Resurrecting the SuperH architecture - <AUTHOR> http://lwn.net/Articles/647636/ <comment><USER2> RISC-V seems like a better bet ([http://riscv.org/](http://riscv.org/)). It is a clean, patent-free modern architecture. It already has kernel support, and supposedly there will be both FPGAs and ASICs "soon" ([http://www.lowrisc.org/](http://www.lowrisc.org/)). Plus you can run it under qemu: [https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2015/06/11/booting-risc-v- linux-w...](https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2015/06/11/booting-risc-v-linux-with- qemu/)

</comment><comment><USER3> This:

 _There have been some minor additions, he said: the J2 adds four new instructions. One for atomic operations, one to work around the barrel shifter, "which did not work the way the compiler wanted it to [...]_

Is _so_ intriguing! Does anyone know what was wrong with the original barrel shifter design? I tried reading up on it but failed to find much reference material. I followed the link to the J-core community site to read the code, but it wasn't immediately browsable, just available for download.

I assume there were compilers for SuperH back in the day, didn't they use the shifter? Why not fix the compiler to teach it the existing instruction, rather than adding an instruction just for this? How wrong can a shifter be, really? The questions just heap up.

<comment><USER4> Compilers did use the shifter. I don't know if this is exactly what he was referring to, but one oddity with the SH4's dynamic shift instruction is that it only shifts to the left (there are also a limited number of shift-by-small constant (1,2,8,16) amount instructions). To shift to the right, you have to first negate the shift amount, then preform a left shift. So if use did a right shift by a non-constant, you would always see a negation of the shift amount before the shift. My guess as to why it was implemented like this was that since the SH4 had a fixed length, 2-byte instruction set, running out of possible instructions for future expansion was a real hazard, and not encoding both directions was done to save space.

On the original SH4 implementation, under certain conditions, there had to be one cycle in-between when a shift-amount was generated and when it was used, otherwise there would be a one-cycle CPU stall. A real right shift would avoid the need to schedule around this stall. This isn't necessarily something that needs an extra instruction to fix, the implementation could be designed to not need the stall, but it might difficult to work around. I don't to circuit design, but dynamic shift instructions typically look at as few bits in the shift amount to simplify and speed up the design of the shifter. The reason for the delay in the original SH4 is probably because it analysis and tags each register with information for the correct shift direction and amount, and certain units won't have this information ready for the shifter in time, hence the stall if the shift is too close the shift amount generation. (I've read this certain CPU implementations have done similar work in tagging if a register is zero or not, in order to help keep branch-on-zero/not-zero instructions quick.) If the instruction talked about is a dedicated right shift, it could be defined in a way that doesn't need a negation and extra tagging, would be much more compiler friendly, and faster.

<comment><USER3> Thanks!

Does that mean that the shifter is actually capable of doing rotates? Otherwise the negation part doesn't make any sense.

If you have 0xf0 and want to shift it three bits to the right to get 0x1e, no amount of negated-amount left-shifting is going to do that unless the instruction is a rotate.

If, on the other hand, you can do a 8-bit rotate left of 8-3 = 5 bits, that would produce the same result and need that "negation" (which is actually an inversion).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> We used an SH2 for the main processor of a DDS (DAT) tape drive at a company I worked at. We had a prototype that used an SH3 and I remember spending a few days hacking Linux to boot on our hardware (I think we made it to user space and then the project petered out).

GCC has supported the SH series since at least the 2.7 era (though Hitachi's compiler seemed to produce better code in those days, but only ran under DOS).

</comment><comment><USER6> From the comments there, early MIPS architectures are also patent-expired at this point.

They might have had more actual work done with them back in the old days, so their code might be in better shape now.

<comment><USER7> The key point is that this is the first widely deployed 32-bit RISC platform with a 16-bit instruction set to come off patent. That has advantages for the embedded applications being targeted in this case. You won't get that with a MIPS or ARM clone because MIPS16 and Thumb are still under patent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> mm superH. reminds me of the old HP Jornada's.. they also ran on SH3 processor (well, some did). back in the day these were mindblowing to me.. a real pocked-sized PC, with a modem no less!

</comment><comment><USER9> I always had high admiration for the SuperH architecture and now to read about its potential to fuel the much-needed open hardware movement is _fantastic_ news.

</comment><comment><USER10> Good to see them doing it. I included SuperH in my list [1] of non-Intel architectures and old hardware to use post-Snowden. Additionally, I proposed that it falling out of favor despite Japanese chip-makers backing it might make it a nice candidate for trying to get them to open the design but still sell it. Concept is a proven design which can be verified by third parties, masked by whoever, and taped out at fab of their choice. Although, there's work in moving to new nodes and that cost would be on whoever did it. The precedent is Gaisler's SPARC-based processors and I.P. [2] that are dual- licensed as commercial and GPL with tools for easy customization.

Alternatively, I proposed the security enhancements for processors showing up in academia be applied to this or another processor with low market share as a differentiator. Some of these enhancements take almost no chip real-estate, esp simple tags & tag-checks. The chip designer could also make money for the semi-custom work. Time has passed, that didn't happen for low market chips, and did happen for AMD+Intel for non-security applications [that I know of]. Matter of fact, even though my scheme didn't happen, AMD is making so much money off the other half of my proposal that they could be cited when trying to convince chip-makers to do it for security enhancements with mass-market availability. So long as they don't bear the cost of failure (huge in ASIC's) they might go for it.

Finally, anyone wanting to deploy this or other things, remember the Structured ASIC's with FPGA conversions. eASIC [3] has a long track record in this with offers down to 28nm. Gigoptix [4] does S-ASIC's down to 28nm. Tekmos [5] offers a similar product at 350nm (good for budget masks). Just make sure you design in FPGA's with ASIC transition in mind from the start & follow published advice on that (available with Google or consultation). The result is you prove it in FPGA's, even use it on FGPA boards, and then move it to S-ASIC later for reduced costs/power + maybe speed increase. Authors are right that 180nm is a sweet spot although proving it at 350nm or higher first might be smarter given costs.

[1] [https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/09/surreptitious...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/09/surreptitiously.html#c1762647)

[2] [http://www.gaisler.com/](http://www.gaisler.com/)

[3] [http://www.easic.com/products/28-nm-easic- nextreme-3/](http://www.easic.com/products/28-nm-easic-nextreme-3/)

[4] [http://www.gigoptix.com/products/asics/asic- type/structured-...](http://www.gigoptix.com/products/asics/asic- type/structured-asic/)

[5] [http://www.tekmos.com/products/asics/process- technologies](http://www.tekmos.com/products/asics/process-technologies)

<comment><USER10> EDIT to add: Triad Semiconductor [1] has a mixed-signal ASIC take on S-ASIC's. Interesting stuff. Just found it.

[1] [http://www.triadsemi.com/vca-technology/](http://www.triadsemi.com/vca- technology/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Has Xilinx bitstream been reverse-engineered and reimplemented in open-source? I haven't heard about it.

<comment><USER12> I don't think so - at least according to their site, the J2 build chain uses Xilinx ISE: [http://0pf.org/j-core.html](http://0pf.org/j-core.html) . The only fully open FPGA toolchain I'm aware of targets Lattice/SiliconBLUE iCE40: [https://github.com/cseed/arachne-pnr](https://github.com/cseed/arachne-pnr)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> "Resurrecting" something that's not actually dead. SuperH is still a commercially-used CPU that you can buy off the shelf, as the CPUs themselves or inside many devices.

</comment><comment><USER14> I do like SuperH. Especially the later ones. The SH4 had the most delightfully odd, fully pipelined 4x4 matrix X 4x1 vector instructions. If you could fit your problem in that box, you could get so remarkable speed for the clock.</comment>


The How Hypocritical Are You? Test - <AUTHOR> http://www.okcupid.com/tests/the-how-hypocritical-are-you-test

<comment><USER2> Sign up bait, Keep away!</comment>


Photographic Height/Weight Chart - <AUTHOR> http://www.cockeyed.com/photos/bodies/heightweight.html

<comment><USER2> Everybody in my height/weight range looks much, much more overweight than I do. I must have heavy bones. Or the titanium part of my arm (destroyed original bone in a fall) was actually made of lead to save money and the surgeons lied to me.

<comment><USER3> Or a lot of your weight is in muscle rather than fat. Or you look more overweight than you think you do.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> An interesting visual display of height to weight with actual user-submitted photos. You can even make out the distribution trend (I can't call it a regression curve, since there may be multiple photos behind each cell).

</comment><comment><USER4> Lot of people in my height weight range probably. I already see all the cells in and around that range filled.

<comment><AUTHOR> You can click on a cell to see other photos (if any) that match the coordinates. For every one you see in and around that range, their may be more buried.</comment></comment>


PixelBlock – Gmail extension that blocks email open tracking - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pixelblock/jmpmfcjnflbcoidlgapblgpgbilinlem?hn <comment><USER2> I thought this is completely pointless nowadays:

\- Gmail USED to block images unless you do "allow images"

\- Gmail changed to a system where gmail pre-fetches the images and runs them through safety checks.

\- Gmail only does this check if you open the email.

\- Even if you block the pixel, you only block the gmail cache of it. NOT the original.

Unless I misunderstand.

<comment><USER3> This is easy to test.

You will find images are NOT retrieved by Google's proxy before or after opening the email when you have external images turned off in Gmail.

1) Ensure Gmail is set to "Ask before displaying external images".

2) Send yourself an HTML email with an img tag pointing to a site you control (doesn't even need to be a real image).

3) Check your server log to see if the img url was retrieved.

4) Open the email in Gmail, but don't click "Display images".

5) Check your server log again.

6) In Gmail click "Display images" and check the server log again.

Only when explicitly clicking "Display images" does GoogleImageProxy fetch the image.

Conclusion - don't install an extension that can spy on everything you do. Just ensure external images are not displayed by default.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think the point of the extension is that you can keep images _on_ and not have to worry about people tracking your opens. I would imagine the majority of Gmail users keep images on

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I could very well be wrong but I always thought that if you disable loading pictures by default, that tracking pixels would be blocked as well. Unless you click on "Show Pictures" that is.

<comment><USER5> Right, that seems to be the real "fix".

(I still can't believe Google turned on remote images by default.)

<comment><USER6> This was likely the entire intent of this change, to allow email tracking by default. After all, Google tracks email opens too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Kinda scary to have a chrome extension that can read all of your email. Is the cure more dangerous than the disease?

<comment><USER8> It ain't so difficult to analyze the code of Chrome Extension [1]. I did (I quite often do this before installing extensions that do not have published source) and as much as you should trust random guy on HN there isn't anything malicious in the code.

On the other hand it is not very effective as the block list is quite limited. 33 entires if I have counted well.

[1] - Check for yourself - [https://gist.github.com/chew-z/7b70da3724626ab04cfc9676bee18...](https://gist.github.com/chew-z/7b70da3724626ab04cfc9676bee18646)

<comment><USER9> Isn't it a problem that Chrome extensions have been purchased by others who then update the code to add spyware to them? I've never been notified about updates to Chrome extensions; they're quietly updated in the background.

Several examples are mentioned here: [https://www.howtogeek.com/188346/why- browser-extensions-can-...](https://www.howtogeek.com/188346/why-browser- extensions-can-be-dangerous-and-how-to-protect-yourself/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Maybe it is because I'm on FF and not logged in, but other than the name 'omar.w.qureshi' (I think he submitted this on HN) I don't see any other info other than the 5 sentence privacy policy. I would be hesitant to install such black-box extension. Could OSS this, or is there a reason not to do so?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's actually open source. You can find it on github. Or you can view source yourself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I know gmail does some image caching / proxying.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6898454](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6898454)

I guess the vector here is when you read an email versus where from / using which device / etc.

</comment><comment><USER12> If you really care about gmail privacy (ha) you should also

        var matches = document.querySelectorAll('a[href*="www.google.com/url?q="]');

        // remove all google spying	redirects
        for (var i = 0; i < matches.length; i++)
        {
          if (/^(https?:\/\/(www\.|encrypted\.)?google\.[^\/]*)?\/?url/.test(matches[i])) {
            var match = /[\?&](url|q)=(.+?)&/.exec(matches[i]);
            if (match != null) {
              matches[i].href = unescape(match[2]);
            }
          }
        }

</comment><comment><USER13> Tracking is just one of the many reasons why it should be considered common courtesy to communicate in plain text (and attachments if necessary).

My email based workflow and toolchain has been plaintext only for years and I think I've been better off for it. The recent _efail_ vulnerability just made me shrug. Plain text mail is all around more reliable, more accessible, less obfuscated, more to the point by the nature of the medium, easier to implement [...].

</comment><comment><USER14> Gmail and every other webmail vendor should block all of these by default. That would be a nice hit to all these "new" drip campaigns (aka personalized spam newsletters).

<comment><USER15> Yeah because Google cares about your privacy....no way would they want to remain friends with the ad industry. No they are YOUR friend. Of course. They don't even charge for their service to billions of people. Truly altruistic company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm stunned every time people try to get privacy with Google.

It's Google! I wish I could make you understand but I probably can't.... :(

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I hope this hits the front page as I feel this is an essential extension for email privacy that many people are unaware of.

</comment><comment><USER16> I don't think having tracking pixel in gmail is a big thing. Almost every modern messaging system such as whatsapp has read receipts. Since gmail has image proxy, it doesn't leak any information. And most modern email client doesn't open remote image unless allowed explicitly.

PS: I have built [https://www.mailtag.io/](https://www.mailtag.io/)

</comment><comment><USER17> Love it. Would be great to see as a direct Gmail Add-On instead of a browser extension.

</comment><comment><USER18> Could the tracking pixels not be blocked via a uBlock Origin filter list?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> extremely beneficial extension, you'd be surprised how many marketing emails are tracking when you open the email

</comment><comment><USER19> something available for firefox?</comment>


Oracle Finally Killed Sun - <AUTHOR> https://meshedinsights.com/2017/09/03/oracle-finally-killed-sun/ <comment><USER2> Sun employee here. What killed Sun wasn't Oracle -- it was Sun management's absolutely incorrect focus on selling hardware over software, and especially over information.

Solaris, Java, and JavaSoft software were always treated as second-class citizens, even though the tech was awesome.

Think of zfs, dtrace, zones, the jvm, jini, openoffice, mysql, and much more. Great tech, yet sometimes the UI/UX/DX was subpar, enhancements were slow, and critical bug fixes took too long with too little transparency. The writing was on the wall in 2000, when many engineers left and the stock dove.

Sun was a great place to work with enormous creativity and super-smart tech folks. Sun promoted "the network is the computer" and if Sun had chosen to truly aim for this -- for the value of network information access, rather than the sale of big iron -- then I truly believe Sun would be the #1 Internet company today.

Thanks for the memories - firstname.lastname@example.com

<comment><USER3> > selling hardware over software, and especially over information.

Not sure how you come to that conclusion. Isn't that true IBM is in the same boat? Somehow it manages to do just fine. Apple is also a mainly hardware company with awesome software.

At the end of the day, it comes to management and leadership. Software or hardware is less irrelevant.

<comment><USER4> _Isn 't that true IBM is in the same boat?_

It's not. IBM quite deliberately transitioned to making money off things that aren't hardware - services, software, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> there's already loads of HN discussion from the weekend[1] on the simon phipps tweet[2]

1\. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15160149](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15160149) 2\. [https://twitter.com/webmink/status/904081073256243201?s=15](https://twitter.com/webmink/status/904081073256243201?s=15)

</comment><comment><USER6> title sounds like a battle of epic proportions took place in the netherworlds ...</comment>


Show HN: A node.js drawing app - <AUTHOR> http://rappdaniel.com/experiment/diddly

<comment><AUTHOR> If it's not immediately clear, the purpose of the game is for you and everyone else online to collaboratively (or individually, but it's more fun if you work together) draw the image it asks for at the top and bottom of the screen.

It saves every image (you can watch previous images by hovering over the image to draw) when a few HNers have used it I'll create a gallery :) It's also available as a chrome app[1] and have been tested on the iPhone (every version) the iPad and a few Androids :)

In case anyone is curious it's running on an ubuntu server with 512 ram. It's heavily dependent on Socket.IO and is using the canvas module[2] to create and save the images.

[1] <http://goo.gl/W1MYL> [2] <https://github.com/learnboost/node-canvas></comment>


Dmitry Rogozin on SpaceX Crew Dragon Launch - <AUTHOR> http://en.roscosmos.ru/21511/ <comment><USER3> Sadly Russia culturally and technologically is not a successor to USSR. Its space program is in shambles. Soyuz was designed in the '60s and Russia's space program can't offer anything new. That happens when you pay your engineers 150$ per month(floor cleaner at McDonald's makes $250) while Rogozin gets 400k$ per year (that's only the official number...), double of what NASA director makes.

Humanity needs a way to access space and we can't rely on the relics of old Soviet technology for that (no matter how great it was, we are rapidly losing the knowledge of it).

<comment><USER4> While it's not as extreme, SpaceX isn't exactly known for great engineering salaries either.

<comment><USER5> Most people I know would be very happy to own SpaceX stock.

<comment><USER6> That's not quite the same as an engineering salary, especially if you are not getting stock options. Would be happy to find out that all new engineers are getting stock options though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm not sure why Mr. Rogozin is writing in English and in Forbes, but yes this is mainly aimed at the internal audience.

There's a lot of bitching and moaning in certain Russian circles about how the space program is falling behind and OMG Space-X launched a crewed vehicle, we're all doomed kind of thing.

The reality is that of course Space-X is standing on the shoulders of giants (NASA and US Treasury) and that the Russian space industry, like the rest of the country has had a tough 25 years. I was living in Russia in the early 90s and those were dark times. Space was not a priority then and it is not really a priority now although some progress is being made. As an example: a lot of critical industry and launch facilities literally ended up in different countries overnight.

Also Roscosmos is a government controlled structure and well... there's a reason why NASA had to turn to a private company to get things done. ;)

Now he's probably getting a kick from upstairs and feels he has to write up something like this and genuinely feels like some of the criticism from the peanut gallery is unfair. In the end though, as an outsider now, it looks to me like they are doing a reasonable job all things considering.

<comment><USER8> > genuinely feels like some of the criticism from the peanut gallery is unfair

I agree with this for sure. Yeah, what SpaceX and, to a lesser extent, Boeing, are doing is cool, but there's something to be said for being the "old faithful" of the launch industry. No one else can really hold a candle to the flight heritage of Roscosmos' rockets and crew vehicles. Sure, they haven't fundamentally changed in a _long_ time and aren't new and shiny like Falcon, but they've been flying for forever and are reliable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Wow, there's so much... _negativity_ in this post by Rogozin. It reads like "sour grapes":

 _" Driven by hunger, a fox tried to reach some grapes hanging high on the vine but was unable to, although it leaped with all its strength. As it went away, the fox remarked 'Oh, you aren't even ripe yet! I don't need any sour grapes.'"_[a]

People who speak disparagingly of the accomplishments of others would do well to apply this story to themselves.

\--

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

<comment><USER10> That's how we know SpaceX is doing a good job competing. Seriously, more than the ESA, and more than Boeing, Russia is SpaceX's strongest competitor. If Rogozin was unruffled and apathetic I'd be wondering if they knew something that SpaceX didn't. The fact that he's upset means that he considers them to be a fully-developed player in the space launch market.

<comment><USER11> With SpaceX delivering astronauts to the ISS this year, Rogozin lost the last mission type where it was a monopoly. If anybody had hopes that the taxi service would keep them alive even as SpaceX undercut them on delivering mass to orbit those hopes were dashed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is this satire? It appears to be the real Roscosmos website, and yet this press release reads like the response of a child that – in an attempt to suppress tears after being second in a competition – lashes out defensively and throws around insults and excuses.

I'm trying to think of a less demeaning adjective, but the most fitting that comes to mind is "butt-hurt".

<comment><USER13> There are few good points tho. For example:

>Our Soyuz MS has proven to be the world's most reliable spacecraft. We have a unique record of 173 successful flights. Even the three emergencies caused by the carrier rocket failures in 1975, 1983 and 2018 occurring during various injection stages showed its unique survivability due to the launch escape system reliability. By the way, the Soyuz rocket of various configurations has performed over 1,900 launches. And this statistics is the golden trademark. The US engineers have yet to earn this reputation. I sincerely wish them luck.

If SpaceX to launch 5 launches per year it would take 35 years to prove same kind of reliability.

<comment><USER8> Barring slippage, they're supposed to have three more launches before the end of June, which would put them on track for 24 this year. They seem to be well on their way to matching 173, based on their current record and high flight rate.

<comment><USER14> Hard to say, but maybe Rogozin means crewed spaceflights, not just any rocket launches. Soyuz had more than 140 flights... don't know where 173 came from, but no, SpaceX isn't going to launch 24 flights of manned Crew Dragon this year, not next year.

I don't agree with ideas of the article :) but Soyuz spacecraft did fly quite a lot of flights. More than Shuttle already, and counting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> No doubt there are some sour grapes in that article. However, as an American, I feel it's our obligation to honor and respect the fact that without the Russians, we would not have had American astronauts in space for the past 9 years.

<comment><USER16> But when were they dishonored or disrespected?

<comment><USER17> > In this connection, I note another strange moment seen in not only the > 'expert' statements, but also coming from the side of NASA officials — such > as Stephanie Schierholz, who have already started making wreaths to bury the > Russian Soyuz spacecraft alive.

I'm still trying to find evidence of this event ever happening.

<comment><USER18> [https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-russia-forced- cosmonauts-...](https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-russia-forced-cosmonauts- spacex)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> i wonder if by overtaking the USSR/Russia space program Musk did more for progress of Russian society than almost anybody else - the space program has been one of the few [left-over from USSR] pillars of Russian nationalistic "greatness", and the "great" don't need progress, changes, etc. Kicking that pillar out provides for the additional stress which at the end may lead to some movement forward, to the "problem acknowledgement" first step, a "king is naked" kind of moment. The timing is especially bad for that "greatness" \- the "high" of Crimea takeover has almost gone, Russia is banned from Olympics (with sport being another "pillar") because of doping, and Putin popularity is starting to go down due to total failure to handle coronavirus and high spike in the number of "dual sided pneumonia" and cardiovascular deaths (that number of extra deaths in the last couple months is more than 10% of coronavirus cases while official coronavirus deaths are only 1% - that miracle of Russian healthcare is naturally helped by special criminal penalty for spreading of false, ie. contradicting official, coronavirus information).

I think history has its sense of irony - Musk started building his rockets as result of Russian refusal to sell rockets (i think it was about decommissioned ICBMs) to him 20 years ago. In alternative Universe by selling to him Russia would have probably slowed down SpaceX may be by 10 years or may be SpaceX wouldn't have even survived in such a case.

</comment><comment><USER20> The focus is wavering and it is hard to make sense of much that is being said beyond: Soyuz kept bringing cosmonauts into space for 9 years - true - <USER2> SpaceX / the US would do well not to bury them just yet or disparage the accomplishments of the Soyuz program. Fair points and all that, but the tone in this is strangely personal and even a bit whiny somehow. Just not what one would expect from an official communication at that level of responsibility. Then again, if you look at Musk's tweets some days, it can be quite a strange experience. Fun times in the space industry.

</comment><comment><USER21> > By the way, under the conditions of pandemics, limited staff managed to > retain continuous work, and it became clear at once, who can continue to > work remotely and who is unnecessary.

hahahahahahhaha say what you want, but I love the unfiltered nature of Russian culture.

</comment><comment><USER22> I guess I understand the... aggressive tone of the piece given the amount of flag waving in the recent Crew Dragon launch. But, just speaking as an American with a little interest in space, I have a lot of respect for the Soyuz program.

<comment><USER23> Rogozin has nothing to do with Soyuz program's success. He has a lot to do with it not evolving

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Looks like it was ghostwritten. Completely differs from Rogozin's speech and flow of thoughts. Not so aggressive and rather peaceful. Also, this is an original article, in English. Strange for the official website where Russian is the main language and everything translated to English.

Anyway, Rogozin bad manager with huge salary overexploiting Soviet tech, including lots of which created by Ukrainians at Yuzhmash and Yuzhnoye Design Office. Paying 500-700$/month to a professional engineer(based on region, mec. eng, electrical engineering, programmers) is outrageous.

</comment><comment><USER25> To be fair though you should count reusables as a different class of rocket which SpaceX has the lead if we're counting successful launches. Does Soyuz recycle any parts of launched rockets?

<comment><USER26> I think, this one was already posted here some time ago: [https://www.discovermagazine.com/environment/in-russias- spac...](https://www.discovermagazine.com/environment/in-russias-space- graveyard-locals-scavenge-fallen-spacecraft-for-profit) Basically poor people recycle rocket parts as building material for their needs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> > the cost of our launches is substantially lower

Cost for a seat on Soyuz is $90MM, cost for a seat on Dragon is $55MM. These are the market rates, not the true cost. In that whole paragraph he's basically saying that the true cost of the seat on the Soyuz is still cheaper than the true cost of the seat on the Dragon. Is there any data to substantiate that? I suppose we'll see in the coming months and years if they actually reduce their asking price.

</comment><comment><USER28> > Equally strange is the statement that 'for the first time a private company > created a crewed spacecraft'. And what about Boeing and Lockheed Martin? > Aren't they still private or have they been nationalized? SpaceX is no less > a private company than Boeing is with the ties to the Pentagon being no > weaker,

ULA is a private rocket company, yes, and successful, but they don't yet have a successful crewed spacecraft.

<comment><USER14> The principal difference is the NASA involvement and its forms. For Mercury/Gemini/Apollo/Shuttle NASA designed, managed and ordered spacecrafts. For Crew Dragon, NASA buys launches - with a lot of say in how the spacecraft should be built and behaved, but still not on the level of project initiator, as it happened before.

SpaceX is a bigger author of its manned spacecraft than any private company ever was.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> > The new American spacecraft are more than double the weight of a Soyuz while > offering only one additional seat.

Is this true? The launch mass of a Soyuz capsule is about 7000kg and the SpaceX Crew Dragon Demo-1 launch mass was about 12000kg so not "more than double" however Demo-1 didn't include astronauts. The Crew Dragon can theoretically carry several tonnes of cargo to the ISS in addition to 4 astronauts.

<comment><USER30> Also, it was originally designed to carry 7 astronauts -- but NASA wanted a different seat position for stress reduction.

(I'm kind of glad that it doesn't carry 7, the more people that are on a flight, the more casualties you get if there is a failure).

<comment><USER31> SpaceX is still advertising a seven-seat capacity on their web site. The "crew dragon interior" video seems to be the NASA-endorsed four-seat configuration, but makes it pretty clear there's a whole lot of room under those four. [https://www.spacex.com/vehicles/dragon/](https://www.spacex.com/vehicles/dragon/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Russia spends a sizeable amount on space exploration, but 80% of it is stolen or defrauded by corrupt officials like Rogozin. Putin is angry about the endless string of failures that result from this, but dares not to come down too hard on the culprits for fear of losing support.

This means that Russia will fade away as a space-power, replaced by China, which is quickly catching up with the West.

All Russia can do now is bragging and brawling about its successes and drawing up an endless number of plans which will never be realized

</comment><comment><USER33> You have to give credit to someone who is willing to put their neck on the line in such a public way. Best of luck, and I hope the competition pushes us all forward!

</comment><comment><USER34> Mirror: [https://web.archive.org/web/20200610151434/http://en.roscosm...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200610151434/http://en.roscosmos.ru/21511/)

</comment><comment><USER35> As a Russian citizen, all I can say is that Rogozin is tiresome. Instead of trolling SpaceX, I'd rather see him address criticisms like this one [0], where Russian engineers talk about the sorry state of our space industry.

Although ultimately there is no mystery here.

The Soviets had a real commitment to science and technology. It was one of the few silver linings of the communist regime. Present day Russia is devoid of that commitment. You can say that lack of funding is the problem (and there is that), but even more troublesome is the apparent lack of leadership. There are no driven, fanatical figures out there trying to set up a vision for the industry. Absent drive from the top, the industry is at best in maintenance mode, trying to keep Soviet heritage pieces flying.

Case in point, Roscosmos hasn't had a space engineer for a director since the early 2000s. Rogozin is a career politician, educated as a journalist. Before Rogozin, Roscosmos was ran by an automaker named Igor Komarov who came from Avtovaz. Before Komarov, there was a string of Army Generals during the 2000s (Gen. Nikolai Ostapenko, Vladimir Popovkin, Anatoly Perminov). Car manufacturers and ICBM generals are not the people who will lobby the political leadership for a basic space program.

Oh well. Whether things will change, I dunno. I think before they do, there has to be a realization at the top that education and science are important. Right now they are playing third fiddle to guns and butter, and all we get are Rogozins whose solution to everything is to put lipstick on a pig.

[0] [https://varlamov.ru/3912524.html](https://varlamov.ru/3912524.html)

<comment><USER36> I thought so too, now I believe that it was sheer naivety. If anything, the realization that education matters is the last thing they come to because this is not their task. Pumping resources out while maintaining the belief of being competitive is what all this government was doing all the time. Take a look at the yearly budget, you don't need to go too far. And it was like this since I remember. Nothing changed in the colony except the managers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> "America is a very large country, and a large country should be benevolent and noble"

What? Is something lost in translation here? Interesting, Russian idiom perhaps?

<comment><USER38> I think as others have suggested the post is meant for a Russian audience (ex- pats, etc).

Otherwise it's ridiculous knowing that Russia is double the size of the US in area and China India are four times larger in population...

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I don't like this person (and our officials in general), but I feel compelled to say, that I find the mockery of his points and all things Russian (in this thread and overall) absolutely disgusting and borderline insulting.

Sadly, it's quite typical. The most atrocious example of this mentality is (still, after so many years) US propagandist efforts to make everyone believe, that their participation in the WWII was decisive, with D-Day being the turning point, that ultimately brought the victory over Nazis. When someone dares to notice, that there were Kursk and Stalingrad in 1943 and a full-on race to Berlin quite some time _before_ the first American troops even landed on Omaha beach, the official propaganda dismisses all evidence or smears the Russian side: like, yeah, sure, they helped a lot, no shit, but it was only possible, because Red Army was overrunning German tanks with millions of vodka-infused unarmed savages, who were machinegunned in the back by commissars, oh, and don't forget lend-lease and food, that US was providing to Russia, otherwise Hitler would have taken Leningrad in 1941...yadda-yadda

Adequate people tend to understand, that any such collective fight (conquering space is also a real fight) is collaborative, and every party plays an important role. Denigrating former allies _after_ the fight is finished is behaving not like a human, but like an ape. It's equally disgusting to see this happen both on Russian and on American side.

<comment><USER39> This thread is a discussion of a particular article of a particular hysterical Russian official. You're trying to turn it into a clown show in a Roskosmos Twitter style: "We are Russians, god with us", "We did not start WWII in 1939", proving most of commentators here right. Glad you joined us on HN, Mr.Rogozin.

<comment><USER18> Comments here are going very far beyond discussing a "particular article", including you specifically, who is a (maybe former) Russian citizen. Replying to you feels like stepping in a pile of crap, but God asked us to be kind and wise, so I'll tolerate my disgust for a moment and tell you: Please, be ashamed of youself. And STFU.

<comment><USER39> Looks like your god asked you lots of other things. He asked your fascist state to hate your neighbors for belonging to other nationality and (unfortunatel) being weaker than you, asked you to kill them, steal their homes, destroy their culture. He asked you to hate with a hysterical, medieval hatered successful countries like the US (which is probably responsible for all your problems according to state propaganda), threatening to turn them "into the nuclear dust" (say hello to Mr.Kiselev). He asked you to hate your ethnic minorities, forbid them to learn their mother tongue and their culture - you teach them New Russian History instead, with "Stalin the Effective Manager". He asked you to throw into prison everyone who had courage to tell the truth about your neo-nazi state, and hate everyone for being wrong color, faith, sexual orientation, political views or hating just someone. You are right, I'm a former Russian citizen. I did not renounce my citizenship, I just do not recognize our totalitarian regime as a legitimate state.

<comment><USER40> Using HN for flamewar like this will get you banned here, so please don't.

More generally, please stop posting nationalistic flamebait to HN. You've unfortunately done that quite a bit, and it's not ok. I understand that being an immigrant from a country is a special case, more complex than simple prejudice, but the internet doesn't handle such nuances.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I am genuinely confused by the sentiment of my fellow commenters saying that this press release sounds like "satire", "butt-hurt", "whiny", "sour grapes", and "aggressive" [0][0][1][2][3].

I have the following questions for you all if you have the time to answer them.

1\. What should an official press release from an leading official of a country's national space program read like? If you have one or more examples, then please do share.

2\. Should this official press release make mention of the opinions of foreign space scientists / foreign space officials and address those opinions, or should this official press release make no mention of them?

3\. If one of the long-term goals of space travel is to colonize another planet in order to avoid human extinction in the case of a catastrophic world war, then is not nationalism in human space flight antithetical to that goal? Quote from Elon Musk: "If there's a third world war we want to make sure there's enough of a seed of human civilisation somewhere else to bring it back and shorten the length of the dark ages" [4].

4\. One of the shortcomings of Soyuz seems to basically come down to some form of "it is old". Given that this forum is Hacker News and we routinely have posts about how some specific instances of old technology have no modern viable successors with similar track records, or old ideas being rediscovered in newer technology (e.g. language features that existed in Common Lisp for decades), why does the sentiment for Soyuz so differently with with that of old technology like older programming languages or older but still used chip designs?

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23478044](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23478044)

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23478215](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23478215)

[2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23478087](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23478087)

[3] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23478013](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23478013)

[4] [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/11/elon- musk...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/11/elon-musk- colonise-mars-third-world-war)

<comment><USER41> Did you read it? Pretty ironic you are decrying nationalism when these comments from Rogozin came across as very nationalistic, effectively "you guys don't appreciate how much Russia has done for you – oh and by the way our rockets are still better than yours even though they are clearly not". There were also a lot of things that I found pretty petulant in tone. This one stood out to me:

> America is a very large country, and a large country should be benevolent > and noble. However, some of my colleagues (not me, of course — I have no > illusions about the partners after working as Russia's representative to > NATO) did not receive any words of gratitude or professional noble response, > although they could fully count on that.

If that's not the kind of comment that discourages collaboration, I don't know what is. I mean it doesn't even make sense – what does a country's size have to do with "being noble"?

<comment><USER17> I read it. Here is one quote

> In this connection, I note another strange moment seen in not only the > 'expert' statements, but also coming from the side of NASA officials — such > as Stephanie Schierholz, who have already started making wreaths to bury the > Russian Soyuz spacecraft alive.

Stephanie Schierholz is Lead Spokesperson, Public Affairs Specialist for Human Spaceflight for NASA. I am trying to find evidence for this Soyuz wreath, or if it was a different event that was misunderstood.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Didn't anyone else notice that Elon Musk never met with President Donald J. Trump at the launch site.

<comment><USER43> Oh no? Took about 20 seconds to find this:

[https://nypost.com/2020/05/30/elon-musks-historic-spacex- mis...](https://nypost.com/2020/05/30/elon-musks-historic-spacex-mission- makes-successful-launch/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> This sounds really whiney... almost like Trump drafted it for him.

</comment><comment><USER45> I hope they fire fat bastard. Crap, he lost so many leads , during Stalin rule he would be executed for being traitor and spy.</comment>


Uber in talks to close up to $2B in leveraged loans - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2016/06/14/uber-in-talks-to-close-up-to-2-billion-in-leveraged-loans/ <comment><USER2> Could anyone explain what they mean by 'leveraged loan' as opposed to 'loan'? Or is 'leveraged' just an unnecessary word here?</comment>


YouTube is DOWN - <AUTHOR> https://youtube.com <comment><USER2> The highly trained monkey's bought it back up</comment>


How to Love Your Customers - <AUTHOR> http://blog.springmetrics.com/2012/06/how-to-love-your-customers/

<comment><USER2> Hi,

We take the guerilla approach. We prop an iPhone against whatever is handy, then use the front-facing camera to introduce ourselves and let them know what to expect in the first few weeks of their new subscription. We then push the video to Vimeo via its iPhone app, then embed the video in a special welcome page that's shared with the customer. Whole process takes 3-4 minutes.

The goal is to establish a human connection right off the bat. We want them to know we don't vanish the second we get their money. We're there to make them successful, and we're in it for the long haul.

Let me know if you have any other questions. And thanks for taking the time to read and engage!

Scott

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm interested to hear more about the personalised video for every customer...</comment>


Extra domain names? Offer them to fellow news yc'ers here.  - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> This is the most amazing place to get domain names <http://www.tdnam.com>.

Some of the recent ones I have registered using tdnam are ShareCircle.com, RealtyGoLive.com, SharedList.com, SoftwareOutpost.com, UserLinks.com, and AskShare.com. All of them cost $10+$8 to register. People who say good domains are gone are not totally correct.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, that looks nice.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> At some point I was thinking of building a quick site to allow people to list/give/swap domain names with a small community of developers. My rational is that many of us sit on a pile of them we bought for past or never-to-be completed ideas, and we could help each other out by making them available. It would be cool if someone did build that side one day, but for now it probably makes more sense to just piggyback on an existing community.

Of course I just had several names expire before I thought to do this, but I'm willing to part with:

dealray.com mobophile.com mobozen.com

I'm not looking for money, but I will ask that you actually plan on using the domain for something cool somewhat soon. The transfer of a domain off 1and1 is a mild pita after all.

</comment><comment><USER3> This thread resparked my interest in building a free place to sell and buy domains. I used to frequent Sitepoint's domain marketplace to sell some of my domains or find some good deals, but I hate paying 10 bucks just to list.

I'll be rolling out Version 0.1 tomorrow, and you'll be able to put all of your domains up for free. If you want me to email you with the link when it's live, please email me at:

firstname.lastname@example.com

with the subject: Domain Market

<comment><AUTHOR> The important point is that its not just a charity to whomever wants them, because there are many sleezy people who will just scoop them up. There needs to be some community element, and the person giving them away should know that either the person taking the name has also given away names, or is planning to put the domain to good use.

<comment><USER3> So I am coding this now in RoR. I think you're right, there needs to be some sort of karma/credit system to keep the sleazeball squatters away and out of the community. It also needs to accomodate all types of users (selling for cash, trading, and giving away free). Hmmm...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I own buzztricks.com; whatilooklike.com; alterpay.com; legitmp3s.com and peerquit.com.

<comment><USER5> I thought it said queerpit at first glance...lol

<comment><USER6> People always think I'm saying "virtualmen.com"...Quite different, but possibly also valid, business model.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> 3by5.net

cloudrocket.com

liquidmarket.org

insum.net / org

momentumapp.com

trackmomentum.com

wikiphi.com

fuel5.com

fuelfive.com

vrabbits.com

feedocracy.com

drytest.com

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm willing to give up:

getretarded.net smsfiend.com safemortgagesource.com strategic-mortgagedata.com

but I want at least one in return.

<comment><USER8> DUDE strategic-mortgagedata.com???? I've been waiting for that domain since 1994! Woot!

<comment><USER9> I like getretarded.net

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> i own kyd.net..

use to host free web space on it years ago in high school.. then my home dsl went out and its been doing nothing since. sad story i know.

</comment><comment><USER9> scottmcnealy.com

groovetip.com

</comment><comment><USER11> godspeaksto.us

<comment><USER12> Hm, sure that isn't worth a lot of money? I have no experience with domain trading, but that name sounds fairly good. Not sure how the minds of religious people work, though.

<comment><USER13> The domains that are actually worth money are the ones that generate residual type in traffic. godspeaksto.us could be good for branding some type of religious site that believed itself to be divinely inspired but I doubt many people are buying domains like this to start Web 2.0 religions.

<comment><USER12> What is residual type in traffoic? You mean people visit the site without searching for it, by just typing the name into the url bar?

<comment><USER13> Yes, exactly. This is why business.com turned out to be a bargain at nine million.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Europe's flight-shame movement has travelers taking trains to save the planet - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/europes-flight-shame-movement-has-travelers-taking-trains-to-save-the-planet/2019/08/02/1bd38486-ac96-11e9-9411-a608f9d0c2d3_story.html <comment><USER2> To put it in perspective: The only country where this has even a measurable impact is sweden. It's not huge. And sweden has an excellent train system compared to many other european countries.

I live in Germany. This discussion is all over the news. But it's not changing the statistics.

In the end what will change habits is changing incentives. Conscious choices for the climate will have a minor impact at best.

</comment><comment><USER3> As someone living in Europe, the truth is they don't do that to save the planet, those who do that do it because they can't afford car ownership or they can but flying or driving is too inconvenient(security delays, baggage restrictions, traffic, parking, etc.)

Anecdotal evidence: I moved to Switzerland after uni and was sold on the idea that everyone there is super green and on bikes all day. Hard truth on the ground was that all the locals were driving luxury German cars and only students, expats, thrifty youths and the poor(for Swiss standards) were on trains/bikes. Everyone I know with a solid income only commutes by car.

Still, public transport in most European cities is good enough that we can live without cars and I'm thankful for that.

Edit: The article is paywalled for me. I'm commenting on what's only written in the header.

<comment><USER4> The article isn't about taking the train instead of the car, but about taking the train instead of the airplane. Taking the airplane is way cheaper and more convenient than taking the train at the distances the article is talking about.

<comment><USER5> Flying is cheaper and faster, but not necessarily more convenient. To find cheap flights you often have to get to inconveniently located airports (the great exception being London Stansted) at odd hours, often having to change transport on the way, and lose a lot of time due to checkin and security (which are in themselves massive inconveniences). And even when paying for a better ticket the flight is often too cramped to do anything effectively. All in all, you'd often not save all that much time by flying, and the time actually spent in transit is mostly wasted, whereas a train ride affords you the opportunity to work, read or watch movies.

Some people manage to read or watch movies at least on the flight itself but personally my head hits the pillow before the plane even leaves the runway. I'm not sure what soporific magic is at play here. Anyway, I avoid flying as much as possible as a consequence.

<comment><USER6> > the great exception being London Stansted

Do you mean "London City". Unless you're an incredibly rich footballer Stansted is far from convenient to anything.

<comment><USER5> I did mean Stansted but admittedly it's probably the least convenient airport from Central London unless you live close to the Liverpool Street line — personal bias led me astray. London City is of course closer from many points within London but is much smaller. That said, London's other airports are also relatively convenient, e.g. Gatwick and Heathrow via tube, Thameslink or dedicated trains.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Tomorrow I will be traveling all the way from southern Germany to northern Netherlands. 6 hour drive. If I go by train it's 220€ with return. If I fly from a nearby airport to a nearby airport (so with limited train use) it's 700€ to 900€ with return. If I rent a car it's 120€ plus 90€ petrol, return journey.

<comment><USER8> I doubt the price of 700euro for a plane ticket. I just checked and got Munich-Amsterdam for 98 euros.

[https://www.google.com/flights?lite=0#flt=/m/02h6_6p./m/0k3p...](https://www.google.com/flights?lite=0#flt=/m/02h6_6p./m/0k3p.2019-09-12*/m/0k3p./m/02h6_6p.2019-09-15;c:EUR;e:1;sd:1;t:f)

<comment><USER9> Which puts it around the same price, but with a train, you don't need to deal with airline security. I'm sure the situation in Europe is less ridiculous than the US, but it's still an extra process.

<comment><USER8> It depends. For the euro tunnel train from Paris to London you have to go through the same security checks like at the airport. But this is not the rule and rather an exemption. However, there have been voices in the EU Comission to perform security checks at train stations, too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm from Europe. It's not to save the planet, it's all a matter of incentives.</comment>


One Chart for All Cryptocurrencies - <AUTHOR> https://www.cryptocurrencychart.com/top/25 <comment><USER2> Awesome!</comment>


The Longest Year in History (2008) - <AUTHOR> http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi2364.htm <comment><USER2> Historia Civilis recently did a great video about this as well: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fD-R35DSSZY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fD-R35DSSZY)

<comment><USER3> That whole channel is great. It dives deep on details of how roman government and politics worked. It's fascinating and surprisingly relevant to modern US politics. The tactics and strategies from the end of the Roman Republic map quite well to what we see in our[1] republic.

[1] Speaking as a US citizen to other US citizens/residents. I wouldn't be surprised if this also maps well to what other countries with a republic style legislature also see though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Spoiler alert: it's 46 BC!

I confess I expected an article about how millisecond adjustments in 2008 made it slightly longer than all other years...

</comment><comment><USER5> Getting a 404 here.

<comment><USER6> Internet archive mirror: [http://web.archive.org/web/20190426143109/http://www.uh.edu/...](http://web.archive.org/web/20190426143109/http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi2364.htm)</comment></comment>


Wuhan coronavirus may have been transmitted to people from snakes - <AUTHOR> https://www.newscientist.com/article/2231162-wuhan-coronavirus-may-have-been-transmitted-to-people-from-snakes/ <comment><USER2> Some interesting things I found:

Article from 2017:

[https://www.nature.com/news/inside-the-chinese-lab-poised- to...](https://www.nature.com/news/inside-the-chinese-lab-poised-to-study- world-s-most-dangerous-pathogens-1.21487)

It's a man-made virus created to combat the avian flu: [https://patents.justia.com/patent/10130701](https://patents.justia.com/patent/10130701) (from 2015)</comment>


Show HN: BTC.sx - A bitcoin trading platform I've been working on for 8 months - <AUTHOR> https://btc.sx Comments, encouragement and constructive criticisms are welcome. <comment><USER2> Hey, this looks like a pretty interesting project. I am very curious about the tech behind this. How open are you with the code which supports the site?

I am building a matching engine right now and would be very keen to talk to other people who are building similar things.

[https://github.com/fmstephe/matching_engine](https://github.com/fmstephe/matching_engine)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey fmstephe, sure I have an API although its very limited right now. I was told that a good way to increase usage was to allow developers to interface their own trading scripts with my engine. Drop me a email on email@example.com</comment></comment>


GPUs a 'Game Changer' for Nuking Noise in Nuclear Imaging - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2019/03/22/mediso-medical-monte-carlo-gpus-noise-nuclear-imaging-gtc/ <comment><USER2> What I find funny about this is that there was a huge concern about image compression algorithms introducing artifacts into medical images that would affect diagnosis back in the 1980s, and even to this day.

Deep networks can learn to hallucinate rather well. I'm sure that they can fill in what body structures are supposed to look like (they've seen them many times) but not sure if they would help in diagnosis -- or if they would add plausible-looking details that would breed complacency.

</comment><comment><USER3> bcaulfield: Are you a nVidia employee? You've been spamming 'groundbraking' news about nVidia for days.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=bcaulfield](https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=bcaulfield)

<comment><USER4> A quick google shows that he's the 'chief blogger' for NVidia.

IMO this kind of astroturfing shouldn't be allowed without some kind of disclaimer even if the content is pretty interesting. There should at least be something in his bio about it.

<comment><USER5> That's not astroturfing.

It's ok on HN to submit your own stuff as long as it's mixed with a variety of other material that you ran across and personally found interesting.

Using HN _only_ to submit own material is less cool, but not something we necessarily ban users for. The community tends to frown on and flag such submissions though.

bcaulfield is obviously a legit HN user. The proportion is probably too heavily on the Nvidia side, but that doesn't mean he should be hounded off HN either.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is just a way to calculate a statistical distribution over possible body structures given an image. If the image is bad, the estimates will be bad.

Hopefully the probabilities of error are carefully quantified.

Edit: speeding up the MC estimates of absorbed dose, etc, (i.e. speeding the treatment planning process) seems like a much more clear improvment.

<comment><USER7> The article explains that this is about better forward models for the measurement process rather than priors on body structure. This makes sense for systems with more complex measurement physics that common reconstructions approximate (eg. CT, PET).</comment></comment>


Seattle company allows you to rent goat herds to clear brush - <AUTHOR> http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/10/rent-a-ruminant-goats-clearing-brush-photos-before-and-after.php

<comment><USER2> But do the goats have union cards?

No seriously, that was a problem when they did this in California: [http://nl.newsbank.com/nl- search/we/Archives?p_product=SL...](http://nl.newsbank.com/nl- search/we/Archives?p_product=SL&p_theme=sl&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0EB05058DFC9509B&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM) [http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Wc0PAAAAIBAJ&sjid=c...](http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Wc0PAAAAIBAJ&sjid=cY4DAAAAIBAJ&pg=2112,1612447&dq=goats+union+clear+brush+teamsters&hl=en)

</comment><comment><USER3> Sure, it's Goat-Renter Guy! :)

<http://www.werealotlikeyou.com/> \- click on number 80

</comment><comment><USER4> I think you can also rent them from Cornell University's Arnot Teaching and Research Forest, at least if you are willing to let them take measurements for their research. Not sure if this project is still going on, but if not perhaps they could at least point you to some resources.

</comment><comment><USER5> I saw them clearing some blackberries near uw last year. And it was quite a spectacle. Since the area they were clearing was along side the burke-gillman trail everyone walking/running/biking stopped to take a look. Entertaining /AND/ environmentally friendly!

</comment><comment><USER6> The problem with goats is that they are notoriously good getting out of their enclosures. If a goat sees yummy grass that looks better than his bush, he will almost surely get out. They will also try to eat anything (even if it doesn't even look green).

</comment><comment><USER7> There's a field of sheep behind and above where I live, and basically they do nothing but eat. I think the only way they can get enough energy to survive is to just eat ALL the time.

<comment><USER8> On my daily commute to school I pass through miles of pasture, and I've noticed that each day flocks of sheep are being rotated. I guess it's a win- win for the owner of the sheep and the owner of the land.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Google used goats not too long ago as well: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=588740>

<comment><USER10> I remember seeing the Google piece and thinking it was a good idea then.

I can see the progression now:

1) local farmer rents out some goats as an experiment

2) seeing positive feedback, local farmer sets up a business breeding goats and renting the herds

3) seeing the success of farmer #1, other farmers set up their own local businesses renting goats

4) one enterprising farmer optimizes the business model and starts acquiring goat rental agencies and setting up regional "goat herding hubs"

5) enterprising farmer gets funding from a prominent silicon valley agency to scale this industrious idea and take it to the masses

6) enterprising farmer's enterprise is acquired by multinational farm equipment company (think "John Deere")

:-)

</comment></comment><comment> daniel-cussen My neighborhood sportsclub uses sheep to cut the grass. My uncle rents bees out to fruit growers. Why didn't I put two and two together?</comment>


The Holon Project: Turning 52 books into computer code - <AUTHOR> https://holon.substack.com/p/the-holon-project <comment><USER2> I don't know what this project means at all. But if you're interested in projects that formalize the knowledge encoded in stories, check out [http://groups.csail.mit.edu/genesis/index.html](http://groups.csail.mit.edu/genesis/index.html)

Professor Winston isn't alive to drive the project, fyi, and I don't know what other similar projects there are.

</comment><comment><USER3> For anyone interested in this topic, during my PhD I mined fiction to build models that could predict patterns in human behavior: [https://hci.stanford.edu/publications/2016/ethan/augur- chi-2...](https://hci.stanford.edu/publications/2016/ethan/augur-chi-2016.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER4> I honestly have no idea what this means

</comment><comment><USER5> Trying to understand how you "compile a book to JavaScript". Just write code based on the examples or what? Oh well, you got a subscribe so I can finds out...

</comment><comment><USER6> What is the target knowledge representation that you expect to produce here? Are you suggesting the neural nets will output formal knowledge represented according to an ontology? This is very vague.

<comment><USER7> I think the answer is "it doesn't matter" because it will never happen. This guy has set himself an absurdly ambitious, poorly defined task.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> 1 book a week is kinda crazy. So something should be coming in a few days?

</comment><comment><USER9> Strange that the author starts with a book that _began_ as an online, runnable, interactive book. (Taking a lot more than a week to write.)

Presumably he would end up with a library of functions that somehow capture some of the mathematical models found in some books. Without any of the understanding of what they mean or how to apply them, this is meaningless.

If you really want to do something meaningful and ambitious, spend a year trying to write a program that can understand a single sentence.

</comment><comment><USER10> While the original post makes no sense there are some interesting articles in the comments which I find mildly amusing.

</comment><comment><USER11> this is the intro plot to a bad 90's movie about how an evil programmer amassed enough wealth to take over the world

</comment><comment><USER12> Edited for incorrect post.

<comment><USER13> > track the sun and calculate angle of reflection to hit a target

I didn't see anything about that in TFA, did you mean to comment on a different submission?

EDIT: I guess it's this one: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21955247](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21955247)

<comment><USER12> You're right. I must've mis-clicked.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> just wanted to say that like button doesn't work</comment>


Dvořák in Iowa - <AUTHOR> https://www.plough.com/en/topics/culture/music/when-dvorak-went-to-iowa-to-meet-god <comment><USER2> I grew up just a short distance north of Spillville, Iowa. Even in those days, the town was very Czech. In Dvorak's time, it was as Czech as San Francisco's China Town was Chinese. In Dvorak's day, the brewer delivered a bucket of beer to your front door every morning, as was custom in the old country. (Somebody start that business in Sunnyvale :)

Spillville and Protivin were so Czech even when I was in school that I had bilingual classmates, because their grandparents spoke mostly Czech, still. And I can tell you this.... when you are a substitute teacher for a 2nd-grade class where one third of the kids have vowel-challenged names, oh the misery. Before you are half-way done taking attendance you will have suffered so much derisive laughter for the mispronounced names that you will have lost control of the classroom for the rest of the day.

Anyway, Dvorak felt very much at home in Spillville. During his day, Czech was the language of main street and the neighborhood.

<comment><USER3> > Spillville and Protivin were so Czech even when I was in school that I had > bilingual classmates, because their grandparents spoke mostly Czech, still.

My grandparents were from southeastern Iowa, and I understand that their town was mainly German-speaking. It was pretty established, too: they grew up speaking it as third-generation Americans.

It stopped with their generation though, their town was harassed quite a bit during WWI, and that pushed people to assimilate.

It really interesting how much linguistic diversity America had that's only gone extinct within living memory.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I never thought I would see something about my hometown of 300 people in rural Iowa on Hackernews. There are several Dvořák murals in town as well as a museum for handmade grandfather clocks made by the Bily brothers. One of their descendants was my bus driver growing up and my grandfather grew up speaking Czech and English in the home. Kolaches are also a town staple and there are many fundraisers for Schools/Churches that include baking obscene amounts of them.

<comment><USER2> Hello from Kendallville.

<comment><USER5> And from Dubuque!

<comment><USER6> Whoa, the author of Caddy is from Dubuque? That's so cool!

<comment><USER7> Tom Preston-Werner (of GitHub fame) was born and raised here (Dubuque) as well.

<comment><USER5> Really? I did not know that!

Small world.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I was introduced to Dvorak and the New World Symphony through the anime Shin Sekai Yori (From the New World).

My favorite part of the New World Symphony is the largo, and found some of the background in this article interesting.

> Dvořák was also moved by the tale of Hiawatha, a founder of the Iroquois > Confederacy. The largo is, in part, meant to describe the end of Hiawatha's > life. The old chief, weary from a life of labor, loss, and ardent service to > his people, sits on the shores of the Great Sea Water and faces his own > final homegoing.

</comment><comment><USER9> Looking at title I thought it was something along the lines of state Iowa opting in for Dvorak keyboard layout as default or something... Lol.

<comment><USER10> That's funny - I always think "maybe we'll talk about the composer instead of that dang keyboard layout this time!"

<comment><USER9> Don't get me wrong. I highly appreciate the article and am glad for it. The fact is I'm from Czech Republic and I was pretty sceptical Antonín Dvořák is actually known somewhere else in the world. It was a pleasant surprise as Novosvětská (From the New World) is a real masterpiece.

<comment><USER11> What? In Europe he certainly belongs to the better known composers. And the Largo from the New World symphony is one of the most popular classical pieces. Here in Austria it has even been made into a Christmas song called "Weihnachtsstern" (Christmas star).

<comment><USER9> As I said, my point of view is strongly skewed by living in here. Nearly everyone _here_ knows who Dvořák was, but I was unable to tell if he's somehow known elsewhere also. Good to know he is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Dvorak's time in the US is not often mentioned. He spent 1892-95 in NYC as the director of the (defunct) National Conservatory of Music of America. The 'New World' was written at that time. (Victor Herbert also taught there.)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National%20Conservatory%20of%20...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National%20Conservatory%20of%20Music%20of%20America)

Here are a couple more quality articles:

Timeline: [https://www.dvoraknyc.org/dvorak-in- america](https://www.dvoraknyc.org/dvorak-in-america)

More details on US travels: [https://www.americanheritage.com/dvorak- america](https://www.americanheritage.com/dvorak-america)

</comment><comment><USER13> Reading this brought me to tears. Tears of nostalgia.

 _nostalgia, sad and hopeful all at once, when the familiar and the alien mingle, as when we revisit the childhood streets where our friends are no more, or when we return all alone to the site of some joyful memory._</comment>


How Norway Created Salmon Sushi - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/2015/09/18/441530790/how-the-desperate-norwegian-salmon-industry-created-a-sushi-staple <comment><USER2> There was actually a very sensible rule followed in China and Japan about eating raw fish. You only ate sea fish raw, while freshwater fish were always cooked.

There's a good rationale behind this. Freshwater fish tend to carry parasites that can cross the species boundary between fish and human. Whereas, sea fish do not tend to carry such parasites. You can understand the reason for that based on natural selection. Its an exceedingly rare event for a sea fish to be eaten by a land mammal (at least it was on the scale of evolutionary time before modern times), so most parasites of sea fish have not evolved a mechanism to exist in land mammal bodies. Whereas fresh water fish are often eaten by land mammals, and so many strains of parasites have adapted to make a smooth transfer from fish to land mammal body.

Its very sensible NOT to eat raw Salmon. Although they end up in the sea, they have two phases of life in bodies of fresh water where they can pick up parasites that can transfer to a human host.

<comment><USER3> Is because Diphyllobothriasis, cestode larvaes from freshwater fishes that can be very dangerous for humans; but the fish metazoan parasite that send more sushi lovers to the hospital is marine in fact.

Anisakiasis by roundworm larvae in raw fish or squid normally is not a big problem but is painful, and can lead to serious health issues sometimes. Any competent japanese chef will know how to deal with it. European law obliges to restaurants to frozen all fish destined to be served as sushi just for this.

<comment><USER4> "European law obliges to restaurants to frozen all fish destined to be served as sushi just for this."

Really ? All fish served as sushi in Europe has been previously frozen ?

<comment><USER3> I can not speak for all asiatic restaurant owners in London, Berlin or Paris, but most chefs specialized in serving raw fishes do not joke about this and avoid the problem using special ultra-freezers. This reduces the safety-time to several hours (It is known that Anisakis larvae can survive for about a week in a domestic freezer) and helps to keep the quality of the sashimi. Thus, when you hear 'fresh', you probably should decode this as 'ultra-frozen in fresh' as something totally natural.

The cut of sashimi in translucent fine lames is probably a way to detect and clean the fish of any visible parasites before to serve it. Exposing the beauty of the fish muscle in intrincated designs you are also showing the client that your product is of optimum quality and totally clean.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> pi-rat Visiting sushi places in Japan, they often have pictures of northern lights and Norwegian mountains telling customers they have fresh salmon shipped from Norway by air: [http://www.eikeland.se/snap/salmon.jpg](http://www.eikeland.se/snap/salmon.jpg)

<comment> semi-extrinsic I'm told that they fly cargo planes with salmon from Norway to Japan, unload salmon then fill the planes with electronics, fly to eastern Europe where the various brands have their continent-wide warehouses, unload electronics and then fly to Norway to load up with salmon again.

<comment><USER3> A very interesting connection with our laptops. And very logical also; a common trick when you export something is to assure to fill the wide containers with anything that you can buy cheap in the destiny country before to return home. Thus you optimize your transport costs or, like in this case, share it with other companies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Most of the cultivated salmon is actually containing significant amounts of heavy metals (due to the sea fish they get fed). And it is also given large amounts of medication to prevent sickness and parasites. This all ends up on our plates... I love salmon, but have almost fully stopped eating it, lacking a trusted source. Also because the salmon get fed with seafish, cultivating them actually contributes to overfishing the oceans. There is a german documentary about it here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_Sl_wjiOyI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_Sl_wjiOyI)

<comment><USER6> the overfishing problem you mention is also addressed in "Cowspiracy" ([http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3302820/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3302820/)) which I highly recommend. Since few days available on Netflix Germany.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Another way of see this is that both, Japan and Norway have a big aquaculture industry and they compete.

To assure the control of the salmon's market is an essential goal for Norway as nation; they produce 1 million of tons each year for the european market. When somebody tries to farm new salmon (in France or Spain or whatever) they typically flood the market with below cost salmon or trouts until the competence is distroyed by lack of rentability. This is probably the reason for not having salmon farms in the NW pacific that could be much more convenient for the Japanese market in the 80's. Only very big companies with lots of resources and money can dare to enter here.

<comment><USER7> Interesting. Quite a lot of salmon and trout in the UK is Scottish. It never occurred to me that we might only be eating it locally, and not exporting it.

<comment><USER3> UK produces 162.000 ton of farmed salmon in Scotland and 11.000 ton of rainbow trout (2012) but it lacks of many suitable areas to growth and currently is the 5 or 6th european country.

Norway produced instead 1,3 million tons of salmon in 2012 (and growing). Is the first european productor and by far the largest (Spain is the second with about 260.000 tons/year of mussels). Their aquaculture industry is an strategic sector for this 'small' (in terms of population) nation.

Is interesting how Norway won against the huge japan pride focusing in improving the visibility in supermarkets and targetting people that wanted cheap food. Realizing that to target first the higher social classes was a lost battle from the start.

<comment><USER8> Best i can find indicates that the 2013 exports slumped below the million ton mark...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> To this day, the salmon in Japanese sushi restaurants is _always_ labeled サーモン "saamon", which is known to be imported and is OK to eat raw; and never 鮭 "s(h)ake", which is (usually) local and always salted and cooked first -- even though ''shake'' as a term covers all types of salmons.

<comment><USER10> I lived there for two years and clearly remember it being labelled as 鮭 (while painstakingly learning the words and characters too for different common foods as well). Granted, this was about 10 years ago, so maybe it has changed?

<comment><USER9> In a sushi restaurant? Of course there are lots of 鮭 dishes in izakayas and such, but I've never seen any in a sushi restaurant.

See also: [http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q114...](http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q1149858456)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The fact that the Norwegians had to freeze all of their surplus salmon probably helped, too. Freezing kills parasites, eliminating the #1 reason the Japanese didn't want to eat raw salmon.

Nowadays, most salmon stays frozen until a few hours before it goes on your sushi. Salmon is uniquely suited for freezing/thawing because its high fat content helps it retain texture. Freezing also has the side effect of giving salmon a relatively long shelf life, making it readily available in parts of the world that are thousands of miles away from actual salmon sources.

<comment><USER12> The only reason Norwegian salmon getting frozen is transportation. Domestically, it is sold chilled near exclusively. Well and in a few smoked/fermented variants certainly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Interesting! Lived in Japan a long time, and always half-wondered why it was "salmon" for sushi & "sake" for everything else but never asked.

</comment><comment><USER14> Fascinating. I love sushi but never knew that so much of it was actually of Norway's influence. Unlike the famed influence of sushi chefs in west Canada and California in the mid-20th century, which carried over into the names of popular sushi rolls (the "California" roll), it would seem this Norway invention was even more important, but where are my Norway rolls?

<comment><USER15> Keep in mind that California is _very_ good at PR. Or bragging. Depends on how you look at it. Other places are similar, of course. Paris, and France in general, comes to mind, but so does Berlin. London can't decide if it's awesome or rubbish, but it knows it's important. California is convinced it's the center of the universe.

<comment><USER14> The the logic I can draw from your statement is that Norway is a very humble place :)

<comment><USER15> Well, yes, that's half of it. The other half is that social status is more implicit here.

<comment><USER14> I'm down in Holland, thinking about visiting Norway soon, it's just across the little pond, after all. Maybe some of that implicit status will rub off on my during my visit. You have a recommendation for a good place for a Norway- newbie to visit?

<comment><USER16> As a tourist? Go to the north west: Møre og Romsdal and further up north, Lofoten. If you want to visit the national parks, go east from Møre (the mid parts of Norway). I'm Norwegian, and if you want to see postcard nature, you have to go to the norhern coastal parts. Don't go just to Oslo or Stavanger and think that's all there is (although both are beautiful in their own ways). Go in late July or August. Best wishes!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Fascinating! Here's another, longer article about this phenomenon: [http://www.nortrade.com/sectors/articles/norways- introductio...](http://www.nortrade.com/sectors/articles/norways-introduction- of-salmon-sushi-to-japan/)

</comment><comment><USER18> When I lived in Argentina we would call Sushi restaurants "Salmon shops" as they would never serve Tuna, it would be 95% salmon and some minute pieces of white fish.

<comment><USER3> Those are raised in Chile probably, the american productor of Salmon. Is the same as Norway for European market (and often farms belong to Norwegian or Norway/Chile mixed companies).

<comment><USER19> > productor

You're probably looking for the English work 'producer'.

<comment><USER3> Yes, thank you for the correction

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Ironically, a large part of Norwegian Salmon is now owned by Mitsubishi: [http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/09/22/mitsubishi-to-buy- sal...](http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/09/22/mitsubishi-to-buy-salmon- producer-for-1-39-billion/)

<comment><USER3> Didn't know, but i'm not suprised. The history is much more interesting in fact. They seem to have invented the fishcoin with mediterranean resources:

(2009): [http://www.worldfishingtoday.com/news/default.asp?nyId=3387](http://www.worldfishingtoday.com/news/default.asp?nyId=3387)

(2013): [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matt-rigney/japan-bluefin- tuna...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matt-rigney/japan-bluefin- tuna_b_2504942.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The more you know…

The article mentions salmon being responsible for the popularity of sushi globally. I actually prefer salmon sushi over tuna sushi by far. In fact, if it wasn't for salmon, I probably would've never like sushi. My first few experiences were with tuna and I hated it each time.

</comment><comment><USER22> speaking of sushi, here's a video about the extinction of blue fin tuna (includes economics, history, culture): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hivvTo6VSS8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hivvTo6VSS8)

<comment><USER23> One more reason to eat salmon sushi, salmon is farmed and will not go extinct.

<comment><USER24> Farmed salmon is much inferior to wild salmon though.

<comment><USER25> Amen. I'm originally from the west of Ireland and we used to sometimes get fresh wild salmon from a local river off a fisherman friend of the family. The taste difference was just amazing. The farmed stuff is liking eating plastic in comparison. The other thing that makes a huge difference in my experience is to have fish that's never been frozen (someone once told me the reason has to do with the crystallization process killing the taste, although I've no idea how that works).

<comment><USER26> > (someone once told me the reason has to do with the crystallization process > killing the taste, although I've no idea how that works)

The crystallization process in this case means that the solid crystal formed by water freezing into ice ruptures all of the cell walls, releasing their contents. Once that happens the chemistry of the food can change drastically as enzymes and proteins that were once only active inside cells are now floating everywhere.

In the case of frozen salmon, the taste appears to come from some sort of enzymatic process involving fatty acids [1].

[1] [http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf000021c](http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf000021c)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Well THANK you Norway!!! I simply LOVE sushi salmon, raw salmon. If it wasn't for you who knows if I would've got this pleasure :)

</comment><comment><USER28> I do think that smoked salmon makes better sushi than raw.

<comment><USER3> Probably. I remember a wild salmon smoked with fir wood and with entire pepper grains in a small village in Sweden that was absolutely memorable. My parents sniffed the smoke, entered automatically in bloodhound mode and find a fisherman that was working in a lake beach and sell them one.

I like also the raw but can come in several different qualities. Some are very good, other not so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> As always when sushi is mentioned on HN, here is a link to the fine documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi: [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1772925/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1772925/)

And Tampopo should be in the same vain, supposedly very good, fiction though: [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092048](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092048)

<comment><USER30> > As always when sushi is mentioned on HN, here is a link to the fine > documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi

Which always amuses me because, at least to me, «Jiro Dreams of Sushi» is not remotely about sushi at all.

<comment><USER31> To be fair, it actually is _remotely_ about sushi.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> How I read:

How Norway Created _Salman Rushdie_.

<comment><USER33> That's an equally valid reading. The author is dead, after all. ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Norwegian farmed salmon are among the biggest sources of food-borne contaminants in a normal diet. It contains four times as much dioxin as the highest permissible limit for meat, eggs and milk.

<comment><USER14> Apparently this warning has been lifted:

[http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/eats/norway-farmed- sal...](http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/eats/norway-farmed-salmon-safe- public-eat-article-1.2047012)

<comment><USER34> Go for wild catched cod (for example) from the Atlantic or Pacific instead, the food given to the Salmon contains large quantities of fish caught in the Baltic sea which is more or less unfit for human consumption.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Screw the sushi. Kimbab is the new hot thing.</comment>


Ash HN: If someone waives their copyright, can I sell their content for profit?  - <AUTHOR>

<i>All content of this book are in the public domain. I hereby waive all claim
of copyright in this work; it may be used or altered in any manner without
attribution or notice to the me. Attribution, of course, is appreciated. To clarify, I'm granting full permission to use any content on this site,
including the chapters of my book, in any way you like. I release my copyright
on this content. While you are under no obligation to do so, I would appreciate it if you
give me credit for any work of mine that you use, and ideally, link back to
the original. If you feel like spreading a copy of this book, you may do so
without payment</i> <comment><USER2> In the US, the creator of content is automatically assumed to be the owner of a copyright, even if it is not officially filed with the Copyright Office. In fact, all that official filing gives you is the right to receive treble damages. But not filing doesn't mean you give up your copyright.

That being said, it looks like the content owner themselves gave up their right. This pretty much sums it up: "I release my copyright on this content." I'm not sure if that statement without being signed will carry much weight if the content creator later changes their mind and then attests that they didn't write the above statement. What would be safest would be for them to assign their copyright interest to you, or to sign a document that waives their copyright interest.

IANAL, so if I'm wrong, you're entitled to a refund :)

</comment><comment><USER3> short answer: Yes.

the wikipedia entry for this is fairly good: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain>

</comment><comment><USER4> Yes.</comment>


Uber Is Not the Future of Work - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/11/uber-is-not-the-future-of-work/415905/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> I agree. Reforms are necessary. The USA has some of the worst worker protections in the developed world.

We are a nation controlled by wealthy bankers and businesspersons. They do the nominating of our elected officials and we vote for one of their pre-approved candidates. This is _not_ representative democracy. This is _corruption_.

We need to fix our subverted federal government first. None of these reforms will pass unless we change how elections are funded and remove the worry of campaign financing from our elected officials.</comment>


Super-Cheap First-Class Flight Challenge - <AUTHOR> https://flightfox.com/strategy/super-cheap-first-class-challenge?campaign=14

<comment><USER2> > I scored a non-stop Air Canada flight in Executive First, from Sydney to > Vancouver for only $1,200

Excuse the french, but how the fuck did you do that?

If I could travel SYD-YVR first class for $1200 I'd probably go every couple of months if not more.

<comment><USER3> Well, AC Executive First is really business class, not first class. Still an excellent deal but it's not first.

<comment><USER2> Looks pretty good to me!

[http://www.aircanada.com/en/travelinfo/onboard/comfort_intex...](http://www.aircanada.com/en/travelinfo/onboard/comfort_intexec.html)

<comment><USER3> Yeah, it is pretty good. My point (pedantic as it is) is that it's classified as business, not first. AC doesn't fly any 3-class planes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is pretty useless article, because:

>But how did he do it? Well, we can't give too much away

The main reason I read the article was that I wanted to know how those flights were so cheap, but it appears to be a secret other than from vague explanation of "be flexible".

<comment><USER5> It's human optimization. Experts know the system in and out and can take advantage of almost free seats in flights. Don't bother, you don't have access to those seats through the regular booking system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Without more info, flagging this as spam. Especially considering the poster states that he/she is a cofounder of the website.

</comment><comment><USER7> Useless article, it's literally just an ad in the form of a blogpost.

</comment><comment><USER8> No mention of the possibility of a return flight for remotely the same price. At least none that I found. I find it very difficult to read that style of writing.

"how did we do it?" \- First let us tell you about this "how did we do it?" \- We can't give everything away "how did we do it?" \- Here are some other great results we claim to achieve "how did we do it?" \- It's completely worth this incredibly high finder's fee

</comment><comment><USER9> So how do you actually find first class flights for 80-90% off?

<comment><USER10> By paying $250 in finders fees to flightfox obviously! I have to agree with your sentiment though, I'd like to find these myself too, not pay someone else to do it.</comment></comment>


How Google 'Tricks' Users into Sharing Location Data - <AUTHOR> https://www.sherbit.io/how-google-tricks-users-into-sharing-location-data/ <comment><USER2> Android OS updates enable it without asking, overruling previous disable settings. Even as an intentional location services user, this really frustrates me because it means my wifi-only tablet which sits at home all day every day starts polluting my location history every time I upgrade but forget to immediately disable location history for it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Unfortunate to see Google abusing their users like this.

</comment><comment><USER4> DANGER: I've tried the waiting tip, and now I have it enabled to always share everything by default

Running Android 5.0.2

/rant nice played Google! I'm so pissed right now

EDIT: It's been a while, and I haven't been able to fix the situation. I'm thinking on wipe the whole system to revert this. This is really sad, technology should work for us, not against us.

<comment><USER4> that's it. I'm done with this crap.

I'm installing cyanogen right now!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's been a pet peeve of mine, until i started looking at it as just another nag screen.

</comment><comment><USER6> Google, please dont be evil!</comment>


([](){})() is now legal C++. - <AUTHOR> http://twitter.com/#!/mattmight/status/103592582675832833
<comment><USER2> Full text of the tweet:

> Oh great. ([](){})() is now legal C++.

That's interesting, but what does it mean? I don't know enough about C++ to parse that expression.

More importantly, what coding styles or features do the syntax rules enable by allowing us to use that string of symbols? I don't use Twitter, but I think that Matthew missed an opportunity to write an interesting and useful article or blog post by expressing this through Twitter. He already has a number of other articles here: <http://matt.might.net/articles/>

<comment><USER3> I'm also not a c++ programmer, but from what I've read so far I'd say the [](){} part is a lambda function which:

      [] - captures no vars
      () - accepts no parameters
      {} - has an empty body

Wrapping it in (...)() immediately executes it.</comment></comment>


Disqus Toxicity Filter - <AUTHOR> https://blog.disqus.com/detect-and-manage-toxic-content-with-the-toxicity-mod-filter <comment><AUTHOR> I find this feel for the need to suppress certain comments worrisome. It opens the door to censorship, especially via questionable machine learning. I simply skip over trollish comments, almost subconsciously.

</comment><comment><USER2> I usually don't bother reading the comments on a site that uses Disqus. I can't think of a worse comment system.</comment>


Microsoft's recent success linked to Post-Ballmer Peak - <AUTHOR> The theory that computer programmers obtain quasi-magical, superhuman coding ability when they have a CEO other than Steve Ballmer. The discovery of this effect is attributed to Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft. <comment><USER2> No alcohol involved. Reference : [https://xkcd.com/323/](https://xkcd.com/323/)</comment>


Only Microsoft Edge will play Netflix content at 1080p on your PC - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcworld.com/article/3095259/browsers/confirmed-only-microsoft-edge-will-play-netflix-content-at-1080p-on-your-pc.html <comment><USER2> I'm not saying that the publicity isn't a good thing here but this isn't new. I feel like the writer of this article just discovered this or something or is just trying to bring attention to the issue which is a good thing. Not sure if it'll change anything though since it's been this way for quite some time now and there's been basically nothing said about this officially.

Going back to Windows 8/8.1 IE11 also played Netflix at 1080p. I don't know the specifics but I believe it's due to the differences behind the DRM being used. That's not really an excuse for not supporting 1080p everywhere but I believe that's why things are the way they are. It's a choice that they've made and you can't help but think there's some monetary incentives in it for Netflix to keep it this way but that's just speculation.

Just for comparison Amazon does support 1080p everywhere across browsers (I know for sure it supports 1080p in Edge and Chrome). You can even watch Amazon in an incognito window (at least in Chrome).</comment>