Show HN: We track Reddit, Google trends, Twitter, etc. to find trending topics - <AUTHOR> https://meetglimpse.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hey everyone, founder here. A few friends and I built Glimpse to surface trending topics - companies, products, industries, everything - and we send out curated trend reports via email.

The way it works is we first capture nearly every topic online, then we look at frequency of discussion, searches, shares, etc. around each topic. Beyond just the growth in frequency, our software looks for indicators that a trend is organic and has more room to grow, as it's important that we surface trends not fads.

There are plenty of tools that help you dive deep on a new trend you've heard of, but the problem is you need to have already heard about the trend. This is what we're solving for - exposure to the unknown unknowns.

As an example, SheIn is growing on Google Trends, but when you compare that to popularity on other sites like Reddit and Twitter, you realize that the large majority of search traffic is driven by people googling after they see an ad.

Surprisingly, nearly all our engineering energy goes into filtering out the noise. Even after this, there's a good deal of manual work. We've found that most of our users don't want to do this themselves through a tool - they want the insights packaged and delivered, and we think it's important to provide high quality trends that aren't biased by data.

While Glimpse started as a way for us to figure out which products we could build and sell online, we realized how helpful it is for founders, investors, product people and marketers to constantly see how consumer behavior, marketing, and products are evolving so they can better do their jobs.

Would love feedback!

<comment><USER3> Congratulations!

We built a similar product:

[https://projectpiglet.com/](https://projectpiglet.com/)

Except it appears we do filtering very differently. Our system also suggests points to enter and leave a given asset based on the information.

It's a pretty hard and crowded space. Feel free to look at some of my repos and blog posts, might shed some light on how to improve your system. Although your UI/UX is far superior

<comment><USER4> Where is your track record?

<comment><USER3> [https://austingwalters.com/backtesting-our-100-yoy-profit- ge...](https://austingwalters.com/backtesting-our-100-yoy-profit-generating- strategy/)

<comment><USER4> Sorry, but this is not a track record...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> NowPublic did a tool like that in 2008 intended for the use of newsrooms but we never got a single subscriber, every newsroom we showed immediately wanted to acquire the company :D Eventually one did. It was a relatively primitive affair extracting information from the Twitter gardenhose with Stanford NLP and storing / retrieving with Xapian. There was nothing like that at the time as far as I am aware.

<comment><AUTHOR> Very cool! And yes, all the data is out there and is public, it's just a problem of filtering through the noise to get the signal. Because < 0.01% of topics discussed online are sustainable trends, it can take a bit of engineering work to do this all...

1\. at a non exorbitant cost 2\. in a time period where it takes less time than the cycle of information otherwise it's useless by the time the trend is surfaced.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, as I said, this was primitive: Stanford NLP was used to extract keywords out of tweets and then it was down to measure the velocity of keywords.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> More analytics. I feel like these are an admission that you are unable to judge quality in any meaningful way, so you're just going to go with what's popular today.

If I look around the products I own, and especially the ones I enjoy and find useful, I don't see very many which could have been arrived at by the wisdom of the crowds. You're not going to create a car that way, or a bicycle, or an iPhone. That's just not how products are created.

What exactly does one do with the knowledge that "Axe throwing" and "Gut health" searches are way up this year? "Stay in touch with the world beyond your bubble" sounds rather vague, and the sort of thing I could get by going on Twitter once a week.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey Ken - thanks for stopping by!

I think the products that have step function level effects on society are the sum of many smaller trends.

We've found that these trends, however small or large, tend to highlight the bigger picture around how the consumer world is evolving.

Like you point out, axe throwing is not very interesting on its own. But when you take a closer look, axe throwing, escape rooms, etc. are rising to fill the need of real life social experiences that can't be easily replaced by companies like Netflix as the more digitally replicable social experiences like movie theaters decline in popularity.

Our customers - founders, investors, product people, marketers, etc. - tell us that this deeper understanding of how and why the world is changing is useful to them.

And separately, while there are indeed a small number of products that have a disproportionately large impact on society (like the ones you mentioned: car, bike, iPhone), our economy is also largely dependent on the inverse - a large number of products that individually have a small impact on society - many of these are products we use and consume day to day like toiletries.

The growth of products in these potentially less impactful categories can still sometimes highlight a meaningful shift in society and we at Glimpse think it's worth talking about.

Hope I answered your questions!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is this the same as this from 19 days ago? "Show HN: I built a service to discover rapidly growing Google search topics" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20478339](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20478339)

<comment><USER8> Hey there, that was [https://trennd.co/](https://trennd.co/) which I recently built and launched on Show HN.

We're tackling the same problem just in different ways!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I just signed up for the $29/mo plan. I appreciate that I immediately received the June and July newsletters. In the July one, there is a good idea that is very relevant to my wife's business (she owns a chain of hair salons). Thanks for making this, it's really cool!

<comment><AUTHOR> So awesome that it's been helpful! Always glad to hear. Feel free to hit me up if there are any other ways we can be helpful! firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Hey Noah, great work with Glimpse!

Josh here from [https://trennd.co/](https://trennd.co/) which I recently built and launched on Show HN too. We're tackling the same problem of surfacing new trends, just in different ways!

Interested to hear more about how you validate trends and reduce noise. I'm inclined to agree that this is the biggest challenge. I'm guessing it's a lot of manual verification on your end?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey Josh!

Yes, fun stuff to be working on!

We use a number of strategies to cut through the noise. One of strategies that's easiest to articulate is comparing a topic's trend lines on different channels to identify organic growth vs. inorganic growth. This is because we think it's important to provide high quality trends that aren't biased by data from one channel.

We're also more inclined to share trends that we think have room to grow, as one of our internal metrics is the growth multiple of all trends we cover.

<comment><USER8> Yeah that makes a lot of sense to compare trend lines across channels - <USER2> for sharing!

<comment><USER10> Hey Josh! Loved the website and your work! ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> 479/mo. You'd better be confident in your data.

</comment><comment><USER12> How are the industry names classified? Isn't just easier to use NAICS? I imagine enterprise customers are used to that.

</comment><comment><USER13> Interesting. This is similar to Show HN for Trennd just a few weeks ago with a very similar premise: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20478339](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20478339)

Same team?

</comment><comment><USER14> I love Glimpse! I look forward to the emails ever month, and it always leads me down a rabbit hole of cool new stuff.

Can you explain more about how you mix automated tech and manual editorial work? How automated is the process of publishing a newsletter?

</comment><comment><USER15> Hello to all! We have been doing this service for quite some time: [https://signum.ai/](https://signum.ai/)

We use AI to search for emerging trends and predict their changes.

</comment><comment><USER16> But this gives the information every month instead of when the growth is happening?

<comment><AUTHOR> Exceedingly few trends - whether companies, products, industries, etc. become popular overnight.

Truly sustainable trends have healthy growth curves, rarely propped up by huge spikes often caused by PR or unsustainable growth stunts.

If we showed you everything that was happening the day or even week it started to be talked about or searched more than 100 times per day, you'd see a ton of noise, 99% of which would be useless long term.

<comment><USER16> I understand that this is true in general but you can add intelligence to the process and filter the noise (even with errors). For example, if there is a disease that is propagating (e.g. flu) you can understand that this trend means something different than a music show trend that sparks around a specufic event.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Interesting. Thanks for sharing.</comment>


Show HN: Dynamic SNI config based TLS terminator - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ChandraNarreddy/sillyproxy <comment><AUTHOR> * Supports both RSA and ECDSA certificates for domains it proxies requests. * Favors ECDSA over RSA based key exchange based on ciphers listed in ClientHello. * Hot loads SNI configuration every 30 mins. * ECDSA performance is comparable to that of NGINX. RSA not so much. Feedback appreciated!!</comment>


Buyer of SCO assets mistakenly thinks it bought Unix trademarks - <AUTHOR> http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20110411195227234

<comment><USER2> unXis Inc. was created for the purpose of buying SCO's assets. To say that it exists to cause trouble is not a stretch. To say that it is a mistake when they claim to own something they clearly don't _is_.

<comment><USER3> > To say that it exists to cause trouble is not a stretch

I would go as far as saying it's a front for Microsoft. Much like SCO was a Microsoft puppet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Groklaw is dead. Long live Groklaw!

</comment><comment><USER5> I definitely thought this was some sort of late April Fools joke. Why can SCO not just disappear?

</comment><comment><USER6> Strange: the domain unXis.com is parked.

</comment><comment><USER7> "Let me guess. UnXis doesn't want Groklaw to retire?"

<comment><USER8> Why do people keep doing this now? Just posting quotes from the article on their own as comments? I cannot see any conceivable point to it. You could not get closer to noise unless you posted bytes from /dev/urandom.

Please stop. I've read the article. I don't care in the slightest which part you found most amusing.

<comment><USER7> Personally I'm usually interested when others extract key quotes from the article. So I do the same.

<comment><USER7> I got several downvotes for responding here. Another response pointing out why my comment was useful got a bunch of downvotes and has since been deleted. Both of these posts futhered the conversation and were within site guidelines. To me this looks like people are downvoting based on whether or not they agree with somebody, rather than the official criteria. How does it look to others?

<comment><USER9> What it looks like to me is that you are getting clear and unequivocal evidence that what you posted is not very valuable, yet you are trying to blame it on everybody else, rather than yourself.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Vote for your interests. Vote scientifically. - <AUTHOR> http://rethinkdc.org RethinkDC.org is developing math models and tools to help voters identifying/expressing their political concerns and potential satisfaction with candidates in an entertaining yet intuitive way. We call it "vote scientifically". Check it out today! <comment><USER2> Great idea and neat execution. If the site provided even more politicians' stances, it would be useful for state elections too.

Another thing to potentially offer would be the ability to weight each issue, like "I don't care about this at all" to "This is a crucial issue".

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you creamyhorror. State elections are next step - right now constrained by resources. Also regarding the weight, there is a "How important is this issue to you?" selection under each question, right now default to 5/10. I guess it might need to be made more intuitive.</comment></comment>


A "negative emissions" plant has opened in Iceland - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/1100221/the-worlds-first-negative-emissions-plant-has-opened-in-iceland-turning-carbon-dioxide-into-stone/ <comment><USER2> Not to pour too much cold water on this, but aside from the extreme cost -- let's just assume that comes down -- these plants ideally need to be located near specific basalt geological formations _and_ need a substantial freshwater supply (27:1 ratio to captured CO2). So while it is most economical to capture at source power plants it may not be geographically possible. And when they're not located by a source it's 10X less efficient.

<comment><USER3> Of course. The article doesn't mean nor need to imply that this technology is practical yet, simply to illustrate progress is being made (and it is).

For any technology you can poo-poo the early stages ("This Wright brothers plane can only fly 200 feet," "This computer is the size of a room and costs several years' salary").

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Most plants have negative carbon-dioxide emissions. The trick is not cutting them down.

<comment><USER5> Cutting down trees and building permanent structures with the wood is a great way to take CO₂ out of the air.

<comment><USER6> "We had to destroy the village in order to save the village."

<comment><USER5> There is some misunderstanding here.

Does it help if I point out that new trees grow up to replace the chopped down ones?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _> "Moreover, they've been able to do it for less than $30 per metric ton of CO2."_

If my math is right this means that with ~5% of the cost of the fuel you could offset car emissions to make transportation carbon neutral. Seems quite cheap if that's the case.

<comment><USER8> That was achieved by placing the scrubber directly on the coal plant's exhaust stack.

<comment><USER7> This particular solution doesn't scale (most power isn't geothermal and we should just offline coal entirely) but the fact that we're already in the ballpark is at least promising.

<comment><USER9> but it does create options for a lot of countries lucky enough to have geothermal resources ie, those around the pacific rim, NE africa, east coast US and Italy.

not a lot of driver for domestic electricity production but carbon capture is a world-wide market...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think calling it a 'plant' may be deceptive. The picture makes it look like a package the size of a dumpster, not quite the size of a shipping container.

Is the byproduct (not sure if it's purified gas or a solid compound) of any industrial or material use?

<comment><USER11> > Is the byproduct (not sure if it's purified gas or a solid compound) of any > industrial or material use?

No. The byproduct is injected back into the ground to be remineralized, hopefully locked up to prevent its re-release into the atmosphere.

EDIT: If you used the byproduct in another process where it eventually would make its way back into the atmosphere, the process would no longer be carbon negative.

"This month, Climeworks installed a unit that captures carbon dioxide directly from the air and transfers it to CarbFix to inject underground. Because CarbFix has been monitoring the injection sites for the last three years, they can be sure there will be no leakage. And once mineralized, the CO2 will remain trapped for thousands or millions of years. This makes the Climeworks- CarbFix system the world's first verified "negative emissions" plant."

<comment><USER12> You can sequester the carbon in a product and still be able to use it without releasing it to the atmosphere.

For example you can sequester the CO2 in limestone which is a useful building material.

<comment><USER13> Limestone (calcium carbonate) is even easy to make. You can make it "at home" by dissolving unslaked lime (calcium oxide) in water and blowing bubbles in it with a straw.

The real problem is that calcium oxide is usually converted from limestone via massive calcining, which releases... CO2.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Out of curiosity, we would need ~500 of these stations in their current form to offset a typical coal power plant (7.5 thousand tons co2/ year, a claim from Climework's about video, v. 3.5 million tons co2 / year), or about 5-6 million stations to offset global co2 yearly emission (40-45 billion tons co2/ year).

<comment><USER15> ...at the current efficiency levels. Note that this is only their second installation, so don't expect any miracles. The technology will improve, I'm sure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm not that familiar with this sort of thing, but my thinking has always been that:

If we could theoretically terraform some other planet, why can't similar things be done on earth to improve our atmosphere?

Especially now w/ renewable energy at historically low prices.

My fear is that once this kind of technology is deployed at scale, it could make industry far too complacent again.

<comment><USER17> The problem is that "terraforming another planet" is stuff that young men who are impressionable read in science fiction, it isn't reality. We can't terraform another planet. We haven't even successfully run a fully-enclosed self-sustaining ecosystem capable of supporting human life on earth. We have never sent anyone to another planet, and the rocket equation highly constrains interplanetary transportation, let along radiation shielded interplanetary transportation capable of sending humans.

We will _never_ terraform Mars, I doubt a human will ever set foot there. I doubt we'll even survive as an advanced species for 200 more years.

We actually _have_ every bit of necessary technology to sustainably run something very close to modern society, and we are too stupid collectively do fix terrestrial political problems. We don't even need to terraform our own planet, we just have to stop digging up coal and pumping up oil and burning it. No wasteful and inefficient "negative emission" stupidness is necessary. This is like "clean coal". It's something that very, very wealthy people that make money from oil and coal bring up to essentially troll the populace, and distract them from the problem until we're as close to the brink as possible.

I'm sorry to be depressing, but this magical thinking about sending people to Mars and terraforming planets is counterproductive.

edit: I take it back, we can terraform a planet. The sum total of human activity for 150 years has warmed the Earth few degrees (though they are a critical few degrees)

<comment><USER18> I can understand the "We'll never terraform Mars" argument. (It's certainly a looooong ways off if we ever even start. I suspect there's not much value in it.)

But never landing a human on Mars seems like a bad bet to me. With Musk/SpaceX pushing for it, and our history of landing rovers there, it seems like putting some people on Mars, however briefly, is in our future. I'm curious why you feel this way.

<comment><USER17> The energy for the trip, the return trip, the duration, and weight requirements associated with radiation shield are why I'm skeptical. It's technically possibly, certainly. So is switching to a 100% solar fueled grid. But I hate to be to pessimistic: I'm older than average here, and I would feel unbelievably privileged to witness humans landing on Mars. I hope it happens.

<comment><USER19> Idk how old you are, but I suspect within the next 20-30 years we will be deploying robots that turn the iron, soil, etc. On Mars into a plastic, resin, metal-frameworks, fuel and water. From there robots can build some facilities or at least materials and humans can land in a pre-constructed environment.

I dont know about a return trip though, but I do think long term inhabitation is possible. Especially, with our advances in robotics, genetics, and medicine.

Also remember it takes a lot less to launch a rocket off of Mars. For instance, you only need 33 tons of propellant to get an 18 ton MAV off the ground[1]

[1] [http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/10/151002-mars- missi...](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/10/151002-mars-mission-nasa- return-space/)

<comment><USER17> I should make it, then. I hope you're right! I hope we solve ground level problems, first.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Oh great, now people will start refuting the need for trees.</comment>


The Security Flag in the IPv4 Header (2003) - <AUTHOR> https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3514.txt

<comment><AUTHOR>
       0x1  If the bit is set to 1, the packet has evil intent.  Secure
            systems SHOULD try to defend themselves against such packets.
            Insecure systems MAY chose to crash, be penetrated, etc.

:)</comment>


Add email submit form embedded in your Medium posts - <AUTHOR> https://upscri.be/ <comment><AUTHOR> I first noticed this on the bottom of this post: [https://bullshit.ist/welcome-to-your-2025-drivers-test- cab16...](https://bullshit.ist/welcome-to-your-2025-drivers-test- cab1677287af#.yvsv80txm)

I wonder how they got this to work - are they owned by medium?</comment>


Ask HN: I am an intern - <AUTHOR>

I am an intern and was told I was not going to be a long term employee. I do not really get any more projects to work on, yet they extended my contract while I look for another job. I dont really do any but study on my own during work. I am confused if I should stay until the extension is over or should I just leave? * cant really stand the people here * Please help. <comment><USER2> It is much easier to find more work if you already have work.

Stay there. Ask for feedback on your performance and use your time to address weaknesses that they saw.

</comment><comment><USER3> Sounds like they are helping you out by giving you breathing room to find another gig. Assuming they are paying you I would use your time to find other work quickly as it will get old quickly for both parties.

</comment><comment><USER4> Are they paying? Then stay until you find another job. Otherwise, just leave now.</comment>


Tesla's Solar Roof Is Finally Ready for You to Buy - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-10/tesla-s-solar-roof-is-finally-ready-for-you-to-buy <comment><USER2> > _Elon Musk says orders will begin today. Pricing details have yet to be > revealed_

How does that work?

</comment><comment><USER3> This is cool but is it effective in any way?

<comment><USER4> huh? have you read the article?</comment></comment>


Facebook already has a muslim registry, and it should be deleted - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/12/facebook-should-delete-the-muslim-registry-it-already-has/ <comment><USER2> Pointless article. Sounds like an idea hatched over breakfast and published before lunch.

Profile information was supplied voluntarily by people signing up to FB. That it "might" be used in the future in some way approaching the author's alarmist views, is not a good reason to go around now demanding deletion of specific profile information.

<comment><USER3> Why should they persist it in the first place?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> We should just remove all markers of ethnicity completely.

I dont feel comfortable with the fact that others may end up building a database and knowing that I'm polish and make a mean sausage

<comment><USER5> I don't feel comfortable with many of the lists Facebook is building. I don't want my ethnicity, job status, or daily updates collected so I do my best not to participate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Aggregated lists lead to discrimination, profiling, and tyranny. Or unwanted and unsolicited marketing...

Funny how some people are all for gun owners (illegally) being maintained on a federal register, but ethnic or religious groups, not so much. I have been discussing this issue with my circle of influence since 1992.

It is illustrative of how some groups would use lists against the individual, but only bad if it is against their political authoritarian goals. Shoe on the other foot, and all that.

</comment><comment><USER7> "They trust me, dumb fucks"</comment>


A list of over 4000 fintech startups and companies - <AUTHOR> https://drive.google.com/open?id=1akR9F_JfVEvOleXn_mUB9hKmmtm5-1V8iQmhAWTqTc8 <comment><USER2> Being serious here: What exactly is a "fintech" company? Every financial company on earth that isn't in someone's backyard is at-heart now purely technological (computers, algos, tracking, databases, etc.). So what makes a "fintech" company? Is it a super _ultra_ technological bank?

In summary, what are fintech companies exactly doing?

Part of me believes it's the new version of "crypto-", but i will hold my breath.

<comment><USER3> The definition seems to be wide. My 'fintech' startup [0] focuses on automated bookkeeping, but depending on who you ask, automated bookkeeping is or is not regarded financial technology.

[0] [https://parsey.nl](https://parsey.nl)

<comment><USER4> Nearly same boat here. We're based in Frankfurt where everyone is talking about FinTech so its natural to call our Accounting/Bookkeeping/Billing AI Startup [0] a Fintech, but to me initially the term was reserved for startups that process creditcards or do algotrading. I'm content now to use the term as long as its helpful.

[0] [https://www.fastbill.com](https://www.fastbill.com)

<comment><USER5> This is off topic. But what do you use to generate the api documentation? It's very clean, love it.

[https://www.fastbill.com/api/fastbill/en/fundamentals.html#i...](https://www.fastbill.com/api/fastbill/en/fundamentals.html#intro)

<comment><USER4> This was a homegrown solution by a student that worked for us. It's not auto generated and quite frankly painful to maintain as it just generates this html in php via parsing xml files. We're looking for alternatives at the moment too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Thanks for the list! I'm working on a service [1] that has many customers in the finance and insurance space, so these are some great leads. Your list of insurance startups [2] is also really helpful.

Here's the folder containing lists of startups in many other categories [3].

[1] [https://formapi.io/](https://formapi.io/)

[2] [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KnEcpYOuLl2d9k9wjWIg...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KnEcpYOuLl2d9k9wjWIgbaencKpoBfaXs- QoGoIGovk/edit)

[3] [https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1fURgn2ulbqz3H6inuio_...](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1fURgn2ulbqz3H6inuio_xknhKzqM3sHk)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thank you all for your thoughts.

Thank you for your submissions soon your startups will be added to all relevant lists.

Anyone can add their startup by [https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSezN1Ipnj9GrFPGYqAg...](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSezN1Ipnj9GrFPGYqAgFn3cTWlpCF8t_SIYmF07AHVmemNc3Q/viewform?usp=sf_link)

Startup lists by "Location" are coming soon. Keep checking for more lists and updates on your favourite one [https://drive.google.com/open?id=1-CjBzfvjlKROXpnuFWiIwxrDyi...](https://drive.google.com/open?id=1-CjBzfvjlKROXpnuFWiIwxrDyimx3Elz)

Pankaj

</comment><comment><USER7> Startups by category: [https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1HS_SL6tbbRrAoTrA72Ko...](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1HS_SL6tbbRrAoTrA72KoLY9FF6uyxNjI)

Investors: [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1c3motcInTen- jGBBwtp_...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1c3motcInTen- jGBBwtp_fBntrWq26NdxkPzyt7-W8bY/edit#gid=2129198371)

An interesting resource and huge undertaking. A radically libre approach to Mattermark's vision. Thanks Pankaj.

<comment><AUTHOR> You've keen eyes. I feel like I know you. Simply Thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Nice to see nCino on here, which is the company I work at. We're hiring by the way: [https://www.ncino.com/culture-careers/job- openings](https://www.ncino.com/culture-careers/job-openings)

</comment><comment><USER9> Funny enough my non-fintech failed (shuttered) company is listed here, but my more-or-less fintech company that's actually profitable and raised a bunch of money isn't listed.

Probably because we concentrated more on PR/Press on the first one...

</comment><comment><USER10> This is a great list! If I were you I would make it into a website and add some basic filtering capabilities. Also, filtering by category in each list would be interesting.

</comment><comment><USER11> I am new to this forum and wondering what are the benefits for a startup to add themselves to a list like this? can someone please enlighten me? Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER12> Nice List. You missed Itiviti which has its office in the same building as Cinnober.

</comment><comment><USER13> Amazing work. I am sure it will help some people in need for leads or ideas.

<comment><AUTHOR> Glad to hear that It will help.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Nice job! It would be nice to filter options (by location or services).

<comment><USER15> Ctrl-f

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> How would I download this? On my 2015 MBP it slows to a crawl.

<comment><USER7> Unfortunately the author has not made it available for download. Would be interested to hear his comment on this decision.

<comment><USER17> You can download it. It's just Google's weird UI. Click on "more spreadsheets", then go into the folder called startups or whatever, then the fintech folder, then click on the fintech spreadsheet once, then the '3 dots' at the top and "Make a copy" and it'll copy the file to your own Drive where you can download or edit to your heart's content.

<comment><USER7> Good find, thank you.

Can't help but think this is a flaw in Google's copy protection implementation, given that copy/pasting and exporting within the spreadsheet itself are disabled.

<comment><USER17> Yeah, I'm not sure - Google's UI doesn't make it clear (to me, at least). I'm assuming the original link is just a special "view only" link that takes the menu bar away.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> EveryDollar (4074) is in the Nashville area

</comment><comment><USER19> This is a great list. Kudos to the author.

</comment><comment><USER20> When all the smart people are working in finance, we are fucked as a society.</comment>


Neovim newsletter #8 - <AUTHOR> https://neovim.io/news/2017/12/ <comment><AUTHOR> Personally I'm most existed about the remote UI api, along the other features, that neovim is offering. I think I've used neovim since even the first release it had and just love it. It has been nice to follow the development and participate the discussion and experiment with the features neovim offers (notably the remote UI api).</comment>


Apple employees are reportedly walking into walls at the new glass office - rwx<comment> https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/16/apple-employees-are-reportedly-walking-into-walls-at-the-companys-fancy-new-glass-office/ </comment><comment><AUTHOR> People keep walking directly into the glass door. What's new here?</comment>


The Case for the Fat Start-Up - <AUTHOR> http://voices.allthingsd.com/20100317/the-case-for-the-fat-startup

<comment><USER2> Excellent post. In the parameter-space of all startups, there do exist cases for capital-efficient startups that do raise and deploy significant funding.</comment>


Ask HN: Material on early computing history and innovation? - <AUTHOR> I am not old enough to have lived through this part of history, but as I age, I realize the value in experience as it relates to understanding something (i.e. historical events). Recognizing the value in many of the concepts I use today, I believe, would be better reading more about the history - what was computing life like decades ago, what limitations were there, and what did programmers have to think about when building systems?
I searched HN and only found this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15865504
Are there any books, lectures, or other detailed materials that would help me and the younger crowd learn more? For example, a detailed discussion of PDP-11 or other systems.
I'm technical (PhD in CS) but realize my history is weak, and would very much enjoy reading a balance of technical details with a broader perspective on the impact. <comment><USER2> Walter Isaacson, The Innovators is a great book

</comment><comment><USER3> I can give you the names of a handful of books that might be useful. Some are more technical, some less so. Some are more about personalities, some about the business aspects of things, some more about the actual technology. I don't really have time to try and categorize them all, so here's a big dump of the ones I have and/or am familiar with that seem at least somewhat related.

 _The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering_ \- [https://www.amazon.com/Mythical-Man-Month-Software- Engineeri...](https://www.amazon.com/Mythical-Man-Month-Software-Engineering- Anniversary/dp/0201835959/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=fred+brooks&qid=1595010976&s=books&sr=1-1)

 _Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution_ \- [https://www.amazon.com/Hackers-Computer-Revolution-Steven- Le...](https://www.amazon.com/Hackers-Computer-Revolution-Steven- Levy/dp/1449388396/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=hackers+heroes&qid=1595010072&s=books&sr=1-1)

 _The Cuckoo 's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage_ \- [https://www.amazon.com/Cuckoos-Egg-Tracking-Computer- Espiona...](https://www.amazon.com/Cuckoos-Egg-Tracking-Computer- Espionage/dp/1416507787/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=cuckoo%27s+egg&qid=1595010272&s=books&sr=1-1)

 _Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet_ \- [https://www.amazon.com/Where-Wizards-Stay-Up- Late/dp/0684832...](https://www.amazon.com/Where-Wizards-Stay-Up- Late/dp/0684832674/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2VVOETG6ECK3Y&dchild=1&keywords=where+wizards+stay+up+late&qid=1595008923&s=books&sprefix=where+wizards+%2Cstripbooks%2C192&sr=1-1)

 _Open: How Compaq Ended IBM 's PC Domination and Helped Invent Modern Computing_ \- [https://www.amazon.com/Open-Compaq-Domination-Helped- Computi...](https://www.amazon.com/Open-Compaq-Domination-Helped- Computing/dp/1937856992/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=open+how+compaq&qid=1595009400&s=books&sr=1-1)

 _Decline and Fall of the American Programmer_ \- [https://www.amazon.com/Decline-American-Programmer- Yourdon-1...](https://www.amazon.com/Decline-American-Programmer- Yourdon-1993-06-16/dp/B01FKSGVQ8/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=decline+and+fall+of+the+american+programmer&qid=1595011243&s=books&sr=1-1)

 _Rise and Resurrection of the American Programmer_ \- [https://www.amazon.com/dp/013121831X/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&key...](https://www.amazon.com/dp/013121831X/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=rise+and+resurrection+yourdon&qid=1595011380&s=books&sr=1-1)

 _Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition, and Still Can 't Get a Date_ \- [https://www.amazon.com/Robert-X- Cringely/dp/0887308554/ref=s...](https://www.amazon.com/Robert-X- Cringely/dp/0887308554/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2U1MSOCMFGBLX&dchild=1&keywords=accidental+empires+by+robert+x.+cringely&qid=1595011791&s=books&sprefix=accidental+empires%2Cstripbooks%2C216&sr=1-1)

 _Softwar: An Intimate Portrait of Larry Ellison and Oracle_ \- [https://www.amazon.com/Softwar-Intimate-Portrait-Ellison- Ora...](https://www.amazon.com/Softwar-Intimate-Portrait-Ellison- Oracle/dp/0743225058/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=softwar+ellison&qid=1595009420&s=books&sr=1-1)

 _Winners, Losers & Microsoft_ \- [https://www.amazon.com/Winners-Losers- Microsoft-Competition-...](https://www.amazon.com/Winners-Losers-Microsoft- Competition- Independent/dp/0945999801/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=winners+losers+and+microsoft&qid=1595009438&s=books&sr=1-1)

 _Microsoft Secrets_ \- [https://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Secrets- audiobook/dp/B019G2...](https://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Secrets- audiobook/dp/B019G2YO7M/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=microsoft+secrets&qid=1595009457&s=books&sr=1-1)

 _The Friendly Orange Glow: The Untold Story of the PLATO System and the Dawn of Cyberculture_ \- [https://www.amazon.com/The-Friendly-Orange-Glow- audiobook/dp...](https://www.amazon.com/The-Friendly-Orange-Glow- audiobook/dp/B0777XSZKW/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=friendly+orange+glow&qid=1595009476&s=books&sr=1-1)

 _Troublemakers: Silicon Valley 's Coming of Age_ \- [https://www.amazon.com/Troublemakers-Silicon-Valleys- Coming-...](https://www.amazon.com/Troublemakers-Silicon-Valleys-Coming- Age/dp/1451651511/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=troublemakers+silicon&qid=1595009493&s=books&sr=1-1)

 _Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire_ \- [https://www.amazon.com/Hard-Drive-Making-Microsoft- Empire/dp...](https://www.amazon.com/Hard-Drive-Making-Microsoft- Empire/dp/0887306292/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=hard+drive+bill+gates&qid=1595009517&s=books&sr=1-1)

 _Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture_ \- [https://www.amazon.com/Masters-Doom-Created-Transformed- Cult...](https://www.amazon.com/Masters-Doom-Created-Transformed- Culture/dp/0812972155/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=masters+of+doom&qid=1595009533&s=books&sr=1-1)

 _The Supermen: The Story of Seymour Cray and The Technical Wizards Behind the Supercomputer_ \- [https://www.amazon.com/Supermen-Seymour-Technical-Wizards- Su...](https://www.amazon.com/Supermen-Seymour-Technical-Wizards- Supercomputer/dp/0471048852/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=the+supermen+seymour&qid=1595009554&s=books&sr=1-1)

 _Bitwise: A Life in Code_ \- [https://www.amazon.com/Bitwise-Life-Code-David- Auerbach/dp/1...](https://www.amazon.com/Bitwise-Life-Code-David- Auerbach/dp/1101972149/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=bitwise+life+in+code&qid=1595009570&s=books&sr=1-1)

 _Gates_ \- [https://www.amazon.com/Gates-Microsofts-Reinvented- Industry-...](https://www.amazon.com/Gates-Microsofts-Reinvented-Industry- Himself/dp/0671880748/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=%22gates%22+paul+andrews&qid=1595009629&s=books&sr=1-1)

 _We Are The Nerds_ \- [https://www.amazon.com/We-Are-Nerds- audiobook/dp/B07H5Q5JGS/...](https://www.amazon.com/We-Are-Nerds- audiobook/dp/B07H5Q5JGS/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=we+are+the+nerds&qid=1595009644&s=books&sr=1-1)

 _A People 's History of Computing In The United States_ \- [https://www.amazon.com/Peoples-History-Computing-United- Stat...](https://www.amazon.com/Peoples-History-Computing-United- States/dp/0674970977/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=people%27s+history+of+computing&qid=1595009661&s=books&sr=1-1)

 _Fire In The Valley: The Birth and Death of the Personal Computer_ \- [https://www.amazon.com/Fire-in-Valley- audiobook/dp/B071YYZJG...](https://www.amazon.com/Fire-in-Valley- audiobook/dp/B071YYZJG5/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=fire+in+the+valley&qid=1595009680&s=books&sr=1-1)

 _How The Internet Happened: From Netscape to the iPhone_ \- [https://www.amazon.com/How-Internet-Happened-Netscape- iPhone...](https://www.amazon.com/How-Internet-Happened-Netscape- iPhone/dp/1631493078/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=how+the+internet+happened&qid=1595009697&s=books&sr=1-1)

 _Steve Jobs_ \- [https://www.amazon.com/Steve-Jobs-Walter- Isaacson/dp/1451648...](https://www.amazon.com/Steve-Jobs-Walter- Isaacson/dp/1451648537/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=jobs+isaacson&qid=1595009754&s=books&sr=1-1)

 _The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation_ \- [https://www.amazon.com/Idea-Factory-Great-American- Innovatio...](https://www.amazon.com/Idea-Factory-Great-American- Innovation/dp/0143122797/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=idea+factory&qid=1595009769&s=books&sr=1-1)

 _Coders_ \- [https://www.amazon.com/Coders-Making-Tribe-Remaking- World/dp...](https://www.amazon.com/Coders-Making-Tribe-Remaking- World/dp/0735220565/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=coders&qid=1595010398&s=books&sr=1-1)

 _Dreaming in Code: Two Dozen Programmers, Three Years, 4,732 Bugs, and One Quest for Transcendent Software_ \- [https://www.amazon.com/Dreaming-in-Code- Scott-Rosenberg-audi...](https://www.amazon.com/Dreaming-in-Code-Scott- Rosenberg- audiobook/dp/B00AQ5DOCA/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=dreaming+in+code&qid=1595010517&s=books&sr=1-1)

 _The Pentagon 's Brain: An Uncensored History of DARPA, America's Top-Secret Military Research Agency_ \- [https://www.amazon.com/Pentagons-Brain- Uncensored-Americas-T...](https://www.amazon.com/Pentagons-Brain-Uncensored- Americas-Top- Secret/dp/0316371661/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=darpa&qid=1595010561&s=books&sr=1-1)

 _The Imagineers of War: The Untold Story of DARPA, the Pentagon Agency That Changed the World_ \- [https://www.amazon.com/Imagineers-War-Untold-Pentagon- Change...](https://www.amazon.com/Imagineers-War-Untold-Pentagon- Changed/dp/0804169721/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=darpa&qid=1595010618&s=books&sr=1-2)

 _The Technical and Social History of Software Engineering_ \- [https://www.amazon.com/Technical-Social-History-Software- Eng...](https://www.amazon.com/Technical-Social-History-Software- Engineering/dp/0321903420/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=history+of+software+engineering&qid=1595010761&s=books&sr=1-2)

Also...

"The Mother of All Demos" by Doug Englebart - [https://youtu.be/yJDv- zdhzMY](https://youtu.be/yJDv-zdhzMY)

"Jobs vs Gates" \- [https://www.amazon.com/Jobs-Vs-Gates-Hippie- Nerd/dp/B077KB96...](https://www.amazon.com/Jobs-Vs-Gates-Hippie- Nerd/dp/B077KB96MC/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=pirates+of+silicon+valley&qid=1595009886&s=movies- tv&sr=1-2)

"Welcome to Macintosh" \- [https://www.amazon.com/Welcome-Macintosh-Guy- Kawasaki/dp/B00...](https://www.amazon.com/Welcome-Macintosh-Guy- Kawasaki/dp/B00E9Q2GG2/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=pirates+of+silicon+valley&qid=1595009886&s=movies- tv&sr=1-3)

"Pirates of Silicon Valley" \- [https://www.amazon.com/Pirates-Silicon-Valley- Noah-Wyle/dp/B...](https://www.amazon.com/Pirates-Silicon-Valley-Noah- Wyle/dp/B0009NSCS0/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=pirates+of+silicon+valley&qid=1595009886&s=movies- tv&sr=1-4)

"Jobs" \- [https://www.amazon.com/Jobs-Ashton- Kutcher/dp/B00GME2NCG/ref...](https://www.amazon.com/Jobs-Ashton- Kutcher/dp/B00GME2NCG/ref=sr_1_5?dchild=1&keywords=pirates+of+silicon+valley&qid=1595009886&s=movies- tv&sr=1-5)

And while not a documentary, or meant to be totally historically accurate, the TV show "Halt and Catch Fire" captures a lot of the _feel_ of the early days of the PC era, through to the advent of the Internet era.

[https://www.amazon.com/I-O/dp/B00KCXJCEK/ref=sr_1_1?crid=U6Z...](https://www.amazon.com/I-O/dp/B00KCXJCEK/ref=sr_1_1?crid=U6Z2PPRSDD0R&dchild=1&keywords=halt+and+catch+fire&qid=1595009969&s=movies- tv&sprefix=halt+and+c%2Cmovies-tv%2C188&sr=1-1)

And there's a ton of Macintosh history stuff captured at:

[https://www.folklore.org/](https://www.folklore.org/)

</comment><comment><USER4> This unfortunately is not the most studied field. The level of expertise to make meaningful contributions requires being a skilled computer scientist and historian.

The best surveys available are by Paul Ceruzzi[0], as far as I know. Even this is lacking a bit because it focuses unduly on more recent business developments like Microsoft's monopoly and the emergence of Linux. These topics don't have much to do with the long development of computers themselves I would say. One also begins in 1940, after a fair amount of interesting history has already passed.

If you're looking for a more experimental approach, I would say you can focus on just studying a few machines in-depth and glean quite a bit of the main thread. For examples:

1\. Babbage's analytical machine and Lovelace's contributions. The birth of computing was really a meeting of two minds. Babbage's machine was such an oddity I think he had trouble imagining all of the possibilities himself. Lovelace really does deserve quite a bit of credit for her collaboration, and she really transformed Babbage's crank wheel calculator into the sort of algorithmic processor we know today.

2\. The IBM 360. It's ubiquity in the mainframe means there are still plenty running in the wild, which is not something you can say about most computers from that era. IBM's foothold in the expensive hardware business meant that they effectively controlled the software business as well. It's hard to exaggerate how closed computing was during this era.

3\. The PDP-7 through the PDP-11. If the 360 was when computing became mainstream and closed, the PDP-11 was when it proliferated. The PDP-11 was when trends in time sharing, price, and computer science converged. The C language and Unix-like systems we know and love today, including all of their derivatives, could not have been born earlier without this specific machine.

My suggestion would be to read a general survey, and if you are still interested and curious, find some of the original documentation and handbooks for the computers of the era you are most interested in. A surprising amount of emulators exist for any pivotal computer of the past like those 3 that I mentioned.[1] Programming them is an exercise in humility and appreciation for how far computers have come.

Finally, I would suggest going to visit one of the old machines in person. The Computer History Museum[2] has many still working exhibitions, but if traveling to Mountain View is too far, there are still many working examples scattered around the world in universities and private collections. The tangles of wires, dim hums, and clicking terminals are precious experiences.

The history of just memory is equally fascinating[3], but I think I've said enough here.

Good luck and have fun!

[0] [https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/history-modern-computing- seco...](https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/history-modern-computing-second- edition) or [https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/computing-1](https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/computing-1)

[1] This PDP-11 emulator is a treat for the simulation of the case and it's buttons. [https://skn.noip.me/pdp11/pdp11.html](https://skn.noip.me/pdp11/pdp11.html)

[2] [https://computerhistory.org](https://computerhistory.org)

[3] For example, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delay_line_memory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delay_line_memory)</comment>


Stupid Patent of the Month: LLC Gets a Patent on Sending Texts - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/12/stupid-patent-month-motivational-health-messaging-llc-gets-patent-sending <comment><USER2> Approve-bot for the patent office or workers that haven't been outside for 20+ years?

How does this even happen? BoA awarded atomic swap patent this month as well I'd read.</comment>


Carriers Must End Absurd Intl Data Roaming Fees, Before Apple Does It for Them - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@salsita/carriers-need-to-end-absurd-international-data-roaming-charges-5cb808343ee1

<comment><USER2> > Of course there is no real technical justification for roaming data charges > that are many multiples of domestic prices.

No, but there are "technical justification" for why they charge more: It costs them more.

Operating on a first party cell tower is significantly cheaper than operating on someone else's as a guest. Not only in the literal sense, but also the cost of tracking it, and setting up the contracts initially in 190+ countries.

However things are improving massively in the last few years. T-Mobile in the US now gives you free international roaming at 56K modem speeds (no overage), and 4G speeds for only a relatively small fee. AT&T's data roaming packages (that now include unlimited texts) aren't bad either.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fair point about setup costs, but the marginal cost (which is what really counts over the long term) is negligeable in both cases.

Things are improving as I say in the piece, but it's worth noting that here in the Czech Republic I still have to pay nearly $200 for a month of data roaming in the US with a 200Mb cap. And that's if I go to the trouble of signing up for a special roaming plan, otherwise I could easily spent 10x that.</comment></comment>


A Biofuel Dream Gone Bad - <AUTHOR> http://fortune.com/kior-vinod-khosla-clean-tech/ <comment><USER2> I worked for a competing biofuel company and our story reads very similarly to Kior's. Aside from the internal problems that everyone has, the price of a barrel of oil moving from $100 when we were founded to $180 while we were fundraising to $60 while we were trying to commercialize just wrecked our story and business model. Nice article though. I'm nostalgic and tempted to try again focused purely on speciality chemicals.

<comment><USER3> Do you think there is a case for developing 'proof of concept' pilot plants with subsidy even if the price of oil is so low that there would be no commercial business that could be carried on?

Just so that if/when things change in the future the technology is well known?

(I'm in UK, politics around subsidies a bit different)

<comment><USER2> Honestly, that's just about what's happened.. All of the companies in the biofuel world (KiOR, Solazyme, Amyris, Aurora, Algenol, Joule, Sapphire) spent a ton of money -- I think everyone on that list blew through >$100M -- to develop the technology and get to the pilot level. They all failed trying to commercialize.

The technology still exists in the form of IP held by the investors, so if the economics ever make sense again, it would be a much shorter route to commercialization than the first time around.

We absolutely have the ability to make large amounts of energy from algae, cyanobacteria, cellulose, etc. Given a few hundred million in CapEx to get a plant off the ground and a few tens of million in working capital, most of those companies break even with usable fuel at ~$150/bbl. If you relocated the facilities to a low-cost-of-living area and started with, say $1B, you could likely produce for ~$100/bbl. Unfortunately, the return will be very low and unstable based on global energy prices. The pitfalls of producing a volatile commodity.

Another random thought is that we were seeing immense progress in the quality of work out of Asia for engineering and construction for the facilities. It's _expensive_ to put steel and concrete in the ground, shockingly so for many SV investors, but the quality was quickly improving out of China / Thailand for custom-engineered oil/gas processing equipment. Assuming this continues to improve, the future costs will be much lower.

<comment><USER3> OA did mention many companies failing but not in the detail you have in your first paragraph.

Your last paragraph suggests that amortization of the capital used to build the plant is a major factor in the cost per barrel of oil-equivalent. Historically in UK, we have had subsidy (and insolvency!) to offset capital costs for canals, railways, some roads, and some of the _early_ electricity generation (pre-Nationalisation). There have been 'public-private' partnerships since (i.e. taxpayer takes a chunk of risk) some of which have worked and some of which have been more questionable.

Good luck!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "The result was a relative preponderance of lab researchers with Ph.D.s and a dearth of people with technical, operational experience running energy facilities. "

Yep. But the plummet in energy prices alone would have doomed it.

<comment><USER5> So the failure was due to circumstances Kior could not have controlled, yet:

'"In the suit, Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood described KiOR as "one of the largest frauds ever perpetrated on the State of Mississippi."'

Something doesn't add up here. The loan was only for $75m, and by this account the founder put in much more than that in his own money.

It sounds like MS took a gamble they weren't prepared for and are now trying to get what they can out of it. Fraud doesn't seem to enter into it, but maybe that's just the bias of the article I'm picking up one.

<comment><USER2> You've got it.. The state help (we looked at it as well) involves making tech predictions about where your yields will be and your cost structure will be in 3-5 years... It's nearly impossible to get these projections right, and the companies are obviously optimistic so when the numbers come up short, it looks like they were lying. I highly doubt there was any actual fraud. It won't matter anyway, the whole point of running a business is to shield the investors from liability, none of our (smaller) incentives ever involved guarantees from investors.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I see a pattern in the article. The pattern seems to apply to the writers of the article and also Khosla and his firm.

The pattern: Hover about 100,000 feet above reality where really can't tell the difference between a horse, cow, or bison. Can't tell the difference between a Model T and a current Chevy SUV. Instead, just look at really simple, crude, external things and ignore the complicated, internal, crucial, core things. Like trying to learn how to build a rocket to go to Mars by watching all the episodes of _Star Trek_ or all movies of _Star Wars_. Like trying to learn auto engineering by watching NASCAR races on TV.

Silicon Valley has managed to get by with this view from 100,000 feet because of some special considerations, but in general for engineering, applied research, and advanced technology that 100,000 foot view doesn't work. Instead, details matter, right down to the last nut, bolt, washer, wire, switch, light, clamp, tube, weld, etc.

Silicon Valley? Okay: A startup is based on software. The hardware and systems software are rock solid and standard. Clearly there is _traction_ , significantly high and growing rapidly. The product/service is clearly for a large market. The technology is clearly highly scalable by routine means.

All the technical parts are just routine software that can be done by a major fraction of the software developers in Silicon Valley. Nothing else looks bad.

There are several founders, each male, each with a pregnant wife. The founders are desperate for some cash and are eager to sign a term sheet with some really onerous terms, things like claw backs, cram downs, liquidity preferences, pro rata rights, with four year vesting of the stock by the founders, and where the BoD is dominated by the venture investors and can fire anyone in the company for any reason or no reason before their stock is vested. So, presto, bingo, invest. Biofuels are very different. Sorry Vinod.

</comment><comment><USER7> Fuel from cellulose has been around from a long time, back to WWII. It works, but it's always been a marginal technology economically. Around 2012, lots of companies seemed to be building plants, and some of them even started up.[1] But few seem to break even.

It's frustrating that this doesn't work well, since most plants are powered by agricultural waste (stalks, cobs, etc.) that is already being produced and just has to be collected. However, it's good to know this can be done, since someday, oil will run out.

[1] [http://www.renewableenergymagazine.com/article/abengoa- celeb...](http://www.renewableenergymagazine.com/article/abengoa-celebrates- first-commercialscale-next-generation-biofuel-20141020)</comment>


Pure 0.5.0 – Get Started with Grids - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/yui/pure/releases <comment><USER2> I've been using Pure for a few months now and really like it. Design and organizing CSS aren't my forte and Pure is small, light and easy to extend. I don't use their grid system because I prefer grid mixins[0] over grid classes, but the rest of Pure is really a pleasure to use. It's nice to see the project gaining adoption, back during Pure 0.2 I was worried it might be abandoned.

0 - [http://neat.bourbon.io/](http://neat.bourbon.io/)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Pure core contributor here. Thanks for the kind words fellas. There are still some rough edges in Pure, especially around extending Menus but that's next on our list of things to tackle.

</comment><comment><USER3> After 3 projects in a row on Bootstrap I started using Pure about a month ago, and like the clean, un-opinionated approach. It's been especially useful for learning more about SASS and responsive layout without having to override a bunch of Bootstrap's defaults.

</comment><comment><USER4> I just used Pure for the first time on a small Flask site I'm building and it's been great. Love it as an alternative to bootstrap.

Not wanting to spend a ton of time designing the site (yet), but also wanting to keep it small, made Pure the perfect fit.

</comment><comment><USER5> I love Pure. If you are looking for a lightweight less-intrusive alternative to Bootstrap you should try it, or even to replace part of it.

<comment><USER6> Can you expound re: "less intrusive?"

My impression of Pure the first time was that it was a bit verbose to do what Bootstrap can do with a col-sm-3 for example. I do like the fraction-based grid though and perhaps verbosity is the price I have to accept to have that.

<comment><AUTHOR> With the new Get Started page [1], you can change the class names for the grid columns. Here's an example. [2]

[1] [http://purecss.io/start/](http://purecss.io/start/) [2] [http://purecss.io/start/?cols=12&prefix=.col-&sm=35.5em&md=4...](http://purecss.io/start/?cols=12&prefix=.col-&sm=35.5em&md=48em&lg=64em&xl=80em)

<comment><USER6> Edit: I see you can introduce a full overwrite of the classname.

Beyond that I'd say that Bootstrap includes a lot of what some might call "fluff," but take the CSS alone and I'm struggling to see the "less intrusive" part.

<comment><USER3> Markup aside, the projects take different approaches: Bootstrap is polished, opinionated defaults that can be overridden, and Pure is a minimal base to extend.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've used pure on a couple of sites and found it a pleasure to work with. I could probably do a bunch of this stuff manually, but not being a "real" front end guy it's often a surprise battle on different devices. It's nice not having to deal with this. Thanks people who did pure.

</comment><comment><USER8> Has the Firefox issue been fixed? I did not see any mention of it in the release notes.

[https://github.com/yui/pure/issues/41/](https://github.com/yui/pure/issues/41/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, that was fixed in Pure 0.4.2.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Anyone want to build an app with me? - <AUTHOR>

I would like to develop a new mobile application (hyper local information streams) and was thinking it could be cool a cool experiment to work with an absolute stranger. If interested my email is in my profile. <comment><USER2> I'm not sure exactly what you're envisioning, but I've been working (on and off) a side project that sounds very similar. The name I have is InfoStream (not Trademarked), and the domain is infostre.am (not currently in use). I will E-mail and tell you more about what I was envisioning in terms of my project, and we'll see how it matches up with your vision. If we have a match, maybe we can work on it together (or maybe I can contribute somehow). The problem I came up with was Monetization, specifically on the Twitter Platform. Twitter seems to be the best source of real time information, but when they introduced API 1.1 and the (IMO) extremely gray 1.5 rule (do not replicate the core twitter experience) I placed this project on the back burner. It just does not make sense to dedicate time to a project on a platform that will likely pull the plug [1]. In many ways, the vision I have (InfoStream) is replicating the core Twitter experience. I find Twitter's approach towards filtering data (lists) and presenting data to the user (single context feed) to be extremely weak, and ripe for innovation. Yet delivering this information is the core Twitter experience, and thus even though I think I can provide methods to deliver information better (more contextually accurate, more valuable), this is not what Twitter wants. So I end up where lots of other people have ended up; Could build something cool on Twitter, but it's just too unstable from a Developers perspective. If you can think of other Sources for real time data that are not as controlling, more trustworthy, and/or easier to Monetize, I'm open to trying a different approach. Unfortunately, I don't think Twitter is a good choice. And I am hoping that an IPO will change things (but I'm not sure).

[1] [http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130417052642-32...](http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130417052642-32720-my- worst-career-mistake-build-in-someone-else-s-garden)

</comment><comment><USER3> What is your area of expertise? Are you looking for a developer or product manager/marketer/business guy?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm really just gauging interest level in this sort of experiment. But I would say everyone is welcome. I guess in a situation where a lot of different talent came together I would act as the coordinator more then anything.

My area of expertise is full stack development from db to business logic to front end dev.

My last project was topthat.com and while it didn't get the users I was hoping for it was still a lot of fun, I learnt a lot and met a lot of great people.

I recently read the lean start-up and think there could be a market for this type of open development.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What is the degree of expertise you expect for?

<comment><AUTHOR> Anyone that want's to contribute - from just ideas to full development to marketing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Emailed you.

<comment><AUTHOR> just replied</comment></comment>


Want a webpage like mine? (1999) - <AUTHOR> https://schlachter.ca/familyweb/mine.html <comment><AUTHOR> Shows how simple a web page can be and look OK (background image excepted!). Comes with responsive CSS:

        body {
            max-width: 1024px;
            margin: 0 auto;
        }</comment>


Where is SUN  - mite-mitreski http://www.jug.mk/blogs/mite/entry/where_is_sun

<comment><AUTHOR> In hindsight, I wonder if there was a point where Sun could've acquired Oracle instead of letting vice versa happen financially speaking.

Could've Sun saved their money and thought about 1 major acquisition instead of many? Did Larry Ellison have in the back of his mind, "one day I want to acquire Sun" as he played golf with McNealy?

As a company in a declining market margin-wise, I'd want to be capitalizing on previous gains by moving into a growing market - especially with regards to complimentary products: it's all about maintaining dominance, the problem was that Sun let Oracle become more dominant than it: not that they were ever competitors, but they should never have been such friends.

Has commodity hardware with its lower profit margins and prices displaced proprietary hardware to a greater degree than open-source software has displaced closed-source software? If so, moving into software would've been the right move for Sun.

Oracle's slogan is now: "Software. Hardware. Complete."

Could've been Sun's had they moved more aggressively into Databases and Apps? But they didn't because they didn't want to be a total solution provider, the idea was to leave that to IBM and instead specialize and promote a best-of- breed model to customers and foster an ecosystem around their platform. Good for a while until the other big player in the eco-system, Oracle, becomes bigger.

ScottMcNealy.com is even owned by Oracle now.

Sun: well and truly pwned.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Oracle fully acquired Sun.

[http://www.tradingmarkets.com/news/stock- alert/orcl_oracle-a...](http://www.tradingmarkets.com/news/stock- alert/orcl_oracle-acquires-sun-microsystems-743321.html)

Larry Ellison can do as he pleases with its assets.

<comment> mite-mitreski Yes he can :)</comment></comment>


Turn any surface into a keyboard projecting from your smart device - <AUTHOR> https://hypertechx.com/ps/keylesspro/index.php?net=3404 <comment><USER2> > _No wires are getting in the way at any time._

The battery lasts only 2 hours... and takes over 3 to charge? You are going to be permanently charging it, whether using it while charging or just setting it aside while it charges, you have wires getting in the way.</comment>


Dear project managers, that's not so simple - <AUTHOR> http://anthony-tresontani.github.com/Thoughts/2012/11/08/dear_pm_thats_not_so_simple/

<comment><USER2> Utterly backwards. "We need a login page" is exactly agile; you should be taking more ownership of the product rather than being content to be a dumb code monkey following an explicit spec. Just give me high-level requirements and access to a customer to ask questions.

<comment><AUTHOR> We used to have waterfall projects where everything is specified upfront and tried to describe a system we don't know about. My point is not to go back to that but just to think deeper about the high level problem to give more directions about a solution the project manager already know about (or can ask the customer during meetings). That just try to prevent useless iterations which doesn't enhancement the solution through a better understanding of the problem but fix communication issue because people with different background don't know how to communicate.</comment></comment>


User-Built tDCS Research Device - <AUTHOR> http://speakwisdom.wordpress.com/2013/02/10/user-built-tdcs-research-device/

<comment><AUTHOR> Especially see the .doc he links to at the end of his post. [http://dl.dropbox.com/u/491815/tDCS%20Session%20Setup%20with...](http://dl.dropbox.com/u/491815/tDCS%20Session%20Setup%20with%20tDCS%20Research%20Device%20OR%20ActivaDose%20II.doc)</comment>


PyTennessee 2014 CFP 10/1/2013 - jam-python http://www.pytennessee.org/

<comment><AUTHOR> This is going to be great!</comment>


Our civilization doesn't scale - <AUTHOR> http://scripting.com/stories/2010/10/15/reaganWasASalesmanIfYouBel.html <comment><USER2> _Reagan's imagery might have worked when we lived on a mostly unexplored planet_

In the 80s, I'm pretty sure the planet was mostly explored.

<comment><USER3> It was only explored in a gross sense. As a measure of this, it's estimated that we only know of between 2/5ths and 1/15th of all species (<http://www.enviroliteracy.org/article.php/58.html>). The oceans, which comprise 95-99% of the living space on the planet by volume (Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything), are almost completely unknown. There are still places to go to get away from things.</comment></comment>


Looking for a charity or organisation to do a pro-bono website or app design. - <AUTHOR>

As a thank you to the internet for giving me the life I have now, and for many other things, I'm looking for a charity, organisation or ethical business to design a website or mobile app to increase their impact on the internet and to give something back.<p>More info here: http://blog.psdesignuk.com/posts/giving-something-back <comment><USER2> Great idea!

Clickable <http://blog.psdesignuk.com/posts/giving-something-back></comment>


Show HN: Readpiles – Create a pile of good reads - <AUTHOR> http://readpiles.com

<comment><USER2> (Unfortunately, "piles" sounds like a medical condition.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm, interesting. Thank you for the feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Bookmarked. I hope this starts seeing some more contributions.</comment>


I'm trying to be less hyperbolic - <AUTHOR> http://zackshapiro.com/post/37569825579/im-trying-to-be-less-hyperbolic

<comment><USER2> Hyperboles are great for jokes, but bad for arguments.

Many people take hyperbolic statements too literally and are quick to argue with them. By arguing the point, the person who made the statement is put on the defensive and the conversation descends into petty bickering.

Next time you are about to react to a hyperbolic statement, take a moment to consider whether the person making the statement actually believes it or is just saying it to express their feelings on the subject.

Consider the statement: "Fish is the worst food ever!" Obviously, there are worse foods, but-- do you really need argue that? Can you even win an argument about taste? Who are you really impressing by arguing about that? Also, why bother?

<comment><USER3> Haha, that rings so true. I usually spend half an argument with friends getting to the point where the 'hyperbolizer' clarifies that he or she was merely hyperbolic. But the rest of the conversation is influenced by this initial hyperbole, and usually I conclude it was probably best to let it rest and perhaps get back to it later.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "I'm trying to be less hyperbolic"...

"I'd be honored if you followed me on Twitter."

While I agree with the thesis, and I'd like to start doing so as well, that was kind of funny.

</comment><comment><USER5> I have a friend that continually exclaims "This is the <over-the-top adjective> ever!"....about everything.

It get's old when every dog you see is the cutest ever, every movie is the best ever, every thing you eat is the tastiest ever.

People really do overuse hyperbole

<comment><USER6> I don't see the problem with this - it seems to me like someone who is thoroughly enjoying life.

If you're frequently over-the-moon with joy at your meals, your movies, the animals you run across, your job, or whatever, it seems like a fundamentally _good_ state to be in.

<comment><USER3> I'd say we need more context to say anything about this friend. I have friends who are very 'hyperbolic', but seem so honest. It's like they experience things as a child, or for the first time.

I also have friends who do this, where it seems to be a mask they put on. These friends often have rather unpleasant pasts.

It's a bit like the manic pixie dream girl, to use a fascinating stereotype. I have often tried to delve deep, and it's sometimes really hard to discern the 'broken' kind from the truly 'child-like' type.

Broad strokes, I know, and please forgive me. The only point I want to make is that context is everything in this case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Oh yes, hyperbole is the worst!

<comment><USER8> Aaaand you beat me to my smartass comment... well played.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think hyperboles serve a purpose: they provide additional meta informations, generally about author's emotions. It helps to understand author's exact mind set and makes the text more enjoyable to read.

Edit: This _Everything is my fault_ blog post is a good illustration: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4895335>

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm pretty maxxed out on ingesting hyperbole from the deluge of punched-up linkbait/SEO'd articles over the past few years.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am as well

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> What I find worse than hyperbole in comments is snide criticism and rhetorical questions.

"Do you really believe that?"

"You can't possibly be serious?"

"So you're saying...[insert hyperbolic interpretation of comment]?"

etc.

</comment><comment><USER12> Instead you should try to be the LEAST HYPERBOLIC PERSON EVER

</comment><comment><USER13> I hate to be that guy, but why is this getting upvoted?

<comment><USER14> Just for fun here are the people who upload stories from jackshapiro.com, and here are the domains that kine uploads stories from.

<http://imgur.com/a/cQFWa>

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> To be less hyperbolic, recall the parabole of the... circle.

<comment><USER16> Nice touch with the ellipses...</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Alternatives to Google suite - <AUTHOR> So as a part of trying to be more "private" online. I have started moving away from Google and Microsoft.
Currently I've moved email to Fastmail instead of gmail but am stuck on an online suite for file editing and to use DuckDuckGo for search.
My current sticking point is for online file editing (a replacement for Google Sheets/Docs/etc), an obvious choice would be office 365 but am aware that's not much better in terms of privacy than Google.
Any suggestions are appreciated. <comment><USER2> Nextcloud combined with collabora code is a pretty good office suite. I have been using it for a couple months now. Nextcloud also offers several other apps that intersect googles offerings.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't think that Libre office offers online file editing, but you could use it anyways and upload to some kind of dropbox you could access from anywhere.</comment>


OpenDyslexic: An open source font designed for readers with dyslexia - <AUTHOR> https://opendyslexic.org/ <comment><USER2> > OpenDyslexic: An open source designed for readers with dyslexia

I see what you did there.</comment>


Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music - <AUTHOR> http://techno.org/electronic-music-guide/ <comment><AUTHOR> I originally stumbled on this way back in the early 2000s. Apart from being an _incredibly_ interesting and thorough look at electronic music, it was also a stunning technical achievement. I still consider it one of the best Flash web sites of all time. I wish there were equivalent sites for other genres, although I imagine electronic music is an especially good fit for this kind of presentation.

Of course, these days it could all be done in HTML5, and I wish someone updated it (given Ishkur's permission), because it would make one hell of a tablet/phone application.</comment>


Hacker News London meetup, Wednesday 10th July - <AUTHOR> http://www.meetup.com/HNLondon/events/125382282/

<comment><USER2> London is do-able for me (Newcastle), but the problem with evening events like this is getting back - having to stay in a hotel somewhere on top of the train journey makes it a pretty expensive trip. A daytime event would be much better for those of us who have to travel a long distance.

On that note, is there anyone else up in the North East interested in organizing some kind of meetup here?

<comment><USER3> Could share a twin room? I'm in Bristol.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> We also have a discourse page for any feedback/suggestions/general meetup chat - [http://discourse.hnlondon.com/](http://discourse.hnlondon.com/)

<comment><USER5> The last time I was there, I was not able to make good use of breaks to network. It was simply too crowded and it felt quite random. Could you create something like interest points in the room?

<comment><USER4> Good point. I was contemplating doing exactly that already.

Consider it done.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What's this like for total newbies to the meetup thing? Does everybody already know eachother? Would I be forced to endure some cruel hazing ritual involving VB6?!

<comment><USER4> There is always a significant percentage of first timers at each event. The long term regulars tend to know each other but they are also, generally, the most active in terms of meeting new folk and introducing themselves.

<comment><USER6> All sounds good then! The timing works so this should my first HN meetup. Plus the booze inflation up north has reached such a point now where I no longer faint at the price of a pint in London.

<comment><USER4> You know we provide a mountain of free beer & pizza at the event right? Get in early though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Awesome event, always very well run and interesting. Highly recommend it if anyone has the chance to go!

</comment><comment><USER8> Yes, I'm in. We'll be the only .Net shop in the room as usual.

<comment><USER9> We're .NET as well -- safety in numbers?!

<comment><USER10> type safety in numbers :-)

<comment><USER8> Come say hello, we'll be the only guys in the room in suits.

<comment><USER10> I'm not really a .Net (although I've done some C#) guy but I would kill for a bit of type safety in the large python code base I work on! Someone pleeeaaase start a Haskell company in London :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> By sheer luck, I'm in Maidenhead that week, so "only" 90 mins away by train - guess I'll give it a go. Should be interesting.

</comment><comment><USER12> Does anyone know if there is or was a HN meetup in Dublin, Ireland? Thanks

<comment><USER13> I wasn't aware of any when I lived in Ireland up until earlier this year. There is a fairly regular Python crowd that get together monthly if that floats your boat:

[http://www.meetup.com/pythonireland/](http://www.meetup.com/pythonireland/)

[https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/pythonire...](https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/pythonireland)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'll be in the area, looking forward to stopping by!</comment>


Visualizing Music with GANs - who-knows https://twitter.com/xsteenbrugge/status/1188785427295195136 <comment><AUTHOR> I had trouble connecting the music to the transitions and morphs. I perceived it just as music overlaid on fun-to-see GAN-generated images, though clearly that's not the aim. The music is beautiful and the imagery is intriguing, however.

<comment><USER2> This is something I've been working on [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52qWiLoOeIQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52qWiLoOeIQ) you should clearly see the connection between the morphs and the music

<comment><USER3> I'm blown away.

So the glasses are always present when the bass/808s are hitting, so is there something that maps the sound to the images?

What is it about the algorithms that make the images 'dance' so quickly between the 3.5 beat and the 1? Is it because there are static risers that move so quickly through the wave spectrum?

Wait... is light skin mapped to when highs dominate and dark skin to lows?

<comment><USER2> I'm glad you like it! Actually compared to the linked post I don't do any manual latent-space representation selection. It's just a bit of "smart" signal processing. I've written a framework that makes it really simple to do these visualizations (not open-source yet). Here's one more example: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4r4njUjE2M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4r4njUjE2M)

<comment><USER4> Cool stuff! Would be interested in knowing if and when this library becomes open source. Where could I follow you?

<comment><USER2> You could follow me on twitter @tsmcalister. I'll post there once it's released. Depends a lot on how much time I have to work on it. Hopefully by the end of the month!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> GANs are an interesting frontier. Videos are much more engaging than photos. The next logical step is to make a real-time GAN, like a videogame you can walk around in.

Imagine using a Vive to explore a GAN interactively. You'd be able to control the GAN using vive controllers and by walking around your room.

Right now it takes 163ms to render a 1024x1024 frame on a K80 GPU. That's 6 FPS, which is within an order of magnitude of 60FPS.

I haven't timed a 256x256 GAN, but presumably it would be 16x faster to generate. If so, then you'd be able to achieve 98FPS.

The above timings are based on the 1024x1024 FFHQ GAN model, which generates portraits of humans. [https://github.com/pbaylies/stylegan- encoder](https://github.com/pbaylies/stylegan-encoder)

And indeed, it looks like the author uploaded an FFHQ music video 14 minutes ago! [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TLEfOMBbMw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TLEfOMBbMw) It looks cool.

Someone should train a 256x256 FFHQ and make a 90FPS interactive renderer for it.

Unfortunately it's not possible to take a large GAN like 1024x1024 FFHQ and only generate a 256x256 image. Each GAN is trained for a specific size, so you're stuck with 6 FPS at 1024x1024. I wish the FFHQ authors had saved a 256x256 checkpoint during training.

Training a 256x256 GAN from scratch costs somewhere in the range of $150 GCE credits. But you might be able to bootstrap a 256x256 FFHQ using the weights from the 1024x1024 FFHQ (aka transfer learning). That might train a lot faster.

There is also the recent NoGAN technique, which skips progressive growing by pretraining the generator: [https://github.com/jantic/DeOldify/#what-is- nogan](https://github.com/jantic/DeOldify/#what-is-nogan) Supposedly it speeds up GAN training by a huge amount.

</comment><comment><USER6> This is so incredible and well executed. It's crazy to see how quickly GANs are moving (e.g. check out this tweet [1] by Ian Goodfellow on 4.5 years of GAN progress) ... excited to see what they can do a few years from now!

[1] [https://twitter.com/goodfellow_ian/status/108497359623614464...](https://twitter.com/goodfellow_ian/status/1084973596236144640?lang=en)

</comment><comment><USER7> This is a totally different way of visualizing a track - no GAN here, all done by hand, but also very cool: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvEGgMbTW1s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvEGgMbTW1s)

</comment><comment><USER8> Insanely cool. Also see this work by the same author: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6du033n-J3s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6du033n-J3s)

</comment><comment><USER9> Is there shareable / repeatable code to go behind it? Its cool but without seeing how it was produced, it could be just as well a fancy output of a video editing software

</comment><comment><USER10> this is nice. Great choice of track too! ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=137&v=K-AmcJhqV7...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=137&v=K-AmcJhqV7w)

</comment><comment><USER11> So who's converting this to Milkdrop?

</comment><comment><USER12> Amazing, how to make this happen?

<comment><USER13> This may be GANs as the author stated but the end result looks surprisingly similar to a bunch of pixel shaders making transitions between source and target images with said transitions driven either by pure algorithms and/or derived from blurred images themselves.

I've implemented music visualizer ages ago using similar concepts (pure algos though, no real images). It happened when nVidia released the first affordable consumer video card with decent shader support. I think it was 6600GT . My animation part that made video dance to music was a bit more sophisticated though.

<comment><USER14> Regarding the music synchronization, OK, this is ancient stuff.

However, in terms of graphics, this strikes me as different from anything that was possible before the recent advances in GANs. During the era you're talking about, the art of shader-based music visualizers was being pushed by projects like Milkdrop 2, and nowadays a lot of similar research still happens on Shadertoy, and the demoscene, of course, hasn't stopped blowing people's minds.

But this is on another level entirely. It's as is the content and seemingly human concepts themselves are being smoothly animated.

<comment><USER13> _this strikes me as different from anything that was possible before the recent advances in GANs_

\- well this is because you did not see my vis. It looked just like the one you saw on GAN's related link with similar transitions. Except that all imagery was generated by math formulas running in pixel shaders instead of ready bitmaps/videos.

Here is the actual screenshot: [https://exsotron.com/exs_files/exvis-0003.jpg](https://exsotron.com/exs_files/exvis-0003.jpg)

Actually I played with the actual music video clips as a source of the imagery and the results were really cool but obviously other then experiment at home could not really do this part due to copyrights etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> beautiful! I enjoy how the morphs surprises me, making them hard to predict.

</comment><comment><USER16> Amazing work ! Congrats !</comment>


Washington Post Website in 1998 - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/unabomber/trialstory.htm <comment><USER2> No JavaScript, no ads. Loads fast, and is highly readable.

The top nav bar links to [https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- srv/maps/tp_ip_bnr.map?150...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- srv/maps/tp_ip_bnr.map?150,17) — server-side image map. No one uses that technology anymore, as far as I can tell.</comment>


Should we consider adolescence to last until age 24? - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/21/16909268/adolescence-health-policy-psychology-age-24 <comment><USER2> People are taking on responsibilities later, but society is kind of forcing them to take them on later. Its a kind of forced coddling. I rarely see teenagers in jobs these days. When I was a teen, it was normal to get a job, and only privileged or lazy didn't get them. It even seems to be a thing that teens are avoiding getting drivers licenses in greater numbers.

[https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2013/12/1312...](https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2013/12/131217-four- theories-why-teens-drive-less-today/)

This seems like a clear sign of decreased independence.

Instead of increasing the age of majority, we should be allowing and encouraging young people to take on responsibility earlier.</comment>


Plundering of crypto keys from ultrasecure SGX sends Intel scrambling again - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/06/new-exploits-plunder-crypto-keys-and-more-from-intels-ultrasecure-sgx/ <comment><USER2> The important part of the article comes half way through, under the heading "But wait... there's also CrossTalk".

"The second SGX attack is notable because it's based on a previously unknown side channel created by an undocumented buffer that all Intel CPU cores use. This 'staging buffer,' as researchers from Vrije University in Amsterdam and ETH Zurich call it, retains the results of previously executed offcore instructions across all CPU cores. [snip] First, the staging buffer retains output from RDRAND and RDSEED"

"Equally important, the side channel provided by this newly discovered staging buffer allowed the attackers to create the world's first-known speculative execution attack that works across CPU cores." Disabling Intel SMT (hyperthreading) does not protect from this attack.

I also like the comment: "Most of these attacks are targeted at the data center." riposte: "Even if you are completely unconcerned with your machine being a security swiss cheese, [snip] every time Intel patches a mitigation, performance tanks."</comment>


The Last POWER1 CPU on Mars Is Dead - <AUTHOR> https://www.talospace.com/2019/02/the-last-power1-on-mars-is-dead.html <comment><USER3> Might be O/T, but I found it really interesting how they mention "5,352 Martian solar days". Do we humans have plans in the pipeline for a universal time standard we can use wherever we are? Something that is a little more useful than "seconds since UNIX epoch" but something a little less terrestrial than UTC? Or is time going to be based wherever we land or travel (e.g. divide up Mars into time zones upon colonization)? If we don't have a formal ISO solution, it might be a good idea to start pinning one down; might be relevant by the time the standard is finalized.

<comment><USER4> > _Do we humans have plans in the pipeline for a universal time standard we > can use wherever we are?_

This fundamentally cannot exist. Any "universal" system would drift for observers on different planets. Having different times in New York and New Delhi isn't the worst right now; doing a calendar look-up for the time on Mars isn't as neat. But given we won't have real-time communication, it isn't as big of a problem either.

<comment><USER5> It doesn't appear to be impossible.

Setup a transmitter at earth which emits a signal at uniform intervals containing current time (seconds since kanye west's marriage). An observer can then deduce current time if it knows where it is. I don't think relativistic dilation would effect this method.

With multiple such emitters synchronized with each other, one might even be able to 'triangulate' the current time. (I haven't worked out any details)

<comment><USER6> I'm not sure I see what you'd be gaining there, though. You'd be, at great expense, trading one basket of headaches - clocks not staying in sync - <USER2> another one: one second measuring a different length of time on each planet.

<comment><USER5> Yes but then earth's one second would become the standard. This method is supposed to synchronize events between stations. We can always use atomic clocks for local uses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There are still Power chips (based on PowerPC 750) on Curiosity; it's just POWER1 that's dead:

> That's not the end of Power ISA chips on Mars, though: Curiosity, which is > running a pair of RAD750s (one main and one backup, plus two SPARC accessory > CPUs), is still in operation at 2,319 Mars solar days and ticking.

<comment><USER8> > it's just POWER1 that's dead

Is it certain that the chip is not still getting some power and running something?

<comment><USER9> Kind of a Schrödinger's cat problem, is it not? For all purposes it is dead to us.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Do people have a particular attachment to the power architecture?

<comment><USER11> There's still a reasonable PPC Mac/Amiga hobbyist community, many of whom will tell you about how much purer PowerPC is compared to the evil ugly x86. As someone who does PPC Linux kernel work the pragmatic part of me would like to drop support for a lot of these older machines, but as long as the machines are still actively used the support gets maintained.

<comment><USER12> There are newer PPCs as well, like the Talon motherboards.

<comment><USER11> Indeed - the Talos machines are the first new PPC desktops in quite a while. The IBM POWER CPU series is far from dead, just post-Macintosh / PS3/Wii/XB360 consoles, it's not really something you see in the consumer space any more - apart from Talos, which I'm pretty excited about.

(Disclosure: I work for IBM.)

<comment><USER13> Sadly too expensive for anybody to bother.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Goodnight, sweet prince.

</comment><comment><USER15> I like to think of those more recent PPC Mars machines as Nintendo GameCubes with robotic arms and eyes. Same G3 processor family, afterall.

Well, at least they should be able to browse the web with the G3 version of TenFourFox. ;)

</comment><comment><USER16> Why does it have SPARC architecture CPUs as well I wonder? Any guesses?

<comment><USER17> It's unclear whether you're asking why they have both SPARC and PPC chips, or what the SPARCs are used for.

For the former, different contractors for the features, with some contractors preferring RHPPC and other RHSPARC?

For the latter, one SPARCs controlled the thrusters and descent stage, the other controls the movement (it's the main chip of the motor controller).

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> So, in other words, the machine's still alive, but has no backup CPU?

<comment><USER19> "Opportunity likely experienced a low-power fault, a mission clock fault and an up-loss timer fault. The team is continuing to listen for the rover over a broad range of times, frequencies and polarizations using the Deep Space Network (DSN) Radio Science Receiver. The team has begun mission clock fault recovery commanding 'in the blind,' in the hopes of catching the rover during an awake period, as their strategy of last resort."

Source: NASA mission update for sols 5340-5346 (Jan. 31-Feb. 6, 2019) [https://mars.nasa.gov/mer/mission/rover- status/opportunity/r...](https://mars.nasa.gov/mer/mission/rover- status/opportunity/recent/all/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Are these powered by battery or solar, or both?

<comment><USER21> The rovers would only receive about 4 hours of sunlight in a day, so Li-Ion batteries are used to store enough charge to keep it running reliably.

Newer rovers like curiosity are using radioisotope generators which should last a much longer time.</comment></comment>