My son won't get fair trial in US – Snowden's father - <AUTHOR> http://rt.com/news/snowden-father-fair-trial-836/ <comment><USER2> What would constitute a fair trial for Edward Snowden?

<comment><USER3> The same qualities that constitute a fair trial for anyone:

Presumption of innocence.

Proceedings overseen by an impartial, unbiased official ("Judge").

Charges brought under a pre-existing law.

Examining the charges and evidence and accusers, in court, in front of a jury.

Representation by a competent lawyer.

Decisions made by a jury of your peers.

Evidence presented in court, jury examination of evidence, evidence is obtained legally.

Evidence obtained without torture.

You know, the same things that people have fought and died for since 1215.

<comment><USER2> And why specifically would one not believe Edward Snowden to receive these things?

I thought the issue was that the existing law didn't sufficiently protect whistleblowers, not that the US would violate its own court procedings. I'm pretty sure the case is open/shut regarding the _legality_ of what Snowden did.

And a small point of order, but the fact that people have been fighting and dying for something doesn't make it valid. People have been fighting and dying in the name of Jesus Christ for 2000+ years.

<comment><USER4> The President, various members of Congress, and senior military officials have all pronounced him guilty of various crimes up to and including treason, so I think you can fairly argue that his right to presumption of innocence has been violated.

There is also no guarantee that he won't be tortured, given the treatment Bradley Manning received.

<comment><USER5> Funny you should mention Manning, given that those same people also "pronounced" that Manning had 'aided the enemy' by helping AQ. Yet Manning was found not guilty of that very charge, and in a courtroom where the law really _is_ stacked against the defendant, compared to civilian justice systems.

Instead, what the President, Congressmen, etc. think about Snowden is _opinion_ at this point, nothing more, just like the Commander-in-Chief himself wasn't able to direct a guilty verdict for Manning's aiding the enemy charge.

<comment><USER3> Given that the President is in charge of the Executive branch, of which the Department of Justice is a part, it's hard for me to believe that pronouncements of "opinion" from The President don't carry a lot of weight.

And fer cryin out loud, Obama has admitted to executing US citizens without a trial. Fixing Snowden's trial would hold little more fear of ethical missteps than drone strikes.

Given what's come out about "extraordinary rendition" and "enhanced interrogation", I think the fear of torture is completely justified.

<comment><USER2> What you're effectively saying is that because the boss of the prosecutor thinks the guy is guilty, he loses his right to innocence before guilt. That is, pardon my French, fucking stupid. No god damned shit the prosecution thinks he's guilty.

Obama has not targeted for execution a single person without a trial who wasn't an enemy combatant. What you're proposing is a Judge Dredd style method of conducting combat operations, which is, again pardon my French, fucking stupid.

"He's shooting at us _right now_ , but we can't assume he's guilty of shooting at us right now until we gather a jury of his peers together and they determine that his finger is the one pulling that trigger. Yes the trigger we both see him pulling that's attached to the gun he has pointed at us. What's that? You're dead because he shot you in the face while you were contemplating the morality of our situation? Well, at least we're not bad people though, right? -HURK-"

As for "extraordinary rendition" and "enhanced interrogation"? Again, there is literally nothing the US/any country can do or say that will give anyone absolute guarantees that such a thing won't happen. It's worthless to speculate about. Besides, if that were the route the US decided to go, don't you think it would have already happened?

<comment><USER3> _Obama has not targeted for execution a single person without a trial who wasn 't an enemy combatant._

I find it really hard to believe that a drone strike inside Yemen is justified on the "he's shooting at us!" grounds.

For the death penalty, I'd like to think that the USA would demand more than an administrative designation. In fact for any legal penalty, I'd like to think that a public trial with advocates for both sides arguing the matter.

<comment><USER2> Drone strikes in Yemen are closer to the "he's shooting at us!" than they are to arresting foreign citizens in foreign countries and trying them in a jurisdiction they've never been in for breaking laws they had no say in making.

There isn't really a good answer here except maybe if people stopped trying to kill Americans...</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Zer0: addictive Web number-game like 2048 between two news from HN ^^ - <AUTHOR> http://zer0.io/ <comment><AUTHOR> Now with a new Web HTML5 version for a fast loading game ! And working on the Windows Phone version (already available for Android/iOS) ! Good luck ^^ !

</comment><comment><USER2> Good game, and very addictive...good job guy

</comment><comment><USER3> Very addictive, good game ;)

</comment><comment><USER4> just lost 32 min of my life, congrats ;)

</comment><comment><USER5> Godd luck :)</comment>


Stop Imposing Programming Languages On Kids - <AUTHOR> http://the-reviews.appspot.com/article/stop-imposing-programming-languages

<comment><USER2> The key point of the article is the kid has to want to do it, and do it without pressure. (example: Stephen King's sons taking saxophone lessons because he didn't want to disappoint the parents)

My father gave me a bunch of Turbo C diskettes when I was 8 or 9, and said nothing other than "give it a shot" and smiled. There was no pressure there.

And after I "broke" his computer a few times (one time, I installed some fighter pilot game which broke autoexec.bat, primarily the PATH and PROMPT variables, so I couldn't find anything), he got me a computer of my own, and left me to my own devices. Throughout the years, he would give me random IDE installers (Turbo Pascal, Visual Basic, etc) with no expectations.

He still smiles.

<comment><USER3>
      He still smiles.

And he should. He did a good job there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I appreciate the sentiment, having grown up as a younger sibling surrounded by machines in various states of undress. I'll always remember the time I broke a corner off a mainboard, and watching my cousin repair it.

I firmly believe in giving children room to explore, and _never_ telling them that something is "too hard". But it's a long leap from "this is how I did it" to "we're doing it wrong".

I also question the idea that only some kids can/should learn how to code. A computer is not a saxophone or a snail. Today, computer illiteracy is a disadvantage; tomorrow it'll be a handicap.

And just like kid-sized pots and pans and screwdrivers, some languages are easier for kids to grasp. Going from DOS to QBASIC to C worked for the author; that was the stuff that happened to be installed. Nothing wrong with laying other "toys" around too.

</comment><comment><USER5> "Junior! Time for COBOL class! Get in the car"

 _\- but I don't want to go... I'm busy with Ruby right now_

"No excuse, we've discussed this before. And when you're done with your Java homework you can go back playing with your trains and Rails."

 _\- awwww.... sob_

<comment><USER6> <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13A0_QkqtaQ>

<comment><USER7> For anybody wondering, the giant pink cowboy hat is a reference to the Java Posse podcast. A long running Java podcast - though they mostly talk about Scala these days.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> In the spirit of letting kids curiosity flow, they can have a great time just by tweaking already existing games. In Scratch, they can open any of the existing examples, play around, change some numbers or images, play again and see the effects of their changes.

I have a 10 y/o girl and she's learning Python (we're following the Hello World book - www.helloworldbook.com) and it's fun to follow, and she enjoys seeing the effects of the changes in the programs to see if they still behave as she expects them to.

I think it's much more important to observe that pattern rather than just discarding a particular language just because it may fix a specific mindset.

</comment><comment><USER9> Forget about imposing certain languages on kids; I question the practice of trying to _get_ kids into programming.

Why not let kids get into programming through curiosity or simply a desire to make things?

<comment><USER10> I think it's important to expose kids to programming, and if they show an interest, to explore it further.

It's possible I never would have become a coder if a teacher hadn't given me a brief intro to Basic when I was 11 years old. I took it from there, and was self-taught until college.

With my own son, I introduced him to Scratch, helped him through a few lessons, and then watched as it became his favorite thing to do. I really can't say enough about Scratch as an introduction to programming. It gives kids a simple environment where they see quick results while learning the basics. Just as important, there is a social aspect in that they can easily share their programs with their friends. There does, however, seem to be a need to bridge the gap between Scratch and traditional languages.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Ironically - I spent the day letting my 8 year old niece attempt to write a game in Game Maker. While it's not programming, I knew she wanted to make her own game and simply told her to do the tutorial and go from there. 6 hours later she had the basic tutorial finished and was hard at work on her own game. She figured out how actions worked, started reading about the scripting and designed her own characters. She loves it and I am glad to offer any advice along the way, however if she stops playing with it, that will be fine too.

<comment><USER12> What do you mean that Game Maker is not programming? It may not be as respectable as something like Java or Python or C, but it's most certainly a programming environment. You can learn about file I/O, event driven systems, data structures (particularly linked lists and trees, using instance ids in place of pointers/references) after you learn the screwy, almost typeless pseudo-C/Pascal mishmash scripting language that's built in. You can also learn a lot about the complexity of programming when you have to debug your code to figure out why things aren't doing what you wanted them to (whether that's because of a typo, unintended effects of the interaction of multiple complex behaviors you wrote, or simply a misunderstanding of language). Not to mention the issues of project management and good design (or lack thereof...)! While it may seem crude, please don't belittle it by saying that it's not "programming".

<comment><USER11> I should have watched how I phrased things; I think it's a great stepping stone in to full programming; what she currently is doing is almost 100% drag and drop and because of that, what my niece specifically is doing, isn't necessarily programming, but giving her a great resource to understand programming, and indeed making programs. I wouldn't consider her specific actions programming in a general sense, but am ecstatic that Game Maker exists to get her started gradually from the current steps and also in to more advanced steps from one single system.

So Game Maker is programming and I should have been careful in how I phrased it because I did not want to make Game Maker seem anything less than it is (I am buying her the new Game Makers Companion and a license if she continues with it because I would love to encourage programming in her)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's interesting that I became so interested in programming when there wasn't anyone I knew or in my family that was into that area. My parent's still wouldn't have the slightest clue about programming and the only reason we really got computers and upgraded them early is because my grandpa was into them early (the usage side of things, not programming).

I guess what really sparked my interest was being able to make games, the programs like rpg maker that come with point and click programming languages, all come from that. So I think rather than focusing on the programming language side of it I would focus on the results with kids, if they can script a NPC walking around the map or script interactions/ map changes and stuff, even though it's only a few lines of quasi programming I think that inspires more than simple text based program learning with a text file that can feel daunting, to may possibilities, not enough hand holding.

</comment><comment><USER14> I knew DOS. But what forst got me passionate about making stuff on computers was Doom.

I could move move walls. Make a pit. Add monsters. Try and make the room outside rather than inside...(fast forward a few months)...combine the unenclosed sectors hack with the no-lower-texture-bleed bug and make passable deep water.

It was fun. And simple.

</comment><comment><USER15> Yeah, this is a disease. When I was in high school, I was essentially told that real programmers only used C++ and Java (since Real Programmers exist primarily to take the AP CS exam, right?) Looking back, I wasted a lot of time in programming contests that allowed any language allocating memory and dealing with shitty numeric types. If I had just used Haskell instead, I would have never had any problems. With C++, I often lost points not because of stupid bugs like calling two variables "i" or something.

Fortunately I figured this out right about when people started giving me money to write computer programs. But I wish someone had told me earlier.

</comment><comment><USER16> From the article: "Parents who don't impose anything on their children, you are blessed." I agree with this, but realize that there is no such thing as a parent who does not impose anything on their children. Creating a child is an imposition.

</comment><comment><USER17> I like the article. I learned to tinker with computers in much the same way. Not that I'm proud of it, but I remember finding programs for AOL that would fade your text into different colors. I was so interested in how these types of things were done that I tried Visual Basic and bought Borland C++ when I was about eleven or twelve years old.

</comment><comment><USER18> From the article: "I am no education expert and have no children ..."

</comment><comment><USER19> Who imposes programming on uninterested children?

As for the interested ones, you 'impose' certain programming languages on kids because 1) they want to learn to program and 2) you need a standardized way to teach. If you want to develop the manner of thinking required to assemble and organize algorithms, making a turtle move around the screen is a fine way to do it.

<comment><USER20> No one imposed my first language on me, it was the environment that did (you turn on the computer, there was BASIC; why yes, I did receive an 8-bit computer in the 80s). Worse, the only sources I had were books and magazines, since no one I knew could program (okay, I had two friends with computers, but we all had different ones, which made it difficult to swap programs).</comment></comment>


What Does Any of This Have to Do with Physics? - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/43/heroes/what-does-any-of-this-have-to-do-with-physics <comment><USER2> A great read.

Something that stuck with me throughout the article was that the concept of "you can do anything" was almost masked by the fact that he had placed all of his "apples" into one basket--Rajeev. Of course this was a different time, and I think it highlights just how important the internet and technology have become in our professional success.

Had this been present day, Henderson could have tried to make use of others through collaboration, just as Rajeev himself pointed out towards the end. Somewhere in the article he mentioned his doubts within his teacher, and that's something that I think most people need to realize. Teachers are just people with their own faults. Nowhere does it state that your teacher is going to know the answer to your success. If you continually find yourself lost and doubtful, you should extend your reach and try to seek help from other minds as well.

He was on a journey with thousands of forks within thousands of roads, and simply locking yourself in a room for 15 hours a day, essentially brute forcing different paths isn't a healthy way of going about research or anything in life.

<comment><USER3> Henderson seems a bit melancholic but he did just fine.

Should it really matter to him or anyone else that he "quit" Physics? I don't think so. Too many people get hung up on having a continuous unbroken progression of career advancement in one "field" whatever it is.

You CAN do anything. And that includes changing your mind, your job, and your values. He didn't stick with Physics after getting his PHD... so what?

<comment><USER4> My thoughts exactly. Sounds like he matched up with a pretty great advisor (good person, good manager, helpful, smart), worked on interesting problems, made progress on some, published, and graduated. To boot, when he decided to move on, his physics skills made him highly employable in the financial industry. I'd call that a success story as far as grad school goes.

<comment><USER5> Funny thing is that when he asked Rajeev why he had failed, Rajeev had probably been asking himself the same question for years. A lifetime dedicated to cyclotomic fiber bundles that will probably end up in the dustbin of history.

If your only measure of success is to do something truly transformative, well, you've got Copernicus, Newton, Einstein, and then everyone else who has tried and failed, so good luck. Wall Street was probably the better choice. And it _could_ have turned into a Swiss patent office thing that formal academia would have denied anyway.

Grass is always greener on the other side.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Wow, I see how this is relevant to startups, because it's one of the best essays about grad-school and PhD research as I've seen. The people who attempt it are capable and driven, but a good advisor is often critical. There are a lot of hills to climb and the most important thing to learn is how to guide yourself when the way isn't clear! We want to change the world...

When I saw these lines I thought maybe his Advisor wasn't doing such a good job:

 _A year or so of research with Rajeev, and I found myself frustrated and in a fog, sinking deeper into the quicksand but not knowing why. Was it my lack of mathematical background? My grandiose goals? Was I just not intelligent enough? Or maybe it was the type of research Rajeev had me doing._

Then he moved on to a thesis and graduated, which shows that Rajeev was doing his job as a Boss and Professor. Advice about using your strengths, working with others, focusing on success and minimizing mistakes... it really does translate to most quests.

I'm sad the writer doesn't remember being happy since he starting his PhD. Choosing to make your dream your job is a dangerous thing, especially if you can't still enjoy the path. He's good at writing so I hope he enjoys that now.

<comment><USER7> > minimizing mistakes

Agree with everything but that. Making lots of mistakes was the best part about academia. Just don't hold on to them for too long (sunk cost fallacy), don't take things too seriously (ie stake your identity on any one idea), and treat them as the most valuable learning opportunities.

<comment><USER6> I agree with you... science is really all about fixing mistakes. What I meant was exactly what you say, to minimize their emotional impact, not their rational effects.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> A quote from this long article.. \--- "Now you know what makes theoretical physics so hard," he said. "It's not that the problems are hard, although they are. It's that knowing which problems to try and solve is hard. That, in fact, is the hardest part." \--- As with startups, all startups are hard but knowing which one to pursue and give life is _very_ hard.

<comment><USER9> Same with gamedev. Ask anyone who is into it how many ideas for games they have (heck just tell someone you make games and they'll likely tell you an idea they had for a game they want to see made). Figuring out which one could be a success in terms of fun, popularity, or finances, is the question. Which is why rapid prototyping of core mechanics to "find the fun" is so critical.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> As a physicist, I see people all the time wondering what to do with it and looking for a justification for all the hard work. But physics is a hobby subject. It's rim is so vastly complicated that you can push and push at the boundary your whole life and get no where. You have to do it because you love it and you have to accept the abstract nonsense of it all. I also studied math and art history so I was down to do thinks I thought were abstract awesomeness without wondering about a job. I was lucky in that I'm a software dev so I had a job anywhere but my point is that I really feel for people who follow what they love and then become disillusioned. It really sucks.

<comment><USER11> Beside the fact that it's interesting, I think there's also a bit of prestige involved, nobody bats an eye if physicists say "we are improving the world, advancing man kind", as opposed to the same smart man becoming a financial trader, where lots of people will say that you are scum living on the back of others, or even a software developer working on something like ads.

<comment><USER12> The same writer also wrote about his finance career: [http://nautil.us/issue/31/stress/what-i-learned-from- losing-...](http://nautil.us/issue/31/stress/what-i-learned-from- losing-200-million)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> "Shut up and calculate" was indeed _not_ coined by Feynman. It was, in fact, coined by David Mermin in an essay he had written once.

The amusing thing is that Mermin himself had forgotten that he had coined it and claimed Feynman to be the source. Eventually, he looked into it and found the earliest reference to the phrase was his own essay! (with no reference to Feynman)

His book, Boojums All The Way is one of the most entertaining books about his adventures as a physicist.

(For those who do not know him, he co-wrote the standard text book on Solid State Theory).

<comment> da-bacon Here is the essay he wrote about his realization that he coined the term: "Could Feynman have said this?" www.gnm.cl/emenendez/uploads/Cursos/callate-y- calcula.pdf

Also highly recommend his Boojums.

</comment></comment><comment> nappy-doo This is possibly the best article I've ever read about grad school. If you haven't read it yet, do. You'll like it.

<comment><USER14> It jives with what I've observed the grad students I've known going through.

I think it's important to frame oneself as a mental athlete. Olympic athletes don't exert themselves for 20 hours and then get 4 hours sleep and expect any kind of peak performance. You need sleep, you need a mix of focused effort, and unfocused consolidation / inspiration time, etc.

Programmers and students have a tendency to ignore lessons about training and peak performance that are well understood by those in physical sports.

This course changed my life: [https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to- learn](https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn)

<comment><USER15> Irrelevant grammatical nitpick: I think the word you're looking for is "jibe", not "jive". From M-W: [https://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/jibe](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/jibe)

        verb: to be in accord

<comment><USER16> Weird, I've always heard "jive" informally used as "to be in accord", and it seems like it's commonly held slang: [http://americanenglishdoctor.com/wordpress/jive-and- jibe](http://americanenglishdoctor.com/wordpress/jive-and-jibe)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This piece moved me to tears. It feels like watching my own life retold by someone who's so much more articulate than me.

It's strange when the source of your intellectual self-worth is also the source of your depression.

</comment><comment><USER18> > You can do whatever you want

This is very dangerous advice to give a young person. But the author should have done a better job at interpreting the message. If your father tells you that you can do whatever you want, do you conclude that you can get good enough at tennis to win the US Open? No, of course not, that's absurd. But winning the US Open is MUCH EASIER than discovering the Holy Grail of physics. Properly understood in this context, the father's message meant "if you want, you can become a physicist" \- and it was probably correct. The author's downfall was that he overinterpreted the promise of the message and was also too ambitious to accept the lesser reward of "merely" becoming an average professional physicist.

</comment><comment><USER19> _What we'd created is called a "toy model": an exact solution to an approximate version of an actual problem. This, I learned, is what becomes of a colossal conundrum like quantum gravity after 70-plus years of failed attempts to solve it. All the frontal attacks and obvious ideas have been tried. Every imaginable path has hit a dead end._

Isn't that a clue that one of the premises is fundamentally wrong? I'm no scientist but I rely on the scientific method, and questioning my assumptions when I'm stuck almost invariably proves more productive than refining my hypothesis. OK, my problems are very shallow, but nature's complexity generally seems to be the result of simple processes, elaborated and iterated. The author's description reminds me very much of the experience of painstakingly 'solving' one side of a Rubik's cube before realizing the more general iterative approach.

<comment><USER20> Some problems are just damn hard. I don't know enough Physics, but in CS there are many examples of problems that have been open for decades were we still don't even know where to begin with a proof. The most prominent example is P vs NP. It's been open for forty years and all we have is a number of proof techniques where we know that they can't work. Complexity theory in general is a field where all the interesting problems either are solved or have been open for a long time and researchers retreat to working on very special cases of very special problems.

<comment><USER21> Figuring out the null hypothesis (toy model) can be a big first step. For instance, planets should move according to an ellipse, but they don't because of the gravitational pull of other planets and moons. This deviation from the null hypothesis can be quite informative and help with further discovery.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> "Shut up and calculate" hasn't produced much in the way of concrete or practical results compared to the heyday of fundamental physics in the first half of the 20th century that produced quantum mechanics, special and general relativity, the atomic bomb, etc. It has produced extremely complex mathematical systems like string theory that seem to have led nowhere.

Quantum mechanics is probably "incomplete" as Einstein argued. Hence attempts to unify general relativity and the current quantum theory are likely to fail, as they appear to, since a revised quantum theory is needed.

If the data -- angular velocity distributions of start etc. -- used to support "dark matter," "dark energy" and other patches to the prevailing theory of the Big Bang and cosmology is in fact evidence that Newtonian gravity does not apply at galactic scales and above, then general relativity is not correct at galactic scales and above. Again this would make unifying the established quantum theory and the established general relativity theory incapable of matching observed reality.

The ubiquitous lack of secure longer term jobs like Einstein's civil service job at the patent office -- he was not a post-doc -- make deeper conceptual analysis of the outstanding problems in physics today difficult, probably impossible.

<comment><USER23> "Shut up and calculate" is the mentality that produced nearly all the XX century advances on the quantum physics theories.

It's not that everybody subscribed to it - I don't think anybody ever fully subscribed to it - but that advances insisted on only coming on those times people were thinking this way. That's why people teach it today.

But at the relativity side, it seems that "shut up and calculate" never gave good results.

<comment><USER22> Everyone calculates. In my mind, "shut up and calculate" refers to a very strong emphasis on calculation and symbolic manipulation to the near or total exclusion of conceptual analysis expressed in words and pictures.

In particular the "losers" at the 1927 Solvay Congress -- Schrodinger, Einstein, and de Broglie -- seem to be the antithesis of "shut up and calculate" and all contributed very critical elements of quantum theory.

Schrodinger found the Schrodinger equation, the differential equation that describes so much correctly, through his approach. This is significant because the operator methodology of Heisenberg and Gottingen either did not work, despite the claims it is equivalent to the Schrodinger equation, or was essentially impossible to use to make predictive calculations. Schrodinger's publication of the Schrodinger equation provided an easy way to calculate results in QM that proved correct using well-know differential equations/calculus methods.

For whatever reason, perhaps to keep their research program afloat, the "winners" at the Solvay Congress jettisoned the conceptual underpinnings of Schrodinger's approach and married it to the operator formalism leading to quantum field theory with its intractable infinities and other problems that remain to this day.

<comment><USER23> I'd say it is strong emphasis on models predictive power, to the exclusion of judging if it improves our understanding of the world. The "shut up" part is more key than the "calculate".

<comment><USER22> I am not sure if we disagree here or not.

Predictive power has not always trumped understanding as a goal. The original Copernican theory did not work as well as the Ptolemaic model used by astronomers. The Ptolemaic model as it had evolved in the 16th century was extremely complex with many fit parameters and predicted planetary motions relatively well.

All of the models shared the incorrect assumption of uniform circular motion and epicycles, both the Copernican, Tyco Brahe's hybrid system, and the traditional Ptolemaic model which by virtue of the thousands of years of effort invested in it -- it arguably dates back to ancient Sumeria -- actually predicted the motions of Mars and other planets best.

It was only the addition of elliptical orbits with non-uniform motion by Kepler that resulted in the new model surpassing the Ptolemaic model.

In the case of planetary motions, understanding ultimately proved critical. We can predict planetary motions to about 1 in 100,000 accuracy versus about 1 in 100 with the Ptolemaic model of the 16th century.

<comment><USER5> I think Kepler was the epitome of "shut up and calculate". Measure the motion of the planets, come up with detailed formulas describing them. Newton transcended that by identifying simple relations and invariants that unfolded to exactly those equations. I'd argue Newton and Einstein are the only two who have transcended "shut up and calculate". In the latter case we otherwise would have patched in Lorentz transforms and stated "just because" like Kepler. In quantum mechanics, I feel like it's still something on a Kepler level, equations "just because", waiting for a more fundamental understanding.

<comment><USER22> I would say certainly not. In Nova Astronomia in which Kepler lays out his discovery, one finds chapters and chapters (originally in Latin) of verbal analysis of what is going on. He did not just find a formula that worked blindly. Rather he envisioned an influence -- either magnetism or something similar to magnetism -- which he calls specie (a Latin term used in magic and mysticism) extending out from the Sun guiding the motions of the planets. This was a clear precursor to the concept of a gravitational field.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Very good read, and resonated with me because I had read the same new agey books at the time, went to study physics with the same "I'll find the grail" philosophy and had felt the painful blow of disillusionment, together with other blows that convinced me to leave the path much earlier than the author of the article.

Many years later, I feel that "the grail" is still the driving force behind most of my thoughts, but frankly, I doubt it is reachable by thought. Suppose someone will solve quantum gravity. I'd be very excited and curious - it would be wonderful and fascinating, but I believe any claim that "Physics is solved" that might be stated after that would be as misguided as lord Kelvin's claim at the time. Any solution would eventually just set the stage for the next grail chase, with more food for the mind to chew on from an infinite supply and no answer will really make a dent in the armour surrounding the question of what is the essence of this food supply or it's relation to the thoughts that contemplate it. I can't prove any of this of course...

<comment><USER25> <... _but I believe any claim that "Physics is solved" that might be stated after that would be as misguided as lord Kelvin's claim at the time._>

Perhaps and maybe even for a long time but you can't have an infinite progressions of "fundamental" theories at some point the questions will be answered such that "this" is as far as we can go. The problems and questions in physics are philosophical (more specifically epistemology) and revolve around what is a valid measurement when you get down to the limit of measurement?, what is an observer and what distinguishes the observer from the observed? Unfortunately, the vast majority of physicists disdainfully reject philosophy as bunk and continue to mathturbate even as their own theories become indistinguishable from bunk.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> One thing I got from this article is that the art of doing science takes years to develop. Developing a taste for what is good research and a direction for what is a good path only comes from an apprenticeship model where you copy and learn from your mentor. It really shows how important taste, guidance, and perseverance is in order to avoid getting lost or distracted.

Wonderful article.

</comment><comment><USER27> Great essay, really hits the nail on the head about how hard it is to do fundamental research. I especially liked the comment about controlling your emotions.

<comment><USER14> A former boss of mine (head of a 20-person or so game studio) told me this once, but I didn't appreciate it at the time.

I've been living this for the last couple of years, though. So true.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I went in to University (not physics) with the same stars, but I'd read far more history of science. I knew that almost everyone who tries to make something more than an incremental discovery fails miserably, I just thought it was very honorable to make the attempt, if you thought you might have what it takes.

I left because, when I looked around after many years, it was very clear that (where I was) absolutely none of the professors around me had any intention of solving the problems they were paid to discuss, nor any interest in doing so. They were quite capable of becoming angry at any sign that others did. So even if I did want to solve the problems (which I still did) hanging around them would be more hindrance than help. They wanted the prestige, they wanted to cash the people's checks - just so long as they didn't have to do the job, because it might pose some small risk that reputation, and affect the size of their wine cellar.

Rajeev's eventual answer had to more to do with reputation than big problem- solving, he may have been a functionary when push comes to shove, as well.

</comment><comment><USER29> Wow, I rarely read pieces like this all the way through. But this was simply too good to just scroll through. (Realized this after scrolling halfway through).

So, scrollers beware.

</comment><comment><USER30> This is an interesting read, a perspective on expectations vs reality and possibly upbringing.

I always loved science as a kid. I studied physics because it is fun. I did not think about the future then. I went for a PhD somewhere between theory, experiment and computer simulation because it was fun. I did not think about the future then either.

I knew that I was average+ in Physics and knew that I would never get a Nobel Prize but the pleasure of doing Physics was important to me. Then I quit, right after my PhD to pursue other fun things in IT. I am still there because it is fun. I still do not think about the future and the fact that I will be the next Gates or Zuckerberg.

I strongly believe that one should be driven by the CAPACITY to make CHOICES and that this is what makes someone happy. This is also what I tell my ~11 yo children. It is not "you can do what you want" but "I will torture you into getting the right marks and schools to enable you to make a choice when you choose your university. You can be an artist, a physicist, a doctor, an accountant or a baker. The important part is that you will be armored to be able to use the word CAN. So get back to homework."

</comment><comment><USER31> Would recommend reading for everyone. There's so much more here than getting a phd in physics.

There a few different life lessons here to learn from or to think about.

</comment><comment><USER5> It seems like academia needs a "20% time" thing like Google. You can get a grant for doing cyclotomic fiber bundles in a single dimension, because it's mathy and publishable and not too far from the mainstream, even if the likelihood of this being The Grail (or real in any way) is low.

You can't get funding to look at something completely off the cuff. Even 100 years ago Einstein couldn't have gotten funding to investigate some idea that distorts distance and time. I think 20% time to investigate whatever crazy idea you want would be beneficial to making more substantial progress in the real fundamental problems.

</comment><comment><USER32> Grad school is tough.

<comment><USER33> [http://ocean.otr.usm.edu/~w301497/teaching/images_teaching/l...](http://ocean.otr.usm.edu/~w301497/teaching/images_teaching/life_in_hell- graduate_school.gif)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> tl;dr: success (in many walks of like, as in science, especially in abstract branches like theoretical physics and mathematics) is simply not quitting, and has almost nothing to do with winning big (Nobel, Fields, Abel). And those who stay long enough gain tenure.

It's not glamorous, it's shitty. Long hours, low pay. But you do science. And no one ever can take that away from you, which is nice.

<comment><USER35> I do not this is a message conveyed by the author, much less a summary of the article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> This story resonated with me deeply, I enjoyed every word.</comment>


Ask HN: How far does a confidentiality agreement go? - <AUTHOR>

I recently parted with a startup after three years to do my own thing. I think it's good to look back before looking forward, so I wrote up a rather long post recapping my three years (mostly relating to my own personal growth, the things I'm good at and the things I didn't enjoy).
As a courtesy I sent it to the CEO to see if he had any objections, which he did. After editing some of the more obvious bits and making the data more vague, I sent it back. There's currently nothing in there that I wouldn't put on a resume (i.e. we used this tech and that tech or I implemented this practice and that practice). After two weeks of hearing nothing, HR responded that it was still chock full of confidential info, that they weren't willing to tell me what was confidential, and that they would be in touch if I posted it.
Is that just bullying? I believe in good faith that there's no actionable "proprietary information" in my post, but it seems like they're making a pretty overt threat. Any advice? <comment><USER2> You should run it by a lawyer. Legal documents like confidentiality agreements often (re)define terms like "knowledge" and depending on what you signed when you joined up, you may be in violation of it. Better be safe than sorry.</comment>


Data, Technologies and Security – Part 1 - <AUTHOR> http://blog.binaryedge.io/2015/08/10/data-technologies-and-security-part-1/

<comment><USER2> Business model: scan the Internet for exposed and outdated technologies. Contact the company with a link to your article. Wait a few days, offer your services to upgrade and secure the specific system.</comment>


Ask HN: Do you write unit tests at your startup? - <AUTHOR>

For anybody who writes code and works for or founded a start up, do you write unit tests for your code?<p>Have you always written unit tests or did you eschew them when building a prototype? <comment><USER2> I'd think it's always a good idea, no one minds when there are easy to run unit tests included in the open source project that they just downloaded. However, depending on time restraints, timing, financial concerns, scale, dealing with critical systems, etc, it may or may not be better to push something out without having any formal tests. I think some form of formal testing should be pursued in general.

</comment><comment><USER3> The startup company I'm working on writes unit test. But in my own personal projects, as much as I know that it's a good practice, I don't. I just don't seem to like unit tests. I also want to finish the features I like first and then just test it in real use. I do functional tests, but not unit test.

</comment><comment><USER4> Depends what you mean by "unit tests".

I tend to test drive the vast majority of my code - prototypes and all. So I end up with a unit-ish test suite.

I rarely write tests post-coding for initial prototype work.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think it would have been better to make my question more general and ask about automated testing rather than unit testing specifically. I can still change it if you're happy to modify your answer?

Thanks for your answer :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> unit test are always good and specially for startup's because they come handy to rescue when the original developer of the code had left you and a defect is raised. but as CoryG said there are always constraints with startups which stop them from doing that.

</comment><comment><USER6> this depends on your coding style. If you are used to TDD, so most of the test will be written.</comment>


TRRespass: Rowhammer against DDR4 - <AUTHOR> https://www.vusec.net/projects/trrespass/ <comment><USER2> IIRC, there was a proposal some time ago to use performance counters to detect a rowhammer attempt (high number of cache misses) and stop it (by pausing the offending process until the DRAM refresh can catch up). Did anything come out of it?

<comment><USER3> Maybe you refer to ANVIL. It was demonstrated to not be completely effective

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the keyword! Searching for "rowhammer anvil" led me to [https://web.eecs.umich.edu/~genkin/papers/another-flip- rowha...](https://web.eecs.umich.edu/~genkin/papers/another-flip- rowhammer.pdf) which links to [https://lwn.net/Articles/704920/](https://lwn.net/Articles/704920/) which is the article I was thinking of. I can't find much else about that kernel patch other than [https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/9400475/](https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/9400475/) and [https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/9401819/](https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/9401819/) so that approach was probably abandoned.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wish we could get rid of this dependency on the natural world that computers seem to have. Sadly I cant of a way to implement computers outside of reality and have some safe interface to them.

<comment><USER5> The dependency comes from pushing the physical limits until the abstraction leaks. Older memory technologies were not vulnerable to rowhammer. But they were also a lot slower.

<comment><USER6> That's it, we're going back to core memory.

<comment><USER7> If you thought "cold boot attacks" were a problem with DDR, using memory that still holds data 50 years later might be an issue.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Theoretically, if we accepted lower performance, could we design our hardware and software to actually be secure? The number of exploits over the last two years is making my head spin

<comment> Jap2-0 This brings up something I've often wondered about: we can basically guarantee that a very short snippet of code (say, a few lines) is secure, right? However, there is no real way to guarantee that full programs are secure. Can we not truly guarantee that some portion of code is secure, or is it simply the amount of code that makes it impractical (and financially infeasible)? If the latter, what is the practical boundary?

<comment><USER9> > we can basically guarantee that a very short snippet of code (say, a few > lines) is secure, right?

That's the problem, we can't do that. Between hardware flaws like rowhammer, meltdown, spectre, etc. it's not possible to say that a piece of code isn't going to trigger something intentionally or not.

You can say that something very very likely doesn't trigger any known vulnerability, but only while also specifying the exact hardware to run it on and probably other external variables.

<comment> Jap2-0 > Between hardware flaws like rowhammer, meltdown, spectre, etc. it's not > possible to say that a piece of code isn't going to trigger something > intentionally or not.

I guess I was thinking software vulnerabilities specifically (although in the context of this article I should have thought about the hardware side more). Or to be even more specific, flaws that are from that program in particular.

<comment><USER9> Software side there's a lot that can be proven and said about small sections of programs. I think a sibling commenter talked about an ISO standard related to that (And I think it covers some hardware bits). My layman's understanding of it is that it's a way to specify as many assumptions about how the code will be run, where, and what side effects it will have and no others. That makes for a really nice set of assertions but the end effect is that you can't say anything about certain kinds of programs; i.e. This program is safe, That program can't be safe, and then these programs are unknowable. Godel should never have been allowed to publish anything.

<comment><USER10> Making those proofs is nice and all, but they rarely take side channels or processor bugs into account.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> ECC should be standard and mandatory at this point.

<comment><USER12> Not everybody's working on web or something running untrusted code. Not fair to force people to pay a financial or performance hit for something they don't need; the world loses if peoples' scientific computations take 20% longer to run because of some ugly patch to an obscure vulnerability in speculative execution, or because the university can afford less computing resources because the only option is expensive ram.

<comment><USER13> If ECC was made for the same markets as normal memory, it would cost <12% more and make entire computers cost <2% more, with no meaningful performance hit. It's reasonable and should be mainstream.

You want ECC for trusted code, too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> How expensive would 16 GiB of refress-less "4 nm" SRAM placed on the CPU package flip-chip style be?

<comment><USER15> Ludicrously expensive. The largest SRAMs that are commercially available are around 288 Mbit (32 MB with parity), and cost hundreds of dollars per chip.

I'm not sure you could even _physically_ fit 16 GiB of SRAM onto a CPU with current technology. SRAM cells are much larger than DRAM.

<comment><USER16> AMD's Epyc 7742 has 256 MB of SRAM in its central die. That die is massive and the chip costs 7 grand.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Time yet to add support to encrypt memory transparently in the DRAM controller?

<comment><USER2> That already exists with AMD SME and AMD SEV ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_(microarchitecture)#Enhanc...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_\(microarchitecture\)#Enhanced_security_and_virtualization_support)). But to protect against bit flipping attacks like rowhammer you need authentication, not encryption, and I don't think these features authenticate the encrypted memory (since they would need extra memory to hold the authentication tag).

<comment><USER18> The parent post is probably thinking of the bit-scrambling involved in the encryption providing some form of protection.

<comment><USER9> Yea, it should prevent usable bitflips from hapoening. Instead you'd get complete corruption of a block

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> might want to merge this with [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22547324](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22547324)</comment>


Envoy Brings in $1.5M to Kill the Lobby Sign-In Book - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/09/16/visitor-registration/

<comment><USER2> See my comment at:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8325701](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8325701)

Another employee sponsored post that could not have legitimately gotten upvotes outside the company.

</comment><comment><USER3> Really? What's the sum total value of all lobby sign-in books in the entire world? (And who even takes them that seriously?) I'm all for creative destruction, but what next, a webapp to replace writing contents descriptions on boxes while moving? SaaS to replace little "sign here" stickers on the boss's documents? A social network to replace writing graffiti on bathroom stalls? Parts of the article make the company sound like they're reading 1984 as a guidebook. #cantbelieveitsnottheonion

<comment><USER4> There is no startup joke so stupid that it will not eventually become a real company.

SaaS to replace "sign here" stickers: Docusign

Moving box contents: Moveline

Graffiti on bathroom stalls: Secret</comment></comment>


Engineer admits he wiped 456 Cisco WebEx VMs from AWS after leaving - <AUTHOR> https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/26/former_cisco_engineer_aws_webex_teams/ <comment><USER2> I left one job to switch to another. A year later, my new job started using a cloud-based task management app. When I went to sign in, my 1Password auto- filled the credentials I'd used for the same app at my previous job, and there I was looking at all of my old employer's current projects and other confidential info. I called my old boss (who I got along with just fine), told him what happened, and asked him to please cut off my access immediately.

When you leave a job, it's in your own best interest to make sure that all of your access is removed. It's a lot harder for them to blame unexpected happenings on you if you can't even log into the thing. (Not that this happened here. I just wanted to point out a gotcha you might not have thought about.)

If you find out that they missed something, report it to them immediately _and keep that paper trail_ demonstrating your good intentions toward them. Then hound them about it until they get around to fixing the situation. And for the love of God, _don 't ever, EVER_ log in "just to look around". Absolutely no good can come of that.

<comment><USER3> How would you know that they didnt disable you accounts without trying to log in.

<comment><USER4> I think they meant 'don't log in, discover you have access, then browse and take no further action'. You can try to log in, you just need to inform someone immediately if you have access when you shouldn't. That's my take anyway.

<comment><USER3> Successfully trying to log in can already be a crime depending on your jurisdiction in my opinion.

<comment><USER4> You're right - I guess in that case it would be wise to ask your previous employer to provide proof that you're no longer able to access anything, and no longer liable. Many wouldn't offer that, but I'm not sure how else you could navigate that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This article leaves more questions than it answers. Room-elephant number one: access being available after an employee has left is bad. That access remaining _five months later_ is beyond the pale, unless the real story is that the employee created a backdoor. Barring a backdoor, there are further serious questions about the employee retaining this access, presumably without any employer-provided and controlled hardware (e.g. laptop, yubikey, or what- have-you).

Room-elephant number two: motive. The reported facts naively summarize as "oops, ex-employee blew up some stuff in prod, caused problems". <meme>But whyyyyy??</meme> There's no indication of specifics, and seeming denials of some obvious guesses: attempts at hacking (e.g. data exfiltration for profit, which are denied), ransomware, revenge, or anything else that would explain this behavior.

Further confounding everything is the bit where the new employer's response to these revelations is apparently "shrug".

<comment><USER6> I worked in consulting up until Covid. When I got laid off, my employer locked me out of every corporate system within 15 minutes. But every client who gave me VPN, AWS or other credentials didn't get notified.

<comment><USER7> Interesting angle. I wonder if the perp was employed by Cisco directly or was a contractor and Cisco wasn't informed when he changed employers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Biggest question for me would be why the employee still had access so long after terminating employment with Cisco.

A common piece of auditor evidence across many compliance frameworks is whether employees have access proportionate to their role (which is naturally highly subjective), but also proving that access is revoked when employees leave the company. This seems like an outright failure on Cisco's part.

Hopefully they've learned from this and put effort into enhancing their identity governance situation.

<comment><USER9> I knew someone that worked at WebEx in their FedRAMP environment performing vulnerability remediation, and most of the work was outsourced to China because the founders are from China. They posted screenshots of a conversation with their teammate saying that because of the convoluted process to install packages, they had concerns that they were installing some sort of backdoor. They reported this and had investigators constantly checking out their LinkedIn profile for months.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I can't find any place explicitly saying this was done maliciously. A theory: this could also be a really bad accident where (for example) he works without a company provided computer and didn't clean out his old AWS profiles from previous company - ended up deleting resources from the wrong account.

<comment><USER11> That seems like a lot of resources to delete... It's "possible" but I'm not sure they I find it plausible. Is there some magic terraform or cloud formation that just destroys everything? And a Cisco engineer with devops like experience wouldn't at least sniff around before running it? Doesn't seem realistic.

Cisco should wear this too though, this is shockingly negligent. The only reason I can think of suggests a lot more problems and likely noncompliance with regulations and standards I'm sure they claim to comply with.

<comment><USER12> I was at a large company some time ago that had a script to delete any instances not tagged with a cost centre (from the testing account - they had planned to eventually run it in production but that was still a ways off).

One day an AWS API had an outage causing it to return an empty array for the tags list; the script deleted over 500 in-use instances.

<comment><USER13> I built an automated VPS system that would do things like create new VPS's, install various pieces of software, and delete test VPS's, etc.

I kept asking the sys admins to create a limited access account for my testing so that it flat couldn't delete existing customers VM's. I would walk into the office of the lead for that team once every few months and make the request again.

Until 1 day a bug in the VPS automation accidentally deleted a customer VPS thinking it was a failed deploy. They finally got around to giving me a limited account for dev/testing work.

It's scary how often this stuff falls through the cracks, even when employees __KNOW __it can happen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This paragraph is baffling:

>According to a court document, Ramesh is in the US on an H-1B visa and has a green card application pending. "Although he and his employer recognize that his guilty plea in this case may have immigration consequences, up to and including deportation, his employer … is willing to work with him regarding the possibility of his remaining in the country and continuing to work for the company," the document [PDF] says.

Why would you re-hire someone who quit and wiped your servers?

<comment><USER15> It doesn't sound like this is what happened though.

> During his unauthorized access, Ramesh admitted that he deployed a code from > his Google Cloud Project account that resulted in the deletion of 456 > virtual machines for Cisco's WebEx Teams application

It sounds like this may have been more accidental than malicious.

<comment><USER16> Pure speculation, but I wonder if he had gcp service account credentials sitting around his laptop which applied terraform to the wrong project. terraform apply -auto-approve can wipe out a lot of infrastructure in a few seconds.

<comment><USER14> Most crimes require mens rea for conviction. That is, the prosecution has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you intended to do it. If it's really the case that he accidentally ran terraform with the wrong project/credentials, I doubt he'd accept the plea agreement.

<comment><USER17> HN has previously discussed the egregious power imbalance at play in plea agreements.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This feels like may be he at some point discovered that his AWS access to Cisco account was intact and got curious about it and maybe even did some harmless things. Then while playing around with GCP he managed to run something that deletes stuff (Terraform maybe) but the credentials used were that of Cisco AWS account which wasn't what he intended - clearly just deleting stuff is not the smart thing to do when it will be recorded against his AWS credentials.

I think he is pleading guilty to unauthorized access which was intentional - but not to the deletion which was unintended.

</comment><comment><USER19> With that kind of sloppy security in place, Cisco is going to be easily ransomwared.

<comment><USER9> They already are. Based on someone I know, they were warned by their coworkers at WebEx that much of the work was outsourced to China and they had concerns that they were installing backdoors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Phhhh, 6 months... I'd still have access to my first company's Google local directory console almost 14 years after I've left it (this is despite numerous messages on my part to remove my access) if Google were not to remove the listing altogether

</comment><comment><USER21> This is a really scary situation for an employee: maybe this case was a mistake or maybe it was bad intentions, but imagine you are leaving a company and your access should be closed, but is actually not, then your account still active without your knowledge might get hacked... and you could be responsible?

</comment><comment><USER22> It also means there was no orchestration for the VMs. System should have recreated them 1 by 1 on a health check triggered restore action.</comment>


The art of letting go - <AUTHOR> http://alexsblog.org/2014/04/19/the-art-of-letting-go/

<comment><USER2> This is naive beyond belief and just oozes the blindness of privilege. Poor children may not seem too bothered about their poverty, but guess what -- wealthy or well-off children children aren't bothered about much either. The thing about children is that they aren't able to appreciate the complexities of life.

Even the adult poor may not be too bothered by todo lists (etc.), but that's probably because they're worried _all the time_ about where their next meal will come from.</comment>


TDD or not TDD that is the question - <AUTHOR> http://beust.com/weblog/2008/03/03/tdd-leads-to-an-architectural-meltdown-around-iteration-three/

<comment><USER2> It depends on your project. Here is the guidelines I use.

Prototype / Early Stage Project. Avoid TDD during early stages. Focus on learning and make the project work. Also get feedback from potential users. At this point, only one or two developers should be involved.

Mid Stage / Concept proven but still a lot of work needed. Concept is proven. Heavy development is going on. More developers 2+ are working on the project at the same time. Have unit/integration tests for most important features. Code coverage is less than 20%.

Beta / Release stage Concept is proven and your application is ready for consumption. Have solid unit tests and integration tests. May have a lot of developers 5+ and geographically distributed. At this stage, each feature development should go with TDD. Code coverage should be 80%.</comment>


Ask HN: Most promising tech to detect the absence of a conscience? - <AUTHOR> Some human beings appear to be "without conscience" in that their actions in the world appear to be unrestrained by genuine care and concern for the well being of other human beings.
Some of these individuals are exceptionally skilled at gaining the trust of others while hiding their true motives.
The cost of allowing these individuals to operate freely within organizations that have the potential to do vast harm, for example a virology lab with the potential to cause a worldwide pandemic, is so high that screening such individuals rigorously for competence alone is insufficient. A single competent individual who is without conscience could, for example, sell lab animals that had been experimented on to a wet market in order to make some extra money and potentially start a worldwide pandemic.
What are the most promising technologies to assist with the detection of people whose desire to benefit themselves is unrestrained by care and concern for the welfare of other human beings?
I am currently aware of 4 but it is unclear to me how effective any of these actually are currently or have the most potential.
1: genetic testing 2: Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) 3: Facial Action Coding System (FACS) (perhaps aided by Artificial Intelligence) 4: reputation systems
This problem is complicated by the fact that there seem to be a number of different, and perhaps unrelated, conditions that might be responsible for the non-emergence of a conscience.
For example, the HARE checklist would seem to be a good tool for detecting psychopathy, but perhaps not for Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD).
https://psychology.stackexchange.com/questions/25238/what-are-the-most-promising-technologies-to-aid-in-the-detection-of-those-who-ar <comment><USER2> I heard psychopaths have a low heart rate, also blunted physiological response to stress. I am sure there is a high false positive rate but if the person is going to be a CEO it might be worth losing a few candidates.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good idea. Psychopaths are apparently 1% of the population. People with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) apparently have very a different brain anomaly. It might be necessary to have separate tests for each: [https://bit.ly/2zMPGqB](https://bit.ly/2zMPGqB)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> [https://psychology.stackexchange.com/questions/25238/what- ar...](https://psychology.stackexchange.com/questions/25238/what-are-the-most- promising-technologies-to-aid-in-the-detection-of-those-who-ar)</comment>


Out to Get You - <AUTHOR> https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2017/09/23/out-to-get-you/ <comment><USER2> Oooh, I really enjoyed this. The style, while some other commenters had issues with it, was enjoyable to me.

"Some things are fundamentally Out to Get You."

"They seek resources at your expense."

You aren't being paranoid. There are systems out there that are designed to maximize your loss and minimize your gain. This is the way of pirate capitalism, where you aren't concerned about LTV, just about short term value.

Great list of techniques for dealing with this situation, which seems to come up more and more often. Would have loved more examples, but the ones the author mentioned were excellent.

</comment><comment><USER3> I liked this read. I heavily subscribe to the "only suckers pay full price" philosophy. Everyone is out to get you, and they profit by relying on most people's trusting, docile, harmony-seeking nature. Your cable bill is $0.01 more than last month? Call up and fight it--threaten to drop your subscription. Medical bill you don't understand or credit card charge you don't remember? Call them up and dispute it. Speeding ticket? Fight it in court. Find a small scratch on a piece of furniture you just bought? Threaten to dump it back in the store's lobby unless you get a discount. And never, ever buy a new car! Negotiate everything, even your groceries. You work too hard for your money in order to just give "them" what they want without a fight.

\- Proud cheapskate

<comment><USER4> Think about how much you value your time and how doing that will affect your happiness.

<comment><USER5> Exactly. Some people enjoy this and that's great. Others are so blinded by the need to not Get Got that they end up working for pennies an hour on some tasks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Authored by Zvi Mowshowitz, Magic PT Hall of famer. I was surprised to see intersection here of two of my interests.

</comment><comment><USER7> tl;dr for those who read the definitions but don't want to Get Got.

* Understand the difference between the value of something and the cost of the thing.

* Understand opportunity cost (and sunk cost).

Get Got when when value is high and opportunity cost is low.

Get compact when value is high but opportunity cost is non trivial.

Get Gone when value is low and opportunity cost is high.

Get ready when cost as well as sunk cost is high.

<comment><USER8> This comment made me realize why I never remember summaries of self help books.

Using examples makes it easier to relate and remember, whereas summaries require an additional step of mapping an ongoing situation to a stored summary in your head, and this is very hard to do in realtime.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Upvoting for the excellent philosophical points; in spite of being mentally exhausting to read...

</comment><comment><USER10> Actionable, seemingly trivial advice that might be the foundation of better habits:

"A buffet creates overeating. Filling up one plate (or one early to explore, then one to exploit) ends better."

"one early to explore, then one to exploit"

</comment><comment><USER11> > When you deal with Out to Get You, you know it in your gut. Your brain > cannot relax. You lookout for tricks and traps. Everything is a scheme.

That's exactly how I feel when I'm in US. That'd be X dollars. Plus state tax. Cover not included. And 15% tips. Sorry, no change.

How you people can tolerate this, I don't know.

</comment><comment><USER12> What's the experience called when a word is said so many times it feels like it starts to lose meaning?

Get Got Got Get Got Got Got Get Got Get Got

Got

Worth It

<comment><USER13> "Semantic satiation": [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_satiation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_satiation)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Perhaps one day we'll have AI and collaborative filtering to warn us in such circumstances.

<comment><USER15> (At the risk of stating the obvious.)

It is likely we will soon have multiple AI's Out To Get You. We're pretty close to it, but I would assume current algorithms are not "AI".

<comment><USER16> > We're pretty close to it, but I would assume current algorithms are not > "AI".

Seems like it depends on your definition of "AI". We've got computer programs reading our communication, watching our browsing, and piecing together which patterns are likely to be the same person in different locations.

Then they use that information, both alone and in aggregation with other peoples' info, and finding ads for things that the individual might be interested in.

I understand at least some of the algorithms behind this, and have at least a fuzzy concept of most of the rest. It certainly crosses over into the category of what I'd call "AI". But that's the problem with the definition of Artificial Intelligence: It seems like the most-used definition is roughly "The collection of intelligent-seeming behaviors that we haven't figured out algorithms for yet".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Sometimes you can retroactively undo being Gotten by just not paying.

</comment><comment><USER18> While there is good thought behind this article, I found it unnecessarily difficult to read. For instance:

> "Get Compact when you find a rule you can follow that makes it Worth It to > Get Got."

Now, he defined "Get Compact" earlier, and "Get Got", but why is "Worth It" capitalised? I am not sure if it is a typo or if it is also referring to some abstraction made elsewhere in the piece or in another piece by TheZvi. The language is, in general, difficult and abstracted where it doesn't need to be.

There are many more examples of the kind of grammar that makes you read a sentence twice, or second guess yourself, etc. Ultimately, I think this sloppy writing elevates the author's system of writing over helping the reader understand quickly.

Is there a reason to be particularly forgiving? Is English not a first language or is there something else Hacker News knows that I don't?

<comment><USER12> It sounds like the article wasn't Worth It and you Got Got

<comment><USER19> But since it was free, it was Worth It...

<comment><USER20> It wasn't free in terms of the time cost.

If you value your time, then maybe it was Worth It, and maybe not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This reminds me: don't ever do business with SurePayroll.</comment>


Why You Need a German Sedan to Break the Cannonball Run Record - <AUTHOR> https://www.thedrive.com/news/31367/why-you-need-a-german-sedan-to-break-the-cannonball-run-record <comment><USER2> Seems to me that it's largely also just luck.basically can you break laws for 30 hours straight. Roll of the dice both on public safety (ie risking others without their consent) and just the jail part. Hard to condone that.

The technical aspect as per article is interesting but I don't think this deserves the positive publicity its getting

</comment><comment><USER3> Racing on public streets means being willing to permanently disable or kill others.

It's despicable.

<comment><USER4> Driving at all carries risk. Are all drivers dispicable? At what level of preperation and care does it change?

<comment><USER5> No brightline is and always will be a horrible argument. If your entire purpose of a trip is to go as fast as possible while disregarding safety of other and the law, I think one can consider it to be despicable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> _Take a close look at Arne Toman 's Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG. Those rear lights normally scan easily as an MB product, but Arne masked them to match the rear quarter panel, which at a distance makes the E63 look like a... Honda Accord. Now that's what I call a disguise._

<comment><USER4> This gets repeated ad-nasuem, but it does not, even when squinting at a distance, resemble a honda. Poetic licence at best.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you're curious about the current record holder's vehicle, see [https://youtu.be/ZWqpYHHNgXA](https://youtu.be/ZWqpYHHNgXA).</comment>


Plasma Jet Electric Thrusters for Spacecraft - <AUTHOR> http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2027072188/plasma-jet-electric-thrusters-for-spacecraft

<comment><USER2> I'm thrilled to see this project. Yes, $69K is clearly much less than they have invested to date. This Kickstarter is likely a PR platform for them, and a smart one.

I'm excited because it shows that more individuals are willing to take on far- reaching projects rather than build another mobile picture app. I hope some deep pocketed investors vet them and get them the resources they need.

<comment><USER3> Wow. Check out the updates page of that project: [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2027072188/plasma-jet- el...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2027072188/plasma-jet-electric- thrusters-for-spacecraft/posts)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> As much as I cringed through the video, I think the style really works for them. :)

This is the sort of thing I love to see on Kickstarter. Best of luck!

</comment><comment><USER5> I know it may not be the best sales pitch, but I love how incredibly nerdy and low-budget the video is. It's a refreshing break from the hyper-polished, artsy videos we tend to see on kickstarter. It's just four nerds looking for funding for something nerds think is awesome.

</comment><comment><USER6> Here's my quick sale for these guys, which I've posted elsewhere as well when this comes up.

First, what is this? It's a pulsed plasma thruster, which is basically just a railgun that shoots puffs of ionized gas (plasma) instead of metal slugs.

Second, what's so great about it? Well, electric propulsion is a fantastic way to get around in space (once you are in Earth's orbit or above) because it's so efficient. The rocket equation is brutal, it imposes an exponential fuel burden based on the ratio of how fast you want to go (delta V) to how fast the exhaust of your rocket is (exhaust velocity). Unfortunately, a lot of missions have delta V requirements that are on the scale of or significantly greater than the exhaust velocity of chemical rockets (around 3-4 km/s), which means that we'll always be dealing with rockets that are mostly fuel and even then can only just barely get us to our destination. Electric propulsion systems, such as ion engines, make it possible to have vastly higher exhaust velocities (e.g. 30 km/s), which vastly improves the efficiency of the rockets by an inordinate amount. For example, using a chemical rocket to go from Earth to Mars would require at least 180% of the dry weight of the rocket and payload being used up as fuel, whereas an ion engine could do the same job while using about 1/12th as much fuel.

The down sides of existing forms of electric propulsion are fairly severe though. They generate very little thrust and so must run for a long time to be useful. For example, the Dawn spacecraft will only accumulate about 1 km/s of delta V every 6 months. This means that some missions are unsuitable for electric propulsion, especially manned missions (where travel time is more critical). However, these pulsed plasma thrusters could potentially generate around one to two orders of magnitude more thrust for the same size of engine, making them much more suitable for high-delta-v missions or even use with manned spacecraft.

Additionally, ion engines use a grid that is exposed to the flow of the ions that become the exhaust, and that grid can often become fouled or eroded by the flow, limiting the effective service life of the thruster, whereas pulsed plasma thrusters have much different limits.

Third, why hasn't NASA already worked on this technology? Well, partly because ion engines have seemed to some like a more worthwhile technology. However, ion engines have received a lot of commercial development and are fairly commonly used on geostationary satellites, and there the low thrust is not a problem. So partly it's also that NASA has mostly just made use of otherwise well-proven, off the shelf technologies.

Overall the project is probably worth at least a few bucks if you have any interesting in advancing the technology of spaceflight.

</comment><comment><USER7> How does this compare to VASMIR? Is there a chance NASA would start using this?

<comment><USER6> It's infinitely more practical than VASIMR, which has tremendous minimum energy requirements and fairly poor overall thrust/weight ratios once that is taken into account. VASIMR is only practical if you have hundreds of kilowatts to work with, which means you need a space-based fission reactor, which currently is not in production anywhere in the world at present.

These pulsed plasma thrusters have very much better thrust to weight ratios and scale down much better. They are a comparably small device whereas VASIMR requires large and complex systems of magnets and so forth. It would be easy to run them off of solar power, for example.

If their estimates hold up once they have built their prototype thruster and if they are able to develop it into a commercial enterprise (or license the technology) then NASA would certainly use them given the chance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The day is not far when the next CERN is funded on kickstarter!:P

</comment><comment><USER9> I like to help people working on projects like these, not only because it could do what they think it will do, but because in playing around with unexplored regions of physics, they may accidentally stumble into something far more than they could have imagined.

Kind of like the story of Alexander Fleming where he was trying to find some enzymes to kill bacteria, and accidentally figured out that mold in his sink kills the bacteria, and invents penicillin.

We need something like that, again, for electric engines.

[http://www.essortment.com/alexander-fleming-discovery- penici...](http://www.essortment.com/alexander-fleming-discovery- penicillin-40564.html)

</comment><comment><USER10> 1) Your funding goal is ridiculous. $69K, really? Four engineers could not pitch in to get that much?

2) Your highest investment pledge ($10k or more) is an insult to the investor. They will essentially pay for 1/7th of your company, while getting no % of your company in return.

3) Your presentation is OK, but you really need to put microphones closer to the speaker.

<comment><USER11> _> Your highest investment pledge ($10k or more) is an insult to the investor. They will essentially pay for 1/7th of your company, while getting no % of your company in return._

There's absolutely no way that this 70k is the value of the company. Their existing plant is probably worth 5-10x that even at bankruptcy auction prices.

My understanding (although I haven't looked in too much depth) is that they're an established company doing work in one area (fabrication for plasma/fusion research) who have come up with a novel use for some of their tech/skills, but can't really justify the cost/opportunity cost of this particular app.

So they're asking for essentially donations to develop the thing, in exchange for very low-cost returns plus a final project demo. It's really the patronage model applied to research.

Also, for 10k you do get naming rights to the tech, and some advertising opportunity during the final tech demo, which is probably valuable to some companies, especially given the audience targeting this thing is likely to attract.

Pitching for equity investment in the company requires a much more substantial business plan ("Make cool thing, produce internet videos & some research data" isn't really going to work), and it may just be that they don't see the value right now in doing the work necessary to attract those sorts of investors.

I imagine if this test is successful and there is any hint of actual commercial prospects from existing satellite/space manufacturers, they'd take a more conventional route to funding to get the thing built.

For "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if...?" studies, I think this is a good way to go about it, and $40k of people already agree.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> "Thuster"?

<comment><USER6> This is unhelpful, say what you mean.</comment></comment>


The English Wikipedia now has over 6M content articles - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Statistics <comment><USER2> Looks like the user:Mercurywoodrose is the lucky winner (of eternal fame).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Six- million_pool](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Six-million_pool)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> For anyone looking at this in the future, the number is at 6,000,653 as of posting this.</comment>


YC Winter 2011 Applicants Live Web Chat Tonight @ 8:30pm [Pacific] - <AUTHOR>

So I setup a simple, yet functional node.js chat room, for YC Winter 2011 applicants to meet other applicants, and chat about their ideas and businesses. Nothing official,
I'm not associated with YC at all.
We had some great discussions last night, but I'm am setting up a more definite time for tonight at 8:30pm [Pacific].
The url is: http://www.nodejscloud.com:8001/
I am a Winter 2011 YC applicant, and my username in chat is Justin.
I will keep the chat room up 24/7, probably through the November 1st announcement for others to pop their head into and chat.
See you there. <comment><USER2> I've always wondered by YC-application-waiting chat never ends up on #startups. My first winter paying attention it was on #candyisdandy. Then somewhere else random. Is there a specific reason for this?

</comment><comment><USER3> Another irc channel: <http://webchat.freenode.net> channel kapio

<comment><USER4> A little styling to spice up the chat room:

      document.getElement('head').innerHTML=document.getElement('head').innerHTML+'';

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It'd be better if it didn't reset the scroll every time someone says anything + have wall of some crap about curl.

<comment><AUTHOR> Try using Chrome or Firefox.

<comment><USER5> Meh.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Clickable Link : <http://www.nodejscloud.com:8001/>

</comment><comment><USER7> Time in your local timezone: [http://www.thetimezoneconverter.com/?t=8:30pm&tz=Pacific...](http://www.thetimezoneconverter.com/?t=8:30pm&tz=Pacific%20Time%20\(PT\))

</comment><comment><USER8> some crazy dude just killed the chat :/ that was so lame. Anw, IRC next time maybe so Op could kick/ban?

(mine: quakenet #elive if you need a free chan)

<comment><AUTHOR> Because of the guys who decided they would ruin the chat experience for all YC applicants, I modified the chat script, and now log ip addresses, and can simply add naughty people to DENY iptables. It is truly sad, I even had to do this, but, its now in place. :) Sorry about that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> 15 min in, we have a pg impersonator it seems.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Ok, now that the fanfare has died down, and there inst hundreds of people trying to talk all at once, my chat room is the place to go to chat with other YC applicants. :)

</comment><comment><USER10> This is great had some really good talks about YC, internet, and start ups. Check it out.

</comment><comment><USER11> werd

<comment><USER11> that was me saying thank you, and i get minus points, come on now guys

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Great, c u all then.</comment>


Wind Turbine Efficiency - <AUTHOR> http://datagenetics.com/blog/june12017/index.html <comment><USER2> What if the turbine uses tubercles in its design for better efficiency?</comment>


Jesse Noller: I'm officially no longer PyCon chair - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/jessenoller/status/314826663462580225 <comment><USER2> Since 2006 PyCon chairs have followed an unofficial pattern of chairing two conferences and then stepping aside. Jesse chaired PyCon 2012 and 2013, so this isn't a surprise.

(I co-chaired PyCon 2006 and 2007, and trust me: two years of conference planning is enough for anyone!)</comment>


XMPP is the future for cloud services - <AUTHOR> http://www.jivesoftware.com/community/blogs/jivetalks/2008/01/24/xmpp-aka-jabber-is-the-future-for-cloud-services

<comment><USER2> Probably like everyone else, I found this great because it gave me a way to think about something familiar in a different way. I'm use to thinking about XMPP as just an IM and presence protocol, used by applications that let humans to communicate with other humans. But I didn't take it one step further and think of it as a messaging service between machines, mostly because I was under the impression that polling problem was solved (by the likes of Comet).

By the same token, one should be able to run a "IMsite" over XMPP, analogous to a "web site" over HTTP. It's just that there currently is no "browser" for XMPP. If there were, you can technically send DOM updates or javascript (or whatever the browser can interpret) over XMPP. I imagine one should be able to take the mozilla engine and tack XMPP instead of HTTP in front (probably easier said than done).

That way we should be able to build browser apps that need near-real-time updates. The obvious one is chat. In fact, most of our XMPP clients are specialized to do that. Other applications are collaboration software, like a shared whiteboard (if sending SVG over XMPP would not be a bandwidth hog). Video lectures with auto advancing slides might be another one. Fleet tracking might be another. MMORPGs would also be easier to write on such a platform. It'd be interesting to see where this goes, or if something better comes along.

<comment><USER3> > I imagine one should be able to take the mozilla engine and tack XMPP > instead of HTTP in front (probably easier said than done).

Already done: <http://dev.hyperstruct.net/xmpp4moz>

It's really cool, it's a pity it doesn't get more attention. There used to be a whiteboard demo on that site somewhere.

<comment><USER2> Sweet. Thanks for the info. Goes to show you you're almost never the first to think of something.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Well, I was intrigues first. But then I found [this](<http://about.psyc.eu/Jabber>)... Which points out that

>"I have been Jabber server administrator and a Jabber advocate for a few years and most complaints about Jabber I have heard was about its link-level inreliability"...

> From a protocol and architectural point of view Jabber generates a lot more > traffic than is necessary

>It's not a question of religion - it's not true that one format is like another - there are clear and logical technical reasons why XML is plain wrong for this purpose.

>XMPP isn't XML, really...

Other than that - XMPP is cool, and we get to write servers in Erlang!

</comment><comment><USER5> Very interesting, although I think some other alternatives to polling are also emerging, like Pingback and Trackback for Blogs. XMPP might be more general, though.</comment>


Ask HN: Anyone has experience with running YC clone *inside* a company? - <AUTHOR>

Toying around with the idea of running a mini YC startup competition <i>inside</i> a larger company to encourage innovation? <comment><USER2> We attempted something similar in my previous company. I can tell you it failed, and why so as not to make the same mistakes we did. For starters, they are an IT services company so it was difficult to implement from the get-go when you are dependant on your employees being billable. We were hoping to build software products, and we knew that we would need to provide support and incentives b/c we were essentially asking those involved to work hours outside of their normal schedule. We set up a fairly streamlined, gated process which provided the teams the ability to receive mentorship throughout each gate. They would formalize an idea/concept, then run it by the CEO and sales team to ensure it had buy-in and would be marketable to our established customer base. If at any point it wasn't viable they could either pivot or stop. The wheels quickly fell off when the CEO (after signing off on it) decided it was too heavy handed, then the sales team was too busy to meet with any of the teams, and none of the teams could see the incentive to working on something that lacked support and required them to work off-hours to build. Needless to say, this is the opposite of how an YC clone should be inside of a company.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you want to encourage innovation inside of a larger company, go read [http://www.amazon.com/Winning-New-Products-Accelerating- Proc...](http://www.amazon.com/Winning-New-Products-Accelerating- Process/dp/0738204633). You'll get a lot of ideas and some very practical advice for addressing that problem.

Basically what it comes down to is, "Start with lots of ideas, and have a rigorous process for making most of them fail fast with a minimal allocation in resources."

</comment><comment><USER4> check out geoffrey moore's books if you haven't already</comment>


In Science, It's Never 'Just a Theory' - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/09/science/in-science-its-never-just-a-theory.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience&action=click&contentCollection=science&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=7&pgtype=sectionfront <comment> r-w I'm surprised they didn't delve into the idea that theories aren't seen as useful in the real world. It's relatively easy to take the bait of exposing falsities that _non_ -scientists believe and make an article about that, but I would have been more impressed had they tackled an _informed_ misconception.

</comment><comment><USER2> I would phrase it as "In Science It's Always 'Just A Theory'". There is always a doubt.</comment>


Need your opinion about my video and project - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLkrZ8bOEwM&feature=plcp

<comment><USER2> \- I think you misspelled the name. Shouldn't it be "World" not "Word" \- I like the idea. Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> thank you)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> the english in the video is missing "the" several times. but I like the idea. Do you get points badges for creating photos? do you get to see the top voted photos?

<comment><AUTHOR> sharemywin thank you for your comments, Now we don`t have any badges and so on. We want to create minimal viable product. I could send you an invitation, when we fihished.

<comment><USER3> thanks, please do.</comment></comment></comment>


A VC (Fred Wilson) on Zynga's "Give our stock back or you'll be fired" - <AUTHOR> http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/11/long-roadmaps.html#comment-361839182

<comment><USER2> Can you explain why you gave the article that title? I don't see Fred mentioning the stock issue at all in the article, and I don't see why the founder having a 'long roadmap' means that somebody who was given an amount of stock should have to give it back.

If the road map was so large, the stock plan should have reflected that, or maybe the company hasn't reached the value metrics at the intersection of road map and stock plan.

Either way, is that the fault of the employee? Why do the employees have to give back their stock? What about Pinkus? Is he putting his stock back into the pool also?

I haven't been actively following this story. So I'm sorry if I'm still a bit ignorant about it, but my main point is that I'm not sure this article is directly referencing the stock issue.

<comment><AUTHOR> The original story is at: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3220819>

The link is meant to go to a comment where somebody asks about the Zynga situation, and Fred Wilson replies with:

"i think it is an example of what the media does to companies that are in the quiet period. when mark and zynga can tell their side of the story, i think people will realize that zynga is a meritocracy where performance matters more than anything else "

And:

"please don't make the mistake of hearing only one side of the story when the other side can't talk because they are in a quiet period. when the truth can and will come out, i think you will realize what zynga does is not only fair and equitable, it is doing it in the interest of fairness for everyone. but you can do one thing. go look at Zynga's S1 and look at how much stock employees and former employees own versus how much stock Mark owns. mark is generous to a fault in my opinion."

Basically, only one side of the story has surfaced so far, and those in the know on the other side are legally bound to keep quiet for the moment.</comment></comment>


ReBoard: Revolutionary multi-tasking keyboard for iOS - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/08/28/reboard/

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Everyone!

If you are in WhatsApp on iPhone, how do you schedule a calendar appointment? By switching to Calendar app. Right?

What if you could schedule an appointment from within WhatsApp itself? Wouldn't it save you lots of time?

Meet ReBoard - The Revolutionary Keyboard. Its a system wide keyboard for iOS which lets you do lots of such tasks from within the keyboard window.

You can schedule a calendar appointment using natural language input without leaving WhatsApp or any other app you are using. It will be saved in iOS Calendar app automatically.

"project meeting friday 11.30am" "call steve in 2hrs"

You can do these without leaving an app:

1\. Share Dropbox files 2\. Search local addresses & view maps 3\. Do calculations 4\. Create iOS Reminders 5\. Lookup Wikipedia 6\. Add tasks to Wunderlist 7\. Chat in Slack 8\. Search web 9\. Search & download images 10.Search and play music 11\. Many more...

ReBoard goes beyond typing, enabling the user to stay in the context and still perform other tasks.

What do you think about it?</comment>


I thought that a small project does not need testing... - <AUTHOR> http://javadots.blogspot.com/2010/08/i-thought-that-small-project-does-not.html

<comment><USER2> This is an excellent and simple anecdote of someone discovering why TDD (and its siblings) is a fundamental core skill in software development.

What I really like here is that the author has provided a simple numerical explanation for the cause of his problem. Very useful.

</comment><comment><USER3> Testing is not related to small or big code base.

A good programmer can code with automatic testing in his head, so in his view it doesn't need testing. But this is a personal supposition.</comment>