Arecibo Observatory Detects Mysterious, Energetic Radio Burst - <AUTHOR> http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2014/04/20/mysterious-energetic-radio-burst/ <comment><USER2> Pretty cool seeing this here. I recently met someone who works at the observatory here in the island in a Python user group meeting. I was intrigued by the kind of work he did over there with Python. But was instantly bummed out when he told me how their budget has been so dramatically cut during the past few years. There's some interesting things regarding budget, and one of the latest repairs that had to be done after an earthquake north from Puerto Rico damaged one of the suspension cables that support a 900 ton telescope platform here [http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest- blogs/2014/0409-arecibo...](http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest- blogs/2014/0409-arecibo-observatory-earthquake-repairs.html)

<comment><USER3> I cannot understand why these kind of projects lack funding. Is there no super rich person on this planet who is obsessed with the thought of extraterrestrial life?

<comment><USER4> I cannot understand why people keep turning to the super rich to solve problems.

There are 7 billion people on the planet. Isn't it time that the 1 billion of us who appear super rich to the other 6 billion, do little more?

<comment><USER5> What else could they do with super-riches? _shrug_

Ultimately, as evidenced by history, most super-rich reach a stage of life where they realise the riches in themselves were just a way to keep score and large philanthropic contributions ensue.

It's a serious philosophical question; once [1] family financial security and [2]a high quality of life has been secured there is very little left to spend money on other than initiatives that benefit mankind or the natural world.

<comment><USER6> Funnily enough, greed seems to occur more often in those who don't really need it anymore.

> once [1] family financial security and [2]a high quality of life has been > secured

.. you stop focusing on accumulating more wealth - unless those aren't the real goals, and the driving force is something less wholesome. There are natural limits on the wealth a sane person can achieve, unless they inherit or get incredibly (un?)lucky, but numbers can keep rising long after they lost any connection to anything "real", and just like in gaming, people can get and stay stuck to that. And as long as they keep "winning", only the very best get a chance to pause and reflect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Call me (and Dr Arroway of course) when it starts generating prime numbers.

<comment><USER8> Would aliens have any interest in prime numbers, like Earth mathematicians do?

<comment><USER9> That's an interesting question, which simply answered is a plain yes or no.

If they use technology as we understand it, then presumably yes. Prime numbers are just a unique artifact of basic arithmetic. Our knowledge of prime numbers appears to date back to at least Ancient Egyptian times, so it's quite safe to assume an alien race capable of something as technologically adept as transmitting a signal with the purposeful intent of contacting another race would know what prime numbers are.

The issue is we're limited to our view point, we're exceptionally naive of anything different as we've never experienced it. So, is our technology the only way?

We're designing nanotechnology that could fabricate anything we could dream of, but what if an alien race ended up evolving a unique cell that could do it too. We have white blood cells, they have nanofab cells. Would they even comprehend math if they're just growing jet engines and rocket nozzles?

It's this latter, our unknowable unknowns that will broadside us. How do we relate to something that's unfathomably alien to us.

The good news is you and I likely won't be around to care when we find out what aliens are really like.

<comment><USER10> > The good news is you and I likely won't be around to care when we find out > what aliens are really like

I've never understood this sentiment. I would most certainly like to be around if and when we find this out, for better or worse. Why wouldn't you want to be?

<comment><USER11> Its likely a significantly advanced race isn't going to be kind to us.

Do you feel despair when you step on ants on the sidewalk?

<comment><USER10> > Do you feel despair when you step on ants on the sidewalk?

Well no, but neither do I go out of my way to step on them. And I don't see that we'll be so very, very far behind these beings that they're not even capable of recognising we're sentient. Indeed, with all their technology, they should be even more aware of the potential sentience of life than we are.

In the last 100 years or so, humanity has made great strides towards its treatment of lesser animals - we have a long way to go, but it wouldn't be unreasonable to set a goal of zero intentional animal cruelty by 2100. I'd expect technologically advanced aliens to be similarly advanced ethically, or if they do wipe us out, it would at least be deliberate (eg 'the killing star' logic).

<comment><USER12> Most of the pessimistic alien-encounter scenarios involve the aliens' wiping us out for reasons of convenience. They need our resources, and we're either pointless or competitive to keep around.

Personally, I find that argument a little naive and anthropocentric. Who's to say they need our resources? Couldn't they find resources aplenty in asteroids, on planets closer to their home, or through artificial synthesis? It makes little economic or biological sense to go through the trouble of exploring vast, deep regions of space purely for the purposes of acquiring resources. (And that's even assuming they need the same resources we do, in the first place.)

In all likelihood, an alien intelligence that made itself deliberately known to us would be doing it for scientific or diplomatic reasons. If they want our planet, they could just take it. There'd be no need even to deal with us; they could just lob a few asteroid-sized objects at our planet, eradicate life on the surface, then come in and harvest away.

To your point: any sufficiently advanced intelligence that's going to bother interacting with us will probably have studied us well in advance. It will know as much as it can about us. It might (depending on its alien mindset) have a good understanding of our potential sentience, and a respect for sentience in general.

The real threat isn't from alien intelligence, but from alien AI. A dumb AI, at that, of the kind that mindlessly travels the galaxy, self-replicates, and harvests material without discrimination. But again: a race advanced enough to develop such technology would probably be aware of the consequences of letting it run amok. There would be checks against that scenario by design.

We're very quick to ascribe a bleak, law-of-the-jungle amorality to alien intelligence. But let's think about it. Such an intelligence had many "tests" to pass: a nuclear age (or some equivalent thereof), climate change (or some equivalent thereof), wars, and so forth. If it's far more advanced than we are, it probably passed and survived all those tests to get there. It's very hard to pass those tests in the absence of a complex, well-developed ethical system.

<comment><USER8> >The real threat isn't from alien intelligence, but from alien AI. A dumb AI, at that, of the kind that mindlessly travels the galaxy, self-replicates, and harvests material without discrimination. But again: a race advanced enough to develop such technology would probably be aware of the consequences of letting it run amok. There would be checks against that scenario by design.

Don't have too much confidence in that. If a civilization creates AI, it could possibly improve itself and become incredibly intelligent, but still keep the simple goals that it was originally programmed with. Thus endlessly self- replicating, consuming the universe to create bigger computers, or destroy threats to itself, or preserve it's existence as long as possible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Arecibo Observatory was used as a filming location in the climax of the _James Bond_ movie _GoldenEye_ (1995):

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_Observatory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_Observatory)

<comment><USER14> Not to mention but also my ATF movie, Contact

<comment><USER15> related, it also appears all over Sagan's Cosmos.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> With the estimate that the distance to the source is 3 billion light years, what would the energy at the source have been? How much energy are we talking?

How much red shift are we talking? So, at the source, at what frequencies was most of the energy from?

What happened to the other frequencies, lower, higher, or much higher? We do believe that gamma rays can travel 3 billion light years without being absorbed or deflected, right?

Let's see a sky map of the estimated locations of the dozen or so signals so far?

</comment><comment><USER5> Great link. Can someone with a bit more expertise elaborate on this part -

> _Normally, radio waves travel at the speed of light. This means that all the > different wavelengths and frequencies of radio waves emitted by the same > object – say, a pulsar – should arrive on Earth in one big batch._

As someone not particularly well-schooled in physics; I envisage quite simply that if I turn on a radio then off again then on again - the two transmissions arrive separately at another source.

Is that not the same for extra/intergalactic transmissions? If an external transmitter broadcast continual signals would earth not receive them with time delays between each one?

HN must have a science grad that can explain why I am mistaken.

<comment><USER17> The phrasing of that section isn't entirely clear, but I think the idea is a little simpler than what you're imagining.

What the article means is that if you have a single, very short emission of waves with a combination of multiple frequencies, then in principle an observer ought to observe all of the emitted waves arrive at the same time, regardless of frequency. (Traveling the same distance at the same velocity should mean arrival at the same time, after all.)

In this case, though, they see the radio-frequency equivalent of a short blue flash first and later a short green flash and then a short red flash (and presumably all gradations in between, all blurred into one event of gradually decreasing frequency). The notion (as I understand it: not my specialty) is that the longer wavelengths get slowed down a bit more as they pass through galactic and/or intergalactic dust, so their speed is lower.

Now, what you're probably wondering is, "Why do they think it's a single short event that's gotten 'smeared out' during travel rather than a longer event that continuously changed wavelengths as it happened at the source?" I don't know the answer for sure, but astronomers have a lot of practice in recognizing these things. One possibility is pulse shape: if the pattern of brightening and dimming of the "blue" light looks exactly the same as the patterns for the "green" and "red" light, it's more likely that it came from a single source event rather than a continuous process.

<comment><USER18> Steuard is right, and astronomers have good reasons to expect this behaviour - wave dispersion. The best link I can find from a quick google is this: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispersion_(water_waves)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispersion_\(water_waves\)) -which refers specifically to dispersion of water (typically, ocean) waves, but the concepts are the same. (Edited to add) We expect dispersion effects in the case of fast radio bursts due to effects of propagation through the interstellar medium. Not my area of expertise, but see [http://arxiv.org/abs/1310.8316](http://arxiv.org/abs/1310.8316) if you want a properly referenced starting point.

<comment><USER17> Maybe it's worth mentioning that we're all at least a little bit familiar with dispersion in other contexts: it's the same phenomenon that makes a prism work to split white light into colors, and that is responsible for rainbows. (The angle that light bends when passing through a surface depends on the precise speed that light of that frequency travels on each side. When different frequencies have different speeds, that's dispersion, and what started as combined white light splits into a different color at each angle.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Shows you that the amount of what we know about the universe is likely less than what we don't. I've always thought that mind boggling discoveries that change our understanding of the universe is the only constant in it.

</comment><comment><USER20> We are detecting something from a long long time ago in a galaxy far far away.

<comment><USER21> The death star explosion?

<comment><USER22> I think Alderaan's explosion generated more energy :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> cool - it just has to Anti-matter weapons taking out planetary hubs with Minds directing the defences ... :-)

<comment><USER24> The events are too short and too powerful for even Star Trek-like weapons :)

It's clear from the article that the amount of energy required for these bursts would be far in excess of what could be considered practical - even for planet-scope warfare. There is no characteristic gamma pulse which would be expected from an antimatter annihilation, and the pulse length is not exactly what we would expect from this type of weapon either.

<comment><USER25> But certainly not too short and powerful for the Culture! ;)

<comment><USER26> Gridfire.

<comment><USER27> Someone has to stop the Idarians

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Is this discovery and the Oh-My-God particle related?

( [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh-My- God_particle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh-My-God_particle) )</comment>


Colombian Voters Reject Peace Deal with Rebels - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/colombian-voters-apparently-reject-peace-deal-with-rebels-1475451463 <comment><AUTHOR> This is the 'tropical' version of the Brexit: Old and uneducated people ruined the country for young people.

</comment><comment><USER2> I can't say these are good news, but as someone who voted "No" I am glad about the result. There are a couple of things that I didn't like about all this _" Peace Agreement"_, the fact that the majority of poor / non-educated people couldn't understand +300 pages of the document was one of the main reasons for me to take a decision. Many mothers lost their children on this war either by direct contact or via narcotraffic. I know two women who lost their husband and son respectively when they were killed by FARC when they were passing by a small town in Casanare, and one family who lost their two male teenagers after FARC kidnapped them to force them to fight for them.

There is more people in Colombia with tragic stories than people without, many of them decided to vote "No", not because they don't want peace but because the agreement between the government and FARC had more benefits for them than for the affected people. The head of FARC were going to get +2 years salary with bonuses without working. I am not going to pay my taxes knowing that part of it is going to become the wine served to these bastards. I am pretty sure they are going to keep their _" clean"_ money in their international bank accounts without problems. Who is going to clean minefields? Who is going to repair children who lost their legs, arms, vision? What about people who were raped? What about all the terrorism?

I and my family were very upset during the celebration days ago of the signature of the peace agreement between the government and FARC because they were assuming people were going to vote "Yes" just because of the word "peace". This is another one of the reasons of why I am glad the "No" won, because they shouldn't have celebrated before the results of the plebiscite, they were like telling people via a televised event _" We don't care what your opinion is, we are going to have peace no matter the cost"_.

NO!!! I and many other Colombians don't want "peace" knowing that these terrorists are not going to be punished for all the things they did. Knowing that the congress will have more criminals than there already is. I don't want to tell my children that we have congressmen who committed many of the worse war crimes.

Do you know how many young geniuses have left the country because of this war? _" Fuga de cerebros"_ was a term coined here to refer to the migration of smart people to other countries mostly because of the decay of the local job market for professionals, but war was and still is the main factor for that migration. Who wants to have a family and raise children in a country where the president and many powerful people non-affected by war decide to give privileges to the criminals instead of the victims?

I am not even surprised by the number of votes for the "Yes" coming from Colombians living abroad, many of them have been living abroad too many years to understand what is the current situation. If you are one of them, how dare you? It is easy to tease the lion when it is behind bars. It is easy to think that "peace" is what Colombians want when you are living the good life in a 1st-world country.

It is uncertain what is going to happen now, but I can tell you something, if the government doesn't removes those benefits directed to the head of FARC and their guerrilla I, my family, and many of my friends will vote "No" again.

<comment><AUTHOR> The 297 pages of the agreement have a lot of juridical language that's really hard for non-eduacted people to understand. However; magazines, newspapers, tv commercials, YouTube channels, etc. made huge efforts to simplify and summarize the document for the average-joe.

What's really interesting is that people in the major cities (where we're alien from war) voted to reject the agreement. In the marginal zones (where conflict occured/occurs) people voted to accept the agreement. The direct victims just want their towns to stop being bombed all the time, if FARC leaders get money or seats in the congress that is just a minor detail for them.

If the government didn't care about people's opinion they would've just imposed the agreements and jump the plebiscite. I agree with you that the celebration shown in the news was political propaganda for the 'YES', but in no way that's passing over people's opinion.

You don't want to tell your children that you have congressmen who commited many of the worse war crimes? In which country do you think we live in? This is already true, so adding FARC members to the congress in no way changes that. Also, FARC was only going to get 5 out of 102 seats in the senate and 5 out of 166 seats in the chamber of representatives. When M-19 and other rebel groups got their seats in the senate back in '91 they got 15 seats, and today we're not a socialist state. Also, compare this peace process with the ones in countries such as Nepal, Nigeria or Sudan. I mean, in Sierra Leon the rebels got the vicepresdiency, 4 ministries and 4 viceministries.

You talk about brain drain in Colombia. The 'YES' won by a huge difference in the voting tables overseas. Following the logic that says that geniuses leave the country (which I believe it's true by the way), geniuses voted 'YES'.

What's gonna happen next? Well, first of all we will see if FARC really has intentions of building peace or not.

Second, an 'asamblea constituyente' will be built. This will not only prolong the peace process, but will ironically give more negotiating power to FARC.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How might the crypto economy redefine the world economy? - <AUTHOR> Via twitter "When hiring people these days the first thing I explain is that the crypto economy is (likely) going to redefine the entire world economy and networked computer systems."<p>How might crypto do this? What might that look like? <comment><USER2> I'm getting to be a bit of a broken record on this, but here goes:

blockchain can automate the trusted third party. A records clerk in the land registry office who must be trusted to not alter a document no matter the bribe can be replaced by an algorithm. So can a person counting ballots. Or a bank paying me money to pool my savings into an investment fund. Or an NGO guaranteeing that my donation reaches the people in need.

Trusted third parties aren't seen as an industry because they're typically seen as the cost of doing business - That cost is about to drop precipitously.

</comment><comment><USER3> You own your money, not somebody else (AKA banks).

Banks will only act as a loan mechanism.

Fiat currency will be converted to crypto as a means to invest in the country monetary system. Tools will be built around converting globally decentralized cryptocurrencies (e.g. Bitcoin) into a country-specific cryptocurrency.

It will redefine the world economy for the fact there will be no paper money anymore. It will also remove the last piece of liberty you have, which is to get paid by physical cash.

The globally decentralized countryless currency - Bitcoin or whatever protocol will be called "Bitcoin" \- will bring the physical money liberty back, but it won't be the same thing.</comment>


A Perfect Laptop for Coding, Gaming, and Zooming - <AUTHOR> https://onezero.medium.com/microsoft-finally-made-a-perfect-laptop-for-coding-gaming-and-zooming-2cc9a7148fca <comment><USER2> For 'videoconference' you mean i Guess? Because a laptop just for zooming on pictures... Joke aside, stop being lame and trying to sound 'cool' n'y using a company name without reason!</comment>


How Climate Change Deniers Rise to the Top in Google Searches - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/29/climate/google-search-climate-change.html <comment><USER2> I used to be an agnostic on the subject of global warming, but I think it's reasonable to believe there's an upward trend.

I also think it's reasonable to believe that activist groups are still exaggerating projections and the efficacy of whatever flavor of the month solution they're currently pushing.

Here's what should be happening instead:

I'd like to see activists making actual proposals with realistic assessments of the costs and benefits so that we can make rational judgments with respect to public resources that we're being asked to allocate to their causes.

Is that too much to ask?

Regardless, mocking conservatives and moderates who want a more careful accounting from the hysterical activists is what caused me to flag this post.

<comment><USER3> It's ridiculous that people who question anything about climate change are called 'climate change deniers,' on par with holocaust deniers. There are reasonable arguments to be made that climate models are inaccurate or may not make the predictions claimed. What percentage of climate change is caused by humans? How much can human beings do to reverse the climate? What is the cost to benefit ratio of those changes? There is too much variability in the answers to these questions to shame anyone who challenges the current orthodoxy.

<comment><USER4> > 'climate change deniers,' on par with holocaust deniers

The number of people who will be killed by climate change in the next hundred years because we didn't act is going to make the holocaust pale in comparison. Climate change related deaths are expected to be just a little under one holocaust a year by 2030. So I think that is fair comparison.

The cost benefit ratio is incalculable.

But if you were to calculate costs:

\- Renewable are generally cheaper than alternatives

\- Renewable create far more jobs than would be lost

\- Cleaner air is undeniably linked to healthier people

\- And we save one hollocost a year

I used to be agnostic as the other poster puts it too but this is ridiculous. The steps we need to take not only will definitely help the climate but also help the economy and health. It is a win-win-win even if the models are completely wrong, which I doubt.

I think the turning point for me is when I learned sea levels are rising FASTER than the models predicted. Are you going to wait until the water is at your door to believe it is real?

<comment><USER3> The implication in your answer is that we should be doing everything we can to stop climate change. And if I asked you whether we should be doing everything we can, you would probably say that yes, we should. But really truly everything? Have you quit using any form of transportation that relies on fossil fuels? Have you completely ceased to throw away anything non- recyclable? Have you reduced your carbon footprint to 0? For most people, the answer is no. What they say is that we should be moving in that direction. And that I agree with. The question about how fast and the method in which we do it leaves a lot of room for discussion without shaming people who decide the cost-to-benefit ratio may show it is not worth taking every single car off the road tomorrow morning.

<comment><USER4> No. The ideal is far from what is practical. We can't ban fossil fuel engines overnight for instance. Clean energy needs the market pressure of competition to help keep it honest.

Also, I believe that taking every car off the road would actually exceed what scientist think need to be done. There is no need to be excessive.

At the same time though, to put it in HN terms, it's like if you have a huge six month software project and according to the burn-down chart you've only completed 10% of your story points by month five. At some point catch up becomes impossible. I am really afraid that all the deniers are taking what could be an easy(ish) problem to solve incrementally and through politics (not science, not even economics) causing us to delay implementing solutions so long that by the time we need to act (because it is so obvious things are broken[1]) it will be very expensive and very painful.

I'm all for weight the cost benefit but if there is a broken water pipe in your basement flooding your house and you priced out all the plumbers you don't debate for 20 years if the water really needs to be fixed or whether a cheaper plumber will be available in the future. And you definitely don't debate if the water exists. You pay what you need to to fix the leak.

Furthermore in this analogy, the deniers are the insurance company on the phone asking the home owner who is waste deep in water, "Are you sure that the water really exists?"

[1] For example: in parts of the Earth it is already obvious. In the northeast united states Lyme disease (a serious tick borne illness) has been spreading further and further south because the changes in climate are allowing ticks to be active more of the year and therefor migrate further. There are thousands of "tiny" side effects that people don't realize.

<comment><USER3> "There is no need to be excessive."

Now you're the one who gets to decide what is an obvious solution and what is an excessive one? You see where I'm going with this.

In your analogy about the broken water pipe, you actually don't pay 'what you need' to fix the leak. You don't take out a loan greater than the house is worth to fix the leak. You don't open the phone book and randomly choose a sketchy person to fix the leak. You don't dive into the water with scotch tape and try to fix the leak. In other words, you still make an intelligent decision regardless of the severity. By making it impossible for reasonable people to present rational discussion, you make yourself sound irrational rather than have the intended affect of bringing in many people who would otherwise work alongside you to combat the problem.

<comment><USER4> We have a very clear picture of what the minimum we need to do is. There is a minimum we need to decrease greenhouse gas emissions.

My issue is we can't even decide to meet the minimum. It is a minimum for a reason. At some point we need to stop talking and do something. After 20+ years of trying to convince skeptics we are running out of time to be diplomatic.

You don't sound like a denier. Or if you are you are reasonable enough to not state absolutes.

I was OK being politically correct when the "debate" was just stalling progress. Now that the debate is not just stalling progress but actually reversing it, it is downright frightening.

Your counter analogy doesn't hold. We only have one earth.

And I think your argument is a straw man. No one is calling people who want to debate the solution deniers. I have only seen people called deniers who say that we don't even need a solution at all. Or worse, that warming is good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Answer: They are buying Google ads

I still have questions with NYT's perspective on that issue. Are they seriously expecting Google to evaluate the scientific proof behind every ad that is placed? Those website do nothing illegal, most probably don't even lie but just present very selective facts. Or is that just about the next level of trial by internet and the NYT is already scouting for next potential victims they can target?

<comment><USER6> Some people stand to profit from saying the climate is responding to anthropogenic warming to a worrying (adjust the adjective) degree and others will profit from discounting (same adjustment applies) such concerns. It's therefore (knowing human nature) likely that some members of both groups will present 'very selective facts'.

It seems you have an agenda so you side with the former group. Alternatively you have good reasons to argue for a high climate sensitivity value rather than a low one. Do you? Discussion totally dissociated from CS consideration is mere rhetoric.

Here's a recent summary:

[http://notrickszone.com/2017/10/16/recent-co2-climate- sensit...](http://notrickszone.com/2017/10/16/recent-co2-climate-sensitivity- estimates-continue-trending-towards-zero/#sthash.7BVQeLDP.dpbs)

<comment><USER7> > It seems you have an agenda so you side with the former group

And do you say that after linking to a blog that has a really obvious agenda?

Yap, entries like [0] are really unbiased, isn't?

[0] [http://notrickszone.com/2017/12/20/america-unshackled- emanci...](http://notrickszone.com/2017/12/20/america-unshackled-emancipating- itself-as-trump-accomplishes/#sthash.p5fl5T6W.dpbs)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've not seen it mentioned before but the anti-climate change platform feels just like the tobacco, margarine, and sugar misinformation campaigns of yesteryear. Would not be surprised is students of those were involved somehow.</comment>


Twitter permanently bans white supremacist David Duke - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnet.com/news/twitter-permanently-bans-white-supremacist-david-duke/ <comment><USER2> "In order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance."

\- Karl Popper

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance)

<comment><USER3> If true, then how did tolerant societies arise from intolerant ones?

<comment><USER4> Can you explain how you see the two things as conflicting? They both seem natural to me.

<comment><USER3> Tolerance becoming the dominant ideology in an intolerant society is much easier than merely remaining dominant in an already tolerant society. If it could do the former while society tolerated intolerance, then surely it can do the latter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Good

<comment><USER6> I LOVE this new internet you people are creating!

<comment><USER7> The fundamental principles of the internet haven't changed. If racists want a platform, they can have it and the underlying web standards still exist for them to make it themselves and to self-host it.

If their providers want to cancel these business relationships, that is their right as well.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_association](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_association)

What is _really_ problematic and has been since its inception is the overuse of commercial and centralized services by public institutions and organizations. Twitter and other services of that nature are _not public utilities_.

<comment><USER3> And yet we were okay with sharply curtailing freedom of association in some areas. Twitter (or a landlord) would be in legal trouble if it tried to ban black people.

Edit: To the replies pointing out the protected class distinction: I'm well aware of it (as my example shows). What I am highlighting is that "freedom of association" isn't as absolute as the parent post implies, and that in the past the law was changed and that freedom was diminished when it allowed behavior we didn't like.

<comment><USER7> I'm sorry, I didn't know that being a racist was a protected class now.

<comment><USER6> Saying blacks deserve to be a protected class is pretty racist you know.....

<comment><USER8> All races are a protected class. You can't discriminate against white Europeans either.

In fact, if you were to start a group that wanted to destroy white Europeans (like how the Klan wants to destroy non whites, Catholics, Mormons, Jews, and sanity itself) then you would quickly find yourself ostracized.

I would bet an anti white group would quickly find itself branded as a terrorist organization in the US.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is as offensive as German companies taking actions against Nazi displays.

</comment><comment><USER10> Happy to see this.

<comment><USER11> If you think about why you posted this, you might learn something about yourself.

<comment><USER12> My reaction to seeing this news was also a tiny jolt of happiness, and thinking about that, I've learned that I dislike white supremacists and their philosophy.

Is that what you meant?

<comment><USER11> no

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is not long term thinking.

I find DD to be repelling- but moves like this are more repelling than yet another asshole on Twitter.

Twitter apparently wants to save its users from ever being critical thinkers.

</comment><comment><USER14> Twitter banning prominent far right users forces them to mass migrate to parler which ultimately makes parler less attractive to the wider community.

On the other hand parler might only be popular because twitter started banning these people in the first place.

<comment><USER15> Seems like a win-win to me. Far right users congregate to a niche platform where they can do as they please, and as a result it's easier for everyone else to ignore them.

<comment><USER16> Yeah, and then they can totally ignore the far left and push Twitter even further over the cliff.

<comment><USER17> It's not far-left to be against the KKK terrorist group.

<comment><USER16> Can you name any Antifa members that Twitter have banned? David Duke isn't even relevant. He's a nobody boogey man.

<comment><USER18> I don't know, but it's not far-left to be against fascism, either.

<comment><USER16> No but it is clearly far left to take over city blocks, declare autonomous zones, destroy public property, terrorize citizens and public officials, etc. and there's plenty of Antifa sympathizers or supporters on Twitter. There's plenty of moral hazard with the amount of influence and propaganda power that tech companies have today and it's a very corrosive, dangerous, long-term destructive thing that scares me far more than David Duke.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> We are the chosen ones, we have Right on our side, we need not listen to anyone who disagrees with us. Better in fact if they did not even exist, no? Maybe if we're vigorous enough in protesting our orthodoxy while tossing the heretics in the fire, no one will think to question whether our thoughts are utterly proper.

<comment><USER17> No reasonable person thinks it's up for debate whether the KKK terrorist group or ISIS is on the right side of history or not. Sounds like lazy "slippery slope" concern trolling.</comment></comment>


China recalls giant pandas from San Diego Zoo amid U.S. trade war - <AUTHOR> https://observer.com/2019/05/china-recall-giant-panda-san-diego-zoo-us-trade-war/ <comment><USER2> I always thought the pandas were a sort of friendly good will gesture that didn't cost them much, seems like an odd olive branch to withdraw that I guess might play well in China, but it's not like it would change many opinions in the US. Seems like a silly thing to withdraw.

If anything this seems like the sort of no cost good will thing you LEAN ON in tough times.

</comment><comment><USER3> The U.S. effectively is trying to cripple a few major corporations from China... their response is "I'm going to take my Panda back"

I don't really see China's negotiating position here, but if that's what they can do - then the U.S. definitely has the leverage.

<comment><USER4> It's a way to signal displeasure in a diplomatic way. It's not about a bear, it's about taking back a gift. Diplomacy is more about subtlety.

US headlines are dominated by our administration's boorish behavior and we don't get a good picture. The reality is that these issues are more nuanced, and China can achieve outcomes that benefit them in different ways. A common narrative that the BRIC countries are developing is that the US is too volatile to deal with.

Re: leverage, at the end of the day, the US doesn't have the capability to do lots of manufacturing. Our primary export to China is cash. We don't have the machinists, don't have the ability to train for the skills needed to manufacture, and will need to buy tooling from China. Real competitive pressure is decades away. The vaporization of commercial banking means that nobody will be building factories either.

Tariffs generate revenue and are regressive, but ultimately you need to get your iPhone somewhere, and the fabs for SSD, memory, etc and a million other components are located mostly in China. Forget about this as a "trade deal", it's a tax increase.

<comment><USER5> > Re: leverage, at the end of the day, the US doesn't have the capability to > do lots of manufacturing. Our primary export to China is cash. We don't have > the machinists, don't have the ability to train for the skills needed to > manufacture, and will need to buy tooling from China.

This is not a problem for the US. Companies have accelerated a shift of manufacturing to other Asian countries during the last year [1]. As far back as 2013, China was facing an exodus of factories [2].

> Real competitive pressure is decades away.

I doubt this. Although some opinions say China has more leverage than the US [3], "The country's heavy debts, built up over years of lending used to spur growth, limit its options. If it retaliates against the United States sharply by devaluing its currency or shutting factories crucial to global supply chains, the moves could ricochet and hurt its own newfound wealth.

...

Its tremendous success in nurturing its own homegrown industries, which has helped China's economy rise up the value chain, has reduced its imports of American goods, giving it fewer items to hit with tariffs." [4].

1\. [https://www.theepochtimes.com/us-tariffs-adds-financial- pres...](https://www.theepochtimes.com/us-tariffs-adds-financial-pressure-to- foreign-manufacturers-in-china-pushing-them-to-leave_2610229.html)

2\. [https://www.mckinsey.com/business- functions/operations/our-i...](https://www.mckinsey.com/business- functions/operations/our-insights/a-new-era-for-manufacturing-in-china)

3\. [https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/05/ch...](https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/05/china- has-more-leverage-thank-you-think-trade-war/589726/)

4\. [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/17/business/china-trade- infl...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/17/business/china-trade- influence.html)

<comment><USER5> Starting to look like China is having some supply chain disruption too:

[https://www.digitalphablet.com/intel-and-qualcomm-also- bans-...](https://www.digitalphablet.com/intel-and-qualcomm-also-bans-huawei- stops-supply-with-immediate-effect)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> How do we know that the panda recall is tied to the trade war? Makes no sense since the article mentions that several other zoos in the US still have pandas. This seems like clickbait.

</comment><comment><USER7> Seems like an odd gesture of annoyance. It's not like there can be that many people that go to the San Diego Zoo just to see the pandas. From what I can see in the article, China "loans" their female panda to SDZ, then she gets pregnant, delivers babies, and they get shipped back to China when they are weaned. It really sounds like a good deal for them--SDZ takes care of the animal at their own expense and periodically sends back babies.

China can't recall the panda expertise of the zookeepers in San Diego--or the panda habitat and operations funding--along with the panda, so if the recalled female fails to get pregnant while in China, that's a loss for the worldwide panda conservation program. SDZ visitors will still be in one of the largest zoos in the entire world, and can walk past the closed exhibit to the next one.

It's like National Lampoon's "buy this magazine or we will shoot this dog" issue, except not a joke. "Lower your tariffs or we will threaten this species?"

</comment><comment><USER8> This article is 2 days old and this had been announced in March. [0]

The loan agreement was coming to an end in late April and the Chinese said that they would not renew it.

It's not quite the same as deciding to take them back in retaliation to the last round of tariffs/anti-Huawei measures.

[0] [https://phys.org/news/2019-03-zoo-beloved-giant-pandas- china...](https://phys.org/news/2019-03-zoo-beloved-giant-pandas-china.html)

</comment><comment><USER9> Not directly tied to the trade war.

China has been declining to renew all of the international panda "loans" as they expire. They now have the breeding expertise in country.

So it isn't retaliation, just another example of how China treats foreign "partners" after the IP is transferred.

<comment><USER2> >They now have the breeding expertise in country.

I thought that was always the case.

<comment><USER9> Captive breeding for conservation has been a long term issue, and needed international help. There's a reason the World Wildlife Fund's logo is a panda.

[https://www.fws.gov/international/animals/giant- pandas.html](https://www.fws.gov/international/animals/giant-pandas.html)

<comment><USER2> I still thought that most breeding was always done in China.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Anyway it is another export. When one can import - wharsapp, google play, Facebook, hackers, news, ... to china.</comment>


SOLAR iOS app - Weather has never been cooler - <AUTHOR> http://thisissolar.com/ <comment><USER2> Very nice design, but I'm not sure what the 'sliding finger up the screen' was. Is that going forward in time? Doesn't seem overly intuitive to me.</comment>


Using Deep Learning to Pick Groceries Faster - <AUTHOR> https://firstname.lastname@example.com/deep-learning-with-emojis-not-math-660ba1ad6cdc <comment><USER2> hey, i'm the OP and would love to discuss / answer any questions

also, another shout out to the OpenAI and YC teams for their great feedback</comment>


Motion Profiling Controllers - <AUTHOR> https://steampunc.github.io/post/2017/04/07/motion-profiling.html <comment><USER2> That's pretty standard, and well known in both machine tool control and industrial robotics. It's still positional control - you're working in position space, not force space.</comment>


One Time Pad Encryption Over Radio - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/w8rbt/padder <comment><USER2> I would very very very much suggest that no one transmits text from this over radio.

At least in the USA, I'm nearly 100% sure that this is in violation of the Part 97 rules.

If any unknowing HAM transmits anything from this, they are in for a world oh hurt.

<comment><USER3> Correct. 97.113 Prohibited Transmissions

(a)(4) ... messages encoded for the purpose of obscuring their meaning, except as otherwise provided herein...

With one exception being telecommand of a space station (and possibly model craft).

Source: [http://www.arrl.org/part-97-amateur- radio](http://www.arrl.org/part-97-amateur-radio) (and the PDF linked there)

<comment><USER2> Yes. This is what I was remembering. I'm a member of the HAM radio club in college, NJIT.

We wanted to do a few projects that were stunted due to this arcane law.

<comment><USER4> The law is probably necessary for HAMs to be self policing.

<comment><USER2> From the vibe I get from our club adviser, it seems like a "they'll find you if you do it for long enough" situation. I wouldn't want to tempt fate and do it.

It's the same as if you have a noisy transmitter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I immediately thought of numbers stations when I read this title.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbers_station](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbers_station)

Not quite as mysterious and intriguing, but still pretty cool.</comment>


Is Wall Street Beneath Business Students' Standards? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-12/is-wall-street-beneath-business-students-standards- <comment><USER2> What kind of job can you get that actually is ethical? I don't know of any. To me, it seems like you just have to pick which vertical scam you want to give your labor to, and choosing between them based on which affords you a better/more comfortable life isn't unreasonable.

If there actually was a credible alternative, that would be one thing. But what is it? Start-ups? Yeah right. Non-profits. Please. Government? Medicine? Law? Commerce? Entertainment? Education? Research? Who considers any of these ethical? Some fields may have generally nicer people within them, but the people on top (executives, university or hospital administrators, corporate attorneys, investors, whatever) are generally paid way beyond the value they add through capital or labor, and implement many policies or pursue regulatory capture or whatever else to ensure this type of arrangement persists to their benefit.

The only thing that makes sense to me is that it's a problem of mate selection. If by agreeing to work in a certain field you are tainted with a social stigma that prevents you from attracting the type of mate you want, that might motivate you to use some kind of ethics argument as a rationalization for the true behind-the-scenes status argument.

But I have a hard time believing this matters to finance. Money still tends to be a huge factor in mate selection, ethics be damned. Maybe it matters if you're very low-level in a huge bureaucratic bank, so you get all of the social stigma downside but not a lot of the financial upside. But apart from that... I don't see it. No other choice available to you is significantly "more ethical" than just personally being honest and working in a financial corporation whose higher-level scamminess you can't influence or control.

I mean, it's certainly depressing that it's like this... but this is just how it is.

<comment><USER3> > _If there actually was a credible alternative, that would be one thing. But > what is it? Start-ups? Yeah right. Non-profits. Please. Government? > Medicine? Law? Commerce? Entertainment? Education? Research? Who considers > any of these ethical?_

You're not making an argument. You're just dismissing perfectly valid (and widely-held) viewpoints as though they're foregone conclusions.

I have friends in education and research that harm no one, make very little money, and make the world a better place. It's easy to argue that their jobs are ethical. They create more value than they accept. Many scientists are in this category.

<comment><USER2> I don't know the specifics of your friends' jobs, and with more data about them I am completely open to being wrong about it.

Most people in financial jobs also harm no one, and though they accept higher wages, they also create far more value, and there could be endless arguments over whether or not there is trickle-down value, whether managing pension plans adds value, etc.

But what concerns me more is that most employees in any organization exist solely for the short term gain of their bosses (somewhere up the food chain). A fourth-grade teacher exists more to make a principal look good for advancement to superintendent than for endowing society with the value of educated children. The fourth grade teacher has to put up with arbitrary state standards, political fighting between staff, inappropriate parental involvement, turning the other way on some issues they feel strongly they should not turn the other way on. It's a political shitstorm like anything else, where a few people on top of something (no matter how small scale that something may seem by comparison to a huge bank) are applying pressure to make the teacher's job more about subservience and fealty than about efficacious results.

I think that problems get worse and worse as you go up the academic and research food chain. You might be able to make an argument that being a pre- school teacher in a small rural town, or the pastor of a small community's church (modulo one's beliefs about whether promoting religious faith can ever be morally or ethically good), are actually "ethical" jobs, but I'm not totally sold that you can, and I don't believe much beyond this can even enter the discussion.

It's not so much about whether you overtly participate in something wrong. It's about whether the aggregation of all the tiny little microscopic job duties you do to comply with bureaucratic hierarchy ends up summing up to unfair gains mediated towards someone who doesn't economically deserve them, or that the gains end up being wasted.

<comment><USER3> > _Most people in financial jobs also harm no one_

This is a complicated issue. Are you harming others by investing other people's money into oil companies or weapons manufacturers? Are you harming others if they expect you to make a certain return, and you fail to meet that? (More on that below)

> _and though they accept higher wages, they also create far more value_

This is actually very, very debatable. While the finance industry is helpful and lubricates all other parts of the economy, it's also rife with abuse. I worked at a financial software company for a while, and you would be blown away by the corruption, greed, and irresponsibility of that industry (among ratings agencies, bulge-bracket banks, and hedge funds). If the general public in the US knew about it, there would probably be mass panic.

Furthermore, a lot of finance involves wealth management, and there's no evidence that wealth managers actually generate any value unless they're actively, illegally gaming prices. I don't have time to get sources right now, but it's pretty easy to Google. Jon Stewart's interview with Jim Cramer is very enlightening in that regard, since he admits to illegally gaming prices because all of the top-tier wealth managers have to do it.

<comment><USER2> > This is actually very, very debatable.

I agree. I just think it's just as debateable for pretty much any other mode of employment.

I too worked in quant finance for several years. Believe me I understand. I quit finance because of the wanton greed and dysfunctional politics. But what I found when moving on to bright-eyed start-ups and education technology companies was that there was just as much wanton greed and dysfunction there (in some cases, even more).

I'm familiar with the literature on mutual funds and active managers. I worked for a team that focused exclusively on the low volatility anomaly in equity pricing, and our team's pitchbook was all about how most active managers lose (and yet, we _were_ an active manager, heh).

The problem is that asset managers don't add value by growing or protecting the value of the assets they manage. That is not what their clients want from them nor what they pay them for, and failure to do those things is also not why they get fired.

What really happens is that someone who sits on the board of directors for a pension fund or some other large retirement fund, like say the association for retired firefighters in some state, is tasked with managing some huge-to-them pile of money from which everyone's retirement money is paid. But that task is daunting to a non-specialist board member, and they need someone to act like a management consultant. If the management consultant is wrong, the board member has plausible deniability (e.g. "How could we have known ... the fancy asset manager seemed great ... we all voted to use them.")

Using asset management companies is just a career cover-you-ass tactic for people embedded within the pension and retirement boards themselves. It's truly, truly not about actually growing the endowment or the plan value.

But who is to say this is bad? The "value" that someone is seeking (the "value" of having a cover-your-ass asset manager you can fire and save face in front of the other board members if things go bad, or milk for kudos if the market turns up) is provided by the asset manager.

You and me both probably don't think that sort of "value" matters, but it does matter to somebody, and they're OK paying a lot for it, and most everyday people don't seem to care enough to do something like boycott their company's 401(k) in order to invest directly in low fee index funds themselves. So by what standard do we judge this somewhat scammy thing as certainly worse than all the other kinds of scammy things in all sorts of industries that go on all the time?

I'm not trying to be cheeky when I ask. I'm _really_ asking. What's the "ethics metric" we're supposed to use. When I just think about this stuff from a sort of common sense "be good to people, try to add value, don't be wasteful" perspective, finance looks a little worse than other fields, but not that much worse. Maybe defense and government spying and torture looks significantly worse than all the other things, but beyond that the rest of it all just looks like one big pile of more or less equivalent scamminess.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> _Business school deans say some students who consider themselves "highly ethical" are avoiding careers in finance because they consider the field beneath their standards._

Hasn't this always been the case? You go in to it for the money, for the thrill, because that's what you're in to. Or you go in to it for any number of reasons. Maybe you consider yourself _highly ethical_ and go in to finance because you think you can make a difference.

 _Christine Lagarde ... said ... one of her sons had told her he might not talk to her if she were to work for a large investment bank._

Right. And one of her daughters told her she wouldn't speak to her if she bought that dress. So what?

<comment><USER5> Christine Lagarde gives me the creeps. Back when MH17 was still fresh I was trying to discern for myself what transpired, anyway didn't find out much just ended up reading some pretty out there shit. Here's a note I made on it at the time "So, I was reading a bit about the MH17 incident and stumbled upon this [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/…/From-CIA-assassination-cock- ne…](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/…/From-CIA-assassination-cock-ne…) Basically an article outlining some of the wild theories being circulated on the internet in regard to the incident...but then I got to the part about Christine Lagarde Managing Director, IMF and I figured I might as well check out this speech and see what exactly these "cryptic uses of the number 7" were that these people seemed to believe were present in her speech. So that brought me to this video, an unedited, unabridged, video of her speech, given on January 15, 2014(this date becomes important): [https://youtu.be/LJ3oZN_dzZI](https://youtu.be/LJ3oZN_dzZI) -just so there is no question as to when this speech was delivered here is a link to the IMF site with a transcript of the speech "As prepared for delivery": [http://www.imf.org/external/np/speeches/2014/011514.htm](http://www.imf.org/external/np/speeches/2014/011514.htm)

WTF is she saying?

All the conspiracy theory stuff aside, there are several references to the G7 in this video. The G7 was officially still the G8 at the time of this speech. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G8-](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G8-) "(Russia)-was excluded from the forum by the other members on March 24, 2014" and the Crimea incident didn't begin until February 23, 2014 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Crimea_crisis#Timeline"](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Crimea_crisis#Timeline")

<comment><USER5> That was an impossibly fast downvote lol

<comment><USER6> Probably another conspiracy!

<comment><USER5> My comment made no claim of conspiracy, the original dailymail article did. I simply stated the G7 was still the G8 and if anybody else were to give that speech with 7 this and 7 that, 7-7-7, they'd be in a padded room haha.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm surprised they're surprised. What a strange bubble they must live in.

</comment><comment><USER8> If the better business students think finance is unethical, that indicates good judgment.

</comment><comment><USER9> How does one distinguish between being ethical and highly ethical?

</comment><comment><USER10> As a former business student, I don't remember us having standards.</comment>


More transparency into government requests - <AUTHOR> http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/06/more-transparency-into-government.html <comment><USER2> This is a good thing.

From the government removals section in the US:

> We received a request from a local law enforcement agency to remove a blog > because of a post that allegedly defamed a law enforcement official in a > personal capacity. We did not comply with this request, which we have > categorized in this Report as a defamation request.

We received a request from a local law enforcement agency to remove 1,400 YouTube videos for alleged harassment. We did not comply with this request. Separately, we received a request from a different local law enforcement agency to remove five user accounts that allegedly contained threatening and/or harassing content. We terminated four of the accounts, which resulted in the removal of approximately 300 videos, but did not remove the remaining account with 54 videos.

> We received a court order to remove 218 search results that linked to > allegedly defamatory websites. We removed 25% of the results cited in the > request.

> The number of content removal requests we received increased by 103% > compared to the previous reporting period.</comment>


A Comparison of Programming Languages in Economics [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://economics.sas.upenn.edu/~jesusfv/comparison_languages.pdf

<comment><USER2> As having both, an economics and computer science background, I often feel like economists focus on the wrong metrics when evaluating programming languages.

The importance of raw computing speed of a programming language pales in comparison with the importance of the applied methods, as well as the time saved in development. For example, while a speed-up by a factor of two sounds good on paper, the choice of search strategy in a constrained optimization problem can change the running time by several orders of magnitude. I am currently working on a model where the seemingly unimportant choice of price normalization (i.e. which price in the model is set to 1.0 to determine the price level) can make a difference between 2 seconds or 200 seconds of computation time.

</comment><comment><USER3> Meh, they dismiss java & pypy very quickly but they don't understand that these languages require warm-up. If you benchmark runs in less than 2 seconds half of the time measured is starting the runtime, profiling & compiling code. I think that interesting computational problems in economics have a much longer running time.

For this kind of algorithm, basically working with arrays of doubles, java should be within 20% of c++ and normally it is just as fast.

<comment><USER4> Does Java have any way of auto vectorization? On modern CPUs SIMD can speed up numerical computation several times easily. However auto vectorization is hard in general, so compilers don't necessarily do a good job and manually optimized code is common. C++ has TMP and libraries such as Eigen use TMP to provide a nice interface to SIMD optimized code. I don't know whether Java has equivalent of compiler intrinsics for SIMD instructions, without which Java code would be far slower for many numerical computation. I believe C# has plans to add an abstraction for SIMD and Mono can already emit SIMD instructions.

<comment><USER3> Intel recently contributed improved auto-vectorisation for artithmetic to the hotspot compiler. Auto-vectorisation of move instructions has been in hotspot for a few years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7978410](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7978410)

Lots of discussion from a year ago.

</comment><comment><USER6> I would be happy to use languages like J/K or Julia for our actuarial projection simulations instead of C++. However, despite quicker development times, a factor of 2 in the runtime for our stochastic projections would be terrible. Has anyone experience with those languages in an HPC environment and can compare it to a C++ implementation?

<comment><USER7> Dang, someone wanting to replace C++ with J... I'd love to say you could do this, since I am a big fan of J, but if you need to squeeze the last bit of efficiency out of a machine on a problem that can't be parallelized, C++ is probably a pretty good idea. If the "expensive in write time" logic isn't expensive in calculation time, you could wrap the expensive pieces in some verbs which call out to C.

I'm often surprised though; a naive implementation of wavelets in J was quite comparable in runtime performance to a naive implementation of wavelets in C.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> github: [https://github.com/jesusfv/Comparison-Programming- Languages-...](https://github.com/jesusfv/Comparison-Programming-Languages- Economics)

</comment><comment><USER3> "Java's issues with floating point arithmetic in high-performance scientific computation"

Can someone explain this?

<comment><USER2> Unlike C++, Java ensures that floating point calculations always yield the exact same result, regardless of the underlying platform. This can degrate performance.

I am not sure if they meant that thought, in my opinion this is an advantage of Java.

<comment><USER3> Floating point calculations are only guaranteed to be platform independent when you use the 'strictfp' modifier.</comment></comment></comment>


Ocean Voyages Institute Sets Record with Largest Open Ocean Clean-Up in History - <AUTHOR> https://www.oceanvoyagesinstitute.org/ocean-voyages-institute-sets-record-with-largest-open-ocean-clean-up-in-history/ <comment><AUTHOR> Video Link: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7Ka0stsTO0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7Ka0stsTO0)

</comment><comment><USER2> Are there any estimates on how much plastic is out there?

<comment><USER3> From [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch)

> _An estimated 87,000 metric tons of plastic inhabit the patch, totaling 1.8 > trillion pieces. 92% of the mass in the patch comes from objects larger than > 0.5 centimeters, while 94% of the total objects are represented by > microplastics._

> _In a 2014 study researchers sampled 1571 locations throughout the world 's > oceans, and determined that discarded fishing gear such as buoys, lines and > nets accounted for more than 60% of the mass of plastic marine debris._</comment></comment>


Another messenger?? Yawwww - <AUTHOR> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=im.serkit&hl=en <comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I launched another messenger in the super crowded space of messengers :)

Why!!!

I am a heavy user of whatsapp, infact the android phone battery monitor shows whatsapp as #1 consumer of power in my phone.

I have 8 groups in my Whatsapp, and 3 of them from are my school friends, things that we share and talk in that group, I wouldnt want my wife to peek at it, and definitely I do not want my kids to look at it. But inadvertently , I do get messages when my 7 yrs son is fiddling with my phone or playing games.

The biggest problem I faced is he is right around the age where he can read, understand and can comprehend images, videos etc. I definitely do not want him to look at my college friends whatsapp group pictures and texts.. left with two options, get him his own phone-- he is too young for it, or get him gaming system , which I think he too young as well

and ofcourse, while I am driving, he can send messages to my wife, grand parents etc, So I do like that aspect. The question is how do I balance, give him phone, but stop him from looking at my messages in specific group. If messenger had feature to lock specific chats, rather than lock phone or lock entire app. Not one messenger in market does this.

So created [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=im.serkit&hl=e...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=im.serkit&hl=en)

Obviously messenger cannot stand by just one feature, added other features that no other messengers support Total Recall of Sent messages, even if read, Total Edit of Sent messages.

Android version is out, IOS version is on way. Best part, you can install this on multiple android devices, all android devices stay synced..

There are other unique features we are working on, that we think are definitely needed in the current breed of messengers.

<comment><USER2> This might make a good "Show HN" (guidelines: [https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html))

For the use case of a child messaging their grandparents, the app seems to require a lot of permission.

Good luck.</comment></comment>


Replace terms "Master" and "Slave" for databases - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/antirez/redis/issues/3185 <comment><USER2> The whole of computing is riddled with this. "Client" and "server" have troubling implications. "Kill" is pretty dubious as well. "Faults" and "errors" are shockingly negative - we should call them "misunderstandings". And "invalid" has been deprecated for a while - "differently abled" is the correct term nowadays.

Obviously our lexicon is tragically outdated and requires an overhaul.

</comment><comment><USER3> How about no? the meaning of a word depends on the context. If you are pissed off because I use the right word in the right context, you are the problem, not me. Master/Slave is a perfectly valid nomenclature in the context of computer science.

edit: it looks like the individual who opened the issue on redis bug tracker is a well known "professional offended" who has never contributed to redis in anyways.

</comment><comment><USER4> What's next, getting rid of _unzip_ , _expand_ , _explode_?

<comment><USER5> Maybe. What if the lady you're trying to ignore in the seat next to you on a plane sees you type those words on your laptop?

Probably, it would be even worse than doing differential equations while Italian.[1]

[1] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/rampage/wp/2016/05/07/iv...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/rampage/wp/2016/05/07/ivy- league-economist-interrogated-for-doing-math-on-american-airlines-flight)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> In the github discussion I saw the suggested alternative of "leader" and "follower". And it is very interesting to see that the current translated Chinese terminology of Master-Slave relationship in databases is "主从关系", where "主" means Main, "从" means Follow. So there is no connotation of slavery in the translated concept at all. I wonder how other localization works in this case.

</comment><comment><USER7> I cannot stand political correctness run amok...

</comment><comment><USER8> I doubt many Slavic people are bothered.</comment>


ABI Laboratory: Check the history of ABI+API backward compatibility in libraries - <AUTHOR> https://abi-laboratory.pro/ <comment><AUTHOR> I found this site while looking at GNU libmicrohttpd's announcement of a new version. As someone who gives very high importance to backwards compatibility, both from an API and an ABI perspective, this site gives me a quick look over which libraries i can expect to remain stable and which not (e.g. Cairo is fully backwards compatible back to 2006[1], so chances are it'll remain stable in the future. On the other hand imgui doesn't look very stable [2]...).

Also found some unexpected stuff, like this Mesa WTF... [3]

[1] [https://abi-laboratory.pro/tracker/timeline/cairo/](https://abi- laboratory.pro/tracker/timeline/cairo/)

[2] [https://abi-laboratory.pro/tracker/timeline/imgui/](https://abi- laboratory.pro/tracker/timeline/imgui/)

[3] [https://abi- laboratory.pro/tracker/compat_report/mesa/10.5.9...](https://abi- laboratory.pro/tracker/compat_report/mesa/10.5.9/10.6.9/bab85/abi_compat_report.html)</comment>


I submit very few links on ynews, so when I do, I like to make sure they're *extra* good. - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFR-8NVjw-k

<comment><USER2> wow, this makes me wonder why ynews doesn't have a vote down button

<comment><AUTHOR> I respectfully disagree.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Good lord... that's really, truly abominable.

</comment><comment><USER4> rock out with your spock out.</comment>


The Rise and Fall of Thinking Machines (1995) - <AUTHOR> http://www.inc.com/magazine/19950915/2622.html <comment><USER2> This could be any number of dot bombs from the late 90s, however its still incredible...

\- Insisted that each office be painted a different and specific color.

\- Huge open spaces were created to stimulate idea sharing and creativity.

\- A plush cafeteria was put in, complete with a gourmet chef.

\- Couches were scattered throughout the offices so that researchers could take naps or even sleep there overnight, which many of them did.

\- The soft-drink machine was wired to a terminal. Researchers who wanted a drink simply typed in their choice.

\- Commuting in an antique fire engine.

\- Handler had every surface on the new floor repainted a slightly different shade of mauve. When it was done, she wasn't satisfied. So she had her researchers and scientists paint it again.

\- An enormous marble archway installed in the atrium

\- She commissioned a $40,000 logo design for a CM-5 sweatshirt and then rejected it.

\- While the company was sinking, she focused her attention on putting out a cookbook with recipes from the company's now-infamous cafeteria.

</comment><comment><USER3> Tangentially related: [http://longnow.org/essays/richard-feynman-connection- machine...](http://longnow.org/essays/richard-feynman-connection-machine/)

An account of Richard Feynman's time at the company.

<comment><USER4> Thanks for posting that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The ostentatious stuff was par for the course for the 90s. Thinking Machines, like SGI, had a profitable market but was horribly run and found it impossible to transition from a research project to a company. OTOH, Sun Microsystems executed brilliantly but was killed a decade later by the commoditization of HPC.

<comment><USER6> Not just HPC -- they made more money on enterprise servers than on their few sunfire systems and Cray SPARC systems.

x86 and NT (and later Linux, but initially NT) killed them on the Workstation market, and Linux/x86 killed them on the server. Then Oracle engaged in serious abuse of a dead body, which gives us Java today.

<comment><USER7> Actually SGI were more or less destroyed by Linux too. I remember being in a meeting with them at the height of the dot com boom where we were told that they were embracing Linux for mid-range to replace lower-end IRIX systems. My colleagues and I came out of the meeting unable to understand why people would opt for x86 SGI hardware running Linux to run web servers at two to three times the cost of equivalent off the shelf x86 hardware running Linux to run web servers.

Sun could've learned a lot from SGI's demise but didn't, due to poor leadership (IMHO). I still remember Sun charging 5 times multiples of COTS x86 hardware for general web servers, and telling them that they were competing with x86 on price.

To be fair, Sun hardware was (again IMHO) very reliable and I did love it to bits.

<comment><USER8> Well Sun did learn from it. They started adopting x86 and Linux initially. But then they realised they'd only make themselves obsolete by this and stopped this. They released OpenSolaris to push Solaris against Linux.

SGI had a lot of problems. I mean they even started selling Windows NT workstations at one point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Unfortunately, no pictures: [http://images.google.com/search?q=thinking+machines&hl=e...](http://images.google.com/search?q=thinking+machines&hl=en&tbo=u&tbm=isch&source=univ&sa=X)

(I have nothing to add other than they looked amazing, in that 1980s way.)

<comment><USER10> Try "thinking machine" instead. They do look amazing.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What do you consider real-time? - <AUTHOR> Forget the marketing-speak, curious to see what formal definitions are used. Are these typically system response latency cutoffs that vary by industry? ie. 1 second would not be real-time for algo trading, but might be for tweet aggregation for brands <comment><USER2> If we speak about human interactions, I think that it should be less than 250ms.

In 1968 Robert Miller published his classic paper _Response time in man- computer conversational transactions_ in which he described three different orders of magnitude of computer mainframe responsiveness:

\- A response time of 100ms is perceived as instantaneous.

\- Response times of 1 second or less are fast enough for users to feel they are interacting freely with the information.

\- Response times greater than 10 seconds completely lose the user's attention.

But I totally agree with you, it totally depends on what is the purpose of your system.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point, I wish this was better understood by the engineers at Gmail

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Historically speaking real time was not actually about absolute timing but the guarantee offered about a task's completion within a time slice.

More info here: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real- time_computing#Criteria...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real- time_computing#Criteria_for_real-time_computing)

Also look up RISC and RTOS

</comment><comment><USER4> My relatively non-formally informed opinion is that one property that seems to correlate with real time is:

      R ≤ S

Where R is the maximum time it takes to return a useful result and S is the maximum sample rate. Anything else suggests that results queue up and hence the time to return a result varies.

</comment><comment><USER5> Should be done in enough time to be useful.</comment>


Disrupting New Domains - <AUTHOR> http://sethbannon.com/disrupting-new-domains

<comment><USER3> _It was so uncontroversial that nearly 90% of the American public supported the reform, including 85% of gun owners._

I keep on seeing this number quoted, but looking at the survey it looks like it was limited to Florida, Connecticut, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Virginia. I wonder how the question would go in Texas, for example. Is there a standard definition of a national poll?

I do appreciate Seth linking to the poll's press release. If anyone's interested, the poll data is available at [http://www.quinnipiac.edu/institutes--centers/polling- instit...](http://www.quinnipiac.edu/institutes--centers/polling- institute/new-jersey/release-detail?ReleaseID=1842)

</comment><comment><USER4> _Whatever your views are on gun control, it's hard to see yesterday's events as anything but an example of an entrenched political interest using its power (money, exclusive relationships, incumbency) to maintain the status quo..._

Nonsense. Yesterday was how things are _supposed_ to work, when a small minority cares passionately about an issue in the face of a lukewarm majority.

The politicians involved realized that this was a 'time to organize to throw the bum out' voting issue for the portion of the population against it, while the larger portion of the population that was tepidly for it will end up basing their votes on other issues. They therefore made the correct call.

<comment><USER5> Could you provide proof that this is a lukewarm majority?

<comment><USER4> I don't think there's such a thing as 'proof' in politics, really - so God knows if I'm right. (I also don't think I need to provide any here - <USER2> this isn't.)

But since I live in Texas and I'm a life member of the NRA, I do know a lot of people who are very passionately against any form of gun control, especially when coming from the federal government. I also trust the political instincts of Bill Clinton, who always struck me as a sharp politician:

[http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/bill-clinton-warns- democrat...](http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/bill-clinton-warns-democrats- against-overreaching-on-gun-debate/)

 _While some polls show that the public by-and-large supports several proposals for increased gun control, Clinton said that it's not the public support that matters — it's how strongly people feel about the issue._

 _"All these polls that you see saying the public is for us on all these issues — they are meaningless if they're not voting issues," Clinton said._

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't think this article went nearly far enough ... the reality is that we have the technology (or could) to allow the population to vote on what laws are passed. In theory, we could get rid of representative government completely and truly see a nation where one person gets one vote.

If the vocal minority rallied their forces as suggested below (by gyardley), and the tepid majority didn't, then I agree that things worked the way they're supposed to. If you don't care enough to vote, then why should your voice be heard? And if the majority wasn't as tepid as they appeared, then they'd prevail.

</comment><comment><USER7> Bravo!</comment>


Startup in Europe? - <AUTHOR>

We have all read Paul Graham's writings about why the USA and Silicon Valley are the best places to start business. I have no troubles believing him. But some of us are less lucky to have been born in Europe (although it could be far worse).
And I know it's possible to start an American company, even if I have no US passport, but still, that involves traveling to the USA (with all the hindrances like visas etc.). I live in one of the newer (cheaper) members of the EU and with the money needed for such a journey, I could easily live for months (and maybe even a year) while developing my product. So I guess, I'll first try doing it here.<p>Could anyone suggest better (or less worse) European country for starting an IT company? I'm talking about the legal part only, not living there. <comment><USER2> Here's a great spreadsheet comparing a lot of countries around the word:

<http://www.doingbusiness.org/documents/Simulator_2010.xls>

It's from the World Bank, comparing how easy it is to do business in different countries. Last time I checked, US was 4th, the UK was 5th, and Ireland (where I live) was 7th.

If you want to consider Ireland, it's got a very 'pro-business' attitude, strong US connections, well-educated, English-speaking workforce, political stability, little bureaucracy, many grants and supports available from state agencies to promote entrepreneurship, and a very low corporate tax rate of just 12.5% (there's further tax breaks available if you are doing R&D). However, it's expensive here.

As regards taxes, Accenture moved their Global HQ here from the Bahamas because of tax advantages, and many multinationals have their European HQ here also (Microsoft, IBM, Google, Apple, Pfizer & most of the Big Pharmas). Also, from what you have said, I'm guessing you are Eastern European - well there are many of your countrymen here, so you won't feel totally homesick ;-)

Despite all that, I'm actually considering travelling to Silicon Valley in September to scope it out, and to try to determine if I would like working in a startup (i.e. if I would be suited to doing my own startup at some point). My work contract expires then, and I've taken on board some good advice from a successful American entrepreneur who strongly recommended it.

So I'm in a somewhat similar position to you. I'm seriously considering moving to Silicon Valley to at least give it a shot, the odds of success are much higher for all the reasons mentioned in pg essays and the articles on 'moving to Silicon Valley' that appear from time to time here on HN.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! An English speaking country is certainly a good idea (as I am most comfortable with English, not counting my native Bulgarian). And you are right :), I have friends working in Ireland, so it won't be a problem to come there and stay at their place while working on initiating a company.

I agree with all you said about Silicon Valley. But we are already a nice team here. We have several "hobby" projects (which all failed back then) behind. And now we are going to do it "for real". Of course, we may be moving somewhere else in the future, especially if we come to the need to hire more people. But for now we are just going to live cheap in Bulgaria and work :).

<comment><USER2> You're welcome. The very best of luck to you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> In my opinion, if you're looking only at legal requirements, the Valley is an awful place to start a company as an European entrepreneur. I explored a few years ago the opportunity to start a business there and it didn't take me long to realize that legal fees would eat up all my capital before I had even a chance to start writing a line of code. Moving your business there once it gains a bit of traction (and funding) is probably a better idea if that's what you want to achieve.

Now, legal issues are tricky everywhere. But one thing you need to think about is how labor intensive will your business be ? Some countries like France or Spain make it almost impossible to fire people whereas countries like Ireland or Switzerland offer much more flexibility.

But chances are high that you won't start by hiring a lot, right? Then, what you need to focus on is: how easy is it to grow a business and what would happen if you fail. You want to be able to add shareholder easily, while keeping administrative duties under control and you don't want to get into too much trouble if you need to file for bankruptcy. I heard Germany and the UK might be good choice if that's what you're looking for (not very sure though, please check ;)

Finally, if your startup will not be labor intensive, nor capital intensive at first, my advice is: don't overthink legal aspects. Go where you have the best networking opportunities while being able to hire great people at best cost. And that might just be exactly where you're living now...

Oh, one last thing. Europe has everything you'll ever need in terms of talents and capital. So I don't agree when you say that you're "less lucky to have been born in Europe". But that's another story ;)

</comment><comment><USER4> Just staying where you are now seems like the best default option, unless you have a particular reason to believe you'll be better off elsewhere. What kind of business? My impression is that regulation varies quite a bit by type of business. For example, if you want to sell a new piece of hardware, some countries are nearly impossible, while others are somewhat easier. But if you just want to put up some webpages and make income from AdSense, most countries don't care much at all.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am talking about SaaS web application. Where I am now (Bulgaria) is not necessarily the best option. We have lots of leftover laws (from the communist regime) which make life hard, especially for a "modern" company. For example I have to pay to an accountant (the government requires it), so that he can sign up my tax declarations. Of course, Bulgaria is not too bad. I'm just trying to find some better place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It would be great to have a google maps of location of hacker news members world wide, so that we could engage in local communities

</comment><comment><USER6> For western Europe I would also suggest Luxembourg. Living there is also quite expensive ( but you may live in one of the neighbouring countries)... European HQ of Ebay,Skype,Paypal,Amazon,ITunes are all located in Luxembourg for IP, tax, regulatory (e-commerce) reasons.It's also easier to find motivated multilingual people.

</comment><comment><USER7> Best European country for starting an IT company? Are you talking about taxes? If your question is not related to taxes I don't know why a country would be better than another, specially if your company is all about developing a product and then selling it either as a product or online as a service.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am talking about less taxes, less beaurocracy, less stupid artificial hindrances.

<comment><USER8> I would go to Estonia.

<comment><AUTHOR> Why?

<comment><USER8> Low taxes, little bureaucracy, good programmers, good startup culture (skype, for example, was programmed there), business-friendly place, good ties with Finland and Sweden, wifi everywhere, widespread use of the web.

The thing that impressed me most, however, was when I read that they are a nation of only 1.4 million people, so they have to go after every opportunity they have in order to make things more efficient. The Government's goal is actually to make the public sector so efficient that they can fire state employees and "free up resources", i.e. workers, for the private sector. Of course, this policy must have created some problems in the last 2 yeas, but overall the impression is that they are a country on the right path. Finally, the three Baltic Republics - I have visited Estonia and Latvia, but not Lithuania - are countries that share many traits with Scandinavian countries and that look up to Scandinavian countries. I personally expect them to do very very well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I'll certainly investigate further

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Does Switzerland count? Pro: stable economy, access to capital, beautiful. Con: expensive

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't know. "beautiful" doesn't count for sure :).

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> What about this:

1) get a high-paying job in a European country 2) after 6 months, start doing a lousy job & get yourself fired. 3) Leach on generous social security until your startup takes off. 4) ... 5) Profit!

<comment><USER10> I've heard in France, you don't even need to do a lousy job. You just need to ask to be "voluntarily fired", and you can receive benefits. If you have a startup, you can receive those benefits indefinitely.

<comment><USER5> Some companies would agree to fire you on your demand, but it not very legal, so bigger one might not do it. You'll have to get good relation with your management to do it.

You can received unemployement help for 2 years, given that you worked enough before (it is roughly 70% of your salary, but decreasing over time ). You can also ask a part of that money up front, but that will cut your right.

There is also an interesting "autoentrepreneur" status that is nice if you want to boostrap something that allow you to be registered as a company but ask you minimal accounting, simplify registration and only tax you if you earn anything. It's important because company are taxed more than in the US.

Salaries are lower too (it's not very easy to accumulate 6mo/1year of cash in advance ), few peoples speak english, so you really need to speak french to start something in France.</comment></comment></comment>