Random Rant On Stealth-Mode Startups (no hard feelings) - <AUTHOR>

<comment><AUTHOR> Off topic, but gosh do I dislike the whole "stealth mode" classification. Now, I completely understand if some details need to stay under the rug for the time being, but the terminology makes everything seem so ___important_ __, like when people "promise" that their social network will be "different" because it's got the "secret sauce."

"It's Facebook, but with the Secret Sauce!" they proclaim. Who knows, this could be similar to saying, "It's Fillet Mignon, but with the Secret Sauce!"

Did it ever occur to you that I may not want my Fillet Mignon with "Secret Sauce?"

</comment><comment><USER2> I think the best way to pull off stealth mode is to create something that makes money right away but has a secondary goal that will be hard for somebody else to guess, that you're already developing behind the scenes. That way, you have something to show people and take credit for, while also working on new features. I think that's the best way to have a cake and eat it, too.

Of course, it's good that people don't talk about their services because of course I'm going to drop what I'm doing and start doing their idea from scratch. ;) But the most annoying thing is when one person asked me what I did and then said "Stealth mode" and walked away. I thought, why the heck are you asking people if you don't tell them what you're doing! Unless, maybe it was something very similar to what I was doing. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not actually arguing against secrecy, I just dislike the name "stealth- mode." The cheese factor in my book is on par with dolling out names like "CEO" and "CFO" in a startup before you have a product (or idea of a problem you want to solve) and money to even count. What does a CFO do when there's no revenue? Do you really need to call the guy who gets you blog coverage the "Chief Marketing Officer?" I have no idea, but I keep bumping into startups around the valley that epitomize this.

What's annoying is that too many people take themselves way too seriously.

<comment><USER3> Well, I think it makes sense to start out with the titles CEO and CTO, at least. Feel free to substitute "the Jobs" and "the Woz" if those sound too stuffy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I feel the same way-- when you see job postings for "Stealth mode startup", or otherwise people use it to try and add an air of intrigue to what they are doing-- it's extremely cheesy.

It was cool for transmeta, but immediately after it became cheesy.

On the other hand, when you have an idea, or a solution, and you're evaluating it, and trying to determine what the market is, what technological solutions are needed, or even if it is viable, you don't want to start talking about what you're doing too soon.

Not because your idea is super secret-- but because your idea is evolving every week. If you're doing a social network (And by the way, if your social network doesn't already have 1M members right now, please stop and find something interesting to work on-- you already missed the party)... but your niche is changing each week- one week it is cat owners, next week it is ferret owners-- you don't want to talk about it and sound like a goofball who is a member of the "get-rich-quick-scheme-of-the-week" club.

If you're really in stealth mode, you won't ever use the phrase "stealth mode". You would simply not talk about it.

However, when talking to friends who know I'm working on something, it would be nice if there was a phrase to use that says "it is too early to talk about right now, but I'm not trying to be pretentious."

Maybe just "early stage" is the phrase to use.

As for titles, I always hated the CxO titles-- they say to me "these are titles we give to MBA idiots cause they insist that their air of pomposity be respected, but secretly we know anyone with this title is an clueless and not worth spending time with at parties."

Personally, I'm going with founder. It is way too early to come up with a job title to specify exactly what my responsibilities are-- if it isn't done yet, it is my responsibility!

</comment><comment><USER5> All "stealth mode" means is that a company exists but hasn't launched yet, and doesn't want to talk about what they're doing. It doesn't mean they don't know; in fact, odds are they're comically overspecific about what they plan to do.

Though the phrase is a bit silly, most startups spend some time in this state. Maybe the reason the phrase has a bad odor is that the longer you spend in this state, the less likely you are to succeed.

</comment><comment><USER6> What bothers me is that people think their ideas are so goddamn important that they need to be stealthy. Hell, the fact that you're doing it is usually reason enough not to start (N+1 companies vs N companies)

<comment><USER7> Or they have no idea => <http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=12878>

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> stealth mode is synomymous with "we haven't quite figured out what we are doing yet". I've been there and seen others too - thats what it means!</comment>


A short story: That fate deciding meeting at 10 - <AUTHOR> https://claritask.com/blog/that-fate-deciding-meeting-at-10 <comment><AUTHOR> Wrote this story in one go and wanted to share it with as many readers as I can. I Hope it resonates with you and inspires you to get over any challenge that you're facing today.

</comment><comment><USER2> Read it and really liked it. Working on small companies there's always this sense of drowning in the air.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! I am happy it resonated with you. I've ran a service business for quite some time and every other month or so feels like that : ) or I just didn't know how to run it properly</comment></comment>


Tad - <AUTHOR> http://tadviewer.com/?m=1 <comment><USER2> I was interested in trying out the Windows version, but my user experience was miserable.

The installer launched Tad immediately after installation without asking. The first thing Tad did was pop up an Open File dialog that stole focus from the task I was working on.

When I tried opening a file, I got a useless error message: "Cannot read property 'length' of null." I intuited that this was because of a problem with the file, but without any guidance or suggestion, how am I to know?

So I looked for another file, maybe a smaller one with records that were formatted consistently. That's when I discovered that Tad had automatically registered itself to open CSV files without asking my preference.

I can pardon an unhelpful error message from a free program, but launching automatically and registering as a file handler without the user's consent are not things that happen by accident. You should put more thought into the first-time user's experience and respect that your application is a guest on their computer.</comment>


Amazon must remove toxic school supplies, kids' jewelry from US marketplace - <AUTHOR> https://www.atg.wa.gov/news/news-releases/ag-ferguson-amazon-must-remove-toxic-school-supplies-kid-s-jewelry-marketplace <comment><USER2> "Amazon entered into a nationwide legally binding agreement to block the sale of children's schools supplies and jewelry on Amazon.com without lab reports and other proof from the sellers that the products are not toxic."

IE Amazon can pass the buck completely to the sellers.

This will simultaneously make it expensive for those sellers actually trying to comply (lab testing is not cheap), and do nothing for those that were likely the problem in the first place (who will just fake lab results and do so at a lesser price)[1]

They should require _amazon_ to randomly sample.

[1] In case you think this is not a real problem note that similar kinds of lab testing requirements destroyed, for example, children's toys except from large scale sellers who could afford the cost of compliance (see [https://www.cpsc.gov/Business--Manufacturing/Business- Educat...](https://www.cpsc.gov/Business--Manufacturing/Business- Education/Toy-Safety-Business-Guidance-and-Small-Entity-Compliance-Guide)). You will find basically no small manufacturers of childrens toys anymore. Different cause, but likely same effect.

I'm sure it made things safer in some sense, but yeah.

<comment><USER3> > They should require amazon to randomly sample.

If governments cared about safety they would do the sampling and fine companies a meaningful percent of profit. That would fix these problems once and for all.

Unfortunately we've elected governments that cut regulations which encourages the opposite behavior from companies.

<comment><USER4> >Unfortunately we've elected governments that cut regulation

It's really not that simple. The regulations here benefit Amazon. This is why Facebook is asking to be regulated. It's called _regulatory capture._ It's a product of corporatism or cronyism. Established corporations lobby for regulations that shut out small business and protect their profits.

<comment><USER5> While I care a lot about having a competitive marketplace, it's much more important to me that I and my family aren't poisoned. Are you saying that smaller companies can't compete with Amazon if everyone has to check that they're not poisoning us?

<comment><USER6> > _Are you saying that smaller companies can 't compete with Amazon if > everyone has to check that they're not poisoning us?_

Yes, because this adds cost to manufacturing. Imagine if you yourself wanted to make and sell children's jewelry. How difficult would it be for you to get a lab to test all of the stuff you make? Could you make any money after you subtract the cost of these kinds of lab tests?

A large company has economies of scale. Finding a lab is a much smaller portion of the cost for them compared to you.

<comment><USER7> Well, I think most of us make due with just buying ingredients that _aren 't_ poisonous when we cook (with the assurance in part coming from independent quality control of said ingredients).

But I'm sure I must have missed why this general principle couldn't be used for other things that we don't want to be toxic.

<comment><USER6> But the whole argument is that buying parts/ingredients that aren't poisonous isn't enough. You still have to spend a lot of resources on testing. I think that these kinds of regulations should scale with the size of the company/revenue/profit. Smaller companies shouldn't have as great of a burden, so as to encourage competition. (There should still be punishments for them failing though. Eg you're not required to test if you're small, but you can still be punished for selling poisonous products.)

<comment><USER8> Most regions have prescribed safety standards to meet, for instance the kitemark or the CE mark ([http://www.safekids.co.uk/toysafetymarks.html)[http://www.sa...](http://www.safekids.co.uk/toysafetymarks.html\)\[http://www.safekids.co.uk/toysafetymarks.html\]) show an item meets the regulatory safety requirements - these aren't added by stores, they are obtained by the manufacturer so that its products can be sold in stores across Britain and Europe.

Saying that the onus should be on stores is crazy, unless you accept that a company should have exclusive rights to your product at which point it become a licensed product and would probably be branded as such.

<comment><USER6> Oh, I completely agree that the onus shouldn't really be on the store. I was talking about manufacturers that sell it themselves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Good. Amazon is just lazy when it comes to product quality. Any non-specialty product has a pretty high chance of being a fake and/or manufactured with sub- standard materials. It's shaken my confidence to the point where, even as a card-carrying Prime member, I'd rather shlep over to Target than order from Amazon.

<comment><USER10> Precisely. If I can't trust Amazon to detect a counterfeit Apple charger, then why would I trust them to test anything for something even more subtle?

<comment><USER11> Amazon isn't making this, they probably don't see samples of every good, and they definitely don't grind up the whole product and test it. It's paint and pigment that has lead/cadmium so only certain colours and portions of the products will have these qualities.

<comment><USER12> They don't test, but I'm not sure they care so much about the volume of fakes and vendors selling them.

Amazon sells illegitimate books with identical covers to a legit copy and keeps selling them after the authors contact Amazon .... like it's not even hard to detect those, but they don't.

<comment><USER13> Detecting individual merchants distributing fake book copies to potentially one of many stores in a multi national distribution network is simple?

<comment><USER12> The examples I'm thinking of were authors who published their own book and ordered the printing themselves. They weren't printing in bulk and then distributing them... it was direct only.

Amazon simply didn't care when fakes started showing up, missing pages, bad printing, but the covers were always identical.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This isn't just Amazon. CBC in Canada found lead and cadmium in major retailers in Canada. It's cheap chinese imports that are the problem overall.

[https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/cadmium-jewelry-ardene- aldo-1...](https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/cadmium-jewelry-ardene- aldo-1.3404036)

<comment><USER15> Pet food also, containing melamine for whatever reason, responsible for a number of deaths 10 years ago.

[https://www.fda.gov/animal-veterinary/recalls- withdrawals/me...](https://www.fda.gov/animal-veterinary/recalls- withdrawals/melamine-pet-food-recall-frequently-asked-questions)

<comment><USER14> I had forgotten about that. IIRC it was theorized melamine was used to fake protein tests.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> A while back as a joke a friend ordered us the first 20 search results on AliExpress for 'panda' which were less than $1 shipped.

Stuff trickled in from China, Estonia, and Myanmar over the following month or two. We've been keeping it all in a bucket -- magnets, erasers, stickers, a baffling little squishy rainbow caterpillar panda, and mostly very small plush animal toys. The winner of the batch was a surprisingly high-quality hand puppet.

We let our toddler play with a couple of these tiny toys because they seemed fun; we did make him wash his hands afterwards before eating, but still in retrospect I think that was a mistake. There are zero enforced regulatory requirements for that marketplace and those manufacturers at that price point, and we have no way of knowing what cheap but toxic paint or additives were used. We should probably just dump the panda bucket :(

<comment><USER17> The Estonian toy ought to comply with EU regulations (maybe only if it's also sold in the EU). These are fairly strict.

I can't find reports of Eastern European being non-conformant more often than Western European goods, but I haven't looked very much.

You can look for a CE mark: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CE_marking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CE_marking)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Amazon is becoming more and more like AliExpress with respect to product accuracy and quality. As an example, I recently bought tomato seeds for my garden. I searched for rainbow tomatoes, and the bulk of the results were clearly photoshopped photos made to look like they'd grow tomatoes with colors that'd get lost in a ball pit.

It's easy to evaluate on things like that, but on stuff where corners can be cut I definitely worry.

<comment><USER19> A while back I bought habanero seeds on Amazon. They sprouted and did well, but they put out regular sweet peppers. I've bought catnip seeds that were fine. Anymore, I only buy seeds from the store though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> They should also be required to remove the "SoClean." A device designed to intentionally pump toxic ozone into medical breathing assistance devices.

Ozone has a limit but studies have shown even below the legal limit[0][1][2] can be considered harmful. The population that typically use devices like CPAPs may be more vulnerable than the general populous to ozone exposure (and this exposure is targeted due to the usage of the "SoClean").

Mark my words: This will be looked back on like asbestos, radon clocks, and giving kids x-ray toys.

[0] [https://www.healtheffects.org/research/ongoing- research/effe...](https://www.healtheffects.org/research/ongoing- research/effects-ozone-human-volunteers-exposed-low-levels-ozone-laboratory)

[1] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5755393/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5755393/)

[2] [https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/02/060216231940.h...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/02/060216231940.htm)

<comment><USER21> I've got a UV filter in my furnace that i believe produces ozone, should i be concerned in your opinion?

<comment><USER20> There's two types of UV Air Filters, based on UV-A and UV-C. UV-A systems don't produce much ozone (but sometimes the bulbs are imperfect and produce a trace amount). Ozone is produced by ultraviolet light in the 160–240nm range, meaning UV-C.

If you have a UV-C based UV Filter I wouldn't call that ideal but at least you're still receiving less than a ozone generator or even an ioniser both of which would produce higher ozone levels.

You may still wish to crack a window occasionally and look at a HEPA filter next major upgrade cycle.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I worked for a long time as a chemical engineer making cadmium containing quantum dots. We had many discussions inside the company about complying with the EPA's TSCA regulations. [https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/summary- toxic-substance...](https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/summary-toxic- substances-control-act)

The reason why these regulations exist was because toys and consumer goods would be imported with red paint that contained cadmium.

Usually the importer is responsible for complying or at least reporting to the EPA under TSCA.

</comment><comment><USER23> We wanted to order Evian or Fiji bottled water from Amazon but were put off by reviews mentioning oddly attached labels, misshapen bottles, wrong tint on bottle caps. So we just stuck with local supermarket water delivery. Fake water? Wondering if anyone has tried ordering these.

<comment><USER17> Why would you want water carried from halfway around the planet anyway? That's an awful waste of resources.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> They should also let you filter by country of origin.

<comment><USER25> This will likely not be useful: now you can't buy iPhones, and many companies will perform "assembly" in the United States to get around these kinds of things.

<comment><USER26> If I'm buying clothes for the gym, I don't want to buy "ROWILUX" or "YAKER" or "YSENTO" brand. I've bought enough to know they're all junk. Just show me the stuff that people actually put effort into! If I'm looking for an iPhone, I'll search for iPhones. If I'm looking for tank tops, show me the ones that aren't going to disintegrate after a month.

<comment><USER27> Jeez, I thought you were making up those brand names. Turns out they are real

[https://www.amazon.com/sp?seller=A3P9TYWGAPWJQM](https://www.amazon.com/sp?seller=A3P9TYWGAPWJQM)

[https://www.amazon.com/stores/YAKER/node/13187735011](https://www.amazon.com/stores/YAKER/node/13187735011)

[https://www.amazon.com/stores/ROWILUX/主页/page/2DD5E212-93B0-...](https://www.amazon.com/stores/ROWILUX/主页/page/2DD5E212-93B0-458F-B4DF-1F73CE6A14F5)

<comment><USER28> Oh, that's nothing. Try doing a search for ARSUXEO (mostly cycling clothing)...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> This whole situation is the result of countries like China that most of those products are made in lack a real justice system. Anyone who has ever tried to sue a Chinese company in a Chinese court knows it is impossible for a foreigner to win. Ever. No matter the evidence. If China had a just justice system as exists in many other countries developing and developed this problem wouldn't exist. Unfortunately in today's China you can still be sure you will keep your money you made conning people as long as those people are foreigners.

<comment><USER30> And people still protest at the sanctions the US government is imposing on China. If it gets garbage products off the market, I'm all for it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> As a retailer, Amazon has become incredibly lazy. Ironically, books is where this shows the most. In my area they now just ship them in padded envelopes, meaning at least 50% of the time the book arrives with dented corners, or a damaged cover.

</comment><comment><USER32> As a Washing State resident, I am happy to see our state leading the charge in these kinds of efforts.

</comment><comment><USER33> FFS now we have to worry about this too? I guess I'm naive but I trusted Amazon but it makes sense that they just sold whatever they wanted without testing.

They should have dedicated 10X the $700,000 and have been fined, my God I'm upset right now.

</comment><comment><USER34> The scary thing is, Amazon is required only to collect a piece of paper from the seller and yank products when notified -- the really substantial burden of continuing enforcements is put back on the individual states:

"Moreover, if the Attorney General or Washington Department of Ecology advise Amazon of any children's school supplies or jewelry that exceed safe levels, Amazon must remove the product from its online marketplace within two business days."

Nothing less than a program of frequent random sampling is going to keep the products clean. Times 50, plus international.

</comment><comment><USER35> It would be useful to have items that are foreign imports clearly labeled on Amazon.

<comment><USER36> That would be most things. It would make (a little) more sense to tag "Made in USA" products.

<comment><USER35> That works too

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> They did this recently to non-UL certified power equipment, no surprise they're expanding to other product categories.

</comment><comment><USER38> As a Brit, I find the title of this really hard to parse. I was trying to work out if "toxic school supplies" was some sort of brand of jewelry or something.

Why don't American's use an "and" here:

> Amazon must remove toxic school supplies and kids' jewelry from US > marketplace

To me, that's much clearer.

<comment><USER39> > Why don't American's use an "and" here:

Doing so is still standard American English. However, headline writing in particular has a tradition of extreme brevity, and this style leaves out conjunctions and adjectives (including articles).

As another example of ambiguity, the article title here isn't explicitly clear that Amazon must remove these items from _its_ marketplace. Read literally, "from US marketplace" could imply (somehow) the entire United States retail environment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> If Amazon doesn't get a handle on quality control, and product misrepresentation/swapping scams they will start to be perceived as Ebay/AliExpress/Wish.com where "anything goes".

I realize Ebay has controls to protect consumers, but the perception for everyday people is that it's risky, but you might find a deal.

I rarely use Ebay anymore, and in fact just purchased some sneakers there after probably 6+ years of not purchasing anything. I crossed my fingers, fully expected to be ripped off and lucked out, the product was exactly as advertised. I would not have purchased them if the discount wasn't so dramatic. This is all anecdotal based on my experience and the exp of my peer group.

</comment><comment><USER41> I get that kids are especially vulnerable, but shouldn't we also try to not sell stuff which is non-obviously toxic for use by adults also? Why should any consumer have to be afraid that a backpack or book cover has a high amount of lead?

</comment><comment><USER42> Again on the poor Amazon quality and co-mingling - is this a US only problem or is it also present in the EU? Note that we already have a CE marking requirement which is supposed to imply a certain level of safety.

</comment><comment><USER43> It's pretty great to witness a policy or law that was applied correctly by a government to prevent further public damages, no matter how big the target corporation is.

</comment><comment><USER44> Good, why is being online a pass for selling toxic products? I don't understand the standards we apply. If Target or Walmart sold lead laced school supplies people would flip, regardless of who actually made the product. It is on the distributor to guarantee the product quality and supply chain quality. I've always failed to understand why being online has made them untouchable.

<comment><USER45> Exactly this. Perhaps the reasoning is that Amazon functions more like a bazaar, offering other companies a storefront. But then I'd expect expression of identity of these storefronts as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> The law finally catches up with online retailers.

</comment><comment><USER47> What's the root cause precisely for where all this toxic material originates from? How does it get into a factory in the first place? Is it some kind of sabotage or is this stuff inherently in raw materials that require processing that is omitted? How does one find oneself with a bunch of lead in this day and age without seeking it out?

<comment><USER48> Lead and cadmium are used in paints - lead for white, cadmium for yellow. The west has discontinued them for toxicity reasons, but they're still prevalent in China.

<comment><USER47> Does that mean they're deliberately added to paints? How does one produce paint with and without these chemicals?

<comment><USER49> They are added to pigments, that are then mixed into the paints. The company mixing the paints may or may not know those chemicals are in the pigments that they purchase from another supplier.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> How exactly does this much lead get into these products? Are they on shared assembly lines with bullet manufacturing?!

<comment><USER51> China imports garbage and recycles it for raw materials. A lot of that garbage contains circuit boards, which use solder composed of 50% lead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Or not. Amazon is just a platform, remember?

</comment><comment><USER53> Only $700,000?

</comment><comment><USER54> Just last week I was picking my son up from school when I noticed he had a can of Xylene in his bookbag. I asked him where he got it and he said Aamazon

<comment><USER17> The primary reason I'm aware of for a youth to have xylene is solvent abuse (glue sniffing, essentially).

It's illegal to sell it to someone under 18 in the UK.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Shouldn't there be criminal charges for this?

</comment><comment><USER56> I wonder what they're using the lead and cadmium for? Also, "toxic" may be overexaggerating; "poisonous" or even "possibly harmful" might be more accurate, but even then, from what I understand you'd have to _consume_ a lot of it for it to be a problem.

(I worked on electronics and soldered with real lead solder for many decades, starting when I was a kid, and think RoHS and the lead-ban has caused far more environmental problems.)

Edit: apparently controversial opinions are not welcome here either...? Or is it the "chemicals are scary" crowd again? :|

<comment><USER57> _Also, "toxic" may be overexaggerating; "poisonous" or even "possibly harmful" might be more accurate, but even then, from what I understand you'd have to consume a lot of it for it to be a problem._

Toxic is definitely the correct term. Heavy metals like lead and cadmium don't get excreted by your body; they build up in the brain and kidneys until they kill you. For this reason there is _no_ level of exposure that's considered safe. Even a very low level of exposure will kill you eventually.

<comment><USER27> Lead exposure in children causes permanent damage to the brain and nervous system.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> Whenever you say "government should do xyz", you're actually saying "the government should steal money from taxpayers to carelessly attempt to do xyz".

<comment><USER59> Who the fuck else is going to do it? Clearly not the market or the products wouldn't be there right now. Every time you argue against governments regulating markets, you ignore the fact that regulations get written in blood.

<comment><USER60> Is this another instance of "who will build the roads"?

[https://mises.org/library/safety-and-market- economy](https://mises.org/library/safety-and-market-economy)

[https://mises.org/library/what-keeps-us- safe-0](https://mises.org/library/what-keeps-us-safe-0)

[https://mises.org/library/what-will-keep-our-food- safe](https://mises.org/library/what-will-keep-our-food-safe)

[https://mises.org/library/do-food-makers-want-kill- you](https://mises.org/library/do-food-makers-want-kill-you)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hY5OYdGevAQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hY5OYdGevAQ)

Bonus: [https://mises.org/wire/government-road-management-there- bett...](https://mises.org/wire/government-road-management-there-better-way)

On top of that, your justification ("who the fuck else is going to do it?") of violence ("steal money from taxpayers") is quite alarming.

<comment><USER61> Ah yes the mises, where government infringes on our right to drive drunk.

[https://mises.org/library/legalize-drunk- driving](https://mises.org/library/legalize-drunk-driving)

<comment><USER62> Please don't take HN threads further into ideological warfare. It's the last thing we want here.

Long, tedious tit-for-tat ideological battles are right out.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Humans with Amplified Intelligence Could Be More Powerful Than AI - <AUTHOR> http://io9.com/humans-with-amplified-intelligence-could-be-more-powerf-509309984 <comment><USER2> It's not that great intelligence (be it "humans with amplified intelligence" or AI) is that powerful.

It's only because we overestimate intelligence we think of that, probably as part of the "Great Man" fallacy.

Science is not advanced merely by people with "amplified intelligence" \-- it's advanced through thousands of scientists working independently and in co- operation and tons of hard "manual" work of testing, verification, experimentation etc.

Not just some sage coming in with his insights, a la Newton and Einstein (though that did happen with more frequence in the previous centuries when more "low hanging fruit" discoveries were available).

As for politics, it's usually "sociopaths" and/or good manipulators and liars that go far ahead, not people with high IQ specifically -- and those traits are even conflicting sometimes (e.g. people with high IQ but Aspergers).

<comment><USER3> As you're yourself saying, sages with insights did occur relatively frequently when there were the low hanging fruit in different sciences still available. But there is no reason to believe that there exists just one level of these low hanging fruit that just happens to be at around the level that exceptional human intelligence can grasp. Which means that that this hypothetical "amplified intelligence" could vrey well have it's own, next level of "low hanging fruit" that is simply too complex for current human intelligence to grasp, but is well within the reach of the more powerful intelligence.

<comment><USER2> > _Which means that that this hypothetical "amplified intelligence" could vrey > well have it's own, next level of "low hanging fruit" that is simply too > complex for current human intelligence to grasp, but is well within the > reach of the more powerful intelligence._

Perhaps, though I doubt it. We imagine intelligence as some kind of infinite scale, that can extend forever.

I would place my bets on diminishing returns.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not to be a dick, but "they also might not". The article doesn't present many good reasons for believing augmented biological intelligence will be superior. Or even what that means, ie, for how long? Obviously the human brain is an existing form of intelligence, so in that sense it may be easier to bootstrap from. But ultimately, augmentations to the brain would be limited by the requirement of _being attached to a brain_.

The space of augmented brains is a tiny subset of the space of possible intelligent systems. There's comparatively unlimited scope for superior designs to augmented brains within the realm of artificial intelligence, or "every other nonbiological intelligent system concievable"

It's possible to believe that augmented brains might get a lead in intelligence for a short period, they are limited by their format, and would ultimately be overtaken by superior designs.

With regards augmentation prostheses, Kurzweil makes a strong case in his book "how to Create a Mind", that anything you plug into your brain is bandwidth limited by how much information the brain can actually process at a time, in a similar way to how most things in our visual field are immediately discarded from working memory and we can only really email with the small set of visual information that we pay attention to.

<comment><USER5> The article (absurd as it is) not only overlooks all the engineering constraints in the integration of man and machine, but also focuses only on bigger and better, completely missing the alternate worlds that may arise. To modify the brain (and our sensors) will surely change the way we think, our emotions, and invite a totally different world view. How might that restructure our social dynamics, especially after the need for competition for limited resources abates or ends entirely?

Also, the article completely misses the implications of the intermediate stages of man with machine, or Intelligence Augmentation (the real interpretation of IA). This is a much more immediate and plausible phase of the transition, and is already upon us in several ways. I recommend John Markoff's new book for more on the topic.

There are many demerits to the article, especially given the wealth of more interesting alternative paths ahead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> How do we know it can be more powerful than AI if we don't even know how powerful AI can be yet?

<comment><USER7> Yep. That's why they still __could__ be. Of course they also couldn't be. The beauty of unknowns. Opening a vast world of clickbait headlines....

<comment><USER8> The article could be re-titled "Maybe a slave AI for your brain will make you feel better about your brain being as insignificant as an ant's to AIs." Except for the fact that upbeat titles get more hits.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There are various forms of intelligence, most of which have a better chance of being excelled by AI. If reading inputs and detecting patterns in inputs to make sense of the world is what brain does, then AI can beat us hands down. Just the fact that it can hold huge amount of data in "working memory" and work as long as it takes to find patterns in it, it can find more patterns (read scientific discoveries) than any human ever aspired to find. If amplified human intelligence is still decentralized, portable, miniaturized device connected to our brain to enhance its abilities, there is no way it can compete with giant supercomputers running AI.

</comment><comment><USER10> If it does occur I hope there is an equal increase in social skills it's terifying to read reddit /r/iamverysmart some truly smart people but psychopath level social skills.

<comment><USER11> Isn't the point of that subreddit to showcase people who are outwardly insecure about their intelligence, rather than people who are intelligent and awkward?

<comment><USER12> Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's meant as satire.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Well everything still boils down to ethics and morals of the Intelligence.

At the end it all depends on what actions are taken using this intelligence by super AI or a human with amplified intelligence. Does this intelligence create a weapons to destroy the planet or helps in finding cure for cancer.

</comment><comment><USER14> aren't humans already more powerful than AI?

<comment><USER15> Have you ever tried indexing the web?

I guess, nowadays the answer will be more like "no comparison makes sense, we are good at different tasks".

<comment><USER16> >Have you ever tried indexing the web?

There most likely is some system of visualization that would let a person get a very good intuition about the web.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Comparing to which type of AI? I think a well made AI will be infinitely smarter than any form of human intelligence.

</comment><comment><USER18> My bet is on an uploaded mind as the singularity. A human intelligence boosted by computational resources.

</comment><comment><USER19> What AI? My neato has trouble getting back to its "base" without bumping into every wall like drunk sailor.

</comment><comment><USER20> The author is a neoreactionary. Just thought you might want to know.

<comment><USER21> You are confusing George with Michel Anisimov. Also, what you just did, invoking politics instead of addressing the point should be taboo. I don't care about people's politics. I don't want to hear about it unless we are talking politics.

<comment><USER22> No, he's not, because George is _interviewing_ Anissimov:

> Looking to learn more about this, I contacted futurist Michael Anissimov, a > blogger at Accelerating Future and a co-organizer of the Singularity Summit. > He's given this subject considerable thought — and warns that we need to be > just as wary of IA as we are AI.

Notice the bolding of questions and then responses throughout the bulk of the article.

(Incidentally, Anissimov was perma-banned from Twitter the other day, apparently. That takes some doing if you're not gushing about ISIS.)

<comment><USER21> Yeah. I noticed that afterwords. I had only skimmed the first paragraph of the article when I posted the comment. I'm not a fan of Anissimov, I haven't been since I saw him speak very naively about whole brain emulation in 2005 and later when he made some very technically incompetent arguments for some imagined form of nanotechnological DRM. Even in this case, brain augmentation strikes me as heroically unpromising. Once we know enough to augment a brain, I think we will know enough to create superior substitutes - though an obvious exception to this would be genetic augmentations.

However, his bizarre politics are entirely beside the point. And talking about politics in technical conversations is a very bad cultural practice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Nope. A human being with Amplified Intelligence is not going to be more powerful than Artificial Intelligence. Nor does the article do much to make a strong case. The author tries to talk about the psychological impacts of a radical increase in intelligence, but it's all armchair observations and guesstimates with little substance to actually digest and ponder.

Interesting topic, not interesting article regarding.

Could Amplified Intelligence happen? Sure. Would it allow us to be smarter? probably. But we wouldn't be able to outpace AI, because we're still human beings with finite space and time.</comment>


Student makes history with human-powered 'flapping-wing' plane - <AUTHOR> http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/864633--u-of-t-student-makes-history-with-human-powered-flapping-wing-plane?bn=1

<comment><USER2> Went to school with Todd - he was one of those people who always seemed to have the energy and the dedication to be involved in every extracurricular activity out there, while getting top grades in arguably Canada's most challenging engineering program, and being an incredibly nice guy to boot.

Not surprised to see his name in the news :)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is pretty amazing! watch the video here <http://www.vimeo.com/15168317>

The wings really are flapping like a bird!

<comment><USER3> The wing movement looks so natural, its even beautiful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Do any aeronautical engineers know if it's getting any benefit from ground effect at that altitude?

<comment><USER5> I'm not an aeronautic engineer, but I used to be a pilot. I would say yes, he's getting increased lift by being that close to the ground.

My sources include dusty memories and Wikipedia, so... grains of salt all around.

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

<comment><USER6> IIRC as long as it's half the wingspan from the surface yes

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I suppose my question here is such: Does the flapping actually generate enough lift to both sustain and initiate flight? We've had gliders that can stay afloat for ages with the right thermals, but they (like we see in this video as well) require something powered to get them started. It's beautiful, yes, but from what I can see in the video it looks like it's almost entirely aesthetics.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll quote a comment made on the article

      "There is a minimum requirement for flight which
     it met. That involves maintaining altitude and
     speed over a certain period of time, whereas in
     a glide you either lose speed to maintain altitude
     until stall or lose altitude to maintain speed until ground.
     The flyer maintained and even appeared to gain
     altitude after the pull cord was released from the car
     and maintained speed throughout the flight. If you are
     wondering how I get this from the video, it's because
     I am familiar with the researchers who did this."

<comment><USER8> A good glider can easily do dozens of meters while losing only one meter in height(I flew one), so it is impossible to tell from the shaky video. But if he knows those guys and tells the truth, awesome!

It looks beautiful anyway though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Human powered planes already exist, using propellers.

<comment><USER10> No idea why anyone would have downvoted you: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sp7yv67B5Sc>

<comment><USER9> Probably because I was too lazy to post a video, thanks :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Not to downplay the importance of what they've done, but that video shows a plane gliding, accelerated by a car.

Wouldn't they need to show lift via the flapping of wings to show that it isn't a glider with wings that flap, but rather the flapping of wings is actually creating lift?

<comment><AUTHOR> Cabin has wheels under it. I think in an ideal environment, for example a runway, he could have created lift by just flapping the wings with enough speed over a certain period of time.

<comment><USER12> Actually it really looks as though the wings only provide lift and that acceleration provided by the car could not be achieved otherwise and the forward movement could not be achieved therefore making it rather unlikely that the plane would lift off the ground on its own.

Still rather amazing and a very beautiful machine.

<comment><USER11> you both bring up very valid points. thanks for educating me!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm not clear on what benefit it would offer over a glider or microlite. Not that I have anything against quirky projects for their own sake, but since he is a PhD candidate I imagine he must have some applications in mind beyond the aesthetic ones emphasized in the article.

Project information and research links are interesting but not very informative: <http://hpo.ornithopter.net/>

<comment><USER14> I'm not sure why you'd expect a PhD candidate to necessarily have a practical application in mind.

The idea of human-powered machines that mimic bird flight has been around since ancient times (recall the myth of Daedalus), and there have been several attempts to actually build one over the last thousand years or so. This appears to be the first ever successful flight of its type. Given the history behind it, it would not be the least bit surprising if this is being done just for its own sake.

See also: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ornithopter> <http://www.flyingmachines.org/davi.html>

<comment><USER13> Not for the ornithopter itself, I just there'd be technical discussions of airflow over a moving wing or minimum change in the angle of attack required to generate a certain amount of lift...seems like the sort of thing that might be useful to helicopter rotor designers or so.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I bet using a small motor, 1/2hp or so, could do wonders in an ornithopter like this. Humans can't sustain that kind of workload for very long.

</comment><comment><USER16> That's a beautiful glider. But not human powered, it is car powered with strings attached. If you hear the wind sound, it seems they are using wind to lift too.

History is not made yet.

</comment><comment><USER17> It looks like it is being pulled by a car?

<comment><USER18> It looked like it was pulled by a car until it was airborne, then you saw and heard the cord disconnect and the plane continue to fly on its own power as the car with the cameraman drove off at a slight angle.

<comment><USER17> How is that different from a glider, though? If the power comes from the car, I don't consider it very exciting.

<comment><USER19> A glider will slowly lose speed x altitude. This plane maintained a steady speed x altitude through flapping.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Cool WSL tips and tricks you (or I) didn't know were possible - <AUTHOR> https://www.hanselman.com/blog/CoolWSLWindowsSubsystemForLinuxTipsAndTricksYouOrIDidntKnowWerePossible.aspx <comment> non-entity I haven't used WSL in a couple months, andbhavent pulled out a Windkws box in a while, but recall trying it and just typing `clear` completely broke scrolling.

Anyone else experience this? Was it fixed? Hopefully it will be at least in WSL2</comment>


Show HN: My HTML5 Sokoban game - <AUTHOR> http://sokogame.com

<comment><USER2> Goes from moderate to "whoa, this is gonna take a little while" too fast. Level 1 looks like a nice casual game, Level 2 looks like I need to get a cup of coffee before I start it.

It might increase stickiness to make the perceived difficulty increase more slowly. Or to even have a trivial Level 1 just to get people used to the controls (they're not hard, but don't assume anything).

<comment><AUTHOR> I see a lot of people are being turned off by this. My intention was that people who wanted the levels that could be solved quickly would just stick to playing the Microban levels, but I guess that isn't super obvious.

I'll try and find a way to make the ordering make more sense.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, I was confused by this as well at first.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> You should pretty it up and talk to SPIL Games - <http://www.html5contest.com> \- they're paying $$$ for HTML5 games.

Also if you're interested I'm wrapping up a JavaScript version of my API from <http://playtomic.com>, in addition to the analytics it has stuff like a level sharing API that would let you have user-created levels, leaderboards etc. If you want you can test the JS version for me. Email's in my profile if you're interested.

<comment><USER5> Be careful with that html5contest.com... their FAQ says "Further, we ask for a non exclusive license on all games whether they win or not."

<comment><USER4> Non-exclusive licenses is a term that carries over from the Flash gaming side of things, it means they'll host a version on their websites that's not distributed (I don't know if that actually applies to HTML5 games anyway, for Flash it does) and has their branding.

As an example my game Trickochet has SPIL Games for the main sponsor, but Armor Games, Addicting Games and a few other sites bought nonexclusive licenses for their websites:

The main, distributed version carries SPIL branding. On most websites if you find my game it'll be their version:

<http://www.gamesgames.com/game/trickochet.html>

The non-exclusive licenses carry whatever website's branding and are only able to be played on that specific website:

<http://armorgames.com/play/5725/trickochet>

<http://www.addictinggames.com/trickochet-game.html>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Without thinking I tried moving the character around using the vi "hjkl" navigation keys, and it works! Mad props for that.

<comment><USER4> What kind of keyboard do you have? I've never heard of hjkl as a control scheme (I make Flash games).

Edit: never mind, I found it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> 1\. Brighter Colors!

2\. The first level is too hard to hook casual players. You want their first experience to be brain-dead obvious -- hopefully to the point of eliminating the need for instructions.

Maybe (@=you, 0=rock, X=goal, viva nethack):

         ......
         .@.0..
         ....X.
         ......

</comment><comment><USER8> I like the game but the difficulty level between level 1 and 2 is too high

</comment><comment><USER9> It's very difficult for me to distinguish between the gray color of the regular floor and the light-green color of the goals. I'm somewhat color blind, maybe that's why.

</comment><comment><USER10> I am using a netbook, so the screen is small and when I won I did not saw the "You Win" sing. I think that the screen should change more (perhaps the color of the background, the face of the character, or some fireworks :) ).

</comment><comment><USER11> Charming. Nice work.

</comment><comment><USER12> Imagine implementing this on the kindle...

<comment><AUTHOR> I was thinking about building a version you could play offline using HTML5 local storage, which should also work on mobile browsers. Upvote this if you'd pay a buck for that feature.</comment></comment>


Why legendary Disney animator Glen Keane is making art for Google - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2015/4/1/8323881/glen-keane-duet-disney-google-atap <comment><USER2> Not a very constructive comment but his work is extraordinary. Amazing flow, very emotional and made me feel like a child watching that Duet video. It's just beautiful.</comment>


Bootable EFI isos is pure hell. Any tips? - <AUTHOR> I've been trying to make a bootable EFI iso... But it just flat-out refuses to boot. Any tips for good guides LFS style? <comment><USER3> I know this doesn't answer your question directly but is there a reason you can't use a USB stick? If you can I can give pointers on how to create a live USB image. Also is there a particular OS or Linux distro you're trying to boot?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup, skipped out on that info. Mb.

Basically what I did previously was use Distroshare to create an iso, which could then be burned to USB using Unetbootin. Unetbootin did its own magic, but it worked. Now I have a two partition USB-stick, one with /boot & /EFI, the other holding the e.g. ubuntu-16 iso. The default one from Canonical boots just fine, but not my custom version.

I did it that way because I thought it'd be handy. If you could give pointers on how to create a live USB image, I'd greatly appreciate it ;). Also, it's all Ubuntu (16.04 & 14.04).

<comment><USER4> Try Yumi [https://www.pendrivelinux.com/yumi-multiboot-usb- creator/](https://www.pendrivelinux.com/yumi-multiboot-usb-creator/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Took a looksy, doesn't seem to be doing the job :(. It's a Windows tool, I'm running Ubuntus so that's not making it more reliable I guess..

Did peak into the source-code of the UEFI-beta version. Seems they are also using grub2 the way I am generally. (basically the grub-install --target=x86_64-efi type /boot & /EFI folders).

That's the part that _is_ working for me. It seems that my casper/filesystem.squashfs is missing a few mystery 'things'. You have any cluess regarding that?

<comment><USER3> Ok so what I'm reading is that:

1) you can get EFI to load grub _but_ 2) actually loading the live system image isn't working

So given those assumptions my next question is:

Is the kernel and initramfs loading? If you're not sure try:

* holding shift to display the grub boot menu on power up

* hitting 'e' to edit the default boot menu

* removing 'splash' from the kernel command line so you can observe boot messages

* continue booting by hitting ctrl+x

See if you can glean some more info from that

<comment><USER3> also, if you can pastebin your boot/grub/grub.cfg file that'd be helpful too

<comment><AUTHOR> menuentry '[loopback]ubuntu-14.04.1-desktop-amd64' { set isofile='/ubuntu-14.04.1-desktop-amd64.iso' loopback loop (hd0,2)$isofile linux (loop)/casper/vmlinuz.efi boot=casper iso-scan/filename=$isofile locale=en_US.UTF-8 initrd (loop)/casper/initrd.lz }

This works.

<comment><USER3> Ok so one immediate point that I notice here is that if you look closely at this grub configuration, you'll see that the EFI boot Kernel and initrd are _not_ loaded from an EFI partition, but rather taken from the ISO itself:

> loopback loop (hd0,2)$isofile

> linux (loop)/casper/vmlinuz.efi

Whereas above, for Ubuntu 16.04, you appear to be trying to use a separate fat32 EFI _partition_ to load vmlinuz.efi

So, just to test, you should try to do what Ubuntu 14.04 is doing, but keep your EFI parition to load grubx64.efi. Make sense? So your partiton layout on this USB stick will be as follows:

Partlabel: gpt

(hd0,gpt1): FAT32 (type: EFI system)

      - has path/to/grubx64.efi

(hd0,gpt2): ext4 (type: Linux)

      - has boot/grub/grub.cfg

      - has ubuntu-16.04-WHATEVER-REALNAME-HERE.iso

\----

And the grub.cfg now has a new menu entry as follows:

menuentry '[loopback]ubuntu-16.04-desktop' { set isofile='/ubuntu-16.04-WHATEVER-REALNAME-HERE.iso' loopback loop (hd0,2)$isofile linux (loop)/casper/vmlinuz.efi boot=casper iso- scan/filename=$isofile locale=en_US.UTF-8 initrd (loop)/casper/initrd.lz }

Let me know if that solution works for you?

[Edit] I think the issue with all of this here is the other scripts/parts of Casper that get loaded normally using the ISO. Its annoying, but casper is the ubuntu way. There are better ways to boot a live system off EFI but this would be the quickest path

<comment><USER3> [Edit 2] where you put grub/grub.cfg in the above partition layout is also up to you. It could reside on the EFI parition. Its all about how you lay it out in the host system when putting this disk together and then how you run grub- install

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm... not following a 100%. But getting there. Its frustrating to feel like your 98% there, and just missing the one thing :/.

My setup right now _is_: (hd0,gpt1): ESP

        - /boot/grub/grub.cfg
        - /boot/{i386-pc,locale,x86_64-efi}
        - /EFI/BOOT/BOOTx64.EFI

(hd0,gpt2): ext4

        - ubuntu-16.04.bla.iso
        - custom.iso

I don't see the difference in grub.cfg(appart from 14/16, that was mb, I tried both 14/16 standard isos :D), and indeed its location doesn't matter as this works for the default live cd/it does seem to find the things inside the custom.iso/casper.

\</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>

And I totally agree with the part regarding the Casper scripts ;). I tried the following:

        - mount default 16.04 iso
        - take out its vmlinux.efi & initrd.lz
        - put it in the casper/ folder of the custom.iso

This booted! :). And then it hang on the 'not enough loop devices' error from the post below. :(

So I tried grabbing either the vmlinuz-LATEST_VERSION and the vmlinuz- LATEST_VERSION.efi.signed for the vmlinuz.efi in the casper/ (with corresponding initrd.lz), but those crashed even earlier. Just "error: no suitable video mode found. booting in blind mode", which is not the actual critical error, as the default 16.04 proclaims this as well, and then proceeds to boot properly in blind mode. Can't really seem to figure out how far the custom version got...

You happen to know of a listing of sorts regarding the required Casper files? I just get some general stuff. It really seems to indeed hinge around those vmlinuz.efi and initrd.lz files. The naming convention with the .efi and .lz shouldn't even matter that much, as long as the grub entry matches it. But those _are_ the images the host OS is booting from. Do they have some internal pathing/referencing I'm missing?

Something that keeps staring at me though is the /grub and /EFI inside the .iso. The iso basically has:

        - boot/grub
        - <USER2>
        - EFI/BOOT/{BOOTx64.EFI,grubx64.efi}

But I'm not too trusting of the grub.cfg inside the iso...

        menuentry "Boot custom iso" {
    	    set gfxpayload=keep
    	    linux	/casper/vmlinuz.efi  boot=casper quiet splash --
    	    initrd	/casper/initrd.lz
        }

I do think I need it, but does it need more references than this? Should it also have the (hd0,2)etc. prepending? Or is this OK as it is a selfreference within the iso?

Thanks for the help so far, its already comforting to know that someone else suspects the same area for the issues :). I swear this is going to drive me properly mad one of these days.

<comment><USER3> You're welcome! I definitely think this is an internal pathing issue relative to the ISO -- and I have grappled with this same stuff before many times and gone mad several times over so I get it :)

I just found a nice reference that I remember using when working with Ubuntu ISOs before at [https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCDCustomizationFromScr...](https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCDCustomizationFromScratch)

It may be outdated and you may have already seen it, but the key point is the section "Install Packages Needed For Live System":

> apt-get install --yes ubuntu-standard casper lupin-casper

> apt-get install --yes discover laptop-detect os-prober

> apt-get install --yes linux-generic

Since they're building the ISO from scratch using debootstrap and a chroot, some scripts in the casper package will probably set up paths, grub, etc, all relative to the current root (the chroot they're working in).

This would also probably explain why using a vmlinuz.efi and initrd.lz from a default 16.04 iso _kinda_ worked for you -- because some paths and versions match up, etc.

Long story short: you should try following that guide to some extent when packing up the custom.iso (unpack, install casper package(s) in a chroot, repack), then find a way to use grub on your ESP to "chainload" [1] the iso from the second partition.

HTH, I'll check back later and see if you had any luck :)

[1] [https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/GRUB2/Chainloading#ISO_images](https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/GRUB2/Chainloading#ISO_images)

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry for the late reply, had to work through a few iterations... But it works now ^^.

Turns out the issue was not really in the grub and or initrd/vmlinuz...

I worked through your LiveCD guide, but did not en up with a working iso in the end :(. However, it did remind me of this guide: [https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MakeALiveCD/DVD/BootableFl...](https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MakeALiveCD/DVD/BootableFlashFromHarddiskInstall) on which distroshare is based. Running through the original guide resulted in a bootable iso. After checking, none of my previous homegrown isos were ever bootable on their own :O!. Apparently the level of black-magic in Unetbootin was greater then I had anticipated.

Best part of all, that iso is created on a non-EFI machine, and boots in EFI- mode just fine due to the grub-install --target=x86_64-efi on the bootstick. Everything else is just loaded over the original EFI-modules apparently. So no need to completely revamp all of my old code, just need to take a looksy into the iso generation part (used mkisofs instead of grub-mkrescue in my old scripts because of >4GB fat32 issues).

Thanks for all the help and interest man. It really kept me (mostly) sane ;)!

<comment><USER3> Np, I'm just glad you got it working! Like I said I wrestle with the same issues almost every day. I think it pays off in the end though because you come away with a deeper understanding in general and start to see the bugs other ppl don't , so keep hacking.

And this whole exchange has made me want to keep a detailed journal of this kind of work because I _am_ doing it and would like to share knowledge more rather than just immediately forget. You should do the same!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google calls bullshit on newspapers who say they don't want to be indexed - <AUTHOR> http://googlepolicyeurope.blogspot.com/2009/07/working-with-news-publishers.html <comment><USER2> This headline and blog post strike me as disingenuous. The newspapers know how to use robots.txt. Clearly they want to be indexed; they just want to micromanage exactly how their content is presented by search engines. Let's criticize the newspapers' _actual_ position, not a strawman.

</comment><comment><USER3> > they just want to micromanage exactly how their content is presented by > search engines.

They also want to be paid for ads on google's SERP. In some versions of this demand, they want revenue whenever their site is a result on said SERP. (The theory is that said ads are valuable because their site is a result on said SERP.) In others, they also want a revenue share from SERP pages that don't mention their site. (In that case, the theory is something like "the possibility of finding our content is why folks use Google".)

</comment><comment><USER4> Please, change the title.

 _You can make up a new title if you want, but if you put gratuitous editorial spin on it, the editors may rewrite it._</comment>


From fleeing Vietnam in a refugee boat to becoming Uber's CTO - <AUTHOR> https://www.techinasia.com/refugee-from-vietnam-to-uber-cto-thuan-pham <comment><AUTHOR> "Even if you lose all one day, you can build all over again if you retain your calm." What an inspiration!</comment>


Ask HN: Where is there actual innovation in government? - <AUTHOR> We're used to fast progress and easy to identify losers and winners in the business and especially tech world.  I can't think off the top of my head  where there's actual progress in governance, though surely it must exist somewhere?
I like Ranked list voting, voting tests, doubling official salaries, no working for people you regulated, private voting in congress, less corporate money buying elections.
Are these system oriented approaches being done or tried anywhere? Is there some other good innovation going on somewhere? <comment><USER2> Innovation is evwrywhere in government. I imagine you don't see it because yoy are only focused on the federal level.

For example, in an effort to promote caring for the urban landscape, New York City, through an army of volunteers, mapped all of the trees. in its 5 boroughs, including the species, what state it is in, what care. it needs, its measurements, how it benefits the surrounding community, and more and its all available as an app here: [https://tree-map.nycgovparks.org](https://tree- map.nycgovparks.org)

There are tons of examples of innovations at the city and neighborhood level.

</comment><comment><USER3> How, dont you see it ? The government then must do something to make you see it. You remind me of that movie 1984 inspired by George Orwrell. One character says: 'we dont destroy our enemies, we make them see what we want them to see'. Worse that brainwashing.

Not many engineers seem to be interested in politics government and what is (not) being done with the tax you pay. People care about being upvoted not about politics. Votes dont mean anything to me, freedom of speech is more important.

</comment><comment><USER4> The US government (via DARPA, NASA, University grants etc.) invented the internet, stealth fighters and MANY MANY other leading edge technologies that private companies then took advantage of. In other words, companies that you might admire (Google, Boing etc.) would not exist without the government investing in blue sky research.

</comment><comment><USER5> For the most part, "innovation" is a just a side effect of trying to optimise a specific goal (eg: money, control etc)</comment>


Ellsworth Kelly (1923–2015) - <AUTHOR> http://www.apollo-magazine.com/ellsworth-kelly-1923-2015/ <comment><USER2> I live in Dallas and thankfully a lot of private collectors in the area lend their Kelly's often to the museums around Dallas/Fort Worth. Over the past few years, I've gotten to see a lot of his work.

Also if you ever find yourself in NYC you can sometimes find Kelly's works in the collections at the MoMA, Guggenheim, the Whitney and some of the galleries in Chelsea.

It's sad to see him go, he lived such an exciting life.

<comment><USER3> His work is also at LACMA. Treasures, all.</comment></comment>


Hey Google dont force me to create public profile - <AUTHOR> http://beyondwork.wordpress.com/2010/12/16/hey-google-dont-force-me-to-create-public-profile/

<comment><AUTHOR> why google is doing this?</comment>


Ask HN: Career advice – What shall I do? - <AUTHOR>

Hello HN, I work for small size company in mid-west(Chicago). I have near 8.5 yrs of experience.
I recently interviewed at Yahoo and now have offer from them.
I can't decide though whether I should join company ? Alibaba seem to be making news. They also did few good acquisitions in last six months.
I am positive this will be very good opportunity to work with some of the smartest minds in the industry. I am worried though about its flip flop on performance and equally alarming news about its core business capability.
Honestly, I am worried about layoffs that may happen. I hope not.  But , if AOL and Yahoo gets together first thing any management would do is to reduce head count. Financially I haven't saved anything sizable yet due to student loans and all.
What do you think I should do ? Is it good time to join Yahoo or not ?
What would you do if you were in my position. <comment><USER2> The job market in the Valley is excellent for developers - if you for some reason aren't happy at Yahoo, it would be very easy to find another position nearby.

Otherwise, this is only a question you can really answer. I wouldn't think too much about the stock options though - if anything, they'd just be a nice bonus.

</comment><comment><USER3> Also it depends what you're working on. Yahoo Research has some of the best data mining people in the business

</comment><comment><USER4> take the job, duh

live modestly

pay off your loans and save an emergency fund

then start your own thing on the side

if you get laid off, use your new network to springboard to a better opportunity</comment>


Annual income of richest 100 people enough to end global poverty four times over - <AUTHOR> http://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressrelease/2013-01-19/annual-income-richest-100-people-enough-end-global-poverty-four-times <comment><USER2> I recently spent 2 days working on a renovation project at a local slum here in Hungary. The slum is a couple hundred gipsy families, living in unfinished/abandoned houses without water, gas/heating, they steal electricity off the grid. This was during the winter, so most houses just had one heated room, using wood. The houses didn't have bathrooms, everything smelled of urine, thrash was left all over the place, inside, outside, everywhere. Since the locals steal from each other, there were very few movable/valuable objects, like tables or chairs. Interestingly though, most houses had an LCD TV, which was surreal, poeple living in quasi-homeless conditions but watching TV all day. Many families had 5-10 kids, possibly because of lack of protection and because wellfare is linear in the # of kids here. Many kids were at home all day sitting around in dirty clothes. I heard one father argue with a kid and threaten him with school as punishment. According to locals drugs are a huge problem, with most teenagers having tried out drugs or being users. Adults were also at home, obviously uneducated and unemployed, possibly without acceptable "work ethics". The experience was a bit like a post- apocalyptic movie.

One of the aid people said in an interview that to "fix" this, ie. to reintegrate this group of people into society will take 2 generations in her opinion, because the social patterns in their heads have to change (don't steal, go to school, work, keep a tidy house), and that takes time. I agree.

I don't think just money would help. After I came back the 2nd day, I tried to imagine what would happen if one of these families got a really nice house and a bunch of money to go along with it. But since they lack the social skills to handle property and a law-abiding, "civil life", I think many would gradually destroy the house, spend/lose the money, and then end back where they started.

TLDR: Ending poverty involves changing people, which takes generations.

This is the project:

<http://www.bagazs.org/en/>

-

An interesting (perhaps) afterthought I had after the renovation work was whether trying to change people (the gipsies in Hungary) is moral. As a group I believe gipsies have always lived a different life, navigating at the edge of society, living in their own communities. Maybe it's just us who should change and just accept that they want to live a different life? I don't know, this line of thinking reminds me of Daniel Quinn's Ishmael, where the author argues that perhaps our way of life is only special because it's aggressive, in that we annihilate or assimilate other cultures and cannot live alongside them.

<comment><USER3> The word "gypsy" is denigrating and they call themselves Roma. You don't call black people niggers, do you? It's kind of telling that you spent two days on an aid project for them without getting that.

The discrimination against minorities like Roma and Jews in Hungary is severe. So it's not fair to blame all the problems on themselves.

<comment><USER2> Fact: They call themselves gipsies ("cigany") when they talk among each other. You hear it all the time on the subway, and I heard it several times while working there.

You are right, the PC term right now is "roma". But the distinction between these two words here in Hungary is nothing like "black" vs "nigger", so your blaming tone is unjustified.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Back of the envelope calculations, grabbing some numbers off of Wikipedia:

"In 2005, 43% of the world population (3.14 billion people) have an income of less than U.S. $2.5/day. 21.5% of the world population (1.4 billion people) have an income of less than US$1.25/day."

So the bottom 1.4 billion people live on less than $1.25/day.

1/4 of the $240 billion annual income cited is $60bn a year, spread amongst 1.4 billion people yields $0.117 a day.

Assuming that the average income of that 1.4 billion is half of $1.25, that would give us an ~18% boost to income (not necessarily livelihood).

Which is a surprisingly high figure. Why the hell wouldn't they lead with that? The title is clearly a fairytale to anyone with any sense.

<comment><USER5> Plus if you give everyone 18% more money, won't you just end up with 18% (or more) inflation as profiteering kicks in?

<comment><USER6> Many people would be able to afford different things, like phones, solar lights to replace kerosene, smokeless stoves, etc.

<comment><USER7> It's much more complex, but if everyone has 18% more money, probably the phones, lights and stoves will be 18% more expensive.

<comment><USER6> I know it's complex.

Phones and lights haven't exactly been going up in price with GDP. Stoves in the valleys I saw in Nepal were mainly affected by distance travelled by dzos.

Throwing your hands up in the air, pronouncing the problem too complex sounds like a really convenient excuse to do nothing.

<comment><USER8> The smokeless stoves are a really good example of a little money going a long way to help people's quality of life.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What a ridiculous assertion. So the implicit claim is that 60 billion (per year?) is all it takes to end extreme poverty. Does anyone actually think increasing aid by that amount would actually have that effect? Is it really as simple as writing a cheque?

<comment><USER6> They have a report, linked from the article, with references. Care to pick specific facts to argue about?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Dire poverty is self-inflicted. Corrupt, heavy-handed governments, pursuing illogical economic policies or deliberate starvation of opposition tribes. You could write that check tomorrow and the day after, Zimbabwe or North Korea or Somalia or even India would be the same. There are places in the world where the locals are killing people for offering the polio vaccine to children.

Further, global poverty is actually in decline around the world. <http://www.economist.com/node/21548963>

<comment><USER11> > _Dire poverty is self-inflicted._

Self-inflicted? That is a bullshit western justification. Those poor peoples have been milked to extinction by colonial overlords and left do die.

Not to mention that their very countries were designed and drawn on the map by colonial powers, like dividing loot, with no respect to local populations and tensions (or with full intent to exploit them, in a "divide and conquer" move).

Or that even today the governments of those countries are appointed and remotely controlled by western powers, with everything from under the table deals to open military support for their cronies.

Calling poverty in those places "self-inflicted" is like saying a raped woman "deserved it".

<comment><USER12> "Those poor peoples have been milked to extinction by colonial overlords and left do die."

That's bullshit anti-Western propaganda. Those "poor peoples" as you call them are responsible for their own fates, just as all of us are, no matter the situation we're born into.

Pity won't save them, and neither will trillions in charity as has been demonstrated for decades. There has been no improvement from the trillions in redistributed wealth from first to third world. The only major improvements have come through vast system improvements, such as in China (and spill over effects, such as Chinese investment).

They have to take control of their own destiny. They have to fight for their own freedom, their own property rights, their own right to exist and pursue their own lives. The West is now very bankrupt, it will soon have no more trillions to throw at the global poverty issue, it's sink or swim time.

<comment><USER11> > _That's bullshit anti-Western propaganda._

You don't get to have colonies all other the world, exploit people, invade their countries, have millions of black slaves, and then dimiss the effects of this as "anti-Western propaganda".

> _Those "poor peoples" as you call them are responsible for their own fates, > just as all of us are, no matter the situation we're born into. They have to > take control of their own destiny._

Easy for the 200-pound armed-to-the-gills bully that keeps them down to say that. But yes, it would be nice if they managed to get control of their own destiny and pay back some justice. Like take 20-30 million white western people to use as slaves in their fields.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The larger issue is that programs to end poverty haven't done what they have advertised to do. Poverty in Africa is getting worse in many areas as the level of aid has increased. I hesitate to start taking people's money who I don't know and just assume aren't doing anything better with it to fund programs that have poor track records. It'd be more exciting if they tried to fund these things voluntarily and then people can decide freely if they think someone can end poverty. They won't but it'd just be more interesting.

The other more obvious point is that this nonprofit is claiming the world is under serious problems and that taking money from others to give to them will fix it. That is sort of a naked appeal to tax others and put it in their pockets.

<comment><USER14> People in the first world don't appreciate what a huge diverse place is Africa. Things are getting better in some places, worse in others but there is lots of reason for optimism overall. Unfortunately, the bad news tends to get all the attention, so people here get the idea that development money doesn't do any good, period.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Seems most people have a trouble with the number and the report because it is from Oxfam? The UN came out with a similar number years ago (<http://www.fao.org/Newsroom/en/news/2008/1000853/index.html>) $30 billion to end world hunger. Other NGO:s (which I'm to lazy to google) have come out with other figures in the same ballpark over the years.

I.e if you yourself are not an expert on the global poverty problem then it takes more than "they are wrong" to refute their conclusions. The report is downloadable so just check the numbers yourself.

The references makes it clear that the original figure is $175 billion spread out over two years and is produced by economist Jeff Sachs. His book "The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time" probably contains details on how it was calculated.

</comment><comment><USER15> So, shall we just arrest the richest 100 people, confiscate their wealth, and solve all the world's problems at once?

<comment><USER6> Holy straw man argument!

In the linked report, Oxfam suggests even more radical things, like closing tax havens and taxing the capital gains. [sarcasm]Sadly, they do not want to arrest or kill all those rich people.[/sarcasm]

<comment><USER15> I'm not sure which one you're calling a straw man - my jest, or the entire original article. I'm going to assume both. Only one of them is intentionally a straw man.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> In this article, we learn that we can transform stock price increases into food and clothes, and that there is no corruption in undeveloped countries.

Hate to be sarcastic about this topic, but that headline needs it.

</comment><comment><USER17> OK, and the annual income of the rest of the world is enough to end it how many times over, exactly? I can guarantee you, more than four.

<comment><USER18> But how much of the rest of the world can afford to give up a year of income? For the richest people in the world, that's a lot easier.

<comment><USER8> you can't force them though, right? you would want them to voluntarily give the money to you. good luck with that.

<comment><USER19> Their governments could force them, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Everyone commenting on here wants to believe that they will become one of the top 1%. No one here wants to contemplate what would happen if they fell to the bottom 1%.

<comment><USER21> "The bottom 1%" is a bit of a useless demographic to contemplate, because of power-law distributions. The bottom 1% will be dead within about 1.5 years[0].

How's that for contemplation?

[0] rough estimate from current world pop and global death rate, rounded up, can't be too far off

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> This strongly depends on the definition of poverty. If poverty is:

a) Objectively defined, such as "no person goes hungry"

... then I think this statement may be true.

However, if poverty is defined as:

b) Look at all these poor people! They can barely afford their cell phones!

... then it will never be eliminated, because there will always be a bottom 5%, even as the wealth of that bottom 5% continuously increases. The poor in the U.S., for example, have never been better off then they are today. And it may well turn out that living in an unequal society (U.S.) results in more wealth for the poorest even over living in a society where everyone is equal (Soviet Union)--but is equally poor.

</comment><comment><USER23> Oxfam is a variable charity at best. Oxfam India, for example was found to spend 70% of what it received in donations on fundraising[1]. In the UK it spends a significant volume of money on fundraising, paying a company called Tag Campaigns to raise money in the streets, not without controversy[2][3].

Oxfam GB also acts as a lobbyist in the UK, receives large amounts of funding from the government and has particularly close ties to the Labour party[4].

I realise that this is easy to construe an attack on Oxfam rather than the crux of the post, but my point here is that Oxfam have a vested interest in highlighting such things, regardless of whether or not there's anything tangible that can be done in order to raise funds. I would encourage anyone looking to donate to charity to do some basic due diligence on their charity of choice, and to preferably donate to a smaller local charity first.

[1] - [http://capitalmind.in/2011/06/oxfam-india-spends-70-of- donat...](http://capitalmind.in/2011/06/oxfam-india-spends-70-of-donations-as- fund-raising-cost/)

[2] - [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandcon...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/9367193/Charities- ditch-street-chuggers-after-Sunday-Telegraph-investigation.html)

[3] - [http://www.charitywatch.org/articles/street_solicitations.ht...](http://www.charitywatch.org/articles/street_solicitations.html)

[4] - <http://fakecharities.org/2011/02/charity-202918/>

</comment><comment><USER24> I think focusing on these 100 individuals is counterproductive, as is saying that their money can magically fix poverty.

If we focus on the demonstrable, then we can say this: (1) income inequality is increasing, and (2) excessive income inequality lowers the quality of life of everyone, even the rich ( [http://www.amazon.com/Spirit-Level-Equality- Societies-Strong...](http://www.amazon.com/Spirit-Level-Equality-Societies- Stronger/dp/1608193411) ). So, purely out of shared self-interest we shoud all be figuring out how to reduce the inequality, by whatever mechanism.

The solutions needed to structurally change inequality have to do with trade policies, laws, political coalitions, borders, cultural interaction, and many other things which have very little to do with these 100 people and how much money they have. If we could solve the underlying causes of inequality, then we wouldn't need to figure out income redistribution schemes that compensate for a broken socio-economical system.

</comment><comment><USER25> In control systems we learned about positive and negative feedback systems. Capitalism is an example of "positive feedback" and without correct governance (or destruction) is effectively an unstable system, which just leads to a massive divide between people who got rich and those who are stuck being poor.

</comment><comment><USER26> Yeah, and most of these rich people are also huge philanthropists that donate massive sums to charity.

<comment><USER27> Well, only 19 people have given more than $1bn to charity [http://www.forbes.com/sites/luisakroll/2011/05/19/the- worlds...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/luisakroll/2011/05/19/the-worlds- biggest-givers/) which leaves a lot of people not giving much away. The Russian oligarchs seem to like to spend money on football teams and mansions not alleviating poverty, while the Chinese rich do not seem to give much away either.

<comment><USER28> Well, running football teams and building mansions aren't necessarily wealth destroying activities. Football teams can be relatively big employers plus distribute lare amounts to players who then also buy expensive things putting more money back into the economy.

Many Chinese rich would be very large employers. Also their culture of saving allows the US to continue spending outside of their means, for now.

<comment><USER12> The Fed is the only thing that allows the US to continue to spend outside its means for now (including the biggest spendthrift of all, the US Government), and more specifically the dollar global reserve currency (or FRN).

The Chinese aren't buying any meaningful amount of our new debt these days. Mostly they just cycle existing debt, from long to short etc as it makes sense. Ditto the Japanese, who hold almost as much junk US debt as the Chinese.

<comment><USER28> Ah, I am certainly no expert on the subject. Just trying to make the point that even these rich that generally are holding onto their wealth for themselves would be actively attempting to destroy wealth and it has to be stored somewhere doing something.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Why is this not on the front page of HN anymore? Currently has 35 points and is 3 hours old. Vs an article "Math in Fiction - over 1000 short ..." that has 22 points and is 5 hours old?

</comment><comment><USER30> The underlying assumption of the above headline is that the same amount of goods will be produced, even if you take the rich'es revenues away from them. Well, false. Without proper incentives innovation will decline, and the average purchase power will decrease.

Marxism has been tried and failed.

Perhaps the rich should be taxed differently, but the simplistic assertion (ending poverty four times over) is obviously false.

</comment><comment><USER8> yes, what we forget is that poor people are just as self-centered and greedy and profit-motivated and 'evil' as every rich guy out there. What do the people in nation A need money for? I'd guess the main focus has to be in infrastructure development: 1. electricity generation and distribution 2. transportation 3. telecommunications.

What can we do to make these three things as "cheap" as possible? The answer won't just help the developing countries. It will help everyone.

</comment><comment><USER31> If giving people money solved poverty, there would be no poverty in wealthy countries.

</comment><comment><USER32> this Article is about that the richer People are getting richer and the poor people poorer...

and this is a problem!

I live in germany a "rich" country you may think... There is a growing part of people how have a fulltime job but they are getting not payed enough and must go employment agency to get subvention from the state...

</comment><comment><USER33> We all know it's just not _that_ simple...

</comment><comment><USER34> Give a man a fish...

</comment><comment><USER35> Peoples definition of poverty changes over time.</comment>