Mass snooping fake mobile towers 'uncovered in UK' - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33076527 <comment><USER2> The Mets stance on this to me seals any doubt about their involvement in deploying these boxes. I've been watching developments in the surveillance state in the UK with some concern, this just puts the final nail in the coffin.

You can't defend such dragnet surveillance techniques as 'terrorist prevention'. How can I make a difference?

I don't want my country to become America 2.0 (It's already starting to look like that with water cannons on standby, internet filtering and now this).

<comment><USER3> No offense, but I always thought the UK is surveillance state #1 in the world and the US follows a close second. Why? There is no country in the world with more public surveillance cameras, and they were always playing ball with the US when it came to mass collection of citizens data.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, agreed.

Having spent half my life in one and half in the other it is very interesting to compare the different ways in which attitudes to privacy and personal integrity are violated.

In the UK it is normal for everything to be surveilled. CCTV on every corner and every road etc. To someone with a "rugged individualist" US attitude this is appalling. "What, what, you're going to give me a speeding ticket and you didn't even have to catch me doing it? WTF, that's not cool."

Yet in the US it is rather normal for people in authority to kill someone when the target is running away or convicted of a crime. To the UK attitude this is barbarous.

How it feels to me is that the UK tends to co-opt a lot of modern US ideas badly: without empathy or sympathy or respect for individual rights. In the US it feels like there is at least some measure of collective guilt (or at least shame) over surveillance whereas in the UK those doing it are either gleeful or at least remorseless.

<comment><USER5> > in the US it is rather normal for people in authority to kill someone when > the target is running away or convicted of a crime

Oh shove off.

<comment><USER6> It seems to be quite a common perception of the US here in the UK. It's a shock seeing police with guns in the US and there's lots of articles like

[http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/09/the- counted-p...](http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/09/the-counted- police-killings-us-vs-other-countries)

"England/Wales: 55 fatal police shootings in the last 24 years" "US: 59 fatal police shootings in the first 24 days of 2015"

<comment><USER7> I've commented about this before[0] but figured I'd add: it's not the fact that police carry guns, it's the way that they use them. To paraphrase my other comment, Australian police also carry guns and yet the number of people shot dead by police is 0.25/million people/year compared to 1.25/million people/year in the USA.

Perhaps this is driven by the large amount of gun ownership and gun crime in the US, but I suspect it also comes down to cultural differences between police in the two countries.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8890386](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8890386)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Met Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe told Sky News: "We're not going to talk > about it, because the only people who benefit are the other side, and I see > no reason in giving away that sort of thing."

Apply the same logic to the justice system and courts would operate behind closed doors.

The public needs to know because it is the public who is supposed to oversee the authorities via the polling booth. The public should be able to assess whether the supposed benefits of this practice are valid and decide whether they want their privacy violated in order to get these benefits.

<comment><USER9> >Apply the same logic to the justice system and courts would operate behind closed doors.

That has already happened: [http://www.theguardian.com/law/2013/jun/14/what- are-secret-c...](http://www.theguardian.com/law/2013/jun/14/what-are-secret- courts)

<comment><USER10> Yup. They quashed all powerful opposition to this pretty brutally. Ended a close family friend's career as a high court judge and suicided his wife, as he vehemently opposed this. You'll know him as a pedophilia apologist from the press. Court transcripts tell a very different story.

Dark times.

<comment><USER11> Most of the press play a big part in supporting this kind of nastiness, sadly.

<comment><USER10> And it comes from the highest possible levels - or at least so it appears - the BBC and many other outlets carried a video-bite of David Cameron condemning the poor man.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is this why mobile phone data access is so shit in london?

<comment><USER13> Upvote for funny.

Its pretty ok on O2 4G for me. Everything else seems congested.

<comment><USER14> Same experience, on 3G with Three it's shody at best, but with EE 4G I get 30 to 40Mbps

<comment><USER15> We have noticed a _very_ striking degradation in performance of all our 3G connections (multiple work and personal ones, on multiple mobile networks) in recent years, with a particularly obvious drop around the time 4G became a big deal. It could just be coincidental of course, because obviously in terms of radio signals they shouldn't interfere. However, our more cynical parts can't help wondering whether resources previously used to support 3G networks are being redirected over time towards the new and more profitable 4G services, leaving those still using the same 3G at the same price with fewer stations to connect with, less regular maintenance, etc.

<comment><USER16> I noticed something similar, but note OFCOM is allowing operators to use any part of their allocations for 4G services. I'm wondering if they're reusing some of their 2G and 3G bandwidth for 4G services.

<comment><USER15> The standard PR seems to be that network operators claim they aren't doing this and continue to develop their 2G and 3G capacity in parallel, with any degradations in performance being due to supporting increased loads and therefore contention on those 2G and 3G networks.

Meanwhile, just about everybody who actually uses mobile networks seems to tell roughly the same story that I did before, and there seem to have been occasional more rigorous/scientific surveys that showed a definite, measurable drop in service quality on 2G and 3G over the relevant time period.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It's almost guaranteed that whenever something privacy-invading gets uncovered in the US, it shortly is found in the UK too.

If I didn't know better, I'd think the UK government have an 'anything you can do, we can do better' attitude about their orwellian antics.

<comment><USER13> Actually most of it is talk, then a hastily pushed through bill, then a technological measure, then a pile of consultancy, then a pile of tendering, then armies of consultants filing expenses for 5 years, then a royal fuck up due to nothing been delivered, then some resignations and reassignments, then a sudden declaration of success based on something purely coincidental that looked like the first grand idea was the answer.

That is literally every government project here in the UK.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> How about I have something on my phone that verifies I'm connected to an authentic provider tower, and not connect to anything else.

Another thing to think about, if it's happening in the UK, it's probably happening in your own country too.

<comment><USER19> If the Stingray units are only $1000, and if the manufacturing company is prepared to keep purchases confidential as suggested by the OA, I'd imagine these units are being bought by a variety of agencies in many countries.

I'm wondering what they gather: I'm guessing that if I were to walk past one, it would be able to log a unique identifier in my phone. Then I presume it could log future visits to the area. Is this all it is? Same effect as having a CID officer in an unmarked car with a flask and an empty 2.5 litre coke bottle?

<comment><USER20> _Is this all it is? Same effect as having a CID officer in an unmarked car with a flask and an empty 2.5 litre coke bottle?_

There is not much to be learned about pervasive, 24/7 dragnet surveillance from comparing it to one officer in one location. They are completely different concepts with different consequences. An officer can track a few people for a short time. Stingrays and the like can build an ongoing narrative about everyone who passes them, criminal or innocent.

<comment><USER19> Over time yes, I agree.

Factual question: What can Stingray collect? Is it 'device number NNN was in my capture range at 095627 on June 11th 2015' and then the local police have to analyse the data over time? Or can they get more precise location information by triangulating with several Stingrays?

<comment><USER21> Factual Answer: Logging of IMSI (sim card ID) and IMEI (phone ID). Potentially also logging pTMSI (temporary IMSI used over the air), MSISDN (phone number).

You should be able to get good idea of the handsets distance from the station based on timing delay.

As it's acting as a full fake site it could potentially be used to deny service, drain the battery, MiTM outgoing SMS & phone calls, possibly use the E911 provision to request GPS location from the handset too...

<comment><USER19> Thanks - factual is fine

So My Friends in the Met could have a few of these things at sensitive points, and sit there and collect data along the lines of name (via phone number), time, date, location, device ID. Running this for some weeks would allow them to build up a list of people traversing a certain route daily.

Phone/sms could they decrypt the phone calls with the device ID? Seems a lot of data to collect given the number of people passing through many locations in central London.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> After the Snowden leaks, none of this should be surprising. Still makes me cringe though, just to have it confirmed.

</comment><comment><USER23> Last I heard, the Harris Stingrays were licensed for "emergency use only" in the US. So how are these things licensed in the UK?

<comment><USER24> Emergancy use in the US (I'm not sure if this has changed) has in practice meant very liberal use and sometimes statewide blanket coverage (e.g. Florida).

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Are there any ways to ensure your phone is not interacting with a Stingray device?

It was not long ago that the FBI was revealed to be using them from light aircraft routinely:

[http://bgr.com/2015/06/03/fbi-dirtbox-stingray-spy-plane- pro...](http://bgr.com/2015/06/03/fbi-dirtbox-stingray-spy-plane-program/)

</comment><comment><USER26> Why they use such tools? In Turkey police can listen any phone from the police station. Because all telecommunication companies are required to give access to their network and even if you are the owner of the telecommunication company you cannot know when is your custemers being listened.

<comment><USER27> Cell site simulators can be used for location tracking even when a device is isn't actively communicating at the application layer. (However, the carriers may already know _that_ information as well, and might be required to turn it over to police too.)

Edit: also, you can use a cell site simulator without telling anyone who you are, whom you're interested in, or what legal authority (if any) you claim to have to monitor them.

<comment><USER26> Yes, cell towers log all connections (I don't mean phone calls or SMS). And we see news like "the criminals telephone was in this area two months ago", "these people were here according the cell towers". I'm talking about Turkey again. Of course the police needs warrant to get these kind of logs. Even the web sites need to log what IP was connected to them, which is pretty lame.

<comment><USER27> In the U.S. these things are kept incredibly secret (even through strenuous efforts to keep the details out of court testimony) and it takes many years to learn more about them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Don't miss the _" All the data captured by the investigation has been put in a Google document"_ link that points to a 50mb file called "Complete BB firewall logs.rtf," which I'm sure will be of interest.

<comment><USER29> Have you had a look at it? There's no location information that I can see so the usefulness is somewhat limited. There are 160 lines with "Suspicion: LOW" or higher, but I'm really not sure what I'm looking at.

If someone with a bit more domain expertise could point out the smoking gun here, it could be very interesting.

<comment><USER30> IMSI catchers are _transceivers_. They are not hard to find, they are easily triangulated: they literally broadcast their location. Honestly, denying their usage is remarkably pointless.

If you want a location, then I suggest: grab a spectrum analyser; head to Knightsbridge; tell me what happens when you get close to Hans Crescent; then look on the corner and guess why.

And, don't take your phone. Obviously.

<comment><USER31> I'm curious, but not in London. All I could see on Google Street View, which is likely old, is a standard cell site on the A4 in that area.

[https://email@example.com,-0.163137,3a,49y,276....](https://firstname.lastname@example.com,-0.163137,3a,49y,276.26h,126.63t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sF_Y8Dd9elLdFrCH- eyALcg!2e0)

Would you happen to have a picture of the install they have in that area?

<comment><USER32> I believe he's referring to the Ecuadorian Embassy located on that street, where Mr Assange is located presently. There are obvious reasons (WikiLeaks) for keeping track surreptitiously of those visiting him.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> How would I go about building an IMSI catcher? Preferably supporting LTE.

<comment><USER34> I tested it out with OpenBTS and a USRP1; that configuration definitely works. Also needed a high-precision clock board (ClockTamer). I ran with 2G only.

For 3G/4G/LTE there's network authentication, so "in theory" you can't do it...

I've read a bunch of stuff which says you're supposed to be able to jam or disrupt non-2G frequencies to force a fallback to 2G... however, I'd expect a telco van to turn up if you tried this for more than a short period of time (the ranges you'd want to jam are massive) and I didn't try it for obvious reasons.

BUT - what I found in practice (2011, field testing on an island near Auckland NZ) was that a surprising amount of stuff would just straight up camp to a 2G base station, presumably because the signal was stronger. You don't need LTE if the phone is happy to look for the best signal. I didn't analyse what models of phone did this, it seemed like everything did at the time.

A more interesting approach which I haven't tried involves downloading a several GB of rainbow tables and cracking TMSIs with kraken; no idea how well that works in practice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Let's talk about the real travesty here: making the data available ... in RTF format -__-

</comment><comment><USER36> i am shocked, shocked i tell you</comment>


_why the lucky stiff on The Setup - <AUTHOR> http://_why.usesthis.com/

<comment><USER2> I just love the way he doesn't take any of the questions seriously. I also love the fact that despite this they still left his answers in. :)

</comment><comment><USER3> I cracked the code

Who are you and what do you do? <http://why.usesthis.com/images/interviews/_why.1.jpg>

What hardware are you using? <http://why.usesthis.com/images/interviews/_why.2.jpg>

And what software? <http://why.usesthis.com/images/interviews/_why.3.jpg>

What would be your dream setup? <http://why.usesthis.com/images/interviews/_why.4.jpg>

</comment><comment><USER4> It's down, does anyone have a mirror? It's been down for a couple of weeks now.

<comment><USER5> I seem to recall there being some browser/OS combination that could not handle underscores at the beginning of addresses. What are you using, and can you access it with another browser?

<comment><USER6> It's definitely the underscore: <http://usesthis.com/> is accessible, as are all the other interviews, but <http://_why.usesthis.com/> isn't.

And it doesn't seem to be the browser's fault:

      $ ping richard.stallman.usesthis.com
      PING richard.stallman.usesthis.com (220.127.116.11) 56(84) bytes of data.
      64 bytes from waferbaby.com (184.108.40.206): icmp_seq=1 ttl=51 time=63.6 ms

      $ ping _why.usesthis.com
      ping: unknown host _why.usesthis.com

So I can't resolve the domain name for some reason. This happens on both my home Gentoo box and my Slicehost Gentoo server.

<comment><USER7> It's a DNS resolution issue. Underscores in domain names are invalid, but some DNS host software still resolves them, while others stick to the spec.

<comment><USER8> I'd call this a fruit of this kind of DNS abuse. Yeah, OK, it looks nice, x.usesthis.com or whatever it is, but it forces you to make a new DNS lookup for each page, instead of using cached www.usesthis.com/something. And, as we can see, you can even make the address invalid. It's quite sad. :-/

<comment><USER5> Web content that is invalid according to one or more standards? Surely you must be joking.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Here are two more ways of accessing the interview:

<http://usesthis.com/feed/> (then scroll down)

<http://viewsourcecode.org/why/#7> (_why's Estate mirror)

</comment><comment><USER10> I still miss _why and wish he would come back in any form he chooses.

<comment><USER11> There are other _why-like programmers, teachers out there.

<comment><USER12> name two?

<comment><USER11> 1\. Bonus500 ( Learn You A Haskell For Great Good: <http://learnyouahaskell.com/> ) ( <http://twitter.com/bonus500> )

2\. Mononcqc (Learn You Some Erlang For Great Good: <http://learnyousomeerlang.com/>) ( <http://twitter.com/mononcqc> )

I can name some more, if you want.

<comment><USER13> I do want, thanks :-D

<comment><USER11> 3\. Jeremy McAnally ( Mr. Neighborly's Humble Little Ruby Book: <http://www.humblelittlerubybook.com/book/> ) ( <http://www.jeremymcanally.com/> )

4\. Marijn Haverbeke (Eloquent Javascript: <http://eloquentjavascript.net/> ) ( <http://marijn.haverbeke.nl/> )

5\. Young Zed Shaw ( <http://www.zedshaw.com/> ) ( Older Zed Shaw is just a little bit less out there )

And a few more can be found on Bonus500's Twitter Follow list.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


CNN Leaks Biden as Obama's VP - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/08/23/biden.democrat.vp.candidate/index.html

<comment><USER2> Please leave the politics for another site.

May I suggest:

<http://digg.com/>

<http://reddit.com/></comment>


Show HN: Share your ideas anonymously and get instant feedback - <AUTHOR> https://www.toiletidea.com/ <comment><USER2> I like the concept, nicely done as well

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Few weeks ago I was practising C++ and after struggling with certain problem for more than two hours - it was time to visit toilet (Sorry, but you have to that sometimes). I figured out that every time I came back from toilet, I immediately managed to find solution for my technical problem. This made me wonder if it is my kind of geek or it's a common thing? Even if it is efficient, then you don't always have a need for peeandpoo... so maybe I should start smoking as well?

Anyway, I was inspired from the idea and made a [https://www.toiletidea.com/](https://www.toiletidea.com/) , so whenever I go to toilet and catch a great idea, I can share it anonymously with random anonymous people.</comment>


Cold War is over; US vs. Russia isn't zero-sum - <AUTHOR> http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/columns/2014/03/03/cold-war-over-russia-isn-zero-sum/Df9VSHeJFpKUz3tRKDjUXJ/story.html <comment><USER2> I've read a dozen analyses on this situation today. This is one of the worst.

There's a danger in the U.S. of playing this as some sort of domestic political game -- the hawks using an outdated playbook versus the doves (perhaps not understanding reality well enough). This does a great disservice to the actual situation on the ground.

Long and short of it: Russia gets to invade neighboring countries. Not much we can do about it. That doesn't mean we should sit idly by. Calling out naked aggression and hypocrisy is still part of our national fabric. It also doesn't mean that this is a win for the Russians or a loss for the U.S. More importantly, 1) Russia is increasingly using its army more and more while its economy tanks, and 2) people of the former Soviet states just aren't going to put up with the bullshit like they used to. That's Putin's problem, and the more he lives in that fantasy world of his the more he's pushing the rest of the world towards some sort of really unpleasant confrontation.

The situation isn't terrible (unless you live in the Ukraine) but the trajectory is very disconcerting.

<comment><USER3> Russia invades neighboring countries, for economic and strategic reasons while bullshitting about invented risks, while the US and UK does much the same, but goes for ones slightly further away. The trouble is, after the bullshit with Iraq and the made-up WMD justification, we don't have much moral authority here. At least the Russians haven't flattened Kiev like we did with Baghdad.

<comment><USER4> Wait, because the US did something horrible that makes what Russia is doing okay?

<comment><USER3> No, it just makes it very hard for the US and UK governments to scold the Russian one without them laughing.

<comment><USER4> Even the Germans cannot seem to get Putin to do a reality check.

Whom do you feel is qualified/going to be able to stop Putin from acting like a bully?

<comment><USER3> Time. He's starting to look old. Before too long, that hard-man image he has been cultivating will come around to bite him. Also, it is not too good an idea to fill your borders with civil wars.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> There are bigger problems in that Putin is not acting like he is in touch with reality:

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/106...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/10673235/Ukraine- crisis-Angry-Angela-Merkel-questions-whether-Putin-is-in-touch-with- reality.html)

3500 troops and tanks on the Polish border is kinda scary.</comment>


"You want to know something about how bullshit insane our brains are?" (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/Foone/status/1014267515696922624 <comment><USER2> So my visual system takes an image and projects it back through time to when I started moving my eyes to present a consistent image of the world? Or, alternatively, I have to be perceiving the past as time travel is impossible, I am living in the past and my visual system can fill in the holes and make it seem like I'm always perceiving the present.

Why this is presented as bullshit insane I have no idea. It seems like an amazingly brilliant solution to me, much better than the 'engineering' solution suggested where your vision flashes black every time you move your eyes. Also worth mentioning this weirdness is repeated in human consciousness all the time. Like the theory (tested as far as we can) that tall people perceiving the world further in the past so they can reconsile nerve impulses from their feet as happening at the same time as visual stimulus. We've known about phenomenon like this for a long time as well as other deeper revelations like, what is sometimes called, the illusion of free will. And yet we constantly act surprised that our conscious experience of the world doesn't correlate to what we find out is 'actually' happening.

So we are flawed meat bags with insane, non sensical brain mechanics, if only our biological solutions were as well thought out as VR eh?

How glad am I that the incredible complexity and subtly of evolution created my visual system and not Valve or Sony.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for writing this. While the tweets have great comedic effect, they are just really stupid.

You could very easily write a whole piece about how elegant and awe inspiringly complex and effective they are on the exact same subject.

Except it wouldn't get as many likes and retweets, of course.

Sort of made me sad just thinking about that. Twitter really does encourage the worst forms of conversation - outrage, sarcasm, cheapness, drunk humor dominates.

<comment><USER4> I wondered after a few posts why it was even on Twitter, and if it had been an article/blog post there would definitely have been less motivation for the author to play to the gallery.

> how bullshit insane our brains are

> but OH NO

> this shit works

> your freaking visual system just lied to you about HOW LONG TIME IS

> we're apparently computers programmed by batshit insane drunkards in Visual > Basic 5

> your brain has EVEN MORE UGLY HACKS

Interminable shtick that just makes subject matter pointlessly longer and more of a chore to read.

<comment><USER5> This comes up any time @foone's content gets posted.

TLDR; that's authors choice both for stylistic reasons and personal. When the choice is between "don't blog at all" and "post on twitter" because that's what fits his mind process, I would rather read about it on twitter than not at all.

Judging by the amount of discussion here, it seems like this was thought provoking for a number of people despite the format.

I find twitter threads frustrating to follow also, but you could always... skip clicking the link if you feel so strongly about it.

As an aside, criticizing the form of content rather than the substance is not of particular interest in general, to be honest. It comes off as "I didn't really have anything to say about the subject, but at least I can comment on perceived flaws in the style of presentation".

<comment><USER3> The critique is actually that this stupid YouTuber attention-desperate style leads to Reddit level discussion. Especially because he just frames the whole process as being dumb rather than... interesting. So no it's not just a style critique, he's just making wild unfounded claims while trying to frame them as obvious truths.

If _you_ like that style, then fine, why don't you just not reply to this valid sub-thread? I don't see you adding any to the discussion. But the discussion of the degradation of our ability to communicate due to social media incentivizing stupid clickbait _is_ super important.

<comment><USER5> Apropos of nothing, thanks for your work on Recoil, it's awesome :)

I don't think the discussion on this post here is reddit-level - for example, I found the top level comment on the role of dreams, and the link to the commenter's paper on psyarxiv super interesting. As I said in my comment, I too find the twitter thread format a bit frustrating to read.

What I was trying to say is that the author (Foone) has previously posted about this - for them, the choice really is between "blog this way or not at all" due to the way their mind works.

Of course the fact that this topic comes up every time is indicative, but I think what it indicates is that Twitter UX is terrible, not that the author is a bad person for choosing to share in this format.

<comment><USER3> Thanks! I haven't done much at all, not sure if you're involved with it but if so thanks right back, I do love Recoil and its potential.

I definitely should aim my criticism at the incentives more than the people, that's a good point. I specifically like HN because it seems to have figured out pretty nice incentives (of course the lack of scale is the key).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What you might not know is that your emotions can do this too (create feelings which feel real but don't match with the reality of a situation, with the purpose of fulfilling an underlying need of the brain - typically protection).

This is at the heart of mental health - the issue being that imagined feeling patterns are formed during infancy. During that period you need to maintain relationships with your caregivers in order to survive (so your feelings organise around achieving good caregiver conditions). However when you are in the wider world as an adolescent/adult things are very different (1. don't need your caregivers to survive and 2. the rest of the world doesn't act the same way that your caregivers do) and that's when things get bad-mental- healthy. Your brain is imagining feelings to satisfy a different environment to the one you are in.

Even more amazingly the brain knows it does this and has a built in correction mechanism - dreams. They don't auto correct, but provide instructions (if we listened). This isn't the Freudian-everything-is-a-penis/vagina vibe, but a much more practical route to using dreams to diagnose false feelings. I wrote a paper on this here: [https://psyarxiv.com/k6trz](https://psyarxiv.com/k6trz)

When you have spotted a false feeling it's very easy to get rid of it. You have to catch yourself repeating the pattern and break it. Do that a few times and your brain reconsolidates and no longer feels the inaccurate feeling as it understands that the survival function of it is no longer required.

<comment><USER7> > _You have to catch yourself repeating the pattern and break it_

How do you recommend doing that?

<comment><USER6> A therapist is very useful. It is difficult to see yourself clearly from the inside out. It's easier for someone from the outside to help you spot patterns, then you will gain some level of awareness of how they arise in your life (because you will be discussing your life with the therapist).

The paper I link to on dreams should help too. Dreams are sort of an internal mini-therapist, but again, it is easier with an outside perspective.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> When I first learned about this, especially the "Because your brain recognizes it's moving and adjusts what you see to make sure it sees the 'right' thing" part, it explained a phenomenon that really confused me as a child:

I would sometimes "catch" our bathroom clock (analog, with second hand) going backwards for a second. But no matter how long I stared at it, it wouldn't happen again. Only when I turned my attention to it would it sometimes seem to go backwards for the first second.

With the "your brain extrapolates the movement backwards" this makes perfect sense if the second hand will vibrate a bit on each tick. Apparently, if I focused on the clock while the second hand was vibrating for a fraction of a second after moving, it might be moving ever so slightly backwards at that moment, which is extrapolated to a full second of backward movement. In the end it's just another optical illusion.

<comment> Digit-Al Have you ever noticed car wheels looking as if they are spinning backwards instead of forwards?

<comment><USER9> This is due to the rotation rate of the structural elements of the wheels being just above the flicker fusion threshold frequency, around 60 Hz [1]. As the wheels spin faster, they just look like a blur.

[1] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flicker_fusion_threshold](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flicker_fusion_threshold)

<comment> Digit-Al Thanks. Very interesting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's also fascinating when the other end of the visual system (the brain) has issues.

My aunt had a very small stroke in her visual cortex. Incredibly it only impacted the visual processing in the upper right quadrant of the right eye. Everything else was fine.

She was telling me that the affected part of her field of vision wasn't black (as you'd expect). She described it as "empty". It just wasn't there. There were no good words to describe how that looked visually.

Interestingly as her brain recovered somewhat, the "empty" area got a bit smaller, then her brain started to do "error correction" and to her, the "empty" part is gone, but it doesn't provide any visual information. Similar to the tweets, it's just filled with "background".

<comment><USER11> 10+ years back a handful of times I suffered from (what I think were, but you've got me thinking) migraines that resulted in localized loss of visual perception. In my case the spot was right in the center of my field of vision.

The loss manifested itself at first as trippy vibrating colors, which soon changed to non-black nothing.

After that I would look straight at things not only to _not see_ them, but to not even realize I am not seeing something.

<comment><USER12> [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scintillating_scotoma](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scintillating_scotoma)

<comment><USER13> I've had these several times myself. For me, they start as a small "blind spot" at the center of my field of view, which was really scary, particularly if I was trying to read or do screen-work at the time. After the first one, the appearance of the rainbow zig-zags was actually comforting, because that confirmed what it was. Since I was effectively incapacitated for the duration, I'd just lie down and enjoy the light show.

It's been years since I had an occurrence, but the timing was pretty reliable.

~30 minutes: slowly growing blind spot at the center of my field of vision.

~15 minutes: rainbow zig-zags in a slowly expanding circle from the blind spot until it encircled my whole field of view, after which it faded out and I could focus pretty normally again. No headache during or after.

After multiple rounds, I figured out the, or a, trigger: absinthe. Drinking absinthe reliably brought one on ~18 hours later. Only ever had one that I couldn't tie to absinthe. Stopped drinking absinthe years ago, and the scintillating scotoma stopped as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > _it seriously shows you the image at the new point, but time-shifts it > backwards so that it seems like you were seeing it the whole time your eyes > were moving... you can see this effect happen if you watch an analog clock > with a second hand. Look away (with just your eyes, not your head), then > look back to the second hand. It 'll seem like it takes longer than a second > to move, then resumes moving as normal._

Is there a citation for this? I can't find any paper on it, the Wikipedia articles on "sacaddic masking" and "transsaccadic memory" don't mention the phenomenon at all, and I've been trying it with my own clock (where the second hand moves in second increments, not continuously) and it simply doesn't happen for me at all.

I can't figure out _why_ your brain would "rewrite past memory" instead of simply persisting the old image either.

If anyone could point me to an actual name for this phenomenon, or a paper proving it, I'd super appreciate it, because it seems so implausible that I'd love to understand it more.

EDIT: found the actual term for it -- "chronostasis" \-- and the memory phenomenon is "neural antedating" or "neural backdating". [1] And while it appears to be a _reported_ phenomenon, it appears to be understandably difficult to verify experimentally, since it is an inherently subjective phenomenon and experiments involve potential sources of bias that could alternately explain it.

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

<comment><USER15> > it simply doesn't happen for me at all.

FWIW, I have noticed the effect many times, in particular with the second hand of analogue clocks.

<comment><USER16> Even before I knew this was a thing, I know I've looked at my watch and for a second being confused about why it seemed broken when it was working just minutes ago, simply because the second hand didn't appear to move in time.

<comment><USER17> I had assumed that this was part of my watches' mechanisms that self- calibrated but it never occurred to me that I just happened to notice this self-calibration so often!

It's interesting that I casually came up with a complex explanation and didn't even try to critically examine whether it was plausible or not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Studying computer vision and specifically the intersection of visual computing systems and human vision in the context of Augmented Reality really cemented to me how much "bubblegum and duct tape" human systems really are - and are totally amazing.

Namely how flexible/fluid adaptive the brain is. The eye is pretty "dumb" but the processing pathway of the optic nerve through the visual cortex (which is hilariously on the complete other side of the brain) is a marvel of processing.

</comment><comment><USER19> Here is a Thread Reader view of this content.

[https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1014267515696922624.html](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1014267515696922624.html)

<comment><USER20> Goodness that's long for a BLOG post! Much less twitter. Thanks for the link!

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The wikipedia experiment is much easier to do and more pronounced. You'll need a mirror and a reasonably good phone camera to take video. I just tried it and it's amazing.

> This can easily be duplicated by looking into a mirror, and looking from one > eye to another.

But you can't see your eyes move in the mirror. They seem strangely very inert. If you play the video afterward, you'll see your eyes moving!

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

</comment><comment><USER22> It's very easy to find the blind spot with the mouse cursor. Close one eye, and with the other look at the opposite side of the screen. Move the cursor around on the side corresponding to the open eye. You'll plainly see the cursor disappearing and reappearing—meanwhile, your brain pretends that it knows static content that's in the spot. Most probably, it will even interpolate movement for videos—as it wont to do.

<comment><USER23> if ur on a mac shake the cursor really fast and the arrow grows massive. never noticed that before. I was using my curosor to check the blindspot on my eye and was wiggling it in and out at the edge and it freaked me right out. it went in small, disappeared and came out 20x larger. I was like fuck me these eye tricks are mental.

<comment><USER22> Moreover, if you shake it _really fast_ for a bit of time, you'll get an easter egg.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> As someone with a PhD in neuroscience I like the sentiment of this post but it's off the mark in some key ways.

From a high level @foone is right, our eyes and visual system are nothing like a camera. Our visual system constructs an internal 3D model of the world, our "perception", given observations in the form of the electrical activity in our photoreceptor (rod and cone) cells. It tries to do this in a way that balances energy use and accuracy of the model. This simple concept can actually be used to explain a lot things that may seem like 'hacks' as @foone put it. One example: Saying Saccades are a problem is misleading, they likely evolved to give us higher acuity (resolution) vision without having to pay the energy cost of a larger fovea [1, 2, 3]. They also likely allow us to see color more accurately outside of our fovea.

I also really don't buy this time-shifting idea, although other neuroscientists would probably disagree. As @foone said our eyes are not cameras, our perception is our brain hallucinating an internal 3D model of the world. It knows what data to incorporate into the model and what not to, i.e. a blurry saccade is not a good representation of the world. If you want to read about how this can be framed with bayesian statistics you can read one of my favorite papers from my advisor [4].

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccade#Function](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccade#Function)

[2] Ratnam, Kavitha, et al. "Benefits of retinal image motion at the limits of spatial vision." Journal of vision 17.1 (2017): 30-30.

[3] Anderson, Alexander G., et al. "A neural model of high-acuity vision in the presence of fixational eye movements." 2016 50th Asilomar Conference on Signals, Systems and Computers. IEEE, 2016.

[4] Olshausen, Bruno A. "27\. Perception as an Inference Problem." The cognitive neurosciences (2014): 295-304. [https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/bb00/42b5e48feff89a95182c63...](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/bb00/42b5e48feff89a95182c63bc400c6e6662fe.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER25> I have a condition called nystagmus[1] which makes my eyes saccade constantly. It mostly happens when I look to the left or right, with what's called a "null point" in the middle. Having a null point in the middle is a lucky break.

It doesn't affect my day-to-day, which I think is surprising. In fact I have very good hand-eye coordination and visual perception, which may be a side- effect of constantly having to track moving objects.

It's also a symptom of being drunk, or a brain injury. Medical students are always very concerned and ask whether I've hit my head, and I often get breathalysed when I'm pulled over.

[1] [https://www.aoa.org/patients-and-public/eye-and-vision- probl...](https://www.aoa.org/patients-and-public/eye-and-vision- problems/glossary-of-eye-and-vision- conditions/nystagmus#:~:text=Nystagmus%20is%20a%20vision%20condition,or%20in%20a%20circular%20pattern).

<comment><USER26> I get nystagmus from time to time (maybe once a year) because of positional vertigo, but I have since learned to "fix" it by applying the Epley manoeuvre myself. I guess yours is not treatable though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is an interesting write-up but doesn't go far enough. Yes you're not watching an HD pixel based video when seeing.

But the phrasing of "your visual system shows you X" is still off. The visual system is you, the eyes and the retina's neurons are you, etc. There is no "you" hidden somewhere deep in the brain that watches what the brain shows it, like a homunculus.

<comment><USER28> There _is_ the possibility to observe your thoughts, which strongly indicates two "you".

<comment><USER29> There _is_ the possibility that this is "just" memorizing / remembrance / memory of the just-passed (now-past) instant. Meaning as you think about "current" thought-X, the current instant is now thought-Y (thinking about X) and X is no longer "your current thought". Hm. Impossible to measure or decide because we can't ever possibly define "how long" is "now".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Do you ever see a cat or a bird move in the corner of your eye, but when you look closer it was just a leaf or a shadow or something? I think you _see_ that cat just as much as you _see_ anything at all. The visual processing just got a little too carried away in a way that was easily noticed, just like the seconds hand on the clock.

<comment><USER31> All the time. In that moment the leaf that used to be a cat also instantly changes to having been a leaf all along.

Our experience is like a dream vaguely guided by reality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> One of their examples about the balls appearing bigger when needing to hit then reminded me of something from a YouTube video [0] about our senses lying to us. The example brought up in the video is how a hill appears steeper to us if we have a heavy backpack on!

Overall though, those were some cool new examples of eye limitations I hadn't heard of before, like the accumulation of laser light damage.

And yeah similar to other commenters, some of these could just as easily be explained as amazing adaptations required to work with the limited resources available in addition to a description as ugly hacks. I guess the important part is just to hopefully become more aware of our limitations with the goal that that helps us maybe get a little better understanding of potential difficulties we all face.

[0] [https://youtu.be/BMvgOjGPXyw](https://youtu.be/BMvgOjGPXyw)

<comment><USER33> > how a hill appears steeper to us if we have a heavy backpack on!

I've reverse hacked this: When I'm tired and need to walk up a hill, I look straight down at the ground such that it appears horizontal, this makes it easier to walk.

<comment><USER32> Come to think of it, that's kinda sorta what I do to! Stare at the ground right ahead and just plow ahead. I always put it down to just saying well, doesn't really matter what's further ahead too much, just follow the path and we'll get there eventually. I like the idea of it as a reverse hack though. Gotta look up occasionally to enjoy/watch out for stuff though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> In general, thinking about how we see using metaphors drawn from photographic media (chemical or digital) will lead to deeply incorrect understandings.

We do not see images. Our brain does not have a frame buffer. Our minds construct the visual experiences we have of the world around us. They construct them from reality and we have developed technology that can make recognizable facsimiles of how we see the world, but they have very little to do with each other.

</comment><comment><USER35> A similar (and similarly good) thread on sensory and motor systems: [https://twitter.com/analogist_net/status/1014397203450744832](https://twitter.com/analogist_net/status/1014397203450744832)

</comment><comment><USER36> It's not only vision. When you're sleeping and there's a sound that will wake you up, you can have a dream fragment which would have to know the future to compose itself this way.

I don't know if it has a name but I've noticed this many times.

<comment><USER37> I also noticed that and couldn't find any name for this phenomenon, seems like there are somethings on the internet about "Sensory Incorporation in Dreams" but I failed to find anything related to this specific behavior of dreaming with something that led to the noise.

[https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/56798/what-is- th...](https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/56798/what-is-the-term-for- awareness-of-or-inclusion-of-real-sounds-within-a-dream)

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I thought I was going crazy when I first noticed the chronostasis effect on my watch (that is where the ticking second hand seems to stick in place when you first glance at it). Years later by chance I came across a paper explaining the mechanism.

<comment><USER17> I would often "see" the second hand tick, but not move forward by a second. More like a "flick" than a tick.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I started reading and immediately thought of Blindsight. The tweet thread mentions it later, make sure to check it out if you like hard sci-fi, it's one of the best.

<comment><USER40> It was my first though as well. Idea of aliens, which can just "skip" the sight of humans is pretty cool. The same goes with concept of consciousness as a parasitic/optional part of inteligent species.

Blindsight is one of the best, 10/10 on Mohs Scale of sci-fi hardness. I love the description of scientific concepts behind sci-fi story at the end. Such a shame, there is so little books with that kind of deep research.

One of the best written, first contact novels out there. I have the luck of hearing Watts lecture on one of the Cons. He is even better in person.

If you are from Canada, it is good idea to check, where he is speaking.

Authors blog, filled with pop-scientific concepts and ideas [1], is well worth it.

[1] [https://www.rifters.com/crawl/](https://www.rifters.com/crawl/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> > It'll seem like it takes longer than a second to move, then resumes moving > as normal.

shit I knew it was real! adolescent me noticed this and had a hard time to explain or figure out information about it (this was about the excite era)

<comment><USER42> Ohhhhhhhhh! So that's why whenever I stop and look up at a traffic light with a timer, the first second always seem longer than the subsequent ones.

This is so cool. It's one of those mundane things that you think only occur to you, when in reality it's way more common and intriguing. Like those eye floaters.

<comment><USER43> Why would you assume that your experience isn't common to others with the same evolutionary history and environment?

<comment><USER41> it's an effect that's very hard to describe - john: "hey jim did you notice that last second was longer" it's very personal, if jim was not looking or already looking at the timer from before john's assertion would just sound absurd and it also require being attentive enough to the clock and the sense of time in general.

and personally I kinda had a general feeling that could be at best described as 'the first second of a timer always look longer than the others' which roughly matches what magnio said, and that was it, it's not something I'd widely share unprompted, people already think I'm enough of a nerd as it stands.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> So do we have examples of people for whom these hacks are not functioning quite as well, and what the consequences of that are? Because a lot of these visual hacks he describes remind me of issues people with Auditory Processing Disorder have to deal with, except that it's vision instead of audio.

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

<comment><USER45> I have one for you: the vestibular system works in concert with the eyes for "image stabilization" purposes, so when you are eg. walking around, all that up-down head motion is canceled out. Visual vertigo occurs when the two systems fall out of sync for some reason.

[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030698771...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306987718301324)

<comment><USER46> The same when you play a videogame with a heavy "view bobbing". Someone decided that it would be more realistic if your camera shook by 15 degrees both axis at every move (looking at you, cod:mw), but it only makes a scene feel sick and you can't turn it off.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Another insane property is a type of blindsight in people who are cortically blind, i.e., their eyes are intact, but have damage to the visual cortex so they cannot form or process images.

However, parts of our visual system other than forming images are handled in other parts of the brain. For example, managing the tracking of objects by the eye - it's a completely separate group of control neurons (vs the visual cortex) that drives where the eye looks (and it's actually different for vertical vs horizontal tracking).

So, it turns out that if you present images with, say, vertical or horizontal stripes and ask a person with cortical blindness (developed after they could see) person which it is, they'll tell you of course that they can't see & don't know. However, make it a forced-choice question where they must guess one or the other, and they'll get a high percentage right, far greater than chance. The information is exfiltrating from the centers controlling the eye motion even though there is no cortex to form an image.

</comment><comment><USER48> A little tangential: If you hard lock your eyes, say, all the way to the right and rotate your head slowly to the left, you can defeat the saccade mechanism and get a smooth pan, complete with motion blur.

<comment> just-ok This is basically because (one of?) the only times our eyes don't do saccades is when they're tracking motion. In other words, you can't move your eyes smoothly unless you're following something (like prey or a finger). In this case, you're tracking the boundary of your periphery!

<comment><USER48> It seems to me it is more because your eyes can't move if they are locked all the way to one side.

<comment><USER49> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smooth_pursuit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smooth_pursuit)

" Smooth pursuit eye movements allow the eyes to closely follow a moving object. It is one of two ways that visual animals can voluntarily shift gaze, the other being saccadic eye movements. "

<comment><USER48> Ah, now I understand. Thanks. Makes perfect sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> > There was an experiment back in 1890 where someone wore glasses made with > mirrors in them to flip their vision. After about 8 days, they could see > just fine with them on.

Schience youtuber Kurtis Baute did this as well: his video "I Spent 7 Days Upside-Down" documents it... a very fun watch!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HaXUCQKBjs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HaXUCQKBjs)

</comment><comment><USER43> Why do people sprinkle curse words pointlessly over otherwise useful information?

<comment><USER51> I can't speak for anyone else, but I like to sprinkle in swear words as a way of "grounding" the subject.

A lot of my friends will bother me for help with compsci or math stuff for some reason, and I usually try to help. Math and programming are hard, especially to someone who doesn't already know it, and people can quickly get frustrated as a result of it being confusing. Throwing in a swear can be useful to signal to the person to relax, and to tell them that it's ok to think of this stuff in goofy terms, and in my experience it can help lower the tension.

It's not the best tool for every scenario, I don't use that tactic when teaching kids, but I do think there's utility in it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Most informative takeaway for me: an amazing experiment to "see" saccades: (1) mirror, vs (2) iphone selfie camera, vs (3) macbook photobooth.

Scanning my own face, for each of these 3, i tried to see my own saccade, and (1) I am blind to it in the mirror; (2) barely see it on the iphone, and (3) very visibly see it on the macbook.

</comment><comment><USER53> I think a similar effect was described by Daniel C. Dennet. Imagine a row of lights next to each other. The leftmost one blinks, then the one to the right, then the one to the right, creating an effect of a smoothly moving light dot from left to right (similar to how animation works).

What does your brain see in the period between the blinks? Because it perceives the light as a smooth motion, and not as discrete jumps, it must "see" a virtual non-existent light in between two real lights. But if everything in your brain happens chronologically, how would it know if the light to the right would light up or not? It must have "backfilled" that information into your memory/perception after seeing the right light blink.

<comment><USER54> It probably extrapolates, much like how when you stare at those videos of a moving background and look away, your environment appears to shift in reverse of the motion you were observing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> I'm a bit suspicious after spending 5 minutes trying to replicate the frozen clock phenomenon and having no success. Often, the second hand ticks within a very short window (<150ms) of looking at the clock, consistent with what I would expect.

When you shift your focus to look at an analog clock, the time to the next tick of the seconds hand should follow a uniform distribution between 0 and 1 seconds if there are no visual bugs. It seems likely that people experience some confirmation bias, where the delays above 0.9s stand out more in their memory.

I really don't buy the claim that there's a 500ms delay in perception here. At the very least, this should be bounded by the time it takes to move your eyes (~100ms).

<comment><USER56> I too was unable to replicate that experiment. I took it a step further by not only having an analog stop watch, but also having other things close by that were constantly moving. Even though my timing resulted in variable durations to the next tick, some longer than others, I did not notice any "paused" effect from other things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Does the same chronostasis effect with the second hand on the clock work if you can hear the clock tick?

I'm having a hard time visualizing this. If it still happens, would you sense a longer time between clicks? Or does the effect go away?

</comment><comment><USER57> > you can see this effect happen if you watch an analog clock with a second > hand. Look away (with just your eyes, not your head), then look back to the > second hand. It'll seem like it takes longer than a second to move, then > resumes moving as normal.

Woah, woah, woah. I'd noticed this before when sitting around waiting for something (reception rooms, etc.) but never thought much of it. Thought it was just my mind playing tricks. I am so happy to know this is a consistent phenomenon for everybody, and there is a concrete reason for it. The human brain is facinating.

</comment><comment><USER58> This is great write-up. I love learning things about perception and how the manipulates data behind the scenes. Are there any good layman books about the this?

</comment><comment><USER59> Think about streaming a live video from Youtube inside your browser. There's a lot of complicated stuff going on underneath: layers upon layers of compression, error correction, buffering, etc. Many ugly, crazy hacks to squeeze the signal into a system not built for it. The end result is a lossy approximation of the original and definitely not in real time.

The visual system is a lot more like videos than people think.

</comment><comment><USER60> I was unfamiliar with the Ted Turner black & white movie colorization controversy (circa 1980s), interesting cultural conflict:

[https://www.latimes.com/archives/la- xpm-1986-10-23-ca-6941-s...](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la- xpm-1986-10-23-ca-6941-story.html)

[http://archive.is/LAkOO](http://archive.is/LAkOO)

</comment><comment><USER61> I don't think these are hacks. They aren't bubble gum and duck tape. They are well tested solutions for current physical limitations.

</comment><comment><USER62> Today, I noticed that when I open my eyes, the vision quickly fill from the perifer vision to the center. Like a shrinking black bubble, disappearing in the middle. It was easier to see it in a dimly lit room after staying there for a while.

</comment><comment><USER63> Hmm, how does saccadic masking jive with the fact that if you "roll" your eyes and keep rolling them, you still see an image? It's blurry, but it's there, and you're never holding your eyes in one position.

</comment><comment><USER64> Why oh why do people abuse twitter to post entire blog posts. Do they also drink from plates, and shower in the sink? Write kernels in Javascript? smh

<comment><USER65> I don't really get the beef with this. Twitter's UI for reading these tweet- streams is pretty decent these days.

<comment><USER66> See that's where

gorkish 1 hour ago | parent |on "I don't really get the beef with this..."

you and I have very markedly

gorkish 1 hour ago | parent |on "I don't really get the beef with this..."

very different ideas about what

gorkish 1 hour ago | parent |on "I don't really get the beef with this..."

"pretty decent" means

gorkish 1 hour ago | parent |on "I don't really get the beef with this..."

because I actually think this kind of

gorkish 1 hour ago | parent |on "I don't really get the beef with this..."

nonsense is really quite bullshit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> Here's another one (apologies if I missed it below) - when you are in an accident it seems like everything is in slow motion - no, its your memory is more complete, at least you think it is, but its not really. An experiment was performed to validate this effect, to see if you actually can see things faster when you're in an accident :- [https://www.livescience.com/2117-time- slow-emergencies.html](https://www.livescience.com/2117-time-slow- emergencies.html)

</comment><comment><USER68> Saccades are a great demonstration of the idea that consciousness is actually very different to what we intuitively imagine it to be.

</comment><comment><USER69> This make no sense to me. If I turn to look at speeding cars they don't appear frozen for some brief moment.

</comment><comment><USER70> WAIT! Is this the reason why the 48 fps Hobbit movie looked so weird with jumping frames and whatnot?

<comment><USER45> High frame rates are associated with TV shows and sitcoms: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_interpolation#Soap_oper...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_interpolation#Soap_opera_effect)

Also, those 48 frames need to be converted to 60 frames and as a result, some frames will be shown for a disproportionate amount of time and/or created by mixing two adjacent frames. The article is about interlaced modes, but I think it also applies to progressive scan: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three- two_pull_down](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-two_pull_down)

<comment><USER70> No I mean it looked weird in CINEMA where the frame rate was exactly 48 fps. And by weird I specifically mean the jumpiness observed occasionally in certain scenes. As if the frames were suddenly being played by much more that 48 fps. I doubt that this was a technical glitch but rather something happening in my brain.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> We should fix it by adapting cephalopods' eyes[1] and throwing out our own garbage.

[1] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cephalopod_eye](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cephalopod_eye)

</comment><comment><USER72> Isn't this exactly what requestAnimationFrame does?

</comment><comment><USER73> This is just so hard to read. I can't concentrate on what the author is trying to say because I'm constantly distracted by the way they're trying to say it, meaning all the irrelevant exclamations with which the author is peppering their tweets.

I have to wonder: what is gained by mixing up so much noise with an interesting message? Isn't there enough useful information in the subject of saccades, without the tone (which I suppose appeals to some)?

It's like when you're trying to hold a conversation with someone that disagrees with you on the internets and they constantly try to troll you, starting their comments with sentences like "no, this is wrong, you're an idiot and you don't know what you're talking about" before telling you why they disagree, or what they mean etc.

</comment><comment><USER74> whats this thing with shredding a blogpost into countless tweets?

</comment><comment><USER75> I think batshit would be the proper type of shit for the title.

<comment><USER76> I like the word "bullshit" for this, even though batshit is the more standard expression. Because in a sense, this is about our brain bullshitting us.

</comment></comment><comment> Engineering-MD I don't seem to have the same experience of saccades as described here, I see blur but mostly ignore it. When I look to the right and left of my screen, I can see the light blur, and when looking across a projector beam I (and my friends) can note the red blue and green colours as separate, but only during the saccades. Anyone else have a similar experience?

</comment><comment><USER77> > the answer is simple! your brain has EVEN MORE UGLY HACKS on top of this to > avoid you seeing that.

Only computer programmers tend to describe biological systems in deprecating terms like this, calling them ugly hacks, klugy, etc. As if we know best what's elegant and what's klugy. I wonder if perhaps we do this because we would never have the practical intelligence come up with a solution like that. It's not a great look for us.

</comment><comment><USER78> I dont buy that. Vision developed for different purpose than to provide full HD sharp vision across entire FOV. It has great pattern recognition and peripheral motion detection. It heals itself. It has low power consumption. It does not overheat and can work in many environments, even under water.

Modern competition like Go PRO require too much baby sitting, and can hardly work for 2 hours without maintenance.

<comment> just-ok > low power consumption

Hmm, well the visual cortex makes up almost a third of our entire brain, and the brain uses ~20% of our daily energy. I'd hardly call that "low power"! Though granted I don't imagine you can break a sweat just from thinking.

<comment><USER22> > _I don't imagine you can break a sweat just from thinking_

I heard that people who were asked to do sorting tasks, i.e. just separate big oranges from small ones, got tired as heck, comparably to physical workers. Then again, dunno about sweat.

<comment> just-ok Yep, mental exhaustion is undoubtedly a thing! I'd love to see how heart rates change with something like test question difficulty. Since sweat is generally a product of heat and occurs when your heart works harder during exercise, I wonder if the heart _also_ works harder to pump the brain with more oxygen to enable it to... think harder? Obviously just musing, am no physiology expert.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How 'dockless' cycles flooded China and are heading overseas - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/mar/22/bike-wars-dockless-china-millions-bicycles-hangzhou <comment><USER2> They used to have these on the Georgia Tech campus. The company was called viaCycle[1]; IIRC they have now shut down.

I borrowed one of the bikes once. Because all the tracking infrastructure and battery for the electronics were all on the bike (at least I think that's how the tech worked) the bike was quite heavy. At least I think that is the reason it was heavy. Not very fun to ride at all. I'll also confess I wasn't in great shape at the time. I liked the concept though and I really wanted it to work out for them.

I'm a bit skeptical of bike share programs unless they're in high-density areas. The already-existing Bay Area Bikeshare is really expensive unless you're making <60-minute trips between 2 docking stations. I haven't tried any of the bikes but they look much heavier than the average $300 hybrid bike. Being out all the time can't be good for keeping them in top condition.

[1] [http://www.viacycle.com/howitworks/](http://www.viacycle.com/howitworks/) [2] [http://www.businessinsider.com/smart-bike-sharing-startup- is...](http://www.businessinsider.com/smart-bike-sharing-startup-is-looking- to-blaze-a-new-path-2013-6)

<comment><USER3> They're also deliberately heavy to make them harder and less attractive to steal. Not an issue in a flat city, but much less fun on hills.

Hopefully in the long run electric assist is practical to implement on these bikes which should ameliorate their weight.

<comment><USER4> Barcelona has electrical assisted (docking) bikes.

<comment><USER5> Tokyo too

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Here are a couple of good article on the effect these startups have had in China:

[http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2017/01/24/shanghais...](http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2017/01/24/shanghais- mobike-mania-invites-competition)

[http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2017/02/22/ofo- renta...](http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2017/02/22/ofo-rental-bikes- are-getting-owned)

Expect to see piles and piles of unused bikes littering the streets.

Another poster was worried about theft, when the market is saturated by venture-backed bicycles a greater problem for most people will be lack of theft.

<comment><USER7> Oh the humanity. Seriously though those scenes seem fine except for the one with the big pile of bikes. That is avoided by having a credit card on file and charging the user who couldn't be bothered to lock the bike when he was done.

The benefits include less vehicle and transit congestion and all the health that comes with exercise.

<comment><USER8> "That is avoided by having a credit card on file and charging the user who couldn't be bothered to lock the bike when he was done."

The bikes are locked only to themselves, not to a railing. So even a locked bike can easily be loaded onto a truck if the city decides it's cluttering up the place.

<comment><USER6> Exactly. The whole point of these bikes is that they aren't docked to anything and can be left anywhere.

You can happily leave the bike parked correctly and in good condition, but there's nothing to stop a random stranger/group of drunk students making piles of bikes for shits and giggles.

<comment><USER9> I don't quite get it, since regular bikes are parked like that where I live, legally. I haven't seen piles yet.

<comment><USER8> When you park your own bike, even a cheap one, you are somewhat careful about where you park it, because if someone knocks it over or moves it, it affects you directly.

The same is not true of a Mobike or Ofo, so people are more likely to park inconsiderately (e.g. blocking the blind person's path, or the whole width of a narrow pavement).

I was pushing a stroller recently and had to move off the pavement onto the road, to avoid a line of dockless rental bikes that were blocking my intended path.

<comment><USER6> > e.g. blocking the blind person's path

To be fair, the braille paths in China aren't exactly blind-friendly in the first place:

[http://www.scmp.com/news/china- insider/article/1299761/beiji...](http://www.scmp.com/news/china- insider/article/1299761/beijings-blind-criticise-poorly-planned-pathways)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> There is a PR explosion of these stories at the moment (e.g. [1]). So I thought I'd give it a try here in Singapore.

Neither Mobike nor Ofo were installable on my Xiaomi ("not available in your market" \- maybe they should have unlocked the app before the press release!), so I went with the "local" option of Obike (actually a HK outfit).

The interesting part were rules clearly designed to curb certain undesirable behaviour. You get docked points for things like parking the bike somewhere private, and losing half your initial points increases the 15 minute rate from $0.5 to $50. You gain points for rides and reporting broken or missing bikes.

The first 7 bike locations I checked had no bikes (including 2 locations sandwiched between 4 universities). I reported the last 5 and heard nothing from customer service (also, did not earn any points). I decided to try clusters instead and lo and behold, finally some bikes. The rest worked fine as expected, presumably because it does not involve humans, although my parked bike had moved 137m when I checked the map 5 minutes later - clearly there are teething tracking issues.

It seems that people are taking the bikes home and not getting penalised for it, perhaps due to a desire for higher usage numbers for investors. Absent customer service also indicates a swamped team.

Someone on Facebook pointed out that the Ofo bikes use a number code which does not change, and some users claimed to have taken the Ofo home after their first ride and used it for free thereafter.

Still, this is a great idea which works relatively well. I wish the best to these companies.

[1] [http://www.scmp.com/tech/china- tech/article/2080837/chinas-m...](http://www.scmp.com/tech/china- tech/article/2080837/chinas-mobike-takes-ofo-singapore-bike-sharing- competition-heats)

<comment><USER8> "Someone on Facebook pointed out that the Ofo bikes use a number code which does not change, and some users claimed to have taken the Ofo home after their first ride and used it for free thereafter."

There are a lot of these 'stolen' Ofo bikes in Beijing. They usually have an additional regular lock to prevent other Ofo users from unlocking them using the code (which the app will provide, so long as the bike isn't reported as currently being used).

<comment><USER10> I read about it on one of the other commenters' links and immediately thought that somewhere, a product manager was told to "move fast and break things" and "get it launched next month no matter what".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> My only experience with this sort of thing was in Paris and it was very fun being able to ride around Paris, but in the end it was a complete pain.

My travel credit card had 200 euros put on hold, twice (two bikes). Which didn't clear up for about a week. We hired bikes twice, so I had 800 euros in limbo while travelling.

Not sure if this is a fault of the hiring system (not refunding or clearing the block quicker) - or my bank (not recognizing the clearing or block earlier).

Anyway as a tourist this was a huge inconvenience... hopefully we come up with better ways to address this.

I just realised this is not really a helpful comment, but just some personal context to hiring bikes :)

<comment><USER12> I think they keep the hold for a few days after your usage expires, so if somebody reports the bike as damaged they can still charge you.

I don't think with our current financial system (i.e. credit cards), there is really a much better way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> My city in Germany, Karlsruhe, has had dockless cycle rental and it works great, despite what the armchair experts in this thread say about how this could never work in the Western World. It's 1€ per 30 minutes, 9€ for the day, or 48€ per year for unlimited 30 minute trips. Since 30 minutes suffice to get just about anywhere in the city it's basically unlimited use, and you can just drop off your bike and take the next one a few minutes later if you do get close to the limit.

<comment><USER14> Still available in 11 cities such as Berlin, Munich, and Cologne. [1] Not sure if their are any competing providers.

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

<comment><USER13> Karlsruhe switched to Nextbike, their solution is less high-tech but works fine, too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I wonder what the actual economics of a business like this are?

What are the real rental rates at which these companies make a profit? Because at $0.15 an hour it seems like well below what the cost of running the service might be. (also including the cost of buying and maintaining the bikes)

To what degree does the business model rely on becoming the dominant player?

What is the scale you have to reach to be profitable at $0.15 an hour? How many bikes do you need and how many trips need to be taken?

From what I understand about the habits of people with the nyc bike share program, the movement of bikes needs a lot of human intervention to remain effective, and the bike locations balanced. Are they just hoping that the pure density of bikes in the system helps them overcome this? I would think that manual rebalancing of the system is quite costly. (A driver has to track the bike down via GPS and pick it up, vs. a dock system where the drivers know where to find the bikes)

<comment><USER16> In the Dutch bike-share system OV-fiets, a bike costs €3.65 per day, so that it similar. It is subsidized though (but I don't know how that works out percentage-wise). On the other hand, things are still a little cheaper in China, I think.

<comment><USER4> That's quite expensive. In Barcelona the scheme is a fixed €47 subscription per year though you can only use the bike for 30 mins per ride (after that there's a surcharge).

<comment><USER17> I suppose higher wages in Holland play a role, but mostly the system is just very different from Barcelona (or at least what I remember from being there a few times a few years ago).

The OV-fiets is a bike you get at a train station (maybe some metro stations too; not sure), and typically you'll use it to get from there to your destination and then back to the train station.

The system in Barcelona (and most other cities too, I think) is more about getting from A to B in the city and there are pick-up / drop-off points around the city.

In the former scenario charging by day makes a lot more sense, I guess. There's 1.3 bikes or so per Dutch person, so few people would have use for a Barcelona-style approach.

It's similar with these car sharing services. The on we have across cities is a bit like the OV-fiets: you pick a car up at a designated parking spot and return it to the same spot, often as a 'supplement' to your longer-distance public transport. Only in Amsterdam (AFAIK) we also have companies that allow you to pick up a car nearby and leave it anywhere at your destination.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Seeing those piles of abandoned bicycles reminded me of an episode from American history, the great railroad over-building of the late 1800s.

The Civil War had been an explosive period of industrial growth, and when it was over there was a lot of new capital sloshing around looking for someplace to go. Lots of it ended up going into the hot new transportation technology of the time, railroads, which led to a race between rail operators to grow as fast as possible in hopes of seizing a dominant market position and using it to muscle their competitors out of business. (A business plan which will be familiar to folks in the startup world.)

All of which resulted in an absolutely enormous amount of track being laid, something like 200,000 miles between 1860 and 1915; which turned out to be much more rail capacity than anybody actually _needed,_ even when rail was at its most economically relevant. But all that growth meant that the railroad sector had become the biggest employer of Americans outside farming, so the deflation of the rail bubble led to the original "Great Depression" (see [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Depression](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Depression)) and labor turmoil more severe than anything any living American has experienced.[1]

I look at all those bikes, all also built by speculative capital, and wonder: how many bubbles are waiting to pop in China? And what will happen when they do?

[1] Such as the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Railroad_Strike_of_1877](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Railroad_Strike_of_1877)) and the Pullman Strike of 1894 ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pullman_Strike](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pullman_Strike)).

<comment><USER19> IMHO there are four bubbles popping in China: urbanization, real estate, automobiles and education.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The company behind Copenhagen's docked bikes has gone bankrupt [0].

In a city where it's inexpensive to hire a standard city bike from a shop, the scheme decided to go for expensive electric cycles with GPS map displays.

[0] [http://cphpost.dk/news/business/company-behind- copenhagens-c...](http://cphpost.dk/news/business/company-behind-copenhagens- city-bike-program-going-bankrupt.html)

<comment><USER21> Docks make no sense in Copenhagen, where most everyone knows how to properly park their wheel-locked bikes in a non-intrusive way.

Also, most people have their own bikes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> There is a version of this in the automobile space - Car2Go - in a bunch of US cities. I used this a few times in Miami where they had Smart FourTwo's scattered across the city. As a member, you could walk up, unlock it and drive it anywhere. Once at your destination you'd just park it at any public Miami parking lot. Too bad the service is no longer in Miami - it was pretty awesome.

<comment><USER23> There is a similar scooter-based startup in SF called Scoot. There are official docking spaces with chargers in a number of garages but you can also leave them in the street within designated zones within quite a large portion of the city - they're marked in blue on the vehicle map [0].

Being able to go point-to-point and not having to think about paying for the time you're at your destination is very convenient.

They added a pilot program with a handful of mini two-person electri "quad" cars as well. Seems to be a partnership with Nissan. I haven't gotten to try out any of those yet, they are not usually available when I've checked.

0: [https://scoot.co/locations/](https://scoot.co/locations/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Does anyone know how these work technically? Does the bike have a mobile data connection, or does the app give you a code to unlock the bike?

How does the economics of it work? What does it cost to manufacture a dockless bike, and can they reasonably make it back in fees. Or is this all fueled by VC money?

<comment><USER19> I'm pretty sure they're all embedded low-power processors with GSM + SMS unlocking and small simple batteries which recharge when cycled. (There is a visible delay between people scanning the codes and the locks releasing.)

GPS is usually not included, instead it uses the GPS location of the phone of the last person who hired it and reported locking it when done. ("Sometimes users search for a bike and it is not where their smartphone says it is")

For a redesign, it would be theoretically possible to do the unlock from the consumer app via wifi, bluetooth or NFC and eliminate the mobile connection entirely, using an embedded cryptographic approach similar to banking devices.

Yes, it's all VC money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'm not sure how well this would work out in the US. Any standard parts would be stripped off those things instantly. Have you ever seen what happens to a bike after being locked somewhere for more than a couple days? It disappears piece by piece until nothing but the frame is left.

<comment><USER26> The US has a per-capita GDP is close to 5x higher then Chinas. Why would theft be exclusive to the US instead of China?

<comment><USER27> Many reasons.. but it ultimately comes to one thing, Cops do not give hoot to bike theft, so the rist-reward in bike theft is favorable.

<comment><USER7> Can you speak to how much the authorities in China care about bike theft?

<comment><USER27> Cannot comment about China, but again from anectodal personal experience in India, the component of street justice in some places cannot be totally ruled out.

If you are caught by a mob while stealing .. brace for Impact!

edit: The broader point being "risk" component of theft in certain places is sometimes inhibitive in spite of apathy from authorities.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Researchers break certificate authorities' domain validation - <AUTHOR> https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/09/06/boffins_break_cas_domain_validation/ <comment><USER2> I know this will never happen, but I would prefer to import physical objects from my bank rather than trust a CA. Even a QR code printout out really large on their wall behind ballistic glass would be a step in the right direction.</comment>


Robot Launch global robotics startup competition announces top 15 finalists - <AUTHOR> http://robohub.org/robot-launch-global-robotics-startup-competition-announces-top-15-finalists/ <comment><AUTHOR> 100 robotics startups from around the world applied. We're down to 15 finalists. Find out the winners on September 18.</comment>


Ask HN: What you do when you get Headache while working? - <AUTHOR> What are the tips you do, when you get Headache while working? <comment><USER2> Take pain relief pills?

<comment><AUTHOR> anything non-drug type?</comment></comment>


GoDaddy Email Updated Backwards - <AUTHOR> I recieved an email alaert this morning Fri, Apr 14, 2017 at 6:44 AM from GoDaddy that my account settings had changed. WHen I logged in, I noticed my email is now backwards. Ex. instead of Email.com it's liamE.com .<p>Anyone with GoDaddy see something similar? I'm waiting to get in touch with their tech support to find out what triggered the change, just very odd <comment><USER2> That means you got hacked, you better change your password immediately! ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, the only change that was made was to the email and I was able to create that with gmail so I control it now.

GoDaddy hasn't a clue so I'll just update the email/pw/pin and add 2factor. They say it shows someone logged in but I don't believe that, it's likely a programming bug on their end

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Why are you whining about this on Y?

<comment><AUTHOR> Whine? I'm checking if any others have experienced the same. It's either a programming bug on their end or a crafty way of compromising an account

<comment><USER2> How are they going to compromise your account by having the letters reversed?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, the email changed but the password stayed the same and I don't really know what that means. GoDaddy says someone logged in and changed it this morning but they don't log the IP address so I can only guess it's malicious.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How sexist can a web developer job ad get? - <AUTHOR> http://bloopark.com/hiring

<comment><USER2> I'm more offended by their inability to do a spelling and grammar check on content going on their public web site.

But yeah, that was an attempt to be funny that just fell way short.

</comment><comment><USER3> In case you were thinking the spelling mistakes come from a dirty phrasebook [1]: the German part of the website is just as awful.

[1]: [http://youtu.be/G6D1YI-41ao](http://youtu.be/G6D1YI-41ao)

</comment><comment><USER4> Can someone screenshot it? It refuses to display the content in IE10.

Yet another website that doesn't understand some people rent their soul, and as a result, have to use IE. However I am using IE10, so I'm not sure what features they are using for a job advert that apparently requires a more modern browser. Are they just saying its WebKit or nothing?

Seriously sick of this hipster shit. Some surveys put IE as the number 1, others its number 2. Why are you ignoring that much of the world for some stupid political point. It isn't good idea to have the web running off one rendering engine.

<comment><USER5> Quotes - female add

 _Beautiful and sexy code required.

We are convinced that woman are great programmers. Woman write sexy code: neat and clean. Many of them have long relationship... with PHP5, MySQL and Javascript. They like to talk and communication is essential in our work. Female programmers get along with customers very well and take such a good care of code quality, as if it is a pair of their new shoes. The best thing is that their detailed documentation and code organisation match the rules of Feng-Shui. Are you a female programmer with passion? May we invite you for coffee?_

Male -

 _Need for programming

You are addicted to PHP, MySQL and Javascript since years? Your life makes no sence without programming? Your girlfriend doesn't understand, why you start learning the fifth php framework and your parents say, your head is full of unix and linux. Do you want to talk to us about this? We want to invite you to an anonymous or maybe very personal meeting. No worries, we will bring you to a team that understands you and will support your passion of programming._

They both lead to identical detailed jobs description.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Also, Magento developers and Server experts apparently are sexless entities.

<comment><USER7> I long suspected that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> So they have created two ads for different sexes that are both tongue in cheek and blink at stereotypes with no ill intentions and that is sexist how?

<comment><USER8> You're an asshole! Oh, you're offended? IT WAS TONGUE IN CHEEK

<comment><USER5> Hardy ... I cannot get offended. And I am an asshole. Kinda goes with the "spend time on the internet".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> > Woman write sexy code: neat and clean.

Just like writing good code, I can attest to that shitty code is independent of race, gender, eye colour and all that.</comment>


Finally an Easy REST API for iMessage (Beta) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/drbh/power-message <comment><USER2> >Letting closed source binary access your messages

 _Definitely a good idea._

But in all honesty, I wouldn't run something like this without seeing the source.</comment>


Adafruit CEO Limor Fried named Entrepreneur magazine Entrepreneur of 2012 - <AUTHOR> http://instagram.com/p/TWVkW-Jbtt/ <comment><AUTHOR> I first met Ada at the Boston 2600 meetup in Harvard Sq in 1992. I think she was 14. Deth Veggie from Cult of the Dead Cow introduced her to me. He said he could tell she was going to amount to something big. Heh. Congrats Ada!

<comment><USER2> You've got me beat by 3 years. I think I met her for the first time at Pumpcon. She's also one of the nicest people. I tell my daughter about her all the time (it's no use, she still wants to be an author instead of an engineer).

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Am I the only one who finds the 'maker movement' slightly embarrassing. There are plenty of us before Limor who did the same stuff without the fanfare and movement crap.

This isn't a flame - I'm just surprised that the application of spin managed to produce such a ton of noise.

<comment><USER4> What do you mean by "same stuff"?

Were you selling kits and tools to people who might not have previously thought of themselves as makers, making it super easy to jump in and get started? This is what I think she's got the attention for.

<comment><USER3> Yeah I actually designed two kits for maplin in the 90s before they started shipping velleman shit and containers full of Chinese plastic crap.

Everyone sold the tools, kits and parts already. All that had been achieved is the application of hype and turning a bunch of prepackaged modules into a way of excusing the user from having to know what the hell they are doing.

It's turned engineering into painting by numbers powered by social hype.

<comment><USER5> > Yeah I actually designed two kits for maplin in the 90s before they started > shipping velleman shit and containers full of Chinese plastic crap.

Sounds like you're actually embarrassed that she succeeded where you did not.

> It's turned engineering into painting by numbers powered by social hype.

Like the iPad is "just" a big iPhone.

Most people who benefit from these sorts of products don't have a firm grasp of math and engineering to start with. Our education sucks in the US. Giving them a helping hand is a terrific way to swell the ranks of STEM professionals and introduce people to solving problems they would never have considered otherwise.

To shit on this is the most deplorable, counterproductive elitism.

<comment><USER3> _Most people who benefit from these sorts of products don't have a firm grasp of math and engineering to start with. Our education sucks in the US. Giving them a helping hand is a terrific way to swell the ranks of STEM professionals and introduce people to solving problems they would never have considered otherwise._

Just teach them engineering! Not pussy foot around and molly coddle them.

<comment><USER6> Your approach to this comes across as the equivalent of lamenting the state of 'kids these days' because 'back in the day,' if you did something wrong the priest would 'beat some sense into you.'

Some people find the idea of engineering and/or mathematics intimidating. If approached in the right way, it will 'click' for them, or at the very least their fears can be assuaged (allowing them to pursue higher learning). I take two issues with your posts here:

1) From your posts here, your approach sounds like you want to 'beat some engineering fundamentals into them.' You say that you've mentored others, so I can't believe that this is _actually_ your approach, but your posts come across this way. This may be at lease some of the reason that people are reacting the way they are to you.

2) You seem to be lamenting the fact that some people will work on these kits, and never go further with the 'higher learning' aspect. This is to be expected. There will never be a way to convert 100% of those curious into the One True Path of Engineering Enlightenment(tm). At the very least, the people that only dabble will get past the idea that all of this 'technology stuff' is some sort of voodoo magic that the majority of the population seems to believe.

<comment><USER3> You are correct. I don't "beat" it into them - I spent literally years doing 1:1 with people and providing learning material, defining tasks and milestones and days in the lab.

I want people to react to this because I think the issue requires some consideration. We're losing and compartmentalising knowledge to the point that people have no idea what they're really doing any more.

There is no one true path of engineering enlightenment but there is some magic when someone actually really understands what they're doing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I love the idea behind this company. I wish her every success. We need more entrepreneurs with this type of vision.

<comment><USER8> Exactly. (Frustrating that the other thread hi-jacked the attitude.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Well done! I've enjoyed putting together a few of the kits from Adafruit. My favorite (not the most technically challenging) is definitely the "tv-b-gone". Taking that thing into a bar in my college town has provided a lot of laughs. There maybe some room to be critical towards the fan fare of the maker movement, but all in all it's a positive step towards individuals becoming interested in science/technology.

<comment><USER10> While sold by Adafruit (among others), the TV-B-Gone was designed by Mitch Altman [1], who's as cool a frood as can be.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitch_Altman>

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The DIY electronics movement is entering an incredible phase, similar to what happened to the Internet during the post-boom decade. Companies like Amazon, Google, Twilio, WordPress and others made it easy for non-techies to build awesome applications. Now projects like Arduino, Electric Imp, Little Bits, and Raspberry Pi are doing the same for electronics. You can make a great project without needing to be an electrical engineer. The Internet gave the masses the power of communication and information. DIY electronics are giving the masses the power to build the world around them. Adafruit (and sparkfun!) are bringing that incredible tech to the world.

</comment><comment><USER12> Congrats Limor!

I still want a Wave Bubble.</comment>


Comment when you have something to say - <AUTHOR> http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2012/08/04/comment-when-you-have-something-to-say/ <comment><USER2> Apologies. I withdraw.

</comment><comment><USER3> That is a lucid, intelligent, well thought-out idea.

Overruled.</comment>