The App Store Showing Strange Strings — A New iOS Product Or Just A Lazy Bug? - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/14/app-store-marketingname/

<comment><USER2> It seems like it's a localization string identifier, which means it probably stands for a tangible product, and it seems strange that a developer would randomly add and commit that change.

I'm going to guess that it was a mis-merge in the App Store codebase and that Lion will be able to run iOS apps (using the MacBook touchpad or Magic Trackpad for multitouch). I mean, Snow Leopard already runs iOS apps pretty much natively if you have the SDK installed.

</comment><comment><USER3> As I said in the TechCrunch comments -

If it's anything (it's not, but it's fun to pretend), it could be a sign of integration between the Mac and iOS App Stores. Even if one isn't actually being rolled into each other (which I would assume they wouldn't be unless iTunes was redesigned), it could just be saying "this is also available as a Mac app," possibly with a link to the Mac App Store page.

</comment><comment><USER4> We already have Universal apps that run on both iPhones/iPod touches and iPads. It would make sense if Apple was to add Mac apps to the deal.

<comment><USER5> Current 'universal' apps all run on ARM CPUs. But I suppose they could change the toolchain to create fat binaries with Intel-speak inside.

<comment><USER4> I have no experience in submitting Apps to the App Store, so I might be talking rubbish. But one could simply submit two binaries - or linking to the Mac App Store version, as suggested in another comment.

It`s like a bundle; pay once, run everywhere. Cultured Code`s Things for instance could sell such a bundle with a discount.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Built a Chatbot to answer questions about our Chatbot product - <AUTHOR> Hi HN!
We've built a product called MySellerBot that can use your website's documentation to provide accurate answers to visitor queries. We've aimed this at SaaS businesses where quick responses are  super important.
We've built a chatbot that explains what MySellerBot is and how to use it. (Eating your own dog food?)
Please try our demo: https://mysellerbot.com/demopage?acc=VhTObzUMAYfCzqimWBlKZgM...
Please offer me your feedback below! <comment><USER2> What if your bot has questions about your bot?

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think I understand? It's trained to only answer questions that visitors/users have.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is there a service that allows attaching metadata to a web resource? - <AUTHOR> Say I want to create a Chrome extension to let me tag YouTube videos (with more advanced tags than what the built in playlists can provide). Where do I store these tags? I could of course use YouTube's own "datastructures" such as playlists and the notes for each playlist item, but that quickly gets hairy/hacky. Is there some kind of DBaaS that easily allows me to tie metadata to each video, with a simple REST API? <comment><USER2> Hypothes.is supports open and public annotations of arbitrary URLs, including tags and comments, but the intent is that all tags and annotations are public.

It does have an API, and can work via bookmarklets, or by linking to pages by prepending [https://via.hypothes.is/](https://via.hypothes.is/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool, thanks for the link! I don't mind the tags being public, but it seems Hypothes.is now also supports private/group annotations.

Unfortunately you can only annotate text (so far), but they might add deeper integration in the future to e.g. tag a section of a video.

In the meantime I started writing a Chrome extension based on Firebase. Having never used Firebase before I'm very pleasantly surprised how easy it is to get something up and running!

<comment><USER2> This blog post discusses using Hypothes.is to annotate on media, and provides some tooling to make it a little easier, if that helps you: [https://blog.jonudell.net/2018/03/10/open-web-annotation- of-...](https://blog.jonudell.net/2018/03/10/open-web-annotation-of-audio-and- video/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting! Thanks! :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I guess [https://firebase.google.com/](https://firebase.google.com/) or something similar is what I'm looking for :)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Note that the data should be sharable with other users, hence not using the built in Chrome extension storage.</comment>


Ask HN: How to learn graph plots of math functions - <AUTHOR>

I really don't know how to we say that a log function would look like this or polynomial function would look like this.
I know that if I have like X + Y = c, I can draw straight line by taking values of X and evaluating Y.
how to I learn graph plots for other math function(log, exponential, sine, cos etc) or polynomial of n degrees <comment><USER2> You can just plug numbers into the function and plot them by hand.

Or you can type the function into <http://www.wolframalpha.com/> and it will show you the graph.

</comment><comment><USER3> A computer algebra system. I like this FOSS tool: <http://www.geogebra.org/cms/></comment>


TSLA – Detecting "Potential" Fraud in Real-Time – Q3-2018 - <AUTHOR> https://media.licdn.com/dms/document/C4E1FAQGLSHA1070EoQ/feedshare-document-pdf-analyzed/0?e=1553331600&v=beta&t=yea57Gr_ouNci5FIcBQe7GZA8gKIFMjfHO_33FiosOE <comment><USER2> so many short-sellers openly rooting for TSLA to go bankrupt because they own puts that expire. they seem to be just as aggressive as TSLA's accounting in trying to push the stock price down so they can cash in</comment>


India Seeks Access to Private Messages in WhatsApp Crackdown - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-13/india-targets-facebook-evil-in-backlash-against-u-s-giants <comment><USER2> Yet another example where "think of the children" is abused to crack down on human rights.

India's government should stop going after messaging apps and rather try to find out the root causes of the problems they see: lynchings and brutal sexual violence have nothing to do with Whatsapp, they're indicators of a widespread cultural problem.

</comment><comment><USER3> >Still, he said WhatsApp has a zero-tolerance policy around child sexual abuse, and that about 250,000 accounts are banned each month for sharing vile content. "We ban users from WhatsApp if we become aware they are sharing content that exploits or endangers children," he said.

That's a staggering number.</comment>


Show HN: A game engine for the terminal in Go - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/JoelOtter/termloop <comment><USER2> Awesome! I remember when I first started programming, we started off with command line applications. Immediately I wanted to make a game in the terminal. I never did, now I can finally learn Go and make a terminal game.

</comment><comment> vhost- This is really awesome. I wonder if I can use this to make non-game terminal applications.

<comment><AUTHOR> You absolutely can. That said, if your application is to look quite static and you don't really need the game-style render-loop, you could use Termbox directly (it's great):

[https://github.com/nsf/termbox-go](https://github.com/nsf/termbox-go)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I continue to be amazed at all of the neat projects being built with Go these days</comment>


Interactive Brokers Now Allowing Short Positions in Bitcoin Futures - <AUTHOR> https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171213005840/en <comment><AUTHOR> _Interactive Brokers requires margin of $40,000 per contract for short sales in CFE Bitcoin futures. Margin on long positions of CFE Bitcoin futures is currently $9,000.

"The introduction of short sales was necessitated by the large premium of the January futures contract over the price at which Bitcoin trades on the physical venues," said Interactive Brokers founder, Chairman and CEO Thomas Peterffy._</comment>


Upgrading a VM from MacOS 10.12 Sierra to MacOS 10.13 High Sierra in VirtualBox - <AUTHOR> https://raimue.blog/2017/06/09/upgrading-a-vm-from-macos-10-12-sierra-to-macos-10-13-high-sierra-in-virtualbox/ <comment><USER2> Or just use the free Parallels Lite which does OSX just dandy: osxdaily.com/2017/04/11/run-macos-virtual-machine-easy-parallels/</comment>


July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/08/20/sunday-review/climate-change-hot-future.html?_r=1 <comment><USER3> Personally I think that the idea that these trends can ever be revered by some sort of world wide agreement to lower consumption is a pipe dream. People want to eat meat and drive cars and fly on airplanes. As long as they're rich enough to do so you'll never stop them.

The only solution to this problem is technology. Some combination of green energy sources plus probably very large scale terraforming.

<comment><USER4> There is another solution: less people.

<comment><USER5> Populations past a certain level of prosperity for a generation or two do seem to drop reproductive rates. Perhaps the answer here is higher educational costs to discourage people from having many kids, and lots of alternative activities instead (Pokemon)?

<comment><USER6> Increase college tuition (even more?) with the hopes of stemming population growth? You know the majority of the planet doesn't actually attend college as is already?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Solar panels now sell for about 45c a watt out of China. Cost to create is around 36c / watt.

This allows deployments such as in Chile & Dubai where the cost/kwh is 3 cents & below.

This now cheaper than coal, without subsidy.

Remove the subsidies that oil, gas & coal receive, and you will witness a new day.

Only problem for solar right now is over supply caused by a sudden drop in demand. China reduced its subsidy a bit. Also the US extended subsidy for 5 years, which is great, but it has removed the urgency to complete utility scale solar plants before subsidy cutoff, causing the utilities to sit it out & wait.

Better act soon! (250 years to clear CO2 from atmosphere, feedback loops only now being discovered.)

<comment><USER8> Also the power grid cannot accommodate in it's current form. Older substations struggle to do with the load fluctuations that are caused by solar panels, which is why they are discouraging them in Hawaii. A huge investment would be required to upgrade these substations. But yes, soon solar will be cheaper than coal.

<comment><USER7> well the grid needs to be upgraded. Totally ridiculous that HI discourages residential PV.

<comment><USER9> Those upgrades cost money. And the main reason people install PV is so they don't have to pay the power company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> These maps are based on emission trends continuing, assuming no political action will be taken. But wouldn't a hotter world tend to _exacerbate_ emission trends, with human needs for AC and desalination rising, plus forest fires? Moreover, there might be some tipping point for large scale methane release. The 'tail risk' to global warming has appreciable density a long way out.

<comment> semi-extrinsic I'm not sure. Many of the countries with the largest emissions per capita are in regions where houses are heated in the winter and cooled in the summer.

Given that indoor temperature is ~ 20C, the ∆T for heating can be much greater than for cooling, since cold outdoor temp can easily go as low as -20C, while really hot weather won't go much above 40C.

Thus, in a warmer climate where you need less heating in winter and more cooling in summer, you might actually end up using less total power for AC.

<comment><USER11> I'm not sure there's a 'need' for AC in homes, at least not for new builds. Would recommend taking a look at the work of the Passivhaus Institute:

[http://www.passivhaus.org.uk/](http://www.passivhaus.org.uk/)

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

<comment><USER12> Compressed earth brick is pretty amazing. The whole house become a water vapor trap and the house cools itself as the heat of the day increases. Granted then you need to cool the house at night to refresh the thermal mass.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuQB3x4ZNeA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuQB3x4ZNeA)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've come to the (I feel) inevitable conclusion that we are already well and truly fucked. I will still do what I can to slow the inexorable slide into worldwide famine, war and anarchy, in the hopes that the majority of my children's lives will be made incrementally better, should they choose to remain on this planet (and, it is assumed, that they may actually have a choice, but there's no way I can know).

We're on the wrong side of the story arc here. It's too late. The damage has been done, and it will continue to snowball even if we stop putting carbon (as both CO2 and methane) into the atmosphere today. Anyone who cooks can instinctively understand how "carryover heat" works - the temperature gradient hasn't yet finished equalizing, the latent energy (and, for that matter, the latent GH gasses) stored in the oceans and, indeed, the land itself hasn't yet made its full effects felt, and we've successfully argued and argued and argued about it without actually doing _anything_ substantial enough to make a meaningful difference.

But that sort of hopeless talk makes me sound like a crackpot, and I've typed this sort of message into many a text field on the Internet over the past year before deleting it, or pressing cancel, or closing the browser tab. But today, in a moment of vulnerability, or for another reason I can't hope to know, something is telling me to press "submit".

<comment><USER14> This is tangential to your point about remaining on this planet, but it is much easier to survive on our planet, polluted or not, than it is to setup shop on a different planet.

I am fully in agreement with your view on how messed up things are on our planet due to human action. I just felt compelled to point out that any adjustments to be made on other planets can be done here. Can't breath on mars? Build a dome and generate air into it. The same thing could be done on Earth if the situation was bad enough. Can't survive on the surface of Venus due to hot and thick atmosphere? Live floating in the clouds. We could do the same on Earth.

The process of getting to another planet is so infeasible at this point and probably will be for a long time yet. We can hope, but I like to play devil's advocate. Also, Human's are very good at adapting and I'm sure the will to survive will keep our species alive even if pollution degrades our environment to the point of toxicity.

<comment><USER13> I guess my line of thought on my kids leaving this world for another has an additional assumption: that they, and the others who would do so, would leave to escape not just the planet's climate, but the people who screwed it up for them to begin with.

<comment><USER15> Don't you think that the problems with the environment sort of stem most significantly from emergent social phenomena analogous to (but not exactly the same as) such things as tragedy of the commons? It's not like this version of the human race just got lucky and got all the bad 'uns. Humans are humans, no point in bemoaning reality. But the social structures are in a sense an equally root cause.

<comment><USER13> I would say, yes, the economic theory of the "tragedy of the commons" is a major part of the issue. Good thing that the modern counterparts to those theorists have come to understand that the solution to the tragedy of the commons is to ensure that the costs of the consumption are borne by the consumer.

Regulation, societal norms drafted from the start to ensure transparency, and the "greater good" spirit that, one could easily argue, would be prevalent in those who would choose to risk their lives to leave this rock behind... all those things would form the framework by which our offspring would ensure that they're capable of learning from the mistakes of their forebears.

I believe that, as a race, we're too late to _undo_ the damage we've done to our environment. The patient (our way of life) is terminal, we can only hope to make ourselves comfortable in our waning years without unnecessarily spreading the disease.

But, as cliché as it sounds, I am not hopeless, and I simply cannot allow myself to believe that future generations would do the same thing if they had another planet - or even this one - to start over again. I _MUST_ believe that part of the human condition includes _learning from and not repeating the mistakes that cost billions of lives_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Anyone else who feel that the climate-related news are getting very scary? If for every month for the last year, there was a new sprinter breaking the last months world Record in 100 meters you'd know something was fishy. Like some kind of incredibly potent anabolic steroid runners were ingesting. With new and improved versions of that steroid being released every few months...

<comment><USER17> I would take it with a grain of salt. In Germany, we had warm summers in recent years, but this year's July has generally been cold and very rainy.

<comment><USER18> climate is long term, weather is short term[1]. Its a subtle difference and often confused, especially if english isn't your first language.

[1][http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/noaa-n/climate/climate_wea...](http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/noaa-n/climate/climate_weather.html)

<comment><USER19> What on earth does language have to do with it?

Other countries write about climate change too :)

<comment><USER20> Because to a non-native speaker the 2 words can be confused as synonyms.

Hell I didn't even know there was a distinct difference between the 2 words until just now (and i've been speaking english my whole life), and I had just assumed that these kinds of discussions were talking about the "long term" data.

<comment><USER21> Well, in German

climate = Klima

weather = Wetter

So, I really don't think that the confusion can be excused by language in this case :)

<comment><USER22> strange, it never rained once when i was there, and i was there for at least 3 days.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> There is much we can do in the US to decrease air pollution within a very short time. These reductions also contribute to lowering asthmatic episodes and hospitalizations and various forms of heart disease in the elderly, especially women.

1\. As of a few years ago, 10% of the 450 coal powered electric power plants produced half the air pollution by coal powered plants (according to an Environmental Pollution Agency report). Take the top 45 polluters off line. The Obama administration is already to shut down some of these plants.

2\. Many buildings in the Northeast and Midwest burn old #6 and #4 fuel oils for heat during the winter which are very polluting. New York City, where I live, has now banned the dirtier #6 oils, but politics has intervened and significantly delayed the banning of #4 oil. But other cities should ban the burning of these dirtier fuel oils.

The shutting down of the top 45 polluting coal powered electric plants and the banning of #6 and #4 fuel oils for heating buildings would not be hard to do and would make a significant difference to reducing air pollution.

</comment><comment><USER24> El Nino + urban heat island effect. According to satellites, July 2016 is the 2nd hottest July since the 70's when satellite records began. The hottest is July 1998, also El Nino.

Take a look at weather stations that have been situated in the same place for 100 or more years, far from cities: [http://www.john- daly.com/stations/stations.htm](http://www.john- daly.com/stations/stations.htm)

<comment><USER25> The scientists been taking the heat island effect into account the whole time. See box 2.1 here, it explains it quite well:

[http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc_tar/?src=/climat...](http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc_tar/?src=/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/052.htm#2221)

In relation to the El Nino, sure, it is a factor in the heat every 5-7 years or so, including last year, but it doesn't explain the trend.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Sergey Brin made a statement regarding global warming: something like, "I'm not worried about it. We can put solar-powered carbon scrubbers in the deserts of the world and essentially fix the problem with an investment in the tens of billions (relatively small)."

I forget where I heard this and wasn't able to dig up a source. I think it was a Jason Calacanis podcast or video of an interview. Either way it was secondary information. Bad sourcing, I know--sorry.

I agree with many who suggest reducing consumption is a risky gambit at best. How practical are counter-measures? Can we just geo-engineer our way out of it?

<comment><USER27> Brin has the right idea. The only thing that will realistically help - <USER2> from massive reforestation efforts or maybe bioengineered algae - is a mass- produced, maintenance-free solid-state artificial photosynthesis module. The problem is, very few people - almost all academics - have even been thinking about such a thing, much less engineering it. So there's enormous amounts of work to do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> It never ceases to bewilder me that nuclear power isn't taken seriously as a replacement for fossil-burning baseload generation.

<comment><USER29> Agreed. We no longer have the luxury of being prissy about ionising radiation.

<comment><USER30> Do we have the luxury of giving up multiple hundreds of square kilometers for the exclusion zones if there is a failure, though?

And the technology doesn't scale well. Few big plants that take ages to build, compared to panels on every roof and turbines put up one by one.

<comment><USER31> Isn't that extremely small area compared to submerged coastline and harbors and coastal cities?

Some industrial processes and some datacenter services require baseload power. "most" power demand doesn't truly require baseload. Conveniently they require approx no people. Go build the plants and the data centers and the aluminum refineries in the desert next to the a-bomb test sites and no one will notice or care.

As an example my cheap old refrigerator "needs" 24x7 power but with better insulation and higher thermal mass it could trivially run once a day, or even less, at peak solar production.

Another example is culturally we "need" to have retail and service businesses open during the lowest solar generation times of the day, but that cultural demand has no technological basis. There are cultural and economic reasons walmart can't replace all its gigawatts of light bulbs with skylights but no technological reasons.

Another cultural example is there's no reason we "have to" have millions of people living in deserts, and no matter how much environmental damage it causes we're not going to depopulate the West USA down to a sustainable level for purely political and cultural reasons. Ditto the far south. We as a culture have decided no level of environmental damage is too large to stop providing water and air conditioning for millions to live in historically unlivable climates, even if there's plenty of land in livable climates. In that way, ionizing radiation doesn't matter any more than the destruction of the Colorado River matters, for example.

<comment><USER30> The US might have plenty of desert, but you need rather a lot of cool water to run a nuclear plant, which is why they're often built on coasts.

And what of other places? France has a decent set of nuclear reactors, but there aren't really uninhabited areas in Europe to put more in. Only relatively less populated areas. The UK is currently struggling to get one off the ground and the economics of it look terrible.

<comment> white-flame The Palo Verde nuclear generating station is the largest nuclear reactor in the US, and possibly in the western hemisphere. It is located in the US desert, an hour out of town pretty much in the middle of nowhere & nothing.

<comment><USER30> Wikipedia tells me they have a clever solution:

"The facility evaporates water from the treated sewage of several nearby municipalities to meet its cooling needs. 20 billion US gallons (76,000,000 m³) of treated water are evaporated each year."

Interesting read, I'd never heard of Palo Verde.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> We all know by now CO2 and CH4 leads to a warmer planet. We also know what's driving greenhouse gas levels to rise across Earth. Contributors are deforestation, intensive animal farming, and primarily the combustion of carbon fossil fuels like coal, tar sands, oil, natural gas etc. But here is the underlying problem, despite us knowing how bad things are, (97+% of scientists who study this field agree we are causing the planet's climate to shift away from the temperate climate we thrived in) not enough is being done at present to truly solve the problem.

What really is disheartening and what no one in the media and government is talking about is how in 2015 CO2 levels rose by the largest amount in human recorded history. 3.05 PPM [http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/gr.html](http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/gr.html) We are being lied to and mislead by our governments that uniform actions are being performed to save the planet for the future of man. Vested interests in the fossil fuel industry continue to drive climate change. Yes, solar and wind energy is starting to become incredibly efficient and cheap but not enough of it is coming online in proportion to fossil fuel burning that persists and is also installed annually. If we do not rally against it, our ability to live on this planet is at stake. The lives of our posterity are also at risk because of the burning. It will not be until we take extreme actions not on a country level but as humanity together that we will slow the burning and save ourselves.

What are these actions you might ask that will actually be effective? These can range from banning fossil fuels entirely, global carbon pricing system, banning deforestation, changing human diets, extreme uniform investment in renewable energy and potentially fourth generation nuclear reactors, more funding for developing nations to install alternative energy sources, and to shift the transportation grid towards sustainability.

<comment><USER33> The problem is that not enough people care. I've tried bringing it up with many of my friends. Responses include:

"We can't risk damaging the economy"

"The biggest priority in this country should be the mistreatment of minorities, you wouldn't care so much about the environment if you weren't white"

"It's not a big deal, we will just relocate cities when flooding happens"

"Scientists are wrong plenty of times"

...and on and on. Nobody really takes it seriously that we could be destroying the conditions which allow human life to exist on this planet. They are shielded by a raft of excuses, the issues which they are most concerned with, and endless high-budget entertainment.

Unless there is a technological miracle that makes all of this simple, I believe that we are (in the words of another commenter) well and truly fucked.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I own a home built in the 1960s in the northeast US. My home (like many others, I'm sure) uses an oil-fired boiler to provide heating and hot water. I don't have gas lines to my house. The gas company won't run them unless I pay ~$5,000 for them to do so. Even if my home used natural gas instead of oil, I feel like it's not really solving the problem.

What are my options here? Is solar viable? What can _I_ reasonably do to improve consumption? I use only LED lighting, eat meat rarely, use a programmable thermostat, have new windows/doors, etc. Improving the situation seems either not economically viable for most people or an incremental improvement. Just wait?

<comment><USER35> Take a hard look at the numbers. For example, livestock are responsible for 3.1% of US co2 equivalent warming (Wikipedia citing the US EPA), so going from average meat consumption to no meat consumption isn't a huge impact, but it's something.

$5k is about a dollar a day for 13 years; switching to natural gas is about 25% more efficient than fuel oil, co2-wise. Depending on how much heating you need that 25% could be vastly more impactful than a life without meat. Also, look into electric heating, depending on your electric supply that could be vastly more carbon efficient.

Also, around the house efficiency in the form of insulation and modern appliances is something that's usually super cost effective and carbon effective on a house from the 60s. It again will require up-front capital but is almost always a super smart move to do as soon as possible.

In some ways it's easier to be super self sacrificial and not eat meat, but it's important to look at the big picture. It really is about the numbers here; personal purity does nobody any good. Except on the political side; become a vocal single issue voter and never vote for a politician that doesn't have climate change part of their platform, and the same goes for political parties. Ultimately putting in mile carbon taxes will shift the market to do the right thing, but the politics make this impossible. Yes anti-economical too, negative externalities must be addressed by societal means, just like liabilities must be addressed through societal means.

<comment><USER36> > livestock are responsible for 3.1% of US co2 equivalent warming (Wikipedia > citing the US EPA)

The same Wikipedia article also mentions FAO studies giving 14.5% and 18% globally. I wonder what explains the difference. Methodology? Ignoring the contribution of imports? Much higher emissions in the US compared to the world in other areas reducing the relative but not the absolute impact of livestock?

In any case meat and animal products seem very relevant to GHG emissions worldwide, and they might be in the US once you reduce other waste. But it's indeed a good idea to focus on the major contributors and low-hanging fruits first.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Found this link with similar maps for Europe:

[http://grist.org/climate-energy/the-16-scariest-maps-from- th...](http://grist.org/climate-energy/the-16-scariest-maps-from-the-e-u-s- massive-new-climate-change-report/)

NB from 2012.

Interesting that it actually predicts that the UK will have a distinct benefit from warming when it comes to agricultural productivity.

</comment><comment><USER38> Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy also has a good (if now depressingly repetetive) take on it[0].

[0] [http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2016/08/16/july_201...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2016/08/16/july_2016_was_the_hottest_july_on_record.html)

</comment><comment><USER39> This graphic could've used a Brett victor style tangle.js based simulation model. Then we could play around with it assuming future emission rates going down or up etc.. [http://worrydream.com/Tangle/](http://worrydream.com/Tangle/)

</comment><comment><USER40> I initially thought this was a NYTimes self promotion piece. As in "Think NYTimes is hot right now? Just Wait".

<comment><USER41> So did I. Why was the article title prefixed with "NYTimes:"? I haven't seen that before on this site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Two weeks from now: "August was hottest month ever recorded, according to NASA."

</comment><comment><USER43> I'm just a software developer with a side interest in climate science so please excuse any ignorance on this topic. What I find troubling is it seems, from what I have read, our climate models currently have a poor handle on co2 and methane feedbacks, both positive and negative. For example there seems to be a general scientific consensus that NOx from industrial sources (mostly coal power plants) is having some cooling effect. When these are removed, which will happen slowly but steadily as coal is retired, there will be a warming response but it is not clear how much this response will be. Similarly, you have positive feedbacks coming into place like the decline of sea ice in the arctic, less forests and more combustion of those forests, and co2/methane releases from permafrost. These are other feedbacks are known but nothing I have read has convinced me we have a full scientific understanding of the impact that these feedbacks will have.

Thats why like others in this thread I feel rather hopeless about humanity ever getting global warming under control. We of course have the problem of humanity to continue putting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere via our economic activity. This of course is co2 but also methane and HFCs. The challenge of bringing these down to safe levels while keeping not only the standard of living we enjoy currently in the west but also bringing billions more people into the middle class world wide is impossible with existing technology and incredibly hard with emerging technology. To get to a carbon neutral prosperous, middle class society for everyone on the planet will take many decades. If we ever get to that point I'm afraid feedbacks and built in system inertia will be so strong that the planet will keep on warming for 1,000s of years despite our best efforts.

TL;DR I think we as humans really screwed this up and I don't have much hope of us collectively being able to fix it.

</comment><comment><USER44> I didn't know if it was just because I now have a 2 year old, but New York summers have definitely seemed harder to deal with each year I've lived here.

Is there a commonly accepted minimum temperature difference threshold that is perceivable by humans? E.g., if summer in 2016 was hotter than 2015 by X, I will notice?

<comment><USER45> Humans are lousy at comparing temperature differences over the course of a year. What we remember are extreme events: four years ago we had deep snow all winter, last year I only had to shovel twice. Remember when we didn't turn on the A/C except for one week in August?

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> and here we are, still without any thorium reactor anywhere on the planet in operation.

</comment><comment><USER47> The answer will probably be complex and unpleasant: We'll get serious climate disruptions before people get serious. We'll need to choose to deliberately forego energy sources, and energy is tightly linked to economic growth. The nuclear proponents will have to demonstrate that nuclear power can be economical and safe. If it is not economical, as it has not been so far, it is useless.

If we are past the point of preventing large scale calamity, geoengineering will probably have to be part of the solution. It's very risky, not least because it will lead to complacency if it works at all.

</comment><comment><USER48> OK, but... any ideas how can we solve that?

<comment><USER49> Make telecommuting and carpooling/ridesharing the new normal.

Less commutes == less emissions.

<comment><USER50> If you somehow cut personal transportation of all kinds to zero in the US, you'd cut total GHG emissions by about 13%. Nothing to sneeze at, but it won't solve the problem by a long shot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> So 14 of the 15 hottest years ever have taken place since 2000. I'm wondering, if this is the result of global heating due to emissions, why do we see so many new record highs only now? The industrial revolution has been going on already for over 150 years. Why were there so few records broken in, say, 1980 - 1996, and so many in 2000 - 2016?

<comment><USER30> I think you're misunderstanding the arithmetic. Take a look at [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_temperature_recor...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_temperature_record#/media/File:Global_Temperature_Anomaly.svg)

The Nth "hottest years" are relative to the present day. So in the graph, it looks like 1981 would have been a record hot year - but now it's only the 30th (or whatever) hottest year.

If the graph were a completely smooth upward-sloping line, then you'd expect that 15 of the 15 hottest years would have been since 2000.

<comment><USER51> Thanks for the chart. To me it still seems like we are missing something. If you look at the period of 1940 - 1980, then there was not really an upward or downward trend. But in the 36 years after 1980, the global temperature has been going up like crazy. Should all of that be attributed to statistical noise? To me it looks like some new factor has started to influence the climate in the recent years, whatever that factor may be.

<comment><USER30> Rather than eyeballing it, why not do a proper regression?

To me, it looks like a line going up from 1900 with a bump in 1940. But you don't have to take my word for it, there's piles and piles of data out there.

<comment><USER51> I'm not denying that the world has been heating up since 1900. I'm saying that during the last ca. 36 years it is suddenly going very much faster than it did before.

<comment><USER50> World CO2 emissions in 2014 were about 9.8 gigatonnes. The current concentration of atmospheric CO2 is about 400 parts per million. In 1980, the relevant figures were about 5.3 gigatonnes and 340ppm.

We've got the accelerator to the floor. It's no wonder that we're getting all the speeding tickets now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> The part I find especially frustrating is that, on average, a New Yorker has a lower carbon footprint than the typical American, probably due to the heavy use of the train.

So even when I do the (I think) eco-friendly thing by not having a car and using public transit, I'm still being punished for what the rest of the US (and the rest of the world) does.

<comment><USER3> Even with your slightly lower footprint due to not owning a car you still have a much larger footprint than the world mean. Probably 2-3x. So there are billions of people being "punished" for what you're doing.

<comment><USER52> Well, considering that I get my power from a combination of Nuclear and wind power, I doubt that I give a particularly high _carbon_ footprint.

But you're not wrong, I almost certainly have a higher footprint than most of the third world.

I guess what I was getting at is that I think the levels New York has are substantially more _sustainable_ than the rest of the US. Sorry for the confusion.

<comment><USER53> I would guess your footprint is more increased by getting all kinds of stuff (you don't really need). And the stuff being shipped across half the globe.

<comment><USER52> That's a fair point and I'll admit I hadn't considered that.

Conceivably, we could make electric (or something) transportation systems that can travel across the world and not produce and CO2, but we certainly haven't gotten there yet.

<comment><USER54> Marine transport is incredibly efficient. Total marine transport accounts for ~2% of global CO2 emission. It would be nice to have, but definitely a low priority.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> As someone who does not tolerate heat well, i can confirm. And it isn't over yet.

</comment><comment><USER56> Well clearly it has nothing to do with man-made pollution, it's nature taking it's course and these rampant wildfires. Oh wait, what causes the wildfires you ask? :-)

</comment><comment><USER57> Not to negate the issue at hand, which is important, there there's an interesting note on perception here.

"ever recorded" is used but how long have we been recording? The last study I checked on that made a claim like this was about 100 years. "ever recorded" sounds more sensational.

In any case, how we treat our planet... our ecosystem... is important. Seeing it go downhill is saddening and motivating. Glad to see things pointing out the change, its direction, and possible impact.

</comment><comment><USER58> No wonder my electricity bill was so insane. Maybe this winter will be the coldest winter ever recorded.

<comment><USER59> It could be the hottest January on record. Seeing as half the world is experiencing winter right now, what do you think will happen to global temperatures when the southern hemisphere experiences their summer?

<comment><USER60> Not much, the southern hemisphere has a lot more water than land, leveling out the temperature. Records are created or not based off what happens in the northern hemisphere.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> I planted palm trees and bananas in my London garden to reflect that :)

</comment><comment><USER62> I took off all my clothes.

</comment><comment><USER63> Where, New York Times?

</comment><comment><USER64> Interesting.

</comment><comment><USER65> I am lucky I live in the northen parts of Europe. I do not wish to live in America in ~50-100 years from now since there is so much guns and other weapons easily available.

People who care about their childrens future should start planning now. I think when the shit hits the fan it will hit hard and fast.

<comment><USER10> > People who care about their childrens future should start planning now.

If you believe this, wouldn't the ethical thing be to not have kids?

Besides, global warming-derived refugee flows into Europe could well put it in a much worse position than the US.

<comment><USER66> _If you believe this, wouldn 't the ethical thing be to not have kids?_

I see this over and over . . . If you don't have kids, who exactly are you saving the world for?

<comment><USER67> > I see this over and over . . . If you don't have kids, who exactly are you > saving the world for?

The billions of people (including kids) who already exist. Whether through adoption or supporting better general social programs. Clearly if that were the focus and the way humans thought the world would be a better place. But of course it's wishful thinking and people have every right to have and enjoy their own children.

<comment><USER67> Holy downvoting. Why?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> It looks like the actual increase was minimal and within the margin of error:

NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced this week that according to their calculations, July 2015 was the hottest month since instrumental records began in 1880. NOAA says that the record was set by eight one-hundredths of a degree Celsius over that set in July 1998. NASA calculates that July 2015 beat what they assert was the previous warmest month (July 2011) by two one-hundredths of a degree. But government spokespeople rarely mention the inconvenient fact that these records are being set by less than the uncertainty in the statistics. NOAA claims an uncertainty of 14 one-hundredths of a degree in its temperature averages, or near twice the amount by which they say the record was set. NASA says that their data is typically accurate to one tenth of a degree, five times the amount by which their new record was set.

[http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/aug/23/tom- harris-g...](http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/aug/23/tom-harris- global-warming-deceptive-temperature-re/)

<comment><USER50> Are we supposed to ignore the established long-term warming trend just because the records now being set aren't sufficiently beyond the ones from one anomalous year?</comment></comment>


Falcon Heavy's 3 first stage cores have all completed testing - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/903820580012474369 <comment><USER2> Will they do a hold-down test with all three boosters strapped together? As that may incur that risk of non-synchronized ignition "side-effects".

<comment><USER3> Isn't the rocket usually strapped down to the launch pad until all engines are confirmed working properly? What would these side effects be?

<comment><USER2> If one engine starts even a fraction of a second too late, it will suck up the exhaust from the other engines with predictably mission ending consequences.

I might totally wrong, but I don't think the engine are brought up to full throttle in a normal launch while it is still strapped down. In a hold down test, they are. I am just wondering if they are going to to risk possible synchronization issues in a hold down test, which effectively doubles the chance they will encounter a problems vs doing it once at launch.

<comment><USER4> Falcons are held down at full throttle for three seconds prior to launch, to ensure that everything is working perfectly before letting go. (They've aborted during this period in the past, although that was a long while ago.) As far as I know, this is unique among launch vehicles. I presume (but do not know for certain) that they will do the same for the heavy.

<comment><USER5> Well, they're held down as they are throttling up. They aren't at full throttle the whole time.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why college was the costliest mistake I ever made - <AUTHOR> https://blog.samwhited.com/2013/07/college-isnt-everything/

<comment><USER2> Maybe higher education is not for everyone but I have a hard time relating to people who say that going to college or a university was a waste of time. Going to university and getting an MBA was the best decision I've ever made. I learned interesting stuff that I'm still using today. I launched a company together with a fellow student. I learned programming while doing that. I was referred by another fellow student to a company that resided on campus that contracted me as a programmer and product manager. That company is still one of my biggest clients. Another big client came from yet another recommendation by a fellow student. And apart from that, it really was a fun time.

<comment><AUTHOR> I certainly don't pretend that no-one should go to college, or that it's a waste of time for everyone, but for many it's nothing more than a financial and time sink. Also, note that I never said it was a waste of time (in fact, re-read the last paragraph where I say exactly the oposite). I do maintain that (for me, and many others) it was a mistake overall.</comment></comment>


Flowcrypt – Gmail encryption in 60 seconds - <AUTHOR> https://flowcrypt.com/ <comment><USER2> Does anybody use an extension like this for their email? I have always been turned off by horror stories of Chrome extensions being bought out and injected with malware[1]. I would love to have my email encrypted easily, but not at the cost of opening a new attack vector that could bypass that encryption. What open source extensions are there that can be installed locally?

[1] [https://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2014/01/malwa...](https://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2014/01/malware-vendors-buy-chrome-extensions-to-send-adware- filled-updates/)

<comment><USER3> What do you mean by "extensions are there that can be installed locally"? Depends on what mail client you are using. Thunderbird can do this. I use mu with emacs mu4e and it just works. You need gpg installed, that's all.

<comment><USER2> FlowCrypt operates as a Chrome extension, so I assumed that the email client in question was the Gmail web client (or Inbox by Gmail). One can install extensions from the local filesystem rather than the Chrome store, which removes the threat of autoupdating into adware or malware. However, I don't know of any open source crypto extensions built to be installed that way. FlowCrypt might work, but the licensing terms don't seem amenable to that approach.

<comment> tom-jh FlowCrypt dev here. You're free to get the source code from [https://github.com/FlowCrypt](https://github.com/FlowCrypt) and load the extension that way. If you plan to also edit the code, just cross-check to stay within the bounds bounds of [https://github.com/FlowCrypt/flowcrypt- browser/blob/master/L...](https://github.com/FlowCrypt/flowcrypt- browser/blob/master/LICENSE)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Wireless electricity? It's here - <AUTHOR> http://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/14/tech/innovation/wireless-electricity/index.html <comment><USER2> Perfectly safe eh? Our bodies run on electrical signals, including our heart. In addition, the claim that it's as safe as wifi assumes the power levels will be the same. Charging a car and catching an internet signal requires vastly different power levels. And one is over 9000

[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_electronic_devices_a...](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_electronic_devices_and_health)

Here is an overview of studies of slightly stronger radiation from mobile phones:

[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone_radiation_and_he...](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone_radiation_and_health)

The World Health Organization's conclusion is that radiofrequency electromagnetic fields are "possibly carcinogenic to humans (Group 2B), a category used when a causal association is considered credible, but when chance, bias or confounding cannot be ruled out with reasonable confidence."

[http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs193/en/](http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs193/en/)

Our brains run on electrical signals and are affected: [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8340817/Mobile-...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8340817/Mobile- phones-do-affect-brain-activity-study-finds.html)

And finally, the assumption of safety above is that all people are roughly the same in their sensitivity. There is already a class of people completely intolerant to electromagnetic radiation of the strength of cellphone signals and sometimes live in Faraday cages to avoid headaches:

[http://www.foodsmatter.com/es/personal_histories/index_es_pe...](http://www.foodsmatter.com/es/personal_histories/index_es_personal_histories.html)

As we increase the power of the fields, this will cause more problems for a greater number of people. Do we really have the right to impose this on others for the sake of our own, slightly improved, "wireless charging convenience"??

<comment><USER3> Your body only picks up the signal if it's the right size to be an antenna at that frequency. Otherwise, you'll get just as much energy absorbed into your body as a wifi radio does from an FM station - not immeasurably small, but negligible. And don't forget, that the car is tuned to the power transmitter and absorbs most of the field strength. Since they're right next to each other in your garage, there won't be as much power leaking out.

Edit: Your sources are terrible. Source 1: wikipedia? quote "[T]here is no consistent evidence to date that WiFi and WLANs adversely affect the health of the general population." Source 2: wikipedia again? Lots of stuff in here, but not a single reproduced effect on health. Source 3: "WHO will conduct a formal risk assessment of all studied health outcomes from radiofrequency fields exposure by 2012." No results on that page. Source 4: a small writeup in the Telegraph with no link to the actual study. " metabolism in the brain region closest to the antenna... was 7 per cent higher when the mobile was switched on." Cool, a result! No word on whether it was ever repeated, oh well. Source 5: a nice list of anecdotes.

<comment><USER4> The article doesn't even mention frequency. Maybe it's just a static field.

All in all, the article leaves way to many technical questions unanswered, making it very hard to figure out whether or not there can be health impact. That being said, an MRI scanner also uses strong magnetic fields and there are tons of safety measures for that, but the fields are (as far as I can imagine) an order of magnitude stronger than what is used here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What'd happen if you had a pace maker? Would it not mess with that potentially?

</comment><comment><USER6> Tesla came up with this about a hundred years ago[1]. Seems pretty silly to act like it's new all the sudden.

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

<comment><USER3> Tesla's idea, while cool, depends on a common ground (possibly just the earth itself) between the transmitter and the receiver. It's not the same tech.</comment></comment>


New iOS privacy feature may end an era of personalized ads - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/macoclock/apple-is-killing-a-billion-dollar-ad-industry-with-one-popup-2f83d182837f <comment><USER2> Maybe the open source promise of Android was indeed a lie. To me this industry has no value to society at all.

Not a fan of Apple, but they seem to be serious about privacy showing other companies how it is done.

Microsoft could have really established itself as an alternative to Google on the same front, but they utterly failed by mirroring the worst aspects of the disastrous landscape we see on mobile devices. I hope their telemetry generates billions too, since that is probably in the range of their missed opportunities for both desktop and mobile devices.

Some still pretend that users want personalized ads and want to be tracked. Yes, there are some that really do. Glad we get options for the other ones.

<comment><USER3> At the end of the day,

1\. Apple users are the ones that cannot browse without adblocker. Safari is not as good as ublock-origin

2\. Most Apple users use google maps.

> Not a fan of Apple, but they seem to be serious about privacy

If they are honest then they can remove the default search engine from Google to DDG or whatever. They get billions from Google for default search engine.

[https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/1/21310591/apple-google- sear...](https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/1/21310591/apple-google-search- engine-safari-iphone-deal-billions-regulation-antitrust)

BTW, Apple need to release a good search/maps product before complaining.

3\. Even the cheapest iPhone cannot be afforded by > 80 % world.

They do not care about >80 % world popln? They too need smartphones.

<comment><USER4> iPhones have longevity.

The iPhone 5s from September 2013 has been receiving regular security updates, the latest being iOS 12.4.8 on Wednesday.

It was the first 64-bit phone, and first iPhone (first phone?) with a Secure Enclave.

They can be had for <$100 in good condition.

<comment><USER3> BTW, every one says this - but nobody uses it like a daily driver. Yes, it will work as a spare - with just one app - like whatsapp - but for many poor - they need 1\. Uber or Ola 2\. Facebook or WhatsApp 3\. linkedin to whatever local app 4\. youtube

Why dont you try to use it for a week with all your existing apps?

If it works as good - why would anyone buy newer?

<comment><USER5> I'm still using a 6s Plus 128GB. I keep thinking about getting a new one, but this one still works great. Haven't found a slow app yet. Everything is still responsive. Screen is still scratch free. And it's going to get iOS 14 this year. Even though it was relatively expensive when new, it's probably been one of the best values in tech I've ever seen. And yeah, it's a daily driver. Use it for everything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is a big reason why I continue to use apple devices.

They seem to be one of the few large tech companies that aligns themselves with users rights to privacy.

Apple isn't perfect. But they build very good privacy and security into their products. And they structure their UI and defaults in such a way that the average user benefits with no effort or specialized knowledge.

<comment><USER7> I definitely see some questionable privacy practices by Apple...

\- While "10x less", iPhone still sends your private information (such as location) to Apple on a regular basis[1].

\- Apple encrypts iCloud backups with a key _they_ control, not end-to-end[2]. This means that Apple can decrypt and inspect your phone and computer backups.

\- According to the article, iOS developers can use their "new privacy-focused ad framework" to "allow anonymously retrieving data without getting a hold of the user or specific information". I don't fully understand that sentence but it sounds a lot like Apple trying to compete directly with Goog + FB in the advertising industry.

\- Hardware made in China[3].

1\. [https://digitalcontentnext.org/wp- content/uploads/2018/08/DC...](https://digitalcontentnext.org/wp- content/uploads/2018/08/DCN-Google-Data-Collection-Paper.pdf)

2\. [https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303](https://support.apple.com/en- us/HT202303)

3\. [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-10-04/the- big-h...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-10-04/the-big-hack-how- china-used-a-tiny-chip-to-infiltrate-america-s-top-companies)

<comment><USER8> Isn't point 2 a consequence of the law that they have to follow? Don't know about rest of the world but I think in EU they are forced to disclose your personal information to the government if asked to do so. This is also in their privacy policy.

<comment><USER9> I think this is definitely the case.

And as iCloud is a global service they really have to cater for the lowest common denominator.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I have a serious question. Obviously if one were to choose between an ad-free experience and an ad-full experience, one would choose ad-free. But, if ads were needed for monetization, wouldn't you choose personalized vs non- personalized? Personally, I would go with personalized because a non- personalized experienced usually has no relevancy and frankly it is inefficient use of money in this world. From there, it really comes down to companies invading your privacy, usually they make the wrong assumptions from it. Why can't there be a way for me to tell the ad-world what I'm in the market for and have them stop trying to snoop around and guess what I want? Most may say that making a Google search is enough to tell ads what I want but I think there are a ton of assumptions made there.

<comment><USER11> If personalized ads meant ads that were actually good recommendations for products I could be interested in and would be grateful to be informed about the existence of - maybe. The reality of it is that personalized ads are mostly just ads from those with the money and demographics info to stalk me around the internet - e.g. webshops running after me, believing that I abandoned my shopping cart simply because I got distracted, not because I was trying to figure out what the shipping cost would be and their site didn't leave me any other options. Or sites trying to sell me another vacuum cleaner weeks after I already bought one. The point I'm trying to make is that personalized ads are very poor at actually recommending me anything I care about. They're like semi-incompetent sales clerks in a physical store - I'd really prefer to do my shopping without them breathing down my neck. So long story short, personalized ads are just as useless to me as un-personalized ads, only creepier, and I'd prefer not to be stalked.

<comment><USER12> Criticism like this essentially boil down to the adverts not being targeted enough. Lumping you in the wrong group, not knowing enough about your intentions, etc.

<comment><USER13> If targeted ads are no better, and maybe even worse, than untargeted ads, that doesn't imply you need more targeting. Maybe it implies targeting doesn't work (at least for the purpose of providing ads the user wants to see).

I prefer contextual ads, ie. related to what I'm currently looking at, not what my ad profile thinks my personality is based on something unrelated I did on another device last week.

<comment><USER14> > I prefer contextual ads, ie. related to what I'm currently looking at, not > what my ad profile thinks my personality is based on something unrelated I > did on another device last week.

That would be my preference for browsing the web, or looking at results of a search. But what about the ads that rely on doom-scrolling? The ones that are inserted every two posts on a Facebook feed would be hard to make contextual, for example.

<comment><USER13> I don't mind some Instagram ads which are directly related to accounts I follow. For example, follow some musicians on Instagram and get an advert for some other artist's new album. I don't use Facebook but I guess it could work similarly if you follow certain interest-related groups. However, I wouldn't like if it was using my interactions with friends to target me.

Both of these are better that tracking your activity all over the web and using that to target you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> In a previous life I worked in ad-tech, and I don't think it's as black and white as the OP makes it out to be. I think that's actually a Bad Thing™ as this industry needs to profoundly change or die.

This isn't a new, unexpected thing for sell or demand side ad-tech platforms, they've seen the death of IDFA coming for a few years. The reality is that this will likely stop more 'above board' players (a good thing) but the gray area and outright malicious, scummy ad and data companies will still attempt to generate unique identifiers through things like native fingerprinting. I think Apple will also stop them incerementally, but this sadly isn't an outright victory.

I don't understand it myself, but people DO opt-in to personalised ads in pretty decent numbers, it's anecdata, but I've seen data from very large control trials (testing for exactly this scenario) where ~50% of users opt-in. The devil is in the detail with these things: what will the copy be? will alternatives be presented? how will users be able to link 'value' to what they're being asked for?

<comment><USER16> Tracking based advertising hasn't delivered on its promises. As a user, we're seeing more advertising than ever, and it turns out that seeing advertising for a thing which you shopped for and bought last week just isn't any better than seeing advertising that relates to the article I'm reading at the time. I'm also very skeptical that tracking based advertising actually works better for publishes either. Since the number of companies with good tracking data is so limited, the tracking companies (primarily Facebook & Google) have a near monopoly on user data and use that to extract more money out of advertisers, but the publishers see a decreasing fraction of that amount.

<comment><USER17> >it turns out that seeing advertising for a thing which you shopped for and bought last week just isn't any better than seeing advertising that relates to the article I'm reading at the time.

This is due to (1) not having enough data to build good algorithms and (2) advertising campaigns being set up poorly (its not only technically challenging but also expensive). This issue can actually be fixed and likely will in the future.

>I'm also very skeptical that tracking based advertising actually works better for publishes either.

The majority of publishers make more money from personalized ads. NYT and premium publishers don't necessarily since ads on NYT are valuable by itself, but ads on my blog are worthless by themselves. Add some user data, and ads on my blog are worth much more.

<comment><USER16> > This is due to (1) not having enough data to build good algorithms

Fundamentally advertising serves the needs of advertisers and not the needs of the viewer. No amount of additional data will make advertising less frustrating because ultimately neither the publisher, nor the advertiser cares if my experience is more or less frustrating.

More data won't result in less frustrating advertising, it will result in more _effective_ advertising for the advertiser and more revenue flowing to the big ad companies as a result.

> The majority of publishers make more money from personalized ads. NYT and > premium publishers don't necessarily since ads on NYT are valuable by > itself, but ads on my blog are worthless by themselves. Add some user data, > and ads on my blog are worth much more.

This is neither proven, nor entirely true. Advertising existed and was profitable before targeted advertising was created. Publishers made _more money_ before Google/ Facebook took over and dominated the industry.

I've seen very few blogs which are worth a damn which have big advertising from Google/ Facebook on them. Mostly because good bloggers don't want to debase their otherwise good content.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This won't be the end of it. It's just one of the many battles.

And iOS isn't for everyone. Yes it's great for protecting privacy but it's also extremely restrictive for the users. The fact that they don't even allow real third-party browsers is baffling in this day and age. I also can't use my Yubikey in OpenPGP mode which I really need for my password manager and SSH access. I know it supports U2F now but that's not enough (and was way too late as well).

But I agree the advertising industry has to die. I don't believe in the 'working together' approach of the EFF with their plugins that stop blocking cookies when they see the privacy policy file. I mean, if you're not tracking me, then why need third party cookies in the first place?

It'll never happen though. They'll always find a way to track us.

<comment><USER19> Much like Flash, not allowing third-party browsers could be explained as a cynical control mechanism on Apple's part... or as their not wanting to see tech support volume shoot up as Chrome and Firefox users complain their battery life is terrible. Or some combination of the two.

<comment><USER18> I understand their have their reasons.. But I don't like them taking that choice away from me.

The problem is, right now we have only 2 choices. Living in the open world but getting all our information sucked dry by advertisers. Or live in Apple's protected little garden but not be allowed to leave it. And pay much more for hardware specs.

Neither are very appealing.

<comment><USER20> A new iPhone SE has flagship specs for $400-500, and Androids cheaper than that (and even much costlier ones) struggle to last 2-3 years - an iPhone easily lasts 4+.

I don't want to turn this into an Android vs iOS debate, but want to highlight that one of the main complaints against getting an iPhone (cost) no longer really applies - it could even be considered a strongsuit. I agree that the walled garden can be annoying, but I've rarely found myself longing for Android customisation, and have very much noticed how some apps work much better on my iPhone. This is completely down to preference though.

I also care deeply about privacy, but even with 0 consideration for it, I think I still would've switched - I am super happy seeing Apple pushing it this hard.

(I recently went back to iOS after 2 phones and 5 years on Android)

<comment><USER18> Well, the iPhone SE has really poor specs compared to an Android of the same price IMO. The SoC is up to date, but the screen is only LCD, the bezels are huge (the screen to body ratio is very low) and the camera is only adequate.

Basically you're buying a 4-year-old phone with a modern SoC in it :) I don't think that is worth the price they are asking. I paid the same (440 euro) for my S8 3 years ago (it was out a bit over a year), and it already had a beautiful AMOLED screen, high screen to body ratio, and in particular DeX which I can't really do without anymore. And it's still fast enough now. I upgraded to that from my iPhone 6 which was becoming way too slow at that point (note: iOS 12 did fix this somewhat but by that time I had already had enough of it). Overall, the S8 aged better for me than the iPhone 6 did.

Compared to what you can get from Apple now vs the Android vendors, Apple is only ahead in terms of SoC when you're looking in the same price bracket. But that's not the only spec that matters.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This is the number one feature on iOS 14 that I cannot wait for. I am getting very tired of finding out that unrelated services know that I have used a specific app (like Facebook knows way too much).

Somewhat related (even though this is focused on Apps). I have noticed an uptick in websites that don't support safari, likely due to how they handle cookies. I hope this does not become super common (but I can't imagine many sites wanting to loose out on the iOS market)

<comment><USER22> I'm on the dev beta, and it's pretty stable. There's a public beta available now. If you're itching to try it out, I'd recommend it!

<comment><USER21> I have heard that, my biggest concern is if there was a nasty iCloud bug introduced.

I would run the risk of loosing a lot of important documents in my iCloud Drive.

Maybe I will install it on my work iPhone but that is barely used right now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I've been using the full desktop version of the ublock origin plugin on firefox mobile for quite some time, and it's dramatically improved my mobile experience.

<comment><USER24> This plugin works only in android, right? Tried to install it on my iPhone but it said it's not compatible with my browser although i have Firefox installed.

<comment><USER25> Yup, Firefox on iOS isn't the full Firefox, its just a Webview (fake Safari) due to Apple's restrictions.

So no addons anytime soon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Some industries need to die. This one is akin to making horse carriages nowadays, except more evil.

<comment><USER27> Pretty much. It's incredible the mental gymnastics the adtech industry has gone through to believe it's important, or even fundamentally important to the world.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> If an entire industry dies because users were given an explicit upfront choice, because of one popup like the article says, then it wasn't a productive industry.

We'll see what really happens.

<comment><USER29> What will really happen is ads get more sinister and hidden. Product placements in movies will seem childish in comparison. Astro-turfing is already huge on Reddit, it will spread to all parts of media now, blurring the lines between genuine opinions and forced narrative.

Ads, marketing and branding are integral part of capitalism, it's never going to go away from consumption focused societies.

<comment><USER30> That would only mean context based ads are the way to go and spying on people to create ever more intricate profiles is not necessary.

<comment><USER29> I personally prefer personalized and explicit ads over vague and hidden inside content ads, the latter seems very manipulative to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> d--b At long last! And now I'll know why I pay more for an iPhone.

<comment><USER31> That's not a reason to pay more for an iPhone. Android allows you to install any browser you want (as opposed to Apple still not allowing real third party browsers), including Firefox with uBlock, which is much much better at privacy than Safari on Apple and as a bonus makes the internet 3x faster by blocking ads.

<comment><USER32> Yes, we should all flock to an operating system developed by an advertising company in an effort to escape advertisements.

<comment><USER33> I mean you 1000% shouldn't go to any store, buy an Android phone and just use it if you want to avoid Google. But Android in isolation is fine as long as you consider it a hobbyist smartphone platform.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I wish Apple would kill Medium

<comment><USER35> Before that, AMP

<comment><USER36> They're doing something. Safari has automatically converted AMP links back to their original pages since iOS 11. It could stand to be a system-wide behavior for my own usage, but it'd be a little intrusive if you actually did want to share an AMP link for a specific reason if it automatically altered your clipboard or text messages.

<comment><USER37> Chrome does it too, and the AMP project is supportive: [https://9to5mac.com/2017/08/24/ios-11-safari-amp- links/](https://9to5mac.com/2017/08/24/ios-11-safari-amp-links/)

The idea is, when a foo has <link rel=canonical href=bar>, if you go to share foo your browser will actually share the canonical url, bar.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> >But being the most popular mobile ecosystem

I keep seeing quote similar to this about Apple's iOS being so popular, yet the numbers clearly show that Android devices/users out number iOS. Are they saying that even with those numbers, Android is unpopular and people would rather be an iOS user? Is the price point whats preventing them?

<comment><USER39> I believe so. In my country, having an iPhone was a sign of higher income. An average Android phone with a known brand is about 1K local currency, iPhone SE is around 5K and iPhone 11 Pro is around 11K. Average junior developer earns around 5K monthly. Nowadays, even people that can't afford proper food buy them second hand or with installments.

I, as an Android user, keep reading stories about how iPhone respects privacy and how it is more stable etc. Even though there is no add-on support for Firefox on iOS (for uBlock origin) and I know I won't be able to develop any app for my own iPhone (MacBooks are even more expensive around 20K) I still want to buy an iPhone to get rid of Google and its compulsory apps. I know if I care enough about my privacy I can get LineageOS or something, I just want something that works and not owned by Google.

<comment><USER40> If you get an iPhone, you will get Apple's compulsory apps. The difference is that on Android, you can replace Google's apps with other apps.

<comment><USER38> don't you just exchange that with apps your carrier forces on you?

<comment><USER40> You can replace those with apps that you like as well. Android doesn't care who installed the default apps.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Since there is already an incentive for apps to grow as big as possible to show ads to earn more money, I wonder if there is a legitimate way to slow- pivot all the app stores to an automatic developer payout; no IAP or monthly subscription per user per app or ads shown in app, simply a payout to devs based on app install size.

Where does the money come to make those payouts and how do the app store owners still make money per download too?

I wonder if, with increased care about privacy in consumer minds, Apple or Google would try an Apple-Arcade-style subscription for apps. Users could pay $5/month (or tired,lower/higher rates) and get access to a selection of 'paid' apps without having to pay per app.

Devs would still be incentivized pretty much the same and users would have higher-quality apps with fewer ads.

Just thinking out loud.

</comment><comment><USER42> Worth noting that you can already get some of these benefits today by going to Settings -> Privacy -> Advertising and turning on "Limit Ad Tracking".

This sends an all-zeros IDFA to all APIs that request it^1.

iOS 14 begins the new prompts, lets you toggle this on a per-app basis, and, by being in front of users is just about guaranteed to dramatically increase the number of users who are opted-in.

[^1] [https://support.appsflyer.com/hc/en- us/articles/115003734626...](https://support.appsflyer.com/hc/en- us/articles/115003734626-FAQ-Impact-of-Apple-Limit-Ad-Tracking-on-attribution)

<comment><USER43> > Settings -> Privacy -> Advertising and turning on "Limit Ad Tracking". This > sends an all-zeros IDFA to all APIs that request it.

Could you please clarify, even when "Limit Ad Tracking" is on, why the "Reset Advertising Identifier" option below it is still there and asks if the identifier needs to be reset (on tapping it)?

What does "Reset Advertising Identifier" do when "Limit Ad Tracking" is already on?

Side note: The link you provided throws an error for me saying "could not connect to server". Not sure if it's a temporary issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Unless all traffic is routed through Apple servers advertisers will still be able to track the ip address.

(A visit to some url, say google.com, with login cookie, and the link between ip and user is made again.)

<comment><USER4> Seriously I hope IPv6-only never arrives.

Let's just be hippies and share NAT'd IPv4's. Unironically.

Edit: I've gone rogue and blocked IPv6 in DNSCloak. [https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/dnscloak-secure-dns- client/id1...](https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/dnscloak-secure-dns- client/id1452162351)

<comment><USER33> I mean we could be real real hippies and NAT IPv6. I really see so case for not doing this since people would still want to use private address space for internal networks bigger than their assigned public block.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> While I applaud the feature and hope it gets used by everyone, the idea that it's going to harm FB/Google/Etc. is unlikely.

There's a good argument to be made here that it will actually _entrench_ them.

Facebook's power comes not just from being creepy, but by having built an internet-wide advertising platform that anyone can run ads on. You run ads in one place and billions of people can see them.

While IDFA blocking is nice, it does basically nothing to change FB's incentives. Until using the personal data they've collected to run ads is illegal, they'll continue to collect it (and probably after, let's be honest).

All the while, the complexities of running an effective ad network get higher and higher, making it harder for 3rd parties to compete against FB.

At the end of the day, we have to make ads targeted with previously collected personal data illegal. End of story.

</comment><comment><USER45> Can I say "Good".

</comment><comment><USER46> Will this also remove (part of) the power of shady companies like Emerdata Ltd, formerly known as Cambridge Analytica?

</comment><comment><USER47> But doesn't this privacy setting get nullified anyway by companies tracking your device at the cellular network level? I'm not too familiar with it, but regardless of whether you accept cookies, etc., they are able to ID you through your carrier anyway?

<comment><USER48> > tracking your device at the cellular network level

I'm not aware of this happening at a large scale outside of the networks themselves, do you have any references for this?

<comment><USER49> I believe Verizon was caught inserting super-cookies with an ad tracking identifier. But that method was much easier back when the majority of the web was just http.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> While I believe Apple making the right choice, perhaps they could also find a way to help app developers make money, without ads.

Perhaps one of the reasons developer include ads and tracking is that recurring revenue is a problem for small developments shops.

</comment><comment><USER51> Once this feature is released and verified live, this is a big reason for me to potentially move back to iPhone.

I just hope Apple follows through on their promises and not backout of it like they did with some of the end to end encryption stuff with iCloud.

</comment><comment><USER52> Neither Internet or TV advertising ever worked for me in the US. As a matter of fact I always tended to avoid whatever was advertised to me or whoever targeted me since I know I will end up paying for that myself when I buy their product and I'd rather not.

So as a customer I think they should offer me free ads blocking since seeing the ads would make me avoid those products. If we want to see this industry change we should all make clear it rarely works and it's an absolute waste of money.

What worked were ads that were creative back in the day before they all became canned into the same thing, same voices, etc. Back in Europe the advertising USED TO BE a lot more fun, I'd genuinely enjoy watch some commercials on TV, to the point of watching an hour compilation of said best ads.

<comment><USER53> > Neither Internet or TV advertising ever worked for me in the US.

This is a common idea that people hold, but I am pretty suspicious of it. First, at the macro scale, we know that ads are effective. If they weren't, it wouldn't be such a huge industry. Second, I think many people misunderstand what ads are doing. They aren't changing your mind usually, instead they are reminding and reinforcing something you already know. For example, my next phone will most certainly be an iPhone, but can an ad make me excited enough about it to mention that to a friend? Or buy a new phone sooner? Probably.

<comment><USER54> It's also fairly well understood that familiarity plays a role in brand choice. So, you may not care very much about what brand of toothpaste you buy (as an example), but if you're bombarded with advertisements for Crest, you're more likely to pick Crest. The advertisement isn't really meant to get you to go out and buy Crest RIGHT NOW, or even to get you excited about the next time you buy Crest. It's just there to make sure that next time you need toothpaste and are staring at a wall of functionally identical brands, Crest is the first one that jumps into your mind.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Personalized ads are profoundly creepy. Glad to hopefully see them disappear.

</comment><comment><USER56> If you're working in ads and this comes as a surprise to you, then you haven't been doing your homework. Steve Jobs himself, RIP, announced this over 10 years ago.

</comment><comment><USER57> With this feature, is the information not tracked at all or only tracked by Apple and then made anonymous when given to apps?

</comment><comment><USER58> Apple news also use targeted ads and they are as shitty as any ad platform in recommending ads and no way to not see them.

</comment><comment><USER59> Personalized ads and all the awful tracking and profiling that goes with them are a plague and must be destroyed.

</comment><comment><USER60> Better targeting of ads based on content rather than visitors seems like a great idea... who is doing this?

</comment><comment><USER61> To anyone that took GDPR seriously and not as a reason to shove another popup in everybody's face this doesn't come as a surprise

It will be even better when advertisers (that is, the ones that pay for ads, not the ad networks) realize that "over tracking" and retargeting are just ways of parting them with their money but doesn't increase conversions.

You have basic info about your user, you don't need to track them to 11

<comment><USER62> These conversations are always so one-sided on HN.

Not only is 're-targeting' immensely useful, it absolutely increases conversions.

Targeting in general helps quite a lot.

Ad targeting is the opposite of evil, it actually increases relevance by a significant degree, and increases market efficiency, wherein surpluses go to both sides. There's a huge market for products and services out there and it's getting harder to connect individuals and products on the long tail.

Without tracking - the big winners will be the mega-brands that can run wide ad runs to most of the nation. It'll be cheaper to just tell everyone about McDonald's and impossible for the new snowboarding company to tell you about their new gear.

<comment><USER63> Unless, you know, by buying ads on snowboarding gear focused sites, as the industry has done for decades in the print industry.

<comment><USER48> Or on apps about snowboarding, or on fora related to snowboarding, or by paying snowboarding content creators, there's a wealth of opportunities out there. I don't give a damn about snowboarding when I'm browsing, say, twitter. (Which, incidentally, for some reason has borked itself into thinking I like rowing.)

<comment><USER61> Exactly

Instead of that they want to shove their new snowboard ads on every blog not connected to snowboarding you see because you searched "snow" once on Google

<comment><USER64> Or because you just bought a new snowboard on-line (and won't need another for years), so now you've got snowboard ads everywhere, despite being in the group of people least likely to need a new snowboard anytime soon.

<comment><USER65> My shopping habits must be somewhat unique on a local amazon-esque site that 80% of the time when I view something I have already bought (i.e. to check some detail before it arrives, or sometimes if I want to order more - I buy a decent amount of hardware and fittings for DIY projects on there) it has a little carousel at the bottom saying "Others who looked at this item also looked at:" and it's a list of 8 things, 7 of which I know I've looked at recently, or even bought.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> Apple is a bit naive. How will they block adtech companies fingerprinting TF out of users?

There's too much money on the plate. Companies such as Adjust have fingerprinting tech and announced this as one option against Apple's move. All GDPR compliant because they don't need to get user's approval but their customers need to. And do their customers ask for approval _before_ fingerprinting? Isn't the approval not often mandatory for using the app? Or somewhere buried deep in the Privacy Statement and given _afterwards_? And if customers just fingerprinted without approval how would Apple ever find out that Appsflyer or Adjust just were used to fingerprint and to track you until you get your next iPhone?

If Apple was serious about privacy they would have detected and banned anyone using fingerprint SDKs. As sad this sounds for most users: Adtech won't die, Apple will rather make fingerprinting tech even stronger.

</comment><comment><USER67> "Cry me a river"

Says no one ever.

</comment><comment><USER17> Always interesting to see the "advertising industry needs to die" comments here. 40% of FAANG is built purely on advertising (7% of the S&P500). Some non-zero percent of commenters are employed by adtech funded companies.

<comment><USER68> "My employer should switch to a different business model or go under" isn't a weird opinion.

<comment><USER17> "The industry I work in should die for ethical reasons."

\- Skilled knowledge worker who could move to another industry, but the money bought out their ethics.

<comment><USER68> I said "change _or_ ". That's an important distinction.

Lots of people work in industries that have questionable practices.

It's a pretty far jump from working at, say, a newspaper that shows ad-network ads (which I find questionable and I think falls into the category "find a new business model or die"), and working for something _actually_ unethical.

Also what I meant wasn't that a whole industry such as online news should die, only change business model.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> without paywall: [https://outline.com/pVuLZg](https://outline.com/pVuLZg)

<comment><USER70> Here's the medium friend link without paywall from the author himself: [https://medium.com/p/apple-is-killing-a-billion-dollar-ad- in...](https://medium.com/p/apple-is-killing-a-billion-dollar-ad-industry- with-one-popup-2f83d182837f?source=email-9833cc01f515-- writer.postDistributed&sk=3b0e2ef3463837b34503764257d2f9b3)

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> you mean the ads for bicycles after i just bought one?

</comment><comment><USER72> Good

</comment><comment><USER73> When did Medium get a "sign up" paywall?

It feels like more and more content linked on HN is paywalled, adblockwalled, or otherwise obscured these days.

</comment><comment><USER74> Off topic, I have been enjoying the iOS and iPadOS version 14 betas.

This privacy feature is pro-consumer and I am all for it! I pay money to Google (GCP, Play entertainment stuff) and FaceBook (Oculus VR addict, here!), but I don't want them using any of my data to enrich themselves or other companies.

Everyone should read "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power." It was printed about 15 months ago, but is still highly relevant to both convince people that there is a serious problem and also advice on fighting back.

</comment><comment><USER75> <!-- You are not allowed to visit this page on a Safari browser/iOS -->

Apple didn't solve that the ad industry is an alternative for paying to see a website's content.

So what will happen is that:

\- Safari/iOS users will be required to pay for a ad-supported website

\- Safari/iOS users will be denied access to the website

<comment><USER76> Or those users will still see ads, they just won't be tracked and the ads will be less personalized.

<comment> kube-system Or ad networks will just use fingerprinting to generate a unique ID and continue business as normal.</comment></comment></comment>


Train a GPT-2-1.5b Text-Generating Model with GPU for Free - <AUTHOR> https://colab.research.google.com/drive/1QE4LVEYITjIkjXxosahHVZPsSHtYZy7x <comment><USER2> I spent a week trying to do this by hunting down disparate blog posts that all used a different ML framework or GPT2 finetuning tool. I didn't understand what you were supposed to do and ended up with gibberish output instead. For example, isn't the dataset supposed to be specifically formatted to separate significant blocks of text, with something like <!endoftext>? The OP doesn't mention anything about this.

It's these kinds of things that make me doubt myself at every turn when doing this "finetuning" thing. I wish there was a clearer tutorial for people only interested in retraining GPT2 to generate different kinds of text, alongside a description of how each step works at an intuitive level. A lot of times the author starts right off with "okay let's start finetuning" without really defining what "finetuning" is or does. I just want to understand the scope of knowledge needed to know how to use my own text corpus as the input source without needing to become an expert in ML. (Maybe this activity isn't for me if that's how I'm going to think about it?)

If anything, I wish Talk to Transformer still existed as a downloadable model. I have yet to find another model that generates text like it did. At the end of the day I just sigh and look at all the random article and comment and adventure generators other people have succeeded in making without "getting" it.

<comment><USER3> Hi, I don't have a comprehensive guide or anything like that, but I can quickly answer your questions:

1\. Delimiting your text with <|endoftext|> lets the code know where the boundaries of your text chunks are. It makes sure that during training you're not inadvertently continuing past the end of a chunk of text into a totally unrelated one. However, it seems like there is a bug with this re how the nsheppard fork works: [https://github.com/openai/gpt-2/issues/222](https://github.com/openai/gpt-2/issues/222)

Even if you're not doing this, you shouldn't be getting gibberish, so you likely have another issue in your set up.

2\. Finetuning just means training on top of a somewhat already trained model. GPT-2 is a language model, which means it's trying to learn (and generates from) a probability distribution over words (actually tokens). That probability distribution is going to be different depending on what corpus you're working with (wikipidia articles vs news vs reddit). GPT-2 (the models you download) is trained on a particular corpus but you as you fine-tune on your own corpus it's going to start pulling the learned probability distribution towards that of your dataset's.

I think the best way to play with this stuff is to run the code, like you're doing. When you get something that doesn't make sense, dig into the code/paper. There's also a lot of information in the readmes/issues for these repos.

<comment><USER2> Thank you for the pointers, I'll rethink my strategy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> the subdomain behind the title is kind of misleading.

To be specific, _colab.research.google.com_ and _research.google.com_ are different sites, but the fourth level domain is omitted in the domain field on HN.

</comment><comment><USER5> Meh, I thought Google was always on the cutting edge of ML. They just tried to pimp up a two year old dysfunctional show pony and sell it as a new racehorse. I would like to see a trained GPT3 that's is currently up for rent from the AI shop delivering actual innovation.

<comment><USER6> GPT-3 costs $4.6 million dollars to train currently[0]. Not only is your comment unnecessarily negative, it's just generally a pretty bad take.

[0]: [https://lambdalabs.com/blog/demystifying- gpt-3/](https://lambdalabs.com/blog/demystifying-gpt-3/)

<comment><USER5> What value is added by training a model yourself? Why don't they provide that model?

Isn't the real innovation here to give people a $4.3 million model for free?

Instead of letting people burn unnecessary compute power to train a model 2 years behind state of the art.

<comment><USER7> The main value is that you can choose your own training data. For example, if you wanted to train a text-generation model on purely C++ code, this would be a good way to do it.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Finding Center: astronomy, Islam, horse whispering, and hula hooping - <AUTHOR> http://kerningcultures.com/episodes/finding-center <comment><AUTHOR> Would love your feedback on our latest episode, please let us know what you think -- and happy to answer any questions you may have :)</comment>


Subtwitle - turn your tweets into photo captions - <AUTHOR> http://subtwitle.heroku.com

<comment><USER2> Neat project! I did something like this a few years ago to learn how to use NLTK with python (no longer running, but code/story is at <http://www.github.com/qdot/fwiktr> and <http://www.nonpolynomial.com/2007/06/23/fwiktr-v01/>), sometimes the more abstract results are the really interesting ones. :)

Also of interest, there was a music video made that used searches involving the song lyrics to create a dynamic music video:

<http://www.avoision.com/experiments/astronaut/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice! I was thinking about adding Flickr as a source for sake of photo quality. There's probably much less random awesome though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Huh, I thought it would actually generate an image I could copy and paste, containing my stupid toots.

This made me laugh, though: <http://i.imgur.com/ItQCw.jpg>

</comment><comment><USER4> A few broken images retrieved, but I can kind of see how it works. Most of my friends have completely insane images.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hopefully gonna fix that tonight; who has time to worry about onerror handlers in this day and age?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Cute. None of them made sense for mine, but at least I could see where some came from. Others... Not so much.

</comment><comment><USER6> Literally nothing happened when I entered my handle and clicked GO. (Chrome on OSX 10.6)

<comment><AUTHOR> Blast; See any JS errors?</comment></comment>


Unexploded Bombs in Germany: The Lethal Legacy of World War II - <AUTHOR> http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,584091,00.html <comment><USER2> Germany (and WWII) has got nothin' on Laos (and Vietnam) in regards to dropped bombs and unexploded ordnance.

</comment><comment><USER3> We had one explode in someone's back yard here in Vienna (Austria) a couple of weeks ago, it felt like an earthquake to people within a certain area. Luckily, no one was hurt, it just left a huge crater. They also come across them frequently when doing construction work for roads - you hear it on the radio that the motorway is closed until the bomb squad arrives. Scary stuff.

<comment><USER4> The Belgians have the same problem with a lot of the shells from the first war lying in the forests - only most of them are actually gas shells, slowly rusting.

<comment><USER5> Yup. DOVO, the Belgian army's demining service, still retrieves about 200 tons (i.e. 200,000 kg) of shells just from the small area in the northwest of the country where fighting was the heaviest. Accidents happen sometimes with farmers who dig up fosfor- or yperite - here's a picture of someone's hand 24h after touching some yperite (it's not pretty!): [http://www.forumeerstewereldoorlog.nl/viewtopic.php?t=2325&#...</a> . The caption says he used a handkerchief to wipe off his hand, which then also burnt his leg.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The East London Line was closed for several days the other month when a rather large bomb was found during work on the Olympic Park.

</comment><comment><USER7> I just realized that I was stuck in that traffic jam in picture 5 of the photo gallery.

</comment><comment><USER8> In July a WW1 mortar shell was found and detonated in the Presidio of San Francisco...

[http://www.ktvu.com/news/16764203/detail.html?psp=news&r...](http://www.ktvu.com/news/16764203/detail.html?psp=news&rss=fran)

<comment><USER8> (Arguello gate into the Presidio was blocked on my way into work, and we heard the boom later that afternoon.)</comment></comment>