to solve this problem.

I thank cloudflare for making my life easier.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Is not it possible to outsource that critical part? What are good and proofed dns services out there?

<comment><USER6> They do outsource to Cloudflare.

One assumes some behind the scenes infrastructure exists to push and sync updates to Cloudflare.

<comment><USER15> They probably use CloudFlare's DNS proxy service: [https://www.cloudflare.com/virtual-dns/](https://www.cloudflare.com/virtual- dns/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This was just the kick in the pants I needed to set up secondary DNS at Route 53!

</comment><comment><USER17> Seems like it's coming back up! My resources are reachable again.

</comment><comment><USER18> This smells like a major fuckup</comment>


It looks like dark matter can be heated up and moved around - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2019-01-dark_1.html <comment><USER2> 'Pushed out' dark matter _is_ curved spacetime.

Dark matter is a supersolid that fills 'empty' space, strongly interacts with ordinary matter and is displaced by ordinary matter. What is referred to geometrically as curved spacetime physically exists in nature as the state of displacement of the supersolid dark matter. The state of displacement of the supersolid dark matter is gravity.

The supersolid dark matter displaced by a galaxy pushes back, causing the stars in the outer arms of the galaxy to orbit the galactic center at the rate in which they do.

Displaced supersolid dark matter _is_ curved spacetime.

</comment><comment><USER3> Does this mean that dark matter might be smoke-able?

<comment><USER4> Dark matter doesn't interact with the electromagnetic force, so it can't form any chemical bonds at all. It is therefore useless as a smokable.

<comment><USER3> I understand - you would have to inject it. That makes sense.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Decentralized car resale marketplace - <AUTHOR> https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/decentralized-car-resale-marketplace-vinayak-srinivas?lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_profile_view_base_recent_activity_details_all%3Beh4YIOKdQQWwtTfiJhotqQ%3D%3D&licu=urn%3Ali%3Acontrol%3Ad_flagship3_profile_view_base_recent_activity_details_all-link <comment><USER2> Try running that through Hemmingway App.</comment>