Apple And Microsoft Behind Patent Troll Armed With Thousands Of Nortel Patents - <AUTHOR> http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120521/13194719006/apple-microsoft-behind-patent-troll-armed-with-thousands-nortel-patents.shtml

<comment><USER2> "Once again, we see that these two large companies are using the patent system not to innovate, but to stop up and coming competitors from innovating."

Apple and Microsoft aren't the only "large companies" involved here - Sony, Ericsson, and RIM shouldn't get a free pass just because they don't look as good in a title.

<comment><USER3> With Google pursuing Microsoft's Xbox via Motorola Mobility, all the cool kids are doing it.

For all the hand ringing, the technology industry has been doing this since the days of Mr. Bell (and as a footnote, helping startups file patents was one of the original marketing points of YC just a few years ago).

<comment><USER4> Do you have a reference for the Google/Xbox claim? Just curious because I haven't heard anything about that.

<comment><USER5> It was being pursued by Motorola even before Google bought it. Its part of defense against Microsoft's shakeup of android manufacturers.

<http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2404810,00.asp>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is really annoying. I lost track of what was happening with the government investigation into the Nortel bidding but apparently they silently let it slide. And now we have this.

Is there realistically any chance of the DoJ or FTC stepping in here again to make the parent consortium (i.e. MS, Apple, RIM, etc. not Rockstar) answer for this?

<comment><USER6> Patents are government granted monopolies, to expect the government to then go back and untangle the ensuing cartels might sound fair, but I suspect it is naive or over optimistic at best.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I could see why Microsoft would do something like this, but why Apple? Does anyone know?

<comment><USER8> This seems more like an Apple move than a Microsoft move. It's a pretty common opinion nowadays that Apple is the worst in the bunch; beating the pants off any unethical stuff Microsoft might be up to -- or was up to even back in the day. I'd imagine Microsoft just needed to be on board so that they didn't get left out and screwed over by this down the line.

I am completely mystified by how these companies get together and work with each other on things like this.

<comment><USER9> > It's a pretty common opinion nowadays...

Apple is not the worst of the bunch. You have nothing to qualify that statement other than a hand-waving gesture.

The undisputed #1 king of patent trolls is former Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold's company Intellectual Ventures and its various holding companies that sue anyone and _everyone_ with patents that contain no technology but do contain lots of language that's very lawsuit friendly as the claims are sweepingly broad. Recently they tried to sue a large number of small developers that were using "in app purchasing" technology.

Number two is Microsoft who is extorting upwards of $15 per Android phone sold from a number of vendors as part of their "fair licensing" program even though zero Microsoft code is used in those phones.

Number three would be Oracle if only they could get better lawyers and a more agreeable jury.

Apple has been fighting to push back at the tide of _design_ violations put forward by companies like Samsung and others. If you can name even one instance of where Apple has directly sued a small company over a technology patent I would be surprised.

You seem to have absolutely no idea what Microsoft was up to "even back in the day" because it was far worse than anything Apple has ever done. Remember the bait-and-switch with OS/2? The pricing scheme where DOS was $60 and the very same DOS + Windows was $30? Where companies like Dell had to pay a license fee on _every_ machine sold regardless of if it was sold with Windows or not? The way they would switch up Windows to "break" other competing applications like WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3?

You seem to have forgotten that it was an arms-length Microsoft deal that enabled SCO to turn zombie and threatening hundreds if not thousands of companies that were simply _using_ Linux, not even developing their own software.

The reason you're completely mystified is because you haven't done any research.

<comment><USER10> "Remember the bait-and-switch with OS/2? "

Ah, one of my favorite topics. Why did it take ten years after Intel released the 386 before 32-bit protected mode apps become common? Yea, the MS/IBM JDA was not particularly good, but the alternative MS took was much worse.

<comment><USER9> There was Windows 386 but that hardly counts as it was for multi-tasking DOS applications, something Desqview had already done for years.

What was shocking, as you hint at, was how Microsoft, which had been encouraging OS/2 as their "serious" OS for years, dumped that and somehow managed to convince people that Windows 3.1 was better.

It was like going from a space ship to a party full of clowns. Wasn't it possible to write Windows apps in 16 bit mode then?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> One odd thought crossed my mind - most proprietary software you use has a clause prohibiting reverse engineering in the license agreement, and here they are admitting to the world that they routinely ignore said license agreements. Are they making themselves liable for copyright infringement here since they're using the software without a license? How enforceable are those "no reverse engineering" clauses anyway?

</comment><comment><USER12> Didn't they make a deal with DoJ and the judges from Canada that they won't do something like this, if they get the Nortel patents?

<comment><USER13> They seem to have found a loophole by creating a new company to own the patents.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I submitted a story midweek about this same topic and was wondering why nobody else seemed to be concerned. I'm happy to see that is not the case because I don't think anyone in our industry is helped by protectionist maneuvers like this.

People wonder why there are fewer hardware startups, but I can tell you the hardware guys I know have expressed concerns over patent issues for not helping me work on a low-power server (and I need their help because I'm too dumb to do board layout on my own).

<comment><USER15> What makes it to, and stays on, the front page has a large random component.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm quite happy for these trolls to go crazy on this one. Patents need to get so insane that eventually we might stop and say WTF are we playing at. Bed made lying in it. Software patents don't work, they never have.

</comment><comment><USER17> I doubt there are many software patents in this portfolio. Most of these patents most likely cover the L1/L2 protocols for LTE and other wireless standards. These are normally available through FRAND agreements.

Disclaimer: I work for one of the companies that bought the patents.

<comment><USER18> I'm totally serious about this question: how do you feel about the company you work for doing this?

<comment><USER17> Personally I don't approve of _software_ patents but these ones don't bother me that much. I don't really see this different from all the other patent licensing deals we have with the rest of the (wireless) industry. These are part of the way these standards are developed (available under FRAND licenses) and licensed.

If you want to bring in a moral perspective I personally feel that a bigger problem is what to do about "legal intercept" features. Especially when selling equipment to countries with regimes that want to misuse them.

But lets say this included some trivial (or non-trivial) software patent and this jointly owned company started trolling a lot of individual developers and/or smaller companies. Then I would feel different about this.

<comment><AUTHOR> > _bigger problem is what to do about "legal intercept" features. Especially > when selling equipment to countries with regimes that want to misuse them._

As an Iranian (whose government routinely and 'legally' intercepts everything and everyone), I can't agree more with this sentiment :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> What evidence would it take to convince naysayers that patents are generally a force for good?

<comment><USER20> Necessary but not sufficient: technology that wouldn't have been developed if not for the ability to patent it. There are plenty of examples for drugs, and approximately zero for software as far as I'm aware.

<comment><USER19> How do you go about proving that (either way) ?

<comment><USER21> Stating the null hypothesis tends to greatly simplify questions like this.

In this case, the null hypothesis is: _"Software patents do not allow the development of technology that would otherwise not be developed."_ (In other words, "they are not good")

It is important to note that null hypothesis's are never proven, only disproven. That means you won't prove that software patents do not help (failure to show otherwise could mean nothing more than you did not look hard enough), _however_ you can trivially falsify the null hypothesis if you find a single case where software patents helped.

Of course in the event that you falsify the null hypothesis you haven't proved "software patents _are_ good", but rather "software patents _can_ be good". (If you want to go with "they _are_ good", then that becomes your null hypothesis and to disprove it we nearly need to find a single case where they are not. If you want to roll with the 'generally' thing, then you should first start by defining exactly what generally means in this context then go from there.)

As for judging data points to determine what exactly they show? That's rather up in the air. Pick a case, state the facts, and argue why you think those facts indicate what you assert they do. This is really more of a soft science.

<comment><USER19> I'm not sure how valuable the bias from developer anecdotes is. Naturally patents are going to be annoying for the business that covets the technology they cover. If you have patents at all, you will have friction. Bit like how you can't have parking tickets without having people complain about parking tickets. The majority of users and developers the majority of the time have no trouble with patents. At which point you can argue that it's a hidden cost, something that affects all of us without being immediately obvious. And that's precisely my point... if it's a hidden cost, it could equally be a hidden benefit.

I just don't see much worthwhile dialogue going on in the patent debate, just shouting in both directions. For instance in this article, it's not clear to me what people are objecting to. Are people annoyed because someone is trying to enforce a patent? Or is it just because a group of large companies have acquired the patents? Does that imply that we're happy for small companies to have patents, because they'll probably never enforce them anyway, but unhappy for large companies to have them, because they'll actually put them to use? Or is it the nature of the patents (I don't see much analysis of what the patents really cover... they could conceivably be things which took a lot of R&D)? Or, indeed, is it the concept of patents in general? The article did mention stifling innovation, but that's a bit vague - it stifles business activity but that energy could arguably be used on alternative that would be more innovative.

<comment><USER21> > _"I'm not sure how valuable the bias from developer anecdotes is..."_

This is a legitimate concern, and something you have to contend with when you're engaging in the softer sciences. Someone with experience in something like sociology may be in a better position than most of the HN crowd to effectively study this topic in a rigorous fashion.

Anyway, (the way I see it) people are objecting, particularly in this article, because they view patents in software as something that can only do one of two things: nothing (read: sit in a companies portfolio never to be read or cared about, only padding the companies patent wallet), or harm the industry by stifling innovation and feeding the lawyers. Put briefly, they, unlike you it seems, do not accept the idea that patents in the software industry can actually do good.

It's not the concept of patents, it's not that large companies are using them, it's not that people are enforcing them, it's not any of that nonsense. It is more that none of these things have anything to do with improving the industry we have invested our lives in. I think you had a grasp on this concept earlier, but lost sight of it when you tried to analyse it too closely.

<comment><USER19> Patents in the software industry cannot actually do good - why? Because patents are wrong to start with and the conditions of the software industry (fast-moving, high volume of research/invention) magnify the problem? Because the patent office isn't sufficiently equipped to grant reasonable patents on software (judging 'obviousness' etc.)? Because all these HNers have personal experience of being constrained by patent issues? Because coming up with ideas for new software methodologies/techniques is not comparable with the R&D of other industries?

 _It's not the concept of patents, it's not that large companies are using them, it's not that people are enforcing them, it's not any of that nonsense...I think you had a grasp on this concept earlier, but lost sight of it when you tried to analyse it too closely._

This sounds a bit supercilious.

<comment><USER21> I'm going to be honest with you. You have me at something of a loss for words.

I think I have given you all the tools you need to understand this issue at this point. Remember that thing I wrote about the null hypothesis? Well people who disagree with you do so because they have yet to see that null hypothesis convincingly falsified.

If you want to disagree with that, then knock yourself out. It requires absolutely zero expended effort on your part to disagree; I disagree with uncountable things in this world every day for a grand total of zero calories burned.

If you want to disagree _and convince others_ of your point of view, then you are going to need to put some back into it. Rationally and methodically state your case for the falsification of the null hypothesis. Write it up on your blog and post it to HN _. If the community considers it worthy of discussion, they will address it.

You seem to be attempting some sort of 'know thy enemy' nonsense. Stop. You are clearly unable to or unwilling to wrap your head around concepts you disagree with, so stop wasting your time. Understanding why people think what they do is unimportant, just state your case. I've already told you how.

_ And do make an effort to post it as a new discussion when you do so, instead of attempting to hijack another discussion looking for a flamewar.

tl;dr: Our case: the null hypothesis has not been falsified. Your case: ???

I eagerly await your blog posting; I think we are done discussing this in this other person's article's comments.

<comment><USER19> Contradicting the null hypothesis is easy: any time a potential investor has asked a small company with a bright idea 'but what's to stop someone else just copying your idea after i've paid you to develop it?' and the developer replies 'well, we have patent protection' to reassure him/her, patents have been useful and supportive of innovation.

The problem is that the argument will immediately move on to the _net_ benefit/detriment to the industry, at which point we need to establish the _principles_ on which people object to software patents.

 _You are clearly unable to or unwilling to wrap your head around concepts you disagree with, so stop wasting your time._

Less condescension maybe?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Posted because of hypercritical.

<comment><AUTHOR> Exactly! None of the previous submissions had made it to the front page, so I googled for "rockstar apple patent troll" and submitted this link and totally forgot about it afterwards. Now I woke up and saw it's on the front page and I'm very happy that many are now familiar with the issue :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> The nightmare never ends.

</comment><comment><USER24> You have an idea ? There is a patent for it! Apple.

</comment><comment><USER25> →Disgusting

</comment><comment><USER26> When I first heard about the setuid patent, I thought it was pretty cool. That was, I don't know, 1989.

I think it was 1992 or so before it was really clear that patents were the true and final nemesis of my chosen profession. By "clear," I mean "obvious to anyone not in denial." Of course there's a lot of denial.

By 1999 I worked for a company that routinely filed what we called "linked list... on a phone!" patents. Unwired Planet - the geniuses behind WAP. In fact, I think there never would have been a WAP Forum if we hadn't muscled Motorola, Nokia and Ericsson with our HDML patents. (These crap patents probably provide most of the remaining market capitalization of UP's remnant, Openwave.)

Across this continuum, I have heard a continuous strand of discourse denying that there's a pit at the end of this tunnel. This discourse relies existentially on the belief that just because people _could_ be evil, doesn't mean they _will_ be evil. Which is true, but only in the short run. _Facilis descensus Averni._

<comment><USER27>
      I think it was 1992 or so before it was really clear
      that patents were the true and final nemesis of my
      chosen profession.

The real issue is that patents favor large players (even if they are 'branching out' and aren't an incumbent in a particular area) to the detriment of smaller players.

<comment><USER28> I think the REAL issue, is that they lock up IDEAS. Ideas by themselves are inherently worthless. It's the EXECUTION that matters. Everyone has ideas. Some are great, some suck. The idea by itself is really meaningless until someone does something with it. Ideas, to me, are like knowledge. They should never be locked up, and should be freely shared.

<comment><USER29> Patents aren't supposed to lock up abstract ideas, they are supposed to _unlock_ concrete implementations of ideas (unlock by giving details of the implementation to the public in exchange for a short-term monopoly).

There are good arguments either way for whether this is a good idea, but make the ideas far more abstract (like software) and add incredibly short technology cycles (like software), and there is no doubt it's a bad idea.

<comment><USER30> Patents have never actually worked that way though. For instance, take a look at the history of the early US automobile industry sometime.

<comment><USER28> That is an excellent point! The way they are used vs. the way they are MEANT to be used, seem to be worlds apart.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> From the Wire article:

"It was run by friendly Canadians who did not want to antagonize partners and customers by suing them."

Oh well, the patents have found their way into the right hands now so it's all good. Let the American-style antagonism begin.</comment>


Roger Penrose – Is Mathematics Invented or Discovered? [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujvS2K06dg4 <comment><USER2> Intuitionist mathematics claims that mathematics is purely the result of the constructive mental activity of humans rather than the discovery of fundamental principles existing in an objective reality. [0]

In intuitionist mathematics there is only potential infinity, no actual infinity. Constructive set theory differs from Zermelo set theory.

That has many consequences in practice. Applying intuitionist mathematics to physics we can come to the conclusion that time flows and it helps reconcile quantum mechanics with general relativity.[1]

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

[1] [https://www.quantamagazine.org/does-time-really-flow-new- clu...](https://www.quantamagazine.org/does-time-really-flow-new-clues-come- from-a-century-old-approach-to-math-20200407/)

<comment><USER3> I've always thought math as we know it is a result of both deep underlying relationships between natural constructs _and_ how we perceive them. For example, a species who has no sense of vision will not develop geometry the same way we would. A species that has a sense of vision that also includes a direct distance perception (as opposed to our stereoscopic vision) will probably come up with a very different form of geometry.

Though I'd like to think that most species would come up with some version of calculus, even though the notation will be obviously different. Afterall, two of our own species did so independently.

<comment><USER4> "two of our own species [discovered calculus]"..? Which two species are those? I assume by "own own" you mean Terran species, and one of them is Homo Sapiens, which is the other one? Really curious...

<comment><USER5> Leibniz and Newton. Two [members] of our own species.

<comment><USER6> And Archimedes makes three.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The question assumes that there is a difference between invention and discovery. There isn't. Invention is a kind of discovery. The apparent distinction arises from our separation of physical and mental processes. But this is a purely artificial separation, a human conceit, because (unless you're a dualist) mental processes _are_ physical processes. Specifically, mental processes are _computational_ processes, which are physical. So it's not surprising that the structure of the physical world should be reflected back on itself in the structure of mental processes. It's universal Turing machines all the way down.

<comment><USER8> _> Invention is a kind of discovery._

Some inventions can be thought of this way, but I don't think all inventions can. For a relevant example, human mathematical notation is a human invention that I don't think can be usefully thought of as a kind of discovery. (Another poster upthread mentioned Tegmark's response drawing a distinction between the structure of mathematics, which we discover, and the language we use to describe it, which we invent.)

<comment><USER9> I think notation can certainly be regarded as a kind of discovery. As time goes on, notation improves dramatically as a tool of thought. This improvement is a result of feedback over what works and what doesn't. The feedback is discovery.

Invention = discovery in "solution space".

<comment><USER10> I don't understand why it is useful to argue "invention is discovery is invention". They are fairly well defined in the dictionary and it's a useful distinction to humans. Sure there is a gray area of a wide swathe of overlap, but in general they are useful as commonly understood.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If you only look at mathematics I think it's simply: \- Axioms are _invented_ \- Conclusions are _discovered_

The magic part for me is that some axioms have been chosen so well that their conclusions are confirmed in the real world.

<comment><USER5> Arithmetic existed long before its axiomatization. Arithmetic was useful and no one stumbled upon contradictions in it. So it was natural to suppose that it can be described by some axiomatic system. Peano found it.

<comment><USER12> It is a system for modeling concepts invented by man. Everything that falls out of such a system is a product of the invention. Numbers don't inherently exist. Everything derived from that concept can't be a "discovery".

<comment><USER5> > Numbers don't inherently exist

How do we know that it is true?

<comment><USER12> They are symbols that we assign arbitrary meaning to. They are useful because of the axiomatic framework constructed to support them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The SEP article is an excellent introduction to the philosophy of mathematics:

[https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/philosophy- mathematics/](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/philosophy-mathematics/)

</comment><comment><USER14> Same question also answered by

Max Tegmark: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybIxWQKZss8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybIxWQKZss8)

Stephen Wolfram: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUCwtLTUPQ4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUCwtLTUPQ4)

Steven Weinberg: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpMk9G-ddiM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpMk9G-ddiM)

I particularly liked Max's answer who neatly makes the distinction between the structure (we discover) and the language (we invent). We're free to invent the names, but not the structures.

<comment><USER15> Max Tegmark has some fun books. Apparently he got to be at the forefront of some discoveries as he and his wife knew C++ and would do all the after the fact data analysis.

If you've ever been around a campfire with a good storyteller that has their audience at the edge of their seat, I felt like this in some spots.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Imagine an interview with a great painter. The painter is asked about the nature of painting and he responds that when he sets out to work in his studio and his brush strokes a canvass, he is discovering the fundamental nature of reality. He doubles down and exclaims that, in fact, reality is actually JUST lines and curves and shades and colors, and his proof is, well, look at how accurate his paintings are! Let's pretend that he actually is a very skilled painter, and many critics have marveled at the extent to which his paintings are indistinguishable from his subject matter. Still though, the interviewer clears his throat after an awkward pause and continues on to the next question.

To me, math is a medium of description much like painting or writing. It's units are not colors or words but points. A point, or "that which has no part", is much finer and carries with it far less baggage than something like a word. Points can be assigned numerical values and played with in clever ways. You can even sprinkle a fine dust of them over anything observable and create a copy of it to arbitrary degrees of precision.

I know math is far more than just the study of points, but I'm not convinced that math is anything more than our capacity to distinguish and describe extended to its limit. I also don't mean to belittle the accomplishments of mathematicians and theoreticians, I just think it's more reasonable to say that math is JUST the limit of description than it is to say that reality is JUST math.

After reading through some of the comments, I think many of us are on the same page.

<comment><USER17> Agreed

The crux of it is obvious: math is true from the perspective of a human consciousness

It's defined after cognitive measure.

I won't say it's whittled down.

I would say ... it's sight, sound, touch... attempt at quantifying our qualified experience

All the best math nerds were often deeply gifted and practiced forms of human art: poetry, music, sculpture... and many artists good at math, Brian May, for one example

IMO to get math one needs to build all those abilities

It's really the people I know that don't do that see math as a boring toolbox of rules and points

Not saying you're not that

Math is not a thing like a rock because our ability to behave like more than a rock gave us the ability to define math. It has to be more than a simple this or that

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> I am not sure of the implications. Does it even matter if Math is invented or discovered? Maybe it's both, and it isn't a contradiction between invention and discovering?

We describe things having a certain radiation wavelength as having the color yellow. In that sense, yellow it's an invention. That doesn't mean the radiation doesn't exist.

But to complicate things a bit, some things don't exist unless we observe them. This is the case with states of particles described by quantum mechanics.

Math is more than a science, is the sciences upon which most other sciences and tech are founded. You can model anything in a computer and running on a computer using math. You can describe logic, natural language, technology, biology using math.

In that sense, being the building block of other sciences, math is more akin to a language. Two physicist use math in almost the same way two people use English to describe things and communicate ideas.

But math has building blocks, too. Set of axioms upon which any mathematical object and theory can be constructed. The most popular as of now is Zermelo set theory. There are more such fundamental theories, sometimes very different between them.

So, to see if Math is discovered or invented, the easy thing to do is to see if a set of axioms can be discovered or is invented.

<comment><USER18> > Does it even matter if Math is invented or discovered?

It matters for philosophical inquiry. Does philosophy matter? It matters for people who find it valuable, the same way art, music or literature matters.

<comment><USER19> You think logic, the art of making distinctions, the study of critical thinking and the foundation of mathematics only matter in the same way art does?

<comment><USER20> I'd say they don't matter nearly so much as art. The most cosmically significant export of humanity to date is Voyager's golden record.

<comment><USER19> Good thing the founders of modern science, mathematics, ethics and political theory didn't share the same opinion.

<comment><USER20> Ridiculous hubris, to claim to speak on their behalf, to claim to know the opinion of so many and diverse minds, and in such a crude misdirection to boot.

<comment><USER19> Good thing they wrote volumes about it which have debated and summarized to the hilt.

<comment><USER20> The summary is that without art, humans are cosmically uninteresting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I find mathematics to be the most beautiful thing in the universe, because it is the only thing I can truly think of as being perfect in every way. Existing only as an abstract concept, it still manages to find its way into every single aspect of our lives.

Two completely remote civilizations will still have the same mathematics. Sure one may have a more developed understanding, but if both civs wondered about how to get the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle, they would both end up with Pythagoras' theorem. The only thing invented in math is our language and representation of such concepts.

Many people believe that mathematics becomes invented the further up you go like pure mathematics and I can understand why this perspective would come through, but take the example of G.H. Hardy who famously said "The Theory of Numbers has always been regarded as one of the most obviously useless branches of Pure Mathematics". It could be argued at the time that these branches were simply invented mathematics because there was no practical application of it, but 30 years following his death came breakthroughs in cryptography. All of a sudden, this was no longer an invention. Calculus is not seen as an invention but a discovery because of all of its insane number of applications in physics and other areas.

Many areas of math that have yet to find practical use will always come under the scrutiny of being 'invented' but that simply isn't the case.

I firmly believe that all areas of mathematics are practical to the universe and its wonders (and therefore discovered), whether or not we can achieve a level to use such mathematics (or experience it) is a different matter.

I believe that at its core, mathematics is the universe. To say that we have invented it is arrogant and completely strives it of its beauty.

</comment><comment><USER22> Dr. Hannah Fry's 3-part BBC documentary series, "Magic Numbers: Hannah Fry's Mysterious World of Maths," explores this very question in the first episode, "Numbers As God."

The episode description reads: "Documentary series in which Dr Hannah Fry explores the mystery of maths. Is it invented like a language, or is it discovered and part of the fabric of the universe?"

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0bn6wtp](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0bn6wtp)

She interviews a number of prominent mathematicians and scientists, such as Brian Greene, and they certainly don't agree one way or the other in the invented/discovered question.

(Alas, I now see that the series is listed as unavailable on the BBC site but I watched it, I _think_ on Amazon Prime or maybe youtube.)

</comment><comment><USER23> Could the same be said about just about everything?

Like Music. Is a Song just a combination of notes, beats, intervals, voice etc. waiting to be discovered? Or is it something that a musician invents in her brain through talent, experience, practice and trail and error.

Or for that matter, a startup idea? A product/service that would bring immense value to its consumers, but it is not there yet, waiting to be discovered.

I guess philosophers must have dwelled on such questions before.

<comment><USER24> I think I get your point and I'm open to ideas which drive home your point in a more precise way. However, the main difference between concerning ourselves with whether or not mathematical objects exists vs music or start-up ideas is their place in building a foundation for understanding reality. Science has been a productive program for understanding reality. It happens to be underpinned by math. And as a result, we have encountered some pretty interesting relationships between what the math tells us and what we observe. For instance, neutrinos and black holes were known to exist mathematically before they were ever observed and measured "in reality". It's not clear to me that music and start-up ideas hold up to math when it comes to being a tool for understanding or describing our reality, or perception the rig. Math is somehow fundamental to many successful enterprises which seek to describe and explain reality. Therefore, it becomes the point of focus of much philosophical inquiry when seeking to understand reality. Hence the foundational question, do mathematical objects exist? And not, does music or blockchain kittens exist?

<comment><USER25> >do mathematical objects exist?

Yes, they do, in an abstract sense. Existence in math means a very different thing from existence in physics. There are mathematical objects that exist, and those that cannot and do not exist. Someone posted a SEP entry earlier, which is a good start on this topic.

>the main difference between concerning ourselves with whether or not mathematical objects exists vs music

There is no 'vs', because there is no difference. Music _is_ math, any song or sound is a mathematical object. A physical waveform that you hear can be encoded digitally in numbers: ones and zeros. So any given wav/flac file is just a bunch of numbers that give rise to the qualitative experience of sound, when interpreted in a certain way. For example, a digital waveform consists of samples, each sample takes 16 bits to encode. Sampling rate of 44.1kHz is 44,100 samples per second. So you have 16 bits per sample x 44100 samples per second per channel x 2 channels x 300 seconds = 2^423,360,000 possible permutations of a 5-minute audio file without compression, which is a number with over 127 million digits. A little percentage of these permutations would count as music (even if your tastes are really diversified), most of it would just be noise. But all these possible 5-minute audio files include not only every song and every performance that existed or will exist. They also include every possible sound recording: songs that will not be written, Paul Graham saying that he hates HN, Paul Graham saying that he loves me and the rest of the file is silence, you and me discussing this topic with Plato for 5 minutes, etc, etc. The data exists and can be discovered and listened to, even though some of these examples are obviously not physically possible (i.e. Plato is dead).

So all music already exists mathematically, and it can be a useful mindset that your job is to _discover it_. A lot of musicians see it that way, Tessa Violet, for example: [https://youtu.be/QzBoGVToWEo?t=342](https://youtu.be/QzBoGVToWEo?t=342)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> There's one thing I cannot wrap my head around.

Math is purely abstract science yet it describes the world around us to the utmost precision. Does that mean that this world is simply ... a math model which means everything around us is ... not real?

I've long stopped believing in free will because everything points at it being an illusion of our brain because we're a product of this world and we had no chance of influencing the conditions which brought us to life, and even after our minds and consciousnesses form it's hard to believe they are fully autonomous and not simply a function of the processess in our brains we're simply not aware of.

If you think about all of it, it becomes utterly depressing as you begin to realize you're a biological robot, a byproduct of the universe evolution which couldn't care less about our species and this little tiny blue planet.

<comment><USER27> > Math ... describes the world around us to the utmost precision.

It does no such thing. The models we create using mathematical language do.

Math is a precise language that can be used to describe the world around us precisely. It can also be used to describe utter nonsense or utter fantasy precisely.

<comment><USER28> Yep, the counterpoint to the unreasonable effectiveness of maths in the natural sciences is accompanied by the unreasonable ineffectiveness of maths in the social sciences, humanities, etc. Although at least to some extent statistics is the one branch of mathematics that does seem to be applicable (but the way this influences results, as opposed to methods, seems to be mathematically not that interesting).

There have been a lot of efforts of modelling social phenomena, the arts, etc. mathematically and while there are some interesting partial results (e.g. that languages can to some reasonable extent be analysed by parse trees or some aspects of music), most "grander" theories I have seen do not really stand up to much scrutiny.

I'm not an expert, but I could assume that part of this is due to a lot of nonlinearity in the phenomena studies, which means that many classical methods don't work well; maybe chaos theory etc. could shed more light on these things, but I don't know enough about it.

<comment><USER29> > Yep, the counterpoint to the unreasonable effectiveness of maths in the > natural sciences is accompanied by the unreasonable ineffectiveness of maths > in the social sciences, humanities, etc.

Except it's not ineffective at all in these subjects. Social science experiments have so many variables that the small experiments that can be conducted given the financial resources are insufficient to infer a good model. This is not a math problem, it's a money problem.

<comment><USER28> If it's ineffective in practice, I consider it to be ineffective.

But even if you could design an experiment perfectly and come up with some strong statistical evidence and then had other means to tease out what is actually causal and what is only correlational, you'd only know what influences what and not necessarily why. But yes, I did say that statistics/probability is some rare exception.

You can study group theory and understand the way physical forces work better, or hilbert spaces to understand quantum mechanics, but I haven't yet heard of anyone who has studied topology or galois theory and found that incredibly useful for understanding social phenomena better.

<comment><USER29> > If it's ineffective in practice, I consider it to be ineffective.

Except you have no way to conclude that it's ineffective. Analytical solutions require data to study. Without data, or with little data, what analysis are you going to perform? At best, broad statistical correlations, which is exactly what we find.

You're effectively claiming that spoons are ineffective at a restaurant that provides only forks. Well no, if a spoon were available, then it would probably work just fine.

> but I haven't yet heard of anyone who has studied topology or galois theory > and found that incredibly useful for understanding social phenomena better.

After 5 minutes of Googling:

* Power laws: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_law#General_science](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_law#General_science)

* Network theory: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_theory)

* There's a journal specifically for mathematical social sciences: [https://www.journals.elsevier.com/mathematical-social-scienc...](https://www.journals.elsevier.com/mathematical-social-sciences/)

* Economics, game theory, and social choice theory are all examples employing heavy analytical problem solving to social problems

* Quantum mechanics applied to social sciences: [https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/quantum-social-science/...](https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/quantum-social-science/156E054488073E842C6A3C598FC8DC87#fndtn-information)

The main stumbling block is that mathematicians are interested in mathematical problems, and so they make a common but mistaken assumption that social sciences either don't have such problems, or they are too messy for elegant math. Take it from a mathematician, this is incorrect: [https://www.mathtube.org/sites/default/files/lecture- notes/S...](https://www.mathtube.org/sites/default/files/lecture- notes/Saari.pdf)

<comment><USER28> You may have a point. And I did forget about things like social choice theory or game theory (although I'd assume that partially this is also due to e.g. social choice procedures or "games" often being very limited and artificial settings where by their very nature the relevant space of options/outcomes can be explored in some systematic way, which is generally less the case in more organic, complex settings, such as e.g. gradual societal changes).

When it comes to economics, I know that a lot of people don't agree with the basis of many mathematical models that are used, but I'm not an economist, so I can't speak to that.

So maybe I was overzealous in discounting mathematics for the social sciences altogether. Still, I would contend (albeit with much less evidence):

\- There's some measure of people trying to construe "nice models" of things in those subjects instead of trying to make sure they agree with reality. I have a degree in linguistics and I've seen this over and over. Most of these models haven't convinced me at all.

\- The amount of maths that you either need or at least benefit from in order to do good research in such areas is still substantially lower than in, say, physics. I think it's still to be noted how we can describe much of physics just with a small number of economic and elegant models. I haven't seen anything comparable in any of the social sciences.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Recently I watched Sixty Symbols video on why light is slower in glass and there are multiple explanations on it.

What struck me was what prof. Michael Merrifield said at the end of his explanation: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiHN0ZWE5bk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiHN0ZWE5bk)

On the question about what is the reality, what explanation is the true one, Merrifield said that the Math works on all of the explanations and what those explanations do is simply to model the behaviour of nature and not necessarily reflect the reality.

That's how Newtonian physics and relativistic physics are both correct models, tools to model nature and simply can be used to whenever suitable.

Wouldn't that mean that mathematics is just an invented tool to reason about physical models?

<comment><USER31> Well yes and no. A lot of mathematics found its roots in trying to model the real world, however I would then argue that the truths we prove about these models are truly discoveries. And with these discoveries we can often generalize the setting to more abstract formulations, independent of the physical reality.

I think that this can be seen in the fact that sometimes mathematicians and especially physicists can reason about objects that they are not sure about what the right definition should be. Many mathematicians reasoned about continuous functions long before we had a concrete definition of them. But when Cauchy introduced the definition and Weierstrass proved it is equivalent to preserving limits (which was the intuition at the time), we had not truly discovered something new and mathematical.

This whole idea was then generalized to topology when it was shown that pre images of continuous functions preserve the "openess" of sets, i.e. we realized that no concept of distance was not needed to describe continuity, which is very surprising.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'll never understand how someone otherwise so apparently intelligent can be so religious. Weird, the systems that we spent massive amounts of energy designing to precisely describe reality do that better than all the ones that we threw out along the way!

<comment><USER32> > I'll never understand how someone otherwise so apparently intelligent can be > so religious.

Why not? Religious people believe that God is the Most Wise. Mathematics in nature attest to that attribute of God (as well as to other attributes of Him). An intelligent and religious person would recognize that, knowing it is God who came up with all the rules that keep the universe in balance.

I'll never understand why some people believe science and creationism can't go hand in hand.

<comment><USER33> Careful with your use of the word creationism. I guess you mean it in the sense of the very vague and general claim that "god created the universe", but in my experience it is used to refer to a much more specific set of claims, such as "the Earth is about 6000 years old", which is absolutely not compatible with science.

<comment><USER32> According to Wikipedia: 'Creationism is the religious belief that nature, and aspects such as the universe, Earth, life, and humans, originated with supernatural acts of divine creation.'.

I choose my words carefully. I get what you're saying though, but I think that's more of a subjective matter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Last week I came across another fascinating podcast by Penrose that you folks might also like: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orMtwOz6Db0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orMtwOz6Db0)

<comment><USER35> Thanks for the link. At 1:02:57, Penrose proposes "infinite cycles of the big bang"

[https://youtu.be/orMtwOz6Db0?t=3777](https://youtu.be/orMtwOz6Db0?t=3777)

Is that multiverse theory disproven by Wolfram's latest blog post?

"could there be other universes? The answer in our setup is basically no."

[https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2020/04/finally-we- may-h...](https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2020/04/finally-we-may-have-a- path-to-the-fundamental-theory-of-physics-and-its-beautiful/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> If B follows from A via logic, but A is invented, isn't B invented as well then?

Just to take a recent example which was mentioned here, Geometric Algebra[1]. There you assume you have some objects which aren't numbers but which when squared equals a given number. By doing that a bunch of nice results have been discovered.

However to me the basic premise, take some objects which aren't numbers but which square to a number, feels very much like an invention. So as such wouldn't the nice results be inventions as well?

[1]: [https://bivector.net/doc.html](https://bivector.net/doc.html)

<comment><USER37> It sounds to me like you are giving special precedence to "numbers" in your considerations, as well as drawing your intuition for "square" from working with the integers or the reals. A square is just the result of a binary (product) operation where both of the operands are equal. The operation can be defined on an algebraic object with much richer structure than the integers or reals, and the operation itself can be much more complex than, say, integer multiplication. So the geometric product of geometric algebra is just one animal in the zoo of examples. You might call the specifics of the geometric product operation an "invention," but not because the square of a non-number can be a number.

<comment><USER36> Well if one would consider numbers and their product "discovered", then my point was that introducing the objects which have the property that they are not numbers but square to numbers seems to me like an invention.

At least if there is to be any meaningful distinction between a discovery and an invention.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Mathematics is just a language and likely a human discovery method for rules that encapsulate the universe and cascade down. A method invented to discover discoverable rules.

<comment><USER39> You can build all sorts of bizarre structures in ZFC that seem to have no relationship with reality at all. You can prove that almost all real numbers can't be computed or even described. There is an entire tower of infinities bigger than the natural numbers that telescope up and up. The axiom of choice gives you all sorts of nonphysical results.

The world of ZFC doesn't feel very constrained by the actual universe, is all.

And if you don't like ZFC, you can pick another set of axioms entirely- there are several alternatives.

<comment><USER38> Sure, math/ZFC can describe potential and impossible universes including ours. But the motiviation for its invention as a language was very likely to understand relationships in our reality, physics, trade etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> A vaguely, but tangentially related fact, is that Stephen King actually considers the stories in his books as discovered, rather than invented. He talks about it in his book 'On Writing'. He considers the stories to be sort of preexisting things, and his job as a writer to unearth and discover them, rather than invent them. It's about his frame of mind while writing, I guess, but still.

<comment><USER41> I doubt that he actually said that but I could be wrong.

<comment><USER42> This is actually a big plot point in The Dark Tower books.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> What can be imagined is what can be discovered.

The etymology of invent has the terms 'contrived' and 'discover' baked in. if we take the contrived root, rather than just dead-ending to say that invent is synonymous with discover, we find that it is rooted in the ability to 'compare' and 'imagine'. From this we can then formulate the opening statement.

</comment><comment><USER44> My take on this is that Mathematics is such a vast area of investigation - much larger than Nature itself - that there is in fact a mix of both. In that regard it is close to Engineering, where in an attempt to design something on might stumble upon things or perform some types of research and discovery, and vice versa.

</comment><comment><USER45> It is a dispute in ontology. Do mathematical objects (say, numbers, sets) exist in the world? Some say, yes; others say, no; some others say, they exist in another world--called Platonic world.

We see similar disputes in philosophy of (natural) sciences: for instance, instrumentalism doesn't subscribe to the ontology of realism.

</comment><comment><USER46> I read this book about it: [https://www.amazon.com/God-Mathematician-Mario- Livio/dp/0743...](https://www.amazon.com/God-Mathematician-Mario- Livio/dp/074329405X). Won't spoil the answer, but was nice to go through the evolution of Mathematics.

</comment><comment><USER6> Put me into the 'discovered' camp.

</comment><comment><USER47> In most fields, you have to invent tools that enable you to discover things. My guess is that this is also true in mathematics. We get confused sometimes because the tools often happen to look like the discoveries because of all the fancy greek symbols.

</comment><comment><USER48> The answer is: "both".

Where do Mathematicians look to discover Mathematics? In the depths of their own minds.

The part where you "look and think deeply" is discovery. The part where you "express your discovery in a coherent language" is invention.

</comment><comment><USER49> I initially read the title as "Is Mathematics haunted or discovered".

</comment><comment><USER50> Operational theory of mathematics: you define (invent) some rules, of starting points and ways to change them. Like the rules of a game.

In a sense, all possible outcomes already exist (only to be discovered).

</comment><comment><USER51> Phenomena are discovered. Mathematics are invented to describe them.

<comment><USER52> Not all mathematics though.

Math works by starting with a set of axioms. These are chosen, usually but not necessarily such that they will describe some kind of physical reality. That is the part which you invent to describe phenomena, like the Peano axioms which describe quantities of countable things.

But then, you discover (and of course also prove) things that follow from these axioms. So a mathematician would find that if you take this set of axioms, then this statement is true. Is that an invention or discovery? I would call it a discovery, although different from a discovery of a natural phenomenon.

<comment><USER39> Geometry and arithmetic and calculus all existed before axioms and worked okay. You can do quite a lot of mathematics "naively". It's only in the 20th century that axiomatization became really important, because naive set theory turned out not to work very well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Like in any game, you invent the rules (axioms and logical systems) then you discover the consequences (theorems), just like you invent a maze then you discover the way out.

</comment><comment><USER54> The platonic universe of the entirety of math sounds (this week at least) like Wolfram's "Universe of Computational reality" of which the physical reality is just a subset.

</comment><comment><USER55> Invented to describe what's being discovered.

<comment><USER44> You have to add: discovered _inside itself_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> The linguistic conundrum here arises due to the recently adopted mindless use of the word 'invented' instead of 'created' or 'designed.' (Indeed, Linus _created_ Linux rather than 'invented' it as many would say today.) Invention is a form of discovery. So, the question should be, "is mathematics created or discovered?"

</comment><comment><USER56> This is a silly semantics game and a boring one at that. the presumption that the words are contradictory, or that mathematics is a monolithic entity that plays a single role of invention or discovery, is a poor way of exploring the social and cultural (co)evolution of mathematics and methodical experimentation and observation.

<comment><USER44> You can't just say this to people who keep asking this question, and have been for ages.

<comment><USER56> Why not? It's not like they have any obligation to respond, and someone needs to point out the bullshit smell wafting through the room.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> A bit both:

e.g. The circle is an invention. But the number pi (it's value) is discovered

<comment><USER58> What do you mean when you say that the circle is an invention rather than a discovery? Are you drawing a distinction between the mathematical ideal and the arbitrarily close approximations which can be found in nature? Though by that criteria that case pi must also be an invention…

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> The expression is invented but the underlying relationships are discovered.

It's silly to think that the sqaure root of negative one is something real to be discovered. It's just a stand-in to express complex relationships more succinctly. The same for negative numbers, for that matter.

It would be equally silly to think that the underlying relationships are invented. Nobody invented prime numbers, they were discovered.

<comment><USER60> It's just as silly to think of the "real numbers" as being discovered. They don't exist in the real world, after all.

<comment><USER61> They are necessary for the continuum.

If you throw away real numbers, then you lose major things in physics. I think for example you lose the wave function in QM.

It is not a question of whether they exist in nature, but rather whether they are the more superior technique, or not, to explain nature.

<comment><USER60> Wavefunctions are in fact generally complex-valued. I don't know if that supports your argument or not.

<comment><USER61> Complex numbers have the same cardinality as the reals.

<comment><USER60> That's true, but irrelevant.

Complex numbers aren't "necessary for the continuum" as you put it, and some realists might argue that they don't hold the same "discoverability" as the reals.

I wouldn't. I think the reals and the complex numbers have the same "realness" and that neither represents any innate property of the physical world, despite how obviously useful they are in physical models.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> This is just the age old question of nominalism vs realism

</comment><comment><USER63> Of course..we invented the 'language of mathematics'.

I am on a Penrose kick right now. Just downloaded The Emperor's New Mind Audiobook.

</comment><comment><USER64> Java was invented, Agda was discovered.

(Obviously I'm in the religion where math does exist.)

</comment><comment><USER65> Thank you for sharing this, this an amazing interview series !

</comment><comment><USER66> Fallacy of equivocation.</comment>


"johnyj12345" exposing self-hosted Gitlab's secrets to the public - <AUTHOR> https://blog.philipp-trommler.me/posts/2020/07/13/security-possible-gitlab-hack-johnyj12345/ <comment><AUTHOR> It seems like a user named "johnyj12345" is making it's rounds on self-hosted Gitlab instances since Saturday, exposing server secrets to the public by creating issues containing Gitlab's `secrets.yml` file. Better check your instance!</comment>


Discovering a Galaxy with a Telephoto Lens (2016) - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/79/catalysts/how-to-discover-a-galaxy-with-a-telephoto-lens-rp <comment><USER2> Discussed at the time: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10991628](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10991628)</comment>


Inside Docker's "FROM scratch" - <AUTHOR> https://embano1.github.io/post/scratch/ <comment><USER2> Unless building a base image... doesn't this just take away from the benefits of using docker? If I understand one of the primary goals of containers it to: create an isolated environment with quotas and restrictions to the underlying OS by using Linux namespaces and cgroups. However one of the great things about docker is that I can do FROM ubuntu and then anywhere I run my container I now have my app running in an OS that I'm comfortable with. So I can always run bash inside the container and apt-get whatever I need and debug it/experiment etc...

I understand the problem with docker image sizes. I worked at a company where we had a ~1GB image and our CI tool didn't support caching of docker images so it would take a good 15 minutes to do a build every time. But when we were faced with the option of using another smaller OS, like alpine, we decided not do it because we would give up a lot of flexibility that the OS was providing us.

If you're running a statically linked binary produced by go and that's all you want on your pretty much empty image, why not just scp the file and run it manually under a cgroup? Or good ol choot/jails/zones?

<comment><USER3> > If you're running a statically linked binary produced by go [...]

In a way you are answering your own question. Sure you can give up Docker and use something else, but you are giving up benefits of using the Docker infrastructure and ecosystem.

If you are just using Docker for one app, then yes I agree, but if you have other apps running through Docker then it's certainly beneficial to do so even for statically linked executables, to keep everything consistent.

<comment><USER4> This is especially important once an organization grows much. Once you start having ops or security teams, different development groups, etc. there's a significant benefit to having one way to manage everything.

A new sysadmin doesn't need to learn that custom way your hand-rolled deployment system handles dependencies, how to see what's supposed to be running on a box, etc. A security person who's wondering whether something is supposed to be listening on a port can at least see that it's something someone went to the trouble of exposing. That QA team or the person who inherited your maintenance coding can avoid learning a new way to ensure they have a clean CI build.

(That doesn't mean that Docker's always the right answer — maybe you've identified an area like networking where there's a reason not to use it — but in most cases the differences are below the threshold where it's worth caring)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> My current philosophy on this is use always start from scratch if I can. This would be the case where I'm using something that is statically compiled, or a standalone go binary.

If I need more facilities from an OS, then I try to use a micro-distribution like Alpine. This could be because I have a more complex go binary, or if I have a python script that I want to execute.

If Alpine isn't cutting it, then I go for something like Ubuntu. This is typically because Alpine doesn't have some library that I need, or because musl libc isn't behaving properly.

</comment><comment><USER6> Very interesting. Does someone have an example of a project where they used scratch? It seems to be only useful to build base distribution images

<comment><USER7> Yes.

Works great with Haskell statically compiled binaries. Running the binary through UPX i've managed to get small HTTP microservices down to a 2MB docker image with just Scratch.

<comment><USER8> Works just as well for Go binaries. It's pretty much the recommended base image for distribution of Go apps on Docker. I assume that it would be just as effective for any statically compiled binary.

Edit: I really should have read the article first. It uses Go binaries as the example. Good to know Haskell folks are also using it.

<comment><USER9> Massive downside: You run your app as root or you have to do nasty mounts of /etc/passwd and /etc/group from your host

<comment><USER8> You can run a Docker container as a particular user.

[https://docs.docker.com/engine/reference/builder/#user](https://docs.docker.com/engine/reference/builder/#user)

You can use `setcap` to grant capabilities to the binary or the `pam_cap` module if you need to do capabilities per user.

I haven't run across the need to run most containers as root for a while now.

<comment><USER10> Yup, in the end it´s an OS process and all rules apply. I did not care too much about Dockerfile best practices in my article. Good point, should at least have used "user <!root>".</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


A List of Chrome DevTools Tips and Tricks - <AUTHOR> https://flaviocopes.com/chrome-devtools-tips/ <comment><USER2> Does anyone remember the 3D 'tilt' tool in Firefox? I always thought that there'd be a version of it for Chrome eventually, just because it was so cool. But I guess it wasn't as useful as it was cool, which is why it didn't catch on. I don't think Firefox supports it anymore either.

<comment><USER3> Here's an 2D outline bookmarklet I picked up and modified slightly along the way, slightly out of date though;

javascript:(function(){var t=['div','header','nav','main','section','footer','table','th','td','tr','form','fieldset','label','img','address','blockquote','h1','h2','h3','h4','h5','h6','p','pre','dd','dl','dt','ol','ul','li'];var c=['blue','blue','blue','blue','blue','blue','teal','teal','teal','teal','orange','orange','orange','red','red','red','red','red','red','red','red','red','red','green','green','green','green','green','green','yellow'];for (var i in t){var l=document.getElementsByTagName(t[i]);var j=0,e;while(e=l.item(j++)){e.style.outline='solid '+c[i]+' 1px';}}})();

<comment><USER4> Nice! It hadn't occurred to me how helpful something like this could be!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> My favorite tip:

Add console.log statements anywhere in your code by adding "conditional breakpoints" and writing a console.log in the breakpoint expression.

<comment><USER6> I've used that lots of times, and I wish Chrome treats them breakpoints less ephemerally :). Nowadays I debug simultaneously on Intellij and Chrome DevTools, thanks to the new standardized debug protocol. It's very neat to be able to save sets of breakpoints that just do logging, and you sorta can do that manually because intellij saves them in the project's config xml.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Here you have +100 more: [https://umaar.com/dev-tips/](https://umaar.com/dev- tips/)

</comment><comment><USER8> Another neat trick that I rarely see referenced is the use of Alt-R to reload the dev tools, which also reloads sourcemaps.

Very useful if you've a hot reloading pipeline.

</comment><comment><USER9> I love opening up a console in chrome as a insta-Javascript IDE when I need to do some quick sanity checks

<comment><USER10> When I'm working on a windows machine I'll often use dev tools to do one-off text-processing or templating.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> > The second one lets you trigger a state for the selected element, so you can > see the styles applied when it's active, hovered, on focus.

If only that worked. Sure, it sets the state from a CSS perspective, so you can test things like styles. But many popular JavaScript libraries simply ignore it (looking at you JQuery UI) because of how they hook those events.

For example I've seen many that set several attributes when you mouse over (e.g. data-x, additional class, etc), so if you want to test it the only way right now is to mouse over for real and then do this keyboard voodoo to cut the hovered element into the clipboard, and then after you move your mouse away paste it back onto the page.

You might say "Just call .trigger() from the console!" but the reality is there are several different ways to hook (particularly when a library supports both touch and mouse). Plus some intermingle the CSS hover selector AND Javascript events.

</comment><comment><USER12> FYI with the exception of XHR and DOM breakpoints, there's nothing in here you can't do in Firefox dev tools (just different keyboard shortcuts).

</comment><comment><USER13> First of the list: "Drag and Drop in the Elements panel" AARGH is there a way to disable it? I always drag by error an element and make a mess...

<comment><USER14> The regular "undo" keyboard shortcut at least undoes this mistake :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm still missing:

\- Freezing of all DOM events after X seconds.

\- Stopping all timers.

\- Showing all DOM/timer events in the console.

\- Recording a DOM tree, and diffing it with a later recording.

<comment><USER16> Re stopping timers: The timer id is afaik just a steadily increasing number starting at 1 which is returned by setTimeout() so you can iterate through them, e.g. to stop all:

      for (let i=1; i++; i<=setTimeout('')) {
        clearTimeout(i);
      }

Though that's an implementation detail which could change in the future since the spec seems to not enforce it.

<comment><USER17> It might be safer to loop in reverse:

        for (let i=setTimeout(''); i--; i>=0) {
            clearTimeout(i);
        }

That way if the optimiser decides not to optimise such that the termination condition doesn't call setTimeout() every iteration, you don't end up with an infinite loop because the result of setTimeout('') ends up incrementing in- step with the value of i.

That advantage of browser support, assuming it was internal support and not tacked on in the dev-tools, would be that they could implement a toggle so the timers can be reactivated after you've finished checking what they were getting in the way of.

[note: interval timers may need to be considered as well as timeout timers, unless they use the same ID counter with not type checking so either can be turned off by either clearTimeout() or clearInterval() - again that may be an implementation detail that varies between browsers]

<comment><USER16> Good catch on the reverse loop, you're right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Not bad, but as I recently switched to FF as my primary browser, such posts would be more useful to me if they were written for the Firefox DevTools ;-)

<comment><USER19> FF is my primary browser for actual browsing. Love the new one. But for development its Chrome always. Nothing else comes close IMO.

<comment><USER18> I still like the Chrome DevTools a bit better, but always switching the browsers sucks too, so I try to learn using the FF tools.

And for example the CSS grid tools are something I haven't seen in chrome yet and they work very well in FF. On the other hand, the Serviceworker tool set is much better in chrome than in FF.

<comment><USER19> Css grid?? That's too advanced for my work or side projects now. I'm still learning flexbox :D I need chrome for js debugging and profiling

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Great stuff !</comment>


Google Hires Apple's Key SoC Architect to Make Its Own Mobile Chips - <AUTHOR> http://variety.com/2017/digital/news/google-manu-gulati-pixel-chips-1202464014/ <comment><USER2> Finally android also switching to integrated hardware & software development. Good times ahead.

EDIT: And while we are at this, let's get some Tensorflow TPU craziness in.</comment>


We've been using the same bricks for over 5,000 years. It's time for a change - <AUTHOR> https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/going-green-kbriq-sustainable-brick-spc-intl/index.html <comment><USER2> Many variants on brick have been tried. Making bricks with tighter dimensional tolerances so they can be epoxied tightly together rather than using mortar is one approach. The mortar is usually the weak point. But it didn't "look like brick". There are cement bricks, and, of course, cinder blocks. There are "poured stone" blocks, mostly for decorative walkways. There are rammed earth blocks. There are bricks in nonstandard shapes.

Bricks are reused all the time, mostly in places with old brick buildings and an underclass of cheap labor to chip off the mortar. Like Chicago.

The "let's just dump random construction debris in" approach seems kind of iffy. Figuring out how to make something from broken concrete might be more useful. If you want some broken concrete, and are in Silicon Valley, there's a plant on Seaport Boulevard in Redwood City that gives it away. They charge to dispose of concrete, break it into small pieces, and give it away as "base rock". From the size of the pile they have, even giving it away is tough.

<comment><USER3> Rammed earth is my favorite conceptually, especially if your property has the source raw materials on the property. You're not externalizing the impact of your build, and it deteriorates right back where it came from.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Modern bricks are nowhere near the same as the bricks 5000 years ago. And concrete is probably much bigger ecological hazard: [https://www.businessinsider.com/world-running-out-sand- resou...](https://www.businessinsider.com/world-running-out-sand-resources- concrete-2018-6?r=US&IR=T)

<comment><USER5> And concrete is massively preferred over brick for reducing labor costs.

<comment><USER6> Nice to see the armchair experts again completely dismissing the work of someone doing the work of actually trying to do something productive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> [http://www.university- technology.com/opportunity/591/earth-e...](http://www.university- technology.com/opportunity/591/earth-eco-brick-new-eco-masonry-product-green- technology--great-possibilities)

        Key Benefits:

            Largest recycled content of any building product on the market - over 90% recycled construction waste
            These unfired units have excellent sustainability credentials - no gas use for firing, or cement required
            Provides a market for recycled aggregates (gravel and sand) from construction and demolition sector
            Significantly lower life cycle environmental impacts compared with traditional clay fired bricks/ cement-based products
            In short - Easy recyclability, low resource use in manufacturing and low energy curing

        Applications:

            Creates a new product from waste that would otherwise be landfilled
            Sustainable construction product suitable for internal and external load-bearing and "facing" applications
            Lower cost recycled materials than in traditional bricks / cement-based products as well as reduced production cost per unit

</comment><comment><USER8> Another alternative is bricks made from cork. The main use of cork is making wine bottle stoppers, which results in lots of left over material. Cork is more ecological than wood, as it's the stripped bark of the tree (the tree will continue growing once harvested and can be harvested multiple times).

In this process they grind up left over material from wine bottle stoppers, and heat it to form large bricks (it binds itself). The bricks are then cut on a CNC machine to give the correct form, and the waste material is sent back to the beginning of the process. Cork is a natural insulator, so building a house is more like stacking LEGO in this process.

[https://www.architecture.com/awards-and-competitions- landing...](https://www.architecture.com/awards-and-competitions-landing- page/awards/riba-regional-awards/riba-south-award-winners/2019/cork-house)

Both are great ideas, but I doubt I am going to be seeing these for sale in my local builders merchant anytime soon.

<comment><USER9> I love a good cork floor, but there isn't enough cork trees in the world to be viable substitute construction materials outside of niche applications.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> this article reads like a sponsored advertisement

<comment><USER11> What makes you think it isn't?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Why on earth would we want to change something that's successfully worked for over 5,000 years?

<comment><USER13> Because the company that paid for this ad couldn't get a patent for a 5,000-year-old design.

<comment><USER14> Haha, good one!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> No details on the bonding agent used for binding the construction rubble.

But I really wish the world comes up with alternate building materials.

Currently, Cement has a large footprint. Sand used as filler, at-least in India, is in severe shortage and rivers are destroyed trying to mine it. And brick kilns consume a lot of energy.

</comment><comment><USER9> Another non-fire eco-brick. These things have potential, but construction is a conservative business, especially when trying to usurp materials with proven performance history. But very few things with bricks is built to last 100+ years anymore, let alone 1,000. We're better off with a material that cost 1/10 the energy and last 1/10 as long than spending 10/10 energy on traditional manufacturing process for things that will last 1/10 as long anyway.

</comment><comment><USER16> These guys have been doing something similar for at least a decade (I have no financial interest etc.): [http://www.timbercrete.com.au](http://www.timbercrete.com.au)

Also, I live in West Sussex and the amount of clay here really is unbelievable - my town used to be a major producer of clay and bricks, tiles etc. Once you're past a foot or so of topsoil it's pure clay.

</comment><comment><USER17> _To make it, construction and demolition waste including bricks, gravel, sand and plasterboard is crushed and mixed with water and a binder. The bricks are then pressed in customized molds. Tinted with recycled pigments, they can be made in any color_

Is the binder cement? If so, then I believe those are called cinder blocks.

</comment><comment><USER18> I remember watching an episode of Beyond 2000 (?) in the 90s or so about new brick tech. Nothing seems catch on...

</comment><comment><USER19> rough dup (different outlet, same press release?) of [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23820308](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23820308)

(dang, I actually used _past_ )

</comment><comment><USER20> if it ain't broke</comment>


Save the nuclear power plants that generate 50% of America's clean electricity - <AUTHOR> https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/5/10/17334474/nuclear-power-renewables-plants-retirements-us <comment><USER2> This needs to be said, and I'm glad Vox is finally saying it. The nearly 100ish nuclear power plants in the US generate almost 1/5 of the total electricity output. It irks me beyond belief when environmentalists try to close them down just for existing. There have not been any major incidents in the US (apart from Three Mile Island), and if Congress got its shit together and sacrificed a single mountain in Nevada for waste disposal we could finally stop all of the _actual_ damage that the coal/oil industry has inflicted over generations.

</comment><comment><USER3> People seem to overstate the risk of nuclear waste. Surely a few tons of radioactive waste is better than millions of tons of CO2 in the atmosphere? Nuclear could provide a solution to our energy needs NOW instead of having to wait around for solar and grid storage to be reliable on a nationwide scale.

Right now radioactive waste is stored in pools on site at the reactor. If the US government would actually fund the Yucca Mountain project [1] the risk would be negligible.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_r...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_repository)

<comment><USER4> When you have too much CO2, there's a pretty obvious fix for that: plant a ton of trees.

When you have nuclear waste, you're stuck with it for at least a few thousand years, probably longer.

<comment><USER5> Assuming neither gets "fixed" to your satisfaction—we couldn't physically plant enough trees anyway—I'd rather deal with a few piles of inconvenient material over a planet-wide fucked up atmosphere.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The fundamental problem with nuclear power plants is that, even if you do count them as clean power, they're not an economically viable way of generating it in the modern renewable era. They have the same flexibility and operating cost issues that are killing coal, only more so, and there's no real way around this.

Sure, it's possible to operate them in load-following mode somewhat (though US regulations don't allow it), but even French energy giant EDF doesn't think that's going to be enough to cope with a grid with high levels of renewable generation; their proposed solution is to change the rules so solar and wind power has to shut down instead of the nuclear plants. (I think it may only get you to coal-power-plant levels of output modulation at best.) Output modulation also reduces plant lifespan and increases operational complexity; not good for something that's already too expensive to build and operate. Similarly, large-scale storage would substantially increase the price of nuclear power.

There just isn't any avoiding the fact that nuclear power is expensive, and the only to make it viable is to put up everyone's power bills substantially, whether it's by increasing the cost of other generation options via taxes and less favourable operating rules for renewables or just outright putting a tax on electricity that's paid straight to nuclear operators.

<comment><USER7> > They have the same flexibility and operating cost issues that are killing > coal

Do you have any references for this?

The common characterization that you hear is just the opposite: nuclear is expensive in upfront investments but cheaper to operate than coal.

In the future when the production mix gets more unpredictable, always-on generation should get a profitability boost. A producer who can promise 24/7 production is in a strong position on a market that is largely based on unertain producers trying to sell future uncertain output to producers whose demand is inflexible.

<comment><USER6> Hmmm. I can't get up-to-date operating cost figures for coal specifically, but US nuclear is barely cheaper to operate than fossil-powered steam generation in general these days: [https://www.eia.gov/electricity/annual/html/epa_08_04.html](https://www.eia.gov/electricity/annual/html/epa_08_04.html) (Coal is generally cheaper than the average.) The nasty catch here, of course, is that most of the fossil fuel costs are from fuel and most of the nuclear costs are operation and maintenance. Heavy load following decrease fuel costs but increases operation and maintenance costs - it's more complex to operate a nuclear plant that way, the added thermal stresses increase wear accelerate failures, and the total power generated is lower. That's why nuclear is usually treated as always-on baseload power; not because it's the only way it can be operated, but because it's the most economically viable one.

<comment><USER7> In that table, "Fossil steam" is 42.2% more expensive to operate than nuclear[1], that's pretty significant.

In jurisdictions that have already joined the carbon trading traties, there's an additional big operating cost in the emission credits that would make the coal position significantly worse still. USA and other lagging countries will have to join too soon or we'll all pay a vastly higher price in the form of deterioration of living conditions.

[1] "Total" value for the most recent available year is 25.36 for nuclear, 36.08 for fossil steam

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> In over 28 years in Nuclear Plant Operations I've never seen, or heard of, an incident that could be attributed to cost cutting. If anything nuke plants could be more profitable if they did cut some costs. Control room operators are, in some ways, over trained after obtaining a licence from the Feds to operate that plant. They then, and forever, spend one week in 6 in 40 hours of training. That could easily be halved after holding a license for 5 years or more. The admin size of each plant has ballooned over the years, in some cases more than tripled. Again, cost cutting is not on the list of nuclear plant troubles.

</comment><comment><USER9> Nuclear reactors won't be politically feasible unless either a) we find a country that will sell us the rights to dump our nuclear waste there or b) launching nuclear waste into the sun becomes economically feasible. I just don't think it's possible to convince the lay American that nuclear waste can be stored permanently and safely (I'm not so convinced myself).

Not sure about a) but b) probably won't happen until all the reactors running today have been retired.

</comment><comment><USER10> For me, it boils down to this: do you trust the persons responsible for the security and maintenance to do more than the bare minimum?

Do you trust the company execs to not cut corners and try to save a little more by switching to cheaper materials/labor/waste management?

Are you sure that the architects and engineers had enough foresight and put in enough wiggle room for changes in the enviroment?

How much are you willing to pay with your taxes when something goes wrong?

</comment><comment><USER11> How is nuclear power "clean" with all the radioactive waste that needs to go somewhere when burnt down?

<comment><USER12> When the used fuel rods are properly stored, even the primitive nuclear reactors we use today release quite a bit less radiation than burning coal (not event mentioning CO2 and so on). Even after including all major nuclear accidents, nuclear plants have saved lives compared to coal plants (and they have pretty good track record when compared against even renewable sources).

However, storing the fuel rods properly is borderline impossible due to politics, so your questions probably still stands.

<comment><USER11> I admit i don't know much about the coal burning radiation output. And im even further away from knowing the perfect solution to the worlds energy needs. So i have many questions, driven by the wish to live in a intact environment and leaving it to those who come in a good state.

Where and how exactly is the radiation release of coal plants happening? I can imagine its maybe a difference if a smaller dose of radiation is put out slowly and spread more (in time and space terms)than if it's concentrated on one point? Radiaton is anywhere thats clear... but we rarely get strong radiation caused illnesses from just catching cosmic radiation do we?

And how exactly are politics preventing proper storage?

I definitely don't wanna promote coal, but where are these numbers proving coal killed and harmed more people than Fukushima and Tchernobyl and the many smaller incidents?

Also i often wonder - where could science of reusable energy and reduced consumption be if the billions invested in nuclear research were invested there instead?

<comment><USER5> Mortality rate in deaths per trillion kilowatt hours:

      Source       Rate
      </comment></comment></comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-----
      Coal      100,000
      Oil        36,000
      Biofuel    24,000
      Gas         4,000
      Hydro       1,400
      Solar         440
      Wind          150
      Nuclear        90
      </comment><comment></comment><comment>-----

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-d...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys- deathprint-a-price-always-paid/#5a58db18709b)

<comment><USER13> How are people being killed by Solar?

Panels dropped on heads? Pollutants from production? A proportion of deaths from mining and refining silicon?

<comment><USER4> Why is this downvoted? I have the same question.

<comment><USER13> I like to think the up button is small, and it was an accidental downvote, its happened to me a few times.

<comment><USER4> I don't know, there's the "unvote"/"undown" buttons to correct these kinds of mistakes, but I guess most people won't double-check.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The problem with nuclear power is not the techniques. The problem is the human part. At some point, some director of manager wants to save money, which can often be at the expense of safety. If you look at all indicents in nuclear reactor, one of the causes is often not having the money or the desire to safe some money.

Nuclear power is not a toy, and every expense should be made so that it is safe. You can't always prevent evidence, but with something so risky as nuclear power, having an indicent where money is (one of) the causes is just really stupid.

<comment><USER15> > _At some point, some director of manager wants to save money, which can > often be at the expense of safety._

This is true in any system. The downsides with nuclear don't seem to be as grave as the downsides that come with fossil fuels. (On a kilowatt-hour adjusted basis, at least.)

> _having an indicent where money is (one of) the causes is just really > stupid_

Money is _always_ a factor. Money represents resources. Finite resources. No problem can be worth infinity because we don't have infinity to play with.

<comment><USER16> I'll bet you could get California to vote for a ballot measure banning all finite things with a little work.

<comment><USER17> Finite things contain chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> No – nuclear is not "clean" energy. It's one of the messiest form of them. And coal is "clean" neither.

</comment><comment><USER19> Nuclear power plants are not clean. Far from it. Radioactive waste is still an unsolved problem.

<comment><USER20> Here's a solution: You take the nuclear waste, and then you put it in a small pile somewhere geologically inactive, and then you don't touch it.

Problem solved.

The issues with nuclear are almost entirely related to _cost_.

<comment><USER19> But where can you find such a place? In Germany people believed to found such a place in an old salt mine, now they have to get the stuff back before the mine is completely flooded with water and will contaminate the area around it. And that wasn't high radioactive waste. You need to store is from 100,000 to a million years and you need to inform people about it. Which isn't easy b/c we couldn't really understand the writings on the Pyramids in Egypt which were build just a few thousand years ago. Nuclear power is also dangerous because you can't easily tell apart if a country use it to generate power or build a bomb.

<comment><USER21> What about space? And we're talking about plants in the U.S., I don't think there will be the problem with bombs.

<comment><USER22> > What about space?

Great in principle, but sending nuclear waste hurtling through the upper atmosphere strapped to a tank of rocket fuel seems like a _really_ bad idea in practice. You'd be one mishap away from spreading radioactive dust over a huge area.

Some kind of railgun-like launch system big enough to achieve escape velocity could work, I guess - but that technology's not there yet.

<comment><USER21> We can store it on Earth until the technology is there, we don't need to wait until it breaks down

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Keep them, but calling them "clean" is pure grade A bullshit. Sure, they're "cleaner" but they are absolutely not clean, yielding a waste product that stays a danger to every single living thing near it for tens of thousands of years.

<comment><USER24> It has fewest deaths per TWh, and zero carbon emissions.

It's safest the same way, airplane is safest form of transportation.

<comment><USER23> Pretty sure solar, wind, and hydro have fewer deaths per terawatthour, which also happens to be an absolute nonsense x/y plot to be looking at.

I am 100% pro nuclear power, but I'd love to see proper new approaches that don't lead to barrels of radiating waste that transporters seem to keep fucking losing, or dump in the ocean, or do any number of illegal other things with. I prefer to stay grounded in reality and look at the entire pipeline rather than naively just looking at what happens after the plant's been built, and only looking at the plant's site and not a millimeter beyond its perimeter.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: We algorithmically mapped Epidemiology Twitter - <AUTHOR> https://hive.one/covid19/ <comment><AUTHOR> We submitted this again, because previously the link got caught in Hacker News spam filter and didn't show for the first couple of hours.</comment>


The Intrusion Artist: Robert Bresson - <AUTHOR> http://www.publicbooks.org//artmedia/the-intrusion-artist <comment><USER2> Thanks for posting this, Bresson is an enigmatic favorite.</comment>


Goldman Sachs has a problematic plan to keep its tech talent around - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/130420/goldman-sachs-has-a-problematic-plan-to-keep-its-tech-talent-around/ <comment><USER2> An open question - does this move to Open Source increase anyone's likelihood to work there? My impression is there are reasons for and against working at GS, but their commitment to Open Source isn't on either list. Thoughts? Am I wrong?

</comment><comment><USER3> So what of course they will want to keep trade secrets secret Google is not (for good reasons) going to tell every one what the various algorithms that rank pages are.

This appears to be an astro turf job to try and paint Aleynikov as doing for the open source community instead of getting done for nicking trade secrets - what next will his mum pay a doctor to diagnose him as autistic.

<comment><USER4> If you haven't read the Vanity Fair article mentioned, you should. [http://www.vanityfair.com/business/2013/09/michael-lewis- gol...](http://www.vanityfair.com/business/2013/09/michael-lewis-goldman- sachs-programmer)

Here are some damning excerpts:

""Did you take the strats?" asked one (meaning Goldman's trading strategies). "No," said Serge. That was one thing the prosecutors hadn't accused him of."

"McSwain [the FBI agent] later conceded that he didn't seek out independent expert advice to study the code Serge Aleynikov had taken. ("I relied on statements from Goldman employees.") "

"the F.B.I. had not sought help from someone who actually knew anything at all about computers or the high-frequency-trading business"

<comment><USER5> The Vanity Fair article made me sick to my stomach. I feel so, so bad for Serge. Too little, too late.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There is a misunderstanding here - this is not any different than how most companies use github.

<comment><USER6> [https://github.com/Quartz](https://github.com/Quartz) \- I guess this is 100% of their codebase....</comment></comment>


Long-polling doesn't totally suck - <AUTHOR> http://blog.fanout.io/2013/03/04/long-polling-doesnt-totally-suck/

<comment><USER2> I wouldn't say that nobody uses Websocket for their API.

<http://blockchain.info/api/api_websocket>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for pointing this out!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Any to-do app utilizing game mechanics? - <AUTHOR>

I use gTasks for now to manage my to-do list. It works fairly well with Any.do on my phone and I see it on my Gmail interface as well. However, my lack of motivation is legendary, I figure if there's a to-do app which employs game mechanics it would get me to actually complete my tasks.
To illustrate, remember playing those good old jRPGs? When you complete certain task you are rewarded with experience points, you level up and gain new abilities. If there's a to do list which rewards you in such a way I'd be very happy to use it! (I realize there's no real-live level up, just figuratively saying that, there must be ways to reward someone mentally)
I looked around the web and can't find anything fitting this description. I figure someone where must have an idea if such a thing exists. Please let me know!
Thanks! DM <comment><USER2> EpicWin fits your description pretty well.

<http://www.rexbox.co.uk/epicwin/>

On iTunes: [http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/epicwin/id372927221?mt=8&...](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/epicwin/id372927221?mt=8&ign- mpt=uo%3D4)

<comment><AUTHOR> Amazing! Exactly what I was looking for!

There doesn't seem to be an Android version, are there similar apps for Android that you know of?

<comment><USER2> I think Task XP is what you want. This review seems to say that it is a good replacement for Epic Win.

[https://market.android.com/details?id=com.philipk.taskxp&...](https://market.android.com/details?id=com.philipk.taskxp&reviewId=03985566675016630379)</comment></comment></comment>


Multiple Ruby security vulnerabilities - <AUTHOR> http://weblog.rubyonrails.com/2008/6/21/multiple-ruby-security-vulnerabilities

<comment><USER2> tptacek's blog has some good info on this:

[http://www.matasano.com/log/1070/updates-on-drew-yaos- terrib...](http://www.matasano.com/log/1070/updates-on-drew-yaos-terrible- ruby-vulnerabilities/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Both String and Array have integer overflows. If an attacker can control the size of a string or the index to a string or an array, they can control the address in native memory where Ruby will write data.

The details of these vulnerabilities are _not_ under wraps; they were fixed in commits labelled with their CVE numbers.

</comment><comment><USER4> Here's a fix for etch, since the security team hasn't released an advisory yet:

<http://dfranke.us/rubyfix.txt>

</comment><comment><USER5> a = Array.new

a[0x7fffffff] = 55

(irb):14: [BUG] Segmentation fault

Presumably this is one of the attack vectors that was fixed.

<comment><USER6> I'm getting a different error with x86_64, but probably not protected against other bugs:

(irb):3:in `[]=': failed to allocate memory (NoMemoryError) from (irb):3:in `irb_binding' from /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/irb/workspace.rb:52:in `irb_binding' from /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/irb/workspace.rb:52

<comment><USER3> sizeof(long) is different for you, and fixnum is 63(?) bits. Try 0x7fffffffffffffff.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Anyone successfully running the patched version w/o segfaults?

<comment><USER8> looks like this is a common prob... I guess i need to migrate to jruby sooner than I thought</comment></comment>


A keyboard and mouse that you use with one hand - <AUTHOR> http://handykey.com/testimonials.html

<comment><USER2> I own one of these. It's cute. I never really got the hang of it. Ergonomics- wise, it takes the pressure off some of the things you usually stress when typing on a keyboard; but it puts the stress on different things instead. (Less on your wrists, but more on your fingers.)

</comment><comment><USER3> What does this thing look like? The site is really barren of images.</comment>


Ask HN: Kindle DX - Technical Books.  Would you buy? - <AUTHOR>

I'm curious what your thoughts are.  With DRM free titles from pragmatic programmers, etc.  Im thinking about buying one.  Only if the PDF support enables it to display tables properly.  One portable device that enables me to carry around a ton of books for $500 doesnt sound like a bad idea to me. <comment><USER2> I am excited about the idea of this, but I am still on the fence about making the plunge. $500 is really expensive, and there are very few technical books available directly through Amazon. Several publishers do have PDF now, but most seem to be avoiding a direct relationship. I am not sure if I can find a large enough % of the books I want to buy to justify the initial amount.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think the only way that it would make sense to buy the kindle for the technical books is if the response time is lower than your threshold of expected wait time. Or, if you typically read technical books linearly from cover to cover.</comment>