Engineers create plants that glow - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2017-12-engineers-create-plants-that-glow.html <comment><USER2> In related news, Taxa Biotechnologies (the company from the Glowing Plant kickstarter[1]) is shutting down. It seems they were just a bit too early, I think the idea still has merit.

[1] [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/antonyevans/glowing- pla...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/antonyevans/glowing-plants- natural-lighting-with-no-electricit/description)

<comment><USER3> they weren't too "early". people cloned luciferase into tobacco 30+ years ago. the problem is that there are limits into how much you can make a healthy plant glow. Also, the guy working on this didn't really know enough bio to optimize the expression levels.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This seems barely better than rubbing lightning bugs on plants. They didn't change the plants genome to produce luciferine naturally and pass that trait down to its young, they just put forced nano particles of luciferine into the plant.

<comment><USER5> Permit me to don my tinfoil hat for a moment, but that makes it "better" (for some definitions of better) in a very important way: It avoids the problem Monsanto has with people (intentionally or inadvertently) cross-pollinating their genetically engineered crops and not buying more seeds from them.

If they can industrialize and patent or keep secret the process of injecting luciferene, then to get their glowing plants you must always buy a new plant from them. You can't plant clippings or seeds with the modified genome.

I too would prefer sidewalks edged with naturally proliferating glowing ground cover, and walking through night landscapes that glow like in Avatar, but that seems to be a few steps away.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> > The vision is to make a plant that will function as a desk lamp

There's something about that sentence that is just brilliant (excuse the pun). I'm not really sure why.

Maybe because it has never occurred to me that what a poinsettia was missing was a dimmer switch? No idea, but I love it.

<comment><USER7> I doubt plants will replace desk lamps. Maybe only very dim ones.

Even larger organisms like humans aren't powerhouses, we only need about 100 Watt (25 Watt for the brain), imagine you also had to power a 20W lightbulb. You'd have to suddenly increase your daily food consumption by 20%.

While this sounds easy for a human, it's not going to be that healthy, even less so for a plant which probably consumes less than a couple watts and a 20 Watt light output will probably exceed any other energy usage of the plant easily.

<comment><USER8> I think this will depend on the overall efficiency, but I can find portable reading lights at 1W, and I've got a 5W bulb in my hall. 20W is quite a lot for LEDs.

In general I agree, though I'd be interested to see the overall efficiency and output, whether your could get that kind of output from a larger plant.

I'm concerned about the (even theoretical) end to end efficiency compared to something like a solar panel + led setup.

> This technology could also be used to provide low-intensity indoor lighting, > or to transform trees into self-powered streetlights, the researchers say.

Streetlights that glow _up_ significantly sounds like a horrible idea for light pollution.

While interesting, and I'm happy seeing research done without clear monetisation, I'm not sure what key problems glowing plants actually solve. An honest question, as lots of smart people working on this I assume know a lot more about the issues than someone who's been thinking about it for 5 minutes.

<comment><USER9> > _I 'm concerned about the (even theoretical) end to end efficiency compared > to something like a solar panel + led setup._

The maximum theoretical efficiency of chlorophyll-based photosynthesis with sunlight is 11%. That's already less than what solar panels can provide, and no plant achieves that. Then they store this energy in biomass, with a global efficiency of typically less than 1%.

Then, they will likely also use a very inefficient process to convert matter back into light, I'd assume less than 1% efficiency given the complicated pathways used. We're already at something like 0.01% efficiency from sunlight to artificial light at this point.

It's actually logical, since instead of converting light to readily-usable electricity, plants convert light into energy that they use to live, matter that they use to build themselves, and matter used for storage. Only the latest fraction is usable to create light, and most of it is already intended for the plant to live during the night. A solar panel has none of this overhead.

There is absolutely no way that plants will ever come close to competing with artificial lighting. They won't _glow_ , at most they will be able to be faintly seen in the dark.

<comment><USER8> Thanks for the figures.

There's another general issue with this in that I can position solar panels to be best for receiving light and the bulb best for projecting it. A glowing leaf needs to do both.

Perhaps there are other good uses, if this can be targeted to specific issues with a plant (e.g. make it happen when they're being attacked by bugs, or need watering, or something like that) then it could be used as a signal we can cheaply detect.

<comment><USER10> If a plant glows while you're eating it, is it a cry for help??

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I had some friends work on a similar project a few years ago. They found that the glowing was not bright enough to be useful for anything meaningful and it significantly hindered plant growth.

</comment><comment><USER12> "If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason." -- Jack Handy

Potentially relevant about them glowing all the time?

</comment><comment><USER13> I initially read this as "Engineers create plants that grow"

<comment><USER14> Would be a huge breakthrough.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Hasn't this been a thing since forever? I remember also reading something about a glowing rabbit at one point in school.

<comment><USER16> You're thinking of GFP, which requires gene editing and certain wavelengths of light which fluoresces rather than "glows". This is a pretty different approach.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> As much as this appeals to me on a sci-fi level, I think that most of the potential applications being floated for it are pretty bad ideas.

For instance, no plant is ever going to replace my desk lamp when the only color it can produce is 530 nm, it is too dim to read with, and I have to worry about _killing it_. But the _real_ problem there is that I don't even have a desk lamp any more. Or even a desk. My home computer station is a recliner, and my monitor is on a swing-arm.

This technology is a necessary first step to producing nirnroot, but that is the full extent of my expectations. I expect the chiming sound will come later.

Any serious application will probably have to be artificial lichens that can be painted onto surfaces that are exposed to light and moisture. Lichens are hardy little bastards, so if you cover a sidewalk in glowing lichen paint, you will likely end up with something that glows just strongly enough to expose tripping hazards on it. Paint a runway with it, and planes might be able to manage an emergency landing without the usual lighting. This light isn't bright enough for me to see any domestic uses that would displace LEDs or electroluminescent panels.

</comment><comment><USER18> This is super cool, but it can't solve the "desk lamp" problem. All the plants people try to grow in my cube farm are anemic and sickly... they'd likely never have the spare energy to glow.

edit for clarity: unless this is for folks that work night shift, you either already get enough sunlight to have a well lit desk XOR you don't have enough sunlight to power a bioluminescent plant

</comment><comment><USER19> Is the plant needed to produce the light? It sounds like the plant is being used as a medium to hold the light emitting particles, but otherwise isn't used to fuel or transport them.

</comment><comment><USER20> What I really want to know is whether the leaves keep growing after you cut them: I want to eat some glowing salad!

</comment><comment><USER21> Heard about similar experiments a couple of decades ago. Back then scientists immediately stopped the experiment. If glowing plants escape the lab it would seriously affect the natural day-night cycle in nature. Hard to predict what would happen to the night life in the forests. The pitch back then was to colonise space as plants would not need the sun for photosynthesis.

<comment><USER22> > The pitch back then was to colonise space as plants would not need the sun > for photosynthesis.

That's a stupid pitch. The light is required as an energy source for the photosynthesis. Making the plant glow would consume energy from the plant. If you could make a plant that glows without an outside energy source and use this light for photosynthesis while still being energy positive, you'd have broken a few fundamental laws of physics. Having these plants escape the lab and light up woods would be the least of my worries in that case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> We now can engineer a forest like in Avatar. I like this idea.</comment>


Tell HN: Crunchbase searches are public - <AUTHOR>

I'm assuming most people aren't using crunchbase for confidential searches, but just in-case anyone is, it looks like crunchbase saves every search and assigns it a sequential id which can than be used by anyone to look up that search.
For example a search I did:
http://www.crunchbase.com/search/advanced/companies/506276
By incrementing/decrementing the counter on the end you can see the searches other people were doing at the same time. <comment><USER2> I can picture hundreds of data pack-rats writing the exact same shell script, hoping they're not too late :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Just realized this only covers company search, although the same issue is there for people search:

<http://www.crunchbase.com/search/advanced/people/1250638>

Interestingly it looks like people search gets hit much more often than company search which is the opposite of what I would have guessed.

I wonder how long it's going to take for someone to make a high-score table of the most searched founders and startups ;-)

<comment><USER3> here, have the first step:

curl -s <http://www.crunchbase.com/search/advanced/people/1250638> | grep advanced_search_query | cut -d\" -f12

<comment><USER4> Likely much faster ways of going through this but to expand on your thought:

#!/bin/bash

         for (( i=1; $i < 1250646; i++))

         do

                    curl -s http://www.crunchbase.com/search/advanced/people/$i | grep advanced_search_query | cut -d\" -f12 >> people.txt

         done

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is the kind of stuff that made Arrington want to sell to AOL.

</comment><comment><USER6> Looks like they killed it ... all these addresses say "record not found". And, when you run a new search, you get a more standard address, e.g. search for IBM, the address is <http://www.crunchbase.com/search?query=IBM>

</comment><comment><USER7> Appears to be sort of fixed? I think they're expiring them, but I'm not sure based on what.

As of now, my search (#506811) appears to still work, as do a couple before it, including 506800. But search numbers 1, 2, 100000, 500000, 505000, 506000 all fail.

(I'm sorry I didn't do a proper binary search.)

Someone can check on my search later and see if it's time based. Or do a bunch of searches until it expires and see if they're just storing the N number of last searches.

</comment><comment><USER8> I just wondered about the quality of information at crunch-base, so I searched for a man who sold his first company "XIV" to IBM for $300M, his second company "Diligent" for $165M (also to IBM) and just recently have left IBM and founded a new one named "Axxana".

The only record I have found was about Axxana which secured $9M (seires b).

see at <http://www.crunchbase.com/person/moshe-yanai>

</comment><comment><USER9> ergo,

First search! <http://www.crunchbase.com/search/advanced/companies/1>

<comment><USER10> Which begs the question, if you search for a tree in an empty forest and nobody logs it, does it make a sound? (Lumberjack pun not intended)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> People search for "mark" and "zynga" not "how do I kill my co-founder and get his equity?"

I didn't see any searches that seemed in any way sensitive. Are there any?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm guessing people might search for their "stealth" business ideas or companies might be searching for takeover targets.

Or say a VC posts a link to crunchbase search to their twitter, someone could look at the previous/next results and could find out what companies that VC might have been looking at.

People assume searches are anonymous and can often search for things without thinking about it. In one case I had a google search referrer in my blog which was "xyz takeover abc" which came from an IP address owned by xyz (who happened to be a YC company I mentioned on my blog) prior to their takeover by abc being announced.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Just advanced searches though?</comment>


Israel to launch one of the most advanced missile defense systems in the world - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/israel-to-launch-one-of-the-most-advanced-missile-defense-systems-in-the-world-with-us-help/2016/03/03/6383cb88-dfd5-11e5-8c00-8aa03741dced_story.html <comment><USER2> Why is the US giving billions of dollars to a foreign nation while her own citizens are in dire need of those funds?

I guess the better questions is, how do the people allow this to happen?

<comment><USER3> The simple answer to your question is to ask yourself what is likely to happen if the aid were to end. Let's let history be our guide:

1\. Israel may preemptively strike Iran believing "now or never". Has done so before in many other situations.

2\. Israel will increase its growing ties with China and Russia. Hillary Clinton's email dump suggests there is concern about this at State.

3\. Israel'a adversaries (eg. Iran, Hezbollah, etc.) will renew and increase attacks. There will be instability and loss of life. 1948, 1973, 1982, etc.

4\. Increasing conflict and instability will cause great economic pain globally. We know this because almost every recession since 1948 has been proceeded by conflict in the middle east, most of the time Israel.

Any of these outcomes cost much more than $3b USD, and for the expense US taxpayers get these added benefits:

1\. Jobs, jobs, jobs. US defense contractors are one of America's few remaining manufacturing hotspots.

2\. Slightly less interest by Saudi Arabia, etc. in pursuing WMD to counter Iran. And under-the-table deals between some Arab states and Israel, which have Israel maintaining a tenuous balance of power in the Middle East, countering Iran.

3\. Democracy. You elected your representatives, senators and president. Don't like their position on Israel? Organize, donate and vote. Sitting on HN and complaining unless you're doing the other three things feels good but accomplishes nothing.

4\. Peace of mind. Organize, donate, vote and win -- and you can credit yourself among the winners who saved $3b, and plunged an entire region into further chaos, resulting in the deaths of likely millions. Major dark side points for you.

Want $3b back? The government can find $3b with ease and allocate it to the small business administration to create jobs at home. Betcha they won't, because people love to complain about things like foreign aid, but fail to complain about the lack of hard dollars to small businesses, entrepreneurs and small business employees.

EDIT: If you're going to cherry pick individual points to dispute you might point out that you're unable to dispute the general thesis.

<comment><USER4> This is an amazing comment - yet it really illustrates how fucked up the situation is.

It's become a catch-22, and there is no longer any way out....

We are now beholden to the situation forever. And to worsen the dynamic, Israel is an AMAZING producer of tech. And as we all know tech is the lifeblood of the future.

There is no way to extricate ourself from this situation, however that does not invalidate the frustration of it.

We need to recognize that Israel is an actual powerful economy, and we need to find a way to let them stand on their own, and not literally being the big brother ready to punch out any bully at school.

The fundamental fact is that Israel should have never become a nuke power. Ever.

That's the hand that has us by the balls.

<comment><USER5> US military aid to Israel is less than 10% of Israel's GDP, most of those 3 bln. can only be used to buy US made equipment so cutting 3 bln. $ would mean that those 3 bln. are gone from the US defense industry not the other way around.

>The fundamental fact is that Israel should have never become a nuke power. Ever. That's the hand that has us by the balls.

Israel hasn't even attempted to deploy nukes in 1973 where the situation was almost dire, It's quite unlikely that it will ever use them under any circumstance other than retaliation (and even then it's some what doubtful).

You make it sound like Israel is blackmailing the US it doesn't, the US knows that if it cuts the ties between the defense industries it will have both another competitor (Israeli arm deals have to be approved by the US congress since the Chinese Phalcon incident) and it will push Israel to both China and Russia and the last thing that the US wants is open and unrestricted technology sharing between those countries.

Israel isn't Pakistan it's not an open nuclear state which parades it's nukes and is a bad day away from becoming a nuclear armed Taliban.

While I agree that nukes in the middle east aren't the best idea with recent events vis a vis the Iranian nuclear deal there is no way now for Israel to officially join the NPT and be on a path for disarmament, and as far as nuclear arm races in the ME goes Israel is not now and never has been a factor.

Iraq wanted nukes to nuke Iran, Saudi Arabia now wants nukes to counter Iran, Iran wants nukes to be a regional super power.

<comment><USER4> I really appreciate your input!

But I have to ask you; everyone defends the status quo wrt paying this money to Israel, give me an alternative as to how to not do this???

<comment><USER5> Well the money that is paid to Israel is due to the Camp David accords both Israel and Egypt get the same military aid package.

The US from time to time allocates additional funds to Israel to fund various R&D programs in most cases they either end up buying into the same equipment and when they aren't they get the technology.

If you take out the military aid to Israel and Egypt the US will still continue to fund research out of pure self interests.

The director of the MDA once called Israel the US's most cost effective and efficient defense contractor he also said:

"The design of Arrow 3 promises to be an extremely capable system, more advanced than what we have ever attempted in the U.S. with our programs"[0]

The development of the Arrow 3 started in June 2009 at a total buy-in cost of about 300M, David's Sling was developed in under 5 years for the cost of 250M $, the costs of the SM-3 program so far are estimated at about 15 bln. $ it's land based version Aegis Ashore has already cost over 2 bln. without being fully operational.

If you look at it from a pure financial POV if you want to actually save money just delegate all of the US R&D at least as far as Missile Defense goes to Israel, they'll deliver on time and on a budget that most US defense contractors would claim is too small to develop a new shoe lace.

[0][http://defense-update.com/products/a/arrow3.html](http://defense- update.com/products/a/arrow3.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What a sad world

<comment><USER7> What exactly do you find to be sad?

<comment><USER8> I find it sad that so much effort is being made to kill, maim and endanger a massive civilization which ultimately has the technology to feed, foster and enlighten everyone .. yet simply chooses not to do so. Makes a simple choice, to continue the bloodshed with investment into utterly useless devices, which only tangible product is destruction.

Imagine if those missiles were being used as a medicine-/food-/book- delivery system, and instead of sitting around in billion-dollar warehouses waiting to be deployed, was being used to find every poor soul on the planet too thirsty, too tired, and too beat to want to learn anyone elses' songs, let alone fight for the survival of their own ..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Not sure this is a good thing. Israel is one of the most militarily adventuresome states in the Middle East. There is a risk that this new relative immunity to rocket bombardment is going to encourage further invasions of Lebanon and Gaza.

<comment><USER10> When was the last time Israel invaded Lebanon or Gaza without prior provocation or attack?

Further one might want to keep in mind that Gaza is currently being ruled by an organization, that has the destruction of Israel as one of it's core goals.

Arguably Israel is surprisingly calm given that they could eliminate this problem easily should they wish to.

<comment><USER9> All countries will generate some sort of justification for their military actions. So the fact that Israel does this as well isn't very interesting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This news will make all the antisemites mad.

Make no mistake: The US does this for her own benefit. They gain back more in technology than they spend.

The security help to Israel is secondary, although important because the US benefits from a stable middle east and a strong Israel helps with that.

US aid to Egypt is all about stability though, no technological gains there. Which is why the US sends less money there.

<comment><USER12> >This news will make all the antisemites mad.

Ah yes, disagreeing with Israeli government practices is anti-Semitic now.

You make solid points other than that.

<comment><USER11> Yes, having a problem with Israel having a strong defense is antisemetic.

<comment><USER13> Under what conditions could there be a legitimate criticism of the government of Israel.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Model-Based Reinforcement Learning with Neural Network Dynamics - <AUTHOR> http://bair.berkeley.edu/blog/2017/11/30/model-based-rl/ <comment><USER2> If I understand correctly, there are the novel features of this paper:

\- Use neural network to learn (state, action) -> (state, prev_state) separately.

\- Use this neural network to predict state in 100-step horizon and use that prediction to chose action in RL setting.

This method reduces sample complexity of RL. The method still isn't beating model-free methods with lots of data. I think the interesting part was using micro insects which unfortunately are not available commercially and results may not be reproducible by others.

<comment><USER3> If I can read the picture properly, the microinsect is just a small plastic part (injection molded? it doesn't look printed), some servos, and a microcontroller. Any lab that's serious in this area could recreate it. [https://robotics.eecs.berkeley.edu/~ronf/PAPERS/dhaldane- icr...](https://robotics.eecs.berkeley.edu/~ronf/PAPERS/dhaldane-icra15.pdf)

Ah, OK. It's a bit more than that. They had to upgrade the bot significantly with next-gen materials to achieve high speeds, [https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/robotics- hardwa...](https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/robotics- hardware/icra-2015-x2velociroach-smashes-speed-record-for-tiny-legged-robots)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not to sound negative – this is a cool paper – but isn't this in the grey zone of being actual research? It feels like a fairly trivial application of things already known since way back to work in simulation.

<comment><USER5> yes, model-based (ie - learning physics and predicting future states and planning accordingly, rather than just choosing actions that you've learned will give you rewards) RL has been in the literature for many years, see Sutton's DYNA for example.

But I think the model-based part is still considered relatively hard in real- world environments due to the large search space of possible actions/consequences.

And note that here they didn't actually use the model at runtime, they just used it as an 'expert' (rather than getting a human to provide guidance) to give a model-free agent policy a head start (see DAGGER algorithm) and reduce the number of training samples.

<comment><USER6> I'd they figure out how to change these models, say, an NFA representation of one, we might have something very interesting...

Best of both worlds?</comment></comment></comment>


A Deep Learning USB Stick - <AUTHOR> http://www.movidius.com/news/movidius-announces-deep-learning-accelerator-and-fathom-software-framework <comment><USER2> Lots of misunderstanding in this comments section.

Movidius makes low power neural network processors for mobile application. The Myriad V1 is used in google tango and the V2 (what the USB stick has) is used in the new DJI Phantom 4.

[http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/16/11242578/movidius- myriad-2...](http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/16/11242578/movidius- myriad-2-chip-computer-vision-dji-phantom-4)

The Myriad chips are interesting because they combine MIPI camera interface lanes on the same chip as a general purpose NN/CV processor and an SDK suite of hardware accelerated computer vision functions (edge detection, Guassian blur, etc).

here's the white paper for the chip: [http://uploads.movidius.com/1441734401-Myriad-2-product- brie...](http://uploads.movidius.com/1441734401-Myriad-2-product-brief.pdf)

Because programming these chips essentially requires having the hardware, and because the hardware was very hard to come by, programming these chips was mostly limited to Google, DJI, and other big partners.

With this release the everyday developer has access to these vision processing chips, and the barrier to development entry is considerably lower.

This is not meant to replace your titan X gpu.

<comment><USER3> This is their own press release. What does that kind of hardware for CV primitives have to do with deep learning?

(Also, of course, this stick doesn't seem to have any kind of connectivity besides the USB to the host computer. How do I connect my camera? Having to shuffle the data from a camera to the stick passing the host computer somewhat defeats the point.)

<comment><USER4> >What does that kind of hardware for CV primitives have to do with deep learning?

They have hardware convolutions on 12 SHAVE cores (kind of a DSP core). It means that the chip can run some useful subset of convolutional neural networks very fast and energy efficient.

They also have 2 general purpose SPARC cores, which allows you to have a "normal" program running there. Not sure, how locked the USB stick going to be, and if running your custom program would be an option.

>How do I connect my camera? The chip itself has a couple of MIPI lanes. The USB stick likely does not expose that. And I agree, that's suboptimal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't fully get the negativity of comments on HN for this product on the sole fact that it's currently an usb stick.

I think it's just can make sense to push to the market this kind of chip early and don't wait to be bundle with another device. Kudo for Caffe support.

<comment><USER2> This is intended for development. I think HN commentators are missing that.

Given the limited availability of phones and products with the Myriad 2, and the fact that you might not be targeting a phone anyway, being able to buy and develop on a cheap USB stick is an incredibly smart move.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't see why you would need deep learning NN on a phone.

If this is for CV, why not use the myriad DSPs from every silicon company ever?

Seems like a buzzword fueled product.

<comment><USER2> Tell that to Google and DJI that use them in their own products.

They arent just for NN, they are general purpose image processing chips with NNs as one option.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> You guys know if the Myriad V2 processor is locked (just neural networks) or it will be programmable?

<comment><USER8> Well it would be suited to other computer vision tasks based on the hardwired accelerator cores.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Haven't found any info of the availability or price. Interesting concept anyway.

<comment><USER10> <$100[0]

[0] [http://www.tomshardware.com/news/movidius-fathom-neural- comp...](http://www.tomshardware.com/news/movidius-fathom-neural-compute- stick,31694.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Wouldn't this be limited to something like 10Gb/s throughput? That's not much compared to a GPU bus. Cool idea though. I wish this press release wasn't so light on specs.

</comment><comment><USER8> It looks like they have developed an ASIC for ML. The obvious use case would be mobile devices where performance/power and latency (versus going to the cloud) is a concern.

</comment><comment><USER12> Can you connect it to a phone with a micro-B USB adapter, and then use it to run pre-trained networks with your phone's camera like I imagine it is used in thd DJI Phantom 4? I know the USB to the camera and onboard CPU will not be the same as the DJI's bus, but it would make for an interesting mobile testing platform for me to learn on.

<comment><USER13> Use a surface tablet?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This page absolutely wrecks Firefox 45.0.2. UI thread gets blocked indefinitely and spins a core. :-(

</comment><comment><USER15> this collab with FLIR for thermal cameras is interesting too. The video gives a bit more info about the myriad 2

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsopAM8FexE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsopAM8FexE)

</comment><comment><USER16> How about this kind of extra processor comes in a mobile phone, which improves regular camera vision, all health sensors, better everything that we can do with mobile phones..

<comment><USER17> Someday they will be I'm sure. Probably part of the SoC.

But not yet, software is not ready for it yet.

<comment><USER18> Seems like the perfect opportunity to insert a plug for my project: [http://liblikely.org/](http://liblikely.org/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Betting on local instead of cloud is always an interesting gamble.

Pros:

\- Security

\- Control

Cons:

\- Resource limitations

\- (...)

<comment><USER20> Local is also useful in situations with limited or no internet access. Say you're trying to do deep recognition on a live video feed: many places this would be useful simply do not have the bandwidth available to stream video.

<comment><USER21> Also useful in latency-sensitive applications, such as the drone flight demo they use in their video.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> How powerful is it?

<comment><USER23> Not very...

At 15 inferences per second in fp16 for Googlenet, I'd guesstimate 50-60 GHFLOPs. That would give it very roughly 2x perf/W over TitanX.

<comment><USER24> Given that figure and the Titan X at 250W TDP would put it somewhere around 1/125th of the performance. Which is probably more than good enough for inference given a network but you still need something beefy for the training.

It's still pretty interesting, though, since only need to do the training once.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I almost closed the tab with this page, the classifier in my head marked it as an ad.

</comment><comment><USER26> look like fraud

<comment><USER27> Hey, I'll bite. Why do you think that?

<comment><USER28> their product is based on a buzz word and uses unknown hardware, the specs seem underwhelming (1W + usb = ?). their page is filled with videos of models and nature shots and a bunch of news categories that have a few articles from 2013/14\. there's no way to order anything, yet they put out some wild claims:

'With Fathom, every robot, big and small, can now have state-of-the-art vision capabilities'

'It means the same level of surprise and delight we saw at the beginning of the smartphone revolution'

'With more than 1 million units of Myriad 2 already ordered'

tl;dr: because, to an outsider, it sure does look like fraud.

<comment><USER29> Their hardware is integrated with many devices like googles Tango.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Just saying - I'm digging the idea of a USB stick that turns my laptop into an artificial intelligence.

</comment><comment><USER31> Thought TensorFlow already did this, how is this USB different?

Seems like the more logical approach would be to have a widget app developers could easily deploy embedded TensorFlow builds in Android & iPhones. Has anyone looked into doing this or found someone already doing this?

<comment><USER32> My understanding is that it allows you to take your tensorflow model, transfer it to the USB and plug it in (interface with) your 3rd party hardware (other than your phone) which isn't connected to the cloud.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> This is a dev board, not a consumer product. And (contrary to the title) the press release explicitly says that it is not intended for "deep learning."

Acceleration is needed for training -- not running the models themselves. A quick glimpse of the power used (1 watt) lets you know exactly how much "acceleration" is going on in here. This is meant for tiny devices.

EDIT: My point is that this is a small-run dev board for a chip for some future $19 nannycam. It's not an "accelerator" you install on your PC to put your graphics card to shame running TensorFlow.

EDIT #2: This is another one of those HN threads that's overrun by enthusiasts. Jamming a chip onto a stick is simply how they sell embedded crap now.

Here's a crypto chip that'll really get you guys going: [http://www.atmel.com/tools/AT88CK590.aspx](http://www.atmel.com/tools/AT88CK590.aspx)

<comment><USER34> >Acceleration is needed for training -- not running the models themselves

This isn't true. Running neural networks (including CNNs) can be computationally and power intensive, and lends itself to the vector operations of GPUs, FPGAs, and ASICs. Putting the computations on devoted hardware could enable embedded applications that simply aren't possible otherwise.

Here's a whitepaper by Microsoft about using FPGA's to speed up CNNs: [http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/?id=240715](http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/?id=240715)

Article by Google explaining the importance of optimizing neural networks to run on mobile phones: [http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2015/07/how-google- transl...](http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2015/07/how-google-translate- squeezes-deep.html)

<comment><USER35> Are there any good examples of FPGA implementations of CNN?

I see one example in Verilog on github: [https://github.com/ziyan/altera- de2-ann/blob/master/src/ann/...](https://github.com/ziyan/altera- de2-ann/blob/master/src/ann/ann.vhd)

<comment><USER15> RNN - [http://arxiv.org/abs/1511.05552v4](http://arxiv.org/abs/1511.05552v4)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Dependence on H-1B has fallen significantly, says Infosys CEO at virtual AGM - <AUTHOR> https://m.timesofindia.com/videos/business/dependence-on-h-1b-has-fallen-significantly-says-infosys-ceo-at-virtual-agm/amp_videoshow/76685686.cms <comment><USER2> 1\. They don't say how many contractors they employ (through staffing agencies) who are on H1B

2\. Having 40% of your FTEs on H1B is still pretty staggering

<comment><USER3> How many of the 60% are birthright citizens? I imagine many are green card and citizenship winners who stayed on for the convenience.

<comment><USER4> What difference does that make? Are you suggesting we start dual-classing US citizens based on how they acquired their citizenships? Citizens are citizens. LPRs are LPRs.

It's especially interesting given the rumblings against birthright citizenship we've been hearing recently too.

What then is someone "rightfully" allowed to be here in your opinion?

<comment><USER5> Well, technically there's a difference between born citizens as those are the only ones who can hold the highest office of the president.

<comment><USER2> Infosys is not the highest office of the president so it makes no difference here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Well it's a no-brainer, if it's remote all the Java developers can as well stay in India.

</comment><comment><USER7> They have atleast 60% of their workforce in US via 3rd party contracting body shops.</comment>


Voting Computer Malfunction Video - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=QdpGd74DrBM

<comment><USER2> Same video, very few comments or upvotes yet:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4748736>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4748903>

</comment><comment><USER2> Unlikely that you'll see this submission first, but in case you do, the discussion has ended up here:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4749574></comment>


Two Chainsaw Secrets – Turning a Tree into Perfect Boards (2019) [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qz64ELkxdA <comment><USER3> What is not obvious to the uninitiated is his saw-sharpening skills. His depth gauges, bar rails and teeth lengths are spot-on. Getting these all right is necessary for any kind of board cutting with a chainsaw.

His techniques are innovative if you are accustomed to other forms of board cutting but its certainly not as simple as grabbing a chainsaw and swinging the tip.

The number of people around who use chainsaws and can't sharpen them to a rudimentary level let alone this guys level of precision leads me to think there are going to be some disappointed people who try this off the bat - <USER2> you arent reasonably experienced with sharpening then you will get away with a brand new bar and chain cutting straight...for a while.

Also, safety first people. Chainsaws are horrendously dangerous even for experienced people. Always wear boots, leggings, ear and eye protection.

<comment><USER4> I mean, you don't have to sharpen them yourself. All it takes is a good stash of chains, and someone in the area who does it, and you can drop off half of them and pick up the other half every time you swing by, it's not that big of a deal.

<comment><USER5> Yep, there are even machines to do it quickly.

Still nice to know how to sharpen a chain to a certain degree so you don't have to change the chain multiple times before lunch.

Changing the chain easily takes a few minutes (opening the side, loosen the chain, change chains, tightening the new one to correct tension, closing the side.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I brought a "portable" sawmill[1] a few years back, after doing a fair bit of research around this.

As I looked into it it seemed that there were some major caveats to making boards with a chainsaw. 1. It's slow, 2. One looses a lot of wood due to the chain kerf (thickness), 3. Regular chain sharpening is needed. On the other hand, it is pretty portable as this video shows.

I ended up going with the sawmill because it addressed these concerns. The downside being that one has to bring the logs to it. Cost wise it compared pretty equally to larger chainsaw mills I was looking at.

Having now used it for a coupe of years, my thoughts are:

0\. It is amazing to see in action. I recommend watching the videos, but in person it is even better. It's the first think you need in order to become a Bond villain.

1\. You need a _lot_ of boards to cover a floor or a wall. It is hard work with my mill, and I wouldn't want to do it with a chainsaw.

2\. It is surprisingly tiring (I find anything involving forestry is pretty hard on the body)

3\. You will struggle to make a business out of it (I knew this going in, but just to reiterate)

4\. Making straight lumber is a little tricky. Trying to do it is trees below 30cm in diameter is pointless. Making boards with a live (i.e. wiggly) edge is the sweet spot.

5\. While I was super excited about this, it was actually the woodland mills wood chipper that was the better investment.

That all being said, it is amazing go fell a tree, then drag it over to the sawmill, cut it, then go and nail it up!

[1]: [https://woodlandmills.eu/product/hm126/](https://woodlandmills.eu/product/hm126/)

<comment><USER7> What are you using it for?

<comment><USER6> Mostly making boards for cladding structures with. It is pretty good for this purpose.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Interesting approach --- I wouldn't have guessed that results would turn out as even as they seem to. I spent yesterday sawing some 20" cherry with an Alaskan Mill. I've finally got a good setup with a good saw (Stihl 462) but it's annoying how slow the process is even when it goes well. And it's discouraging how often one needs to resharpen the chain to cut effectively: at least every 30' of cut seems about right.

His birch-stump-chainsaw-vice at 7:47 is incredible: [https://youtu.be/8qz64ELkxdA?t=468](https://youtu.be/8qz64ELkxdA?t=468)

I'm not convinced by his theory about why using the tip of the chainsaw helps. Rather than just being the effect of fewer teeth, I'm wondering if it might have a lot to do with the "increased effective raker depth" when the chain goes over the rounded tip.

I'm still a bit confused how he starts the cut. Somewhere deep in the comments, he says: "First, you start a shallow straight cut along the guide wire with your chain saw's tip. Once you have a shallow straight cut you start the swinging motions as shown in the video..." It seems like this would be essential, and hard. Guess I'll have to try it.

<comment><USER9> > I'm not convinced by his theory about why using the tip of the chainsaw > helps. Rather than just being the effect of fewer teeth, I'm wondering if it > might have a lot to do with the "increased effective raker depth" when the > chain goes over the rounded tip.

I dunno. Sounds plausible to me, at least partly. With the tip you've only got a few teeth trying to take out bites of wood so they get more wood per bite. As for the lower gas usage, it's probably partly like he says and partly friction. A vertical cut means your saw isn't working so hard ejecting sawdust, and you aren't fighting gravity. I notice he wasn't using any wedges with his alaskan mill set up, so the board is trying to fall into the blade the entire time. From the videos I've seen, it seems to be a step that a lot of people omit.

Also am I imagining it or is his chainsaw ingesting a lot more dust in the horizontal cuts than the vertical?

<comment><USER8> > With the tip you've only got a few teeth trying to take out bites of wood so > they get more wood per bite

Thinking about it more, I'm pretty sure the bigger difference is the direction of the wood fibers relative to the chain. The fibers can be visualized as a bundle of straws. In "normal" Alaskan milling, you are cutting almost perpendicular to the straws. In his approach, you are cutting almost parallel to the straws. Cutting perpendicular takes the most force, produces the smallest chips, and makes the smoothest cut. Cutting parallel rips out fibers, takes less force, and isn't quite as smooth.

> I notice he wasn't using any wedges with his alaskan mill set up, so the > board is trying to fall into the blade the entire time.

Somewhere deep in the comments he mentioned he was using wedges, but they just weren't in the video. I don't think wedges make a big difference during the cut, though. The newly cut board is still completely supported at the joint, and bar tends to slide backward freely if the saw is turned off. Where the wedges matter most is at the very end of the cut, once the new board is no longer supported.

> Also am I imagining it or is his chainsaw ingesting a lot more dust in the > horizontal cuts than the vertical?

It's probably a tiny bit more, but this doesn't seem to be a big issue. The air intake is well separated from the chip exit, and if your chain is sharp the chips are large enough to fall quickly to the ground. I check the air filter after milling, and it doesn't seem to get clogged any more rapidly than during regular chainsaw use.

<comment><USER9> > Thinking about it more, I'm pretty sure the bigger difference is the > direction of the wood fibers relative to the chain.

You might have it there. Chainsaws are crosscutting saws by design, right? A mill is using the same chain as a rip saw. The shavings he gets by using the tip look like chisel work which is what you want in a rip saw. More material removed with fewer fibers cut.

I guess there are ripping chains. Would be interesting to see him set one saw up for the rip cut and compare the two side by side.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you haven't seen it yet, this is the same guy that came up with an insanely cool tool to create polymer rope out of PET bottles: [https://youtu.be/GSBh77bjz_Q](https://youtu.be/GSBh77bjz_Q). The older video was pretty widely circulated a couple of years ago, if I recall correctly.

</comment><comment><USER11> I got addicted to his bushcraft videos awhile back- [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfD3XjTDLE0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfD3XjTDLE0) is an intro to a lot of his various projects, which are really amazing.

In fact, seeing this again finally gave me the inspiration for tackling a red oak log that is way too large to just turn into firewood.

Also, this quote: "As it often happens, it takes years to acquire simple wisdom"

</comment><comment><USER12> I believe that it's the impact of Covid 19 that has propelled this video onto the front page of Hacker News. Tons of people are doing DIY, gardening etc because of it and learning those skills on youtube. There is one channel I've discovered and though its creator is ostensibly just a carpenter he's also a historian, philosopher , a jack of all building trades and a wonderful communicator. I give you the Essential Craftsman [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzr30osBdTmuFUS8IfXtXmg](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzr30osBdTmuFUS8IfXtXmg)

<comment><USER13> Essential Craftsman is a great channel. I found it when it was mentioned on an HN thread about This Old House - also awesome YouTube content. There's a bunch more on that thread [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19961723](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19961723)

One of my favs is plumberparts (in the Uk). James has got me from not knowing anything about plumbing to installing my own kitchen and bathroom - and he doesn't even know it. [https://www.youtube.com/user/plumberparts](https://www.youtube.com/user/plumberparts)

Also, Robin Clevett (rafter / carpenter) is great ([https://www.youtube.com/user/ukconstruction](https://www.youtube.com/user/ukconstruction)). Found him from the Skill Builder channel when he demoed the Scarf Joint ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SUtoKKNKHQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SUtoKKNKHQ)). Transpires he's building an amazing house about 10 minutes from me (which is where he's doing that Scarf Joint).

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I strongly suggest that people using chainsaws wear some protective gear. Minimum - steel capped boots, safety glasses and mask and proper gloves. Best idea - proper chainsaw trousers.

What you need to realize are four things.

1) Working with a chainsaw is tiring, it is really easy to get careless not because you aren't smart or savvy, but because you are knackered. This is the moment when you do something like put the saw on your toe or leg.

2) Things fly around around chainsaws, splinters stones, bits of chainsaw even. If they fly into your eye or into your hand you may well flinch or jump and slice yourself, even if you have the self control of a ninja.

3) Chainsaw injuries are really nasty, they are hard to fix and go septic even when fixed well, a small looking cut could mean you get to have your leg sawn off.

4) You need to have a plan and training - don't just pick up a chainsaw and start carving things up - make sure that you know how to use it.

Also it's good to know that they thing is safe and in order - which means that the safety cut out should work (the reason my last one got scrapped) - and the thing is oiling the chain properly and the chain is good.

<comment><USER15> +1, they are no joke.

I was hoping to use my mandatory staycation time to get some chainsaw work done around my property (6 acres); unfortunately both need maintenenace work (bad carb, loose chain that won't tighten). I started doing repairs myself and then remembered:

Should an injury happen I'd be a burden on the already taxed healthcare system.

And so back into the garage the saws went, I'll do the work in the fall when I can get them into a repair shop ...

That said, I can see/hear from my window that my next door neighbour (whose landscaping business is shut down because of COVID...) has a buddy over, cutting up old logs with a chainsaw, using their backhoe to move the logs around, not maintaining social distance... Hurray...

<comment><USER16> We bought a high-end gas model and an eGo 14" for "light" work.

Dozens of trees (and zero maintenance) later, the eGo has gone through everything we've thrown at it, and the gas model has never been fired up.

The battery is usually going strong after we're exhausted, and we have spares due to owning other eGo tools. Also, is is extremely quiet, and there's no air pollution (other than aerosolized bar oil). I can't recommend it highly enough.

<comment><USER15> Yes at this point I'd love to sell my smaller Echo and replace with electric for lighter duty work. The larger is the one that needs carberator work.

But none of this will happen until after the staycation is over

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Step one, draw a circle. Step two draw the rest of the owl.

I can't help but feel its not as easy or fool proof as it looks.

</comment><comment><USER18> Wood is a weird material. The way you cut it will change how it warps when it dries. It's hard to get ideal boards out of a cylinder. They different cut types lead to different result.

[https://www.archdaily.com/894449/how-tree-trunks-are-cut- to-...](https://www.archdaily.com/894449/how-tree-trunks-are-cut-to-produce- wood-with-different-appearances-and-uses)

[http://seanhellman.blogspot.com/2013/06/warping-wood-how- woo...](http://seanhellman.blogspot.com/2013/06/warping-wood-how-wood- moves.html?m=1)

</comment><comment><USER19> Our hackerspace used to be adjacent to a foresting school. We often had "hacking" days [0] to prepare wood for our heater that would warm our space trough hacked together central heating[1]. One of those days the people of the foresting school saw us (mostly me probably) handling a chainsaw and it scared the shit out of them. Half neighbourly friendlyness and half fear of a chainsaw accident happening right next door to their school being bad publicity they offered us a free lesson in chainsaw handling and maintenance[2].

It was a fun experience and very educative and would be well worth the money you'd normally pay for such a lesson. I never knew there was so much to properly handling and maintaining a chainsaw.

[0] [https://hack42.nl/blog/2012/01/zaagtiviteit](https://hack42.nl/blog/2012/01/zaagtiviteit) [1] [https://hack42.nl/blog/2011/12/billige- waerme](https://hack42.nl/blog/2011/12/billige-waerme) [2] [https://hack42.nl/wiki/2013-07-19_Kettingzaagles](https://hack42.nl/wiki/2013-07-19_Kettingzaagles)

</comment><comment><USER20> Since he's building a cabin, it feels like a link to Dick Proenneke is obligatory:

[https://youtu.be/wTT9IIVxonc](https://youtu.be/wTT9IIVxonc)

</comment><comment><USER21> Completely counter-intuitive, but the results are plain to see. And the size of those boards! (No need to go to the gym any more using this method either. Whoofda.)

</comment><comment><USER22> Seasoned chain saw operator here.

I'm not sure I'd try that. If you catch the front (round) part of the blade in the wood, it greatly increases the danger of 'kickback'. (Good way to slash yourself in the face.)

If you try it, please be extra, extra cautious.

</comment><comment><USER23> This is why I like hacker news...</comment>


Apple patents 3D glasses for the iPod. - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/7575492/Apple-to-venture-into-three-dimensions.html

<comment><USER2> Immersive Augmented Reality or bust!</comment>


Clear explanation of Rust's module system - <AUTHOR> http://www.sheshbabu.com/posts/rust-module-system/ <comment><USER2> There is a mistake in the screenshots: filesystem view doesn't show `mod.rs`.

To all others struggling with Rust's module system, it may seem unnatural if you're coming from another language (like python), but once you finally understand how it's wired it will be as simple as python's.

Consider `mod.rs` like `__init__.py`, with the added benefit of being capable of renaming and choosing when to expose internal module components.

<comment><AUTHOR> > There is a mistake in the screenshots: filesystem view doesn't show > `mod.rs`.

Yes, didn't realize it would be confusing. I've fixed the diagrams in examples 2 & 3 to include mod.rs in filesystem tree :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The confusion around Rust's modules reminds me of the different ways that people learn how to use car indicators.

Some people learn that you push the stalk up to indicate your intent to turn left, or down to turn right. And then they might eventually learn that in a European car, you push the stalk down to turn left, and up to turn right. And then of course some of these people get confused when switching between different cars. Yes, I've seen plenty of people on the road who indicate one direction and then turn another. It's... kind of frightening.

The other way of learning to use car indicators is much simpler: push the stalk in the direction that you would turn the wheel. Of course this still leaves the possibility that some people will push the wrong stalk, and briefly activate their windshield wipers. But it's a much easier mistake to _notice_, and the consequences are minor.

Back to Rust's modules. I keep seeing articles trying to offer a simple or clear explanation of how they work, that end up unnecessarily complicated in a way that feels a lot like the "up/down" model of car indicators. The explanation that makes the basics of Rust modules clear to me is this:

\- Child modules must always be _declared_ in the parent module, or they don't exist.

\- The content of child modules may be _defined_ either inline in the parent as `mod child { ... }`, or in a file with a relative path of './child.rs' or './child/mod.rs'.

Did I miss anything important?

Without this basic explanation up-front, I have no idea what to do with the stream of information I'm reading in a lengthy article on the topic -- I've been given no scaffolding onto which to bolt all the details and examples. So this is the "bottom line" that I would like to see "up front" in descriptions of Rust's modules.

Other misunderstandings, e.g., around item visibility, are explained really well by the compiler if you get them mixed up, so I'm not sure how much value there is in mixing them in to articles about how modules are _structured_ before those two basic facts are presented.

<comment><USER4> > Some people learn that you push the stalk up to indicate your intent to turn > left, or down to turn right.

I was _very_ confused for a good moment, because the turn signal in my car (which I drive in California) is on the left side of the steering wheel (itself on the left side of the car). I didn't realize the stalk might be on the right side of the wheel in other driver's-side-left cars until you said "some people will push the wrong stalk".

The "push the stalk in the direction that you would turn the wheel" method is intuitive to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> My suggestion for beginners would be to write modules inline and then use the IDE refactor command (IntelliJ plugin has that) to move them to another file. This is the best way to "get it".

</comment><comment><USER6> That's a great explanation! However, it misses the part where modules don't need to be in a separate file, but can also live in a "mod { ... }" block within the same file.

<comment><USER7> I actually like that it omitted the inline syntax. It was the source of my confusion when I read the official Rust Book. Examples with inline syntax don't make it clear that `mod` goes in the parent file (since there's no child file, so you don't have the reference). "But it's the same as if you just put the {} in another file" was like "the proof is trivial, left as an exercise for the reader".

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> From comments, this does fill in some important blanks for some, but IMHO (H=humble and possibly a bit harsh), it's not a clear explanation because it doesn't tell all for absolute beginners.

I think you'll lose beginners at _"These are the different ways we should be able to consume our modules"_.

There is no description of what a module is, why they're needed (or are they optional?), and what that "Cargo.toml" file is about.

I happen to know (rightfully or wrongfully) Cargo is Rust's package manager, but does Cargo require modules (I would guess so, but reading [https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/ch07-01-packages-and- crates.h...](https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/ch07-01-packages-and-crates.html), it may need packages, but not necessarily modules), do modules require the use of Cargo (I would guess not, but then, why make a discussion of modules harder by adding Cargo-related stuff?)?

</comment><comment><USER9> I read the official document several times and still not feel understanding the module system. But I feel like an expert after reading this :) Thanks Shesh

</comment><comment><USER10> This got me thinking about how "module" \- a language concept - is about bringing in definitions (values, types...) into scope, but then there is deployment, something being "installed at a version".

Modules, understood as such, are inevitably connected to the stuff that is happening "one level above" where these things _providing the modules_ are installed (Rust crates, npm packages).

Reaching for a language-independent word, I'd propose to call these things "components" (slightly longer-form thoughts here: [https://blog.burakemir.ch/2020/07/modules-components-and- the...](https://blog.burakemir.ch/2020/07/modules-components-and-their- limits.html))

... but those things happen to be called (or heavily associated with) "module" in Java, C++20 and go.

</comment><comment><USER11> Thanks for the explanation. As a beginner in Rust with experience in a few other programming languages, I think Rust modules are indeed very confusing. I hope they could have something better in a few years.

</comment><comment><USER12> This is the single worst aspect of Rust. Can this be fixed in say in a 2021 or later edition?

<comment><USER13> The worst is that they keep messing with things outside the language.

It is normal to have a set of tools that you like or wish to retain. There may be a package installer (rpm, apt, msi, etc.), a build system (plain Makefile, autoconf, CMake, the Visual Studio project/solution files, etc.), a linker (link.exe, the old binutils ld, gold linker, etc.) and so on.

Most of us aren't looking to replace any of that. Even if we are, the stuff coming along with Rust is probably not what we are looking for.

Cargo is thus, to many of us, an unwelcome surprise.

<comment><USER14> Your comment is very odd to me, it sounds like Rust is a version of C++ and you dislike them changing the tooling. Where did that assumption come from?

I come from Python, and it would be ridiculous if I said "well we already have Poetry so why doesn't Rust just use that". I don't think saying the same thing about the C++ tooling is different.

<comment><USER13> Python is not comparable.

Rust is a natively-compiled systems language that supports the C language ABI.

Python, Perl, Java, Lua, Ruby, Scheme, and other such things are expected to bring along some extra gunk. I'm not saying that this is good, but at least it is unsurprising.

Rust needs to fit in with C, C++, Ada, Fortran, Pascal, and all the other natively-compiled systems languages. Using generic system-provided tools isn't just for C. You'd likely use a Makefile to compile Fortran.

The idea is that the languages are interchangable parts with compatibility. You can create a project that uses a different systems language for each source file, run "make", and it all builds. There is no glue code, no interface definition language, no wrapper, no thunk, or anything of the sort.

The expectation is just different. Nobody expects Python to cooperate with Lua or Ruby or Perl, with source files in different languages freely calling into each other. That is the expectation for natively-compiled systems languages.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Sweet and to the point, thanks!

Also of note, aside from finding the crate root and dependent crates (these are passed explicitly to the compiler, from Cargo most of the time), all of this is strictly part of the Rust language, and handled by the compiler. I find the language model really clear and explicit. I would not touch it, aside from discouraging the use of mod.rs.

I think there's room for an article that expands into Cargo's convention-based source model, which is a bit trickier. A package directory can contain multiple crates: at most one library crate rooted in `src/lib.rs`, but also the various executables that are discovered from the filesystem: src/bin/*.rs, src/main.rs, examples, the test binary, bench binaries… These are crates of their own, with examples and benches needing a library crate to be enabled to access files in the src/ folder (without ugly hacks).

</comment><comment><USER16> Great post. Could this get merged to the rust book? Because the guide there was super confusing.

<comment><USER17> We have re-written the book chapter many times, and we aren't making major changes. We also can't accept big things like this wholesale.

I am glad it exists though!

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> > The module system is explicit - there's no 1:1 mapping with file system

From the examples, it seems like there is exactly a 1:1 mapping with the file system, and it's only the visibility of that mapping that is changed by the `mod` keyword. Am I missing something?

> We declare a file as module in its parent, not in itself

So I need to declare the `models` module in `main.rs`, even though it's only used by the `routes` module and not `main.rs` itself? To me, that seems like it's breaking modularity.

<comment><USER19> If it's only needed by the routes modules, you should create a folder named "routes" and put the "models" module in there.

<comment><USER18> And then where would I declare it?

<comment><USER19> In the module it's under?

<comment><USER18> I've no idea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This seems like a counterproductive example. The author points out that the module system ignores the directory structure for good reasons, then demonstrates a complicated way to set up a module tree that mirrors the directory structure! It's just reinforcing the complaint the author is trying to argue against. A better example would show why you _wouldn't_ want to just automatically derive the module tree from the filesystem.

<comment><USER21> But the module system doesn't ignore the directory structure. It is designed to mirror it!

Instead, the author points out that the module system ignores _undeclared source files._

There are a couple of practical reasons that prevented us from automatically deriving the module tree, as part of the 2018 edition changes to the module system:

* Interaction with partial, in-progress programs. People wanted to be able to comment out `mod` declarations to temporarily exclude files from the build.

* Interaction with version control, e.g. `git stash`. Similar to the above, people want to exclude untracked files from the build when their corresponding `mod` declarations are stashed.

Notably, this is basically the same set of problems people face when using globs in their build system. Maintaining an explicit list of source files can be slightly tedious, but it avoids a lot of surprising behavior in the edge cases around removing files. Rust's list just happens to be distributed throughout the source files, rather than consolidated in a build system file.

<comment><USER22> I don't understand the desire to exclude files using mod. If you are including code from that file via use, then your build will still be broken. And if you're not, then the files would be excluded from the build anyway.

<comment><USER21> Think about the `git stash` use case. The goal is to go from a messy, WIP state that may or may not compile, back to a more stable, probably-working state represented by a commit.

That messy state may include a new, partially-implemented module file. By default `git stash` will leave it alone, because it's untracked. But `git stash` will also remove its corresponding `mod` declaration, _and_ any uses of it, all at once.

Now say you want to build and run. If that WIP module file gets picked up automatically, it will probably break the build! It may simply be incomplete, or it may depend on some of those stashed changes, or whatever else. Even if it happens to typecheck, now you're assuming that it's all dead code- but it may have some public API (including trait impls!), and still be included in the build!

In fact, we already have a taste of this kind of problem, ever since Cargo started running build.rs scripts automatically, even without a `package.build` key in `Cargo.toml`. If you add a build script with some build-dependencies, run `git stash`, and then build, the build script will fail to compile!

Perhaps you could argue that this is a deficiency in `git stash` that Rust shouldn't have to be concerned with. But if `git stash` removed untracked files as well, that would simply break other use cases instead! For example, I often have a few extra files laying around, which I don't ever intend to commit _or_ .gitignore- sample inputs or outputs, short-term todo lists, or other scratch-pad-like data. Ideally `git stash` would leave those alone- but it's hard for git to tell those apart from the problematic cases above.

<comment><USER22> If you run git stash with the -u option (`git stash -u`), then it will also stash untracked files. IMO leaving uncommitted/unignored files around is asking for trouble. It's far too easy to accidentally delete or commit them. Why not have a prefix that you use for these files, and use a wildcard gitignore?

<comment><USER21> I'm perfectly aware of `git stash -u` ("by default") as well as `git add -N`, etc, but as I also very intentionally pointed out, that has its own downsides.

That is, my own personal workflow poses essentially zero risk of deleting or committing those files, so "quit using the file system the way I've always used it" is no less of a stumbling block for me than "maintain `mod` declarations" is for you.

We simply haven't found an approach that doesn't step on _someone 's_ toes, so the one that Rust was already using from the 2015 edition stuck.

<comment><USER22> Hmm... would you object to `use` automatically linking in modules without a `mod` declaration? It seems that that would work in the situations with regard to stashing (a git stash that stashed `mod` statements would also stash `use` statements).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is a very clear 'from first principles' explanation. The module tree and filesystem tree picture next to each other are great.

The only step in the logic that isn't explicitly explained is why you need to do 'pub mod' as supposed to just mod.

</comment><comment><USER24> Then there's the "cargo.toml" file, which this doesn't cover.

 _" There's more than one place you have to write it."_</comment>


Google Nexus One docs get leaked: $530 unsubsidized, $180 with plan - <AUTHOR> http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2009/12/29/google-nexus-one-docs-get-leaked-530-unsubsidized-180-with-plan/ <comment><USER2> Looks like kw_ has to pay up on his bet with michaelkeenan <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=997078>

<comment><USER3> Before anyone makes any donations, someone should probably wait for this information to be confirmed by Google or T-Mobile. You know, the people actually selling the product, not some random blog...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Short: Just another phone.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, if these docs are true, I'm sticking with Verizon and my BlackBerry; not that I have any special love for either one of them. $80/mo? That's what I pay Verizon. $180 for a subsidized, non-Apple smartphone? Keep your ten percent.

There goes my post-christmas geek present to myself. Without the massive cost savings that had been rumored, I have zero incentive to pay out of my Verizon contract.

<comment><USER6> > _$180 for a subsidized, non-Apple smartphone?_

If the 'non-Apple' part is an issue then why aren't you buying an iPhone?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Google is missing an opportunity here. This device, sold at or near cost, could have been an iPod Touch competitor. That would have been a huge boost to the Android Market. It seems the iPod Touch is outselling the iPhone these days by a pretty good clip -- at least according to holiday App Store downloads:

[http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2009/12/28/flurry-app-store- sees...](http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2009/12/28/flurry-app-store-sees-record- breaking-christmas-50-growth-from-november-to-december/)

<comment><USER8> Google undercutting their hardware partners would be suicide for future phone wins. Moreover, since Google doesn't do their own hardware, this would surely be the last time HTC partnered with them and they'd be up a creek for future hardware designs.

Google only cares about things with a data connection, and I firmly believe that WiFi only devices are a small enough market that they're just a distraction for the big names right now -- except Apple, since the iPod touch kind of bridged an established product with the at-the-time new phone platform.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Why are phones so bloody expensive? The iPod Touch can be had for $200ish, so why does adding the "phone part" double the cost? (full disclosure: I'm on the iPod Touch curmudgeon phone plan -- I pay Skype $3/mo for outgoing calls and insist that incoming callers leave voicemail, which is emailed to me through Google Voice.)

<comment><USER10> My phone's got more processing power and more memory than the laptop I bought 5 years ago. It also has a GPS, camera, accelerometer, voice recognition, and cellular connection. And it fits in my pocket.

The laptop cost $1600 when I bought it. Why are we complaining about a $500ish phone?

<comment><USER9> Because some handwavy analogue to Moore's Law says that said laptop ought to cost about $400 now (and in fact it's hard to justify blowing $1k on a laptop). Have you priced something equivalent (compute-wise, screens are still expensive) lately?

<comment><USER10> Given a choice between a $400 laptop and a $500 phone, I think the phone is significantly more useful. You can't shove a laptop into a pocket. You generally can't talk to a laptop and have it understand what you're saying. It's rather inconvenient to take pictures with your laptop. Your laptop doesn't have a GPS, and even if it did you can't fit it on the dashboard of your car. You get cellular service in many more areas than you can find open wireless networks.

If I could code conveniently on my phone, I wouldn't use my laptop for _anything_. I've switched over to my phone as my primary web browser, e-mail client, music player, thumb drive, GPS, atlas, address book, camera, and game machine.

<comment><USER3> Laptops can be purchased with integrated 3G/WiMax now. Laptops can run the exact same software as phones, too. (Fire up Android in VirtualBox.)

I find phones nice for their niche (almost-computer when you aren't near a computer), but if I was sitting next to a laptop and a phone, I would only use the phone for phone calls.

<comment><USER10> The point of the phone is that you're likely to be sitting next to the phone far more often than you're likely to be sitting next to the laptop.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Not in the US so I don't really know how the plans are like but this seems expensive: "- If you want it subsidized, you'll have to sign up for a 2 year mandatory contract \- There's only one rate plan: $39.99 Even More + Text + Web for $79.99 total". It would seem that if you want the phone that badly it would be cheaper just to cough up the $530.

Incidentally, given that we sort of know what the pricing is (I suppose they could be aggressive about dropping the price later), what's the strategy here for Google? Just worried about cannibalizing sales of other firms that use Android? Why even bother putting out their own phone or being so involved with Motorola in the development of the iDroid?

<comment><USER12> Exactly what I did to get my G1 here in Australia. Bought it outright for around $600 and then went on a $5/month plan with calls and data that are cheap enough ($15/GB).

As far as I can see, buying outright always works out cheaper than a hefty plan with all the trimmings included

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Drat. If the earlier rumors I had heard were true (unlocked phone for $199), I was thinking they were committing to a smart strategy to decimate Nokia and their N900 phone. Guess that's not the case.

<comment><USER14> It would be nice if you spent some time explaining why you believe selling at $199 would be "smart". Google already gives too many things away for free. Selling a phone that might be able to compete with the iPhone at $199 almost certainly means selling at a loss. To what end? I can't imagine that search queries can make up for the remaining $100 or $200 that it costs to manufacture the phone. Unless you believe "decimating Nokia" is an end itself, I'm curious why you think it would be a smart move.

<comment><USER5> The $199 was never the attraction for me, and seemed unlikely. $300? Ehh... Maybe. I always figured it'd land in the $500 range, and this isn't too far off.

The real carrot for me was the idea of a prepaid $29/mo data only plan, which I actually thought was believable. T-Mobile already offers pretty much the exact same plan ($1/day) for prepaid Sidekick users (voice is 0.15/min.) I barely use voice (~100 minutes/mo), and if I could drop my unlimited text/internet/450 voice plan for something that was only $29, I could definitely learn to live with the quirks of VOIP on a mobile handset and the loss of MMS.

Honestly, even if you threw me in a contract to get the phone at $199, as long as data was that cheap I'd gladly sign up for two years the same minute I was sending Verizon their $350 good-bye letter.

I don't use my phone as a phone and am sick of having to pay so much for minutes I just don't use. The cost of my voice plan before data and text is around $40/mo, which works out to me paying .40/minute for what I use. Even if I used real voice instead of Google Voice I'd be saving money.

<comment><USER15> T-Mobile will give you a cheap plan for the Sidekick because it's not powerful enough to use much bandwidth. A Nexus One is likely to use a lot more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Sigh.. I was all excited about it and was thinking of dumping my iPhone, since it seemed I would atleast save some money in the long run. Unfortunately, it would cost me the same and T-mobile service isn't much better than AT&T (imho)

The only interesting conclusion from the article seems to be that Google is confident that Nexus One would be able to compete one on one with the iPhone on features and usability, hence they offered no major discounts to get the customers.

<comment><USER3> T-Mobile is significantly cheaper than AT&T, however. With the lowest number of minutes and unlimited data, I was paying $110 on AT&T (including taxes). On T-Mobile, this is about $70 with taxes. That is almost $500/year cheaper!

<comment><USER16> how? Afaik $40 is the minimum voice plan add $30 for iphone plan. Total $70... Add about 10% in taxes and say another 10% in fees. Total=$85.

However, you can easily get a 15% discount by having .edu email address or most companies get the same discount which usually offset the various fees and taxes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Hrmm... unless T-mobile has a different ETF for the nexus one, it would seem smarter to buy it subsidized and eat the $200 ETF.

It's a compelling value proposition as a VOIP/Google Voice phone.

T-Mobile has an unlimited data plan for $40, add in unlimited text messaging for $10. The TCO for a 24 month nexus one on this is $1580. As opposed to the $2360 for an iPhone. That $800 difference could be the tipping point for a lot of people.

</comment><comment><USER18> This is all wishful thinking.. but if anyone at Google is listening, how about discounts for us G1 users? We knew the G1 wasn't as good as an iPhone, but we bought it anyway, because we wanted to do our part in helping the Android OS succeed. Now it's one year later, Droids have come out, and I still get a "kill task" dialog every time I start a browser on the G1 (because it's slow).

</comment><comment><USER19> I'm going to hold off making judgement until Google's announcement on January 5.

I think they have something up in their sleeves. My guess is its mostly software-related though - new Android features or cloud/mobile services.

<comment><USER3> What cloud features does Google not provide? Add a contact in Google Voice, watch it show up on your phone. Change the color of a calendar on Google Calendar, watch the color change on the calendar widget. Etc., etc.

<comment><USER19> Full backup of your data and files (e.g. photos, music, videos).

Easy access to your Google Docs. I believe there are apps on the market that does this but Google might integrate in the core of Android.

Native Google Task App.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> If I buy the unlocked phone can I use it with AT&t (or any other GSM carrier)?

<comment><USER20> It looks like though if you want to use it on AT&T you'll be on EDGE until it is jailbroken. It has the proper frequency 3G chip in it but in the early testing it only connects to the 2.5G EDGE network so something with the AT&T 3G is disabled on it.

I'll be swapping from my BlackBerry Bold as soon as this gets fixed. Maybe I'm crazy for not wanting an iPhone since I'm already on AT&T and want to stay with them as a carrier but this looks like the first device I'm willing to switch to instead of a BlackBerry after making the swap a few years back from an Nokia N61.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I currently have $6/month 3G internet from T-mobile (continued service from a couple years ago), so I will definitely be buying this at $530.

</comment><comment><USER22> I was excited about the rumored $99 pricing. This is a huge disappointment.

<comment><USER23> You were disappointed by a lie?

<comment><USER22> All of the other rumors about google products/services have turned out to be true, so I felt a bit more inclined to believe this one than I typically would.

Also, I would really respect Google for using some of its billions of dollars to subsidize the phone to the $99 price point and take tons of market share (thus creating a huge incentive for app developers).

Sadly Google seems content to release just another phone.

<comment><USER24> "using some of its billions of dollars to subsidize the phone to the $99 price point"

easy to suggest when it is not _your_ billions of dollars being thrown away ;-)

"This device, sold at or near cost, " (as jsz0 suggests) is a more reasonable strategy, since (a) Google's main revenue streams are not affected (probably enhanced) and (b) Apple and Nokia can't compete without reducing their profit.

That said, I think Google is a sufficiently big company now to have mediocre middle managers who'd scuttle such "radical" ideas.

<comment><USER22> True, those are accurate points. I was just hoping for a really bold move. This does not seem to be all that bold (unless the $199 pricing is for people w/o "old" google accounts which might still leave room for the rumor to be true).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Distributed code review system for Git repos - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/google/git-appraise

<comment><USER2> Interesting! Is it used at Google? Is there some user interface above it?</comment>


Women in Tech: The Silicon Ceiling - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/maya-baratz/women-in-tech-the-silicon_b_292855.html

<comment><USER2> Interesting. I suppose that if this is really true, and you're confident that women are systematically undervalued by employers and VCs, you can exploit that opportunity.

If you don't think this is true, but you still feel some kind of partisan attachment to the idea that men and women will achieve equal results in equivalent endeavors, you'll probably write a Huffpo article about it.

<comment><USER3> What's your point, again? Is it that the article was written in HuffPo, therefore it's wrong? Or is it that anyone who writes an article on gender imbalance must not _really_ believe in it, because otherwise they'd be exploiting the problem, instead of wasting their time writing?

I'm just trying to figure out which logical fallacy you're advancing.

<comment><USER4> I think the point was something like "put up or shut up". If there's a lot of capable, motivated women out there who aren't getting the attention they deserve, then the best way to make the point is to go _find_ them, hire or fund them, and make a lot of money which you can rub in the face of the people who ignored the female talent. (Similarly, one can tell people who bloviate about politics to go put money down on InTrade.)

That noone is doing such is weak evidence that, perhaps, the cause of the gender skew is not simply subtle endemic sexism as is often assumed. Note: This does not imply that the reason is something as trite as "women can't do technology", either.

<comment><USER5> That is: if it were true that expected talent/dollars is greater in women than in men, and this is widely known public knowledge, then why do no tech companies select for women over men in their own self interest?

Possible answers could include: 1) They do, but you realize it.

2) They do, but you don't know about it.

3) They don't, because the premise is false, because women are not undervalued.

3) They don't, because the premise is true, because women are not selected over men despite having a higher talent/dollar value.

4) They don't, because organizations of people are not rational economic decision machines, or values like "talent / dollar" are too vague to be pre- test predictive of individual productivity, or "self interest" is not necessarily defined by maximizing economic exchanges, or that men already in tech simply know other men better and so tend to work with other men.

<comment><USER2> If 4) is true, it's not equally true for every company. Meritocracy varies from one organization to another. And the more meritocratic organizations will tend to be more successful. So choice four is just choices one through three, delayed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> _"... One could blame the industry's flirtation with misogyny that may shun entrepreneurial women in the Valley away from attracting attention. Another culprit might be the infringing expectation the industry seems to borrow from the 1950s (as recounted by AMC's fictional hit show, Mad Men): If you're a woman, you might get noticed for your work as long as you're attractive, not particularly eccentric and generally easy for a company to wear ..."_

There is one aspect of silicon valley, hi-tech businesses not covered in this description, Startups and Startup founders. Why don't more women create hi- tech Startups?

I've often wondered about this. You don't need permission. You don't have to ask anybody. All you need is an idea and even that doesn't have to be a good one. You do need to be obsessed with making things and you do need to have a technical background. You also have to find users and make something they want. It helps if you can make your Startup _Ramen profitable_. It's not as if it's Rocket-Science. None of those concepts are beyond either gender. You don't even have to even be extremely bright, just more determined than you competitors.

There is one other ingredient that you need as a hi-tech founder for a Startup and that's another co-founder. This might go some way to explain the lack of Startup companies founded by women. They simply can't find enough like minded friends with similar interests. Women need to found more tech companies instead of working in them and for them. If more Women created their own Startups, it might go some way to reduce the kind of inequity in established companies. There is risk, failure is the norm. So build that demo and become a master of your own tech destiny instead of offering lame excuses like the one above.

<comment><USER6> _You don't need permission. You don't have to ask anybody._

Unless there is a fear that VC/angel funding will be denied because the founder is a woman...

Not sure if this is true, just a possibility.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Where the Women Aren't?" -- They are not learing CS for sure. My Computer Science class, had about 2 women and 40 guys.

I am assuming you have to be an engineer, or very tech savy person to be able to be in startups as a founder, and it seems that the lack of women in the techrunch award show, was about right.

In another anectodal evidence, I could tell where there were women. At the Afterparty!

A lot more women. Mostly nobody's, and few of the usual vapid gdiggers, and social climbers.

Also, from the 8-9 people I talked to in the after party, only one was an engineer. The rest were 'wanterpenerous'.

</comment><comment><USER8> Maybe it's the statistically well supported paradox that men are overrepresented at the extremes, both negative and positive extremes. And start-ups, for various reasons not limited to risk, are a kind of extreme case of (self) employment.

</comment><comment><USER9> "Caterina Fake, a serial entrepreneur who co-founded photo-sharing site Hunch"..."Disclaimer: I had previously worked at Flickr, one of the companies mentioned in this article."

Kind of confused there.

</comment><comment><USER10> Maybe the environments and rewards of startups appeal more to men than women, and changing this would require changing human nature. (hah!)

</comment><comment><USER11> How boring.

All of these deplorable "women in tech" articles fall into the following camps:

1\. I'm more feminist than you! (written by men)

2\. We need a different perspective -- which of course means perspective provided by genitals, not, say, people from different cultures (e.g. tech Africans), or different original interests like design, music, or architecture

3\. I want more people to date.

4\. I want more people other than socially handicapped, unwashed men to speak to/befriend, who understand what I'm talking about.

5\. I failed and the first potential explanation I came across was sexism, and I'm stickin' to it. [1]

6\. It seems I'm different, and so if I don't theorize about why I'm different, and explain it away by sexism (e.g. lots of women would do what I do, if the world weren't so damned sexist!), I might have to admit I'm just weird and not like other girls.

7\. Look at me, I'm a girl coder, that's like a unicorn but with boobs!

This article is a mixture of #2, #6 and #7. ("Yes, we do exist!" -- listing a healthy number of famous tech women, and acknowledging that it "barely scrapes the surface" -- hmm, wasn't the article about there not being enough? Oh wait, I get it, to be good enough for the author, the women can't just hold respectable titles in big companies, or write about startups, or head up super-lucrative tech blogs, they have to found startups. And yet, somehow, the evil "anti-founder" sexism that stops women from founding companies, doesn't extend to "anti-founder-news-coverage"?)

And they often fail to take into account things like: A) women who aren't attention-seekers go totally unnoticed by lists like these; B) computer science enrollment is not equal to people who work as programmers; C) many programmers, especially women ones, work in nontraditional jobs like nonprofits and education, with job titles that are not "programmer". Also, they often seem to set up an artificially narrow distinction to keep out many women who would otherwise ruin their hypothesis.

For example, this article in particular mentions Leah Culver, cofounder of Pownce, which was acquired by SixApart, but not Mena Trott, who co-founded Six Apart and obviously made a shitload more money than Leah -- as well as now being, in effect, her bosses' boss.

There are tons of other sucessful, low-profile women doing things that aren't traditionally called startups. Nobody talks about SixApart any more because they weren't bought, and the Trotts don't court attention. Those seem to be the main differences.

And beyond that...

None of these articles EVER consider that tech is a weird industry to go into, if you're not obsessed with it. In the tech industry, the majority of jobs are like Office Space.

It's hard and not very fun to to achieve a moderate level of success in our industry if you're a normal, well-adjusted person with friends and outside interests/responsibilities.

It's much easier to achieve a moderate level of success in other industries -- which pay more, and offer more perks that women are interested in.

That is, in other industries, you can work regular(ish) hours, and not be fanatically devoted to the latest practices, and not worry about being upstaged by the 16-year-old prodigy who's willing to work 18 hours a day and sleep under his desk.

Compare to biotech, which while being way more technical than all of the TC50 startups I've heard of, has many more successful women:

"While the industry is dominated by men in many aspects... by some objective measures — such as patenting, or likelihood to lead projects — women are actually doing better in biotech than at universities. One reason, scholars suggest, is the more fluid approach to science favored in the business world."

\-- [http://www.boston.com/business/specials/bio2007/articles/gen...](http://www.boston.com/business/specials/bio2007/articles/gender_gap/)

Biotech is more respectable. Biotech has more concrete rewards. Biotech probably has more people who are interesting to talk to outside of work. Biotech obviously has fewer annoyingly prodigious 16-year-olds, because the university book-learnin' is much more critical.

This was even true back in the days of Microserfs. Anyone read that? There was a joke in there about how the parking lots at biotech companies are always empty on weekends. And that the smartest woman in the valley worked in biotech.

No wonder biotech has more women.

But hey, let's light up the pitchforks and try to convince more women to do programming instead.

[1] (I've seen this one over and over. I was especially amused to hear a woman at OSCON claim that OSCON in general, Tim O'Reilly was specific, because her talk was rejected. I was on the committee and _I_ had rejected it. It was a terrible proposal and she was a bad speaker. Men do this exact same thing as well, naturally, but they use other flimsy excuses than gender.)</comment>


I have a confession to make… I commit to master - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@patrickleet/i-have-a-confession-to-make-i-commit-to-master-6a804f334beb <comment><USER2> I... use 'pencil icon' (Edit this file) on Github for simple edits or search/replace of a few items in smallish files.

</comment><comment><USER3> nice. I agree, git-flow is terrible for modern architectures

<comment><AUTHOR> haha thanks!

I understand I'm saying some controversial things :)

Glad to get some support - reddit disagrees with me so far lol</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What tools do you use to benchmark webapp performance over time? - <AUTHOR>

I'd like to set up something that would allow me to monitor latency and response time of our web builds over time. I've got a couple options but thought would like to reach out for recommendations from the HN community <comment><USER2> I am using newrelic, its great.

update : Screenshot showing the exact feature.. you can adjust the time range . [http://i.imgur.com/bWjBDYF.png](http://i.imgur.com/bWjBDYF.png)</comment>


Why you should read 100 books - <AUTHOR> http://jasonevanish.com/2014/01/26/why-you-should-read-100-books/

<comment><USER2> Not enamored with the 100 book goal.... In reality it's about making reading a lifestyle habit. Though once you read 100 books you're probably not gonna stop.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. The most important thing to take away from this is to make reading a part of everyday life.

In fact, my advice would be to read everything you can get your hands on, and then keep going.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I read 3 books a week. I've learned a bit, but not much that's affected my life directly in a practical way.

Obviously, I do enjoy it though.

<comment><USER5> Have you considered what books you choose and the efforts you make to apply what you learn from it?

I can't begin to quantify what I've learned (note: I wrote the post) and much of it is because of what books I chose and the effort to apply what I read.

<comment><USER4> Good point. The books you read seem to be a mix of technical and life improvement. The books I read are chosen from the New Book section and I avoid books that would require too much thinking (as I read to relax on the weekend!)</comment></comment></comment>


Skepticism About Moral Responsibility - <AUTHOR> https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/skepticism-moral-responsibility/ <comment><USER2> Personally, I think that moral responsibility (or ethical, if you prefer) is a sort of convenient fiction we use to function as a society.

> You're born with particular DNA programming, which determines how you > perceive and process outside stimuli, thus shaping your progress as a > person, as a human psycho-physiological entity. Nature is what determines > your reaction to nurture, and you don't have any control over either. They > both affect you, certainly, but not in a way that you can manipulate > independently of who you already are... it gets circular.

> And yet we think that we have the power to decide things without reference > to our formative contexts. Regardless of my philosophical position, my brain > is convinced that it is reasonable. Accordingly, society is built on the > idea of responsibility for one's actions. I'm not saying that it shouldn't > be! As far as I can tell there's no alternative. But how interesting, that > the entire system of civilization is constructed around a logical fallacy.

[https://www.sonyaellenmann.com/2015/04/free-will-mental- illn...](https://www.sonyaellenmann.com/2015/04/free-will-mental-illness- abuse.html)</comment>


Playing with CSS out of boredom - <AUTHOR> http://kristopherwindsor.com/sillycss/part1.html

<comment><USER2> a little description would have been better, took me few seconds to kick in :D

<comment><AUTHOR> Ha sure, next time. I'll try to find some better uses of rotation, but this one was good for tonight. ^^</comment></comment>


Facebook Really Does Make Money - <AUTHOR> http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2007/08/facebook-really-does-make-money.html <comment><USER2> Actually, the fact that they're working on a new system supports the idea that they _aren't_ "making money". You don't fix what isn't broken.

Of course, it seems logical that if they do build this system, they may make a good deal from it.</comment>


Show HN: The Keyword Butler - <AUTHOR> http://www.keyword-butler.com/

<comment><USER2> Not saying it isn't but curious how this is different / better than Google Alerts?

<comment><AUTHOR> You can narrow your search scope to specific URLs, and assign different tags/keywords for each individual target.</comment></comment>


Google's Schmidt urges N. Korea to embrace Web - <AUTHOR> http://money.cnn.com/2013/01/10/news/eric-schmidt-google-north-korea/

<comment><USER2> "Mommy, the Internet is slow again."

"Shut up, dear, and finish your bark."

I'm reading _Escape from Camp 14_ and _Nothing to Envy_, and it's horrible. They don't need bandwidth, they need something more fundamental (and I don't mean food).

</comment><comment><USER3> It looks to me increasingly that Mr. Schmidt is aiming at a political office. I'm wondering which one... in the US or international, e.g. United Nations?

</comment><comment><USER4> Ha. Yeah. That's definitely going to happen.

</comment><comment><USER5> Good luck with that.</comment>