Santa Susana Field Laboratory - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Susana_Field_Laboratory <comment><USER2> "residents living within 2 miles of the laboratory are 60% more likely to be diagnosed with certain cancers compared to residents living 5 miles from the laboratory."

This new housing development is a mere 1300 ft away:

[https://www.kbhome.com/new-homes-los-angeles-and- ventura/arr...](https://www.kbhome.com/new-homes-los-angeles-and- ventura/arroyo-vista-at-the-woodlands)

<comment><USER3> Amazing, they really don't care.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Portions of this were burned recently in the Woolsey fire, likely leading to _some_ release of toxic chemicals. How much is hard to say, but authorities have been doing their best to downplay risks for decades.</comment>


Doctors have reversed an inherited disorder in utero using a biotech drug - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611015/in-a-medical-first-drugs-have-reversed-an-inherited-disorder-in-the-womb/ <comment><AUTHOR> What I like about this is its proof of concept nature. Now we know that it is actually possible to prevent at least some parts of an inheritable disease by one-time administration of a drug at the right moment in the development process. That's awesome. There might be other diseases for which that approach might also work. I hope it will spark interest in research into that.

The sad part is ofcourse the one about companies not being interested in drugs for rare diseases, even more when they're not needed frequently. I really hope we can find a solution to that.

<comment><USER2> > The sad part is ofcourse the one about companies not being interested in > drugs for rare diseases, even more when they're not needed frequently. I > really hope we can find a solution to that.

As that'll not happen all by itself because there's less money in that, pharmaceutical companies should be legally required to spend a certain amount of their research budget on rare diseases.

A nice follow-up read regarding one-shot cures: [https://arstechnica.com/tech- policy/2018/04/curing-disease-n...](https://arstechnica.com/tech- policy/2018/04/curing-disease-not-a-sustainable-business-model-goldman-sachs- analysts-say/)

<comment><USER3> Yes, why allow companies to choose how to spend their own money? Let's regulate! Why spend $1 billion to help 10 million people when we can spend $1 billion to help 25,000?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's interesting that lead billing goes to the doctors who injected the drug into a pregnant woman rather than the pharmaceutical company that developed it. "Doctors" cure patients of disease; "drug companies" rip off consumers.

<comment><USER5> "Drug companies rip off consumers"

That is an extremely glib view. There are "some" drug companies that rip off people. The problem with pricing in the Rx world is the high cost and unpredictable nature of discovering new drugs.

Profit margin of tech companies is twice that of Rx companies. Would you say that tech companies are ripping people off?

[http://www.businessinsider.com/sector-profit-margins- sp-500-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/sector-profit-margins- sp-500-2012-8)

<comment><USER6> The chart you reference shows that they are virtually the same...

All of Health vs All of Tech - yes, you are right. Tech is about double.

But Pharma, Biotech, Life Sciences show better returns over Tech as a whole and virtually equivalent Software & Services return.

I would argue that there are definitely players in the Tech space that are raking some very hefty profits, but are in highly competitive markets that could see that erode into losses very quickly... I do not think we are quite in the realm of price gouging and the lower barriers to entry in most of tech keeps things from swinging too far off the charts.

<comment><USER7> One should consider any survivorship bias in thinking about that. Also consider that a series A in biopharma is commonly well above above $30MM, and that doesn't generally even come close to funding proof-of-concpet clinical studies. That combined with any survivorship bias complicates the economic interpretations of cross industry profit margins.

<comment><USER6> That doesn't really apply here does it? My comment is only in reference to S&P500 companies, that the OP to my comment referenced.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The science bits from the article:

 _The experiment, described in a case report today in the New England Journal of Medicine, took place in Germany in 2016 at a clinic that specializes in rare, inherited skin diseases—particular one called XLHED, in which patients are born with fang-like front teeth and without the ability to sweat.

The problem: their bodies don't produce a specific protein required to make sweat glands.

The treatment exploited the fact that the missing protein is needed only temporarily, between weeks 20 and 30, when the sweat glands form in a developing fetus. Schneider says his team injected it directly into the twins' amniotic sacs.

"The great thing about this is the critical time points in the intrauterine development of these sweat glands," says Anna David, director of the Institute for Women's Health at University College London. "I think it is the first time you are seeing a protein drug used for correction of a genetic disorder before birth."

Corinna, [the parent], says she thinks the XLHED treatments worked. "Extremely successful," she says. "The twins can sweat normally." They still have somewhat unusual facial features and missing teeth._

</comment><comment><USER9> The only caveat to this approach, and it's minor, is that the inherited disorder will continue to be inherited. So the children need to be aware that when they have kids they'll want to have the same done (assuming nothing better has come along) so their kids can also sweat.

I wonder if this will become a problem for us moving into an age where we know enough to "fix" ourselves but not completely. Basically just more medical riders, instead of a bum knee, you have a bum gene.

<comment><USER10> This is already happening: See rates of C Sections.

<comment><USER11> What do C-Sections have to do with inherited gene disorders?

<comment><USER10> Women who need C-Sections to give birth have children who are more likely to need C-Sections when they give birth.

It is not a "gene disorder" in the traditional sense, but you could certainly make the case that it is.

<comment><USER11> Many women elect to have C-sections (particularly in Brazil) who are otherwise healthy, so this metric is not useful at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Fascinating. I'd be extremely surprised if this disorder was not somehow related to vampire myth origins long ago.

Poor understanding of the world before science came around lead to lots of folklore and myths (i.e. fake explanations), given the facial features I'd be interested to know of any historical link.

<comment><USER13> This disease may be the root for some mythological creatures, but probably not vampires. In folklore, vampires are corpses that continue to walk around and attack people at night. Not a person born with these sort of features, but rather an ordinary person who died. The details vary widely between cultures and time periods, but many folkloric depictions of vampires did not actually include fangs, and some don't even mention blood sucking.

It likely would have been considered a case of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monstrous_birth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monstrous_birth)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Wow this is amazing but scary like GATTACA the movie.

</comment><comment><USER15> Somewhere in the US, there's a Goldman's Sack analyst furiously making phone calls trying to prevent this catastrophic cure from spreading.

(Did I type Goldman Sachs correctly the first time?)</comment>


Plants can see, hear and smell – and respond - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20170109-plants-can-see-hear-and-smell-and-respond <comment><USER2> Reacting to something has nothing do with being aware of something.

<comment><USER3> Depends on your definition of aware. I'd certainly say plants can be _physiologically_ aware of something without having the capacity to be _consciously_ aware.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Salad is murder!

<comment><USER5> Yup, and not only murder, is torture in fact. You unroot an innocent young lattice, begin tearing off some leaves and chop, chop, chop the plant finely, then squeeze vinegar and salt in the open wounds, smash it with the teeth and finally disolve with acid the remains. Is horrifying if we think about it.

<comment><USER6> [http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2014-04-15](http://www.smbc- comics.com/comic/2014-04-15)</comment></comment></comment>


'Nightclub bouncer' phishing scam found by researchers - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21058591 <comment><USER2> There is already a term for it -- spear phishing attack.</comment>


Jeannette Wing Will Lead Microsoft Research International - <AUTHOR> http://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2012/november/nov20_wing.html

<comment><USER2> hmm, I took a class she taught at CMU.

She was an OK teacher, but kind of scary... there was a sense that if you made a mistake, there would be no mercy shown...</comment>


Attention shoppers: there's a new Foursquare mayor at this goddamn Safeway. - <AUTHOR> http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2010/12/1glaser.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Title courtesy of McSweeney's tweet. <http://twitter.com/mcsweeneysbooks/status/10081967261351936></comment>


George Grellas: Startups May Benefit From Incorporating Earlier - <AUTHOR> http://www.bootstrappersbreakfast.com/blog/2010/02/16/george-grellas-startups-may-benefit-from-incorporating-earlier-than-small-businesses/

<comment><AUTHOR> HN's <http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=grellas> was an invited speaker at the Bootstrapper Breakfast and opened with an elaboration of his comment here <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1126843>

His site also has an excellent legal FAQ for startups at <http://www.grellas.com/faq_business_startup.html></comment>


Show HN: Acquiredby – Definitive list of tech acquisitions - <AUTHOR> https://acquiredby.co/ <comment><USER2> I am not a native speaker, but "definitive" means, I belive, "complete", "one that is such, that you do not need others"?

If so, it covers a tiny percentage of the acquisitions (I can think of several European acquisitions which are not listed, and thus is ont from my tech industry)

</comment><comment><USER3> If the list remains fresh, this is a useful tool.

<comment><USER4> Came to say the same thing. It looks promising, but I think it's missing quite a few pieces - e.g. I looked at Google acquisitions and there should be way more companies listed.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've added the most notable acquisitions for now, will add the rest for each company</comment></comment></comment>


How I could have hacked any Facebook account - <AUTHOR> http://www.anandpraka.sh/2016/03/how-i-could-have-hacked-your-facebook.html <comment><USER2> Frankly I think the amount being award by these companies is minuscule when you compare it to the amount of damage this information could have caused Facebook in the wrong hands.

<comment><USER3> This has been discussed many, many times on HN before. This bug would not cause Facebook much damage; in fact, Facebook and Google tend to overpay rewards for bugs for the purposes of goodwill and recruiting.

Let's examine the facts:

1\. A Facebook vulnerability is dangerous to Facebook. A WordPress vulnerability is dangerous to a quarter of the internet. Facebook is not a high value target, relatively speaking.

2\. A Facebook vulnerability will be patched once it is widely used. Facebook's security team is one of the strongest and most sophisticated of any company, and their processes would quickly catch this once it was used. The total impact of the bug would be negligible. You'd lose the ability to compromise accounts as soon as you tried to do it in any meaningful or lucrative way.

3\. A vulnerability in Facebook might last a week before being patched, but a vulnerability in PHP will persist on the internet for years. No matter how many individual sites patch their servers, you'll still be able to pop a lonely server with social security numbers chugging along in a closet somewhere.

There really isn't much more to say about this. People claim bounties awarded by Facebook/Google/et al are undervalued every single time a bug bounty hits the front page of HN. Every single time, someone who is in the security industry patiently explains why it's not that valuable.

If someone tried to go to a blackhat group or go to the "black-market" (a shadowy, lucrative place that never seems to be very well-defined in these conversations), he would not even be able to find a seller, let alone one who would pay a lot.

What do you imagine someone would pay for this on the black-market? They'd need to profit from it. How much profit is worth their time?

Say they buy it for $20,000. Do you really think someone will derive $20,000 of profit from this before it's caught and patched by Facebook?

The only vulnerability worth $15,000 or more is one directly impacting a language, a widely used development library/framework or a widely used piece of software.

For further reading on bug bounty valuation:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7106953](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7106953)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9302188](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9302188)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9040855](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9040855)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9041017](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9041017)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8563884](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8563884)

<comment><USER4> What are you talking about? Facebook is not a "high value target" and "this bug would not cause Facebook much damage"?

For example, if you wanted to monetize it, I have to imagine TMZ (or someone even less scrupulous) would pay a lot of money for dumps of A-list celeb and athlete Facebook accounts.

You don't think Facebook having "The Fappening Part 2" on their hands is worth more than $15k to prevent? Or having every US Government FB account simultaneously posting ISIS propaganda?

The PR for any number of scenarios like those would be an absolute nightmare for Facebook.

<comment><USER3> Your comment does not reflect how vulnerability sales work in the real world.

In the real world, vulnerabilities are sold to blackhat groups who want to make a profit by attacking as many websites as possible. Generally, these websites will have valuable credit card or other information that can be stolen from a compromised server.

Compromised user accounts (not even the server! just users!) on a single website do not constitute a valuable target.

The idea that TMZ would pay a significant amount of money for this is a Hollywood plot, nothing more. Vulnerabilities are not valued highly just because you can come up with a contrived scenario in which it would be valuable to someone for some reason.

This is a market, and like any other market there are buyers and sellers who dictate supply and demand.

<comment><USER5> >Compromised user accounts (not even the server! just users!) on a single website do not constitute a valuable target.

That statement is just plain wrong. With over a billion Facebook users, surely _some_ of them are high-value targets.

<comment><USER6> But what can you really do with the Facebook login of, say Obama? Not provoking WW3, that's for sure. The only thing you can realistically create is a PR kerfuffle for Facebook, but considering the way to spread it would be (wait for it) on Facebook itself, there's not much money is this.

<comment><USER7> You simply log into the Bloomberg/AP/NYTimes account, post some fake economic or political news, and then call in some options you purchased the week before.

If done intelligently, this is incredibly difficult to trace. There is risk (rather than a straight-up sale), but the expected returns are probably an order of magnitude higher.

<comment><USER8> Given that the risk is you go to jail, I'm not so sure.

<comment><USER5> I thought most blackhat activities already implied the threat of jail-time...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> BTW - Anand is a security engineer working for Flipkart and is one if India's smartest security experts. This is not the first time he has found bugs.

[http://yourstory.com/2015/10/techie-tuesdays-anand- prakash/](http://yourstory.com/2015/10/techie-tuesdays-anand-prakash/)

</comment><comment><USER10> Good reminder here that _all_ publicly-visible services are part of your overall attack surface, including beta sites and other things you never expect people to look at. The DROWN vulnerability from last week was similar: people disabled SSLv2 on their web servers, but not their mail servers.

Very nice find: super simple but super effective. I'm glad Facebook paid up promptly.

</comment><comment><USER11> This has me thinking about another possible attack. Say I don't want to hack all of Facebook or a specific account. What if I used a botnet to reset passwords and then use the six attempts randomly on each account I reset. Sure I'd only get a small percentage but, I would easily start hacking FB accounts. It's things like this that make me use 2FA as much as possible on personal data.

<comment><USER12> 2FA is nice unless you lose your cell phone or it gets stolen. If you ever lose your job or go homeless and can't afford a cell phone then you are locked out of your accounts.

I am disabled and struggling if I miss payments I go homeless or can't pay my bills and things get shut off. For me 2FA might not work if I am down on my luck.

<comment><USER13> Authy is really good. [https://www.authy.com/](https://www.authy.com/)

They need a Firefox extension but its allowed me to do 2FA on my personal and work accounts without fear of being totally locked out if I loose my phone.

<comment><USER14> Don't Authy store some of your secrets server-side?

<comment><USER15> You can choose to store some, yes, but it's encrypted by your backup password. At least that's my understanding of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> A great example of responsible disclosure, and the company acknowledging, fixing and rewarding the bug and finder. Great job to both Facebook and Anand.

</comment><comment><USER17> How do companies evaluate the severity and impact of the vulnerability? I don't work in security, but it seems like this is worth more than $15,000.

<comment><USER3> Companies evaluate severity based on impact. There are different tiers of vulnerability.

A vulnerability that affects a particular website is significantly less valuable than one that affects many websites.

Companies like Google and Facebook actually overpay for vulnerabilities because 1) they're flush with cash and can, 2) it's excellent for goodwill in the industry, 3) it's an excellent recruiting tool and 4) it augments an already strong internal security program.

If you hypothetically tried to go to the black market with this vulnerability you wouldn't even find a buyer. When Facebook patches this, it's useless, and you'd have to derive more than whatever you paid for. At this point it's a betting game - do you think you can earn back $100,000 using this exploit before Facebook catches wind of it?

Conversely, vulnerabilities that are very highly valued tend to affect large numbers of websites in a format that is not easily patched. For example, many websites don't update WordPress often, which means that a vulnerability in WordPress is going to instantly get a CVE and a widespread push for awareness. Even so, it will be actionable for years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> For these individual hardworking security analysts, Facebook awarding cash prices of "any real value" is much worth than some news article reporting it as "...simple security flaw...".

[http://www.zdnet.com/article/facebook-fixes-simple- security-...](http://www.zdnet.com/article/facebook-fixes-simple-security- flaw-which-let-you-take-over-any-account/)

</comment><comment><USER19> A whole $15k? This could have cost them hundreds of thousands if not millions in lawsuits. That's a pretty crappy incentive, I'd imagine a lot less moral security researchers getting exponentially more money out of something like this by just selling the 0day.

I wonder why the reward is so low. This is literally the amount a code monkey gets paid after 3-5 months of work with minimal skills.

</comment><comment><USER20> On the subject of rate limiting, what is the best way to apply it across all endpoints, APIs and resources, external and internal, with minimal effort?

Usually, I see this implemented only as an afterthought, and only on endpoints deemed 'dangerous', waiting for a disaster like this to happen...

<comment><USER21> It's a defense in depth scenario but most webservers have modules for it, Apache certainly does as I've used it not sure about nginx still not used that in production.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22>
        beta.facebook.com and mbasic.beta.facebook.com

Certificate Transparency has an interesting impact on some of the less-public servers.

[https://crt.sh/?q=%25.facebook.com](https://crt.sh/?q=%25.facebook.com)

A host of servers turn up in that list, which may similarly be less security tested than the main facebook.com site.

<comment><USER23> I'm surprised an organisation as large as Facebook don't have their own CA, and just don't issue the semi-secret stuff off the record.

<comment><USER24> Running a CA is a major pain, adds auditing and other requirements that are ongoing pain, and prior to the past year or so Facebook did not issue enough certificates to make the cost worthwhile. Doing this right means adding a lot of logging and access control around a few parts of the infra stack that would manage this, so why not pay someone else to deal with the paperwork and bother? All FB certs are on the CT logs as a matter of policy, so that there are no loopholes in our current statement that if a Facebook cert is not on the CT logs you should not consider it valid; we will accept the loss of secrecy (and people launching new stuff hate it but have learned to adjust) if the end result is making it harder for someone to slide a dodgy cert into the chain.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Anyone know what tool he was using in the YouTube video? This stuff is super interesting.

<comment><USER26> Looks like Burp Suite. Sweet web proxy tool -- [https://portswigger.net/burp/](https://portswigger.net/burp/) Free for 14 days I think.

<comment><USER25> Awesome! Thanks for the link. It looks like they have a limited free forever version as well, gonna have to play with this.

<comment><USER26> hmm yea my memory might have adjusted it to a trial period -- looks like many of the most useful features are crippled in the free version.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Regardless of this being Facebook or not, but forget to throttle your API and this is what you get, some dude toying around with a tool just to poke holes in your thing, but I digress.

If in any twisted, unrealistic, straight out of Homeland scenario where anyone high profile enough would make use of this "vulnerability" and successfully create a media "splash", and assuming Facebook security team is on top of their game, this would get patched in a week tops. Keeping an eye on average number of requests coming to their API end points, especially sensitive ones, is part of their job, not a nice-to-have. I'd even think this would actually get patched within 24 hours (since the fix isn't really that difficult). I have absolutely no care or sympathy for Facebook but yeah, 15K is a lot for something like this. It's a nice catch, that's all.

</comment><comment><USER28> Good on Facebook for being so quick to reward Anand and fix the issue.

</comment><comment><USER29> I would love to know if someone has exploited this bug - should be fairly easy to learn that from logs (this attack is far from stealthy). I guess FB will never tell. :)

</comment><comment><USER30> Anyone else have trouble with that webpage? It froze my browser (Chrome).

</comment><comment><USER31> Hacker News: Where comments can be six paragraphs long and say absolutely nothing.

<comment><USER32> We detached this subthread from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11249116](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11249116) and marked it off-topic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Surprised that the well-paid developers at Facebook missed this vulnerability. Should inspire confidence on anyone who didn't get a job there. :-)</comment>


How much does it cost to be an audiophile? - <AUTHOR> http://priceonomics.com/speakers/#audiophile <comment><USER2> I would disagree with the initial premise that it's about the pursuit of "perfect sound reproduction". There's many people who do that, but that's not what the audiophile world really has become. It's about a bunch of hand waving and big checkbook spending to impress other audiophiles. Oddly, that describes a lot of "hobbies".

Nobody who feels that a $4,000 power cable is important has any semblance of sanity remaining. It's the homeopathy of consumer electronics.

<comment><USER3> As someone who spends far too much money on 20+ years old cars, I think I have to agree with you. Being an audiophile is a bit like being a car enthusiast: there really is nothing rational about spending so much money on something that most people don't see the value of, something that is so subjective that you can't explain it to them. I think in the end, it's more about the joy you get out of the idea of being able to spend that kind of money on something that so few people are willing or able to do. Subliminally, it affects your perception of how awesome the car or the audio setup actually is, if you ask an outsider, chances are he or she doesn't see or hear anything better that what 'normal' people are using.

<comment><USER4> At least you could tell the difference between a cheap car and an expensive car in a blind test.

<comment><USER3> > _At least you could tell the difference between a cheap car and an expensive > car in a blind test._

If I show my car to people, most of them don't see a 'modern classic', a 'rare limited edition', a 'real drivers car' or a 'high performance vehicle' with 'upgraded specifications'. They just see a re-sprayed 20-year old clunker without satnav, double airbags or cupholders ;-)

<comment><USER4> Sure, but _you_ can still tell the difference. Not even audiophiles can distinguish much audiophile equipment from more mundane equipment in a blind test.

<comment><USER5> _> Not even audiophiles can distinguish much audiophile equipment from more mundane equipment in a blind test._

That's a pretty broad generalization about a large group of people. Do you have any facts to back it up?

<comment><USER6> [http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/03/audiophiles-cant-tell- the...](http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/03/audiophiles-cant-tell-the- difference-between-monster-cable-and/)

<comment><USER5> Let's start by considering the original source for the story. It comes from this forum post: <http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/15412-post28.html>

First off, that begs the question: how reliable do you consider a comment on a forum? Are you going to condemn an entire industry based on that? But that doesn't really matter. As I mentioned in my reply to mikeash, that's just not enough evidence. I'm not going to repeat myself here. You can read my other comment to understand why one piece of evidence isn't conclusive.

To address the Engadget article, it took one paragraph of that post out of context to make a narrow point about Monster cables. If you read the rest of the post (and probably the rest of the forum thread), it's clear that the author is _not_ advocating that there's no difference between _any_ stereo equipment. In fact, the thread that he's posting in is about how to choose the right loudspeakers. The paragraph that was taken out of context is just part of the author making a point to the other forum participants.

In another post (in the same thread), the author writes: _"Some systems sound boring, some are absolutely alive (such as on large horn speakers). Others are polite, compressed, but accurate (Martin Logans, Quads). Then again, others are explosive and extremely good at creating 'illusion' of reality such as Wilson Wamm, and like speakers in the $50,000 to $125,000.00 bracket. They draw you into an altered state of mind (hypnosis)"_ [1]. It seems to me that he's saying he can hear the difference between speakers, which is exactly contrary to the conclusion that you're using his words to support. "Audiophile equipment" and "mundane equipment" includes more than just speaker cables.

[1] <http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/15419-post31.html>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If working in the audio industry and studying the topic at university has taught me anything about audiophilia, then that would be the fact that audiophiles tend to fail to take room acoustics seriously.

Realistically, any half decent source and amplifier will introduce practically no distortion compared to what the combination of the speaker (and placement) and the listening room introduce. The only thing that makes loudspeakers viable really is our uncanny ability to make sense of room acoustical distortions. Thus, we can sense the true sound even though it has been mangled by echos, reverberations and room modes.

However, we can still hear the distortion--and much more so than the comparatively small distortions introduced by sources, amplifiers or cables.

The thing is, if you really want some stellar sound from your home stereo, it does not make much sense to spend more than a couple thousand bucks on audio equipment without significantly improving your room acoustics. A $1000 sound system in a good room will always outperform any system in a bad room. So if you really want to improve your sound, you should probably look into room acoustical measures.

I have heard some > $40k sound systems in purpose-built rooms. The result is really amazing. If you close your eyes, even a trained ear will have difficulties discerning the recording from the original. In one recording studio, they had a $100k sound system. However, they also had a room to match it: The room was physically decoupled from the outside world (the whole room was standing on rubber feet, so to speak), it had special double windows, a purpose-built air conditioning and above all, loads of sound absorbing material and architecture.

And frankly, if you really are serious about sound quality, this is the kind of effort you have to make in order to get there. Spending the same money on more expensive speakers won't help.

</comment><comment><USER8> Before laying down any money, I'd recommend heading over to hydrogen audio (<http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/>) and reading around for a while, or asking questions. As part of their terms of service, they require listening test data to back up any claims of audible differences. It makes for some pretty interesting discussions, and it's changed my outlook quite a bit. It's also probably saved me quite a bit of money.

</comment><comment><USER9> Audiophile & Student checking in here. Most people don't realize that there is gold on craigslist that older crowd is throwing out due to their wives nagging ("These speakers are too big.." etc) I've put together an amazing system using Polk SDA-2b's, Parasound HCA-1200, & Onkyo TS-DX787(as a preamp)(donated) and behringer uca-202 DAC for under 300 dollars. Cables are all monoprice and it blows my mind that people pay more for snake-oil cables.

Being an audiophile is rather cheap once you gather the knowledge on forums (audiokarma.org) and patience at craigslist/thriftstores/ebay.

<comment><USER10> How do you know which of the older stuff is good?

<comment><USER9> In this day and age, you can just look up the model number and read a review on it, and find plenty of reviews on forums. After a short while you find out what makes a quality model and not (construction quality, driver quality etc). Best way imo is to start looking stuff up and reading.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> You know, blind testing is a really nice mind hack. For instance, I've discovered that I can't tell the difference between two brands of tea I liked, one of which is cheaper and easier to find.

This is a huge win! I haven't lost Refinement Points because I don't need to buy fancy tea. But I _have_ gained money and convenience.

If you're an audiophile, wine lover, or anyone else who spends a lot for quality that "others can't appreciate", I humbly suggest that you put yourself to a test. If you pass, your sophisticated taste is validated. If you fail, you can spend a lot less money and be content knowing you're getting just as good an experience.

<comment><USER12> I really think you have to go through the experience of blind testing to really get it at a visceral level how wrong your gut feeling can be and how much you're projecting what information you know onto your sensory experience.

<comment><USER7> If you get enjoyment out of expensive stuff and you don't need the money otherwise, what's the harm?

Retail therapy works, sadly. I personally think that anything that gives you enjoyment and does not harm others is a good thing.

Seeing that expensive tea is just as good as cheap tea will just make me depressed about our economy ;-)

<comment><USER11> I don't understand what you're saying. The harm is that you're _losing money_. Even if you're a complete materialist/hedonist and happy with that, this makes sense for you. The money you save on tea can be spent on music, or massage, or sushi. Why wouldn't you want that?

It's also possible that you'll find you actually like the more expensive tea better, which is fine. Then you'll know it's money well spent.

If you really get enjoyment out of expensive stuff _because it's expensive_ , I'd be happy to sell you some milk for $300 a gallon. Trust me, it's the best. I'll put a fancy label on it and everything.

<comment><USER7> Most times I value my time higher than my money and hence skip the research and enjoy my tea. And don't care one bit if there is a cheaper brand of tea out there that would be of higher quality.

<comment><USER11> OK, I totally agree about the time vs money tradeoff, but in my case I was taking extra time to special order something which 5 minutes' experimentation showed was unnecessary. Same could be said for an audiophile looking for perfect speakers instead of buying whatever is at the store.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The premise of "perfect sound" is almost antithetical to the current state of the audiophile world. Some of the most expensive, well reviewed "audiophile" systems have _worse_ specs than your run of the mill, mid-fi system. Heck, look at the obsession with vinyl, no matter which way you look at it, no matter how much superstition you have, the simple _fact_ is that it has poorer fidelity than a CD. That "magic" quality that makes vinyl sound better than digital? Distortion. Albeit a quite pleasing distortion, but a distortion non the less. Plain and simple.

The world of audiophile gear is _nothing_ more than smoke and mirrors. The human ear, just like the human eye, is.. well, rather poor. We have a very small spectrum in which we operate. So these magazines like stereophile will plop an osciliscope onto the latest piece of gear and marvel over the fact that it's flat from 0 to a kazillion and then talk about its "creamy, refined mids." Someone please kill me.

Audiophile USB cables, audiophile mode-correcting rocks, audiophile amps with .00000000000001% THD, that damn marker to color your CDs with? All hooey. I once read in a forum an anecdote about a guy switching from Monster, to some other overpriced cable and being able to tell the difference from a room away. This was not a tongue in cheek post.

The big problem is that this stuff is eerily close to religion. A bulk of the hard-core, $7000 CD player audiophiles I know are actually rather well educated -- engineers of one type or another, but they slip into cognitive dissonance when it comes to anything relating to audio. A phrase uttered far too frequently is "You can't measure what I'm hearing." Once that mindset is adopted, confirmation bias is king. Here's a $4k pear audio cable. It'll increase the air in the high end by around 15%.

[http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-blogs/audio-designline- bl...](http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-blogs/audio-designline- blog/4033511/Audio-Myths-Workshop-video)

</comment><comment><USER14> The logarithmic scale is the key insight. It would be interesting to ponder whether there are any hobbies that involve buying stuff regularly that _don't_ feature this. I know from experience wine is very similar (and, of course, value can be had if you know what you want to compromise).

</comment><comment><USER15> A $100-500 set of headphones, decent headphone amp ($50-500), and FLAC files will probably get you to "98" on the log scale, too.

(I'm a little wary of buying used headphones, at least without replacing all the soft parts and cleaning thoroughly, though.)

<comment><USER16> A $20 USB soundcard also seems to help, if your source is a laptop.

<comment><USER15> Yeah, what I meant by "amp" was integrated USB DAC + amp. I use a Headroom Total Bithead, which isn't the best, but isn't the worst. I am not really sure what the best in various price ranges would be.

There's huge variation in quality of headphone-out on computers. I'm sure some are good, and most Apple products are at least ok, but I've usually found even the lowest end (CMOY, Filo, etc.) is a big improvement.

(plus, the amp is really helpful for high-impedance headphones. Mine range from ~30 to ~600 Ohm.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Very high quality audio reproduction can be hacked too, and audio enthusiasts like myself know how to find deals and hacks to get superior performance with much less money. For example, I have a circle of friends who upgrade the OPAMP chips on their sound cards ($10) or use Sonic T-Amp ($30 triclass T-Class digital amp rivaling hifi tube amplifiers) paired with passive studio monitors from Wharfedale, Celestion, or Tannoy (around $200 on ebay when recording studios upgrade to powered monitors).

edit - added references:

<http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/sonicimpact/t_2.html>

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

<http://www.auzentech.com/site/products/opamp_intro.php>

</comment><comment><USER12> There is conclusive data on what we want from reproduction systems: [1][2]. Sad that a place calling itself priconomics can't even google for the most straightforward econometric study on the topic.

Engineering for the above metrics is straightforward, and not particularly costly. Even a 10k system can tie for top rank in blind tests if you pay attention to the details that actually have leverage against perception. If you're paying 250k for a home audio system, you're being sold an expensive trinket through a narrative of fetishism.

[1]: <http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=12794>

[2]: [http://www.waynejones.net/wayne/documents/T&MW_Harman_Ar...](http://www.waynejones.net/wayne/documents/T&MW_Harman_Article.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER18> "At the same time, it's hard not to think that audiophiles are on the wrong side of history. As the rest of the world joyfully listens to Spotify and Pandora on their iPhones, audiophiles still listen to CDs! The march of technological progress has many casualties, and sound quality may just be one of them. The product desires of audiophiles are so idiosyncratic and contrary to popular tastes; they have an uphill battle to protect sound quality against faster, cheaper and more social access to music."

This is not how I see it going down. There are a couple reasons why older formats of music aren't going anywhere and will always serve as compliments to the newer digital formats.

The biggest difference between buying CDs/Vinyl vs. a subscription to Spotify/Pandora is ownership. For the foreseeable future there will be a significant market of people, including audiophiles and DJs who want to own the music they buy rather than lease it. And it's now possible for regular to receive the benefits of both formats by buying CDs, ripping them to a media server and then streaming them to your phone or tablet using services such as Audiogalaxy and Google Music.

The other reason is the lack of innovation in high quality audio formats. As evidenced by the failure of SACD, the demand is simply not big enough to support the research and marketing of new physical mediums designed solely for music. In the future we will be forced to rely on CDs (which are never the weakest link anyways in an audiophiles system) or piggyback onto other, more popular formats such as Bluray for 5.1+ high quality audio.

<comment><USER19> I can't help but think that for the average person this guy is right. The audiophiles are going deeper and deeper into owning high-quality media to play on their high-quality systems.

I have several large boxes of CD's which I know look at with scorn. I haven't used a CD or even a ripped copy of them in years. I've tried Audiogalaxy, Google Music, iTunes Match, and Amazon MP3. It takes a lot of effort to migrate your music to each of those services.

What I've found by using subscription services is what the author is saying: cheaper, faster, and more social access to music. Audiophiles will continue to have their niche but I tend to agree that that is not the way history is going.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> By the time most people could afford any of this equipment their hearing has probably degraded to such a point that they can only hear 12kHz to 14kHz anyway.

Although unscientific, I played some tones on youtube in the office and the twenty somethings could hear almost 20kHz and the forty somethings couldn't hear anything by the time the frequency sweep was just below 15kHz.

<comment><USER21> Depends on how the video's audio was compressed and what you were playing it on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Usually priceonomics provides statistics from a large poll of customer/purchase record, .etc. That _is_ information you couldn't gain elsewhere. Somewhat like an analytics publication.

This article is just a description of a shopping experience, together with the research result you have to do before you buy something that is a new category to you.

Oh well.

</comment><comment><USER23> I could (but don't) call myself an audiophile -- I love the world of sound around me.

I notice the aural qualities of every room I enter; when I'm in a small space with hard walls, I hum a bit to identify the pitch that will make the room resonate. (I'll bet some with perfect pitch could measure the space between two walls quite accurately with their eyes closed by learning the wave sizes...).

I notice when someone's speech or laugh in my house causes sympathetic vibrations on the strings of my acoustic bass guitar in the corner. Or on the metal cover of the radiator.

I've spent decades learning to produce sound, from various instruments including the built-in ones (like whistling, body percussion, various forms of vocal music including Tuuvan throat singing), to making music from objects never intended to be instruments. When I listen to others making music I pick it apart in my head.

There are lots of people with better-trained ears than I have, who make better music as well -- so moving on: how much money have I spent on audio reproduction equipment?

Probably less than $500 in my lifetime.

The music I'm listening to the most right now are performances of the Brandenburg Concertos, from YouTube, played from a Macbook Air speaker in another room, while I march up and down the stairs with a baby over my shoulder.

I like the way it echoes up the narrow stairs, and how there's one spot partway up that's more resonant than anywhere else. I can't hear subtle details -- so what? I know what that sounds like already; my brain can fill in the missing bits. And there's no possible playback that can reproduce actually _performing_ music -- imagine tje cello vibrating against your body and filling your ears, the thrumming pushback of the bow against your hand -- and these are the things worth having in your head when you listen to someone more accomplished playing a piece.

I'll probably get a decent set of speakers someday (though I can't imagine paying more than I'd pay for an actual well-made instrument), but any playback is unavoidably a shadow of the actual performance; I can't imagine caring deeply about getting a perfectly crisp shadow (as long as I get a reasonably clear one) when I'm just using it to imagine the real thing anyway.

</comment><comment><USER24> Um... You COULD spend a lot of money, or you could learn some basic electronic and woodworking skills. I built a set of ZDT3.5's (Google it) for $250. I built (from various kit pieces) my own T-amp for $75 to power them. Your Mac already has a great sound card capable of extreme sample playback rates. A couple of FLAC recordings later, you're in business.

</comment><comment><USER25> It depends on how much wire coat hangers cost.

[http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/coat-hanger-wire-is- just-...](http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/coat-hanger-wire-is-just-as-good- as-a-high-quality-speaker-cable/19366)

</comment><comment><USER26> Answer: how much have you got?

</comment><comment><USER27> For Music:

1\. USB DAC 2\. Magnepan Speakers 3\. Stereo Receiver

For movies or games you'll want surround and a sub</comment>


Parallel map-reduce in one line of Haskell  - <AUTHOR> http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.haskell.cafe/41944 <comment><USER2> Strange coding style, indeed.</comment>


Recommended Resources for Behavior Design by Simplicity Labs - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/simplicity-labs/simplicity-labs-recommended-resources-for-behavior-design-cf692dcdb769

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN --

I don't really push stuff on here, ever. I never thought I had anything good enough. But today I believe there's something really good. My close friend curated a list of the top behavior design resources in one place. Here's what he mentions in the article.

"We often have clients ask us for some background reading on BJ's framework of Behavior Design. Behavior Design is a practical framework that explains how human behavior really works, and how you can automate behavior change in your own products or services.

Rather than hoarding this list to ourselves, we wanted to make a public resource to help anyone who wants to learn more. In the article, you can see why Fortune Magazine named BJ as one of their "10 New Gurus You Should Know," and what companies like Virgin Pulse and Walgreens look to BJ for his expertise."

Hope you find something useful.

\- David @dngoo</comment>


China shares gyrate as Beijing scrambles to calm markets - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/28/us-china-markets-idUSKCN0Q207920150728

<comment><USER2> One thing that annoys me is the Chinese government's insistence on pursuing people engaged in "Share Dumping". If there is the potential of future returns in the form of dividends, then any shares "dumped" would be quickly picked up by people seeking to get a return from those shares. The market would quickly find a level which reflects the underlying value of those companies.

I"m wondering whether what we are actually seeing is a bubble returning to it's underlying justifiable value?

</comment><comment><USER3> seems government give up save the stock market.</comment>


Conan O'Brien Harvard Speech (2000) "Fall down, make a mess" [video] - <AUTHOR> http://www.guba.com/watch/3000034406

<comment><USER2> Transcript: <http://www.february-7.com/features/conan.htm>

</comment><comment><USER3> Conan O Brien is hilarious. This speech is particularly funny because most of what he says is true and people can relate. Good life lessons though. As college graduation speeches go this is one of the best i've heard</comment>


If the Panama Canal gets a rival - <AUTHOR> http://worldif.economist.com/article/8/what-if-the-panama-canal-gets-a-rival-trench-warfare-in-nicaragua <comment><USER2> Disclaimer, I'm part Panamanian, that being said, I find this highly suspicious. A lot of my Nicaraguan friends are also highly doubtful this will ever take off. The big problems for Nicaragua with this are:

\- Horrible ecological impact (fisheries in Caribbean are already [1]

\- Many think this is an excuse for the politicians to get cushy land/resort deals along the proposed route and near the entrances to the canal [2]

\- Some think it is really never going to materialize, but Chinese owned resorts will pop up on each end.

\- Nicaragua doesn't have the infrastructure to undertake such a big engineering project (human talent, electrical, etc)

\- The public hasn't had any say in this so far [2]

1\. [http://e360.yale.edu/feature/nicaragua_canal_a_giant_project...](http://e360.yale.edu/feature/nicaragua_canal_a_giant_project_with_huge_environmental_costs/2871/)

2\. [http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/Latin-America- Monito...](http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/Latin-America- Monitor/2013/0807/Nicaragua-s-canal-controversy-builds)

<comment><USER3> My wife is Panamanian and having just recently traveled there I got the same impression. I was asking everyone about it and they held the same opinions to yourself.

It's also worth noting that the reason the canal was put in Panama over Nicaragua was due to earthquake activity which Panama did not have.

<comment><USER4> Not the main reason. As always, politics really ruled with US-Columbia relations factoring in heavily (Panama was a province of Columbia early on in planning), as well as the existing US-owned Panama Railway.

<comment><USER5> It's Colombia, please.

<comment><USER6> Most effective way to piss of a Colombian is to call their country Columbia :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Please note that this is article is part of a special section of the Economist this week called 'What If'. It is highly speculative and more about the potential of scenarios and alternatives rather than a real article. As an example another article is a retrospective on the first 100 days of Hillary Clinton as president, having won against Marco Rubio.

I love the Economist and find the section thought provoking, but hope it is not a trend to soften up the paper.

</comment><comment><USER8> It's weird how they compare China's (hypothetical) desire for a naval military presence in the Atlantic to the USA's presence in the Pacific. Guys, the USA has _coasts_ on the Atlantic and Pacific. No one can say we don't have a legitimate interest in defending our borders at least. I can't think of any reason for China to have carrier groups steaming around the Atlantic other than "lookin' for trouble."

<comment><USER9> Pray tell, why do you have a carrier in the Indian Ocean?

<comment><USER10> The US is to a quite good approximation, the only naval power on the planet.

<comment><USER11> It depends on what we call "naval power".

China is probably the country of the planet with more "naval muscle" in fact. The chinese fishership float is huge and vital for their economy (because the very lucrative Chinese Acuaculture depends on the world marine fisheries).

So instead to having a big militar float to justify spending ridiculous amounts of tax money in ruinous wars created here and there, China have a big civil float to earn big money with fisheries and commerce... in the face of the other countries.

<comment><USER10> I'm talking about naval military power.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > After all, what wouldn't China pay to see one of its naval fleets one day > emerging from the Central American jungle right under America's nose?

Not that the US Navy couldn't already shoot up entire fleets with missiles, but when a fleet passes through a tiny canal, well, it's a canal and a tiny nuke is enough to blow up the entire fleet with no way to escape...

<comment><USER13> It's 2015, fleets don't move without being observed today. Every major power has surveillance satellites specifically designed for keeping track of naval fleets. A Chinese fleet rushing around the world on a provocative trajectory toward the continental US is going to gain a lot of attention and a lot of company very rapidly.

<comment><USER10> To monitor an inland canal you just need a guy and a lawn chair.

<comment><USER13> Also, the idea that any country in central America would intentionally make an enemy of the US for a little money is not entirely believable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'll admit to being skeptical, too, but I seem to recall reading that people thought that the US was not going to be able to finish the original canal and that the whole project was foolhardy. I think the US was just more tenacious than France before it (also people had learned about the role of mosquitoes in disease and sprayed the mosquitoes)

China has a very long history of massive building projects, so if Nicaragua is willing, and the similar sentiment as the first canal makes me hesitant to dismiss it.

<comment><USER15> The book The Path Between The Seas is an incredible history of the Panama Canal. [http://www.amazon.com/The-Path-Between- Seas-1870-1914-ebook/...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Path-Between- Seas-1870-1914-ebook/dp/B002FK3U4Q/)

Short version: the French tried to build it as an investment, but the vision they could sell (sea level canal) couldn't be built. USA took over and muscled through because it was strategically important to the govt and it was a huge jobs program and stimulus to American companies selling food, transportation, steel, construction equipment, medicine, etc to the 30k+ workers. Also gave electrical projects to a young GE!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Looking at the proposed map of the canal how does this work when Lake Nicaragua [1] is freshwater? Even with locks I'm guessing salt water from the sea will slowly contaminate (seep) into the lake causing big changes for the ecosystem and local population.

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

<comment><USER17> Harbors generally are freshwater, and boundaries between fresh and sea water are innumerable, if you stop and think about it for a few seconds. If this was a real problem it would have contaminated Lake Michigan and the Hudson Valley by the same means.

The reason it hasn't is that water generally doesn't flow uphill.

<comment><USER18> I guess 32.7 meters above sea level is reasonably uphill.

I'm too lazy to calculate the approximate volume of fresh water that represents, based on the lake's surface area. Pretty safe to say that the rest of the lake's volume, at and below sea level wouldn't be rendered brackish too easily.

Although, given China's penchant for environmental accidents, I wouldn't put it past them, if all that additional lake water above sea level were to get skimmed off the top by an accidental spill into the ocean.

<comment><USER19> For comparison, the Great Lakes are about 60 m above sea level (Kingston, at the junction of Lake Ontario and the St Lawrence, is at 200 ft). Salt water inundation has not been a problem. However, invasive species (zebra mussels, for example) have been. They are fresh water species that get sucked up into ballast water in other ports (many of which are on rivers or estuaries) and pumped out in other destinations. There are procedures to avoid this (exchanging fresh-water ballast for salt water while at sea, for example) but those procedures are inevitably implemented by humans, who are certain to eventually make a mistake sufficient to cause contamination.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I think it's more likely that China would finance a canal across the Kra Isthmus first.

</comment><comment><USER21> Back on the envelope calculations suggest that is not profitable investment. Even with optimistic assumptions:

[http://noelmaurer.typepad.com/aab/2015/01/the-nicaragua- cana...](http://noelmaurer.typepad.com/aab/2015/01/the-nicaragua-canal-still- makes-no-business-sense-now-with-numbers.html)

<comment><USER22> Not a profitable investment on a 15-year timescale. Potentially profitable over 25 years (according to the linked estimates) - and this is for a project with a 50-year concession, with a 50-year extension allowed for.

Perhaps it would be silly for private investors to pile in hoping for a short- term return, but over the life of the canal it could potentially be a great investment for sufficiently long-term entities (such as nation states) to invest in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Everyone seems to be focusing on the economic and environmental issues but missing the elephant in the room. Even the original article misses the mark:

> After all, what wouldn't China pay to see one of its naval fleets one day > emerging from the Central American jungle right under America's nose?

It's not what China would pay to have its naval fleets _traverse_ the canal, it's what China would pay to have a legitimate-sounding reason to have its naval fleet _stationed_ at either end. It's a similar motivation for building those artificial islands in the South China Sea. The canal itself is a red herring.

</comment><comment><USER24> _The two-lock waterway could take vessels with a proposed freight capacity of 25,000 20-foot containers, or 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs); currently the biggest ships have a capacity of around 19,000 TEUs and make up a tiny fraction of the world fleet. Even the expanded Panama Canal, due to open in 2016, is limited to taking cargoes of 13,000 TEUs, so ships that otherwise would have rounded Cape Horn or gone via Suez would be able to move more easily between east and west._

That's about the only reason I can see for building this canal.

</comment><comment><USER25> Does anybody here have experience as an expat living in Panama? I've heard good things about the quality of life and tax benefits (for immigrants/expats), plus a reasonable cost of living. I wonder if they're accurate, and what impact this rival canal might have on those conditions in the unlikely event it proceeds.

</comment><comment><USER26> It is more likely that Peak Oil will kick in before the project is completed. There will be a permanent change in the order of things, it will no longer be economical to import plastic doodads from China, world shipping will decline and the Nicaragua canal will lie half-finished like stone statues on Easter Island.

</comment><comment><USER27> Related NYTimes article from earlier this year [1]

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/26/travel/26nicaragua- cover.h...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/26/travel/26nicaragua- cover.html?_r=0)

</comment><comment><USER28> How well could an ocean-going ship float in freshwater lake Nicaragua?

And I doubt the lake would stay clear after ships drag in seawater.

<comment><USER29> Probably just as good as it does in Gatun Lake in the Panama Canal.

Ships would "drag" in very little salt water because the lakes are above sea level. Since locks operate using gravity the water flows back out to sea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Like China's "One Belt, One Road"?</comment>


Indian Govt in talks to make amendments to IT act to break end to end encryption - a-ve https://indianexpress.com/article/india/it-act-amendments-data-privacy-freedom-of-speech-fb-twitter-5506572 <comment><AUTHOR> SO another country is ending user privacy!</comment>


The PSPgo is officially dead, why did it fail? - <AUTHOR> http://www.geek.com/articles/games/the-pspgo-is-officially-dead-why-did-it-fail-20110420/

<comment><USER2> First off, the PSP Go is my all-time favorite device, but only once you enable the ability to run unsigned code. Because of it, I can have every NES and SNES game ever released in my pocket at all times! It's incredible.

\--

Seriously though, the Go failed for a few reasons. Sony made some critical mistakes with it. First off, the device's main method of obtaining games is wifi. The Go has an 802.11b chip in it, which is extremely slow and outdated.

Most of the problems are UX related.

Turning the device on for the first time, you try to sign into the PlayStation Network to download your first game. First, you must update your firmware. To do so, you have to have the device fully charged (90% doesn't count), even if it's plugged in. So, you have to leave your brand new gaming device plugged in for at least 4 hours while the battery fully charges before you can download and install the system update so you can install your first game.

Once charged, you access your PSN account, and search through the limited selection of available games. Most new PSP games are released on UMD disks only, and take many months to arrive in downloadable form, if ever.

So, _if_ you find a game that you like, you download it and wait 45 minutes for it download over the 802.11b connection. Then you have to wait another 15 minutes for it to be extracted. Then you can play.

Of course, any of the games you likely already own from your other PSPs can never be played on the device at all.

\--

It's absurd. I'm surprised it lasted this long.

<comment><USER3> You can tell there's a lot of "design by fiat" going on at Sony.

One one hand, the interface on the Playstation devices looks slick and elegant.

On the other, you have to deal with these really bone-headed decisions scattered all over the place, some of which you already mentioned, that just ruin the experience.

And this goes beyond just the interface. Sony may have brilliant engineers, but you can tell it's a dictatorship - and The Man, while he may be a good general-purpose businessperson, is pretty dumb in other ways.

<comment><USER4> >And this goes beyond just the interface. Sony may have brilliant engineers, but you can tell it's a dictatorship - and The Man, while he may be a good general-purpose businessperson, is pretty dumb in other ways.

After this and the entire GeoHotz fiasco, I actually have the opposite opinion. Sony has some pretty brilliant designers-the UI and device styling is quite nice. Their engineers, on the other hand, seem to keep on making pretty stupid decisions that make actually using the device difficult to use.

<comment><USER3> That's possible, too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> There's also the fact that the system uses 802.11b wireless, which makes any downloads unbearably slow.

In addition, the PSP's prices for older titles are quite high-usually around $20. For a few titles(especially the ones published by Atlus), this means that the download is cheaper than a physical copy because of the rarity of the software. For a lot of games, however, it's possible to find cheaper copies on eBay or even in big box store bargain bins.

<comment><USER5> Plus a physical copy has resale value, so when you're done with a game you can sell it or trade it to a friend.

Aside from 802.11b (and maybe the battery), the hardware is really nice. The system has a really nice solid feel to it, the screen, while not up Retina standards, is bright and more than adequate for games/movies, and the controls have a good tactile response (although the shoulder buttons are a tad awkward).

I had a PSPGo for a short period of time, and running emulators on it was fantastic. Sony seems to like the razor-blades sales model, but the homebrew community sure adds a ton of value to these devices.</comment></comment>


Can we get feature importance wo using predictions from a fitted model? Yep - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.04750 <comment><AUTHOR> Here's the abstract: Practitioners use feature importance to rank and eliminate weak predictors during model development in an effort to simplify models and improve generality. Unfortunately, they also routinely conflate such feature importance measures with feature impact, the isolated effect of an explanatory variable on the response variable. This can lead to real-world consequences when importance is inappropriately interpreted as impact for business or medical insight purposes. The dominant approach for computing importances is through interrogation of a fitted model, which works well for feature selection, but gives distorted measures of feature impact. The same method applied to the same data set can yield different feature importances, depending on the model, leading us to conclude that impact should be computed directly from the data. While there are nonparametric feature selection algorithms, they typically provide feature rankings, rather than measures of impact or importance. They also typically focus on single-variable associations with the response. In this paper, we give mathematical definitions of feature impact and importance, derived from partial dependence curves, that operate directly on the data. To assess quality, we show that features ranked by these definitions are competitive with existing feature selection techniques using three real data sets for predictive tasks.</comment>


Flu virus with 'pandemic potential' found in China - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53218704 <comment><USER2> I do wonder how this would of been reported prior to COVID-19. Would the pandemic aspect be as flagged are my thoughts.</comment>


If You Want to Keep Using The Internet, Learn Chinese Now - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/5719370/if-you-want-to-keep-using-the-internet-learn-chinese-now According to this infographic, Chinese will become the internet's dominant language in five years. Obviously, every single webpage won't be in Mandarin, but it's a good reminder that China's rise as a cultural force shouldn't be ignored. <comment><USER2> It will be time to get 'worried' when we see Chinese approaching the top of a chart which adds up not just users' first langauges, but additional languages also.

I would imagine the common language measure is far more significant than first language alone. That's what's going to drive language choice for content, and content is what I'm interested in as a user.

I can see a separate, more insular net of Chinese content developing, given the mass of Chinese speakers. I just don't see it supplanting the general, English net.</comment>