How to price something - <AUTHOR> http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3394-how-to-price-something <comment><USER2> (I knew this philosophy degree would come in handy)

The author may not know it, but part of this article is describing something occasionally known as the _judgement-action gap._ It's a point in psychology/philosophy typically brought up in moral reasoning, specifically because there's very often a massive discrepancy between what people say they will do and what they end up doing in any moral situation.[1] This is no doubt true for saying they would pay X for Y.

I think the judgement-action gap is an extremely important thing to remember at all times, especially in the realms of business deals. If a commitment isn't on paper, it's not really a commitment. (Money counts as paper, too.)

Alas while I think the gap is a neat principle, I'd rather read an article just on that principle than one titled "How to price something" that culminates in the advice "make up a price, actually sell it and see." If that's all the advice you have, then even asking for people's opinions of what they'd pay for it is more useful than a 100% arbitrary number. It seems odd the article would offer no _real_ solutions.

<comment><comment><comment><comment><comment><comment><comment>~~

Hey! Wait a minute!

I hate to be the typical HN cynic but the last line reveals that this is not an article at all but a thinly veiled advertisement.

While the article doesn't _actually_ say how to effectively price something, I had no idea what Basecamp Breeze is and now I do. 37 signals blog, you've got us again![2]

[1] My favorite example of this, though a bit dour, is "the only moral abortion is my abortion", a long list of stories of people who are morally opposed to abortions, yet still getting them: [http://www.prochoiceactionnetwork- canada.org/articles/anti-t...](http://www.prochoiceactionnetwork- canada.org/articles/anti-tales.shtml)

[2] I'm always surprised that 37signals posts get upvoted extremely quickly, seemingly regardless of content. It's not a bad thing per se, just a surprising thing.

<comment><USER3> Indeed, this article's quality is nowhere near e.g. what Joel Spolsky wrote on that topic:

[http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckie...](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckies.html)

<comment><USER4> Another really good piece on pricing is:

<http://neildavidson.com/download/dont-just-roll-the-dice/>

By @neildavidson

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This one is quite the useless fluff piece. Not a single mention of even covering your hard costs. Just guess, be wrong, and try it out. Gee, thanks. Obviously I'm not in the subset of HN that finds "pull a number out of your ass, rinse, repeat" to be worth submitting and upvoting. Isn't the reason to ask about pricing to avoid this kind of crude guesswork in the first place?

If you want something of more substance, read this: [http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckie...](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckies.html) Ultimately, you'll still have to pick a number and try it out but at least you can do so somewhat intelligently.

<comment><USER6> "Not a single mention of even covering your hard costs."

I didn't include that because that's fundamental. That's a given. If you don't know that you need to cover your costs to stay in business, then no advice is going to help you.

But also, remember... The market doesn't give a shit about your costs. So sometimes it's wise to start from the price and then build your business around that.

Because if you're price is too high because you're costs are too high, you're in trouble regardless of how you come up with a price.

<comment><USER5> Right. So your updated advice is that you must cover your costs since it's fundamental; a given. But wait... nobody cares about costs, so skip that fundamental given thing, pick some arbitrary number, and build your business around said arbitrary number.

Had your blog post been "How we arrived at Breeze's price", I would have nothing to say as you would be describing your rationale for arbitrarily drawing a number out of a hat and charging that. However, your blog post is titled "How to price something" and from that viewpoint the advice is lacking.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Various pricing schemes:

      Price what everyone else is charging ($5, $10, $20 per month)
      Price according to value (you're saving people 200 labor hours per year, price it
        at 200 * hourly wage)
      Price at the ideal price (good luck finding it, and if customers catch wind
        you're playing a/b games with them, barricade your doors)
      Price discriminate (create different pricing options for basically the
        same product with different features and attributes, maybe based on amount
        of use, maybe based on premium features)

Another real world tactic: create competitors or offbranded versions of the same service. This can help support your branded cost by allowing unbranded seemingly less good products be sold at lower prices to price discriminating consumers. It can let you sell to two groups of customers as well, including those customers your competitors might steal. It can make your entire market seem that much more of a real thing since now there seem to be competitors in it. In can drive up barriers to entry since there are competitors, and since you have the various pricing schemes already covered.

The article mentions that you can't ask people how much something costs, what matters is their behavior. And that's true. But I think you can ask people to compare products and services with known prices to your new product. Do you pay for Evernote at $5 per month and Spotify at $10 per month? If you could only pay for one at $7 per month, which one would you pay for? If you could only pay for Evernote at $5 per month, or my new site that does X at $5 per month which would you pay for? And you can do A/B testing on those prices.

</comment><comment><USER8> Warning: this post is an ad for an email list service.

Secondly: how do they get away with charging people for an email list service? Is this for an Apple-like cult of Basecamp users?

<comment><USER9> It's $10 dollars, at this point you should be wondering how Starbucks can charge $2 for coffee. Or how Double Bubble can fleece kids for a whole 25 cents for some gum that probably costs less than a cent.

The reason why they can charge it, is because I'd rather pay anyone $2 for coffee than have to lug around a coffee maker.

Did you know that if you drive to a rest stop in Washington State they will give you _FREE_ coffee?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Interesting that they chose $10 for breeze, when Google groups is free

:-)

<comment><USER11> I'm a developer and I dislike Google Groups. Do you know any normal people who use it? I haven't looked at Breeze but assume it would be worth $10 to most people who require that functionality.

<comment><USER12> A lot of my non technical friends use Google Groups. Other than a few extra drop downs during set-up, it seems to me that there's literally no functional difference in the two services.

I don't know how they can blatantly lie and tell buyers that they're better off with their $10/month service over the free Google Groups, but they seem to be getting away with it. Because they're 37 Signals and everything else they make is amazing.

<comment><USER4> I believe the price is $10, one-time (not $10/month).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Allow me to recommend the free ebook that I found massively useful on this exact topic.

"Don't just roll the dice" by Neil Davidson

<http://neildavidson.com/download/dont-just-roll-the-dice/>

<comment><USER14> Completely agree. Neil's a really smart and experienced software CEO (Red Gate Software in Cambridge, UK) and I thought he had a lot of interesting/useful stuff to say in that book.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> If you are already selling, here's a piece of actionable advice if you want to test whether a user will pay more for your software than you are currently selling it at - Advertise the software at the higher price point, then when the user buys it charge them at your current price point. This is good on a number of levels:

\- You have data points that tell you users will pay more for your software (to the point of giving you their credit card details)

\- The users will think they are getting a bargain when they realise they've been charged at a lower price point.

\- You can probably perform this test in <5 minutes by tweaking your advertised price in HTML and deploying to live.

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm curious - is it ok to charge people different amounts for the same product? Is it morally ok? Is it even legal?

<comment><USER17> Yes, yes, and yes. So long as you do not discriminate on a "protected category" like race, gender or sexual orientation.

The classic example that everyone brings up is airlines. If you have 3 random people sitting in the same section of the same airplane, odds are that they paid 2, and maybe 3 different prices for the same exact ride. And if one of them didn't want to stay the weekend before coming back, that one certainly paid more.

If this still bothers you, consider someone at a swap meet, bargaining with everyone who walks up. Each person gets a different price for the same product, depending on how well they negotiate, how you're feeling, etc. It is no different.

A set price is a convenience, no more, no less. And if you have one, and are successful, you'll eventually run into a large company that hires people whose entire job is to change those prices for themselves. Oh sure, they'll wrap it up in nice phrases like "do you support volume discounts" but at its heart it is the same as the swap meet.

<comment><USER16> Thanks, those are great examples for one-off purchases. How about subscriptions to services?

<comment><USER17> I first encountered this business fact at a small Wall St company that provides access to analytics on a particular type of bond. The price for broker-dealers that issued such bonds was many times higher than for companies that might be trading them. Both types of companies got the exact same access to the exact same data, but the value of that data and the frequency that they were likely to use it was different so they had different prices.

If you want other examples, take a look at licensing for access to various services. For instance I would guess that universities pay less for the exact same Microsoft licenses than private businesses. And Microsoft is willing to grant discounts on those licenses to small startups, in the hope that once they are real companies they will pay top dollar.

But the master in this arena is Oracle. Monthly license fees are much, much higher for companies that are locked in to Oracle than for companies that aren't. This is why they do not quote a price to anyone - they want complete freedom to negotiate.

If you want to learn more about this, including negotiation strategies, I highly recommend _Information Rules_. It is about 15 years old, but still relevant and worthwhile. The key principle is lock-in. If a company is locked in, you can charge more. If a company is not locked in, you should give a break, and maximize their opportunities to get locked in. (Oracle is the master at this.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> quoting pg: "You've found market price when buyers complain but still pay."

</comment><comment><USER19> Of course you can make up a number and try it. But what if your wrong, how do you properly handle increasing your price on existing customers? Also, how do you know if it would be better to increase the price and maybe get more per customer, or decrease and maybe get more customers? How do you test that?

<comment><USER20> > But what if your wrong, how do you properly handle increasing your price on > existing customers?

I think "properly" is to go about it in a way that is fair to everyone. If you have a customer base who sees value in the service you are providing and the raise is within reason they should stick around. If it is a very disruptive price increase you can always grandfather customers in or give them a X-month run way.

>Also, how do you know if it would be better to increase the price and maybe get more per customer, or decrease and maybe get more customers? How do you test that?

Why not just A/B test your pricing structure? Unless your customers communicate in the same channels you have little risk in charging Customer A one price and Customer B a different price.

<comment><USER21> They go to your website, see price A, then they switch IP address and computer (e.g. they visit your website again with their phone) and see price B.

<comment><USER22> I want to say patio11 addressed this, but I may be misattributing. In any case the advice I recall is to, if anyone notices or complains, offer them a direct link to the lower price, possibly accompanies by a 10$ off coupon. An apology about the mix-up is optional, as is bringing up the fact that you are the founder, and you're happy to chat with customers any time on how to improve the service.

<comment><USER23> You should probably also charge all customers the lower of the two test price points at the final checkout step (as mentioned by whyleyc in this thread). That should avoid most complaints.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This was useless navel-fluff. Pricing is a sufficiently difficult task that entire books -- not short ebooks: fully dressed textbooks -- have been written about the topic. You can honest to god hire consultants with _pricing laboratories_ to work out what to charge.

</comment><comment><USER25> So I know next to nothing about this, and I've never shipped a product of my own, but why can't you just do something like:

1\. Price it at price $X, record number of buys/month over a few months.

2\. Price it at price $Y, record number of buys/month over a few months.

3\. Now with the assumption that you have a linear demand curve, you can extrapolate the buys at any price, which would roughly follow the equation B = (X-Y)/(P1-P2) x P, where B is the number of buys and P is the price in dollars. Obviously this equation will only work (if at all) for values in a certain range.

4\. You want to maximize B x P, which is the total money made per month. That is, assuming costs are always the same regardless of the number of sales.

<comment><USER22> Demand curves sadly are notoriously nonlinear:

      -If priced low, more will buy... unless it's TOO low, then the product is junk
      -If price high, fewer will buy... unless it is VERY high, then the product
        must be a luxury item, hand-crafted out of artisan materials!

And demand will vary with seasons, holidays, work schedules, school schedules, the stock market, the phase of the moon, the price of tea in China, etc.

Fortunately you can get around time-based fluctuations with A/B testing. There are theories about how to learn the demand curve (see Van Westendorp's price sensitivity meter), but they are theories only.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> This reminds me of the "Tracer Bullets" tip from The Pragmatic Programmer. The idea being that tests help you see where the code _should_ go and how far off you are, so that you can aim a little better and try again.

This is just tracer-bullet pricing.

</comment><comment><USER27> How to price something: \- Based on your competitors' offering & pricing. Higher price can indicate higher quality. You also don't want to spark a race to the bottom. \- Based on what you want your revenue & costs to be. Not relevant to your customer, but very relevant to your company. \- Through testing different price points. It's generally easier to start high and go lower than the other way around.

</comment><comment><USER28> I've heard starting with a high price can be useful. Its easier to lower prices than raise them. Your early customers are more committed. You can perfect things more easily with a small number of users.

And its easier to figure out the impact of price changes with multiple price changes, which are easier to do when you are going down.

</comment><comment><USER29> Haha damnit I wish Jason had posted this a day sooner, as yesterday I created a few threads asking people how much they'd pay for a tool I haven't built yet.

How do you balance this with the principle of not building something people don't want/won't pay for?

<comment><USER30> Get them to buy in advance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> not a lot of actionable information in this post. very fluffy. reminds me this comment that a poster made yesterday.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5033493>

<comment><USER29> I disagree. Though maybe there isn't all that much here (certainly nothing new/groundbreaking), I still think it's useful advice coming from somebody who knows what they're talking about. Maybe it doesn't deserve the all the upvotes/attention it receives, but that just goes to show you how important credibility is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> lots of theories on price, but none seem to start with the more important question. WHO WILL PAY THE MOST FOR YOUR PRODUCT. If you sell a vitamin that improves eyesight, are you better off selling it to the mass public, or to hunters to improve their hobby, or perhaps to pilots to extend the life of their career. The value proposition here is vastly different...

Pricing a product should not start with what can I get away with charging, it should start with, WHO DOES THIS PRODUCT CREATE THE MOST VALUE FOR?!

<comment><USER33> This sounds a lot more rational to me than the entire blog post

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Charge what the market will bear. Yes, I haven't answered the question.</comment>


Chilean airplane crash located via Apple's Find My iPhone - <AUTHOR> http://forums.appleinsider.com/showthread.php?threadid=131794

<comment><USER2> A number of questions quickly come to mind...

1\. Is there mobile data service in the Juan Fernandez Islands? And does it work that far out at sea? At the required accuracy?

2\. How could Find My iPhone locate the phone if it was (presumably, at this point) underwater?

<comment><USER3> Yes, the story has a bit of an urban legend smell about it. Doesn't it?

<comment><USER2> Or journalistic laziness.

I wish it was true... (even though you'd then have to deal with the lot saying that the iPhone being on caused the crash).

But it just doesn't add up... it's not like Find my iPhone is magic.</comment></comment></comment>


Why I don't worry about competiton - <AUTHOR> http://rashmisinha.com/?p=370&preview=true <comment><USER2> "If you worry too much about competition, you are always playing the follower game, following in their footsteps. You stop seeing the lay of the land since you are so focused on what your competition. Instead of leading the company with your own strategy, you start driving based on someone else's strategy which you might not understand, and which does not focus on your strengths."

Words to live by. I love this article. Stay connected to your innovative-self, and not reactive-imitative-self. There are countless similar stories and examples of techs that should not have thrived based on the fear factor of competition from big playas.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm sure this is a very nice piece for the members of the audience currently working in small firms; it's very reassuring. Apart from the feel-good "do your best and things will be okay," I'm wondering if the implicit advice to not worry about competition makes a lot of sense.

It seems that paying attention to the latest trends in your industry would fall under the category of "worrying about competition", as would trying to differentiate your product from similar offerings. The linked story mentions the strengths of the product of over Microsoft's future offerings, which makes me think that the author (or at least somebody at his firm) has been worrying about competition.

Without making the tautologically-false claim that focusing too much on other's work is a good idea, it seems safe to say that you should care about what your competitors are doing.

</comment><comment><USER4> Great advice. I've told folks this forever: War is not won by the winner but lost by the loser.</comment>


Stroustrup: Thoughts on C++17 – An Interview - <AUTHOR> http://www.infoq.com/news/2015/04/stroustrup-cpp17-interview

<comment><AUTHOR> "I no longer refer to this as "multiparadigm" because I find that term encourages many to simply select one "paradigm" rather than using the full strength of the language. Unfortunately, I don't have a good buzzword for what I do."</comment>


Ask HN: How would a high schooler find CS mentor? - <AUTHOR>

How would a high school/college student go about finding a CS mentor? <comment><USER3> Make the entire Internet your mentor. It's filled with information and answers to all sorts of questions. Look at some programming tutorials such as codecademy. Maybe find some books on computer architecture, learn about mathematics that might apply to computer scientists.

Here are some links to get you started.

<http://learncodethehardway.org/>

<http://www.cplusplus.com/files/tutorial.pdf>

<http://www.saylor.org/majors/computer-science/>

<http://www.freetechbooks.com/>

<http://www.codecademy.com/>

<http://code.google.com/edu/>

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/194812/list-of-freely- ava...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/194812/list-of-freely-available- programming-books/)

Also, learn to use YouTube to search for answers. Check this video out.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6U-i4gXkLM>

<comment><USER4> I would agree with using the Internet, though I would not limit to any particular site, tutorial, or guides. I personally learned most of the programming I know from Google searches on per-case needs - the easiest solution is find something you want to create - way back when my project was to recreate MySpace - nowadays it may be a mobile app, a web services, or whatever you desire - then start building it - as you need to accomplish something new, learn that bit. You can also escalate your project if you start off small and build it - such as if you want to create a multiplayer mobile app, there are a ton of steps you can break up into smaller projects to learn all the aspects.

I find that people who learn CS from non-top-tier-tech colleges or from books tend to be limited in their knowledge, relying more on books and reference sheets than stronger programmers who learned by trial and error. People who learn how to program from external sources tend to be more narrow in their programming styles, following a single type or development, programming, project structure, and even languages - many are so limited they struggle to learn a new language, when a stronger program can pickup new languages quickly and entirely new programming styles.

Of course this is limited to programming for the most part. If you are going to be more focused on another aspect, the approach may be different. Learning hardware is more hands on and is harder to do through Google searching - <USER2> this aspect of CS, I'd strongly recommend some books to assist - also taking apart and rebuilding a computer or laptop is always fun if you haven't done so.

There are also other aspects to CS - if you are more descriptive with what you want to learn HN may be able to give some better replies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> For what it's worth I never needed a mentor for CS related studies and I ventured as far as going through the Dragon Book which isn't usually freshman material. Thankfully CS correlates heavily with programming and for everything programming there are many good communities online waiting to help you out. You can post purely theoretical question on StackOverflow or other StackExchange sites and get a decent response pretty quickly.

</comment><comment><USER6> Shoot me an email. Over at Nuuton we appreciate young hackers. There is a small group of them coding up with Lisp and Python.</comment>


Remix OS – Android, reimagined - <AUTHOR> http://www.jide.com/en/remixos <comment><USER2> This looks like the OS Google should've been working on instead of Chrome OS. But Sundar is determined to sink Google, it feels like.</comment>


In Pictures: A Brief Hacker History - <AUTHOR> http://eyeball-series.org/hacker/hacker-eyeball.htm <comment><USER2> I wonder if governments have cracker units, for going after enemy countries in times of war, or times of cold-war? There are reports of North Korean hackers doing exactly that.

The crackers in the article, (at least the non-malicious ones) could they join the army as a get-out-of-jail free card, or would that glamorize them? Are they ever rehabilitated?

<comment><AUTHOR> Of course... take a look: [http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/4270...](http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/4270420.html?do=print)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The authorities should utilise cracker-hackers for 'good' by compelling them to turn from poacher to gamekeeper. What use is a jail sentence when they could be helping secure government systems or helping spying on enemy government systems?

<comment><USER4> Trust.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> These retrospectives are always hard for me: so much lost because of systems that works so poorly. Such needless waste...

</comment><comment><USER5> erm, hackers? really? I don't know...

</comment><comment><USER6> Not lame, not great; lots of photos.

</comment><comment><USER7> Ahh, they misspelled rtm's name...</comment>


Recycling Is in Crisis. Could These Innovations Be the Answer? - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/12/world/australia/recycling-plastic-trash.html <comment><USER2> Something the article doesn't address is that recycling plastic has a larger carbon footprint than making new plastic, though I don't know the numbers for Reconophalt, especially regarding how Reconophalt compares to normal asphalt.

[https://digitalcommons.bucknell.edu/fac_journ/774/](https://digitalcommons.bucknell.edu/fac_journ/774/)</comment>


IsTheTouchPadInStock.com - <AUTHOR> http://isthetouchpadinstock.com/

<comment><USER2> Source for this page: HTML boilerplate, hit counters, analytics and:

This always reads "NO".</comment>


Re: RedBus Continues To Dominate In India - <AUTHOR> http://www.geekybuddha.org/blog/2013/02/22/re-redbus-continues-to-dominate-in-india-but-thats-not-what-makes-them-special/

<comment><USER2> All valid points and kudos for taking the time for pointing out idiotic assertions in the techcrunch article. On the other hand, pointing out factual errors in techcrunch posts is a bit like pointing out that WWE wrestling is fake.

(For some of the younger people reading this: Yes, it _is_ fake. And techcrunch _is_ the national enquirer of tech media.)</comment>


The Imaginary Teacher Shortage - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443482404578042704123153548.html

<comment><USER2> This is an interesting commentary. For the record, I have always thought that a good teacher is worth her or his weight in gold, and there is a pressing need to find and reward more good teachers. The trick is identifying the better teachers, and encouraging other persons currently employed as teachers to find gainful employment in another occupation over time. See also

[http://hanushek.stanford.edu/publications/distribution- teach...](http://hanushek.stanford.edu/publications/distribution-teacher- quality-and-implications-policy)

on the tricky issues involved in measuring teacher quality.</comment>


Widening Highways Never Fixes Traffic. But Darnit, It Did in Texas - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2016/04/widening-highways-never-fixes-traffic-darnit-texas/ <comment><USER2> Widening highways won't help if the highway is not the actual problem. I've got no proof, but I suspect that the reason that I-5 in Seattle gets bogged down is because cars can't be drained off of it fast enough during rush hour. If that's the case adding more lanes wouldn't help.</comment>


Ankit Fadia Revealed - <AUTHOR> http://forbesindia.com/article/beyond-business/ankit-fadia-revealed/34793/0

<comment><USER2> Some more such public cheats(but marketing genius or were simply played, in an endless loop, by media for free) of his kind

* Anand Kumar - the 'mathematician' from Bihar

* Avtar Tulsi - The 'prodigy'

* Salman Khan - (and many more) Do I have to say anything?

* etc etc.</comment>


The morality of sperm donation - <AUTHOR> http://www.gwern.net/Ethical%20sperm%20donation <comment><USER2> Wow, they go through this whole spiel without even asking the question of whether or not IQ is hereditary.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ>

Apparently it is but all the "countless good outcomes" and "positive externalities" quoted in the article boil down to job performance, income, and literacy. As long as you're going to start a eugenics campaign why not throw some other criteria in there like life satisfaction, propensity for illness, muscular strength, generosity, tendency for violence, lack of elitism, or any one of a million other possible objectives.

<comment><USER3> That was my first thought - when I read "IQ" I already hit the back button. Genes alone are not enough to explain _anything_ - Gene expression, influenced by upbringing, environmental factors etc., better hits the target.

<comment><USER4> Studies of twins consistently show a heritability of about 85% for adult IQ and executive function (focus vs. ADHD). The postnatal environment has little effect unless it is severely neglectful or deprived.

Edit: added "postnatal".

<comment><USER3> Do these twins grow up in comparable environments? Another thing to consider: gene expression and brain development is kicked off in the womb, and twins most often share the same mother. I'm not sure your argument applies here.

<comment><USER5> That's the point of twin studies: comparing genetically identical subjects who grew up in different environments.

The prenatal influence cannot, practically, be investigated at this point in history.

<comment><USER4> The prenatal influence has been directly tested. They compare pairs of non- identical siblings, some who are twins and some who are not. The same pregnancy pairs are about as similar to each other as the other pairs. So the prenatal environment either has little effect, or it has a significant but highly nonlinear effect. (Once again, this assumes no extreme hardship.)

<comment><USER5> Interesting, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In Germany, a recent court ruling means it is impossible to donate anonymously. Another court ruling makes it impossible to get out of child support. EDIT: Child support only ends after around 5 years of university study.

I predict mail-order sperm or sperm bank tourism. Especially for high acheivers' sperm.

<comment><USER7> So the sperm donor has to pay child support??

<comment><USER8> As far as I know only the US had sperm donors pay child support so far.

News article about anonymity in Germany for sperm donors: [http://www.dw.de/no-anonymity-for-sperm-donors-court- rules/a...](http://www.dw.de/no-anonymity-for-sperm-donors-court- rules/a-16582786)

<comment><USER9> > As far as I know only the US had sperm donors pay child support so far.

I did not think that this kind of insanity was possible outside of a mental institution but apparently it is.

[http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/01/02/us-sperm- donor...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/01/02/us-sperm-donor-kansas- court-lesbian-couple.html)

The insanity is that it's not the woman who recieved the donation who was fighting for child support but the _state_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This had little to do with morality but was interesting nonetheless.

<comment><USER11> It's a hairline from Eugenics.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics>

<comment><USER12> If you look in the sidebar of the article, its summary was:

> Is sperm donating a worthwhile form of positive eugenics?

So yes, the author is well aware that he's talking about eugenics, and plainly isn't bothered by it. The problem with eugenics has never been the concept _per se_ , but rather, the methods used to achieve it. Sperm donation is wholly voluntary.

<comment><USER13> Maybe, but voluntarism is only part of the moral equation.

So-called genetic "designer babies" are widely considered morally problematic but that process is totally voluntary; and in general eugenics provides an echo-chamber for certain discriminatory beliefs. In a very strong way what we're talking about is capitalism, which does the same thing -- unregulated markets adapt to whatever discrimination allows them to have more customers.

So I agree with the comment a couple levels above -- there is a strong batch of ethical concerns here beyond just "there are kids out there who biologically trace you as their father/mother" and it's a bit of a pity that those concerns were not strongly addressed.

<comment><USER12> I think what we have here is a case of status quo bias -- new things get subjected to more intense ethical scrutiny because they're new. Selective breeding of humans has been around for as long as there have been humans; it's what people do when they choose a mate. Evolutionarily, this is simply a matter of trying to choose the most advantageous genes to mix with yours, to maximize the expected propagation of your own genes. In practice, it is a eugenics program on a vast scale, and nobody seems to have a problem with it, despite the fact that it "provides an echo-chamber for certain discriminatory beliefs" and can lead to inbreeding if you're reckless.

All that sperm banks do is amplify this selection.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Of course one thing they don't cover is the possibility of the fact that more sperm bank kids means more of an opportunity for accidental inbreeding. I have seen news stories discussing concern over the fact that the most popular donors may have fathered 150 or more children(!). the chance of such half- siblings ending up married to eachother with kids of their own raises all kinds of questions which are omited in the article.

No thanks. I think sperm banks should be discouraged (perhaps tax them heavily).

<comment><USER15> This is solvable by running a cheap DNA test for both parties.

<comment><USER16> It's also solvable by simply having more donors, which is exactly what the article is advocating for

<comment><USER14> Why not just have a public registry of sperm donors and a limit that says "may not be used for more than 5 inseminations per donor"

<comment><USER15> Cost? Who would cover the bills for such public registry's office and staffing needs?

The number is also a meaningless baseline - 5 inseminations in a rural community might lead to a higher probability of inbreeding that 5 inseminations in Los Angeles, CA. Patterns of social mobility differ greatly across various geographies.

<comment><USER14> > Cost? Who would cover the bills for such public registry's office and > staffing needs?

Excise taxes on services for artificial insemination.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Interesting point that there is greater demand for qualified sperm doners despite being paid far less than egg doners which are in surplus.

</comment><comment><USER18> As often happens with articles by the same author upon submission here, the article kindly submitted today has prompted some comments that may not take into account all the back-and-forth in the article. The article wraps up with,

"All this is suggestive and interesting, but not complete. To make a solid utilitarian case we would need to establish:

"What is the average IQ or general genetic quality of donors?

"What is the marginal increase in each offspring?

The comments posted here before I arrived in the discussion mostly relate to the first two issues. They make assumptions based on outdated popular literature that don't correctly estimate the likely return from the proposal. The genetics of human behavior is a topic I discuss every day with scientists who are members of the Behavior Genetics Association, including the association's current president, and it's a long, hard, uphill climb to help popular understanding of human genetics get connected with the latest research findings.

First of all, there is no good way to identify genes that may have a favorable effect on phenotype for IQ.

Chabris, C. F., Hebert, B. M., Benjamin, D. J., Beauchamp, J., Cesarini, D., van der Loos, M., ... & Laibson, D. (2012). Most reported genetic associations with general intelligence are probably false positives. Psychological Science.

[http://coglab.wjh.harvard.edu/~cfc/Chabris2012a-FalsePositiv...](http://coglab.wjh.harvard.edu/~cfc/Chabris2012a-FalsePositivesGenesIQ.pdf)

"At the time most of the results we attempted to replicate were obtained, candidate-gene studies of complex traits were commonplace in medical genetics research. Such studies are now rarely published in leading journals. Our results add IQ to the list of phenotypes that must be approached with great caution when considering published molecular genetic associations. In our view, excitement over the value of behavioral and molecular genetic studies in the social sciences should be tempered—as it has been in the medical sciences—by a recognition that, for complex phenotypes, individual common genetic variants of the sort assayed by SNP microarrays are likely to have very small effects.

"Associations of candidate genes with psychological traits and other traits studied in the social sciences should be viewed as tentative until they have been replicated in multiple large samples. Failing to exercise such caution may hamper scientific progress by allowing for the proliferation of potentially false results, which may then influence the research agendas of scientists who do not realize that the associations they take as a starting point for their efforts may not be real. And the dissemination of false results to the public may lead to incorrect perceptions about the state of knowledge in the field, especially knowledge concerning genetic variants that have been described as 'genes for' traits on the basis of unintentionally inflated estimates of effect size and statistical significance."

Second, whatever the calculated figure is for "heritability" of IQ by the classic twin study method or its modern refinements, heritability of IQ has nothing whatever to do with malleability (or, if you prefer this terminology, controllability) of human intelligence. That point has been made by the leading researchers on human behavior genetics in their recent articles that I frequently post in comments here on HN. It is a very common conceptual blunder, which should be corrected in any well edited genetics textbook, to confuse broad heritability estimates with statements about how malleable human traits are. The two concepts actually have no relationship at all. Highly heritable traits can be very malleable, and the other way around. In particular, a statement made in an earlier HN post

 _if everybody had the same genes, ~80% of the variation in intelligence would be eliminated_

blatantly misunderstands what heritability figures show (besides also being wrong on the best estimate of the broad heritability of IQ). Here's a citation for a good review article on the subject that you can read online in full:

Johnson, Wendy; Turkheimer, Eric; Gottesman, Irving I.; Bouchard Jr., Thomas (2009). Beyond Heritability: Twin Studies in Behavioral Research. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 18, 4, 217-220

[http://people.virginia.edu/~ent3c/papers2/Articles%20for%20O...](http://people.virginia.edu/~ent3c/papers2/Articles%20for%20Online%20CV/Johnson%20\(2009\).pdf)

This review article includes the statement "Moreover, even highly heritable traits can be strongly manipulated by the environment, so heritability has little if anything to do with controllability. For example, height is on the order of 90% heritable, yet North and South Koreans, who come from the same genetic background, presently differ in average height by a full 6 inches (Pak, 2004; Schwekendiek, 2008)."

Another interesting review article,

Turkheimer, E. (2008, Spring). A better way to use twins for developmental research. LIFE Newsletter, 2, 1-5

[http://people.virginia.edu/~ent3c/papers2/Articles%20for%20O...](http://people.virginia.edu/~ent3c/papers2/Articles%20for%20Online%20CV/Turkheimer%20\(2008\).pdf)

admits the disappointment of behavioral genetics researchers.

"But back to the question: What does heritability mean? Almost everyone who has ever thought about heritability has reached a commonsense intuition about it: One way or another, heritability has to be some kind of index of how genetic a trait is. That intuition explains why so many thousands of heritability coefficients have been calculated over the years. Once the twin registries have been assembled, itӳ easy and fun, like having a genoscope you can point at one trait after another to take a reading of how genetic things are. Height? Very genetic. Intelligence? Pretty genetic. Schizophrenia? That looks pretty genetic too. Personality? Yep, that too. And over multiple studies and traits the heritabilities go up and down, providing the basis for nearly infinite Talmudic revisions of the grand theories of the heritability of things, perfect grist for the wheels of social science.

"Unfortunately, that fundamental intuition is wrong. Heritability isnӴ an index of how genetic a trait is. A great deal of time has been wasted in the effort of measuring the heritability of traits in the false expectation that somehow the genetic nature of psychological phenomena would be revealed. There are many reasons for making this strong statement, but the most important of them harkens back to the description of heritability as an effect size. An effect size of the R2 family is a standardized estimate of the proportion of the variance in one variable that is reduced when another variable is held constant statistically. In this case it is an estimate of how much the variance of a trait would be reduced if everyone were genetically identical. With a momentӳ thought you can see that the answer to the question of how much variance would be reduced if everyone was genetically identical depends crucially on how genetically different everyone was in the first place."

So we have no idea how to compare the trade-off between trying to influence people's IQs with shuffling different genes into them from the beginning of life versus influencing their IQs by improving their environments (at a critical stage of development? throughout life?) and we don't know which might have greater or more lasting effect.

Today, we can't even say that a person with a higher IQ than another person necessarily has better genes for IQ. The review article Johnson, W. (2010). Understanding the Genetics of Intelligence: Can Height Help? Can Corn Oil?. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 19(3), 177-182

[http://apsychoserver.psych.arizona.edu/JJBAReprints/PSYC621/...](http://apsychoserver.psych.arizona.edu/JJBAReprints/PSYC621/Johnson%20Current%20Directions%20Psych%20Science%202010%20\(G%20and%20E%20in%20IQ\).pdf)

looks at some famous genetic experiments to show how little is explained by gene frequencies even in thoroughly studied populations defined by artificial selection.

"Together, however, the developmental natures of GCA and height, the likely influences of gene-environment correlations and interactions on their developmental processes, and the potential for genetic background and environmental circumstances to release previously unexpressed genetic variation suggest that very different combinations of genes may produce identical IQs or heights or levels of any other psychological trait. And the same genes may produce very different IQs and heights against different genetic backgrounds and in different environmental circumstances. This would be especially the case if height and GCA and other psychological traits are only single facets of multifaceted traits actually under more systematic genetic regulation, such as overall body size and balance between processing capacity and stimulus reactivity. Genetic influences on individual differences in psychological characteristics are real and important but are unlikely to be straightforward and deterministic. We will understand them best through investigation of their manifestation in biological and social developmental processes."

The new gene study for IQ going on in China, discussed in comments in this thread and on Hacker News this week, has just been responded to by the president of the Behavior Genetics Association.

[http://ericturkheimer.blogspot.com/2013/02/steve-hsu- replied...](http://ericturkheimer.blogspot.com/2013/02/steve-hsu-replied-to- my-blog-post.html)

<comment><USER19> Yes, given that we now know that the genetic influence on IQ is going through thousands upon thousands of SNPs and genes with tiny effects each, it's unlikely that we're going to be doing anything fancy with the genetics of IQ anytime soon. (At best we might get something like Hsu's suggestion that we engage in embryo selection by making the best guess at which embryo has the most favorable set.) So from a sperm donation perspective, it's going to be hard to beat simply measuring phenotypic IQ and correlates.

> So we have no idea how to compare the trade-off between trying to influence > people's IQs with shuffling different genes into them from the beginning of > life versus influencing their IQs by improving their environments (at a > critical stage of development? throughout life?) and we don't know which > might have greater or more lasting effect.

They're not necessarily exclusive, of course. But since governments and charities already spend a ton on things like Headstart despite their long history of seeing IQ gains fading out, and the low-hanging fruit of nutritional interventions like pre-natal* iodization already taken, we would probably get more bang for the buck by looking at genetics - since no one is doing anything about that.

* I say pre-natal because I've been compiling post-natal studies on iodization in <http://www.gwern.net/Iodine> and one outlier aside, the effect on IQ or other cognitive effects is basically zero.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Warning: redirect loop ahead.

<comment><USER21> I can't believe there are sites in 2013 that break the Back button.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> So you mean that I could acheive Genghis Khan-like levels of genetic patrimony just by becoming a sperm donor?

It's tempting. I'm not sure I could endure the social stigma of being a sperm donor, though.

<comment><USER23> Is there really a stigma?

I guess, like anything, the question is why you're doing it.

If you're doing it for $20 then that's perhaps more serving of a stigma than doing it to help out because you have friends who are unable have children due to the guy. Certainly you'd be a hero to them and wouldn't have a stigma.

Why is always the question to ask before you judge</comment></comment>


The Start Project: Return Of The Incubator? - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2009/12/21/the-start-project-launches-return-of-the-incubator/

<comment><USER2> Wonder how they have structured the mother company and the spin offs?</comment>


The Z3 Theorem Prover - ____Sash---701_ https://github.com/Z3Prover/z3 <comment><AUTHOR> This is not really meant as a critique, more of a general suggestion for implementers to improve their docs. As someone who teaches logic and works with standard logics from time to time (HOL with Lambek Calculus, normal and classical modal logics, and plain old FOL), I've found it unnecessarily hard to figure out from the docs with what logics you can implement in them, whether you can just load these and use them, how to enter formulas, how to prove things, how to construct models, etc. This all seems overcomplicated in these tools, and almost all of them seem to mix up completely unrelated programming languages with logic. Couldn't this all be simpler?

I understand that the typical use cases for these solvers are different. Still, I often wish there was a tool that I can just fire up, choose modal logic EMC from a menu and check whether a certain formula is a theorem. So far, it has always turned out easier for me to do this by hand than using a theorem prover.

<comment><USER2> Yeah I wish there was a better logic chart than [1], or at least one that I can give it something in MSOL and it can internally compile it to a representation in one of those logics.

[1] [http://smtlib.cs.uiowa.edu/logics.shtml](http://smtlib.cs.uiowa.edu/logics.shtml)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I've used Z3 a lot for CTF challenges, but in my day-to-day work have never encountered any problems that it would be useful for. I'm interested to know how people have used it in the course of their work?

<comment><USER4> I have a super-optimizer for SIMD coding built out of Z3. It is not yet fit for public consumption, but I've already found some sequences faster than anything I had before, which is nice.

<comment><USER5> I would be super interested in more details on how that works. What do you actually pass to z3 to solve?

<comment><USER6> I wrote a superoptimizer using z3 here: [https://github.com/falk- hueffner/sematrope](https://github.com/falk-hueffner/sematrope) . The idea is to have variables that encode the program and a giant if-then-else statement that represents program execution. Then for a list of input/output pairs you let the solver find a program encoding that yields correct outputs. Next you let the solver find a counterexample where the current program candidate does not give the correct result. If one is found, it is added to the list of input/output pairs, otherwise you have found a correct program.

<comment><USER7> What if the solver both fails to find a counterexample and fails to conclude there isn't one? (i.e. it times out)

<comment><USER2> I write something similar for my own problems. Usually a single instance alone isn't going to cut it, so we run a portfolio of solvers and treat it like a multi armed bandit problem as to choose which solver with its specific hyper parameters is finding solutions / counter examples faster. A pretty common trick when you do this is to dynamically resize your portfolio with new solvers introduced with a high likelihood of solving fast based off the parameters of other solvers that are solving fast, a particle filter of sorts. This takes care of setting and handling individual solver timeouts, while allowing the user to specify not only a timeout for the whole portfolio, possibly lengthening when new solvers are introduced, but also a max delay between any two solutions.

Either way, you're still forced to consider if the model can return sat or unsat, or a timeout. If it's a timeout we don't swap in the faster code, if it's unsat then same deal, but if it's sat we can get some new code to jump to

<comment><USER7> Right, the problem with SMT solvers (and the SAT solvers they're based on, although the problem there is slightly better) is that they're unpredictable and highly dependent on the form in which you pose the instance, often in very unintiitive ways (they can fail on an instance that you'd think would be as easy or even easier than another they do manage).

<comment><USER2> SAT/SMT hardness regression has come a long way, especially if you can insert profiling information for real instances.

If this is a production model for the cloud, the engineer should have put some thought into the encoding as to express sat/unsat clearly, if possible.

In the general case, sure, to some extent one can construct an adversarial example just as with NN (random 3-sat hardness cliff). Real world formulations of problems are either nice or atrocious IME, discoverable at dev time.

<comment><USER7> Oh, I don't mind adversarial examples. As a user of SMT solvers (for semi- automated program verification), I just find them unpredictable and frustrating. But I've never employed SMT solvers as a library in some production system, and it's good to hear that in that case the instances could be controlled well enough for the normal operation to be predictable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I seem to have somehow forgotten or missed the fact that it was MIT re- licensed a couple of years ago, instead of the previous "no commercial use" stuff. Thanks for the submission!

</comment><comment><USER9> read this it's seriously good [https://exhaustedneurons.github.io/abstractions/](https://exhaustedneurons.github.io/abstractions/)

<comment><USER10> It's OK, I guess, but it has rather little to do with the subject here. If you want to publicize your blog here, please do it by submitting a link rather than by barging into a largely unrelated discussion to shout about how good your own blogpost is.

<comment><USER9> okay</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: YouTube Live for Android - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@virjog/youtube-live-for-android-by-viral-jogani-cb152248ae5b

<comment><USER2> I commented on a thread today asking if google had stated at all about their play in the live streaming (makes sense for them to)

I like the UI/UX you proposed. Material design would obviously be their play.

I think one of the biggest value props would be that since they have gmail, chrome and andriod you could be subtly notified of live streams no matter what you are doing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for checking it out!

Google's working on something called YouTube Gaming, which inspired this post, but it's basically their competitor to Twitch, rather a competitor to Meerkat/Periscope/Facebook Live.

It would be interesting to see what else they could bring to the table.</comment></comment>


Maggie Haberman on Twitter: "POTUS says he plans to terminate Tik-Tok in the US - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/maggieNYT/status/1289386644231958530 <comment><USER2> This is illegal and exactly what Reagan tried during Watergate... Under article 2.

And he had better arguments. Like actual leaked confidential documents.

</comment><comment><USER3> and nothing of value was lost

</comment><comment><USER4> This should be higher up - the latest is that Trump wants to ban it outright not allow a sale to a US buyer like Microsoft.</comment>


Fukushima: Mark 1 Nuclear Reactor Design Caused GE Scientist To Quit In Protest - <AUTHOR> http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/fukushima-mark-nuclear-reactor-design-caused-ge-scientist/story?id=13141287

<comment><USER2> The title is technically correct; however, it seems like link bait once you get to page two of the article and see:

"Bridenbaugh told ABC News that he believes the design flaws that prompted his resignation from GE were eventually addressed at the Fukushima Daiichi plant."

<comment><USER3> > he believes the design flaws that prompted his resignation from GE were > eventually addressed

Anyway, a design that blows up when power is cut because it cannot cool itself down to safe levels is... weird.

<comment><USER3> Dear downvoter, would you buy a car that falls apart (or blows up killing the passengers) when it runs out of gas?

If something can go wrong, it will, given time, go wrong. Even if there is one chance in a million for the whole chain of countermeasures to fail in tandem, give it a million chances to happen and you end up with a good chance of it happening.

<comment><USER4> There are part/system failures in cars that result in death, just as with nuclear reactors.

<comment><USER3> Indeed there are, but one could suppose nuclear reactors would only fail catastrophically when something catastrophic happened, not when being shut down.

<comment><USER5> I would call an earthquake (which was larger than it was designed to withstand) followed by a tsunami (which knocked out the emergency generators) pretty catastrophic.

<comment><USER3> It was designed to shut down during a quake, something it did. What bothers me is that something that generates so much heat as to require active cooling (something that already indicates less than ideal operating conditions) requires an _external_ system to cool it. The first option should always be to use the reactor to generate power to operate the pumps that cool it. A small turbine mechanically connected to the pumps would be a better option. Operating the cooling system doesn't require more than a tiny fraction of the post-shutdown thermal output.

I am fine with having the independent generators to operate cooling pumps in an emergency shutdown, but I am not very enthusiastic as they being the first line of defense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The embedded video was American scare-journalism at its finest. _Workers at a compromised nuclear site wearing full suits and masks? Why, that's just like CHERNOBYL!_</comment>


Proton-M rocket with 3 Glonass (GPS) satellites on board crashes - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyuiShSePS4

<comment><USER2> Tv news really is terrible. Why is it radioactive, and how radioactive. Populated area? How populated and how close and why do they launch there? What is the economic loss? What "firings and shakeups" happened at the space agency? They list so many unsubstantiated and surprising claims so quickly and don't sound like they know what they're saying.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Although the commentators say that there is radioactive material aboard, that doesn't seem likely as it isn't used in the latest versions of Glonass-M satellites.

<comment><USER3> What do the clocks use for a frequency standard? I think the caesium standards are not radioactive but the rubidium standards are slightly radioactive.

<comment><USER4> And additionally, RTGs are commonly used as power sources, though the GLONASS design does use solar panels.</comment></comment></comment>


Atacama uses microfluidic technology to create moisture-control fabric that actu - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/30/atacama <comment><USER2> "She adds, "He was able to directionally control moisture as it moves through the surface of fabric. First of all, I'd never seen that before. I run and do Bikram yoga and we're all used to moisture-wicking fabric that just pulls sweat and spreads it. Alex demonstrated how he could directionally control moisture, move it from the skin to the outside of the shirt, and then have it drip off."

Stillsuits!</comment>


Ask HN: Effective data visualization operating on source code - <AUTHOR>

We all see bar charts and line-graphs and histograms, and so on, to show trends and relationships between chunks of data. My question is this:
  Has anybody here heard of an instance of making graphics using source-code as data that actually solved a specific problem? (Like showing a lisp-program parse-tree web. (though I can't think of any practical application for that either)) <comment><USER2> Almost all large software shops have some sort of cheesy "dashboard" for upper management. Some of these analyze source code for line numbers, progress filling in templates, test results, etc.

<http://ohloh.net/> analyzes source code of open source projects and reports on them, such as commenting ratio (it warns you about projects that are 15% or less comments depending on language). This solves the problem of people wanting to know the health of certain projects.</comment>


Coronavirus drug remdesivir to cost $3,120 per patient with private insurance - <AUTHOR> https://abcnews.go.com/US/covid-19-drug-remdesivir-cost-3120-us-patients/story?id=71509977 <comment><USER2> We all know pharmeticutical companies are out to make money, not make drugs affordable.

It's sad, but it's not new news.

</comment><comment><USER3> and doesn't even reduce chances of death, like Dexamethasone does</comment>


The First Y Combinator Batch - <AUTHOR> https://web.archive.org/web/20160909071509im_/http://old.ycombinator.com/images/aug16-group.jpg <comment><AUTHOR> I think Aaron Schwartz is in the picture?</comment>


Why I am AGAINST Net Neutrality - <AUTHOR> http://simpleprogrammer.com/2014/07/21/net-neutrality/

<comment><USER2> TL;DR direct quote: "I didn't bust my ass working extra hours, saving money and living frugally so I could create cheap housing for the poor, I did it to make money. Now, that doesn't mean I'm a heartless bastard—I give away 10 percent of my income to charity—but, no one should be able to force me to do it. If internet providers want to be dicks, so be it—it's their right."

<comment><USER3> I'm having a difficult time seeing how this part of the post relates to ISP regulations. Just because you worked hard to get to where you are today doesn't mean that you are excused from certain obligations. What if you decided that under certain market conditions, not fixing broken roofs or heating systems in your properties would be more profitable? I'm sure everyone can agree that allowing property owners to be "dicks" in this case would be a terrible idea.

Overall my biggest issue with your post is the framing around personal freedom. What we really need to talk about is obligations. As a Comcast customer (not by choice) I get billed for a certain level of service. The problem is that I rarely get what I'm getting charged for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Internet service providers are in a unique position of providing a service that many people are beginning to regard as a basic human right. We give them the right to build and maintain networks in our communities - they have a responsibility to us too.

<comment><AUTHOR> No they don't. You can create your own ISP if you don't like it. And internet is not a basic human right.

<comment><USER5> Actually, you can't create your own ISP. In most US cities, the phone corporation and cable corporation are given a monopoly/duopoly over the "last mile" to your home. It's illegal for someone else to lay down cables and start a competing ISP business.

That's the real problem with network neutrality. If the big ISPs want to stop supporting network neutrality, saying "we own the cables", then the law that gives them a monopoly should also be repealed.

The "free market" can't handle the problem when the government gives someone an explicit monopoly. If the ISPs were a legitimate free market business, it would be fine.</comment></comment></comment>


Microsoft quietly pushes 18 new trusted root certificates - <AUTHOR> http://hexatomium.github.io/2015/06/26/ms-very-quietly-adds-18-new-trusted-root-certs/ <comment><USER3> I'm glad someone noticed, and at the same time it's a shame it took a month before the news actually came out.

I think this demonstrates 2 very major problems with SSL Certificates we have today:

1\. Nobody checks which root certificates are currently trusted on your machine(s).

2\. Our software vendors can push new Root Certificates in automated updates without anyone knowing about it.

More content on this rant: [https://ma.ttias.be/the-broken-state-of-trust-in- root-certif...](https://ma.ttias.be/the-broken-state-of-trust-in-root- certificates/)

<comment><USER4> Root certificates are just one manifestation of a much larger problem, which could be described as follows:

1\. Nobody checks the source code of the software installed on their machines (or that the binaries were actually built from the purported source code).

2\. Our software vendors can push new software in automated updates without anyone knowing about it.

Suppose that the CA system were replaced with a PGP-style web-of-trust or SSH- style trust-on-first-use system. How would you know that your software vendor has supplied you with a TLS implementation that's correctly and faithfully implemented? Just as they can push out new root CAs, they can push out a new TLS implementation that introduces a bug or backdoor that bypasses all trust checks.

So why single out root certificates?

<comment><USER5> If you use Linux, both issues are pretty much sorted. Repositories provide a great way to install trusted software, if you're careful about which repositories you install on your system.

<comment><USER6> Well, the issue of "nobody checks the source" is not necessarily solved. Just because anyone _can_ check the source doesn't mean anyone actually does. Additionally, just because a repository has been historically trustworthy never means it can't be corrupted.

There are real people behind all levels of these projects, and people are vulnerable to corruption, coercion, etc.

<comment><USER7> Exactly. I'll add that we keep seeing obvious vulnerabilities in open source code that go back years. Hence my essay on different types of Source Sharing and Review that shows the _actual_ assurance is in the review not source sharing agreement. Hard to assess how much review any given FOSS got and obviously harder for most proprietary. Sometimes impossible for both.

[https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/05/friday_squid_...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/05/friday_squid_bl_424.html#c6051639)

<comment><USER8> Tangent: is there an easy way to find/download all the comments you have posted to Schneier's blog? They would be more accessible in a github Jekyll repo, or any source format which could be converted to a single PDF for offline reading.

<comment><USER7> Haven't gotten around to doing that since I've been so busy past few years and... the posts added up to a lot of work. Call it my technical debt. ;) Hadn't thought of PDF. Nice idea. Right now I have two things: textfile with links to many key posts there with headings; a zip file with a good chunk of those in local text copies. I've always used text because it's the safest and most portable format (except on modern devices lol).

I can give you a pastebin with the links or a link to the zip with containing the subset I've downloaded so far. Whatever you prefer. Eventually I'll have one link to an actual web site haha.

<comment><USER8> Zip of local text copies would be great, thanks!

<comment><USER7> Below is the link to the zip. I included the two indexes that have the links. Most designs are local already but the essays folder has only a tiny amount of my essays. So, look at the essays txt file because there's quite a few great ones (including OPSEC) that I haven't transcribed yet. Download it quick because I take it down in a few days.

[http://www.adrive.com/public/uxCBKn/select%20schneier%20post...](http://www.adrive.com/public/uxCBKn/select%20schneier%20posts.zip)

<comment><USER8> Got it, thanks very much for uploading. I discovered some of your security essays a few months ago but couldn't find a way to search by poster name on the Schneier blog.

<comment><USER7> Ive posted too much for that to even help lol. But ill share some Google Fu to help you in future:

site:schneier.com "nick p"

First limits to domain. Using quotes limits to results containing that phrase. A -name removes results containing the name. Can use multiple quoted and minus terms. Main two tricks I use to get good results.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hmm. Are these actually new? Did the OP look at Microsoft's full certificate store and notice some additions, or did they look at their local machine? Because in the latter case, Windows does not include a full certificate store. Rather, it fetches them on demand.

EDIT: I googled the first two. "GDCA TrustAUTH R5 ROOT" and "S-Trust Universal Root CA" are both new certificates (~Novemeber 2014). The latter is in Firefox already, and is a new SHA-256 root certificate to eventually replace a SHA-1 certificate for an existing CA.

</comment><comment><USER10> The CA system is so broken. Letting a vendor decide who you should trust to issue intermediate certificates that your software will automatically trust to not issue illegitimate certificates doesn't make the system particularly trustworthy, especially seeing as they are still adding new root CAs for entities with unknown agendas (governmental agencies etc).

Maybe the system could be changed to one where domains can only be signed by the DNS registrar, or something.

It's pretty crazy that any CA can issue a certificate for any domain. And paying for more validation doesn't help you at all, since it won't keep the "bad guys" from getting an illegitimate one from a cheaper/lazier CA.

<comment><USER11> > Letting a vendor decide

The problem with the root of trust problem is that you have to trust _someone_. Who is your preference? The government? The registries? ICANN? The hardware vendor? Those are all suspect too, and most have been historically compromised.

The only thing I can see that helps is "community" auditing -- things like Chrome's pinning and ... the action that discovered these new certs. So, as much as it sucks, we're sort of doing the right thing already.

<comment><USER12> > Who is your preference? The government? The registries? ICANN?

No, silly: the domain owner! Something that's already possible with DANE: the domain owner gets to decide, as it should be, by publishing information about valid certification into the DNS.

Of ALL options this one is the least crappy IMO.

<comment><USER11> And who authenticates the domain owners? Your solution is basically "trust the registries" then. OK, fine. But they've screwed up in the past and they will in the future.

<comment><USER12> huh? No, for DANE it is required to have DNSSEC in place. Also read the last sentence of my previous statement again.

<comment><USER13> And now you're trusting the registrar, the registry and ICANN. It's always pick a poison.

Also, DNSSEC still has some severe issues in practice. I'd be glad if we could get DANE widely deployed for mail servers.

Edit: Oh, and if you're not using a validating resolver yourself you're also trusting that you're ISP is using one and not manipulating the responses.

<comment><USER14> > Oh, and if you're not using a validating resolver yourself you're also > trusting that you're ISP is using one and not manipulating the responses.

I really don't understand why people keep repeating that complaint. Of course, if you don't check the keys you don't get any security.

How is that a problem of the algorithm? And how is that a problem on practice? If you want some real amount of security you check the keys, being them SSL certificates, DNSSEC signatures, or whatever else encryption system people put on place.

<comment><USER13> You're speaking from the perspective of somebody who could set this up for himself. "Normal" people don't know stuff like this, but we can't leave them unprotected.

That's why DANE for mailserver is such an attractive target. They're usually run by people who know what they're doing and it helps bring a lot of infrastructure into place.

<comment><USER14> The point is that there's nothing for normal people to setup (or, at least, it does not have to be). Your email software should verify DANE keys, just like your browser verifies TLS keys.

The fact that current software is hard of configure is just a symptom that it's badly designed. The only inherently hard thing in DNSSEC is distributing your domain data (not really harder than setting our server for TLS), and normal people do not do that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's good that someone noticed... if you have automatic updates enabled, you have implicitly consented to giving Microsoft what is essentially a root account on your system. They can modify it to both fix - and break - <USER2> just as easily.

<comment><USER16> if you deploy an os from a company, consider your box belongs to them.

<comment><USER17> Let's be honest - if you don't vet every single line of code in your OS and software toolset, you run the risk of exposing yourself. There are levels of trust to be sure, but there is always trust.

<comment><USER16> Honest is that if all the source code that is compiled is available as open source and a binary with the same signature can be built using that code then the chances that the code acts against your interests is much less than binary blob that you can not vet... etc.

<comment><USER18> I'm a Debian user: [https://reproducible.debian.net/reproducible.html](https://reproducible.debian.net/reproducible.html)

Partly because they do care about these things and they are sending patches upstream as well so as many as possible applications in Debian can eventually be build reproducible.

I hadn't seen it before, but even better they added this piece of text on that page: "we care about free software in general, so if you are an upstream developer or working on another distribution, we'd love to hear from you! Just now we've started to programatically test coreboot and OpenWrt - and there are plans to test Fedora, FreeBSD and NetBSD too."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> We need _dynamically selectable trust_.

I don't mean the simple ability exposed in most browsers to add/remove certs. That still assumes one _set_ of trust that used globally, which is completely incorrect.

Maybe I don't trust $COUNTRY to handle their root certificate for most uses. Currently we handle that case by removing the cert completely. Trust, however, is _not_ a simple boolean value, and maybe I do trust that certificate for $COUNTRY's official government pages. I should be able to specify that I trust some certificate for some domain (or other, non-domain based use!), but not for others.

As another example, consider a local Web Of Trust. whenever Web Of Trust is brought up, people complain about the difficulty of key exchange. Well yes, that's a difficult problem, but there is no reason that it has to be solved for _all_ use-cases before anybody starts using it. Maybe a circle of (usually physically local) local friends want to have secure communications. They can share a key in person easily, and so it should be easy to give access to a private forum by simply sharing a key/cert on a USB disk.

We can currently _approximate_ those cases, but it is not well supported, and is certainly not something that most users would be expected to be able to do. We can fix some of that with a better UI, but I'm suggesting a far more fundamental change, because actually solving problems like key sharing will not be easy, and I suspect they will only be solved once we have _infrastructure_ in place. HTTP was successful because it did _not_ require that everybody implements the full, fairly complex specification. Instead, we had a fluid, extensible protocol that allowed _anybody_ to extend it, and that allowed for the development of a wide variety of software.

The problem with traditional PKI (at least as implemented) is that it assumes that we can assign an absolute trust value to _anything_. In reality, trust is relative, and may in fact have multiple values at the same time. Until software is designed around those realities, it will always be inflexible and insecure for any use case where the needed trust assumptions do not reflect the assumptions made by the authors the software.

Unfortunately, I'm a old-style UNIX nerd who is fine with using GPG, and I'm not sure what the UI for a dynamic-trust system would even look like. _sigh_

<comment><USER15> _They can share a key in person easily, and so it should be easy to give access to a private forum by simply sharing a key /cert on a USB disk_

The truly paranoid would probably prefer a printout on paper; I've actually done this before with HTTPS self-signing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Douglas Crockford has an interesting video on why CA system is broken and how it can be fixed in his recent "upgrading the web" talk at: [https://angularu.com/VideoSession/2015sf/upgrading-the- web](https://angularu.com/VideoSession/2015sf/upgrading-the-web)

Essentially he's proposing side-loading a new application under a custom url scheme so that the browsers will launch a helper app that's used to handle web applications with the following url format:

        web: publickey @ ipaddress / capability

The url contains servers ECC521 public key as part of the url so that it gets around the CA System and clients can just encrypt requests with the servers published public key directly.

He's planning on developing the helper app that's based on a sand-boxed node.js and QT application which just uses a TCP session to communicate with the server.

<comment><USER21> Problem with 'ECC521' is that Google have all but killed P-521 support in Chrome. [https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=478225](https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=478225)

Mozilla are considering doing this also. [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1128792](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1128792)

This is not just browser support -- its TLS library support.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> "RXC-R2" is certainly insufficiently verbose.

I think the author might be a bit behind the news on Tunisia, though.

<comment><USER23> For anyone wondering, it's the Cisco CA/B-F Root CA:

[http://www.cisco.com/security/pki/policies/CiscoRXC- CP.pdf](http://www.cisco.com/security/pki/policies/CiscoRXC-CP.pdf)

They should know better.

<comment><USER24> Does anyone know why Cisco would need a root CA on Windows machines...?

<comment><USER25> Maybe as part of a way to secure the connection to their appliances? They could auto issue certs after verifying ownership. Maybe they're gonna give appliances a name off their own DNS <whatever>.mycloud.cisco? Hell maybe they're becoming a real CA and gonna sell trust services.

Dunno how MS's process is, but with Firefox there's a nice application process that's very open and you can see their claims.

<comment><USER26> Indeed. [https://wiki.mozilla.org/CA:How_to_apply](https://wiki.mozilla.org/CA:How_to_apply)

However, nothing to bee seen in bugzilla about Cisco regarding their new CA. I wonder if it is MS only?

[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=cisco](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=cisco)

<comment><USER27> Requiring Internet Explorer for switch management sounds like exactly the kind of stupid Cisco might go for.

These days Chrome/chromium uses the system store AFAIK, so at least you can get surprising breakage in your management tool that isn't due to TLS, but rather some kind of IE compatibility hack... ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> They silently installed all the previously existing ones on my system, too. So did Apple on my Mac, and Ubuntu on my old notebook.

Maybe I should, but I am not going to individually double check every root certificate. I don't think I have the means to do so either.

</comment><comment><USER29> Everything you Need to Know about HTTP Public Key Pinning (HPKP): [http://blog.rlove.org/2015/01/public-key-pinning- hpkp.html](http://blog.rlove.org/2015/01/public-key-pinning-hpkp.html)

> A flaw in this system is that any compromised root certificate can in turn > subvert the entire identity model. If I steal the Crap Authority's private > key and your browser trusts their certificate, I can forge valid > certificates for any website. In fact, I could execute this on a large > scale, performing a man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack against every website > that every user on my network visits. Indeed, this happens.

> HPKP is a draft IETF standard that implements a public key pinning mechanism > via HTTP header, instructing browsers to require a whitelisted certificate > for all subsequent connections to that website. This can greatly reduce the > surface area for an MITM attack: Down from any root certificate to requiring > a specific root, intermediate certificate, or even your exact public key.

related previous articles:

Firefox 32 Supports Public Key Pinning (188 points by jonchang 304 days ago | 100 comments): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8230690](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8230690)

About Public Key Pinning (72 points by tptacek 43 days ago | 5 comments): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9548602](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9548602)

Public Key Pinning Extension for HTTP (70 points by hepha1979 242 days ago | 28 comments): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8520812](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8520812)

</comment><comment><USER26> It's easy to call the CA system broken (and I think it really is), but other, better solutions are not that easy currently.

We want an open, yet secure web, anonymous at best. With the current setup, that is not so easily possible. Letsencrypt might help, but even with that, there is still someone you need to beg for a signed cert.

Maybe we need to think ahead.

</comment><comment><USER30> @svenfaw, your RCC scanner says "Exiting... [Reason: signature database appears to be out of date.]", why is that?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry about that, the website still had an old RCC build. If you download it again, you should get the current version (1.49).

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> For information: OpenTrust (3 roots) is just the new name of the entity that was once Certplus (1 renewed cert).

</comment><comment><USER32> one word. or 4 letters. understand them and you understand everything else about this issue:

MITM

</comment><comment><USER33> It's okay, most apps don't bother checking certificate validity anyway.</comment>


The Dangers of Artificial Intelligence in 2019 - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/futuresin/the-dangers-of-artificial-intelligence-in-2019-19e14fa45aa4 <comment><AUTHOR> Is it time we take the dangers of AI seriously? The more we delay regulation, the more peril we put ourselves in for future decades.</comment>


Ask HN: Why aren't there any good productivity apps? - <AUTHOR> There are thousands of to-do apps. None are any good. They're barely smarter than a sheet of paper.<p>Why? <comment><USER2> using one means you've now got 2 things to avoid

</comment><comment><USER3> what would make a to-do app good?</comment>


Is IRobot a Potential Apple Acquisition Target? - <AUTHOR> http://robotstocknews.blogspot.com/2010/10/will-apple-google-or-microsoft-buy.html

<comment><USER2> I used to work for iRobot. This post is gibberish. The companies he mentions just aren't that interested in robotics. Microsoft has made some progress in robotics development environments, but that isn't a large priority for them. The market there is incredibly small while there is a small developer ecosystem. Apple most especially wouldn't be interested.

More importantly, you probably don't understand this source as well as I do. This blogger has been posting for years about iRobot's stock. It seems he has remained bullish on iRobot the entire time. This is just the latest post saying how awesome iRobot is. The problem is that few others in the market agree. He mentions that their stock is 3X their 2008 low. That's lovely, but my options are still under water from 2006. It's laughable really.

I do think iRobot will be acquired within a few years, but the most likely buyer is a defense contractor. Foster Miller went through a similar acquisition with Qinetiq. To stay independent, iRobot would need to make new robots - but they have refused to invest internal research & development dollars in any meaningful way. This is why products like the Warrior take so long for development - the dev is trickled in through contracts depending on the whims of DoD and Congress. None of this is private information by the way: as a public company their are very scrutinized about their iR&D spending.

<comment><USER3> If you read the post, the point is made that a defense contractor is a more likely takeover candidate in the near-term. But five years from now, why wouldn't a forward looking guy like Steve Jobs, or even Bill Gates, turn their attention to home robotics?

<comment><USER2> Because the business of building robots has nothing to do with building OSes or media players? How about that for a start?

<comment><USER3> I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. I see home robotics as the natural progression of computing into the home. A world where your iPad, your phone, your computer, your TV and your home robots are all connected. It's very limiting to think of home robots as just a vacuum cleaner. The vision is for a family of robots taking care of you and your home — doing chores, providing entertainment, doubling as a security guard, keeping an eye on grandma and making sure she's taking her pills. The iPad makes all this so much easier than pre-iPad, because it can be the face and brains of the robot, and you just need a chassis to attach it to. There's so much potential just waiting for somebody with deep pockets and vision to get it done.

<comment><USER2> The problem is that there are toys and vacuum cleaners and not much else. It will be at least a few years before we have another compelling category of home robot. You should strive to understand the reasons for these short term limitations.

But the net effect is that it is very much only vacuums for at least a few years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Steve jobs has a tendency to identify technologies which are on the brink of succeeding, and bring them to the mass market. Examples are pixar, the iPhone, the iPad and early exclusions (apple was the first to exclude floppies from their computers, and optical drive with the MacBook air)

In that sense it is only natural for apple to enter the robotic market. And with apple's secrecy, they may already be in it.

It will be very exciting if they will release a general purpose robot, with an app store, of course. I can just imagine paying $4.99 for the back massage app, and $0.99 for the fart app :)

Another positive effect that would happen if apple enters this market, is that all the tech companies will follow, and the technology will enter a rapid development stage, as the smartphones are in today.

<comment><USER3> Robotics certainly needs somebody to kickstart it. It's hard to do when the biggest consumer robotics company is worth about $500 million. You need real scale. The kind of scale that Apple could instantly provide.

<comment><USER5> It's really more of a Google thing to do, though. Heck, they're already getting into robotics with the self-driving cars.

Apple's only interest in robotics would be in automating its facilities, and Steve already did that at the NeXT factory.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> When do you think we'll see the next generation of home robots? Do you guys think iRobot has any revolutionary consumer products in the works?

BTW when will lawn mowing robots be commonplace? It doesn't seem that much of a harder problem than vacuuming.

</comment><comment><USER3> Lawn moving robots are already around but pricey ($1K+). This blog, Robot Stock News, has a report on iRobot's patents for a robotic lawnmower, Roomba upgrades and more. iRobot also has promised new home robots soon, so we will have to see...

</comment><comment><USER7> This author doesn't know Apple or the type of companies they acquire. If they wanted to make autonomous vacuums, they could do it 10x better in house within a year, iRobot is not a talent acquisition, and more importantly, they are not going in the cleaning business under Steve Jobs.

List of Apple aquisitions - [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisition...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Apple) if you don't have novel software or silicon design capability, Steve Jobs very likely doesn't need/want you.

<comment><USER3> Why not a talent acquisition? iRobot has the best roboticists MIT has to offer, and a growing trove of patents.

Apple isn't in the cleaning business now. But they weren't in the music business 10 years ago.

<comment><USER7> _iRobot has the best roboticists MIT has to offer_

Really... they go to iRobot rather than NASA and the Joint propulsion Labratory, Boeing, Honda, Lockheed, DARPA, etc...?

How do you think and iRobot's control system compares to an autonomous predator drone?

<comment><USER8> Some of them do, yes. For reference, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory is a NASA Lab, administered by Caltech. DARPA is a a funding agency and doesn't actually do any research itself. It generally employs only late-career scientists and engineers as program managers that hand out the money to researchers at actual labs at universities and companies.

iRobot was started by Rodney Brooks, at the time the most famous roboticist in North America and Director of CS and AI at MIT, and his students. This team has attracted a lot of good talent over the years. Now the team has broken up and there has been little interesting robot development for a while. But the intelligent robot industry is still very small, and the good grads have to go somewhere. Outside university labs, the hot job recently has been at Willow Garage.

(robot research prof here)

<comment><USER7> Thanks, I am a mechanical engineer and worked on a DARPA challenge autonomous vehicle in college. These control systems get complicated very quick and I have much respect for the people working to conquer them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> No. AFAIK, irobot makes their money primarily from defense contracts, not primarily from roombas.

<comment><USER3> It's about 50-50, with slightly more revenue ($200 million plus this year alone) from home robots.</comment></comment>


HashParty a look into the who behind twitter hashtag trends using Ident Engine. - <AUTHOR> http://www.hashparty.com check out my new concept folks, HashParty.  Its a twitter hashtag explorer that leverages the Ident Engine to crawl through the web to reveal the who behind tweets in a regards to a hashtag trend. I combined the Ident engine API with twitter and a few other bits to bring this site concept to life fairly quickly.<p>Originally made to help people assess the who behind tweets for conference related hashtags.  HashParty attempts to gather as much social graph info as possible to create the profiles. <comment><AUTHOR> check out my new concept folks, HashParty. Its a twitter hashtag explorer that leverages the Ident Engine to crawl through the web to reveal the who behind tweets in a regards to a hashtag trend. I combined the Ident engine API with twitter and a few other bits to bring this site concept to life fairly quickly.

Originally made to help people assess the who behind tweets for conference related hashtags. HashParty attempts to gather as much social graph info as possible to create the profiles.</comment>


The uncomfortable state of being Asian in tech - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/little-thoughts/the-uncomfortable-state-of-being-asian-in-tech-ab7db446c55b#.r9uxei579 <comment><USER2> I feel conflicted. This is something Asians, particular East Asians, need to be more active in, but this is poorly written. It's hard to follow and doesn't say anything. Maybe if more Asians write more on this topic then we will get better at it.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't necessarily think we need to have a discussion about being Asian in technology.

I appreciate how attractive a conversation can be and/or a Asian American forum or movement that discusses Asian American issues etc.

However, in my personal experiences, those conversations unfortunately don't go anywhere; mainly because we are not part of the protected class (nothing against under-represented minorities, I actually support affirmative action in tech and education; but Asians don't get the same advantages conferred unfortunately and it is futile and dishonest for us to try to get them IMHO).

Also like the author said, Asian experiences are very diverse. Priscilla Chan (Mark Zuckerburg's wife) for instance would have a very different experience than say a first-generation Chinese female software engineer working for Facebook (Asian American female issues, "Asian Fetish"; "Joy Luck Club" pressure from traditional parents to still toe the line of an filial daughter), and also a different experience to a 2nd-generation Korean male project manager (Asian American male issues, bamboo-ceiling, being perceived as a work-bee and docile in professional and social settings).

The most successful Asians I respect and try to learn from have dedication and commitment to a higher goal. I respect highly a short Vietnamese guy who have forgone a high-paying medical specialty to toil in pediatrics but he loves it; he also found love in a FOB plain jane but also loves her too. The pure joy and happiness he partakes in life is a refreshing contrast to other neurotic Asians I know in extremely high paying jobs and/or partaking in the yuppie urban lifestyle.

I think we can learn from and even internalize the spirit of the American civil rights leaders. But we have to "affect change" through our work and remain humble instead of "dialogue" and "forums" that sometimes turn into a narcissistic navel-gazing. I think ironically, the traditional Asian values are quite American, in the traditional self-effacing American puritans or the Mid-West kind of way that made this country great.

<comment><USER2> 1) Asians are a protected class. We are a legally protected class. There is a difference between affirmative action and protection against discrimination.

2) Sure, you and I have our anecdotes, but there are systemic disadvantages against Asians in the tech industry. Remain humble and stay quiet? That's some Uncle Chen BS.</comment></comment>


Digital Design in Architecture: research landscape map 1975-2019 - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/antonsavov/research-maps <comment><USER2> Definitely interesting as a meta-analysis.

As someone who has worked extensively at the intersection of architecural design and manufacturing, automating and annotating all processes involved definitely seems like where the field is going. You can see this in the rise of BIM, generative design, and next-gen CAD/CAM integration.

At the same time, the resurgence of VR is democratizing use of such tools on both ends of the pipeline: producer and consumer.

Lastly, you have next gen building tools starting to emerge in the form of building-scale 3d printing and advanced manufacturing robotics.

For those with the wherewithal, it's a great time to be building things.

<comment><USER3> How has your experience been on the interop front with BIM? Outside of a few outliers (Grasshopper/Revit) I've found a lot of the tooling to be horrendous from a compatibility POV.

We've done work with stuff like Speckle to try and improve data interchange, but still feels like an uphill battle

<comment><USER2> IMO, there's room for disruptive product(s) there.

I've seen Grasshopper be a great tool for non-coders; though as with all visual programming tools, you are bound to run into a problem you can't immediately address with it.

I'm less familiar with the workflow principles of Revit as they pertain to ushering data through to end users, but I can definitely see how a well developed "CAD with metadata" system could be useful, especially for driving simulation experiences for stakeholders, and possibly being the backend for an increasingly digital construction site. I have heard both good and bad about revit, the bad mostly centering on the fact that it's a behemoth Autodesk product and therefore not prone to user-responsiveness.

My own personal experience has taught me that some pretty basic coding chops can go a long way to creating data pipelines that can supercharge an organization's output.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> HDBSCAN is truly a mighty clustering algorithm & nice work! [https://towardsdatascience.com/lightning-talk-clustering- wit...](https://towardsdatascience.com/lightning-talk-clustering-with- hdbscan-d47b83d1b03a)

</comment><comment><USER5> This is pretty cool to get an overview of sub-fields and publications to read as a starting point - something I'd love to see for other fields as well!

</comment><comment><USER6> The "Smith Glitch" is a fascinating mystery, very curious how they ended up together on the map</comment>