Amazon Will Pay You $5,000 to Quit Your Job - <AUTHOR> http://time.com/58305/amazon-will-pay-you-5000-to-quit-your-job/ <comment><USER2> The first (and stated) effect of this policy is to weed out the unmotivated employees.

However, Dan Ariely has explained that the secondary effect is potentially more powerful. For those that choose to stay, they will forever live with their past action of having turned down lots of money to work there. So, when they're having a crappy day and hating their job, they're probably thinking "why didn't I take the money and quit?!". The only way to reconcile their thoughts and actions is to explain that, in fact, they must really love this job and therefore should work hard at it. This effect is known as 'Cognitive Dissonance'[1] and is fascinating.

Here's a link to a video of Dan explaining this[2] and a _really_ excellent Coursera course he does on Irrational behaviour[3].

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance)

[2] [http://bigthink.com/videos/dan-ariely-zappos-and-the- offer](http://bigthink.com/videos/dan-ariely-zappos-and-the-offer)

[3] [https://www.coursera.org/course/behavioralecon](https://www.coursera.org/course/behavioralecon)

<comment><USER3> I recall hearing about that for Zappos, but here the offer is repeated every year. Doesn't that ruin the effect - you know you can get (potentially even more) by quitting in a few months? And if it's only offered at certain times of the year, then there'll be a bunch of people hanging on until the offer comes around again.

<comment><USER2> Well, I suspect there will be people postponing quitting for a few months just so they can cash out with the offer. That's undesirable for Amazon.

But I doubt you'd have people staying in a job they dislike for another year just to get an extra $1k when they do quit. Also you'll have compounded another year of turning down cash to work there so the cognitive dissonance might be even stronger.

<comment><USER4> If the offer is annual and they add an extra $1000 per year then on average the disgruntled employee has to wait 6 months to quit and get a higher severance, not 1 year. Which means that 1/4 of those employees only have to churn through 3 more months to get an extra $1000, hardly something nobody would do.

The obvious solution to fix this flaw in the system would be to raise the offer daily instead of annually, be approximately $1000/365 =~ $2.74 per day. Or more simply by $20 per week, which comes out to about the same per year ($1040).

<comment><USER5> I think you misunderstood jordn's comment. When he said "staying in a job they dislike for another year just to get an extra $1k when they do quit." I think he was talking about a hypothetical situation were an employee has been working for Amazon for, say 2 years, and got offered the $2k. They'd be unlikely to wait another full year, just to be able to get $3k when they quit. In other words, if they want to quit, they will do so at the closest offer (e.g. $2k) rather than waiting another year AFTER that offer to get a larger one (e.g. $3k).

Of course it's likely employees would wait e.g. 3 months to get the "quitting bonus". In fact, jordn quite clearly stated that also, in the first line of his comment.

<comment><USER4> Right, I'm just elaborating and pointing out that this caveat only happens as long as the offer is structured in such a way that you have a _massive_ increase to it at a specified time once a year.

Then if you hate your job and you're close to that specified time it's in your interest to wait, even though the point of the policy is that Amazon would rather that you quit.

If they just increased the offer with more granularity they wouldn't create that conflict of interest. You'd only get more money as a function of the time you stayed on the job, so you might as well quit right away instead of waiting a few months for a much larger payout.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As someone who actually worked at Amazon for a few long years, I'm always skeptical of such seemingly positive news, and often think "hmm, could this be another marketing trick to influence people's perception of Amazon rather than actually changing anything", and %90 of the time I'm right :)

Here's how their typical financial offer is structured for new software engineers:

1st year: signing bonus + relocation bonus + 5% of stock grant

2nd year: signing bonus + 15% stock grant

3rd year: 40% stock grant

4th year: 40% stock grant

If you quit within the first year, you have to give the relocation and signing bonus back. That's much much more than $1k. So there's a strong financial incentive / golden handcuffs to keep you there for at least 1-2 years, even if you are unhappy!

After the 2nd year, the financial incentive of staying is still there in form of the large stock grant (which has grown due to their stock price rising) that you've been promised and waiting on for a long time.

I can see someone rationally and happily taking the incentive after the third or fourth years and quit (i.e. after they've done damage to the work environment as an unhappy/unmotivated employee, and no longer have to give a fortune back to the company)... but before then, I doubt it'll change the behavior of any currently employed, overworked, over-paged, under-paid, under- appreciated software engineers.

Who this policy might affect though is future hires, and their perception of Amazon. People who have a choice between offers from MS and Amazon for example. They might consider this an interesting policy and assume that it would have improved employee morale at Amazon even though it's common knowledge that Amazon has terrible work life balance, etc.

I should also note that the Zappos policy makes a lot of sense to me, but this is very different from that, as is the employee culture of Zappos from Amazon.

<comment><USER7> Note that this offer is for fulfillment center employees, not software engineers.

<comment><USER8> Thank you for clarifying this, it was a source of confusion for me as well.

Not to sound elitist, but what is $5k to a software engineer making 120k/year regardless of the cost of living in Seattle.

This makes more sense.

<comment><USER9> $5k is still a lot of money for somebody making $120k/year

<comment><USER10> It's no where near as much money as it is to the people who are actually getting the offer. It's like 2 weeks pay for an engineer and 2 months pay for a warehouse worker.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Purely on a legal level, getting your most disgruntled employees to identify themselves and waive all claims in exchange for $2,000-5,000 is probably a pretty good deal.

<comment><USER12> From what I've read, they have plenty of employees with zero rights to claims, under schemes like German "minijobs" ( www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1szub2/9000_workers_at_amazoncoms_german_operations_were/ )

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> About 5 years ago during worst of the downturn, I took $20,000 USD option our consulting firm gave and voluntarily quit a $120,000 base salary job. At the time, I thought that job sucked pretty bad and was looking for an out anyhow. I've been an entrepreneur ever since.

No quick success story to tell - I've been bootstrapping for 5 years in China and it's been hard. But I've been happier overall focusing everyday on pretty much whatever-the-hell I want to think about, and my business just broke $1M USD revenues this year by doing that, so overall it seems right decision for me.

Policies like this are probably a win-win for all involved.

<comment><USER14> What do you do? Why China?

<comment><USER13> I came to Shenzhen China because I'm a manufacturing guy and this is the place to be for that. Plus the 8% YOY growth and low labor rates here give a better chance for bootstrap success. And finally, yes, I got a hot girlfriend during my visit and wanted to stay a while. She's now my wife.

I first started a technical sourcing/manufacturing/engineering consulting company. Then later started a 2nd company that uses the experience and engineers in my consulting company, but instead of consulting we just do direct sales of custom designed products and tooling, like a virtual ODM.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It starts with 2000$ then 1000$ increment per year up to 5000$

This deal is for warehouse employees only and most of the people(90%+) working in warehouse are contractors.

They handpick employee(s) and once a year and offer him/her this deal.

BS!

<comment><USER16> The article made it sounds like a universal offer, maybe I could see per- business unit, but not per-employee. That would require you to already know who the dissatisfied workers are. The stated point was to discover early who is not satisfied in their job.

Do you have a source on that?

<comment><USER17> As others have mentioned: keep in mind this offer is for warehouse employees. There's lots of hard metrics being gathered on those employees, so it's straightforward to figure out which ones are underperforming.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This reminds of the unlimited vacation policy. Essentially with both these policies, the company is deflecting issues regarding job satisfaction and burnout onto the employee. The employee almost gets bullied into not taking the offer so as to show that they are above the petty reward. These psychological games are not created by chance; they are instituted to keep everything black and white, with us or against us. By drawing a line in the sand, they are eliminating the necessary conversations employees should be having with HR or supervisors to improve the workplace and their own individual situations.

</comment><comment><USER19> Although nobody else seems to have mentioned it, this sounds to me like they are trying to avoid employees being dissatisfied but sticking around in order to get severance pay. Obviously if you quit voluntarily, no severance pay, but Amazon gives you a bit of money anyways (much less than severance pay), so that maybe you won't stick around longer than is good for either of you.

<comment><USER20> Is it really much less? Last time I was let go I was given less than $5000 severance pay, and that was as a developer.

<comment><USER19> Hmm, I'm in Canada, and while the legal minimum here probably isn't much higher than the US, maybe companies tend to offer more. Could just be what I've heard of in the largish engineering companies I've been in.

<comment><USER21> In general, there is no requirement for any severance in the U.S. It can be negotiated for, and in certain specific cases laws may require either notice or severance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> At my company, I am both the most unmotivated and most productive employee. Where would that leave me? :)

<comment><USER23> I have to disagree. Something motivates you. If you're highly productive, something is motivating that. The question is what?

<comment><USER22> I love being a software developer and I am great at my job.

My other coworkers are nowhere near as talented and the lack of peers greatly contributes to my frustration (which makes me unmotivated).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Big defense contractors have a yearly VRIF (Voluntary Reduction In Force), which is when they offer slightly better than average retirement packages to expendable older employees. Young people would never get the offer (because they couldn't retire) and important older engineers would also never get the offer, even though many of them wanted it. This is a big improvement over that since it can be used by younger employees and the employee decides unilaterally if they want the package.

</comment><comment><USER25> A few years ago I worked at a place where the CEO instituted this policy in the wake of reading about Zappos doing it. I remember him standing up at the weekly company meeting and offering a few thousand dollars to anyone who quit. The thing is, a week earlier, another coworker had put in his two weeks, and the look on his face upon hearing that announcement... I'm not sure if he ever got the money, but oh well. C'est la vie.

<comment><USER26> What was your experience of the impact that policy had at that company? Anything? Did any lower performers leave to take the incentive?

I've been curious about implementing this at my own company but I'd be interested in someone's actual experience with it, vs. hearing about it from people incentivized to claim it worked well because it was their idea to implement.

<comment><USER25> I actually don't think it had much impact at all actually. Although it wasn't a huge amount of money. I remember thinking "meh".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'd take $5000 to quit a job in an Amazon warehouse:

[http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/11/25/amazon-staff- inve...](http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/11/25/amazon-staff- investigation_n_4335894.html)

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/eamonnfingleton/2013/11/25/amazo...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/eamonnfingleton/2013/11/25/amazon- com-is-accused-of-slave-driving-after-bbc-secretly-videotaped-warehouse- conditions/)

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2512959/Walk-11-mile...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2512959/Walk-11-miles- shift-pick-order-33-seconds--Amazon-works-staff-bone.html)

[http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/jean-baptiste-malet-amazon- wa...](http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/jean-baptiste-malet-amazon-warehouse)

:-) ... :-(

</comment><comment><USER28> Does this apply to Amazon's subcontractor warehouse employees? Because those are some jobs seriously worth quitting for $5,000: [http://www.motherjones.com/print/161491](http://www.motherjones.com/print/161491)

This would never be worth it for a developer working for Amazon proper.

</comment><comment><USER29> Zappos pays you $2,000 to quit... during the recruiting process

[http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2008-09-16/why-zappos- of...](http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2008-09-16/why-zappos-offers-new- hires-2-000-to-quitbusinessweek-business-news-stock-market-and-financial- advice)

<comment><USER30> That's new hires who've done at least a week of training, not applicants. There's a world of difference in between.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Amazon runs through whole towns. That is an understatement. They arrive and go through 8-10 counties worth of people. Every person that they let go was not a bad employee and every employee they kept was not a good employee. Amazon is assholes. They have their temporary staffing agency because they don't want to pay health benefits. If Amazon kept all the good employees that the staffing agency gave them then they would no longer need the staffing agency.

Staffing agencies are expensive, they are not really that much cheaper. If Amazon got rid of the staffing agency they could pay the employees they already have more money and there wouldnt be a question if employees are happy or not, motivated or not.

The buy outs are just to keep their staffing agency busy. How is the staffing agency going to say all of a sudden, "You know what, we dont even require a diploma or a GED anymore, we did before but now we don't".

With their staff agency they are burning money right in front of employees' faces while telling them that they cannot pay them one dime more. They have pissed off and cleaned out half the freaking state now they will hire anyone. Now they are going to pay some perfectly good employees to leave. Really these employees are exceptional. If you can last somewhere for 2-3 years where most people can't last 2-3 weeks, you are a valuable employee. That is Amazon's problem: They do not value people.

</comment><comment><USER32> Isn't this just a cheaper version of a voluntary separation scheme? Makes brilliant sense actually.

<comment><USER33> This is a disruptive Internet version.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I wonder what the chances of labor coordinating and everyone deciding collectively to take the offer at the same time? That would put Amazon in a tough spot and allow labor to negotiate a better deal. Amazon must be very confident that won't happen.

Maybe this type of program says more about the weak state of organized labor in the US then it does about breeding a healthy and good company culture. There seems to be something you can read in between the lines with this.

<comment><USER35> This policy is specifically designed to weed out all but the most desperate employees. When you're living paycheque-to-paycheque you can't afford to strike. The reason I pay union dues is to top up that strike fund.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Yeah Amazon are great to their permanent workers, management and so on. But what about the vast of majority of permatemp workers who do all the moving, warehouse work etc. ?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waeMkka60po](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waeMkka60po)

</comment><comment><USER37> This is genius. Many people feel stuck in jobs they don't like for financial reasons. They're surely not as productive as they could be if they were happier. Providing even a small bit of assistance to help them out the door helps both sides. Employees don't feel trapped and employers don't have to wonder if their employee is just have a rough time or if he/she does not want to be there any longer.

Not to mention, as another commenter pointed out [1], once you decline the money you will look back and remember you made the decision to stay when presented an opportunity to leave.

1\. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7572688](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7572688)

</comment><comment><USER38> I would be amazed if anyone accepted this offer, it's not enough money to justify making every other job interview afterwards harder. I bet it's just a PR trick to make them look like better employers after the warehouse conditions were exposed.

<comment><USER39> How does it make other interviews harder? Saying you left because you felt the company wasn't a good fit for you and they offered you a sum of money that gave you a little leeway to plan your next move sounds perfectly reasonable to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I wonder where do they apply this policy? There are plenty of sob stories of sweatshops in Germany (for instance).

If this is a global policy then the argument that they're the scum of the Earth with regard to employees cannot hold much water.

</comment><comment><USER40> Seems to me that this can only work in countries with little in the way of job protection.

If you want to get rid of someone in most EU countries, it's going to cost you a lot more for them to sign away their rights by quitting. From that perspective, this is just an attempt to get rid of people cheaply.

But exactly those people you actually want to take the offer won't, they are much better off forcing their employer to either fire them or make them a better offer.

</comment><comment><USER41> Can we get the US federal government to institute this policy? With the caveat that once you quit you are prohibited from collecting a federal paycheck elsewhere.

<comment><USER42> At first I thought you meant that the US Government would just pay anyone to quit their job AND I LOVED IT! I still think it's a good idea, and I know everyone probably thinks that first idea is stupid, but I think it's great. Getting people to feel comfortable quitting their jobs is the only way we're going to reinvent this economy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> A similar policy at Zappos was discussed a few years ago on the Freakonomics podcast. Here's the transcript:

[http://freakonomics.com/2011/09/30/the-upside-of-quitting- fu...](http://freakonomics.com/2011/09/30/the-upside-of-quitting-full- transcript/)

</comment><comment><USER44> I would think that it would be more of a tiered system. For some higher pay employees it might benefit them to remain in unsatisfactory job just to make the big bucks. They are then draining amazon and not contributing like they would be if the y were truly pleased with their job

</comment><comment><USER45> So in other words, there's now a $5000 hiring bonus if you can figure out a way to jump ship to Google or any of Amazon's other competitors. Sounds good to me.

</comment><comment><USER46> I very much agree with this. A great way to weed out employees who aren't happy there, and as such, will be unmotivated, unproductive, and bring down overall morale.

</comment><comment><USER47> Voluntary redundancy offer is pretty widespread. But there is usually exception for developers and other highly qualified people. Devs cant quit :-)

<comment><USER48> There is always the wally solution ie deliberatly mess up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> One tricky bit is that it seems to be only once a year. So someone just moving on normally wouldn't easily be able to take advantage.

</comment><comment><USER50> I wonder what the tax implications of taking this offer are. My gut says it becomes considerably less desirable. Too bad

</comment><comment><USER51> If you leave, work somewhere else for six months or a year, can you come back at Amazon?

</comment><comment><USER52> Isn't this just Severance?

<comment><USER15> Yes my friend it is. Someone downvoted me for suggesting this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Most blue collar workers turn over in a year, so this is just PR fluff. Companies can and do write them up at any time for the smallest of mistakes and then fire them, often within the first three months. Any statement made about a manual labor job and "After the first year" is ridiculous as is the tuition plan.

<comment><USER54> Do you have a source?

<comment><USER53> I worked similar jobs for several years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> So OpenSSL team has opportunity to make $3K profit and not have to deal with Heartbleed-scale shenanigans?

</comment><comment><USER56> Too bad the guy didn't take his design and patent it. Then turn around and license it to GE and all their competitors.

<comment><USER56> posted this on the wrong thread.</comment></comment>


Study: Potatoes can grow on Mars - <AUTHOR> http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2017/03/08/Study-Potatoes-can-grow-on-Mars/7961488992637/ <comment> david-given From the article:

"The box mimics the day-night patterns of Mars, as well as its temperature, air pressure and atmospheric composition."

Wait, really? They're growing plants in what's practically a vacuum and at subzero temperatures? _Really?_ That seems... stupendously unlikely... to me. Not that I wouldn't love to be wrong, mind.

Anyone have a link to actual data? Everything linked to is just press fluff.

 _Update:_ Actual articles on growing plants at very low pressure:

[https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at- nasa/2004/2...](https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at- nasa/2004/25feb_greenhouses/) \--- at 1/10 of an atmosphere, plants' metabolic balance gets screwed up and they go into drought response and die, no matter how much water is actually available.

[http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/ast.2009.0362](http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/ast.2009.0362) \--- but lichen's probably fine.

<comment><USER2> I ran a similar experiment at home, albeit with a fern rather than potatoes and without simulating martian light.

My fern started to perish (and it was a well established plant). The biggest problem I'm facing at the moment is that Mars is extremely nitrogen deficient.

[https://reprage.com/post/marsarium-9](https://reprage.com/post/marsarium-9)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Colonizemars/comments/5vi52v/inspir...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Colonizemars/comments/5vi52v/inspired_by_rspacex_i_made_a_marsarium_to/)

<comment><USER3> That reminds me of an Asimov story, "Founding Father", involving ecosystem change on a planet by stranded astronauts.

<comment><USER2> Best places to find a copy these days?

<comment><USER4> Any central public library is fully stocked on Asimov.

<comment><USER2> It seems that this short story was originally published in an old science fiction magazine (that my local library doesn't stock). Was wondering if it also made its way into a compilation of some sort. Google hasn't turned up anything for me yet.

<comment><USER5> Is this the story? [http://www.young-adult-books.com/read/buy-jupiter-and- other-...](http://www.young-adult-books.com/read/buy-jupiter-and-other- stories-926/22882) (link says "buy", but looks like the entire story is on that page)

<comment><USER6> Can you imagine if someone told Asimov that his story "Buy Jupiter" would be mistaken for a "link" to buy a copy of his work, by someone reading on an international network of computers that have access to all of the information in the world - and were so overrun with advertising that his own title was mistaken for one. Given "Buy Jupiter's" plot summary - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buy_Jupiter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buy_Jupiter) [1] - this is extremely apropos!! Some things never change :)

[1] WHICH I'M LINKING ON A FREAKING ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA THAT CONTAINS IN EVERY LANGUAGE ALL OF THE GENERAL KNOWLEDGE OF THE WORLD (WIKIPEDIA).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think this article is wrong about the temperature. There is little information available but here is the original press release [http://cipotato.org/press-room/blog/indicators-show- potatoes...](http://cipotato.org/press-room/blog/indicators-show-potatoes-can- grow-mars/)

From what I can gather they used soil from some Peruvian desert and increased the CO2 in the chamber. But there is no mention of simulating the -80F night temperatures typical on Mars.

<comment><USER8> I'm pretty sure Martians measure temperature in Celsius.

<comment><USER9> Celsius is equally arbitrary to Fahrenheit.

No, Martians measure in Nano Yocto Planck Degrees above Absolute Zero, I hereby dub that unit the Plancktigrade.

<comment><USER10> Celsius at least has a family of units that mesh with it precisely. To heat one cubic centimetre of water up 1°C takes 1 Joule. It also essentially weighs 1 gram at normal temperatures.

How many BTUs does it take to heat up one cubic foot of water by one degree Fahrenheit?

<comment><USER11> It takes one BTU to heat one pound of water, one pint, one degree Fahrenheit.

The units may be arbitrary, but they still line up.

<comment><USER10> Yeah, but a pound of water is not a cubic foot. A pint has nothing to do with inches.

<comment><USER9> That has nothing to do with temperature.

You can keep metric and use Fahrenheit with very little change.

And you got your units wrong anyway: "To heat one cubic centimetre of water up 1°C takes 1 Joule" \- you mean 1 calorie, not 1 Joule.

Change Celsius to Fahrenheit and only calorie changes, and since it's anyway not part of SI it makes little difference.

Joule is the main energy unit, and it's not tied to Celsius at all.

I totally get the arguments for metric - except for temperature. For temperature Fahrenheit is the better scale.

Look here: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_System_of_Units#...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_System_of_Units#/media/File:SI_base_unit.svg)

And notice how Kelvin stands alone - it's not tied to any other unit. It can be replaced with almost no impact.

<comment><USER10> Ah, you're right about calorie vs. Joule. That is a bit rough around the edges.

> For temperature Fahrenheit is the better scale.

Yeah, no. It's a stupid system. It's not even calibrated properly. 100° was supposed to be body temperature. They got it wrong. 0° was the lowest temperature they could measure at the time because that's when mercury froze. That's so useful! I really want to know if the mercury I carry around all the time is going to freeze outside.

Meanwhile °C is simple: 0°C is "watch for ice" and 100°C is "water boils" (minus altitude factor).

I don't know how you can praise Kelvin and slam Celsius since they're the same "size", it's just that the zero point of Kelvin was set to absolute zero instead of the freezing point of water. °C = °K + 273.15. That's it.

<comment><USER9> > That is a bit rough around the edges.

Correct. It would be one thing if Celsius is somehow tied into the rest of the SI units, but it is not, which means we can replace it.

> It's not even calibrated properly.

Who cares if they got the calibration of Fahrenheit wrong, at the end of the day it's more usable than Celsius for humans.

0 Fahrenheit is the temperature when it's really cold outside, 100 is when it's hot. It doesn't get simpler than that. If you are outside those ranges you need to take special precautions. No, I don't care about mercury either, but I do care to know when it's cold.

It's not that hard to remember 32 for ice. With Celsius you need to deal with negative temperatures all the time, and worse, the size of the degrees is too coarse.

> 100°C is "water boils"

And exactly how often do you need to measure the temperature when water boils? Probably about as often as I freeze mercury. So 100 is a very useless range on Celsius - you are using your "best" numerical range on useless temperatures.

On the other hand it's quite common to want to know when it's hot enough that you will sweat. Above 100 (body temperature) you will sweat.

Labs and Ovens don't really care about which exact unit, so let them deal with the higher (or lower) numbers - the only time it matters is for ordinary humans checking the weather.

> I don't know how you can praise Kelvin and slam Celsius

You misread, I did not praise Kelvin, I said we could replace it.

<comment><USER10> > It's not that hard to remember 32 for ice. With Celsius you need to deal > with negative temperatures all the time, and worse, the size of the degrees > is too coarse.

Well, the whole world manages to deal with °C and only America and a handful of backwater countries insist on using °F.

"Too coarse" is absurd. People just measure to the nearest 0.5°C if you want to get all fussy, but that's not normally the case. It's 12° out? Wear a jacket. 12.0 vs. 12.5° isn't going to change that.

It keeps the numbers smaller. Temperatures here flop between -40°C and +40°C, so the numbers never get large. Meanwhile in the US you see temperatures of 100°F all the time as well as negative ones like -30°F. It's a much wider spread for no real reason.

I hope you know the only reason America didn't get with the program and metricize like it was fully intending to do in the early 1980s is because Reagan was an asshole.

<comment><USER9> I'm onboard for metric - just not for temperature.

Just because you manage to deal with C doesn't make it better.

Do you see the parallels? You tell Americans all the benefits of metric, they don't care. You tell Europeans all the benefits of Fahrenheit, they don't care.

People don't want to change.

> It keeps the numbers smaller.

No, it doesn't. You need 3 digits since you need the decimal (-20.5).

<comment><USER12> It's more that you can't tell the difference between 30C and 30.5C. No one _ever_ forecasts temperatures using decimal degrees here in Australia.

You only need decimals for highly accurate measurements, but at that point you'd need decimals for Farenheit as well.

> You tell Europeans

Erm, how about the rest of the world?

<comment><USER13> Judging by the title of this thread, I think the GP meant to type Europans, not Europeans.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I know, I saw Matt Daemon grow potatoes on Mars in an in-flight documentary called "The Martian".

<comment><USER15> /sbin/mattd

<comment><USER16> Can I get in on the joke? :)

<comment><USER17> They're making a joke about the misspelling of Matt Damon. "Daemon" is a computing term [0] and /sbin/ is a folder that you might want to put a Matt Daemon in. (Also, daemons are often named with a "d" at the end, like "etcd" or "mattd".)

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daemon_(computing)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daemon_\(computing\))

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Why exactly did this experiment require a satellite? For biological purposes Martian gravity is probably closer to Earth gravity than to microgravity, and all the other conditions could be reproduced for cheaper and at larger scale in a ground laboratory.

This smells of a publicity stunt to me.

<comment><USER19> From the photo, I'm pretty sure the CubeSat is on the ground. [http://nkxms1019hx1xmtstxk3k9sko.wpengine.netdna- cdn.com/wp-...](http://nkxms1019hx1xmtstxk3k9sko.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp- content/uploads/2017/03/CubeSat.jpg)

The photo is from their press release: [http://cipotato.org/press- room/blog/indicators-show-potatoes...](http://cipotato.org/press- room/blog/indicators-show-potatoes-can-grow-mars/)

<comment><USER20> Isn't a cubesat on the ground called... a box?

There's no mention of a past or future launch in the article, so this looks like an egregious case of buzzwording.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> They didn't mention whether they tried to simulate the radiation levels plants would experience on Mars in their experiment. I don't know whether that would change the results.

<comment><USER22> [https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn22520-mars-is-safe- fr...](https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn22520-mars-is-safe-from- radiation-but-the-trip-there-isnt/)

I didn't know the answer so I googled it. Apparently it isn't that high.

"Readings from NASA's Curiosity rover suggest radiation levels on the Red Planet are about the same as those in low Earth orbit, where astronauts hang out for months on the International Space Station."

<comment><USER23> > radiation levels on the Red Planet are about the same as those in low Earth > orbit

... which coincidentally is where the experimental potatoes in the article were grown.

<comment><USER24> Unfortunately not, looks like they never got round to launching the cubesat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> "Scientists with the International Potato Center" made my day.

<comment><USER26> Soon "potato scientist" will be as impressive as - if not more than - "rocket scientist".

<comment><USER13> Second post on this thread, and sadly it's as much a joke as the first.

From this point on, I'm going to cease saying "it's not rocket science," and start saying "...it's not potato science."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Important to understand this doesn't mean potatoes can grow in perchlorate soil.

</comment><comment><USER28> Here's a relevant related link:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Mars/comments/4ib9d9/never_freezing...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Mars/comments/4ib9d9/never_freezing_passive_martian_greenhouse_no/)

The post introduces a model of a passive (pressurized) greenhouse on Mars that manages moderate temperatures just using insulation and some soil and water for thermal inertia.

</comment><comment><USER29> But can they grow in Martian soil? Its regolith is missing crucial nutrients, methinks. Otherwise, wow! The Martian's premise might actually be realistic!

<comment><USER23> It's possible to grow potatoes hydroponically, so growing them in unprocessed Martian regolith is unlikely to be important until the number of Martians hits six figures.

<comment><USER29> So you're going to bring your own soil everywhere? That's the unsustainable part. Terraforming would take thousands of years.

<comment><USER30> Hydroponically means "using water as a medium", so not bringing your own soil and depending on whether there's water available on Mars. You would still need to put nutrients in the water, but it would be a path to take until you get composting working.

<comment><USER23> > depending on whether there's water available on Mars

Actually, we've recently confirmed that there are at least five million cubic kilometers of water ice on Mars ...

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

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_on_Mars#Present_water_ic...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_on_Mars#Present_water_ice)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> If _anything_ can be grown on Martian soil--whether substantially nutritive or not--that can self-sustain and propagate on its own, I wonder if that is an avenue for terraformation.

</comment><comment><USER32> > It was a pleasant surprise to see that potatoes we've bred to tolerate > abiotic stress were able to produce tubers in this soil,

Did they really produce tubers? That'd be impressive, but the video only shows "initial plant growth".

</comment><comment><USER33> On video there were liquid water. I didn't know such exist in mars.

<comment><USER34> Potatoes don't exist on Mars, either. But if we're going there, and bringing potatoes, we'll either be bringing water, or distilling it there.

<comment><USER23> > we'll either be bringing water, or distilling it there

Probably just melting some of the more than five million cubic kilometers of water ice that has been identified at or near the surface of modern Mars ...

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> No mention of perchlorate.

</comment><comment><USER36> "CubeSat indicator experiments prove potatoes can grow on Mars. "

That's a pretty flagrant abuse of the word "prove". "Suggests" would be a better choice.

</comment><comment><USER37> But how do they simulate Martian gravity?

<comment><USER38> The box full of potatoes is falling from a great height with a fairly large parachute? That wouldn't really give the potatoes a very long time to demonstrate growth, though.

<comment><USER39> just enough time for them to think "oh no, not again" really

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I imagine one of the biggest challenges is removal of perchlorate salts from the regolith.

</comment><comment><USER41> Hey guys, I helped build the Cubesat, any questions - Fire away!

<comment><USER42> What was the atmospheric pressure during the tests? Martian like?

<comment><USER41> It is about 40% of Earth's pressure. So low, but not as low as the actual pressure on Mars, which is too low to even consider. This assumes a greenhouse environment but without the necessity to create exact earth pressure, making it easier to maintain, using less energy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Hi guys, I helped build the Cubesat. Any questions: Fire away!

<comment><USER43> Hey! Great that you answer questions. A question I had was if you took the temperature into account in your experiments.

A second question I has was: how similar is the sand you are using to real martian sand?

Do you have any images of the resulting potatoes? Would they be edible?

<comment><USER41> So, we are regulating temperature in the cubesat. We're assuming the best conditions possible on Mars, which is summer near the equator. This means up to 20°C during the day and around zero at night (if you watch the timelapse you can occasionally see the humidity freeze and defrost, dripping on the soil)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> "If we can't get them out, we'll feed them out." \- King Edward I, Braveheart

</comment><comment><USER45> well duh, matt damon did it :P

</comment><comment><USER46> is that you Mark Watney?

</comment><comment><USER47> Hey, I read that book too.

</comment><comment><USER48> Potatoes on Mars? Poland _can_ into space!

<comment><USER24> And Latvia! Except once on Mars we find potato is rock halucinated as potato due to starve.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> That headline is not true.

Because we don't actually have potatoes growing on Mars, there is a lot of information we could potentially be missing, like microbes we haven't discovered, effects of the radiation and little atmosphere, or (going for an extreme example here) a rabbit-like creature that we have never been able to detect yet, that eats the potatoes while we're not watching.

What we've accomplished with this experiment is only to "Grow potatoes in the closest approximation to Mars setting that some scientists thought of".</comment>


GDPR Documents: Your Right to be Informed and Erased - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/good-lly/gdpr-documents <comment><USER2> If someone took a leaked dataset, like for example the Dixons Carphone leak with 1.2 million records with personal info, then generated 1.2 million letters using the template from this repo, that would make for an interesting DoS attack.

With that in mind, a big blast is also easy to filter out.

Perhaps, instead of sending them all at once, you sent a random number from 1 to 100 per day, every day, indefinitely. No way to filter out the bogus requests, forced work for the company, and unknown consequences of having these people emailed about their private information usage. Chaotic good or chaotic evil? I have my opinion.

<comment><USER3> Companies not only can, but are actually required, to verify your identity before giving out data. They can just send a template email with the necessary steps to verify it, and only do the work when that is done.

<comment><USER2> People getting letters / emails about verifying their identity with a company would be a perfect outcome depending on your goal.

<comment><USER3> What would that gain, compared to e.g. using the "reset password" form that most sites have now?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's probably not very useful to ask for too much, in a generic manner. My approach is to ask about what is not obvious or answerable by reading the privacy policy.

For example source of particular data point that I have not given myself (like phone number, etc.), and that is not publicly available.

Most of the answers to questions in the access request are usually available on the comapny's website already. And if you send generic sounding e-mail, you'll get a generic reply to read the privacy policy.

</comment><comment><USER5> So when will we be able to delete hacker news accounts?

<comment><USER6> Probably the same time HN gets a "this site has cookies" popup.

<comment><USER7> Why would HN need one? HN only uses a session cookie, placed when you log in, which falls under legitimate interest (as there's no other way to provide their service overall).

I wish the idea that all cookies require disclosure would die. Cookies don't require disclosure per-se. Stalking and tracking, regardless of method (whether it's a cookie, a token in the URL, in local storage, browser fingerprinting, etc) requires consent - cookies for functional purposes (hint: stalking doesn't count) don't require consent.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Has anyone here made a request for their information under the GDPR laws? I'm curious about what they received back. I'm specifically curious regarding the FAANG companies, and what kind of responses people have received from companies which so directly profit from customer data. Forgive any naïveté regarding the implementation of the laws if they have a built-in mechanism to defeat this, but I'd imagine that the companies would make the entire process as arbitrarily difficult as they legally could.

Also, as a non-EU resident, do I have any ability to make such a request? I suppose the answer is 'no' from a strictly legal standpoint, but is it possible in practice? Or will the company require a comprehensive verification process that precludes such illegitimate requests.

<comment><USER9> I would advice companies to also answer requests from non-EU residents. There is no discrimination between EU citizens and non-EU citizens in the Articles.

<comment><USER8> Thank you for pointing that out. I'll have a look for myself and based on what I see I might send request in anyway. At very least I'll be able to definitively conclude what the response of these companies will be.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> A sibling repo to collect anonymised datasets would be superb. Or does that exist already?

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't know any. But would support anything like that.

What we plan now is to finalize erase request, start translations into the most of European languages as well as create some static page for generating those PDFs via entering data via form ... (list of authorities to report would be also great - because, from my experience, most of the results of the request were fails (from the company side))</comment></comment>


How do I approach functional languages? - <AUTHOR>

tl;dr  how do I approach learning a functional language for real-world development where I can get my hands dirty quickly without much setup and can work without a heavy IDE to facilitate development? What language do you recommend?
--
Having read several older articles (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2413816) and blog posts (http://japgolly.blogspot.com/2014/06/a-year-of-functional-programming.html), I've become more interested in attempting to learn - and I mean really learn - a functional language.
I'm having to learn Scala for work, but I don't really care for how much setup I have to go through to get a project going. Maybe I'm doing things the wrong way, but first-time setup of sbt (downloading all of the jars) and frameworks like Play irritate me simply because I want to get up and running quickly. Managing dependencies and working with what feels like embedded Maven syntax does not exactly excite me, mostly because I am not too familiar with Maven itself.
I'm trying to avoid losing interest, which typically comes about from uninteresting "Hello World" examples and annoying toolchain setup (usually around JVM-based languages). I have seen some really amazing work done through the JVM, but I always see developers using either a) Eclipse or b) IntelliJ as their work environment to manage all of the project-related material.
Which leads me to my last bit of background... I'm a terminal vim guy. I really enjoyed using it when I was introduced to it in academia and continued to use it ever since. Because of this, I found myself using a more terminal-oriented environment: XMonad as my window manager, rxvt as my terminal, vim plugins like Ctrlp for quick navigation between material, etc.
I've seen a lot of smart people on this site and am hoping to poke you for advice. I'd love to be able to use what I learn at work and also pass on what I learn to others. <comment><USER2> I'm not a fan of Scala and I absolutely loath sbt, but I absolutely recommend the FP Coursera Functional Programming Principles course[1] that uses both of them. There's an edition already running now but close to the end, however you can still join and work through it. Because it's an online course you'll find other people also working through it and, depending on where you're based, maybe some real world study groups as well.

I'd argue that the pain of downloading jars with JMV isn't that bad. Sure, it's a real pita to download them, but afterwards they're cached and immediately available. Also, if you're using Scala or Clojure then it's really easy to jump into the repl and start playing with the language.

If you're looking for "real world" fp then those may be your best bet. Haskell is a beautiful language and becoming a lot more real-world, especially compared to it's history and reputation as only an academic language. I'm not really a Haskell expert but I worked through Learn You a Haskell for Great Good [2] and found it to be one of the most enjoyable texts about a PL that I've ever found. You can read it all online for free or buy it in real-world book form.

As well as those I've worked through SICP in Racket (a lisp), SICP is a classic and well worth taking a look at even if you don't want to lisp.

I've written in all of the above with Emacs where there's great support, I'm sure there are vim equivalents of the language support, although I'll have to rely on some other HNer to point them out.

Finally, elements of FP are seeping through into non-fp languages, you can already see them in Java 8, C#, JS, Python, Ruby and more. No one can really call these languages FP languages, but if you know some of them then it might make jumping into FP seem a little less alien.

[1] [https://www.coursera.org/course/progfun](https://www.coursera.org/course/progfun) [2] [http://learnyouahaskell.com/](http://learnyouahaskell.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the comment! I wish this site let initial posts be more than 2000 characters so I could have gone into more detail.

The main reason I am hesitant to work with Scala/SBT is because I've been using Docker to package/deploy a lot of the web applications I've written. Since Docker is a one-or-nothing for each line you execute, I am getting either all of the dependencies installed at once (which takes awhile the first time) or - if something fails - I get none of them. The caching that sbt offers is basically thrown out, which is really frustrating.

There's that, but I also just don't like how much weight there seems to be with Scala because of all of the large jars I have to download to do anything. At least, that's what it feels like for me.

So, I'm not sure what specific language you would recommend. You indicated that Scala/Clojure aren't too bad and offer repls to start playing, but how hard are they to really set up for a decent-sized project? One team that I'm working with has used Clojure for DSL-related work, but mostly use Java for their main application.

Haskell is the language that I've been reading about recently that seems to have more "meat" available each year (from Hackage), which is encouraging. Everyone (including yourself!) claims that it is a beautiful language, and quite a few believe that learning Haskell - and I mean really learning it - has redefined how they approach software development. That kind of change is what I'm hoping to discover if I delve into a functional language in a big way.

I'd forgotten that I had used DrRacket in academia at one point, but not enough to learn much of it. What exactly makes SICP a classic to you?

As for other languages that are beginning to exude some functional... functionality, I've noticed that (with Java 8 and Ruby), but I'm afraid that I'm not really grasping the strengths of said features. I'm trying to jump into a more functional language to really understand why they can be good and hopefully take away something really meaningful.

Thanks for the links! I'll check them out later today!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Due to the 2000 character limit, I had to trim the above. Here's the excess for those interested.

\--

My experience with functional languages is very limited. My university required one course that delved into both functional (Scheme) and logic (Prolog) languages along with context-free grammars through BNF. Because of the broad range of material, I can safely say that I did not take away much from the course (aside from an awareness of the subjects).

I'm coming from an academic computer engineering background of C and Verilog (embedded system development and software/hardware codesign) as well as an academic computer science background of Java. In my industry work, I've learned some Python, Ruby (Sinatra/Rails), and Javascript (both client-side and server-side through NodeJS).

I'm leaning towards Haskell simply because XMonad was written in it, meaning that I will finally understand my window manager's configuration script. I've also considered Erlang because of how powerful I've heard it is with concurrency (and is one of the best for the actor model).

</comment><comment><USER3> You could install a Clojure environment and try an editor-repl-based tutorial like [https://github.com/swannodette/lt-cljs- tutorial](https://github.com/swannodette/lt-cljs-tutorial)

I highly recommend Lighttable ( [http://www.lighttable.com/](http://www.lighttable.com/) ) as it's a very efficient repl/editor and it will get you up and running in no time (it will install/configure Clojure), but maybe you can find an approaching solution for vim?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the links. Even if I'm a vim guy, I know it isn't realistic to expect everything to work with it. I'll check out the links later today.

Also, is there a reason you jumped to Clojure? Do you have any specific reasons as to why you would recommend it? I'm open to picking up just about any functional language as long as I can use it for more than implementing Fibonacci numbers.

<comment><USER3> I've not jumped in Clojure (yet)... but exposure to functional programming can do you good.

I'm using CoffeeScript (node & angular) currently, but Clojure has transformed the way I code (way less imperatively).

My only problem with Clojure: its syntax doesn't help _me_ understand structure... so _to me_ , Clojure is difficult to read.

But if you're prepared to think differently, you can learn how with a functional programming language, then apply everywhere...

Note: I've used Scala, I do like it, but it didn't make me a fp programmer... I guess I should give it another try someday. I prefer its syntax (over Clojure), except for types (and occasional syntax ambiguities). It was a mixed Java/Scala project, so I didn't use Scala collections much...

<comment><AUTHOR> Those were my fears with sticking with something like Scala. I just know I would fall back on imperative programming rather than being forced to understand functional programming.

Scala itself doesn't seem bad, but my gripe is just getting a working project set up. With sbt, I know I have to create a few files just to get up and running. Not knowing Maven syntax - can be embedded in sbt, I think - or sbt itself, I don't find it appealing to learn that kind of tooling outside of work.

<comment><USER3> I used Scala for a project of mine, and I relied on Eclipse for the build environment... I didn't use sbt directly, and incremental compilation was very fast.

I've recommended Lighttable because it's a very dynamic editor: it has a REPL, it can evaluate every line you type. It makes it easier to learn: no apparent compilation.

I dream of using Lighttable to develop something... Check this video: it's in Javascript, but it shows why Lighttable is so amazing ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52SVAMM3V78](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52SVAMM3V78))</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Army kicks off construction of $1.2 billion NSA cybersecurity center - <AUTHOR> http://www.infosecurity-us.com/view/14947/army-kicks-off-construction-of-12-billion-nsa-cybersecurity-center/ <comment><USER2> No word yet on how much it will pay for the large lidless eye wreathed in flame that will tower over the new facility.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is big news here locally in the SLC area. They've had huge contractor open houses at the site for people who want to bid on the projects and stuff.

I hope it brings with it an uptick in the local tech sector, too. Not that things are bad around here, we've got tons of ex-Novell, ex-Word Perfect graybeards and their associated wisdom, Adobe nee Omniture, Mozy and a whole host of other good stuff going on, but it'd be neat if we could kick it up a notch.

</comment><comment><USER4> interesting to see one branch of the government that isn't getting budget cuts :P

<comment><USER5> How can you tell? The "black budget" is hidden in various DoD line items.

<comment><USER6> Because you can look at the sum total of DOD line items. Bamford has done a lot of research into deciphering this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Disgusting. Just another stimulus coruptis jobs program and further take over of the internet. The private sector can handle it's own cyber security better faster and cheaper than the government ever could. Where do people get the idea that communism (government) can do anything better than capitalism? Call your congressman and senator and tell him or her to stop all the wars. That will do more for our security than a thousand government cyber centers. Also ask him to cut the federal government by 2/3, that will fix the economy more than all the stimuli and bailouts combined.

<comment><USER8> I'm all for being skeptical of the government getting control of the internet, but you quickly lost me with your communism vs. capitalism rant. We don't need hyperbole here.</comment></comment>


GCC 4.7 adds transactional memory extensions for C/C++ - <AUTHOR> http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/TransactionalMemory

<comment><USER2> On a related note, the cilkplus branch of Gcc 4.7 contains the cilk work- stealing multithreading runtime and language extension that intel has open sourced. [http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-cilk-plus- spe...](http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-cilk-plus- specification/)

Exciting times ahead.

<comment><USER3> cilk is definitely cool, but i don't think it makes designing parallel programs any easier, it just removes a lot of boilerplate. I have worked with similar infrastructures (not the language support) and found it to be extremely difficult. I looked into cilk and I don't think that the language support would have been a game changer. Does anyone have experience with cilk? What have been your experiences?

<comment><USER4> How do you know all of this if you haven't tried it? I think you'll find Cilk a lot more polished and refined then you might at first realize. Having language level support for fine-grained parallelism together with a provably efficient scheduler is a huge win.

But you'll have to be more specific with your complaints. What kind of parallel programs are you trying to design? What similar infrastructures have you worked with?

<comment><USER3> I was working with a small library that i implemented (with help) on a grad school research project. We were experimenting with various low level techniques/approaches to how one would implement an operating system for a 1000+ core chip. We were experimenting with memory management and scheduling designs. In order to test our designs we wrote a number of toy benchmark programs. Basically the typical set: merge_sort, fft, mat_mult, kmeans.... We ended up with a programming model that is not disimilar to the cilk model, though without the compiler support. So we were manually managing continuation scheduling with latches on atomic variables. This was a somewhat annoying thing to do, but we were able to make it work. I looked at cilk at the time and it definitely would have been nice to have compiler support but i don't think it would have fundamentally changed the way we implemented our algorithms.

<comment><USER5> If you're parallelizing algorithms with divide-and-conquer behavior (recursive algorithms, or anything that forms a tree of tasks and sub-tasks), I think it's a very natural form of parallelism.

I did something similar as a C++ library for my Master's: <http://people.cs.vt.edu/~scschnei/factory/> I felt it was an intuitive way of expressing task parallelism, but if the dependent tasks don't operate on strict subsets of each other's data, I agree it's not much help. If that's the case, then you've successfully _expressed_ the parallelism, but the larger problem remains: synchronized access to data structures.

Of course, transactional memory could help there. (Hey, full circle.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think this is the implementation (pdf article available): <http://www.velox- project.eu/velox-transactional-memory-stack>

They point to the Velox project, which has many published papers. But this paper has Ulrich Drepper of Red Hat as a co-author. Since Drepper is active in glibc, I can imagine he worked with them on integration. The notation in the article also looks like what's shown on the website.

There's plenty of other work that could have gone into this implementation: <http://www.velox-project.eu/publications> There's a full TM system that tries to use idle cores or SMT threads (also known as hyperthreads) for the transactions, called STM2. Then some papers on lock-free techniques, static analysis, and a benchmark suite. There's also what looks like a direct response infamous "STM: Why Is It Only a Research Toy?" (<http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=1454466>) article: <http://www.velox- project.eu/why-stm-can-be-more-research-toy>

I don't know for sure, of course. The STM2 paper published at PACT of this year also looks interesting. Email me if you'd like to read it.

Edit: the paper I linked to at the top says it's implemented in gcc.

</comment><comment><USER6> Is this the first step towards a GCC that would have all the features of Clojure? That would be incredibly useful to me for one - I love Clojure but just cannot make any sense of what the JVM tells me when I screw up.

<comment><USER7> The short answer is no, STM is only a small (and some smart people suggest overrated) part of Clojure infrastructure.

But the Deep Thinkers in the Clojure community feel your stack trace pain, and now that 1.3 is in the can it seems to me that there was renewed enthusiasm at Conj for doing something about debugging clarity. You shouldn't give up hope yet.

<comment><USER8> In the meantime, I'd recommend installing clj-stacktrace as a leiningen plugin. It's far from perfection, but it's an improvement. There's a technomancy article describing how to do it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> <http://nickclifton.livejournal.com/9501.html>

"The support implements and tracks the Linux variant of Intel's Transactional Memory ABI specification document. Currently this is at revision 1.1, (May 6 2009). For more information see:

[http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-c-stm- compile...](http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-c-stm-compiler- prototype-edition/) "

</comment><comment><USER10> i have a _fundamental_ question regarding stm in general: for 'manual' locking, we need to worry about dead-locks, for stm, i _feel_ live-lock would be more sinister, and extremely hard to debug/reason about. not to mention the fact that, it would make client code non-composable as the transaction size or the system load increases.

or am i missing something ? thanks for your insights !

<comment><USER11> Two points to bear in mind:

1\. If live locks are a problem coming from load, rather than bad interactions between components, you are likely to have a choice between (i) pessimistic, where most threads do nothing vs. (ii) optimistic, where most threads do work that gets thrown away. In practice, optimistic tends to be faster, because it is not better to do nothing than do worthless work and the committer is working with the results of successful computations, where the locking algorithm doesn't know which computations might not work out;

2\. Extremely hard to reason about is just how it is with threads. I haven't done enough concurrent programming to really say, but the optimistic commit model seems to be more intuitive than the pessimistic lock mode. Peyton Jones makes this point forcefully in _Beautiful Concurrency_ <http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/74063/beautiful.pdf>

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I was hoping for more information on how they implement it.. there's nothing in there about which hardware facilities they use, and they say that at worst STM is a global lock for the process.

Hopefully they're at least using some kind of compiler analysis to only use the same lock across transactions if it's touching the same memory addresses (pessimistically of course)?

<comment><USER13> GCC will probably not use any specific hardware facilities, which means this is probably going to be implemented with regular atomic operations.

Within a transaction block, the results of all reads are stored (to a local, hidden variable). When the transaction is about to finish, all reads are repeated and if any of them yields a different result, the transaction is restarted. When the transaction is committed, there will likely be some kind of a global lock (that will be held for a very small time).

As GCC probably doesn't require any kind of threading or locking, it's most likely that the write lock will be a spinlock using an atomic read-modify- write and some kind of yield instruction (monitor/mwait on new cpu's, pause on older).

As far as I can see, there really aren't lots of other methods to implement STM, especially from within the C compiler.

<comment><USER14> Since you can't do all reads in one atomic instruction and you also need to make it atomic with the write (CAS), wouldn't that still require a lock for the whole operation?

<comment><USER15> As long as you write to separate parts of memory and are cautious with freeing memory you don't need locks for reads.

<comment><USER14> How can you make sure there are no writes to the memory you are reading from?

<comment><USER15> Don't write to the same location. Everything needs to be a pointer, but updating pointers is an atomic operation. aka assume a is an integer.

      a->(0x00010001)->5
      a->(0x00030001)->6

You can keep reading 0x00010001 and getting 5 all day even as a is "actually' 6. This also works with strings or objects etc, the only downside is you tend to eat up a far amount of memory, and you need to avoid freeing 0x00010001 when something still thinks a's value is stored there.

<comment><USER14> You can still not read or write to more than 2 pointers atomically on x86_64 so my question remains.

<comment><USER15> All you need to do is read the location that pointer points to as an atomic operation. So allocating a 50kb string would work in the same way as long as you could store it in a specific processes memory.

      PX a=(0x00010001) //which points to 5
      P0 x0=a=(0x00010001) //which points to 5
      P1 y0=a
      P1 pointer y1=0
      P1 y1 = malloc(sizeof(int))
      P2 x1=a=(0x00010001) //which points to 5
      P1 *y = *y0 + 1 //aka 6
      p3 x2=a=(0x00010001) //which points to 5
      P1 a=y //you could do a lock to verify that a == (0x00010001) but if you don't care about dirty writes then then you can also do this as an atomic operation.
      p3 x3=a=(0x00030001)//which points to 6

And once x0,x1,x2 stop pointing to (0x00010001) you can free that memory. The assumption is xN and yN is a process specific local variable preferably a register.

<comment><USER14> I couldn't really follow your example. I can't see how this solves race conditions where multiple threads can intermingle those instructions at will. That's the basic problem with lock-free algorithms.

Did you maybe suggest to add one more indirection so all variables in a transaction are in one memory block behind a single pointer which can be atomically updated to newly allocated code?

I wonder what the overhead of that would be. All the allocations plus either keeping track of references or doing garbage collection...

<comment><USER15> Sorry, I will try and be more clear there are some good descriptions of this technique on the web but I can't remember what it's called. Still you have the basic idea and it's downsides. Still normally your dealing with larger objects so the overhead is a little different.

Just think about how a you normally work with objects. Normally you have a pointer to some allocated memory locationObjectPointer = (x00100) which points to a chunk of memory the size of 3 floats (x,y,z). Now normally when you update x and y you overwrite their memory locations which is fast in single threaded programming but you need to worry about something reading after you update x at (x00100) but before you update y (x00104).

However, if instead of updating in that memory block you created a new object locationObjectPointer2 = (x00600) copy'd what was in the original object and then when your done changed the pointer from the old object to your new one. Well, as you say you have the overhead of keeping track of references or doing garbage collection, but at the same time you can do a vary fast lock when you want to change the pointer and test to see if the object was changed. That test is actually hard to do with most types of memory management systems and normally creates a lot of overhead so it's a trade off.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is pretty cool. Is it done naively and using one global lock, or is it be more intelligent? Can GCC identify what memory location require locking for a given transaction, and lock just those? What is the granularity?

<comment><USER17> It's smarter than a global lock (come on!). I would suggest reading the article which describes the implementation [1].

[1]: <http://www.velox-project.eu/velox-transactional-memory-stack> (courtesy scott_s)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you plan to view family photos is 60 years? - <AUTHOR>

As I change out a failing backup hard drive, I'm wondering what will happen to all of my family photos when I'm 80 years old?  Or when I'm dead and gone?
Will my kids know where they are?  If they're not technical, will they know how to keep moving them to fresher media?  Will I remember to mention it to them once my health starts to fail?  Will file formats, or disk formats, still be readable?  I can't read anything on an 8" disk anymore.
Online/cloud might be an obvious answer now, but will I remember necessary password or email addresses in 40 more years?  And will the photo site still exist?  It will probably get bought and merged, and then the parent gets bought and merged, etc.  Our industry is so young, it's hard to imagine any photo site lasting 50-100 years.  IBM is probably our oldest example, and it is vastly different from who it was 30 years ago.  Where would the photos be if they had had a storage service back in the 80s?
Though doing things on paper is hard to transmit and duplicate, it's pretty easy for it to survive a few hundred years. <comment><USER2> I'm in the process of scanning the family's old film, photos, and converting VHS tapes. I'll save all the original scans, and digital video into a folder which will now become the new originals (old ones still kept and boxed away). This is going to get backed up off-site in case of a house fire.

First off, this is the hardest part. Once everything is digital, keeping a future copy is simple as long as people are interested. I wouldn't worry about file formats too much, just use popular image and video formats, and it'll be easy to access for the foreseeable future.

Things to keep these available...

1\. I'll inform all of my siblings of the files I have backed up, and basically copy them to a large USB key or external drive and label it. If I die, they easily have another copy.

2\. I'm going to issue a copy of the files to my siblings. They might not be quite as tech savy as the HN community, but they take a lot of photos themselves, and they know how to manage them, back them up on drives in folders, etc. The more copies, and more people that have them, the better odds someone will carry them on. I'll also give a copy to my parents and grandparents, simply so they can view them any time.

</comment><comment><USER3> A very good question. Some time ago I've heard that big libraries and archives print digital photos back to film because it is much more durable than the modern media and the picture really exists and is visible. A different problems I have with text files which would seem much less of an issue. But I have already thousands of e-mails and text, how can I be sure that in 40-80 years there will be machines or programs that could read my old text files.

<comment><USER4> > But I have already thousands of e-mails and text, how can I be sure that in > 40-80 years there will be machines or programs that could read my old text > files.

You actually have a much better probability of being able to at least view the contents of the text files on a machine 40-80 years in the future than if the same data was in some other format. I.e., try to find a way today to read an old WordStar, WordPerfect, or XYWrite file from the dos world. And those programs are not yet 40 years old... Yet a same age ASCII text file (assuming you migrated it off of floppies along the way) is still readable.

<comment><USER5> Assuming you can read the media, it's actually not hard to read old _DOS_ word processing formats on modern PCs: both software and services exist to convert them, and, worst-case scenario, you can still run old DOS word processing software on modern PCs through virtualization and emulation.

Wang WPS files on open-reel tape, say, or Locoscript files on Amstrad 3" (not 3.5"!) floppies, are admittedly much harder to convert, but by no means impossible. Worst-case scenario, firms exist that'll convert things like this as a service.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> During the transition period between the old media and the new, they'll have the opportunity to transfer everything.

We had VHS tapes for our family videos. Now we have them as video compressed with h264. If that format is getting phased out, we'll just transfer to the latest format. Some degradation may occur when switching codecs, just like when transferring from VHS to digital, but that's fair.

You don't have to come up with a solution that lasts 80 years. You just need to survive 10-20 years until you transfer to the next media that makes sense for you. Keep redundant copies off-site.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's what I've been doing, but it requires: 1\. Know-how : my wife couldn't do this 2\. Know where : finding digital photos is harder than a physical album, especially for a non-techie (again, my wife has no idea where photos are stored, she just uses a short cut I set up for her, if I remember to do it). Kids don't know or care right now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I try to keep multiple copies of digital pictures and occasionally I use a Fujifilm Instax camera to take instant photos (which should last a few decades if treated properly - but it's a bit of a gamble, since noone I know has convincing arguments to support that claim).

For exceptionally good photos, I'm considering prints on aluminum. These should last 50 years or longer with a little less care than Polaroids/Instax (i.e. they can be exposed to light).

</comment><comment><USER8> My wife occasionally gets those hardcover albums printed up. I suspect that collection will require, and barring a fire will carry in.

I do pretty well and backups of our ever growing photo collection (about 100gb) now. But at some point I may hit an age or health state where I don't care. I guess I can hope one of my kids will have an interest.

Really I should trim that photo collection down to a must have set.

</comment><comment><USER9> This seems like a perfect use case for print your own book services. You could create a book with a family tree, organize photos by history and have captions and titles, and have copies to give to family. One day historians may discover your family book and learn something about our time.

</comment><comment><USER10> A guy came into my class and talked about his product, [http://liveon.com](http://liveon.com).

I haven't personally looked into it, and it looks like they are still testing, but this seems to answer your question.

</comment><comment><USER11> Dropbox keeps stuff synced between drives, so my files are on the hard drives of multiple devices and on their servers. Every time I get a new device, new copies are made.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm a programmer and my wife is a qualified paper conservator. A year or so ago I registered materialsonpaper.com with the idea that it could combine our two skillsets.

I envisioned a service where we'd help you curate your digital photos (and other important documents), print them on archival paper, and box them in a way that will keep them cool and well cared for and then post back to you. We also contemplated that we might also provide storage services for a second copy.

Would anybody here be interested in such a service?

</comment><comment><USER13> Consider making prints on archival paper. Although this seems "lo-tech" making 20 prints a year for 40 years would give you 8 volumes of 100 images. That would be a nice archive, not so unweildy as to be a problem, yet also readily shared and visually inventoried.

The issue of even file-formats is problematic when it comes to digital images. One has to ask are NEF and CR2 files going to be infinitely readable? Are canon and nikon themselves going to last 40 years? And if so, provide backward compatibility? and if Not, when and where and to what quality should we trandfer the information to something more archival?

It's not clear at all. So I think this is a great question to ask, consider, and ponder solutions for.

<comment><USER14> Archival prints are great, and I agree that this seems like the best way to pas on your images after you die. However, I don't think there's going to be a problem with most RAW formats as long as computers can compile and run dcraw.

It seems like the most archival storage for images is to just write the uncompressed pixel data, width, height etc... to a file. Something like PPM, I guess.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> If you want paper pictures to persist for decades, you have to be careful about how you store them--a hot attic, or damp basement, can destroy prints or slides over that timespan.

So, you need to be careful with digital pictures too. Keep copies locally and remotely, and carefully keep track of passwords for hosted services.

This is not just limited to pictures. How do you manage your finances? Do you have the passwords stored in a place where your family can get to them in an emergency?

<comment><USER16> _How do you manage your finances?_

An interesting, and probably useful, comparison. I would not expect to even try to set up my finances to persist indefinitely beyond my lifetime; I would hand that responsibility over to my children. If the banks I had used went out of business, they would need to take action to move the money to different banks.

I can do my best to maintain photo backups, either film or digital, but there's no plausible way to set up backups that last forever without eventually turning stewardship of those backups over to someone else. So rather than setting out to depend on Amazon or Flickr or whatever, understand what makes a backup service reliable in the short term, and pass that understanding on.</comment></comment>


Show HN: hide i3 notifications, workspaces during pomodoro, timer on i3bar - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/kdani3/i3-gnome-pomodoro <comment><AUTHOR> i3-gnome-pomodoro uses dbus to integrate gnome-pomodoro into i3. Currently it supports the following features: \- View timer status in a terminal, and therefore \- Show timer status on i3bar \- Control pomodoro state in a terminal, and therefore \- Control pomodoro state using bindsym (keyboard and mouse shortcuts) \- Optionally suppressing dunst desktop notifications while a pomodoro is active and showing them when the break starts \- Optionally disabling specific workspaces (such as instant messaging) while you are on a pomodoro. - You can still access those workspaces, if you pause the pomodoro. \- Optionally displaying a nagbar warning if you try to access a workspace that you have disabled during your pomodoro.</comment>


Unlogo - The Corporate Identity Media Filter - <AUTHOR> http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/816924031/unlogo-the-corporate-media-filter-0?ref=newsletter&utm_campaign=Oct20&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter

<comment><USER2> Ironically, there is probably a very lucrative commercial market for this technology.

\- Stock video/photo agencies

\- Documentary production

\- Augmented reality

\- "Reality shows" or live broadcasts

The last one I find interesting. We've all seen the superimposed logos on sports broadcasts that project on predetermined surfaces (billboards, behind home plate, etc) but what about random shots of the crowd? Logos on hats, tee shirts and the like will probably be removed/replaced one day at the whim of sponsors.

</comment><comment><USER3> This project and the technology are pretty amazing great work. However, I have a bit of an issue with the idea these logos are intruding on the record of our lives. Not to get too Ayn Rand on you but A is A, this is the world we live in. Removing - censoring? - logos from record is whitewashing the real world.

I'm a big fan of ads from the 50s and 60s what if this technology existed then? A large record of the vernacular of the time could have been wiped from existence. There would be no 'Mad Men' - what would I watch on sunday night? :)

Don't get me wrong as art this is fantastic, but I'll keep the record of my life fully intact even if it includes Coke logos at my son's birthday party.

<comment><USER4> _I'm a big fan of ads from the 50s and 60s what if this technology existed then?_

It'd have been as little used as this will eventually be with no significant effect to the advertising industry.

(I mean this in a non-derogatory sense. It might eventually be used on even a lot of TV programmes, but in the grand scheme of things, we're not going to be wiping the record of advertising from the face of the earth forthwith with this.)

<comment><USER5> But some tv shows already obscure logos. This would just automate the process.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Interesting OpenCV filters

[http://code.google.com/p/unlogo/source/browse/trunk/projects...](http://code.google.com/p/unlogo/source/browse/trunk/projects/flowfinder/src/flowfinder.cpp)

</comment><comment><USER7> Do you have to pay "hoisting bills" to pull the replacement images into place? ;-)</comment>


Security things in Linux v4.12 - <AUTHOR> https://outflux.net/blog/archives/2017/07/10/security-things-in-linux-v4-12/ <comment><USER2> Wow, these posts are _great_. Follow the links at the top and you'll see the go all the way back to at least 4.3. It's a bit of a rabbit hole; be careful if you're in the middle of something important before starting to read.</comment>


Cross-browser add-ons are a reality with Trigger.io (Zemanta example) - <AUTHOR> http://trigger.io/cross-platform-application-development-blog/2012/07/26/zemanta-takes-their-browser-add-on-across-platforms-with-trigger-io/

<comment><USER2> Holy hell I wish this existed when I wrote addons for Safari, Chrome, and Firefox. Just the idea of IE support with no extra work is awesome - and the idea of having a single codebase is great too. I tried to modularize as many components of my addons as possible to make them all easy to update but it just wasn't perfect. I went as far as building a messaging class to extend for the communication across platforms and boy was that a hack and a half. DEFINITELY trying this out next time I'm building an addon!

</comment><comment><USER3> Building browser extensions with trigger's tools is really straightforward if you're familiar with Chrome/Safari/Opera/...'s extension api.

The most surprising thing for us was that IE extension mostly(3 lines of IE specific code) just worked.(Before that we had a huge black box of code that nobody dared to touch.)

I'd love to write a long post about our experience but there is nothing special to say. It works and it's great.

</comment><comment><USER4> Been using crossrider for the last couple of months. They've been doing a pretty good job as well(yup, not having to write the IE plugin is an absolute godsend!). Good to have an alternative though, I'll definitely be taking a look at trigger.io</comment>


Jigsaw - <AUTHOR> https://jigsaw.google.com/ <comment><USER2> Trying not to sound too pessimistic, but none of these projects seem to be revolutionary or add anything to existing solutions.

There's DDoS protection, A phishing extension, VPN, an android app for DNS?

The machine learning of comments could be useful for machine interpreted language, so there's that.</comment>


Sitting on gas lift chairs can generate an EMI spike which blanks your monitor - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/royvanrijn/status/1214162400666103808 <comment><USER2> White paper linked in the linked display link knowledge base article: [http://www.emcesd.com/pdf/eos93.pdf](http://www.emcesd.com/pdf/eos93.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER3> Previous discussion available here

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21978004](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21978004)</comment>


Gem Manifests - <AUTHOR> http://blog.heroku.com/archives/2009/3/10/gem_manifests/ <comment><USER2> This is really powerful. I just installed a git-based CMS shinmun using this.

And, it works like a charm - <http://www.siong1987.com>.

But, I still don't know how to point my root domain to heroku. I personally think that this is one of the most important feature that Heroku must implement right now. (if heroku already has this feature now, please let me know. I am currently forwarding my root domain to my www alias.)

Imagine a web hosting company that doesn't allow you to have your own root domain. How awful it is.

</comment><comment><USER3> Those Heroku guys are amazing! ;-)</comment>


Rich Hickey on Functors in C++ (1994) - <AUTHOR> http://www.tutok.sk/fastgl/callback.html <comment><USER2> I know everyone here knows Rich Hickey from Clojure, but I'm a C/C++ programmer from the '90s and I primarily know him for "Hickey functors", which were the de facto standard way of doing object-oriented callbacks in C++.

Also, while I am sure they were for the time a near-optimal solution, they are f'ing gross, so "Hickey functor" is a bit of an epithet. "Oh well, better than Hickey functors" was a justification for a lot of Gang-of-four pattern goop in my C++ code.

<comment><USER3> The right thing is what is here being called a "bound pointer". It is actually the correct implementation of a closure: a code pointer paired with a data pointer, where only the code in question needs to know the type of the data pointer.

I proposed it to Stroustrup et al. in 1992, but was ignored.

I don't recall their rationale for rejecting it, but I think time has borne me out.

<comment><USER4> I know from D&E that the C++ committee has a policy of only accepting new features which had an existing implementation and first-hand accounts of using the feature.

<comment><USER5> There was existing implementation in 90s, bound pointers were implemented in Borland C++ Builder (__closure keyword).

<comment><USER4> Then I think it's fair to assume the above poster was not the only person to propose it.

<comment><USER3> I probably wasn't the only one proposing it, but I have no way to know who else might have done so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Just in case anyone forgets this is from 1994(it's in the title!). Typical modern C++ has been using this pattern for quite a while (boost::function / boost::bind) and it is now even part of the standard (std::function / std::bind). So don't go implementing Functor0->Functor9 yourself!

It is always nice though to see how C++ has grown after so many years and clearly still has staying power for even new projects.

</comment><comment><USER7> Back in the 90s Borland extended their C++ compiler to support what he refers to as "bound pointers", which was used with their mostly excellent Windows SDK for C++ and Delphi.

        myButton->onClick = controller->showAboutBox;

</comment><comment><USER8> Is this in response the recent article with C++0x, Stepanov and Functors with a nod to Haskell?

<comment><USER9> I'm kinda out of my depth here, as I know next to nothing about C++, but I'm pretty sure it's not. These functors are fundamentally different thing (first- class function object?) from what that other article and what Haskell calls functors (container that can be mapped over).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is what I normally use. It's not as good as a language that has truly decent support for callbacks, but it's a darn sight better than vanilla C++.

</comment><comment><USER11> No wonder Hickey ditched C++.</comment>


On ethical hacking, colored hats and hacktivism - <AUTHOR> http://www.ihackforfun.eu/index.php?title=on-ethical-hacking-colored-hats

<comment><USER2> Thanks for submitting, bit may I kindly ask that you stop posting submissions of your own content? You have 14 submissions in your history, all to your own blog. Almost none of these have any votes. You're not doing yourself any favors, and your strategy doesn't seem to be working anyway.

If your content is considered interesting and worth posting, someone else will do it for you.

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually I had no idea this was 'not done', even though I do not get a lot of votes if I look at my statistics I have more then 1500 views coming from the different HN websites that remained on my website for longer than 10 seconds (all the others are simply not counted since I consider them not to read the blog anyways). I had read the posting guidelines and they make no mention of your comment so I invite others to come to your support, if any other users feel the same way you do then of course I will cease to post my own articles.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Www.cz2.co.uk - <AUTHOR> thoughts? <comment><USER2>
      > "Price starts at $1000 per asset per month"

What exactly is an asset?</comment>


Yahoo.com redirects to mobile site on linux chrome - <AUTHOR>

Visiting http://www.yahoo.com on chrome (version 18.0.1025.151) on linux redirects to: http://m.yahoo.com/?.tsrc=yahoo&mobile_view_default=true <comment><USER2> Works fine for me using Chrome version 23.0.1271.64 on Ubuntu 12.04.

</comment><comment><USER3> Works fine here as well.

Chrome Version 23.0.1271.64 / Ubuntu 12.04</comment>


Yuri Milner's Fundamental Physics Prize - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/node/21559827/email <comment><USER2> The NYTimes coverage mentioned that the entire $3 million prize was immediately wired to the bank account of a surprised winner ([http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/31/science/9-scientists- win-y...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/31/science/9-scientists-win-yuri- milners-fundamental-physics-prize.html)). Just imagine the email leading up to that:

 _I represent Russian billionaire holding $3 million in unclaimed physics prizes for you. Please provide your bank and identity details to receive funds._

</comment><comment><USER3> On one hand - Yay!

150k for struggling startups - Horay!

On the other hand he is a close business associate of Alisher Usmanov, who's commonly considered to be, basically, _the_ mafia boss of modern Russia.

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

<comment><USER4> Usmanov owns 32% of Digital Sky Technologies which in turn has investments in Zynga, Groupon, Facebook, Airbnb and has strong ties to Goldman Sachs. (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Sky_Technologies>, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alisher_Usmanov>)

If your allegations are true... I'm sorry, I can't finish this sentence.

<comment><USER5> Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they are not out to get you...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It'd be really nice if articles like this actually linked to the website for what they're talking about.

It's <http://www.fundamentalphysicsprize.org> for the record.

</comment><comment><USER7> For context, this is the same Yuri Milner that invests $150k in every start-up who completes the YC program.

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

<comment><USER8> And the same Yuri Milner that owns significant stakes in Facebook, Twitter, Zynga, Spotify, and Groupon...

<comment><USER7> I felt that the article glossed over his accomplishments in the tech community. It reads like theoretical physics PhD somehow got rich, and is now awarding a fundamental physics prize.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> You can criticize this guy, but what he does with his money is actually moving us forward. I have a huge respect for him and his innovative ideas.

</comment><comment><USER10> I like the unofficial contest to see which internet billionaire can invest the most in basic research.

</comment><comment><USER11> This is quite interesting. Since it's more money than the Nobel, it seems like it has a shot at becoming more prestigious.

<comment><USER12> Prizes like that are prestigious because of history and because everybody knows about them. I don't think the money attached to the prize has as big of an effect as the history.

For a concrete example, the Fields Medal is better known than the Abel Prize despite the fact that it only comes with $15,000 to the Abel Prize's ~$1m.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've always wondered why someone didn't do this. It can be cheaper to endow a gift that trumps the Nobel than to endow a top business school.

University of Chicago sold the name Booth for a $300 million stake in a fund company. The Nobel pays $1.2 million per year. Milner just gave $27 million, which discounted to perpetuity at 5% is $540 million, but he could have had a similar impact for half the cost.

</comment><comment><USER14> I love this guy. First he shakes up Silicon Valley investing, now he is moving to high-quality research.

The most beautiful thing about his approaches to both, is that they are high- impact, high-leverage. In the investing case, he outsources all the filtering work to YC.

In this case, he will outsource the selection work to past laureates.

Brilliant!

</comment><comment><USER15> Juan Martín Maldacena, an Argentinian between the winners <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Mart%C3%ADn_Maldacena>

</comment><comment><USER16> Pardon me for my bad English, why are they call him a dullard? Isn't it synonym for the "moron"?

<comment><USER17> The quote is, "On July 31 Mr Milner, by no means a dullard, announced..."

That is, they're saying he's _not_ a dullard. I can understand how the phrase "by no means a" could be confusing for someone new to English.

<comment><USER16> Thank you

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's a bit like the worlds best lottery. To enter you devise a method that can generate lots of numbers. And then whoever has the numbers that match reality the best, wins $3 million dollars, a big desk and a really comfy chair.

<comment><USER19> Except the numbers got to be useful in making predictions about how the world will behave in the future. So, only a little bit like a lottery... a very small, tiny little bit.

<comment><USER20> But, if you figure out how to predict random numbers, you can win the actual lottery! Who needs this prize, when there's real money to be made?

<comment><USER10> Like these MIT students: [http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/computer- scientists-g...](http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/computer-scientists- gamed-massachusetts-cash-winfall-lottery-to-win-millions/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Awesome!

</comment><comment><USER22> Bravo! _cracks open physics text_</comment>


Reverse non-disclosure for potential employer - <AUTHOR>

I am a ruby on rails developer that has some sites currently in private beta.  I am looking for some part time word and wondering, what would be the best way to protect myself legally and allow a potential employer to view my work?  Is there some sort of non-disclosure agreement that I could have them sign? <comment><USER2> It's a good idea to get them to sign a non-disclosure and asking to do so demonstrates that you have something worth reviewing. Most non-disclosures I've seen protect both parties. You could offer to bring your own form to the table, but a lot of larger companies like to use their own.</comment>