Mark Zuckerberg Calls for a Universal Basic Income - <AUTHOR> http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/mark-zuckerberg-universal-basic-income-harvard-commencement-speech-facebook-president-bid-a7757781.html <comment><USER2> I love the idea of a universal basic income. It makes sense from a humanitarian standpoint, an automation taking away jobs standpoint and a minimizing bureaucracy standpoint.

But I have to admit, if you look at it from a pure numbers perspective, it does not make sense financially, even with simple back of the envelope calculations. Take the population of a country. Multiply that by, say something as little as $1000 a month, per person. $12,000 per year.

Completely discard any systems in the government budget that would no longer be needed due to UBI- You'll STILL come up way, way short. This is true even if you completely zero out all the additional services that would become less needed (ie less money to Medicaid because people would be healthier, etc). And this is for just the $1000 dollars a month variant.

Could someone please point me to what kind of tax structure a country would need to have to realistically be able to afford UBI? I would love to see UBI become a reality.

<comment><USER3> Generally, UBI schemes advocate some sort of drop-off in payout as people earn money outside of the program (but structured in such a way as to ensure no sticking points of greater than 100% effective marginal tax).

So in net you're not actually giving that $1k/month out to everyone, only the people who don't otherwise make anything. Then someone who makes $1k/month from other sources might pay $500/month in tax, thus reducing their effective, net UBI payment. (note, I made up these numbers completely off the top of my head)

Someone who makes much more than that would also pay much more taxes.

So in the end, UBI needs to be accompanied with some sort of tax reform, and isn't just about sending out checks to everyone (including Warren Buffet) on top of the existing system.

<comment><USER4> > Generally, UBI schemes advocate some sort of drop-off in payout as people > earn money outside of the program

That's the first time I've heard of this. Everything I've seen, everybody gets the same check.

Problem with tracking based on income, you're right back to the same welfare system we already have. You'll need a bureaucracy to track income and eligibility, deal with fraud, etc.

<comment><USER5> Yes, everybody gets the same payments.

But some combination of 2 other things also happens, the tax regime changes (to fund the checks) or money is printed.

There's no avoiding it.

<comment><USER4> > There's no avoiding it.

I haven't seen the math. I imagine it depends highly on the amount you want to pay out, savings due to cutting away current programs, etc., but it's certainly a wonderful opportunity to redo our tax structure, which is unnecessarily complex.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Frankly I figured bezos or etc would've been the first tech leader on that train.

After all, when you're in the business of (A) optimizing every nook and cranny and (B) selling to the masses new luxury technologies, it's in your interests to see that they have the money to waste on such excesses and/or can afford you optimizing away their sources of income.

<comment><USER7> But that's exactly the opposite of what universal basic income should be used for (waste on excesses/luxuries before basic needs are met).

I grew up in a household with relatively little income, where you barely have enough for food and housing. I cannot imagine being in that situation and spending much on random next day delivery luxuries from Amazon - you literally would starve. The first thing on my mind would be upgrading from beans and rice to other foods, etc... that sort of thing.

Buying into luxuries only really occurs when you exceed the ability to provide for basic needs. Basic income if implemented will be tuned to provide basic needs, not luxuries -- the only time I see this changing is in a distant future post-scarcity economy.

<comment><USER8> Sure, there are extreme levels of poverty where you have to scrounge for spare change just to get one meal per day. Most people would argue that's what existing welfare and unemployment programs should be tuned to better solve.

UBI goes further than those programs, but how many times have you driven past a trailer park or dilapidated rural home or inner city building with plywood on the windows and see a new Silverado or CTS parked outside? There are a lot of people for whom living on credit is already the norm. Giving them additional cash per month isn't going to fix the fact that the US as a whole is already conditioned to buy everything with debt.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Still don't understand how UBI is not inflationary?

No real value is created since its not tied to any productive work. So supply of real good remains static, and in a local market, won't there be sudden increased demand for housing, for example?

What will happen to apartment prices?

<comment><USER10> It's redistribution of wealth, not quantitative easing.

<comment><USER11> Those are the same things, just different methods and targeting different economic cohorts.

QE vastly inflated equity and real estate values, benefiting the wealthiest (at least in the US).

<comment><USER12> Can you explain why you believe Quantitative Easing is a redistribution of wealth?

QE is the creation of something new i.e money supply. A transfer of wealth is ex post facto(that wealth already exists somewhere.)

<comment><USER9> It could be described as a transfer of wealth from creditors to debtors.

Or from savers to debtors, no?

The wealth existed in the dollars saved, and the loan asset that was devalued and transferred to the debtor

Why governments love doing it so much because they are the biggest borrowers, and corporations don't mind inflation because it's a cut to real wages.

<comment><USER12> Interesting, I hadn't thought to view it as such before. I'm glad I asked. This makes sense as the rich hold assets and the poor hold debt.

I found this article which is an interesting read on QE as a means of wealth transfer if anyone else is interested:

[https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/10/22/how-quantitative- eas...](https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/10/22/how-quantitative-easing- contributed-to-the-nations-inequality-problem/)

<comment><USER9> I'm saying that large businesses, governments, banks etc. are able to borrow in large quantities, at relative lower rates.

Governments often borrow in astronomical numbers.

Anyone who does this (think of taking on massive debt to finance a real estate business, building apartment complexes for example) has incentives to prefer inflation, QE, devaluing the currency.

Over the course of lets say 30 years, they collect rents from tenants. They can increase the rents over time. Their payment on that debt will stay the same. So in "real" terms, the payments decrease over time, while the rent collected at least matches inflation.

Do you see now how those with ability to borrow large amounts to finance.. whatever.. have incentives to prefer inflation.

Think about the renter. Or the saver. Their dollars are going down in real value. The renter's monthly rent goes up.

Wages? They are sticky. They stay flat for long periods, which in real terms implies a wage cut.

"Inflation is taxation without legislation"

\- Milton Friedman

"the arithmetic makes it plain that inflation is a far more devastating tax than anything that has been enacted by our legislature. The inflation tax has a fantastic ability to simply consume capital. It makes no difference to a widow with her saving in a 5 percent passbook account whether she pays 100 percent income tax on her interest income during a period of zero inflation, or pays no income taxes during years of 5 percent inflation. Either way, she is 'taxed' in a manner that leave her no real income whatsoever. Any money she spends comes right out of capital. She would find outrageous a 120 percent income tax, but doesn't seem to notice that 5 percent inflation is the economic equivalent."

― Warren Buffett

<comment><USER12> >"Anyone who does this (think of taking on massive debt to finance a real estate business, building apartment complexes for example) has incentives to prefer inflation, QE, devaluing the currency."

I understand why they might prefer devaluation and QE but not why anyone would prefer inflation. Can you explain? Inflation means that I need to borrow that much more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Basic requirement for UBI would be for Facebook to pay their fair share of tax first, surely.

</comment><comment><USER14> It would be nice to break the link between work and survival.

Because there are going to be fewer and fewer jobs in the future (automation, etc).

<comment><USER15> > Because there are going to be fewer and fewer jobs in the future > (automation, etc).

Folks said the same thing before for every industrial revolution. I'd like to see more facts than religion on this matter.

<comment><USER16> > Folks said the same thing before for every industrial revolution. I'd like > to see more facts than religion on this matter.

I agree with you that the "jobs are running out" is an argument that requires evidence, given its history of being wrong, but there are good reasons to believe it's going to be true, eventually. To be clear "because it's never happened before" is -also- an argument that's always right, until its wrong.

For example, if you look at the list of most widely held jobs that don't require a college degree and pay middle class salary. It's a rapidly dwindling list and has been declining for a long time. Of the ones that employ many of people, there's basically one left: truck driver. That's the reason that the rise of automated automobiles is coinciding with this conversation.

<comment><USER8> I don't think that argument holds true for anything other than "automated-away factory worker." There is an increasing demand for most trade jobs like plumbers & electricians as boomers start to retire and fewer people are entering the trades. Someone's always going to have to be there to run wiring in a new building or hook up the gas line when you buy a new stove.

<comment><USER17> This is something a robot could eventually do, I don't see any reason a bot can't fix plumbing issues... It'll start out as a bot that goes in and sprays something on pipes to repair them, or goes into the drains itself and drills out muck to clear clogs, then the bots will show up via delivery drone and be able to do all that on their own without a plumber, and you just ship back when the issue is fixed...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> UBI is supposed to be some kind of safety net, is that right? Isn't that what savings are for? i.e. you're supposed to have 3 months emergency savings, which falls under the personal responsibility category. If you remove personal responsibility, what happens?

Any any rate, I don't think the numbers will ever pencil out, end of story. It's a non starter.

And of course Zuck advocates a UBI, so more people stay at home surfing FB!

</comment><comment><USER19> Gotta make sure folks fired for spending too much work time on your platform still have money to buy the crap advertised on said platform

<comment><USER20> Haha, that's extremely cynical but it actually makes sense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> He's running.

<comment><USER22> I wonder how much of a deal breaker his lack of charisma is. Certainly people have been elected without it, but it's a nice equalizer if you're short in other areas, like experience.

<comment><USER23> On the experience front he'd be stuck with the Trump Paradox.

Either Trump's lack of experience will prove to be a huge negative and hurt Zuckerberg due to his similar lack of experience, _OR_ Trump will somehow turn things around and be successful enough to be competitive in 2020 and Trump can claim he has more experience.

<comment><USER17> Have you seen Trump? Every day is another fuck up...this is as good as it gets with him... Assuming he isn't impeached by Christmas.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> There was a very interesting article in the german business-magazine "brand eins" [1]. The article is not yet available for free (always released for free a few weeks after the magazine).

But the gist was that UBI is only possible with a substantial tax reform. In the article an example of 1000€ per month is presented and a universal "commerce" tax of 50% used (no other taxes just taxing money going out of businesses, e.g. earnings, salaries).

Several examples are presented: Low income of 24000€, 12000€ - 12000€ = 0€ in taxes. Higher income of 100000€, 50000€ - 12000€ = 38000€ in taxes.

It concludes that basic income in Germany is therefore great for everyone with salaries below 240000€ compared to the current taxation system.

Calculations for the amount of money necessary were also included, but I am unable to recall them from memory. Looking up the article online revealed a report by the interviewee from the magazine article [2], which states that a UBI of 800€ per month (including major reforms) would cost around 454.10 billion €, which would be about 2/3 of Germany's current tax income.

[1] "Wie überlebt der Sozialstaat die Digitalisierung?" [https://www.brandeins.de/archiv/2017/fortschritt/](https://www.brandeins.de/archiv/2017/fortschritt/)

[2] [http://www.hwwi.org/fileadmin/hwwi/Leistungen/Gutachten/Grun...](http://www.hwwi.org/fileadmin/hwwi/Leistungen/Gutachten/Grundeinkommen- Studie.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER25> I like Zuckerberg because he understands technology, but I'm worried about UBI.

UBI is based on the assumption that everyone will take basic income money and use it responsibly. But we know that's not true for a large part of the population. Gambling and drugs exist, for example. That's not to mention other short term rewards that hurt people in the long term.

UBI in its most corrupt form turns into communism. And we know from the 20th century that communism is corruptible almost by default. We've paid for this knowledge with 100s of millions of humans dieing in multiple countries.

I think of capitalism as a type of learning system that depends on a individual reward signal. Government can also be thought of as a learning system.

In a corrupt system capitalism stops learning and even regresses. People stop participating. In a corrupt government, the government mandates based on really bad abstractions.

So the question becomes "how do we prevent, measure, and fix corruption" than which system we should live by.

Having said that, I'll end up voting for anyone who understands technology. I think it will disrupt employment for essentially everyone, given enough time.

<comment><USER26> > UBI is based on the assumption that everyone will take basic income money > and use it responsibly.

No, it's not; neither the libertarian nor the progressive arguments for UBI assume that.

> UBI in its most corrupt form turns into communism

Wait, what? Perhaps some form of communism, by the broadest definition, could be linked to UBI, but even then you'd be equivocating at best when you say:

> And we know from the 20th century that communism is corruptible almost by > default. We've paid for this knowledge with 100s of millions of humans > dieing in multiple countries.

Since in that bit you are clearly narrowly referring to what has been learned specifically about _Leninist vanguardism_ in the 20th Century (which, actually, plenty of people—including many other communists—observed about its structure and departures from Marxism even before practical experience underlined the problems.)

> I think of capitalism as a type of learning system that depends on a > individual reward signal.

Capitalism is an politico-economic system in which, by way of a particular model of property rights, society is ordered to favor the interests of a particular class, the owners of capital ("capitalists"). Hence the name given to that system by its critics when it was the dominant world system.

Now, arguably, the politico-economic systems of modern representative democracies with mixed economies combine a base drawn from 19th Century capitalism and its basic model of property rights with various redistributive and power-limiting mechanisms to implement a "learning system" of the type you describe, but UBI is essentially a retuning and streamlining of some of the redistributive mechanisms in modern mixed economies, not a fundamental change.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Though interesting, there remains a large sticking point that is more of a 'second order' effect not often thought of: the effects on marriage and child birth: [https://www.nber.org/papers/w23408?utm_campaign=ntw&utm_medi...](https://www.nber.org/papers/w23408?utm_campaign=ntw&utm_medium=email&utm_source=ntw)

"There has been a well-documented retreat from marriage among less educated individuals in the U.S. and non-marital childbearing has become the norm among young mothers and mothers with low levels of education. One hypothesis is that the declining economic position of men in these populations is at least partially responsible for these trends. That leads to the reverse hypothesis that an increase in potential earnings of less-educated men would correspondingly lead to an increase in marriage and a reduction in non-marital births."

Based on this (single) study, it is reasonable to hypothesize that UBI would have an adverse effect on marriage rates and would increase the number of bastard children. The societal norms that we have about manhood, family, and marriage are somewhat based on economic models and radically changing those models may introduce severe disruptions in our social norms and family structures.

EDIT: Forgot to mention, the 'economic status' that men in these regions have is a _relative_ measure. Meaning that the researchers found that the men were being judged based on their status relative to other men in the area to determine if they were marriageable. UBI, by definition, would level out the playing field. If the means then that all men would become more attractive for marriage or all of them would become unattractive is an open question that needs to be studied more before UBI would be implemented.

</comment><comment><USER28> I am not fan of Zuck. Have never used FB. But I think it was a good speech. He doesn't have to do this. He can be like Larry Page and disconnect from the world and no one is going bother him. But he seems to have some ideas that I am not going to discount. The point about helping others find purpose and the role of community resonates deeply with me. I wouldn't be where I am without it. Most of our successful open source work happens exactly this way. Allowing people to discover purpose and feel part of a community. You will constantly hear these words from people at Mozilla or Wikipedia or Khan Academy to pick just places where corporate robots aren't driving the usage of words.

With religious institutions in the west loosing their influence, with capitalism, consumerism, individualism having a cost and being antithetical to solving global problems...talking about helping others find purpose and creating a sense of community feels at least better than anything else I usually here from politicians.

</comment><comment><USER29> Divorce work from income and you will also divorce value from the currency.

<comment><USER30> UBI does not eliminate work-based income.

<comment><USER31> It does in whatever amount is mailed out to everyone every month in the form of a UBI check. That is literally money earned without work or without creating value.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> It would be great if these tech scions spent as much time defending our existing social insurance programs (e.g. food stamps) as they did with these utopian fantasies. UBI will never become a reality in a cultural context that constantly paints any kind of floor on poverty as parasitism and moral failure, which is where we are right now in the US.

<comment><USER33> They should focus on Universal health first. Or at least a public option with premium caps based on income.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> The premise on which the Universal Basic Income is being sold is that in the future there will be fewer jobs due to automation and therefore we will need to increase the welfare state to compensate. In my opinion that premise is incredibly pessimistic; I don't believe we will ever run out of productive uses for labor. In either case implementing a Universal Basic Income on a national level seems like a logistical and fiscal nightmare. In a world where more countries are attractive places to live, will the rich want to stay in the USA if you can live a better life elsewhere?

</comment><comment><USER35> Poverty payments, come and get 'em

<comment><USER36> There will be a day when "just go flip burgers until something better comes along" will no longer be a valid retort.

Jobs are vanishing and no amount of bootstraps will change that.

<comment><USER18> > Jobs are vanishing...

No, jobs are changing. Adapt or die.

<comment><USER37> You might be surprised at who actually dies, should things get bad enough that people are starving in the streets.

The French aristocracy circa 1789 was certainly surprised. Likewise the Russian aristocracy circa 1917.

<comment><USER18> right because it's always the case that those who do and have got to their situation unfairly, not due to hard work and intelligence or looking for opportunities, and that's the reason those who don't are poor, and therefore they deserve to die.

<comment><USER37> I'm not saying anything about "right" or "fair", or what people "deserve". I'm just pointing out the pragmatic consequences of your attitude.

<comment><USER18> yes, the pragmatic consequences of not adapting are being left behind. life is not fair, and it never will be. even if we implemented a UBI, there would be some other "injustice" to complain about or excuse for inequality. there is no end to it. the only fair system is one where you make your own way.

<comment><USER37> "yes, the pragmatic consequences of not adapting are being left behind."

The pragmatic consequences of ignoring the people who are "left behind" are guillotines and scaffolds.

"the only fair system is one where you make your own way."

Once again: "fair" doesn't enter into it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Is UBI just re-branded welfare reform?

<comment><USER36> They are solving two different problems.

Arguments to its effectiveness aside, the current welfare systems seem to have the primary goal of providing for citizens until they can reenter the workforce.

UBI seems to have the primary goal of making sure people can maintain basic living standards when the jobs vanish. There will be a day when "just go flip burgers until something better comes along" will no longer be a valid retort.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Not to imply that UBI doesn't have its implementation issues, or that the country is culturally prepared to support it, but Kudos to Mark Z for using his platform to move the discussion out of the narrow spaces of tech and economics communities and into the general conversation.

The spirit of his statements is in direct opposition to the spirit of the recently released white house budget proposal. Hopefully the timing triggers a transformative debate.

</comment><comment><USER40> Something nobody has mentioned so far: Immigration control. If you have UBI, you probably have to either restrict it to citizens, or control immigration.

<comment><USER18> I don't think you understand.. some folks in the gov't want to have as much of the population dependent on the gov't as possible. The more people dependent on the gov't the better.

<comment><USER40> That doesn't change the issue I was mentioning, which is sustainability. And creating a bunch of dependents, then going bankrupt and having to cut off the dependents, won't work out well politically in the long run...

<comment><USER18> Of course it's not sustainable, that's obvious. But that never stopped idiot politicians who just want votes from the plebes... just look at obamacare.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Gross world product is about $16,000 per capita. So that's about how much your income would be if it was all evenly distributed. That's actually enough to boost you over the poverty line in the US. But people in the US also receive other benefits from the government.

However, given 50 years of modest 2% economic growth, you'd be up to a respectable $43,000 per person.

<comment><USER20> I don't think it would make sense to have a single equal UBI for the whole world - Not initially at least.

To a poor person in Africa, 16K per year would be like winning the lottery - This is not the case for someone living in a developed country. We should take into account that poverty is relative. UBI is not about making everyone equal (not yet at least), initially it's about giving everyone the freedom to do what they really want.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> well, now I might be convinced to vote for him -- might.. Not a huge Zuck fan, I think he means well. But I AM a big advocate for UBI, and think we definitely need leaders who support it in all areas of government.

Though I think Zuck would have a better chance at President if he ran and won Governor of California first and worked up the ladder.

</comment><comment><USER42> Perhaps if Mark was willing to put up the billions in his fortune we could do a lot. If anyone knows him perhaps they could politely ask that he send out a universal check to everyone in America, and let's see how it goes.

</comment><comment><USER43> I'm not interested in a man that sells personal data as a president.

<comment><USER44> Does he sell the data? My impression was that Facebook generally hoards the data and then sells products that use it. The data itself stays inside and then you can use it in very specific ways by using Facebook tools. So you could use Facebook's users' data to target them on Facebook but Mark Zuckerberg isn't giving you the data.

<comment><USER18> splitting hairs much?

<comment><USER44> A fair complaint. Let me attempt to justify the difference:

If the data is kept within, then there's a reasonable chance that I'm functionally anonymous to people using Facebook's products. I'm all right if people target ads and stuff. That's cool. It wouldn't bother me.

If they give people access to the raw data, FB'd have to anonymize well, or I'd have to trust all their clients to make sure they don't do anything nefarious. Now I don't like this second part. This would bother me.

That's why I made the distinction. But I understand if you don't and therefore see it is as nitpicking.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I'd be willing to pay for UBI if the people receiving perform work for it at market rates (not artificial minimum wages). Otherwise it's armed robbery.

</comment><comment><USER18> "We should explore ideas like universal basic income to make sure everyone has a cushion to try new ideas,"

rubbish. trust me, not everyone is an unrecognized genius.

</comment><comment><USER46> Is a ubi sustainable?

<comment><USER18> No, it's a redistribution of wealth and will lead to a massive dichotomy just like any third world country.

<comment><USER47> Why do you think that? I'd hope that it would lead to outcomes similar to those achieved by some Scandanavian countries with their big social welfare programs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> why do we ascribe undeserved expertise like this?

</comment><comment><USER49> The problem with stabilizing the economic system is that there is too much demand on account of (1) too much greed and (2) too much population.

This creates excessive economic inductance which can only be balanced with economic capacitance (true resources or value - e.g., in goods or services).

The social welfare program is nothing more than an open-ended credit balance system which creates a false capital industry to give nonproductive people a roof over their heads and food in their stomachs. This can be useful, however, because the recipients become state property in return for the "gift," a standing army for the elite. For he who pays the piper picks the tune.

Those who get hooked on the economic drug, must go to the elite for a fix. In this, the method of introducing large amounts of stabilizing capacitance is by borrowing on the future "credit" of the world. This is a fourth law of motion - onset, and consists of performing an action and leaving the system before the reflected reaction returns to the point of action - a delayed reaction.

The means of surviving the reaction is by changing the system before the reaction can return. By this means, politicians become more popular in their own time and the public pays later. In fact, the measure of such a politician is the delay time.

The same thing is achieved by a government by printing money beyond the limit of the gross national product, and economic process called inflation. This puts a large quantity of money into the hands of the public and maintains a balance against their greed, creates a false self-confidence in them and, for awhile, stays the wolf from the door.

They must eventually resort to war to balance the account, because war ultimately is merely the act of destroying the creditor, and the politicians are the publicly hired hit men that justify the act to keep the responsibility and blood off the public conscience. (See section on consent factors and social-economic structuring.)

If the people really cared about their fellow man, they would control their appetites (greed, procreation, etc.) so that they would not have to operate on a credit or welfare social system which steals from the worker to satisfy the bum.

Since most of the general public will not exercise restraint, there are only two alternatives to reduce the economic inductance of the system.

1\. Let the populace bludgeon each other to death in war, which will only result in a total destruction of the living earth.

2\. Take control of the world by the use of economic "silent weapons" in a form of "quiet warfare" and reduce the economic inductance of the world to a safe level by a process of benevolent slavery and genocide.

The latter option has been taken as the obviously better option. At this point it should be crystal clear to the reader why absolute secrecy about the silent weapons is necessary. The general public refuses to improve its own mentality and its faith in its fellow man. It has become a herd of proliferating barbarians, and, so to speak, a blight upon the face of the earth.

They do not care enough about economic science to learn why they have not been able to avoid war despite religious morality, and their religious or self- gratifying refusal to deal with earthly problems renders the solution of the earthly problem unreachable to them.

It is left to those few who are truly willing to think and survive as the fittest to survive, to solve the problem for themselves as the few who really care. Otherwise, exposure of the silent weapon would destroy our only hope of preserving the seed of the future true humanity.

\--Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars</comment>


Scientists find "biodegradable" bags perfectly usable after three years in dirt - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcompany.com/90341391/scientists-find-biodegradable-bags-perfectly-usable-after-three-years-in-dirt <comment><USER2> That's still better than the 1000 year figure many claim takes for normal plastic bags to decompose.</comment>


Azure Container Service is now generally available - <AUTHOR> https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-container-service-is-now-generally-available/ <comment><USER3> This is interesting when compared to Amazon Elastic Container Service because of Azure Container Service's support for native Docker clustering tools.

If I am developing user docker-compose, I want to deploy that way, too - <USER2> least until I reach scale, at which point I want scheduling and orchestration tools, e.g. Swarm.

For easier disaster recovery, it's very convenient if these scheduling/orchestration tools let you deploy in the same way cross-cloud- provider. Swarm can run on AWS/Azure/GCE/bare metal, whereas ECS (which doesn't support Swarm and has its own scheduling/orchestration toolset) can only run on ECS.

+1 to MS for thinking about native tooling up-front.

<comment><AUTHOR> One of our primary goals with ACS is to make sure we offered versatility with the platform. We wanted to support both a choice of orchestrators (DCOS and Swarm) and wanted to expose these open source solutions directly, enabling cross-cloud mobility.

Disclosure: I work for Microsoft on Azure.

<comment><USER4> Does this mean you and the Azure team convinced Mesosphere to open source DCOS?

<comment><USER5> We (MS) are one of over 60 partners that Mesosphere worked with to open source DC/OS. No convincing required :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Here is more information about the underlying technology, which also powers e.g. Twitter (Apache Mesos and DC/OS). [https://azure.microsoft.com/en- us/blog/microsoft-joins-the-n...](https://azure.microsoft.com/en- us/blog/microsoft-joins-the-new-dc-os-open-source-project/)

</comment><comment><USER7> Look for golang support in VS Code to continue improving.

<comment><USER8> It's honestly already pretty freaking good. If you allow for the fact that Go is a less rich language (syntactically) than Java, I'd even suggest that VSC for Go is on par with IDEA products for their respective languages. There's definitely stuff to improve yet, but the day-to-day stuff is smooth as silk.

<comment><USER7> Of course I use VS for my Stepford wife work, but always used LiteIDE for my golang stuff. I'll have to check out VSC.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Awesome!!

</comment><comment> awinter-py Availability nice to have. If they can get it consistent & partition-tolerant, I think people will really get behind this product.</comment>


Surprising Creativity: Anecdotes from Evolutionary Computation - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.03453 <comment><USER2> Hello all. We hope you enjoy the paper.

Here are two fun gifs of clever solutions AI came up with:

[https://twitter.com/jeffclune/status/974718199722795008](https://twitter.com/jeffclune/status/974718199722795008)

[https://twitter.com/jeffclune/status/973605950266331138](https://twitter.com/jeffclune/status/973605950266331138)

Here are some press articles which provide a shorter summary of some fun anecdotes.

popularmechanics.com/technology/robots/a19445627/the-hilarious-and-terrifying- ways-algorithms-have-outsmarted-their-creators/

[https://www.newscientist.com/article/8-8-hilarious-ways- ai-h...](https://www.newscientist.com/article/8-8-hilarious-ways-ai-has- outsmarted-us-to-get-the-job-done/) (paywalled unfortunately)

</comment><comment><USER3> When using evolutionary pressures to guide software, you have to remember that your stated goal (via fitness functions) often does not truly reflect your intended goal.

For example, when I was using genetic algorithms to pick stock trades, I tried to maximize total_net_gain_loss / number_of_trades. The GA quickly figured out that 0 trades was the best answer. In hindsight, Duh! But I wanted to make trades!

"The only winning move is not to play"

<comment><USER4> That is one kind of problem. The 'Genie' problem: be very specific what you wish for because the genie will misinterpret you.

But it's not the only kind of problem. There are inherent biases in evolutionary systems. One example: in systems with varying length genotypes there is a massive pressure to bloat. Even if you encode 'small' as a strong requirement in your fitness function, it may not be enough (or it may be enough to completely defeat whatever your real goal was).

There are inherent biases. In the (simulated) genetics, in the genotype to phenotype mapping, in the evolutionary operators, even if you get the fitness function right.

Evolutionary computing as an engineering tool is _hard_.

<comment><USER5> Just picking a nit, but the problem with a genie isn't that it misinterprets you but that it literally does exactly what you ask for. The mismatch between "what you wanted" and "what you asked for" isn't the genie's fault but yours.

<comment><USER6> Yes, the genie gives you exactly what you ask for but misinterpretes what you wish for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The article's philosophical discussion of "surprise" feels a little klunky and academic to me, and I think conflates some different kinds of surprise, but it's still really fun to think about.

Many of the projects here are all inspired by Karl Sims' work in the early 90's.

[http://www.karlsims.com/](http://www.karlsims.com/)

Sims evolved virtual creates by specifying goals to achieve and then running a physics simulation. He noted at the time that the evolution process was great at exploiting bugs in the simulation.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBgG_VSP7f8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBgG_VSP7f8)

I was insipred enough by Sims' genetic images ([http://www.karlsims.com/genetic- images.html](http://www.karlsims.com/genetic-images.html)) that I spent a few years trying to get surprising and beautiful results of my own, with some limited success ([https://flic.kr/s/3Xoz](https://flic.kr/s/3Xoz)).

<comment><USER8> Nice work! Your inspired-by-Sims collection is the best I've seen in that genre, I think. I always look when someone links to their genetic images because I once made some too: [https://djb.deviantart.com/gallery/](https://djb.deviantart.com/gallery/) (They were less garish at the original gamma setting, that's how long ago it was.)

It always felt like there's more potential in this direction. Maybe with a magic sprinkling of neural nets?

<comment><USER7> Hey thank you!! Yours look great too. I know what you mean about gamma, mine were probably a little more washed out 15 years ago, I accidentally made them a bit gamma-proof I think. ;) I'm dying to find the time to do a JavaScript+WebGL version of this that other people can play with.

The big thing I spent time on was animating cross-fades between evolved expressions. I'll send a link to the vid & paper if you're interested.

<comment><USER8> I'd be interested, thanks.

A web version would make a great time-waster. At least as the author I wound up spending much more time clicking through the space of images than working on the code; it might perhaps not feel as compelling without the feeling of getting something for almost nothing when your own program comes to life.

<comment><USER7> Here they are. Yeah, I agree with you, a big piece of the enjoyment was writing the code, and _then_ being surprised by what happened while exploring the image space. You definitely don't have as much love for the surprises in someone else's program, not knowing what it's expected to do or how it works. At least one year I was working on this I spent more time using it than coding it, and it was pretty educational and productive to be more of a user.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLmtvIt6ihA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLmtvIt6ihA)

[http://dahart.com/paper/hart_evomusart_2007_paper.pdf](http://dahart.com/paper/hart_evomusart_2007_paper.pdf)

[http://dahart.com/paper/hart_evomusart_2007_slides.pdf](http://dahart.com/paper/hart_evomusart_2007_slides.pdf)

BTW, Karl Sims read this paper and recommended it for Siggraph, but a few other reviewers were fairly opposed to generative art papers. C'est la vie.

<comment><USER8> Wow, the cross-fades really sell it. I never even tried to do anything like that; my genetic programs were for a kind-of-weird stack machine as the easiest thing to do. [https://github.com/darius/tusdl/blob/master/evo.c](https://github.com/darius/tusdl/blob/master/evo.c)

Slightly related to the starting topic of learned exploits: op_hwb_color() producing most of the colors seems to have suffered from some undefined or implementation-defined behavior -- I couldn't reproduce old pictures when I came back to this many years later. Yet that one misbehavior deserves a lot of the credit for whatever aesthetic value turned up. C'est encore la vie.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Off topic - I find it humorous that arXiv list 49 authors and then ends the listed author list with: "et al. (1 additional author not shown)"

I know a line has got to be drawn somewhere but in this case, listing the last author (Jason Yosinksi) would have taken less space than the explanation that not all the authors are shown.

</comment><comment><USER10> Finding where your simulation model breaks down is one of two great features of evolutionary optimization. The other is its ability to preserve a population of approximate solutions rather than finding only a single optimized solution.

</comment><comment><USER11> The article claims that certain popular dance songs from the early 2000s were in part generated using evolutionary algorithms. Does anyone know which songs they might be?

</comment><comment><USER12> I knew it had to be in there and indeed it was. The 'Impossibly Compact Solutions' case is expanded upon in this article by Alan Bellows: [https://www.damninteresting.com/on-the-origin-of- circuits/](https://www.damninteresting.com/on-the-origin-of-circuits/)

I don't know why, but after ten years it remains one of my favorite stories on the Internet. Worth a read IMHO.</comment>


Kickstarter Apology to Rachel Marone - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/04/14/crowdfunding-site-kickstarter-accused-of-banning-artist-who-received-too-much-comment-spam/

<comment><USER2> I remember the original article comments here on Hacker News, and it was implied by a vocal minority that Kickstarter didn't need to respond to these allegations.

Thankfully they have, and it's a very reasonable response. I'm glad that Kickstarter have realized their mistake and apologised!

<comment><AUTHOR> My main thing with the whole affair, honestly, is that if an apology was expected, I find it odd that she posted it on a Saturday morning, a year after the actual event took place? It wasn't as though Kickstarter banned her on Friday -- this is a year later.

I still don't know that an apology was warranted, but that's just my opinion. If I were Kickstarter, I likely would have done the same thing. Regardless, I don't know the facts of the situation, and likely won't ever, so I'm just speculating on what I can see.

It's certainly good of Kickstarter to apologize, whether or not they thought it actually necessary, but I'm wondering if her account was reinstated. If so, I'm wondering _when_ her account was reinstated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is a misleading title, Kickstarter gave a generic apology thing, rather than confirm the original claim and apologise for that.

</comment><comment><USER4> Flagged.

<comment><USER5> From the HN site guidelines - the last sentence is important:

 _If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. (Not all users will see this; there is a karma threshold.) If you flag something, please don't also comment that you did._

<comment><USER4> Flagged as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> When companies or people make mistakes, it's great to see an apology. However, this one is very late and given the reputation that Kickstarter has, I'd have expected more from them.

<comment><USER7> The apology was issued on Saturday (same day). This post on Hacker News about the apology just happened to be posted today. How is issuing an apology same day "late"?</comment></comment>


The Industrial Internet of Things – The opportunity no one's talking about. - <AUTHOR> http://radar.oreilly.com/2014/02/the-industrial-internet-of-things.html

<comment><USER2> The scary thing about the consumerization of APIs and fleet accessibility is how black-hat hackable critical infrastructure can become. Folks really need to heavily unit test their kit as it leaves the "factory" and have a way to check it in the field. Otherwise, it's a hackers paradise in addition to a developer interop one.</comment>


How a TV Sitcom Triggered the Downfall of Western Civilization - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@thatdavidhopkins/how-a-tv-sitcom-triggered-the-downfall-of-western-civilization-336e8ccf7dd0 <comment><USER2> So? Watch less TV is an instant remedy.</comment>


The Garden and the Stream: A Technopastoral - <AUTHOR> https://hapgood.us/2015/10/17/the-garden-and-the-stream-a-technopastoral/ <comment><USER3> From 2015, it's depressing that the sea change he felt didn't materialize. This is a very good exposition of what Vannevar Bush was actually describing and how wrongly we've interpreted it. The comparison to junk food for our current model is apt and oft repeated. I feel it right now, the empty sugar rush of writing a comment and hoping for a reply or the drama of the up and down votes when I know I should be linking this article in to a personal datastore and expanding on the interesting parts and dissecting the clumsy ones but I don't have one that's easy to use and hard to lose. Let alone a highly polished one that incorporates the social reinforcement of seeing what others are building and getting feedback on my own work. I guess I'll just bookmark it and forget about it.

<comment><USER4> It's funny you say this, because I see this article linked all the time - <USER2> it's had a major influence in my circles. (Public wiki and Indieweb culture.)

See, for example, the recent 'Gardens and Streams' pop-up camp: [https://archive.org/details/gardens-and-streams-wikis- blogs-...](https://archive.org/details/gardens-and-streams-wikis-blogs-and-ui- popup-indie-web-camp-session-2020/GardensAndStreamsWikisBlogsAndUI- SpeakerView-PopupIndieWebCampSession-2020.mp4) (Which was both preceded by a year of blog posts about the concepts and which spawned a ton of discussion on the topic.)

A lot of the buzz around Roam Research also plays into this, with many people suddenly tossing around the phrases Zettelkasten, commonplace books, mind palaces, personal knowledge bases and garden wikis. (You can even search HN for these terms and find regular discussion here about that. See also: Obsidian from this week.)

If you want me to put together a longer directory of links I can. Or maybe you're happy to just bookmark it and forget about it - I get that too.

<comment><USER3> That's great that there is still an underground culture around this concept but my gripe is that it's been 5 years and we still haven't built anything usable. I think it's the same gripe the author has but his was that it had been 70 years and we still weren't there yet. We were on track at one point but right now we seem to be deeply lost in the weeds with no clear way out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The stream is like oral culture, where expressions exist in temporal sequence and referring to connections often requires indirectly shared context; the garden is like a literate culture, where expressions can directly as well as indirectly link?

Both are fun and useful; I tend to gravitate to the literate side (coincidence: "garden" and "culture" both have agricultural roots) because direct linking makes it easy to discover new garden paths, whereas the oral side requires a much deeper commitment to learning a culture to catch the references streaming past.

<comment><USER6> While it isn't quite the Federated Wiki that the author describes, I've been enjoying using are.na to curate my readings and areas of interest.

When I post a link to a channel (as they call it), such as this article, it shows me other public channels that contain the same link, which I can then include or explore for related links, or even contribute to.

As an excellent example I've now found many related readings to this article that aren't directly about the same topic but are close enough to have been curated into the same set by some users.</comment></comment>


RED Epic camera - six times the resolution of HD video - <AUTHOR> http://khalednoorblog.com/?p=1226

<comment><USER3> Werner Herzog was apparently not impressed

[http://www.dgaquarterly.org/BACKISSUES/Winter2010/DGAIntervi...](http://www.dgaquarterly.org/BACKISSUES/Winter2010/DGAInterviewWernerHerzog.aspx)

 _Q: What about shooting digitally?

A: We used the RED camera for My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done. It's an immature camera created by computer people who do not have a sensibility or understanding for the value of high-precision mechanics, which has a 200-year history. It's terrible: Whenever you have to reboot the camera, it takes 4½ minutes or so. It drove me insane, because sometimes something is happening and you can't just push the button and record it. An assistant cameraman said this camera would be ideal if we were filming the National Library in Paris, which has been sitting there for centuries. But everything that moves faster than a library is a problem for the RED. Super 35 mm celluloid is still better_

<comment><USER4> I am a little surprised that digital filming isn't hitting it's stride when photographers have taken to the digital transition. Not sure if the celluloid comment is only in reference RED or in reference to digital film in general.

I see parallels to audiophile type comments regarding analog v digital.

<comment><USER5> Given the exponentially lower amount of data handled by still cameras, it was much easier for them to eclipse 35mm film in terms of quality. Keep in mind that even 'burst mode' on a high-end DSLR only runs at 3-5 frames per second (not 30), and still requires a few seconds between bursts to process and write to disk.

Film not only shoots at 24 frames per second (or more), but the final picture has to play on a screen that is literally two stories high. The scale is unforgiving. Things that would fly on television get suddenly ugly - especially if you're only starting with 1080 lines of resolution. And that's before your picture has gone through layers and layers of heavy post production - every one of which constitutes a round of transcoding, and thus, a source of degradation and artifacting.

In other words, not only are you shooting far more frames in far less time (and needing hardware that can do sustained encoding for each one in real time) but, you're doing so at exceptionally high bit-rates, oversampling like hell so that you'll still have a clean picture even after running it through the wringer of post-production. Encoding for broadcast, DVD and the web (which is par for the course with any professional shoot) only adds an extra layer of abuse. When Michael Mann was shooting Collateral (which made heavy use of HD), there were a number of scenes where they had to shoot film, just because the HD rigs capable of supporting adequate bitrates came with umbilical cords that were simply too cumbersome for handheld setups where agility was essential.

There's also been an optical issue, in that sensors for digital motion cameras have typically been much smaller than those used for digital still or motion film cameras. Even if the resolution is commensurate (which is hasn't been), the fact that the same number of scan lines are packed into a smaller area has consequences in terms of the optical effects that the camera can achieve. Specifically, a larger imagine surface allows for a shallower depth of field. Given that really good cinematographers can make masterful use of DOF, it's understandable that they don't like the constricted range that comes with smaller, digital sensors. For guys like Lucas, Fincher, and Jackson - who all do a huge amount of pre-visualization and heavy CG in post - this isn't such a big deal. They can plan around it, or deal with it after the fact. But in a more traditional setting - and for filmmakers who don't have the same hardcore ILM/WETA ethos and skill - the trade-off isn't so favorable.

All that said, my sense is that this RED camera marks a tipping point, where a lot of the advantages that film has held will start to erode in earnest. The thing that's really going to drive this is the exceptionally high dynamic range (that is to say, the range of light levels the camera can handle before the picture either drops into black, or blows out in a haze of pure white). Higher performance in this area really was the trump card for film. But now that RED is not just meeting, but exceeding the long-established benchmarks, a lot of people who have stuck with film are going to ditch it in favor of a much higher ceiling. I mean, wow, 18 stops - that's hot.

<comment><USER6> _Keep in mind that even 'burst mode' on a high-end DSLR only runs at 3-5 frames per second (not 30), and still requires a few seconds between bursts to process and write to disk._

No.

My 4 year old consumer level Nikon D80 will hit 3FPS. Yes, that's with a buffer, but in practice if I turn the JPEG quality down a touch, it'll run for a long time at that rate while pushing out 10MP files. I've no idea what it'd do at even 2K resolution but it'd be fast.

I forget exactly which SLR is the fastest at present but 10+FPS is very doable in a device costing a few thousand on 10-15MP files, far below the price level of a RED One.

Also....

 _Film not only shoots at 24 frames per second (or more), but the final picture has to play on a screen that is literally two stories high. The scale is unforgiving. Things that would fly on television get suddenly ugly - especially if you're only starting with 1080 lines of resolution._

Toy Story 1 was rendered at 1536x830 and upsampled to 2048x1108 in post production. You really don't need as much resolution as you think.

<comment><USER5> Exactly, you "turn the JPEG quality down a touch". That's a problem for two reasons. One, you're reducing the file quality (which may not create visible problems initially, but - I promise you - will cause all sorts of ugliness to appear if you post-process the frame several times over, as is par for the course in professional film and video production). Also, you're shooting JPEG, not RAW, meaning you're comparing apples to oranges. Try that test again using a file format comparable to what D-Cinema uses. Again, 3-5 frames is on the high end, and WAY short of the sustained 24 fps needed to compete with film.

Keep in mind that a 400' film load (a standard measure) gives you 11 minutes of shooting at 24fps. Every time you stop the camera to swap magazines, you cause a break in the shooting. Producers want to decrease the number of interruptions like this, not increase them. One of the (many) things video needs to offer to be competitive is equal or greater time between reloads. With digital, memory capacity isn't the only limit on run time. The reality of cameras shutting down due to overheating (a non-issue with film, but something I've experienced with Canon 5Ds) also needs to be accounted for. And again, this is all about beating established industry benchmarks. On a high-end shoot, your camera package is actually one of your smaller costs. Saving a few bucks here is bad economics when it leads to delays that put your crew into overtime.

Regarding "Toy Story". That's a CG film. At the time it was made, per-frame rendering times for (a) the source images (b) the up-sampling and (c) the film-out were all measured in minutes, hours, and sometimes days - <USER2> fractions of seconds. Because the production wasn't having to contend with anything happening in real time, they could afford to take the extra time to create those initial frames using ridiculously high bit rates and no compression whatsoever. In other words, they were free from the two primary sources of trouble that lead to visual artifacts in upresed images. And since the entire film was created in-computer, there was no post-processing whatsoever. That is to say, the upsampled files were first generation copies of (exceedingly clean) master images.

It's worth remember in that the massive render farms used to deliver all this are exactly that - massive. As in, they need their own air-conditioned warehouses. That kind of hardware support isn't even feasible for studio shooting, let alone location work. So sure, you COULD master at 1k and go up, but only under incredibly controlled conditions that result in bills averaging $1 million per finished minute.

Shooting action live then heavily processing your material in post is a completly different ballgame. Personally, I'm thrilled that video solutions are coming to market that can (finally) rival film, which is a colossal pain in the ass, and the source of some pretty major creative constraints. Still, the competition had some cons that were (a) major and (b) non-obvious to non- professionals. So I wanted to help mey understand why the change from film to digital hadn't occurred with the same speed and thoroughness as it did in the still-photography world.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> RED has been driving some tremendous innovation in this space. Their cameras are an order of magnitude cheaper than anything remotely comparable, and they've built the entire ecosystem around standard video editing software (Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere, etc.) making this kind of technology accessible to a whole new market of amateur and non-feature filmmakers for whom it was previously out of reach.

They are a fascinating company born out of Jim Jannard's passion. The only reason they exist is because the industry dinosaurs had been happy to eschew innovation in favor of consistent and sustained profit models. Jannard's only goal is to build the camera that the competitors told him he couldn't have.

</comment><comment><USER8> I can't speak for this model. However, in the past, the problem with the RED has been the rolling shutter, the same problem you find in DSLR's.

Instead of capturing full frames, it's scanning from top to bottom at 24fps. It's fine for static shots, but as you introduce motion, or fast moving subjects, you get a "jelly" effect.

I have a friend who does highend visual effects. In his experience, the RED also isn't suited for green screen work. Can't remember off the top of my head if it's for rolling shutter or the dynamic range, but it's another limitation.

However, it hits a sweet spot for less demanding productions, like The Social Network.

<comment><USER9> The rolling shutter artifacts are present, yes, but it's in the range of a movie camera. Movie cameras also have some slight jelly in fast pans, something not many people are aware of.

"measured the mysterium (RED ONE) at 9ms, the X (EPIC) at 5ms, and film at 4ms. All of them substantially faster than other sensors which can be in the 20's."

<http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?42240>

"The mechanical shutter "wipes" across the film in a similar way to how a CMOS sensor is read. The trick to CMOS is getting the read-reset time similar to the mechanical shutter. EPIC does that. (...) there is skew in a film camera with a mechanical shutter, one of the many reasons film has "character"."

[http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?55397-General- Questi...](http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?55397-General-Question- About-CMOS-Rolling-Shutter&p=727520&viewfull=1#post727520)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Did the stolen RED EPIC ever turn up? Last I heard there was a $100k reward on it.

<comment><USER11> Nope. It's still missing.

[http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?53549-ALERT!-Please-...](http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?53549-ALERT!-Please- read./page39)

<comment><USER12> I think it would be awesome if the stolen camera were recovered a century from now and displayed in the Smithsonian.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Looking forward to seeing what the next Canon 5D will do.

Could very well have 2k resolution and do 120+ fps at lower resolutions with it's big full frame sensor.

<comment><USER14> At a fraction of the price.

<comment><USER15> I don't think that will be accurate with Scarlet showing up.

The other big difference from the Red cameras and Canon is RAW versus a heavily compressed h264.

<comment><USER5> Which means it's not even remotely comparable for professional work. Keep in mind that it's not just the amount, but the type of compression that's decisive.

Spatial codecs (also known as intraframe schemes) deal with each frame independently. That is to say, they don't apply calculations across a set of frames, even when much of the information is repeated.

Temporal codecs (also known as interframe, of which H.264 is the most popular example) achieve vastly lower file sizes by applying samples from one image across a set (aka a 'group of pictures, or GOP). This is fantastically useful for broadcast and streaming, since you get high visual quality in an efficient package. But if you try to DO anything with that video (reformatting, enlarging, compositing, etc.) the downside will become very clear very quickly.

Typically, professional shows are going to demand a lot of flexibility in post, meaning they're likely to insist on spatial codecs whenever possible.

<comment><USER15> I have seen some 5D stuff that was pretty good and House used one for an episode. I think the Epic is going to be a big hit (size, 5K raw) and I expect the same of Scarlet.

<comment><USER5> House is engineered for television, not big screen projection. And it has no time of money for serious effects. Also, it's mostly shot in situations with very controlled lighting. Add all that up and it means there's a lot that they can get away with. It's great that they did. But that was very recently, and again, the original question was 'why didn't this happen a decade ago?'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> For those who want the info from the source:

<http://www.red.com/products/epic>

Check out the features tab for HD comparison, and tech specs for the details.

</comment><comment><USER15> If you want in-depth coverage of the Epic (and other digital cameras) listen to "the rc podcast" at <http://www.fxguide.com/podcasts/>

Their Canon 5D and 7D stuff was really informative also.

</comment><comment><USER16> Peter Jackson/WETA bought 30 EPICs... if it's good for them, it's good for everyone.

</comment><comment><USER17> Now that we've got the resolution up to where it should be, can we start shooting at higher framerates, like 60 or 120 fps? I'm sick of flicker.

<comment><USER5> The highest hurdle is bitrate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Can anyone explain the use of such high resolutions? I know it could be nice to crop some parts of the movie and still have a nice set of pixels. But in reality you will just shoot the scene again or leave it out. Nowadays everybody is shooting millions of pixels but I never saw someone who used a cropped versions professionally.

<comment><USER12> Better aliasing performance (things like chain link fences won't look jagged), more sharpness retained after multiple rounds of processing, etc. Try recording a TV show in SD resolution, then record the HD version and resize it to SD. The HD-scaled-to-SD version is much sharper than the SD version.

<comment><USER18> Ofcourse the SD TV show will look less sharp then the HD version scaled to SD. But this doesn't have anything to do with my question.

Last time I checked HD is around 2Mpx. Why would you need 14Mpx as source material? 7 times oversampling?

<comment><USER5> Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Meh. The pricetag on this makes it really unappealing to anyone except multimillionaires and professional cinematographers. When Red can produce a 4K camera for under $1,000 I'll be the first in line to get one. Until then it's little more than a curiosity. An awesome curiosity but a curiosity nonetheless.

<comment><USER11> Well, in reality this price is fantastic for a cinematography camera. When you consider the prices for everything else on a shoot, and how a camera is typically rented instead of bought for a feature film, this camera (and the RED ONE) is revolutionary.

Sony's recent release of the F3 has them playing catchup, and they've announced plans for a 4K cinematography camera, but this camera is ahead of its time, and a huge step forward over the RED ONE.

And this camera isn't for anyone who doesn't know their way around a video camera in full manual mode (shutter speed, iris, focus, zoom, white balance, gamma, knee, etc...). This is not a camera for anyone except for filmmakers.</comment></comment>


Now that's what I call a Hacker - <AUTHOR> https://www.jitbit.com/alexblog/249-now-thats-what-i-call-a-hacker/ <comment><USER2> Repo with the scripts: [https://github.com/narkoz/hacker- scripts](https://github.com/narkoz/hacker-scripts)

</comment><comment><USER3> Original post in Russian: [https://bash.im/quote/436725](https://bash.im/quote/436725)

</comment><comment><USER4> Now I'm not sure if the second one is good enough. And how do I hack the coffee machine.?

</comment><comment><USER5> if true, hire him back immediately.</comment>


What's Really Going on Behind Murdoch's Paywall? - <AUTHOR> http://www.newser.com/off-the-grid/post/502/whats-really-going-on-behind-murdochs-paywall.html

<comment><USER2> Murdoch's response to this article here; <http://www.timesplus.co.uk/tto/news/?login=false></comment>


The US has 6500 nuclear weapons -so why is it so hard to comprehend nuclear war? - <AUTHOR> https://bostonreview.net/war-security/elaine-scarry-rachel-ablow-sleeping-through-alarm <comment><USER2> It seems to me that the reporter never asks the really important question: Can we realistically get rid of nuclear weapons. I just don't see any pragmatic way for America to disarm as long as countries who are our enemy have nuclear weapons.

<comment><USER3> I disagree that is the important question.

The important question would be: "To what extent can we disarm, realizing tremendous cost savings and increasing safety, and still have a reliable nuclear deterrence strategy?"

"More than 100 nuclear weapons in a nation's arsenal does more harm than good—as using them can destabilize the country that uses them even in a best- case scenario." [1]

[1] [https://www.mtu.edu/news/stories/2018/june/more-harm-than- go...](https://www.mtu.edu/news/stories/2018/june/more-harm-than-good- assessing-the-nuclear-arsenal-tipping-point.html) (More Harm Than Good: Assessing the Nuclear Arsenal Tipping Point)

[https://www.defensenews.com/space/2019/01/24/heres-how- many-...](https://www.defensenews.com/space/2019/01/24/heres-how-many- billions-the-us-will-spend-on-nuclear-weapons-over-the-next-decade/) (Here's how many billions [$494 billion] the US will spend on nuclear weapons over the next decade)

<comment><USER2> My understanding is that nuclear deterrence is not based on the idea that you would survive using your own nuclear weapons, rather it is to insure that an enemy cannot survive using nuclear weapons on you. Therefore, I don't see how reducing the number of weapons would make a difference.

In addition, my understanding is that the reason for having so many is to prevent a scenario where an enemy decides that they can shoot down enough of your missiles to survive a counter attack.

<comment><USER4> Russia is largest country in Earth and Soviet Union + sattelites had even larger teritory. But Iran or North Korea? Do you really need 6400 nuclear warheads to cover their teritory in response? Perhaps 1609 would be enough?

<comment><USER5> why do you think Iran and north Korea are the only countries that we need to deter from launching nukes?

<comment><USER4> Just saying that you don't need 6400 to effectively obliterate large country or even few countries. Unless you plan a war against all.

<comment><USER5> it's hard to say how many you need for a truly effective deterrent when you don't know how many launch sites can be destroyed before launch or how many missiles can be intercepted in flight. iran or nk almost certainly can't hit any US launch sites and probably can't intercept many missiles, but it's hard to know exactly what Russia or China would be capable of in a hypothetical conflict.

<comment><USER4> So you are going for 12 thousands and then some? :-)

<comment><USER5> all I'm saying is there's no number where you can say with 100% certainty "we have enough missiles to meet our strategic goals". this doesn't mean you devote your entire production capacity to making nukes, but it makes it sort of silly for laymen to sit around talking about whether we have too many. we don't have enough information to make even a halfway-educated guess.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The interviewee conflates so many ideas that their argument loses cohesion. Add to that numerous factual errors and odd interpretations (the 2nd Amendment prohibits nuclear weapons?) that the article ends up just being a wandering rant.

</comment><comment><USER7> People very much underestimate the risk of a nuclear war, because they are calculating the risk based on the situation today when that situation is naturally going to change over time. Think about any long tailed event. The financial crisis. Fukushima. What are the chances that all the backup generators and safety systems are going to fail at the same time? Very small, if you just assume they're independent and multiply together their failure rates. But a tsunami of sufficient size demonstrates that those failures rates are not in fact independent.

Same thing with nuclear war. The chances of having a) a crisis of sufficient size to suggest the use of nukes b) two leaders who would actually push the button c) total diplomatic failure and so on would appear to be small. And it is- _today_. But what about in a situation where there is mass migration of people due to climate change, and the rise of authoritarian leaders in response, and war between major states? Now what's the risk?

Remember that in the Second World War, every weapon that was developed during the war was immediately used, including nuclear ones. Because it was a different context. If China invaded Taiwan tomorrow morning, the whole conversation would change in ways that seem unimaginable today. Think about how everything changed after 9/11\. It was a totally different landscape.

The only way to truly reduce the chances of nuclear war is to _dismantle the nukes_ , and if their use seems unlikely now, that's an indication that the time to dismantle them is now, when it's relatively easy, not later, when it might be impossible.

</comment><comment><USER8> Because the literal amount of nuclear missiles you have does not correlate with the likelihood of you going to war and using them.

</comment><comment><USER9> We all know we're going to die, but it's also hard for us to comprehend our own mortality. The brain tends to push us away from contemplating big, unpleasant subjects.</comment>


Debating the Value of College in America - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2011/06/06/110606crat_atlarge_menand

<comment><USER2> I found the article irritating. He trisects reasons for colleges into three categories, which he sees as worthy goals, but which I paraphrase from a critical perspective thus:

1\. Society is a machine that trains worker ants for roles in production which serves the goals of the society. The efficient operation of this machine requires that intellectual knowledge workers be identified, tested, corralled into specialties with a certification which is accurate and uniform so that factories can employ known quality product cogs to place in their production lines.

2\. People are stupid and lazy and do not like to learn things. College forces them to learn things so they will not be so stupid no more.

3\. People need specific technical skills and training to do technical jobs from nursing to product design. Colleges need to provide uniform quality vocational training to accomplish this end.

He also dismisses much of the research that shows colleges do not teach much critical thinking by suggesting that if a measurement gives a surprising result, the measurement is wrong since we know the result should be otherwise.

These are the arguments of a desperate man who does not understand humans or what education is.

This all said, I was fascinated and amazed that his three reasons for college match up with the criticism of educational reformers such as John Gatto, who argues that the _problem_ with contemporary education is that it trains factory workers, performs vocational education and assumes people hate learning and must be forced to learn things when in fact people actually are built to learn and will pursue it naturally unless their spirit is crushed by institutionalized forced schooling.

<comment><USER3> All of those statements are clearly true.

Most people just want someone to give them a job and let them do it. Being told what to do by an authority figure is considerably easier than figuring out what to do on your own. College is a system of authority and assigned work, and that's a big part of why people like it.

I don't think the purpose of college is to provide people with education and a love of learning. Most people _don't want that_. The majority of people don't like to learn things. Learning is for nerds.

The purpose of college (or any form of institutionalized education) is to do all three of the things that you listed. It's a tool of our society. Changing it would only make it unappealing to the average person. People who love learning have wikipedia.

<comment><USER4> _> Most people just want someone to give them a job and let them do it._

 _> I don't think the purpose of college is to provide people with education and a love of learning. Most people don't want that._

Your stance on this issue strikes me as one-dimensional and solipsistic. Maybe you're a very smart person who was unfairly persecuted for being different, or maybe you were persecuted for being different and placed the blame on a feature.

From my perspective, humans are learning machines, as evidenced by the totality of human output.

 _> People who love learning have wikipedia._

Wikipedia does not talk to you, debate your ideas, or force you to think in uncomfortable ways (`Discussion` does not count). I might be nitpicking your point, but autodidacts are well served by interfacing with people who can challenge their ideas and also help them articulate their opinions _in person_.

Edit: I'm getting downvoted, and I hope it's not because this comment comes across as rude. If it is, please message me directly; I tried hard on the tone.

<comment><USER5> Human are associating machines. Learning requires a bit more because if it didn't then the AI problem would have been solved long ago by neural nets. What schools don't do well is teach people about meta-cognition which is how all learning really happens. Anyone can memorize a few facts and regurgitate opinions but few people can connect the dots and see the big picture by collating all the local pieces of information we are constantly bombarded with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Note that this is a subject Louis Menand, the writer of this piece, has discussed extensively in his book _The Marketplace of Ideas: Reform and Resistance in American Universities_ , which I wrote about in depth here: [http://jseliger.com/2010/01/21/problems-in-the-academy- louis...](http://jseliger.com/2010/01/21/problems-in-the-academy-louis- menands-the-marketplace-of-ideas-reform-and-resistance-in-the-american- university/) .

</comment><comment><USER6> Was not able to find any sources worth reading but I am interested to know the comparison between American Universities, and free universities in Europe. It would be interesting to see how each system works for students during, and after college.

</comment><comment><USER7> _Education is about personal and intellectual growth, not about winning some race to the top._

But, you just wrote...

 _Society needs a mechanism for sorting out its more intelligent members from its less intelligent ones, just as a track team needs a mechanism (such as a stopwatch) for sorting out the faster athletes from the slower ones._

<comment><USER8> The author is presenting different viewpoints on the role of higher education, not saying he holds them all (because, obviously, they are, at least in part, contradictory, which is also something the author mentioned).

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This bugs me so I have to point it out:

His income numbers use average instead of median. I can't find the exact numbers, but eyeballing it -- it looks as though he's quoting the household income numbers instead of the individual numbers.

You nearly always use median for incomes, otherwise Bill Gates can walk into a room and the average income goes into the hundreds of millions.

Someone discussing the value of college education in America should be educated in the skills to evaluate it, and, fairly or not, it really calls into question the validity of rest of the article for me.

</comment><comment><USER10> > college also sorts people according to aptitude. It separates the math types > from the poetry types.

I'm a college dropout and a programmer. I got an A and an A+ at my 2 Calculus classes in college, but in the same time I was reading Petrarca, Yeats and Donne. What does that make me?

<comment><USER7> Apparently, you are a very successful failure (according to the article).

Bygones.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> "Why did we have to read this article"

</comment><comment><USER12> Here's the problem: For everyone that makes it with a college degree they are 1000 that might regret it 10-15-35 years from now. College, then, will be like a high school diploma now. Can you take that chance?

</comment><comment><USER13> This article is the perfect example of why our higher education system is so dysfunctional:

" _The obvious initial inference to make about a test that does not pick up a difference where you expect one is that it is not a very good test._ "

Or maybe the expectation is incorrect because you're a biased, myopic dimwit? Sorry, former Ivy League professor, but you just failed miserably in 'Logic and the Scientific Method 101'. How ironic, considering the fact that he was trying to counter an argument about universities' failure to impart critical thinking skills.

<comment><USER14> Actually I think the professor is right -- that should be your initial inference if you _expect_ it to pick up a difference and it doesn't.

For example, if I make a test to tell me which item weighs more between two, and then I weigh myself and my refrigerator and it says I weigh more, then I should look at the test first. Now it may turn out that the test was right, and my fridge actually is a new lightweight fridge, but your expectation is the default hypothesis.

In fact the way you typically calibrate tests is to verify that it signals differences that you very strongly expect.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are some good alternatives to HN? - <AUTHOR> Lately it seems I go to HN look at the front page and decide "I don't want to read any of these". Where do other HN readers go for finding out about new and interesting technology or science? <comment><USER2> The thing with HN is that there are a lot of interesting threads that get increasingly drowned in "drama" contents: stuff about politics, the NSA, silicon valley drama...

See the G+ outrage lately: there are three articles about that at the top of the frontpage that say exactly the same thing with exactly the same comments. It's reddit/4chan tier "pitchforking".

The problem seems to be that the community is growing quickly and as a consequence the upvoted articles are those who cater to the lowest common denominator and it keeps getting lower. It's a problem all successful communities face.

The usual solution might be to migrate towards a smaller community as you propose, but the problem then is that you have to rebuild everything from scratch over and over again.

IMO a simpler solution would be to make a "meta-HN" which would just add an other layer of moderation on top of the existing HN:

\- Remove all "drama/politics" entries

\- Merge entries about the same topic under a single item.

Then just link to the usual HN comment threads. I find the quality of comments usually reflects the quality of the article so I think it would work well for me. No need to rebuild everything from scratch and rebuild the community.

The HN you once liked is still there, it's just getting increasingly buried it low-relevance contents.

<comment><USER3> Alternatively, only activate voting on comments when new users reach a certain karma threshold (does this exist already?), and only activate voting on stories when users reach a certain higher karma threshold.

<comment><USER4> You need 500 pts to vote on HN

<comment><USER5> I only have 63 points and I can vote (but rarely do). Actually I can only upvote. I think 500 is for downvote rights.

<comment><USER4> You're right my bad. 500pts to downvote

<comment><USER6> I wonder if that asymmetry is part of the problem. There's a large population of users who can push junk to the top of the page, and a much smaller population with the ability to downvote it.

<comment><USER7> You can't downvote submissions; you can only flag them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Reddit has gotten better recently, as long as you stay off the popular subreddits. Pick your 10 favorite hobbies or interests, and subscribe to those subreddits. It's got to be specific: not programming, but programming in Java; not electronics, but amateur radio; etc. (I will admit I enjoy r/AskReddit, which is where people write short stories in response to a prompt in the form of a loaded question. Ask Metafilter is much less creative, in comparison.)

A lot of people are recommending r/programming. r/programming is why I quit Reddit a few years ago. It's all "computer-related cult wars" rather than actual discussion about programming. Everyone goes through that stage in their programming career, but it's not interesting to read about, and most people eventually grow out of it. Not r/programming.

<comment><USER9> In my experience, any sub-reddits in my interests are filled with incredibly shallow or meme-filled posts. Never have I once thought to myself 'This subreddit is way better than [established forum/community] for this'. Maybe it's the short lifespan of posts, or voting style that promotes snark/pandering type posts, but I have yet to come across an awesome subreddit. Also, I agree with you that the more specific you get the less this becomes an issue, but at that point it's usually just a bunch of ghost- subreddits with < 1K users and a single post every odd month.

<comment><USER10> /r/ECE and /r/reverseengineering used to be great... they might even still be. Honestly I stopped going to any technical subs on that site because given time they all seem to share one of two fates. Either they devolve into memes and shallow lowest common denominator post or they die. I've just accepted the site as a source for shallow sillines and enjoy it a lot more

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Subreddits!

[http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/](http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/)

[http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/](http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/)

[http://www.reddit.com/r/linux/](http://www.reddit.com/r/linux/)

[http://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/](http://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/)

[http://www.reddit.com/r/netsec/](http://www.reddit.com/r/netsec/)

[http://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/](http://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/)

[http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/](http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/)

[http://www.reddit.com/r/golang/](http://www.reddit.com/r/golang/)

[http://www.reddit.com/r/rust/](http://www.reddit.com/r/rust/)

<comment><USER12> And of course: [http://www.reddit.com/r/startups/](http://www.reddit.com/r/startups/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> MetaFilter. You have to pay $5 to post comments, and the comments are formatted in such a way as to discourage trolling, long digressions, and other annoying Internet comment features. The material is usually not amazingly interesting to me, but the community is very pleasant.

<comment><USER13> MetaFilter has remained pleasant for years. Turns out $5 is a big enough hurdle to keep it sane.

<comment><USER14> It's the same with The Something Awful Forums. It is $10 to join, and it really helps keep the trolls out. One of the best communities on the web.

<comment><USER15> What? SA has possibly the worst community on the web. It keeps people out alright, but not trolls.

<comment><USER16> I think you might be conflating the terms "troll" and "asshole." If you show up to a subforum on SA and start actually trolling people by posting spam or a bunch of NSFL images or something, you'll get banned pretty much instantly.

<comment><USER17> That's not trolling, that's vandalism. Trolling is posting things for the sole purpose of inciting flamewars, or getting people to believe you were serious and react with disproportionate fervour.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I quite like Alex McCaw's [http://monocle.io/](http://monocle.io/) \- It's quite similar in topic to HN, but with less of the news/gossip/drama stories.

It also moves a lot slower, so if you miss a few days, it's fine. Just one page or so of links will show you all the best from those few days.

</comment><comment><USER19> [http://hckrnews.com/](http://hckrnews.com/) to avoid the 'never made it to front page' problem.

<comment><USER20> This. And as was mentioned before, the new page (more crap, occasional spam, but lots of hidden gems).

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Try going to the "new" section and upvoting content you _would_ like to see. If we all don't do that, of course the site will get overrun with stupid kneejerk posts.

<comment><USER22> Yeah, I'm guilty of rarely upvoting (or downvoting) items. Are upvotes on the actual submission the only driver of where it ranks, or does comment activity also weigh in? If it does, that would seem to encourage flamewar/ideological topics to float to the top.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> [http://lobste.rs](http://lobste.rs)

<comment><USER24> Lobsters has better software but they never got enough traction to get any discussion flowing.

Apart from that the #1 story is just another stupid adver-article written for HN. The story is by differential.io and submitted by joshowens who works there. The same story was submitted to HN by the author with his coworker joshowens shilling in the comments - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6741554](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6741554).

This kind of exploitation is happening a _lot_ , "Next HN" will hopefully be more discerning about its members' motivations.

</comment></comment><comment> eric-hu I've found that meetup.com and a free night a week serve as a great alternative. programming meetups have given me deeper discussions about software engineering or given me a chance to work firsthand with people in languages or frameworks I'm curious about.

</comment><comment><USER25> /. [http://slashdot.org/](http://slashdot.org/)

<comment><USER26> I still read /. on a daily basis for tech news. Though I find the items that would really interest me have already showed up on HN already.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> For JavaScript, HTML5, and front-end news, there is Echo JS : [http://www.echojs.com](http://www.echojs.com)

</comment><comment><USER28> On the startup side I'm often finding more things that are interesting to me on the community side of [http://www.usv.com/](http://www.usv.com/)

<comment><USER29> I just checked out the side. Didn't know it before. I found some interesting content. It's now part of my feedly. Thanks for the hint man.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> [https://news.ycombinator.com/newest](https://news.ycombinator.com/newest)

I figure I only read about 10% of the posts on HN, and focus on the ones about actual technologies I might use or evaluate. And honestly, that 10% is all I have time to read anyway, so it works out just right.

The only better option is to go to reddit and subscribe to all the relevant tech subreddits you're interested in and unsubscribe from everything else. That's more like drinking from the firehose though, requires more mental overhead in filtering only the absolutely most useful and relevant.

Also, [http://pineapple.io](http://pineapple.io) if you just want cool tech and no discussions.

</comment><comment><USER31> I recently signed up for hubski, which is very similar in style to HN, but uses a tagging system so you choose to follow only the topics you are interested in.

[http://hubski.com/](http://hubski.com/)

So far it has been very good signal to noise...

</comment><comment><USER32> [http://lamernews.com/](http://lamernews.com/)

<comment><USER33> Seems like a nice site, but only two of the current stories on the front page have comments on them (for a total of 5 comments) :-/

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> [http://discuss.bootstrapped.fm](http://discuss.bootstrapped.fm) has some good discussion related to bootstrapped startups, and seems to have a good community.

</comment><comment><USER35> Look at the new page instead of the main page.

</comment><comment><USER36> I like [http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/](http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/) It is focused on programming languages and PL research

</comment><comment><USER37> I think the only satisfactory alternative to HN, which could attract hackers and hackers only would be some sort of a termminal application, and you would be able to browse it through terminal only, that way we could get rid off all the classy people and hence the drama/politics posts it will be a hacker's paradise like HN used to be.

The only question is, how do we do it ?

<comment><USER38> We use Usenet? (although I'm sure that there are good GUIs now)

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> [http://thelist.io](http://thelist.io)

</comment><comment><USER40> I wish there would be a simple tag system to classify the posts a bit. For example i am not interested in most startup posts but rather would just see only programming and technology related articles.

How many tags would be sufficient to classify most posts? Startup, marketing, programming, science, politics, ... That's actually a quite hard problem!

</comment><comment><USER41> I love Hackernews.

Here are my additional addictions (in order of preference):

* [http://reddit.com/r/futurology](http://reddit.com/r/futurology)

* [http://reddit.com/r/linux](http://reddit.com/r/linux)

* [http://theverge.com](http://theverge.com)

* [http://techcrunch.com](http://techcrunch.com)

dying place (although I still read it): [http://slashdot.org](http://slashdot.org)

* [http://techdirt.com](http://techdirt.com)

* [http://reddit.com/r/bsd](http://reddit.com/r/bsd)

* [http://reddit.com/r/opensource](http://reddit.com/r/opensource)

</comment><comment><USER42> > Lately it seems I go to HN look at the front page and decide "I don't want > to read any of these". Where do other HN readers go

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newest](https://news.ycombinator.com/newest)

</comment><comment><USER43> [http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/](http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/)

Although it's just programming (the rules say that if there's no code in the link, then you shouldn't post it).

<comment><USER44> /r/hwstartups, /r/compsci, /r/startups and a few other assorted subreddits make for a nice complement to HN.

<comment><USER45> With the use of multi reddits I've found you can build up quite a nice suite of multireddits which supplements hackernews nicely, though you do tend to see quite a lot of cross posting of articles.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> [http://secletter.com/](http://secletter.com/)

</comment><comment><USER47> For C++ lovers I find that [http://www.reddit.com/r/cpp/](http://www.reddit.com/r/cpp/) always has pretty good content.

</comment><comment><USER48> Theneeds [1]?

We built Theneeds with a similar idea in mind, that people should come and just find interesting stuff, personalized according to their interests (we learn from users' activity to get smarter about what the interests really are).

We focus on a broader range of topics than just tech & science, thought there is a good selection about that too.

[1] [http://www.theneeds.com](http://www.theneeds.com)

<comment><USER49> I tried your site out, it's pretty cool but some of the backgrounds make it completely unusable. Make it as minimal as possible, people are meant to stare at this for a long time.

<comment><USER48> Thanks for trying and for the feedback!

The background can be turned off, but we actually decided to keep it on by default. We think that it creates a more "full-immersion" experience and helps not going OT (out of need actually ;). We don't have numbers to support this, but... that's the idea!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Techmeme river: [http://www.techmeme.com/river](http://www.techmeme.com/river)

</comment><comment><USER51> Reddit is the best alternative of HN and the most favorable thing of this community is that it has sub communities such as Technology, Programming,etc. not like HN.

But, it also has some disadvantage such as spammers first attack, moderators are not so active, sometime you can find unusual stuffs.

</comment><comment><USER52> [http://devmaster.net](http://devmaster.net) for game development

</comment><comment><USER53> I've been spending more time in the technology dedicated subreddits. While the general content is lesser than HN was ~1 year ago, it's more on topic. I only see 3-4 stories a day on HN worth reading, which honestly is nice because it limits my browsing time.

</comment><comment><USER54> Quora is quite good.

</comment><comment><USER55> [http://hn4hn4x.herokuapp.com](http://hn4hn4x.herokuapp.com)

</comment><comment><USER56> I'm going to shamelessly plug [http://techendo.co/](http://techendo.co/) not as an alternative, but as a supplement. :)

We're also on irc: #Techendo on Freenode!

</comment><comment><USER57> Try [http://www.dailyrotation.com](http://www.dailyrotation.com) The top 100 headlines turn up interesting articles for many areas of interest.

</comment><comment><USER58> If you are into JavaScript, [http://echojs.com](http://echojs.com) is pretty good.

</comment><comment><USER59> Almost missed this post becasue this is one of my "I don't want to read any of these" titles.

</comment><comment><USER60> There's a huge demand for quality content.

Why not just hire a bunch of people with taste to choose the content?

</comment><comment><USER61> [http://www.dzone.com](http://www.dzone.com)

</comment><comment><USER62> /g/technology

</comment><comment><USER63> We need sub-HNs!

</comment><comment><USER64> mailing lists

irc

</comment><comment><USER65> HackerJews.com

<comment><USER66> Where is it possible to find the Hacker News theme btw?</comment></comment>