The Poisonous Beauty Advice Columns of Victorian England - <AUTHOR> http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-poisonous-beauty-advice-columns-of-victorian-england <comment><USER2> This isn't all that different than today's beauty regimes. Talk to teenage girls and models, the toxicity now goes far deeper than makeup.

Acne is caused by bacteria. You would be shocked at how many young celebs basically live on antibiotics year after year. What that does to their immune system isn't good, but the shock it does to their digestive systems probably helps keep the pounds off. Clear skin is also a function of hormones, specifically estrogen. Estrogen is found in birth control pills. Many a young girl is on 'the pill' for that benefit rather than for her reproductive health.

At the truly shocking end are the models that use diabetes and insulin to manipulate weight. The poster girl for this is Halle Berry. She is/was a true diabetic, but it is also clear she used her insulin dependency to keep thin. A former Mr Universe was the male face of this practice.

[https://www.diabeteshealth.com/scrawny-boy-with- type-1-diabe...](https://www.diabeteshealth.com/scrawny-boy-with- type-1-diabetes-becomes-mr-universe/)

<comment><USER3> Could you elaborate more on how one would use an insulin dependency to "stay thin"? I am aware that many diabetics maintain a rigorous control over their diet in order to moderate the effects of their disease. This is often associated with thinness. After reading your remark, I did some reading, but was unable to turn up any suggestion as to how one would go about deliberately using either excess or insufficient levels of insulin to reduce body weight.

Many a young girl is also on 'the pill' because she has discovered that menstruation is like being very slowly kicked in the balls over and over again for nearly a week while walking around with a mess in your pants.

Despite this, I am sure that they will give your suggestion that they ensure the treatment is being used for its intended purpose the most solemn and serious consideration.

As a health concern, the risks associated with maintaining an abnormal estrogen cycle appear to be statistically significant, even at modern dosage levels, but they are in a completely different league than the risk that would be posed by chronic antibiotic use. With regards to which, it would be good to see an actual figure for how many young celebrities use antibiotics in a chronic fashion for acne control, so that I could judge whether I would indeed be shocked or not.

<comment><USER4> "Diabulimia" is one search term you can use.

[http://www.joslin.org/info/Eating_Disorders_Diabulimia_in_Ty...](http://www.joslin.org/info/Eating_Disorders_Diabulimia_in_Type_1_Diabetes.html)

> > Women with eating disorders and [type one] diabetes typically struggle > with symptoms similar to those of women with eating disorders who do not > have diabetes. However, they exhibit a very dangerous symptom of calorie > purging in the form of insulin restriction.

> but was unable to turn up any suggestion as to how one would go about > deliberately using either excess or insufficient levels of insulin to reduce > body weight.

Well, if you think about it in terms of "eating disorder" rather than "staying thin" it makes more sense. People with eating disorder do a bunch of stuff with the aim of staying slim that doesn't have that affect. People with bulimia tend to be overweight; we know that laxatives do nothing to promote thinness; etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > Victorian beauty ideals were unsurprisingly obsessed with pallor: upper > class white women chased even whiter skin, a symbol that their privilege > never left them working in the sun.

You won't believe how true this still holds in India. Skin lightning creams are a huge deal here (and I'm guessing almost all of Asia like Malaysia, Thailand, etc where I've seen this marketed heavily too). These creams contain stuff like Hydroquinone which is a known carcinogen. I'm sure they contain many other chemicals too.

But people still use it. It's a huge industry. Recently, there have been lightning creams for private parts. It's so weird that someone would actually consider that. The funniest thing though is that white people who come here spend a lot of time sun-bathing to get their skin tanned otoh :)

</comment><comment><USER6> There is an element of self-sacrifice implied by beauty regimes -- sacrifice of time, of health, of wealth. Perhaps this is a critical function of beauty regimes -- it allows them to function as a display behavior: as a means of demonstrating discipline and self-control and as a way to demonstrate deliberate and purposeful adoption of certain values.

</comment><comment><USER7> It is interesting how pervasive this still is: from the Botullism toxin injections to the notions of femme fatales and songs about girls being "toxic", "poison", or having that sickly "heroin chic" look.

What do you think the root of it is? Is it a fear of the potency of female sexual power?

<comment><USER2> Don't overthink it. Clear young skin, a near-universally accepted standard for beauty is rooted in nature. Young fertile women have clearer skin. So that's the goal. To get there women want to ether cover over blemishes (the painted woman image of the op) or basically peal off a layer of skin to expose the more youthful skin underneath (the "natural" look popular today).

a) Anything that peals of skin chemically, rather then abrasively, is going to be toxic. The high PH of the ammonia dissolves fats and oils ... ie living tissue. Google "chemical peel" for today's version. But dissolving skin is a very localized injury without long term side effects. You can wreck your face, but ammonia isn't going to give you cancer.

b) The painting-over approach requires something that can sit on the skin for a period of time without either dripping or being absorbed into the skin. You need something that can block light when spread in a very thin layer. And it needs to be shelf-stable. So you are looking for metal compounds, the heavier the better. If you want white, that's lead or zinc oxide. Lead is cheaper. Its toxicity, its general eagerness to play havoc with all biological reactions, keeps it from rotting away in the jar. So the usefulness is directly tied to it being a toxic heavy metal.

<comment><USER8> To nit-pick: "peel", rather than "peal". :)</comment></comment></comment>


Five Little Languages and How They Grew - <AUTHOR> http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/hopl.html <comment><USER2> Bliss indeed was perhaps the oddest of the lot. The specific instruction that he might have been talking about was the variable-width bitfield pointer that the Dec 10 hardware had that was available in bliss-36. This, interestingly, has found its way into lisp.

So far as I know, there were three Bliss languages--Bliss-11, Bliss 32 (vax) and Bliss 36 (Dec 10). It was the first expression language that I had used; not quite functional.

And those were the days that they knew how to make nice instruction sets. PDP-10 could just be my favorite.</comment>


Ford Was Unprepared for Investor Revolt and C.E.O. Change - <AUTHOR> https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/05/22/business/dealbook/ford-was-unprepared-for-investor-revolt-and-ceo-change.html?emc=edit_dk_20170523&nl=dealbook&nlid=65508833&ref=dealbook&te=1&referer= <comment><USER2> From my reading, they still have the dual share class right? It just gave them an understanding that many people did not like how it was being managed?

<comment><USER3> Correct

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ford's main problem is playing it too safe. They are making gobs of money doing it, but it's hard to see the future. I don't know if they'll have a place in an electrified world, nor how well their self driving vehicle division is doing.

<comment><USER5> Wait why wouldn't Ford (or really any automaker) be able to make electrics cars?

<comment><USER6> With the level of outsourcing and specialization that has gone on, most car manufacturers are evidently not really car manufacturers anymore, but actually internal combustion engine manufacturers and assembly line operators. They just pay other companies to make most of the parts for them and keep the engine in house as their "secret sauce", as a technology that can't easily be copied.

Likewise, Tesla isn't really an electric car company or even an electric motor company. Electric motors are something everyone's known how to make for a hundred years and they actually get a lot of their generic car bits like their interiors from the same companies who supply traditional car companies. Tesla's actually a battery pack company (this is why the PowerPack and the SolarCity merger makes sense). It's the knowledge and the experience that went into those packs that keeps other companies from easily copying Tesla.

The problem Ford and any traditional automaker faces is somehow pivoting from their current secret sauce, which took them decades and billions of dollars to develop, to a new one in a field that's completely unrelated, where almost nothing they already know applies.

<comment><USER7> > Electric motors are something everyone's known how to make for a hundred > years

We are not talking about toy motors. Before Tesla who knew about making a car motor which can reach 0-60 in 2.27 seconds?

<comment><USER8> Hobbyists have been putting down crazy 0-60 times for years. For example, here's an electric Mustang conversion with a 0-60 time under 2 seconds:

[https://www.hemmings.com/blog/2015/06/17/electric-mustang- re...](https://www.hemmings.com/blog/2015/06/17/electric-mustang- records-1-94-second-0-60-time-builder-sets-200-mph-goal/comment-page-1/)

Here's a Datsun 1200 with a 1.8 second 0-60:

[https://www.geek.com/geek-cetera/worlds-fastest-electric- car...](https://www.geek.com/geek-cetera/worlds-fastest-electric-car- is-a-1972-datsun-can-do-0-60-in-1-8-seconds-1416865/)

That one was built _twenty-three years ago!_

Tesla's achievement isn't the 0-60 time itself, but rather doing so in a car that 1) is a practical daily driver family car 2) will withstand a couple hundred thousand miles of driving without replacing major components 3) is safe and robust enough to put into the hands of thousands of ordinary consumers and 4) can be manufactured for a cost that is not entirely ludicrous.

Which is impressive, but unrelated to the motor. In fact, the rear motor in the P100D is the same as the one in my 85 and essentially the same as the one that was in the original 2012 Model S, and the front motor is just a smaller, less powerful version.

The main innovations which enabled this are related to the battery pack, not the motors. Most of _that_ innovation is cutting costs. It's really easy to get a _lot_ of power out of a large battery pack, and Tesla's cheap batteries means they can put large ones in their cars without completely blowing the cost up. They just about maxed this out with the P85D, which did 0-60 in around 3 seconds. At that point they started to be limited by the amount of current that the battery's fuses could handle. They got past that problem by using a "smart" pyrotechnic fuse instead of the traditional melty-metal kind, resulting in "ludicrous mode" on the P85D and P90D. Then the P100D bumps it up a bit more just by virtue of having a larger battery.

<comment><USER9> > will withstand a couple hundred thousand miles of driving without replacing > major components

How many Teslas out there with > 100K miles and how many with > 200K miles?

<comment><USER8> Not many, since it's a pretty new car, but more than zero. For example: [https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/29/tales-from-a-tesla- model-s...](https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/29/tales-from-a-tesla-model-s- at-200k-miles/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > Shareholders didn't just call out Mr. Fields. Some 35 percent of them also > voted to abandon the dual-class share structure that gives the descendants > of Henry Ford two-fifths of the vote with less than 2 percent of the stock. > Stripping out the family's votes meant that at least 58.5 percent of > investors favored moving to one share, one vote — an act of open rebellion.

Holy Crap!

<comment><USER11> > _Holy Crap!_

It'll happen to all these dual-class shares when the tide turns and the tech sector falls from favour.

<comment><USER12> I think Ford's case is substantially different than that of Google and Facebook though, because in the tech companies' cases if the shares are ever transferred from the original founders they automatically lose their super- voting rights. The theory is that the founders were smart enough to build the juggernauts in the first place, and as long as they're alive they're (hopefully) the best people to keep them going. With the Ford situation, the current super-voting members of the Ford household "earned" that right by wisely choosing the right parents. :)

<comment><USER13> This. Super-voting rights makes some sense for startups and for companies like Times Mirror, where you don't want people buying up shares so they can dictate the news. Less so for other companies.

On the other hand, while it's been close, Ford is the only US automaker that hasn't taken a trip through bankruptcy court.

<comment><USER14> Yeah, Carlos Slim has 0 say in what the times reports. /S

<comment><USER15> Your account is new so I'll just tell you: sarcastic replies are almost always obliterated here.

<comment><USER14> I think that's a pretty condescending way to make you're point. I've seen plenty of successful sarcastic posts over the years. I made my point and regardless of the direction of the votes, people saw it.

<comment><USER15> I think you misread my tone! Just noticed a < 1 year old account and filled you in, nothing more. Everyone else was just down voting, which I didn't think was helpful if you didn't yet know.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Issues Around TRIM in SSDs - <AUTHOR> https://lwn.net/Articles/787272/ <comment><USER2> It gives me the impression he had no idea what trim does, trim in memory? Reuse LBA? You must be kidding.</comment>


Iodine – tunneling IP over DNS - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/yarrick/iodine <comment><USER2> "The name iodine was chosen since it starts with IOD (IP Over DNS) and since iodine has atomic number 53, which happens to be the DNS port number."

Cool.

</comment><comment><USER3> I like using dns2tcp, it's a lot easier to set up as it works on the transport layer (TCP), not the network layer (IP), and it seems a bit more reliable in my experience.

[http://blog.rootshell.be/2007/03/22/dns2tcp-how-to-bypass- fi...](http://blog.rootshell.be/2007/03/22/dns2tcp-how-to-bypass-firewalls-or- captive-portals/)

[http://www.hsc.fr/ressources/outils/dns2tcp/download/README](http://www.hsc.fr/ressources/outils/dns2tcp/download/README)

[http://www.hsc.fr/ressources/outils/dns2tcp/download/](http://www.hsc.fr/ressources/outils/dns2tcp/download/)

<comment><USER4> Second dns2tcp, although there's also Heyoka [http://heyoka.sourceforge.net/](http://heyoka.sourceforge.net/), Netcross [http://www.primianotucci.com/os/netcross-ip-over-dns- tunneli...](http://www.primianotucci.com/os/netcross-ip-over-dns-tunneling), and a rather interesting presentation from Defcon a few years back that showed a more detailed and realistic scenario of using DNS tunneling to punch through a firewall and retrieve database records. I can't locate it right now, but I'll take a look if anyone's interested.

<comment><USER5> Yes please, I'd be super interested in watching that talk!

<comment><USER4> Haha, fifteen minutes of Googling later, here you go: Slides: [https://www.defcon.org/images/defcon-16/dc16-presentations/d...](https://www.defcon.org/images/defcon-16/dc16-presentations/defcon-16-ricks.pdf) Talk: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkXG14MA3M4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkXG14MA3M4)

I kept missing the search term. It was "data exfiltration" not "dns tunneling."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've had some good experience with iodine in the past, it's been useful at airports and on trains to bypass captive portals.

It's extremely variable in performance, and can sometimes require a bit of tuning on the client side to work reliably; however, for the most part the auto-detection works well, and will upgrade to raw UDP on port 53 if it is possible.

<comment><USER7> The biggest downside with DNS tunneling is the high latency and low bandwidth - many "responsive" web apps feel like molasses, even long static pages take a surprisingly long time to download, and streaming video/audio becomes almost impossible. Of course it's better than no connectivity as a last-resort; SSH sessions are still quite usable and you can do basic things like email and forums.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> An HN user is trying to tunnel IP over Facebook Chat, which is free (as in beer) to access on some mobile plans: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7256477](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7256477)

<comment><AUTHOR> IP over SMS would be even more useful in the US.

<comment><USER8> Interesting idea. A few obstacles we'd need to overcome:

\- Although SMS messages may be free/bundled for the mobile subscriber, they probably wouldn't be free for the other end (unless you set up the other end yourself, using another mobile device)

\- The latency for SMS seems to be high (at least in places where I've lived: UK and China). I'm not sure about in the US. If latency is an issue then maybe somehow increasing the 'MTU', i.e. sending lots of SMS at the same time, would make the throughput OK.

On the other hand, maybe application-level gateways (email-to-SMS, web-to-SMS) would work better, albeit at the cost of flexibility.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> You can usw iodine to ger free internet access when your 4G mobile plan runs out of GBs and your ISP blocks you.

Example from sweden, I got around 200kbit after my 4G was supposed to block further internet due to unpaid bill. Hehe.

</comment><comment><USER10> Plug for my dns tunnel not nearly complete as iodine, but it works and is very easy to setup.

[https://github.com/callesg/dns-tunnler](https://github.com/callesg/dns- tunnler)

</comment><comment><USER11> How do these avoid captive portals? I thought the thing about captive portals was that they intercepted DNS queries: that's what caused you to get the portal when you typed in "google.com". (i.e., it resolves all DNS entries to the portal's IP until you authenticate) Is this not correct? (I can receive arbitrary DNS, not just send?)

<comment><AUTHOR> I think most of them use HTTP, not DNS, given that DNS is often previously cached.

<comment><USER12> Yes in the case of Bluecoat for example, which also is used to setup paywalls sometimes, you hijack all HTTP/HTTPS traffic and redirect it to the bluecoat server. So DNS goes through and when the portal is submit nothing is done to permit DNS traffic in any type of firewall.

But maybe this is an example of a poor paywall.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I have been running OpenVPN on UDP/53 for a few years now. I figure that any network operator sophisticated enough to do deep packet inspection to detect real DNS traffic is also sophisticated enough to block outbound UDP/53 traffic.

<comment><USER14> Nope. Public paywalled hotspots often have ip whitelists while you didn't pay. So they'll let everything trough that goes to THEIR dns. Openvpn on 53 won't help you here. Iodine will.

I don't know why they serve full dns to unpaid users. Maybe to avoid os dns cache issues.

I've used iodine a few times in the past while traveling. Works like a charm.

<comment><USER15> They serve full DNS because then it's a single configuration to bother with - regular DNS. Until tools like this are factored for, there's no reason to do anything stateful with the DNS response. It'd just be extra work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> IP over DNS, TCP over DNS, IP over ICMP... surely somebody is running a service with all of these for maximum captive portal avoidance?

<comment><AUTHOR> ICMP is often blocked nowadays even when HTTP is allowed, so I don't think IP over ICMP is very useful.

It is possible to filter Iodine requests given that they use NULL records, which are inexistent in the real world. Some other well-known tools use TXT, which is a bit more common. TUNS ([http://www.loria.fr/~lnussbau/tuns.html](http://www.loria.fr/~lnussbau/tuns.html)) uses CNAME and respects the DNS standard, which should have near-100% success. It's quite a bit slower though.

<comment><USER17> _It is possible to filter Iodine requests given that they use NULL records, which are inexistent in the real world._

Iodine actually also uses TXT, SRV, MX, CNAME and A, in this order, if it detects that the better choices are blocked.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Iodine is pretty cool, but do keep in mind that even though this repo looks new and novel, the project has been around since 2006.

</comment><comment><USER19> There's a network-manager plugin too: [https://honk.sigxcpu.org/piki/projects/network-manager- iodin...](https://honk.sigxcpu.org/piki/projects/network-manager-iodine/)

</comment><comment><USER20> Also tangential to it: IP-over-ICMP [http://thomer.com/icmptx/](http://thomer.com/icmptx/) though never got to play with it.

Iodine is cool. If you plan on using it soon remember to set up your DNS records beforehand cause it might take a bit to propagate. I literally spent a whole airplane flight sending DNS requests to see if it propagated yet.

<comment><USER21> You can avoid the propagation time by creating a new DNS record that hasn't been cached anywhere yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> This project reminds me of ptunnel [http://www.cs.uit.no/~daniels/PingTunnel/](http://www.cs.uit.no/~daniels/PingTunnel/)

I've used it to get free internet at universities and hotels, slow but gets the job done. ICMP usually isn't filtered by those kinds of firewalls and I've yet to find a place that blocked it.

</comment><comment><USER23> This is another intriguing example of a covert communication channel [1] [2].

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

[2] File Transfer OverDNS - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7370917](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7370917)

</comment><comment><USER24> Nice project. I've been curious about internet (TCP, IP, whatever) over DNS for a while, but it always seems like a lot of work. Is there an X-over-DNS that's trivial to set up for Mac and phones? I'm aware that iodine works for those, it just looks .. complex.

</comment><comment><USER25> What's the legal side of this?

I can imagine tunnelling your traffic through DNS to avoid a captive portal (i.e. actually paying for it) counts as circumventing a security measure, which is illegal in a lot of places including the country where I live in.</comment>


7 sets Venn Diagram: interactive 128 color combinations from mixing 7 colors - <AUTHOR> http://moebio.com/research/sevensets/

<comment><USER2> Here's a few other beautiful venn diagrams, including the first simple symmetric 11 curve diagram: [http://webhome.cs.uvic.ca/~ruskey/Publications/Venn11/Venn11...](http://webhome.cs.uvic.ca/~ruskey/Publications/Venn11/Venn11.html)

That being said, this is the coolest venn diagram visualization diagram I've seen. Someone should make an interactive 11 curve diagram.

Edit: <http://www.combinatorics.org/files/Surveys/ds5/VennEJC.html> has a lot more info on venn diagrams in general, if anyone is interested.

</comment><comment><USER3> Very cool. I think I find "Side B" much easier to see. Don't miss it! (drag to "flip" it over).

I wonder if there's a good way to add some intuitive discoverability to that feature...

<comment><USER4> Yes and also don't miss hovering over areas and waiting for a second to isolate only the overlapping colors.

<comment><USER3> That, at least, is quite easily discoverable by a nieve user.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Don't give this page a once-over. Make sure you drag the diagram to "flip" it over. You can click on regions on side B of the diagram, too.

Impressive work!

<comment><USER6> Thanks for pointing that out! This really is impressive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is, indeed, very impressive.

It is not only a great way to visualize the data, but it is a cool interactive piece.

I do agree that Side B is easier to see, especially with the isolation.

</comment><comment><USER8> This is from Santiago Ortiz, who has several other excellent projects on his website. My favorite is "Views of the sky" <http://moebio.com/exomap/viewsofthesky/2/> which allows you to either view the stars in scaled positions with their size indicating their absolute magnitude, or on a sphere with the stars scaled by relative magnitude (as on Earth). Part #1 (don't miss it!) is located at a link on the bottom of the page, and also cool.

</comment><comment><USER9> In FF15.0.1 on Kubuntu it didn't show for me until I attempted to drag at which point everything worked as expected. Clicking on the page makes the image appear too as does interacting with the bookmark "star" for the page.

<comment><USER10> You might want to file this as a bug. Works for me with FF15.0.1 on Linux Mint 13 (Cinnamon).

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's too bad that so many of the colors are named a rather unimaginative "gray". That's the only negative thing that comes immediately to mind, however; this is really quite cool.

</comment><comment><USER12> And it's actually a Venn diagram too, unlike many other things that get that name on the Internet.</comment>


A pragmatic design approach for early-stage startups - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/monito-stories/a-pragmatic-design-approach-for-early-stage-startups-75dc499ae178 <comment><AUTHOR> In this post I explain why I think it sometimes makes sense to build your product before doing any user research.</comment>


Memory and string functions can be improved dramatically on x86 and x86-64 glibc - <AUTHOR> http://sourceware.org/ml/libc-help/2008-08/msg00000.html

<comment><USER2> This is a pretty sad exchange. Fog essentially says "I'd love to donate my code" and the glibc maintainers respond that they aren't that interested unless he can provide ready-to-apply patches. Then it comes up that the framework to do dynamic runtime checks doesn't really exist. Then there follows a terse exchange as to which mailing lists should or should not be used to discuss such matters.

It looks like the discussion ended at that point. For reference, the author (Agner Fog) is the maintainer of one of the best sites on the web for assembly optimization. This sounds like a great project for a student or young programmer who wants to bridge the gap between Fog's expertise and the FSF's beaurocracy. If you are excited by fast code, this would be a way to make a difference in a hurry.</comment>


Celebrate the web by using another browser than Google's Chrome - <AUTHOR> https://m.signalvnoise.com/celebrate-the-web-by-using-another-browser-than-googles-chrome-174a45991c42 <comment><USER2> I've happily used Firefox for over a decade now (since version 2.0). The web's changed a little since then, but I think Firefox has adapted well and has been the source of a lot of innovation. I've tried Chrome and other browsers, but never really thought much of them - but I'm very glad they exist! Variety is a great thing to have.

It's disheartening to see developers with the attitude that they only care about users using the same browser as them and it's been frustrating over the years to see services neglecting non-Chrome browsers (example: Netflix + Linux up until recently). What happened to cross-browser testing, progressive enhancement and other best practices?

<comment><USER3> > What happened to cross-browser testing, progressive enhancement and other > best practices?

It is the responsibility of browser vendors to follow the spec, not of developers.

Otherwise, developers would have to test in 10+ different browsers every time they make a change in the code, which would mean madness (!)

<comment><USER4> Developers need to be aware of differences in browsers and implement their projects accordingly. Anything less is simply unprofessional.

<comment><USER5> Developers work on browsers, too. It's a two-way street.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This article is ahistorical - it was Firefox that first shook IE's dominance. Chrome took over the Firefox niche and finally claimed dominance because it ran so much better, while still meeting web standards.

I develop with Chrome not just because it's the least pain in the ass and has a good ecosystem of tools, but because it adheres to standards. I can't remember the last time I've made a page in Chrome and it didn't work in Firefox or even Edge. It's only weird, non-standard browsers I have to work around.

<comment><USER7> Firefox kept the fire burning but Chrome is what stirred Microsoft into action.

Chrome is creepy privacy invading software designed to help maintain Googles search monopoly.

Like Search, Chrome's quality is the honey and we are the flies.

<comment><USER8> You say "creepy privacy invading", I say hooked up to the only search engine worth a damn and providing trivially disabled features that actually save me time and pain.

<comment><USER9> If you start using DuckDuckGo for your searches, you can use different commands for different search platforms if you find the DDG results lacking (which I do many a times, depending on the topic/context). For example, !s would search Startpage [1] (a search engine that claims not to track but uses Google search internally), !g would search Google, !w would search Wikipedia, and so on. It takes maybe a few more seconds, but offers a lot of flexibility.

[1]: [https://www.startpage.com](https://www.startpage.com)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The Chrome monoculture among developers is concerning. It's something each and every developer should consider and actively combat by changing their primary browser. The open web cannot flourish when built on a monopoly

<comment><AUTHOR> One reason I use Chrome as a developer is because of the vast debugging tools available with it (i.e. React has React Dev Tools, AngularJS has Batarang, NG- Inspector etc..)

But I generally use all major browsers, IE included when doing actual application testing.

<comment><USER10> The fact that a lof of tooling is only available for Chrome is another side effect of the monoculture among developers. I too use Chrome for developing every now and then, but I use Firefox as my main browser for everything else.

<comment><USER11> I don't think that's the monoculture of developers.

Chrome was based in Webkit in it's rising years - which put it on par with Safari and Android. This meant that you could develop comfortably and do less cross-browser work up front.

Developers got comfortable. Chrome is open source, extendable, and keeps up with web standards.

<comment><USER12> > Chrome is open source

No, Chromium is open source. Chrome != Chromium. There's still some secret sauce being thrown into chrome that you don't have access to.

> extendable

Only with JavaScript. It bugs me a bit to this day that this is deemed to be sufficient by Firefox as well. We've lost quite a few good extensions with this change.

> web standards

It helps that Google's team pushes most of those web standards, meaning that everyone else is typically playing catch up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> After years of using Chrome I tried Firefox just to try something different and to my surprise it's 90% as good as Chrome and even surpasses it in certain areas:

\- address bar history is better, Chrome wants you to google everything, not use your history,

\- Firefox for Android has addons, I don't even want to remember life without uBlock... I still have nightmares of vibrating website scams on Chrome.

Chrome is generally better in:

\- speed and security,

\- interesting Web APIs (foreign-fetch in Service Workers, Barcode recognition on Android).

<comment><USER14> > \- speed and security,

Can you clarify about the security angle? What makes Firefox less secure?

<comment><USER13> Currently? Lack of multiprocess tabs [0] and native U2F (available though third party addon, not on Android). Personally I also like how Google deals with Symantec issues.

[0]: [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/Firefox/Multiprocess_Fir...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/Firefox/Multiprocess_Firefox)

<comment><USER14> Ah ok, I already have electrolysis. U2F i agree

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > You don't have to be that old to remember the dark days when Internet > Explorer strangled the web by its utter domination.

It is not the same thing. Chromium ( upon which Chrome is based ) is open source. If Google abuses their power it is easier to correct course by forking. In fact, many browsers like Opera, Brave, Vivaldi, Yandex etc are already based on Chromium

> By balancing the browsers, choosing to use not just what's convenient but > what's lesser used, you can make the business case for monopoly plays a bad > deal.

Pass. People should use the best software they can get their hands on

> good folks at Firefox deserve your usage just as much

So contrary to popular opinion on HN, Firefox is not as good as Chrome. However, we must still use it. Consider it an act of charity

I don't think so. Mozilla must earn their user base by making a good browser and marketing it well

<comment><USER16> >> good folks at Firefox deserve your usage just as much

>So contrary to popular opinion on HN, Firefox is not as good as Chrome. However, we must still use it. Consider it an act of charity

>I don't think so. Mozilla must earn their user base by making a good browser and marketing it well

Firefox don't need anyone to use it as an act of charity.

But you need to stop the underhanded FUD.

Talking like Chrome is somehow better than all other browsers is just as dumb as saying that x model of y car brand is best...

Best for what? A lot of people love Chrome, Mac, Mercedes.

Sure they are good but I dont want any of them.

\- I want my tabs to be vertical and automatically nested,

\- my browser to support 100s of tabs and real extensions,

\- my computer to have different window management and different menus than what is available on Mac OS

\- my car to have a _hand_ braķe.

Going on about how chrome is the best browser is only slightly more mature IMO than me as a kid going on about how x was the beat car (just because my dad had one).

In this case it is even worse as people read it everywhere and start thinking it is true.

<comment><USER5> The car analogy starts to fall apart when you are talking about something that continues to get updates. Sure, they release new versions of cars usually every year, but you are buying an entirely new car, not really updating your old one.

It also starts to fall apart when talking about price. You can talk about browsers costing time, effort, privacy, etc, but this isn't the same as talking about thousands of actual dollars.

> real extensions

Unless I'm mistaken, I don't believe Firefox is going to have those for too much longer: [https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2015/08/21/the-future-of- dev...](https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2015/08/21/the-future-of-developing- firefox-add-ons/)

<comment><USER16> As far as I am aware they are still going to have more extension points than Chrome.

E.g. it seems the vertical tabs extension I use will still work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Uh wait though, isn't this the entire tech business? Get people to centralize on using a technology then build a monopoly/moat around it? Who's going to acquire the sexy startups if we abandon our monopolistic ideas and the massive cash troves that come with them? Is there really another way?

I know, I know, nobody wants to believe this is truly what happens. But let's be honest, big companies control much of what happens on the web now. And then they acquire smaller companies that challenge them. And the government doesn't know anything about tech or not nearly enough to understand that these monopolies probably need to be broken up.

Can you think of an alternative to the system we're in, or does all technology lead to centralization like this?

</comment><comment><USER18> Why is this a big concern when chrome is mostly open source and you can download chromium? If Google takes a very wrong step, chrome can be forked.

<comment><USER12> Chromium (not Chrome) can indeed be forked. Yet that won't help with things like DirectTV going Chrome only. Or Google's marketing of Chrome to users of other browsers. Or finding developers capable of maintaining a fork with the current flood of web standards.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Hard pass. I'll just change my user-agent and call it a day.

</comment><comment><USER20> I have a different opinion. I think this monoculture is great. There are many browsers all based on Chromium: Chrome, Opera, etc. While they offer different views, their core rendering engine and api's are shared with chromium. It makes life much easier as a developer. While having many implementations is great, it is a pain in the ass. For example, I have an app that uses service worker and indexeddb. It has cases where it fails to work on Safari.

The author compares to Chromium monoculture to IE. That is a very unfair comparison. I would compare it to Linux. Both have open code bases that you can fork at any time and contribute to if you want. It works well on all platforms/hardware respectively. Both have corporate goodwill to pay for it. Its wasteful to re-implement things multiple times over.

<comment><USER21> The biggest problem is, they're all still based on Chromium, who's development priorities are determined by a single profit-driven corporation. (Bear in mind, Chrome was simply the natural evolution of Sundar Pichai's work on the Google Toolbar, a way to ensure everyone is using Google Search all the time. Google was increasingly concerned Microsoft would disable or block their toolbar, hence they created their own browser.)

This monoculture not only means all browsers would be vulnerable to the same flaws, but that you are okay with Google controlling the entire Internet platform. (Which is already an increasing problem in many other aspects.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I do not care about the cup-monopoly, when the providers of water are strangling the pipe.

<comment><USER12> It's possible to be concerned about more than one thing at a time. Otherwise, could anyone ever be concerned about anything but the fact that they're going to die?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I make sure to test my applications in all major browsers and iron out bugs in all of them, when possible.

So, that aside, I'm too used to Chromium for me to bother switching to something else as my personal browser. Not to mention that it's handy if one uses mostly Google applications (gmail, maps, keep, etc) as it allows synchronization between devices.

Besides, and this might seem a bit incendiary, I see no problem with something that's _mostly_ open source holding the largest market share. It'd be very difficult for Google to attempt any abuse or create a captive audience, or to force developers to not use standards.

</comment><comment><USER24> Is there a tool that can sync bookmarks and addons across browsers? Especially now that Mozilla is going to support the same addons? Something that syncs things on an ongoing basis, not just once. I think FF is great but asking people to use more than one browser, yet manually sync the bookmarks and addons is asking for way too much. Even just for bookmarks this would be great. The functionality is 99% of the way there (one time sync works). Personally, I just think Mozilla no longer cares if people use its products. If it did, it would make using them a lot easier and more convenient.

</comment><comment><USER25> the more reliant you become on popular corporate/"non-profit" controlled browsers the more disappointed you will be when the drm comes. but i will bet they will ease you into it to minimize the complaints. long ago someone predicted very early that the web would evolve into tv, driven by "pinheads". i believe he was correct.

anyone remember a browser from nocrew called zen? had framebuffer support. i think it also allows users to add new interfaces. _still compiles cleanly_ today even on non-linux. code is in archive.org, see nocrew.org

have not tried to use it but am impressed that it is from 2004-ish and still compiles cleanly. framebuffer has had some significant improvements since 2004. could be time to revisit.

</comment><comment><USER26> Do HN users have much to say about Brave? I've been hearing quite a bit about it lately but haven't tried it out yet. I'm figuring that if I switch browsers, it would be to something with some interesting edge like this, rather than going back to Firefox.

<comment><USER27> I use Brave sometimes. It's nice. But I switch browsers a lot.

I don't use Chrome except for development because Google is invasive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> To me Firefox is superior because of things like Tree Style Tabs. But Mozilla is killing Tree Style Tabs in an incomprehensible rush to become indistinguishable from Chrome. But if Firefox is indistinguishable from Chrome what reason is there to use it?

<comment><USER29> That's not why Mozilla are changing how extensions work.

They're breaking compatibility now so they can do it _once_ and then refactor Firefox's internals to make the browser better/faster/more secure without constantly breaking extensions or - even worse - being prevented from making those internal changes in the first place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I wish I could switch to Firefox, but I'm really dependent on sync features and I just love Chrome OS on my chromebook...

Are there any solid solutions for Firefox <-> Chrome syncing?

</comment><comment><USER31> Love Chrome. Tried other options from time to time but always go back. I do run on a higher end machine. It is fast and just rock solid.

</comment><comment><USER32> Dear firefox,

Just take Chrome's devtools and put it in.

I'll switch my browser, all of my extended family (that I provide tech-support to), to firefox.

Thanks, A Developer

<comment><USER33> Your extended family needs Chrome dev tools?

<comment><USER32> No -- but supporting them means installing extensions, compatibility with apps when supporting over phone, etc.

All of this is easy when they're on the same browser as you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Since everyone is talking about Chrome's flaws, why does the font rendering in Chrome still suck?

</comment><comment><USER35> I would of setting up a browser for my preferences didn't take 1 hour of my time.

</comment><comment><USER36> Nice try internet explorer

</comment><comment><USER37> IE was a majority browser while being bad. Chrome is the best browser available (for average joe at least). No plea to use another browser will be heard, until there is an as-good or better alternative.

<comment><USER38> What makes it better than the other browsers for the average Joe other than being preinstalled on Android?

<comment><USER37> I was talking about the desktop version. If you want the features chrome provides, the experience is by far the smoothest, fastest and most integrated compared to other browsers.

Don't get me wrong, I hate the RAM usage and the anti-privacy defaults, but if I put idealism aside, Chrome _works_ best :-/.

(And I don't really understand the downvotes. Perhaps I explained my point better here?)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > But you can stop it. By balancing the browsers, choosing to use not just > what's convenient, but what's lesser used, you can make the business case > for monopoly plays a bad deal. Consider it your civic duty as a fan of the > open web.

Internet Explorer was a monopoly because it was the default web browser installed on the most prevalent operating system. It's the same reason Safari has a majority on Macs even while it lagged behind a couple years.

Chrome is convenient, but I'm not about to start using Opera or Safari because Google is making a better browser. I tried using Safari on my phone and navigating was just so rigid compared to the gestures in Chrome. Safari is behind the times and slowly catching up on web technologies, but also has taken some weird side-steps by ignoring standards like "filter: blur()" and implementing their own "backdrop-filter" that no other browser uses. Chrome and Firefox are the leaders in feature advancement and cross-browser standards.

edit: Would like to clarify that when I mean ignoring the "filter: blur()" standard - Safari will remove a background image instead of blurring it.

Use what's convenient so other browsers step it up.

<comment><USER39> I have no idea what you are talking about regarding Safari ignoring "filter: blur()" \- it's supported it since 2012, just a few months after Chrome added it. In fact - I think at the time Chrome was still using Webkit.

"backdrop-filter" is a completely different thing. Rather than filtering the element itself, it filters all elements behind it. This is especially useful with blur. While you are correct that Safari is the only browser currently supporting it, it is part of the standard, although it's not yet finalized. Chrome also supports it if you enabled "Experimental Web Features"

<comment><USER11> Safari "filter:blur()" is not compatible with background images. Background images on a filtered element will disappear. While "backdrop-filter" is not compatible with any other browser.

You either have to choose Safari (which only has a leading-yet-declining share on Macs) or every other browser to support.

<comment><USER39> I literally just tried this in Safari 10.1.1: [https://codepen.io/chuckhendo/pen/NgGZqg](https://codepen.io/chuckhendo/pen/NgGZqg)

Maybe it affects older versions of Safari, but I don't recall having run into it.

"backdrop-filter" is irrelevant - it's an entirely different feature.

<comment><USER11> It works now I guess, but Safari has quirks I've seen time and time again where things don't work as they should.

I'm also hesitant to call it "fixed" considering it happened just last month and YMMV with a one-element pen.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How Real are the Defects in Toyota's Cars? - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/03/how-real-are-the-defects-in-toyotas-cars/37448/?rss=37448 <comment><USER2> I want to sound like a conspiracy theorist. It seems like the Toyota defects are not defects but isolated incidents, which the US congress has exploited to get back to a Japanese corporation that created devastation for the entire US auto industry.

<comment><USER3> An alternative theory is that Toyota, in its hubris-driven quest to surpass GM for automotive production, broke a lot of its own rules regarding quality control and long-term relationships when it comes to part sourcing. A lot of this seems to be driven by the fact that the car maker that has a problem is Toyota; not because they are a Japanese car company, but because they are a car company who have spent decades building a (justified) reputation for high- quality automobiles with a very low defect rate and over the past few months all of that work disappeared in a puff of smoke.

<comment><USER4> I've worked in the auto parts industry - while it's true that Toyota is ruthless in that market, so is everyone else. In fact, during my short time there we all hated GM with a raging passion - they constantly demanded more and more from suppliers while slashing prices thinner and thinner. Threats of outsourcing manufacturing to China and Korea were common, and because of these tactics suppliers were going belly up day by day.

None of the major car companies are saints - all are guilty of failing to maintain an effective ecosystem. Their behaviour is as deplorable as Wal-Mart but far less infamous.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What we're missing here (and in all of the Toyota articles I've seen recently) is a comparison to the number of 'sudden acceleration' incidents reported in non-Toyota vehicles. If this is simply elderly-operator error, I would expect the Lincoln Town Car to have a far worse record.

<comment><USER6> if it's operator error based, with the driver thinking they hit the brake when they really hit the gas... footwell space and pedal size and spacing- ergonomics, basically- would be very important. It's plausible Toyota's pedal layout is simply a little more vulnerable to this kind of mistake. (not a lot, cause it's still a limited occurrence, but a bit)

<comment><USER7> I doubt it, there is substantial evidence by now to rule that out, some very experienced drivers have had this happen to them.

Software glitch seems to be a good candidate.

<comment><USER8> Two anecdotal reports do not constitute 'substantial evidence.' I'm particularly skeptical about the incident last week, which could very well have been staged in the hopes of a big settlement. No one inside or outside of Toyota has been able to reproduce the alleged defect under controlled conditions, despite the great potential reward for doing so. On the other hand, incompetent, greedy, and crazy drivers are very common.

Given a simple explanation (human incompetence/greed) and a complex one (a serious mechanical flaw that cannot be reproduced and displays a bias toward the elderly), we should prefer the simpler explanation.

(Update on new questions surrounding last week's Prius incident: [http://blogs.consumerreports.org/cars/2010/03/questions- rais...](http://blogs.consumerreports.org/cars/2010/03/questions-raised-on- toyota-prius-sudden-acceleration-cases-san-diego-new-york.html)).

<comment><USER7> It's possible that the American 'sue happy' culture will create it's own incidents but from the amount of government involvement and the numerous recalls and 'fixes' it would seem to me that there really is some kind of issue.

What I don't get though, is that given the number of Toyotas of just about every model in service that there aren't more incidents like this. You'd say that on a given day there ought to be several malfunctions if it is a systemic error.

It would have to be a fairly rare set of conditions satisfied at the same time to bring about the bug, and I find it hard to believe that Toyota devs would not be able to come up with a bunch of scenarios after looking at their system with a magnifying glass (which I don't doubt they've been doing) that might trigger the issue until they found it.

Personally I'd have absolutely no problem in buying / driving any model Toyota, even knowing this, but I've always been wary of drive-by-wire systems and I like to figure out how to force a car to a stop.

I've owned a Honda Civic hybrid and one of the first things I did when I learned the throttle was automatic was figure out how strong the handbrake was, and what happens when you try to force the shifter in to 'N' while at speed. (be very careful not to push it one step too far :) ).

The main issue is that if the electrical system on one of these would go haywire that the torque the electric motor can put out is way stronger than what you can overcome with the brakes. The article suggests the brakes are 'electrical', that's only partially true, the brakes are 'regenerative', but there is a back-up disc system as well.

Just like any electro-mechanical industrial machine a car that has this kind of control should probably come with an 'abort' switch that shuts down the power to the engine. That in itself is also not without issues because that means your power steering goes instantly to '0' and it can be surprisingly hard to steer a car that has not been designed for manual control. On the highway that is a doable trick, at lower speeds it is more than most people (especially the ladies) can handle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Time to get a great deal on a Toyota.

I had a sudden acceleration incident when I was maybe 12 learning to drive a 80 something Chevy 1500. I was being forced to use only one foot instead of two. When I got close to the house while parking at like 2 MPH mom yelled STOP. So of course I floored it and did a little bumper adjustment and brick relocation. I want to say this was throttle body injected, so yeah 'puter did it.

</comment><comment><USER10> The fine article had some glaring unasked questions. The most alarming one being, if the number of immigrants is so striking, what happens when you normalize the number to take into account the high proportion of Camrys that are driven by Asian immigrants. Same question about the numbers skewing to the elderly: Very few young people drive Camrys, so why is it a surprise that people involved in Camry incidents were not young?

Age and immigrant status may still be at work in other ways. Maybe there is a defect, and older but paradoxically relatively less experienced drivers (those who came from countries with awesome public transit and very few cars) simply don't have good coping skills when an actual real defect happens. Most of us would just slip the car into neutral, but some less savvy drivers wouldn't think of it.

</comment><comment><USER11> Alternative Hypothesis: The Toyota vehicles with this defect are the more expensive brands which typically are purchased more often by the elderly.

Younger people are driving 98 Honda Civics, etc...not 2007-2010 Camrys, so they would be expected to make a smaller part of the population.

With that said, my gut does tend to find the age-pattern of people experiencing unintended acceleration to be worth following up...

<comment><USER12> I second your hypothesis. The data definitely needs to be normalized by the population distribution of Toyota cars under question. First, I wouldn't call 55 year-olds as "old people" who are so senile as to mistake pedals. Second, assuming her data is accurate (a risky assumption judging from the informal tone of the post and total lack of rigor), what if the age-unknown group is included with, say, the 30 year-old group (could be, since the ages are unknown), the conclusion then seems so much weaker.

I have noticed that many bloggers and journalists have come to Toyota's aid recently. As another conspiracy theory, could this be somewhat fueled by Toyota's PR?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> When I was in college, I once had the accelerator stick on my 1979 Toyota Celica GT. I punched it in order to merge onto a 4 lane highway, and it stuck down. I braked a bit which was not very useful, and ended up putting it into neutral and then killing the engine. Scared the crap outta me. To this day I'm not sure why it stuck, I thought it could have been the floor mats at the time.

<comment><USER14> This happens on my Corolla, which is quite old now. If I floor the gas on the highway, it continues to accelerate for a while after letting go the gas. It freaked me out the first time. The folks in the shop told me that I have a build-up of carbon on the throttle body, which causes the throttle to be sticky. They offered to clean it off, but I couldn't be bothered to pay for it. There's definitely nothing wrong with the pedal or any electronic control systems, it's just a car that needs tuning up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> People should really focus their energy into demanding better safety features on all cars instead of getting caught up on one defect. We should also be focusing on getting bad drivers off the road and requiring on-going driver education/testing at least past a certain age. In all this controversy with Toyota I haven't seen much media discussion over why "cheap cars" lack such basic safety features of higher end models including some of these throttle fail-safe systems that would have nullified the Toyota problem.

</comment><comment><USER16> Um, isn't it the case that all this suggests is that _some_ of the incidents were operator error? And didn't we assume that all along? It clearly isn't happening to most drivers. Or even many. Or even a remotely significant sampling of drivers. That's not the point.

<comment><USER17> No, unless you're assuming that only old people are capable of operator error.

This suggests that 'sudden acceleration' is biased towards old people, and we know that operator error of the wrong-pedal type is as well. It doesn't suggest that only cases involving old people could be operator error.

<comment><USER16> The story on NPR where the highway patrol officer is doing 90MPH for several minutes next to the guy who's trying to pry up the gas pedal with one hand while controlling the car with the other doesn't sound too much like someone getting the wrong pedal.

Maybe a bunch of these cases are just the ambient stupidity that we've always had. That doesn't mean there's nothing to the story.

<comment><USER18> That story was complete and total horseshit.

I've listened to the full 911 tape recording, and none of it adds up... he doesn't sound scared, he doesn't try to put it into neutral, he doesn't try to turn it off (he claims he was afraid the car might flip), but he does claim he tried to pry up the gas pedal (which is an essentially impossible physical move, to do with your hand while driving).

Not to mention that he has a ridiculously shady past (bankruptcy, $700k of debt, runs an adult website, entire kitchen of his house was stolen during foreclosure, former business partner accuses him of theft)

Honestly... if you're going to cite him as an example of anything, he seems like proof that a lot of these incidents are pretty obviously frauds.

<comment><USER16> I'll concede that my brain went "NPR, corroborated by highway patrol", and got on with my life. If I didn't prefer German cars, I'd buy a Toyota.

<comment><USER19> My first car was American, the second Japanese, now I have a German car. Is Italian next? ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Regardless of the details of the actual defect, I think this whole Toyota fiasco highlights a problem in training. The sad reality is that the vast majority of the fatalities could have been prevented if the driver had simply shifted into neutral.

It's important to understand our machines instead of depending on them.

<comment><USER21> One way to understand cars better is to learn how to drive a manual transmission. You'll become more attuned to engine speed, which gear you're in, the responsiveness of your gas pedal, etc.

<comment><USER22> That and even if my drive by wire throttle sticks open and the clutch cable breaks(or lose fluid if it's a hydraulic system.) I can still force the car into neutral and stop quickly with the brakes, then shut the engine off to avoid over revving it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Have there been many cases outside the US? This whole thing seems very US- centric, considering these cars are sold all over the world.

</comment><comment><USER24> It would be interesting to find out the computer literacy of those people involved. For a non computer literate person, having a computer take over for even a second I would think would scare them in doing all sorts of things.

<comment><USER25> It's very irrational as when they fly on an airplane it is the computer that flies the plane most of the way. (Perhaps I naively think that even a computer illiterate person knows about the use of autopilots).

On the other hand, their other experience with "computers" has been seeing blue screens of death and having to reboot to "fix it".

But perhaps because of this, Toyota has to engage heavily in perception management. Even if they identify a software problem, they would love to blame it one a 'floor mat' as that makes it clear and predictable in people's minds ("oh it's just a floor mat, I understand that") as opposed to saying it is some electronic brain that is damaged that decides randomly to take over and kill drivers.</comment></comment>


Starbucks opened 700 new stores worldwide; total store count crossed 28K - <AUTHOR> http://alphastreet.com/bfc0e491 <comment> tony-g Wow! It's amazing how much people loves coffee</comment>


Six Chinese farmers build full-size Airbus A320 replica - <AUTHOR> https://news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d514d30416a4d31457a6333566d54/share_p.html <comment><USER2> Model train fanatics work a 1:52 scale or smaller. Model steam train fanatics work in real stock metal, with lathes and to scale, but it has to run.

I think building a shell 1:1 is cool. I think its entertaining and may even spark local economy upsides, looking at the Australian "big things" scene: people like this stuff.

</comment><comment><USER3> How?</comment>


Invoicing service of choice for freelancers? - <AUTHOR>

Hi HN, I'm looking for a dead simple and cheap (free?) invoicing service that I can use to invoice my clients with minimal hassle. Anyone found something that fits the bill?<p>Thanks! <comment><USER2> Freshbooks is great.. I think the account is free as long as you only have 1 client at a time in the system

</comment><comment><USER3> I use excel, due the fact we issue invoices few times a month (agency).

[http://theanchorapp.com/](http://theanchorapp.com/) \- this is a self-hosted free app. (not affiliated)

</comment><comment><USER4> I use Harvest for time tracking and invoicing. The free tier is fine if you only have two clients at a time, and the cheapest paid plan is pretty affordable.

</comment><comment><USER5> Use zoho invoicing solution. Templating is awesome.

</comment><comment><USER6> Excel</comment>


A calculus of functions for program derivation (1987) - <AUTHOR> http://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/files/3384/PRG64.pdf

<comment><USER2> I've not read this paper, but studied the technique described here.

A good example of the sort of thing this lets you do is the fold fusion, which (under the conditions which you need to derive the equality) lets you collapse multiple calls to fold (reduce) in to a single call, with a combined function:

foldr f e (foldr g e' xs) = foldr h i xs

When the first foldr is something like tails, which produces a list of lists of length ~|xs| this can turn an N^2 operation into a linear one, mechanically!

</comment><comment><USER3> if anyone actually reads this, can you review it here? what did you get out of it, what level is the target audience? we all have a lot of books, papers and videos on our reading lists, they all overlap, reviews help optimize our time.

<comment><USER4> I don't have time to read it either but its about: Bird-Meertens Formalism which you can find out about via google.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is this the predecessor to Bird and de Moor's "Algebra of programming"?

</comment><comment><USER6> Abstract leading to the PDF: [http://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/publications/publication3843-abstract...](http://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/publications/publication3843-abstract.html)</comment>


Show HN: Find an Awesome Travel Abroad Program with Via by Project Travel - <AUTHOR> https://projecttravel.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> OP Here: My team and I have spent the last several months building a system to convert study abroad offices away from inefficient paper processes and to help them better engage with their travelers. We built an algorithm to help people find a program that matches their interests and subjects that they want to study.

On the back office side, we collect information from the travelers that the advisors can use to help them start discussions and not waste time with multiple exploratory meetings.</comment>


Why Today's Social Networks Can Fail as They Grow Larger - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2014/03/reverse-network-effects-todays-social-networks-can-fail-grow-larger/

<comment><USER2> I enjoyed this article's technical depth on the communicative aspects of social networks. In school I was taught about an effect of democracy, where in the larger a community grows, the content becomes the lowest common denominator and diluted to fit the masses. Niche content absconds to areas that are less visible and become filtered out. One of the reasons a community like reddit continues to thrive is that the niche content is separated into filtered areas of distinct denominators. Moreover, it's also why big subreddits tend to fail and break off into smaller pieces.

</comment><comment><USER3> Compuserve/the well->Prodigy->theGlobe->geocities->friendster->myspace->facebook->[fill in the blank]-></comment>


Secret Wood ring collection - <AUTHOR> https://www.mysecretwood.com/collections/our-rings <comment><USER2> really? on hn?

Much to big also. Would be nice as buttons for hardware projects though. My midi-countroller could use some crystal-foggy-mountain-snow button.</comment>


Microsoft Pix - <AUTHOR> https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/product/microsoftpix/ <comment><USER3> There's an interesting example they use to show the ostensible improvement of Pix over the Apple's Live Photo:

[https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp- content/uploads/...](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp- content/uploads/2016/07/Live-Photo.mp4)

The Pix-enhanced version:

[https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp- content/uploads/...](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp- content/uploads/2016/07/Live-Image.mp4)

Sure, the Live Photo version has distracting movement, but it also has much more natural motion in terms of hair flow. And I feel that the camera instability helps give context to the video, that it's some kind of impromptu selfie on a windy day.

The Pix version offers a clearer image at what I feel is a large cost to the image's integrity. It looks a bit creepy. That said, there are probably lots of good situations for Pix's stabilization tech, but that example didn't seem optimal as a landing page demo.

<comment><USER4> I am imagining a developer at Microsoft somewhere holding their head in their hands when they saw the Live Photo comparison made by the marketing team. To me, they don't really seem to be aiming for the same thing at all - the Pix version is a highly stylised animation whereas the Live Photo is simply a very short, silent video.

<comment><USER5> I know the Live Photo example on this Pix page is silent, but it's important for people to realize that Apple Live Photos are not -- they capture several seconds of sound.

I "know" this but often forget. When I look through iMessage history at pictures I've sent and received, there are often stray bits of overheard conversation that the sender wouldn't necessarily want or intend to include.

<comment><USER6> > I "know" this but often forget. When I look through iMessage history at > pictures I've sent and received, there are often stray bits of overheard > conversation that the sender wouldn't necessarily want or intend to include.

I was surprised with this too. This should be really made more clear.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This feels sort of redundant... that feature list (multiple face detection with auto exposure/white balance, burst mode with an algorithm to guess which one is "best") is all stuff the built-in camera app on iOS does already.

Okay, the color and white balance look a little better for Pix in the example shots, but everyone's RAW processing is better in some situations and worse in others. I'm sure Apple could come back with just as many example shots where their own settings were better than Pix's, and we could go round and round like that forever.

There's nothing wrong with this app, but I'm having trouble understanding why it exists. What does this do for users or Microsoft?

<comment><USER8> I could be totally wrong, but if I had to guess, they are using it to show off / validate their work on Microsoft Cognitive Services (Project Oxford). It has facial recognition, along with a number of other things, and so this would be an easy way of getting data on possible problems they have and how well their algorithms work. Just a guess though.

<comment><USER9> Facial recognition is pretty much solid for most cameras now, though. Face registration, which Sony have been rolling into some E-mount cameras, would be more impressive.

<comment><USER10> It's a bit different if you're prioritizing exposure of different faces based on their attributes though right? If you're taking a photo of a black person and a white person together you're often underexposing someone or overexposing someone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Ooh, they mention it includes Hyperlapse! I haven't looked into Pix too much so I don't know if this is a full implementation (someone commented on an unnatural-looking stabilization demo, but I think it was just a poor choice of an example), but Hyperlapse is one of the coolest research projects I've come across:

[http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/redmond/projects/hype...](http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/redmond/projects/hyperlapse/)

The video demo there is worth checking out.

<comment><USER12> Pix includes the full implementation of Hyperlapse Mobile, which shipped on Windows Phone and Android last year.

<comment><USER13> Incidentally, Google has very recently come up with something very similar to Hyperlapse : [https://plus.google.com/u/0/+GooglePhotos/posts/ajfo6Nwyn5n](https://plus.google.com/u/0/+GooglePhotos/posts/ajfo6Nwyn5n)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> My untrained eye can't really notice a difference except that the pix version looks brighter (even washed out), the live photo version looks really uncanny valley (where the faces don't move but the world does around them is an unsettling effect).

<comment><USER15> My first thought when playing with the slider was that the Apple version was much better. But, if you focus on the faces (which was probably the intent of the person taking the photo) they do come out better in the Pix version. I think all the examples had the faces underexposed, so the "fix" for each of them was to brighten the photo.

<comment><USER14> Gotcha. It's a shame it seems to overexpose the background as a result though; that's something I could quickly reproduce in the photos app. Though if it's doing it automatically for each shot based on the faces in the photo I suppose it's novel and more convenient.

<comment><USER16> That's what I was thinking as well: it'd be really cool if they did some sort of automatic exposure bracketing and combined the best areas of each version since every one of their sample photos generally looks overexposed, especially compared to what Apple's built-in HDR mode would do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> We're from the Microsoft Pix team, and we are interested in your feedback. Happy to answer questions.

<comment><USER17> I can see that its only available for apple devices, is there a technical hurdle in doing this for android?

<comment><USER18> I'm surprised it's iOS exclusive, but only because it means it's not available for Windows Phone.

<comment><USER19> Please get your facts straight before your distort them :)

Windows phone (now w10 mobile) camera has supported these stuff for some years now (either natively or via extensions). Don't forget that "Live Photo" is Apples implementation of an old Nokia technology.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm amazed how low-quality this MS landing page is.

\- The "How it works" tab is just a huge image.

\- The search box ( top right ) has some problems with the border. Both in Chrome & Safari.

\- It uses `font-family: 'Segoe UI';`, which makes all elements with that font on my Mac "serif"

<comment><USER21> Also running on WordPress and exposing version number - which is out of date: [https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/research/readme.html](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/readme.html)

<comment><USER22> The version number's in every Wordpress page source:

      <meta name="generator" content="WordPress 4.5.4" />

<comment><USER23> It can be deactivated.

        remove_action( 'wp_head', 'wp_generator' );

We include it in our themes as a best practice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'd like one point clarified: is this app entirely local or does it make use of any kind of cloud backend?

I've already seen apps that upload photos away for processing without making it obvious (for example [http://prisma-ai.com](http://prisma-ai.com), if I'm not mistaken). I really shouldn't have to ask if only iOS had a permission for network access.

<comment><USER12> Pix runs all the image processing on your phone - we do not use the cloud for any of this.

<comment><USER24> Thank you for the clarification, that's awesome!

A small note to that effect on the website would be great, I can't be the only one wondering.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I thought that they released new version of DirectX SDK and PIX for debugging :( [https://tomtech999.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/pix_intro.png](https://tomtech999.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/pix_intro.png)

<comment><USER26> I'm not the only one! :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Does anyone else think of Harry Potter when looking at the last section, Live Image/Live Photo?

<comment><USER28> It reminded me of the Google Motion Stills app.

I had it for a few weeks but uninstalled it as I didn't use it much.

<comment><USER29> The latest version of Google Photos (2.0) builds in the Motion Stills functionality:

[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/google-photos-free-photo- vid...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/google-photos-free-photo- video/id962194608?mt=8)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> > Better mobile photos are just a tap away. Enter your mobile phone number and > we'll text you a link to download Microsoft Pix.

Stop teaching people to click on links from SMS texts damn it!

<comment><USER31> Nice way to gather mobile numbers, not even needed to build a social network first.

<comment><USER12> We wanted to provide an easy option for users not currently on an iOS device, but only use the number for a 1-time SMS with a link to the Pix listing in the App Store. We do not collect or store the phone numbers, out of respect for user privacy.

<comment><USER32> I'm in the U.K and I never receive the text, despite saying it has been sent, is it available here?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> The results remind me of older special effects or manual brushing in Photoshop... they are not very natural and not very good. Beeing myself also a photographer: Don't do this to your photos. The best A.I. and filters cannot compensate a well lighted photo. I'm happy that Apple does not include such destructive filtering. IMHO even a flash from your phone is better than this filters.

</comment><comment><USER34> I wonder if there is a plan for an Android version. I'd love to play with this.

<comment><USER12> An Android version is development. We can't comment on release date, but we're working on it.

<comment><USER19> Not an Android user, but this is great to hear.

Will Pix replace hyperlapse on android?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I have been using Pix for a few weeks now and am very happy with the quality. Too bad you can't use it as the default camera app on iOS. Also it takes significantly longer to start up. But if you are taking multiple shots of, say, your kids, the quality is better.

<comment><USER12> Happy to hear you are enjoying it! We are working on a widget that will allow you to quick launch Pix from the Lock or Today screens, which we hope will help lessen the frustration of not being able to set it as default.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Only for iOS? Surprised they didn't make a version for windows phone... or is this software already built into the camera functionality on WP?

<comment><USER37> Microsoft's not heavily devoting resources to Windows Phone at the moment. They're phasing out Lumias, and focusing on getting the enterprise experience right on their mobile devices with the HP Elite x3.

Windows Phone isn't really dead, but until Microsoft is ready, they're focusing on winning over iOS and Android users with their apps.

<comment><USER38> So why not stop it altogether? I'm forced to use one of those Windows Phones. The App Store is terrible. Few apps for the simplest things and god are they terrible...

<comment><USER37> I honestly can't fathom being forced over to another platform right now. Years of having to support them later, I still don't understand how anyone makes sense of the UI of iOS (it seems intuitive to non-tech people?) and the terrible colossal trainwreck that is where Google has brought Android in the last few years rules out... almost every other phone out there. (I carried an Android for seven years, I've finally had enough, I can't stand that trash anymore.)

We need a third option. If it's not Microsoft, it's gotta come from somewhere else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> To anyone on the Pix team reading this:

In the section under "Hover Zoom Comparison", the Apple Camera photo is to the left of the Pix photo. In every other comparison, the Pix photo comes first. You should maintain that order because people don't read the title always and could confuse them. Once you've established a pattern, such as Pix on the left and Apple's on the right, don't change it. It's an inconvenience that the user doesn't mention but feels. Also, a consistent pattern takes a less cognitive load.

You can call it nitpick or details :)

</comment><comment><USER40> The Pix images just look mostly like the contrast was reduced and all the dark pixels were made brighter. That's not improving the images in my mind, it's just throwing away color depth and subtlety.

</comment><comment><USER41> Sorry for my naivety and maybe a little off topic - but where are the raw image files used in the comparison images ?

I'm sure someone is going to cry foul if the images have been passed through Photoshop.

<comment><USER12> None of the comparison images have been altered via Photoshop. All comparisons were shot simultaneously on a side-by-side rig, using a trigger that prompted the shutter press for both apps (Apple Camera and Microsoft Pix) at the same time, so conditions would be as equivalent as possible. See a photo of the rig in action here: [https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/research/product/microsoftpi...](https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/research/product/microsoftpix/#about). We did crop the edges of some photos to fit into the available space, but otherwise the images are the unaltered files that were produced by each app.

<comment><USER41> A curious mind, like myself, found the "Photoshop 3.0" in the jpeg meta data and came to the conclusion that the comparison images had been altered via Photoshop (or similar tool)

To avoid doubt, I would advise that all image comparisons should have references to the original source files.

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I wonder who is responsible for their site design at Microsoft, their whole website looks very unpolished and quickly made, especially typography.

<comment><USER43> It's Wordpress, whereas other parts of www.microsoft.com are not. I suspect the Research group was responsible for their own site. Even though it has a marketing feel, I suspect it should be held more to an engineering blog type of standard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Apple Camera picture and video quality looks more real than Microsoft's. It seems like this app artificially list up the image.

</comment><comment><USER45> Does it automatically take horizontal video when you are holding your camera vertically? When will we get that technology?

<comment><USER46> I think the limiting factor for this is that the sensor itself is rectangular, pretty much in line with what you're expecting (aspect ratio of image produced, etc).

You could always have a square sensor, but then when shooting landscape pictures, you'd be throwing away a lot of the sensor data. In short, people generally want rectangular photos, and coupled with economics this means that sensors are that shape.

On the extreme end, I guess you could have some kind of rotating lens / sensor, which would automatically keep level.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> @mspix Looking forward to using it (Samsung S5). I hit the Send button and noticed some questionable grammar. It reads "Message has been send successfully on your mobile number." I guess it should be "A message has been sent successfully to your mobile number." or something similar.

</comment><comment><USER48> Does this have Photosynth built-in? :P

<comment><USER49> When I first saw this, I wondered if it came out of the Photosynth project.

<comment><USER15> It's probably related to their hyperlapse tech, which shared a few people - <USER2> least Johannes Kopf and Richard Szeliski. [https://blogs.microsoft.com/next/2014/08/11/hyperlapse- siggr...](https://blogs.microsoft.com/next/2014/08/11/hyperlapse- siggraph-2014/)

<comment><USER50> Hyperlapse is included in this app!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> This is a bit like the beat "quantization" options in music apps, where you tidy up the raw user input. The best result comes when you choose not 100% quantized.

The Pix app needs a slider so you can choose how much stabilisation you want on the target part of the image.

</comment><comment><USER52> To be honest the only difference that I see is that the Microsoft Pix images seem to be brighter and with less contrast.

Maybe this is an amazing app full of amazing technology but the sample images that should advertise this were picked badly.

</comment><comment><USER53> am i the only one who thinks the iphone 6s images look better?

<comment><USER54> No, I think the same. The Pix photos look a bit washed out. Faces are brighter, but it doesn't look natural to me anymore. I'd rather use a flash for the pictures where faces were really dark, would probably deliver better results.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> The still picture faces look better with Pix ...

They are using face-tracking and stabilisation around the faces in the videos which look's odd to most people because we definitely are not used to seeing this and probably disturbs our brain neurons which have not evolved in any way to compute this..

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3KvI4yDAwM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3KvI4yDAwM)

</comment><comment><USER56> I know very little about photography. Why do I want such an app. I point and shoot with my S7 Edge and get decent enough pictures. Am I simply not the target audience? I'm also naively assuming that if I don't particularly like the photo I could do some post processing on it and would rather have the "raw" version.

[also there is pretty much no left margin on the website, Firefox latest on OSX latest]

</comment><comment><USER57> So, anybody else notice the somewhat limited skin palette they seem to be working on?

I'd be very curious what it does with really dark skin.

</comment><comment><USER58> Neat, I was just thinking to myself how much I wanted an app that would automatically wash out all my photos for me.

</comment><comment><USER59> Slightly off-topic, but this reminds me of Google Camera with the Lens Blur (IIRC) feature. I can't find it on the play store now, was it discontinued? I wouldn't be surprised given it's Google, but why don't just leave the old version there with some sort of warning?

<comment><USER60> As far as I can tell, the Google Camera app still has this option. Not sure about an iOS version but if they made one I wasn't aware of it. It was actually what I thought of when they mentioned similar functionality in the new iOS camera app.

<comment><USER59> It might have that option, but it is not available anymore (or I can't find it). This was different from the stock Camera app. If it replaced the stock app, then it's not available for devices that use different Camera app (namely Samsung).

<comment><USER60> Yeah, sorry. I was referring to the stock, standard "Camera" app I've always used. I even used it when I had a MotoX which included the "Moto Camera" app. I always preferred the plain Google one so that's the one I've used for the past several years.

Looking at the Play store on my old Nexus 5 I don't see it so maybe Moto just included both for some reason or maybe I installed it when it was still in the Play store but has since been discontinued in that incarnation.

This is the version that I have (newer one may need 7.0 according to the comments)

[https://www.apkmirror.com/apk/google- inc/camera/camera-3-2-0...](https://www.apkmirror.com/apk/google- inc/camera/camera-3-2-045-release/)

Feel free to disregard if you don't trust apkmirror but they pull directly from Google's servers and validate signatures.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> Very cool. Just did a few shots to try it out and the results are definetely nice. Love the smart live picture, and I don't know if it's in my head are real but it feels like it is doing a field of depth if the situation call for one, which is really nice

</comment><comment><USER62> Everything looks perfect. Every face looks plastic.

I think I prefer the imperfect photos. But that's just me.

</comment><comment><USER63> Ah, Microsoft. Will they ever figure out that the Microsoft name is a liability for consumer app adoption? There's a reason it's not called "Facebook Instagram", and Facebook, deservedly or not, still has a much less tarnished image than MS.

<comment><USER50> Quite the opposite for me. I'm much more likely to try a cool new app from Microsoft than I am from some random startup I've never heard of. Lots of cool technology innovation going on at Microsoft (yes, really).

One of many examples: [http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/redmond/projects/hype...](http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/redmond/projects/hyperlapse/) (according to another comment here, this is also included in the app)

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> Uhmmmm, is Microsoft unaware, that they already have a product call PIX? It's profiler used for DX programming and for X1. So now when you look for some PIX debugging tips on google, you will get results about the photo app.

</comment><comment><USER65> The camera features are based on technology developed for MS Photosynth (also from Research department, former Live Labs), and originated from research projects from University of Washington.

</comment><comment><USER66> I understand the branding department wanted to have their say, but I think it will be better as just "Pix" and nor "Microsoft Pix" (meh)

</comment><comment><USER67> And here I assumed this was about PIX (the DirectX SDK tool.)

</comment><comment><USER68> Only for iOS?

</comment><comment><USER69> The comparisons up top basically look like HDR for faces™.

</comment><comment><USER70> Great demo page.

I really love the "People-Centric" feature, especially how the demo shows after shot enhancements for a variety of skin tones.

Thank you Microsoft.

<comment><USER71> I had the opposite reaction. I found it humorous that the face detection didn't seem to work reliably (e.g. never detecting the guy in the lower right of the indoor restaurant scene), even in their own demo video.

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> I wish they would create a simple and fast basic photo editor for the PC first. Their current Photo takes 5-7 secs to open a photo.

</comment><comment><USER73> Looks like they were testing it when they got burgers at Feed Co in Redmond. I would of got the halloumi cheese grits

</comment><comment><USER74> Did they buy this from some other company and then rebrand it?

</comment><comment><USER75> Insane. That page loads in 111 network requests totaling about 40MB.

<comment><USER76> This is what happens when you make everything an API and try to hide all of the details. People program as the docs tell them to, not realizing that what they're doing requires a hideous amount of complexity under the hood. It is sadly rare for an API to actually mention that a particular method is expensive.

<comment><USER21> Huh, this is a badly coded WordPress site with HTML and CSS?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> Another photography app?

 _le sigh_

</comment><comment><USER78> Will there be an app for windows phone or does microsoft support only iOS?

</comment><comment><USER79> Will there be an app for windows phone or does microsoft support only iOS?

<comment><USER79> that was a joke...

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> Why microsoft developing an Iphone app?

</comment><comment><USER42> What do they mean by "Apple camera"? Is that camera in macbook, iphone 3g, iphone 7?

<comment><USER12> We were referring to the default Camera app that ships with iOS devices. All side-by-sides were shot on the same model of iPhone with the most recent version of iOS at the time of the shoot, as well as the latest version of the Apple Camera app and the latest version of Microsoft Pix app, respectively.</comment></comment>


A man who got his overweight cat into the passenger cabin of a plane - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/13/world/europe/fat-cat-aeroflot.html <comment><USER2> This was honestly quite impressive; it was billed as a "failure" because he got his frequent flier miles confiscated. It was a total success except for the fact he went and bragged about his shenanigans on social media. Would have gone great if he'd kept his laptop shut.

<comment><USER3> I can't understand why his miles were confiscated.

<comment><USER4> Seems appropriate if you're openly flaunting very clear rules from the airline.

<comment><USER5> I'm not sure about that. This incident has nothing to do with airmiles the passenger already collected on lots of other flights. They could take away his miles on _this_ flight but if airmiles have value this is arbitrary punishment. They would have a reasonable claim to get him to pay some excess luggage fine but I highly doubt they have the right to take away an arbitrary number of airmiles.

<comment><USER3> Exactly, it's like taking away someone's pension if they get fired.

<comment><USER2> It's more like taking away someone's pension if they steal from the company, but even that's not a good analogy.

At least under US law, frequent flier miles are property of the airline and the program operates basically free of oversight. They can take them from you at their sole discretion for any reason or no reason, and they can't be sued for it, at least in state court. Only the DOT has meaningful jurisdiction over airlines, for instance look up the last few battles over 14 CFR 399.88(a).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> He exploited a classic TOCTOU race.

In software this is so common it has its own CWE ([https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/367.html](https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/367.html))

</comment><comment><USER7> My cat flew Delta (I think flight leg might have been operated by Aeroflot) with me from Moscow to NY in the cabin about 7 years ago.

They let him onboard, once they realized the plane was not suitable for pets in the cargo hold, and he was already included in the ticket.

</comment><comment><USER8> Why is a 17lb cat ok in the passenger area but not a 22lb cat?

<comment><USER9> Presumably carriers (heh) have weight limits for loose objects to protect us all from being hit and killed by them.

What is the heaviest inanimate object permitted to be loose (unstrapped, unenclosed) in a plane cabin?

A pet cage with a heavy object inside it is an inanimate object. That it contains a living thing is beside the point from a physics perspective.

<comment><USER10> > What is the heaviest inanimate object permitted to be loose (unstrapped, > unenclosed) in a plane cabin?

British Airways' policy on hand luggage is any weight is fine, as long as you can lift it into the overhead bins without assistance.

The heaviest Atlas Stone lift is 560lbs, which seems like a reasonable answer to your question.

<comment><USER9> A 560lb Atlas Stone does not fit into the carryon sizing bin. Based on an eyeball estimate, I believe that the best you could get into the cabin would be 200lbs.

It looks like Atlas Stones are generally mold-poured concrete, so you'd have to pour concrete into a rectangular shape.

What is the maximum mass (in pounds) of concrete that can be poured into a carryon luggage rectangle compliant with BA policy?

EDIT: 51 pounds, because that's the BA published limit on carryons. So, 16"x12"x3.451" using 133 lbs/ft^2 pre-mixed concrete, best case scenario. Make sure to take the handle's weight into account.

[https://www.britishairways.com/en-us/information/baggage- ess...](https://www.britishairways.com/en-us/information/baggage- essentials/hand-baggage-allowances)

[https://www.calculator.net/concrete- calculator.html?slableng...](https://www.calculator.net/concrete- calculator.html?slablength=16&slablengthunit=inch&slabwidth=12&slabwidthunit=inch&slabthick=3.451&slabthickunit=inch&slabquantity=1&slabcal=Calculate)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I cannot believe a cat weighs 9.9kg. I actually fly with my jack russel terrier dog in the cabin and she's only 4.5kg.

<comment><USER12> I have a Maine Coon that weights 8kg and he's not even a particularly large example of the breed.

<comment><USER13> The cat in the article looks very much like the Maine Coon mix I am currently cat sitting. This is not an unusual or unhealthy size for this breed.

<comment><USER14> Nope, it's an ordinary European Shorthair house cat, the most common domestic cat race in Europe, esp in the north. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Shorthair](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Shorthair)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I don't know why people film themselves breaking the law/TOS and then ulpoad that to social media.

<comment><USER16> To say 'f __* you ' to the law/TOS and the people behind it, or to brag how smart they are, or to entertain their friends.

Any of these can be worth the penalty.

<comment><USER17> To be fair, the laws around flights are ridiculously bad and deserve much dissent since nearly 20 years for now.

Not applicable here though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The issue at hand is that the 7-8Kg weight limit is complete bull __ __. My carry-on luggage weighs 3.5Kg empty, so I 'm at 50% the allowed limit even if I don't carry anything.

Here are a few tricks I tried.

1- Have your laptop on a slim sleeve. If the airline is doing weight checks, remove the laptop and hold it. That's a 2-3Kg gain.

2- Have a few cheap items (like a cheap umbrella) in your carry-on. If the airline tells you are over limit, then start removing these cheap items and throwing them. This shows the guy/girl that you are doing an effort. Tried this a couple times and they let me get on with it.

3- Talk to the guy/girl. Explain you have expensive items and that you can't put these electronics in your check-in luggage (batteries!).

4- Don't go over 12Kg. Try to be in the 9-11Kg range.

<comment><USER19> Have you considered owning a suitcase that doesn't weigh 3.5kg?

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I met a man, lets name it "Mr. Smith", that always flew with his working partner in the next seat, a passenger named Chelo Smith.

Chelo is a common woman name in some parts of the world but "Chelo Smith" was a Stradivarius cello.

<comment><USER21> In similar vain there was an insurance company that went broke here in Australia close to 20 years ago. During the liquidators examination it came out that the CEO liked to book an extra seat in first class under the name Casey (and his surname), which was for his brief case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The only time I ever saw a cat on a plane was on a flight from Prague. The lady in my row put the cat on the seat between us in a carrier. I thought she booked the seat for it but just before departure someone claimed the seat so she had to keep it on her lap.

<comment><USER22> When my then-to-be wife and I flew to Belgium to start living and working there, we took our two cats on the plane.

After almost eight years there, when we flew back to the US, we paid for my sister-in-law and her husband to fly over and help us, and part of the job was to then fly back with one of our three cats. My wife and I had the other two cats with us.

Seemed to be pretty normal business on Delta, at least at the time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> The journalists asked the Putin's press secretary for "Kremlin's opinion" on the case (apparent proof):

[https://ria.ru/20191113/1560891889.html](https://ria.ru/20191113/1560891889.html)</comment>