Don't Be Evil but Intentionally Deceptive is OK - <AUTHOR> http://www.diorex.com/dont-be-evil-but-intentionally-deceptive-is-ok/

<comment><USER2> Goog has major issues with customer service. If you're running a business, your first inclination 95% of the time, should be to make the customer really happy. If they have a complaint about your service, you bend over backwards to make it right. Especially, when these people are use to paying a CPC of $10 for some of their ad campaigns.

Can you imagine that type of response from Amazon web services support staff? Especially, if you had an unresolved $3000 bill with them.

I recently set up an online store using Yahoo Merchant solutions. I ran into road blocks two separate times, and when I went to their "help" section, I found a 24 hour customer service phone number, so I called them both times after midnight. On both occasions, within a minute, I was talking to a live person who spoke fluent English. And I had my issue resolved within minutes. Needless to say, I'm going to continue using Yahoo Merchant Solutions. The interface is pretty clunky, but I've been really happy with their customer service.

Google could take a lesson or two from Yahoo and Amazon on this.

<comment><USER3> I also run a Yahoo Store, and even in their Search Marketing group, customer service has always been excellent. Clearly there is a lesson Google needs to learn from Yahoo in at least one area.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> [show = all but deleted] -> [select all] -> [resume]

It's not rocket science :/

The UI is 100% clear. This is a non-story. As soon as you log in, top right shows "Show | all / all active / all but deleted".

It's actually quite worrying the poster is spending a lot on adwords, yet doesn't seem to understand the UI and instead suggests setting all your bids to 0.01 to avoid resuming deleted campaigns having a big effect.

Choosing [show = all] shows deleted campaigns, and if you select them all, you can resume them...

To suggest this is "intentionally deceptive" is laughable. Worrying this has been voted up to #1

<comment><USER5> No. One of the first rules I ever learned about human factors was to translate "user error" into "design flaw." A mistake that is easy to make is a design problem. In this case, this easy-to-make mistake benefits Google.

It's probably not intentionally deceptive, but it is deceptive and Google should fix the problem.

Default actions should not affect deleted items. Think about GMail: "All Mail" excludes your Spam and Trash.

<comment><USER6> > In this case, this easy-to-make mistake benefits Google.

And, worse, it seems to be a pattern. Clicked the wrong button in your adsense campaign? No appeal, we take your money. We detected fraud in your google payments account? No appeal, we take your money. We detected click fraud in your adsense displays? No appeal, we take your money.

I'm glad I don't do any business with them.

<comment><USER7> Why would they give you an appeal? They are not a charity organisation they are a business for profit. If something they are doing is illegal then by right you have access to the courts. Use them.

<comment><USER8> That's like saying, "Why would you talk to their customer service when you could just sue?" The courts are there as a last resort, not as a default place to settle things. Your statement also implies that there's not a relationship between how one treats their customers and bottom line, which is pretty far from the truth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Google is slowly losing the PR war. It starts with the geeks. It may take another two years to propagate to the general public. By then, billions of dollars in ads (think Microsoft) can't undo the damage.

I'm watching to see if they are smarter than MS.

<comment><USER10> Yeah, MS really screwed the pooch. That's why their revenues have climbed steadily year after year to over $60b. Sure hope Google doesn't make that mistake.

Only on Hacker News do people think emulating Microsoft (from a business standpoint, that is) is bad.

<comment><USER11> Their revenues may still be climbing, but the rate of increase has dropped significantly. They are losing market share in operating systems, office suites, and browsers; they have an awful PR image and they have not had a "hit" product in more than a decade. It does not take an idiot to see that Microsoft has passed its peak and that the decline has begun.

<comment><USER10> You know, that's exactly the same argument people made to me 10 years ago when I started comp sci classes and made the mistake of asking some of the grad students why they hated Microsoft so much. Luckily for Microsoft, the other 99.99% of the population never got the memo. At the time I didn't know about Silicon Valley groupthink and I actually believed them.

Of course their growth has slowed since their startup days, but for a company of their size it's incredibly impressive. See a chart of it here, noting that the next year after this graph was published it topped $60b:

[http://www.thevarguy.com/2008/05/21/will-googles-revenue- eve...](http://www.thevarguy.com/2008/05/21/will-googles-revenue-ever-surpass- microsofts/)

That's about 20% more than the year before it. Show me another company their size that did that last year.

They don't have an awful PR image on Main Street, just on social news sites. Despite Apple spending hundreds of millions to tell the world how much they suck, 90%+ of people still use their products and like them just fine.

And I think the Xbox 360 is a bona fide hit in anyone's book.

I would argue that it does take an idiot to look at a company that went from $51b to $60b in revenues and see decline.

<comment><USER4> "And I think the Xbox 360 is a bona fide hit in anyone's book."

That's an odd book you have there. The last I heard was that at least they are profitable now. However, there's 6 years or so of vastly unprofitable to pay back before they actually make any money from the venture. By that time we'll be into the next console war, and who wins that is anyones guess. (Whoever stops using discs for the love of god).

People hate MS for a variety of reasons. My top 3:

      1. Taste - they consistently implement bad solutions rather than good, elegant solutions.
      2. The internet - they show consistently that they do not understand the internet.
         They loose enough money on it. They don't get advertising, building webapps, browsers, etc
      3. Bullying - Squashing the competition and giving users a worse experience isn't nice.
         It holds back progress. Suing people because they use the FAT format is ridiculous and indefensible.
         The FAT format is so simple it's trivial.

They are irrelevant to most people in any event. Unless you work in the corporate world.

<comment><USER10> Apple fans always move the goal posts when discussing Microsoft. The iPhone sells 17m units, and it's a hit, despite having relatively small market share. The Xbox 360 sells 28m units (about 30% market share in its generation) leads its segment, and it's not a hit somehow.

Microsoft is doing really, really well in the gaming space, in fact they lead the serious gamer market. They sell more games per unit at higher prices. They've been the clear leader in online connectivity and game distribution, with Nintendo and Sony lagging years behind them there, and they're doing a million downloads a week. They've also got the top game franchise with Halo, smashing sales records with each release.

Comparing them to the Wii is like comparing the iPhone to a free-after- contract clamshell. Of course some of the clamshells sell many more units, but that doesn't make the iPhone a dud.

And they're moving into the VOD space. They're now streaming tons of videos through Netflix and some of the built in stuff. Having a console attached to 28m TVs has given them the video distribution channel that Apple tried and failed miserably to get with the Apple TV, though I have a feeling that if that product sold 28m units you'd call it a hit.

<comment><USER4> OK lets ask it this way. If you had enough money to buy Nintendo, with its innovation, massive profits, and cult following, or the xBox section from ms with its debt, which would you buy?

Who knows, maybe in 5 or 6 years xBox will have paid back what it cost them to develop. Or maybe a new console will come out and no one will remember what the xBox was before they get a chance.

The genius was that Nintendo decided to not compete with xbox and ps3, and instead create a new market which they completely dominate and profit heavily from.

Personally I don't buy the 'control of the living room' strategy. From anyone. Apple TV? no thanks.

Portable devices - Nintendo DS, iPhone/iPod are where it'll be IMHO

<comment><USER10> I don't know what debt you mean, the division is profitable. It took them some money to get there, but that's what happens when you battle competition that has been entrenched for decades. At the rate they're going, they'll soon be profitable on the EDD unit as a whole.

So I'd take the Xbox unit, if we're talking strictly TV consoles. (Nintendo owns the handheld market, and is one of the biggest game makers too, so it's not an apples-to-apples comparison.) For one, they're the most likely to abandon optical media as a necessity for their next player. Nintendo is very backward-thinking when it comes to media formats, consistently choosing cartridges and proprietary discs. By your own logic, that's pretty bad. (The Wii proves users really don't give a damn yet, but they may.)

They'll still offer discs, because a lot of people will still want to rent games, buy them as gifts from Best Buy, etc. But it won't be the only way to get any new game. You can already pay to just download tons of games from the library.

For another, they're the most compelling VOD service on the market. They're going to achieve the dream of streaming movie rentals to people in large numbers. They're already doing it with Netlflix, but they're still improving. I already cancelled my cable and now watch whatever TV I do through PlayOn or streaming from a PC thanks to my Xbox. Despite rarely playing console games, my Xbox gets used daily.

They're much more than a gaming device, and they're growing there all the time. The Wii is not, it plays casual games well, and that's about it. And that's great, don't get me wrong, but it isn't the only market segment.

Also remember, Nintendo has been playing 2nd or 3rd fiddle for a couple generations before the Wii, after having dominated for 2 generations. There's no reason to believe they won't end up right back there. That industry is tumultuous to say the least.

And even if you'd go with Nintendo, that doesn't make what Microsoft has done any less impressive. That industry is one of the most brutally competitive there is. So many people have come and go, big companies have tried and failed to get a toe hold. Microsoft hit the #2 spot 2 generations in a row, and built a genuinely cool product that is killing the non-casual segment right now. It's really impressive.

<comment><USER4> >> "I don't know what debt you mean, the division is profitable."

I thought it was just profitable for 2008, but not profitable as a whole, when taken as a venture - 5 years of heavy losses, then 1 year of some profit?

Other points taken, and guitar hero rocks, halo is cool. The xBox is the best part of ms. On the downside, my xbox often sounds like a washing machine and is hotter than the sun ;)

<comment><USER10> I don't think all 5 years were heavy losses, but yeah, they might well be in the red overall. They'll recoup it fast if their current trend continues though.

Hardware-wise they made a lot of errors that cost them a lot of money and reputation. (I'm on my third unit, and everyone I know seems to be at least on #2.) On the other hand, people love it enough to deal with it, kinda like Macbooks in that regard. I'm starting to think that I've overrated the importance of build quality in things other than cars due to my experience with those. Perhaps since people aren't so reliant on non-automobiles it factors much less into their user satisfaction. (I've heard iPods too have high failure rates, though the couple I've owned never seemed to have any problem, but if that's true it clearly hasn't dented their uptake.)

If you're lucky enough to have a newer one, they're a bit quieter, especially once you rip the game to the hard drive. You still have to put the disc in, but it doesn't spin and it makes it a lot quieter. Of course, the only game I play is Rock Band and I tend to crank that up :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I wonder how many bad customer services experiences it'll take to train their Bayesian models.

<comment><USER4> There will always be user error, which this clearly was.

<comment><USER13> Not really user error. Deleted means deleted.

<comment><USER14> _Deleted means deleted_

and resume doesn't mean undelete. Pause / resume, and delete / undelete should be kept separate IMHO. So resume should just resume paused campaigns and a new undelete option should allow you to reverse the status of deleted campaigns.

<comment><USER4> >> "Deleted means deleted"

Gmail: Delete... oops... undo.

Granted though, it should warn you that you're resuming a deleted campaign. But that's a feature request to save people making mistakes IMHO rather than anything inherently wrong with their UI.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I think there must be a basic law of nature that when you have a monopoly you get stupid.

Perhaps the only way for Google to "not be evil" is to cut itself in half and have the two new companies compete with each other.

</comment><comment><USER15> As stupid as Google's customer service, and their interpretation of the word "deleted" is, it is pretty obviously not intentional. My reasoning is: it adds virtually nothing to Google's income.

If these had not been turned on, the next higher bidder would have gotten those clicks. Presumably this is "dutch auction" -ish pricing, so the high bids on these CPCs only got a high charge per click if there were other high bids out there?

<comment><USER16> Wouldn't a Dutch auction work exactly the opposite way?

(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_auction>: "A Dutch auction is a type of auction where the auctioneer begins with a high asking price which is lowered until some participant is willing to accept the auctioneer's price, or a predetermined reserve price (the seller's minimum acceptable price) is reached. The winning participant pays the last announced price.")

Or do you use eBay's definition of the term: "eBay uses the term Dutch auction differently, for a multi-unit auction for several identical goods to be sold simultaneously to potentially multiple bidders."

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Wait, he actually got someone at Google to respond to a query in a timely fashion? That seems like a pretty big win to me. He must have a serious ad budget.

<comment><USER17> Yeah the guy is huge. I'm just some random nobody loner who makes his living off the net (not too much $$ though) and I know for almost a fact that this guy is rich as shit through random people talking about him. Pretty modest too.

<comment><AUTHOR> He's got 125 employees. <http://www.diorex.com/thoughts-on-scaling-a- business/> will give you some idea about the size and scope of what he's doing.

<comment><USER17> I know this is a super late reply, but wow. 125 is insane. Though I wonder how many are employees in first world countries vs third world countries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I don't see how this is intentionally deceptive. It's just typically bad UI design. (Typical among even Google software, I'm afraid)

</comment><comment><USER19> Actually things are just getting worse.

If you missed following article anyhow... "Google slips from list of top companies on privacy" - <http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10123251-93.html>

</comment><comment><USER20> "Don't be evil" is a KICK-ME sign on Google's back.</comment>


Tesla Model S adaptive cruise control crashes into van - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQkx-4pFjus <comment><USER2> This is a known issue. Bottom right of page 64:

[https://www.teslamotors.com/sites/default/files/Model-S- Owne...](https://www.teslamotors.com/sites/default/files/Model-S-Owners- Manual.pdf#page=64)

> Warning: Traffic-aware cruise control may not brake/decelerate for > stationary vehicles, especially in situations when you are driving over 50 > mph (80 km/h) and a vehicle you are following moves out of your driving path > and a stationary vehicle or object is in front of you instead. Always pay > attention to the road ahead and stay prepared to take immediate corrective > action. Depending on TrafficAware Cruise Control to avoid a collision can > result in serious injury or death.

<comment><USER3> Good to hear that Tesla knows it's an issue.

Bad to hear that they released it knowing this was an issue, because I wouldn't expect myself to be able to react to this.

Humans are not capable of handling these types of nuances well at speed. Being an active driver and being an inactive driver that needs to stay alert enough to catch the few cases where you run into "known issues" is just not going to work well.

As I'm typing it I'm suddenly having a wave of guilt for all kinds of software bugs I've written where the answer was "it's a known issue".

<comment><USER4> Tesla is not a self-driving car at this point. The fact that people rely on this as the primary means of breaking is completely crazy.

<comment><USER5> When you only have to brake in 1% of the use cases, and the "Autopilot" handles the other 99%, is it really that crazy that a driver does not instinctively recognize that 1%?

Or is it crazy to expect a user to be able to react instantly to the 1% use case?

<comment><USER6> This is not very different from any normal car with cruise control.

<comment><USER5> A normal car with normal cruise control does not keep itself in a lane. Nor does it adjust for the speed of other cars. All it does is make your speed a constant; you still have to steer and initiate any and all braking or overtaking maneuvers.

<comment><USER6> Some do adjust speed. The point being, neither is a fully automated auto-pilot - the human behind the wheel is always responsible for stopping the vehicle or steering away from obstacles in an emergency.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There are a bunch of these videos on YouTube. The best part about them is watching the Tesla Owners' Club (Internet Comment Subdivision) crawl out of the woodwork to explain away why the software worked perfectly and if only the meatbag behind the wheel had read section 74.3(f) of the operating instructions they would OF COURSE have known about this.

<comment><USER8> While I would hope automakers don't push the technology before it's ready, and relying on disclaimers does seem more CYA than an actual safety measure, it's easy to be defensive when an issue like this has a high probability of being treated irrationally. A meatbag in a conventional vehicle getting into an accident doesn't make the news. An autonomous vehicle completing a trip without incident doesn't make the news. The relative accident rates of autonomous vehicles and meatbag-piloted vehicles doesn't make the news. These are sensitive times for public acceptance of the technology.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> In a continuation of regulation being outpaced by technology. I feel the current law doesn't properly cover this. My opinion is that, If a car manufacturer is providing a service that controls the brakes and acceleration or turning of your car in an autonomous manner they should be responsible for any accidents that arise because of it.

It is not responsible to expect humans that are sitting behind the wheel of a car that covers 90% of situations to pay attention for the 10%. This sort of situation puts the human at eases and gives them false confidence in a vehicle.

Even if the fine print SAYS they are in control. They are adding a layer between the human and the car that delays their reaction speed a little more. Because the human is not trained to drive in a buggy ass car, they aren't trained to respond to this sort of thing.

Liability for these sorts of accidents should fall on Tesla, and they should not be having their drives be guinea pigs. If a driver wants access to this autonomous mode they should have to sign a release because by default Tesla should be responsible. Again the law isn't current with this.

I also want to say I love what tesla is doing but I think the bad PR of irresponsibly integrating autonomous driving when it isn't ready (or they don't have the proper sensor bank to make it work) is going to delay the acceptance of self driving cars in the public in general.

Tesla's self driving car is to Googles self driving car as the Blue Origin landing was to Space X's landing . But in general people don't know or see the difference they are just cars that drive themselves or rockets that land. Also google's car is typically driven with a trained driver.

I also want to say I'm a huge proponent of self driving cars.

<comment><USER10> The technology in question is cruise control, not auto pilot or auto steer or anything of the sort. Mercedes' have had radar enabled cruise control since the 80's, and the principle is the same: The vehicle will keep pace with traffic and if you watch the video, that's exactly what it did. The driver maintains full control of the vehicle and it's clear by the sound of the conversation that the driver wasn't paying attention to the road, ergo, driver's fault 100%.

<comment><USER9> Does it brake and accelerate? If yes, then the car is responsible for braking and accelerating and any damage done while it is braking and accelerating.

Does it turn? No, then no responsibility for turning.

If I can rely on the car to break and go, then I should be able to RELY on the car to do so. This seems like a feature that makes people complacent and will end up hurting self driving car adoption in the long run.

Look at how many people harp on the few accidents Google has been in, and they have a well trained driver in it. Tesla is just putting a 1/2 measure in place so that they can leverage their users as testers and pawning off responsibility when the users turn out to be TERRIBLE testers.

<comment><USER10> > Does it brake and accelerate? If yes, then the car is responsible for > braking and accelerating and any damage done while it is braking and > accelerating.

Except that this car's manual, along with every other car I've ever owned and seen that had active cruise control, specifically states that the car will not stop for stationary objects. People need to RTFM. It comes with the vehicle for a reason.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm not an owner, but even I know that the Adaptive Cruise control is for use on clear highways and can't cope with much.

This was a situation where the driver plainly needed to take over, had plenty of time to take over, and the issue was sufficiently obvious that even a non- alert driver who was looking forward would see they needed to take over.

There's an argument to be made that relying on partial automation is a fundamentally bad idea because the driver will not become sufficiently alert in time to save themselves. This is not an example of such a situation.

<comment><USER12> As the driver said in his comments, when he'd seen the system stop 1,000 times in the past he had a false sense of security that it was actually going to stop for him like it was supposed to.

<comment><USER11> If the driver had used it off-highway 1,000 times in the past, but then the Tesla made an error off-highway, is it Tesla's fault or the driver's fault?

This isn't even a Tesla issue: most car makers now ship cars with adaptive cruise control with stop-and-go. If they stop 95% of the time in this situation, do we really have to ban them because some drivers insist that past experiences constitute a valid test?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's still a great track record, but I can't shake my misgivings about automotive autopilot beta testing being an open-road thing. This seems like begging for trouble, with the biggest issue being the occasional ambiguity about a momentary brake-tap turning a system off.

<comment><USER14> Adaptive cruise control is not autopilot. It does not steer for you. It's not in beta, it's been a production feature on high end cars for 10 or so years.

Regular cruise control has always deactivated with a momentary brake tap. Been this way since cruise control started coming on cars.

<comment><USER5> Based on my experience, when adaptive cruise control is braking, manually braking has unexpected consequences.

A tap can disable the current braking completely, resulting in an unexpected change in velocity. Frequently a bad idea, since the ACC is braking for a reason.

Applying normal braking pressure can add your braking pressure to the existing braking pressure, resulting in an abnormally large braking force, sometimes enough to initiate ABS on dry roads. Very disorientating, and it makes you unpredictable to drivers behind you.

The solution is to tap, then press a second later, but this requires you to be aware of the need to take manual control early in the situation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The video has been marked as Private on YouTube and is no longer available to view. Does anyone have a mirror?

<comment><USER16> ish [https://media.giphy.com/media/3o6EhCnV9fgZQgw6xG/giphy.gif](https://media.giphy.com/media/3o6EhCnV9fgZQgw6xG/giphy.gif)

<comment><USER17> Wow that's it? I was imagining a crumpled ball of steel from a 70MPH impact and potentially deaths.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I cannot wait to be killed by some idiot putting 100% faith in his Tesla to do his job of driving for him.

<comment><USER19> Would you prefer an 18 year old snapchatting at 107 MPH in a Mercedes with a pregnant passenger? Resulting in permanent brain damage for her crash victim?

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning- mix/wp/2016/04/2...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning- mix/wp/2016/04/28/lawsuit-blames-snapchat-for-107-mph-crash-in-mercedes- caused-by-teen-girl-using-speed-filter/)

The point is no matter how many accidents autopilot gets into, its safer than human drivers. And it will only improve.

Autopilot could kill ~30K people a year, and that's still less than the number of people killed by people driving in the United States alone.

<comment><USER20> I'm not sure how this story is relevant, it's well known that human drivers are more dangerous than self driving car. This particular case, while tragic, is not unique.

But this isn't a self driving car - it's automated cruise control. It's not going to let you snapchat and drive safely. You still need to be aware, and rhetoric that presents it as a solution to distracted driving is dangerous, leading to situations exactly like this one.

Sure it's still safer; that's not the point.

<comment><USER19> > Sure it's still safer; that's not the point.

That's entirely the point.

<comment><USER20> When it is safe enough you can operate the vehicle without also being a responsible driver, then I'd agree with you. But it's not, as demonstrated by this thread.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Mine picks up the stationary vehicles 9 out of 10 times, but you do have to watch it. This happens most frequently at stop-lights on roads where the speed limit is above 55 MPH and I'm approaching the stationary car stopped at the light.

</comment><comment><USER22> Too much assistance make people less aware of danger especially when there are slight perturbations to the handled case:

It happens in airplane industry (where people forgot some basics because they use to much autopilots)

It happens in science when people use too much black magic statistic metadata (and forget to check the details in the slight differences of inputs).

But be aware that more automation of dangerous industry also will have the same effect ; mass transport, nuclear plant, chemical plants, medical practice, energy grids.

Well, aren't coding with google&SO and/or frameworks kind of a growing autopilot for most coders?

</comment><comment><USER23> Read the YouTube comments -- the OP has responded to many questions there.

</comment><comment><USER17> More accurate title: Tesla successfully emergency brakes to gently tap the rear end of a van instead of ramming it in what would be a potentially fatal accident

</comment><comment><USER24> Who's got a mirror? Video is private.

</comment><comment><USER25> From the sounds, it seemed to detect it at the last moment. Can Model S owners confirm?

Also, there are variable settings for breaking, right? Has anyone tested what happens if they're intentionally set too low to prevent accidents?

So many experiments I'd run with a Model S and an EM mocked up crash pad...

</comment><comment><USER26> apparently tesla drivers are just beta testers

<comment><USER27> They made that pretty clear when they released a beta version of the software.

<comment><USER28> "production ready" software seems very difficult without all the data they are gathering from the beta release.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> The car appears to accelerate as soon as the car in front drivers around the van. I would think it would wait a second to reevaluate the situation before rapidly accelerating into the van.

</comment><comment><USER30> I noticed a recent Merc TV ad had a disclaimer along the lines of '*vehicle may not automatically brake in all circumstances'

</comment><comment><USER31> Cruise control in the left lane? Not paying attention? Ticks all the boxes.

<comment><USER32> Cruise control that will AUTOMATICALLY DETECT AND FOLLOW THE SPEED LIMIT(!!!) in the LEFT(!!!) lane.

HR would have a field day with all this box checking

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> got a mirror?

</comment><comment><USER34> Wow, what kind of awful sensor technology and low sampling rate are they using for this? You could probably build something that worked better with an Arduino.

Vehicles equipped with these features are actually more dangerous, based upon the preliminary data. I'm all for new technology, but if you want to use clearly "beta" \-- and that's putting it lightly, as its clear there are definite hardware/sensor/sampling problems here, not software -- you should be required to carry high risk insurance.

It's not fair to the rest of us drivers who have to be on the road. We did not agree to be Tesla's beta testers too, and its only a matter of time before someone is seriously injured or killed by one of these "features".

I'm sure someone here will chime in and say, "but its safer than a human driver, a reckless teenager". To that I say, that's why teenager's insurance rates are so high! We need to increase the insurance rates here to reflect the risk presented to both the driver and general public of this reckless, half- backed autonomy.

<comment><USER35> > You could probably build something that worked better with an Arduino.

What are you waiting for?

<comment><USER19> OP is waiting for their confidence bias to subside.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overconfidence_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overconfidence_effect)</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Hacker News Night Mode – A Firefox Addon - <AUTHOR> https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/hacker-news-night-mode/ <comment><USER2> Am I the only one to think that HN just needs anyway a little revamping?

</comment><comment><USER3> Curious how long it took to develop.

<comment><AUTHOR> About 1.5 hours.</comment></comment>


Apple accidentally leaks iPadOS existence ahead of WWDC '19 - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/stroughtonsmith/status/1135582482919841795 <comment><USER2> Makes a ton of sense. iPads have so much power that could be unlocked by not treating them as large iPhones.</comment>


Show HN: NSA developer recruiting video - <AUTHOR> http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/media_center/careers/video/WorkatNSATechPerspective/index.html

<comment><USER2> This has to be a parody.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thats what I thought too.... but then, I don't know a way to fake the URL. It's legit as far as I can tell.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Crazy smart.</comment>


Ask HN: Need links to Single Page Apps which are already crawled by Google. - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> meteor.com, [https://atmospherejs.com](https://atmospherejs.com) ... meteor apps are single page apps by default, but if you add the "spiderable" package, it spins up a phantomJS instance and renders the site nicely for bots.</comment>


Morpheus: A Vulnerability-Tolerant Secure Architecture [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://web.eecs.umich.edu/~barisk/public/morpheus.pdf <comment><USER2> I wonder how this impacts debugging. It kind of rubs me the wrong way too. Typically, robust security is about keeping things _simple_ so they can be audited or verified. Pretty cool results though.

<comment><USER3> I think this depends on what you think of ASLR. If ASLR rubs you the wrong way, this will too.

<comment><USER4> This looks like it goes way beyond ASLR.

There are a series of different protections they are doing. It's not clear if they intend them to be uniquely switchable or if they were just separating them to indicate which attack techniques require which protections.

For example it appears to combat ROP they are additionally encrypting the code segment of the program and decrypting on an as needed basis. I am absolutely sure this would make debugging more difficult. It wouldn't be used on a debug build though so I guess the question is how often would you find yourself debugging a production executable.

I admit I didn't read it in depth and may have missed something but I wonder if they are doing something similar for dynamic libraries or if it relies on the code being available at compile time. If not then I'm sure someone clever will still get around it with ROP.

<comment><USER5> The debugger doesn't really rely on the code segment being readable generally.

<comment><USER4> You are conflating the act of debugging with the operation of a "debugger".

Sure you can start at 0 and step forward one instruction at a time, but how often do you do that without at least looking at the code?

Not being able to look ahead or behind but only within what is actively on the stack is certainly a limiting factor in debugging.

It is of course a problem that has been solved before. Someone would develop an unpacker/decrypter for it at some point and make this trivial, but that would still be an added level of complexity.

<comment><USER5> You have access to the binary itself, you don't need to read it out of the debuggee process.

<comment><USER4> I agree. I'm not sure I understand your point though. This isn't contrary to anything I said. I mention unpacking which would be a pre-debugger process.

I believe you are just being pedantic about my use of the word "debugging" to include things like unpacking, static analysis, and a variety of tools and processes used.

<comment><USER5> The binaries aren't preencrypted here, the dynamic nature is the whole point. There's nothing to unpack since you just reference the binary, and no added work for the debugger.

So when you say

> For example it appears to combat ROP they are additionally encrypting the > code segment of the program and decrypting on an as needed basis. I am > absolutely sure this would make debugging more difficult.

It's just not true.

<comment><USER4> So yes, you are correct it's being encrypted dynamically at the hardware level.

You just debug in a system without these protections turned on then.

<comment><USER5> No, I'm saying you don't have to turn off these protections.

Like, can you give an example of a debugging task you have carried out that requires reading the code segment of the running process?

<comment><USER4> Required? No, but I didn't say impossible. I said "more difficult".

Made easier by? Most everything ever loaded in a debugger.

<comment><USER4> Just for an example. How about debugging a non trivial issue between a program and a dynamically loaded library.

You can't just scan the IAT/PLT. You are going to have to find load points or manually step through, and maybe calculate function offsets in the library. Not impossible at all.

It is however something you could have just quickly glanced at and found otherwise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The article reads like a brute force approach to secure design, sprinkling randomization everywhere. Performance results are promising, though.

</comment><comment><USER7> Hmm, like Shape Security did with web elements, this appears to do with hardware elements.

Seems promising, but not the level of enterprise architecture most at risk.

</comment><comment><USER8> Wonder if the commercial Morpheus will have a challenge with this naming ([https://www.morpheusdata.com/](https://www.morpheusdata.com/), "Next-gen multi-cloud management platform for Hybrid IT and DevOps automation")

<comment><USER9> Morpheus is the ancient greek god of sleep and dreams.

The etymology fits better in The Matrix than either of these projects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Impressive. I wonder why RISC-V only?

<comment><USER11> Morpheus modified hardware to accelerate the procedures which randomly alter the system stack parameters that attackers learn by probing the system. They used risc-v for this prototype.

<comment><USER3> Note that no hardware engineering (say, writing HDL, not to speak of tapeout) was done. It was implemented only in simulator.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I would like to hack this CPU..</comment>


I'm looking for a full-stack job like Mike Ross has at Pearson Spector - <AUTHOR> I haven't got a PhD but I can (at least) learn and think on that level. I am looking to learn by doing rather than go to an university and spend the next four years studying books.
What should I look for when searching for this not  so standard job? Obviously the person(s) I'll be working with are much more important than the job or company itself.
I can write PHP, Python, js(by choice) and HTML/CSS. I want to learn the ins and outs of bizdev, as well as an ability to test, validate and deploy ideas very fast + grow a product from 0 to +/- 100k users.
I know this sounds much like all the things you do when running a startup, but I don't want to go trough all the obvious mistakes the first time. <comment><USER2> > I haven't got a PhD but I can (at least) learn and think on that level.

How do you know this? More pertinently, how do _I_ know this? How can you convince others that you are "at PhD level"?

Well, one way to do this is to _do_ something "at PhD level". Build something which (i) is appealing to the kind of people whom you would like to have as colleagues, and (ii) shows your mastery of the full stack (as you define it). Put it up on GitHub, and let others see it. Show them the code, as the saying goes.

What would such a thing be? Knowing what the "interesting" problems are is part of "being at PhD level". So you probably already know what to solve, or it will come to you if you think about it a bit.

Good luck with your efforts!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your answer :)

I think you've misunderstood a couple of things. Or more spefically: I haven't been clear enough on a couple of things.

I know I can think on a PhD level, because I \- was smarter in some eareas than my teacher in cs (who had a PhD in cs) \- I've worked with people who mastered cs and during that time I felt like I was thinking on the same level as they were. \- I could try to do an IQ test but most (smart)people notice whitin a matter of minutes if the person in front of them is equally smart.

The thing you're missing tho, is the following: I'm Mike Ross before he meets Harvey; I can pass the LSAT of cs but can't be a competitive programmer yet.

If i was, I would apply as an engineer at Google and learn these things in my 20% time.

The Harvey I'm looking for must be able to teach me ao things how to be a good one, and at the same time challange me to bring on new clients etc etc.

<comment><USER3> > _I - was smarter in some eareas than my teacher in cs (who had a PhD in cs)_

Eligibility for PhDs isn't calculated by pairwise comparison.

It's judged by original research. Which requires a lot of study, a _lot_ of study, just to take you to the outer boundaries of the sub-sub-sub-sub-field your PhD happens to be in.

One subject I was taught in a quasi-postgraduate setting (in Australia we have a kind of mini-PhD called "Honours") was evolutionary systems. In _one_ subfield of that topic, the original paper appeared about 30 years ago. A year later there were a few dozen papers. Within five years there were _tens of thousands of papers_. Conferences. Study groups in computer science departments around the world.

To get a PhD in that field, you need to exhaustively search the literature -- surveying and reading potentially hundreds or even thousands of papers and projects -- _just to figure out what has yet to be researched_. Just to get to the _starting line_. That takes several years.

PhDs are hard work.

<comment><USER4> TIL you don't get a PhD for being able to write PHP, Python, js(by choice) and HTML/CSS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The last part of your question/statement makes me feel you will have a very hard time finding something suitable for you.

The reason I say this, and by far don't take this the wrong way, is that mistakes, obvious or not, are an absolute requirement in business and in successful software developers. Reason being, in order to innovate, you need to treach into territory previously unexplored, meaning you need to accept the fact that there is a 95% or more of a chance that something will inevitably break, and it will break badly. Successful leaders not only accept failure, they embrace it. There is so much someone can tell you about their failures, and if you're lucky you may spot them happening to you, however there is no comparison when it happens from your own experience. A good analogy is sailing through a storm based on reading a book, or having sailed through a storm before, which do you think will complete their journey?

I also believe a big part of the so-called "PhD thinking" is they are willing to accept the fact that the 3-10 years of work they put in will be absolutely destroyed by their peers. It's that willingness to take a chance that drives them. Without it most things we know today would not exist

So basically, if you want your dream job, embrace failure and reach for the stars. Make mistakes, fix them, and make different ones

</comment><comment><USER6> As others have mentioned, you have a severe case of [http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect).

> I haven't got a PhD but I can (at least) learn and think on that level.

You may think this, but do you have anything to show for it? Have you worked on PhD-level projects?

A bit unrelated, but

> I don't want to go through all the obvious mistakes the first time.

From my limited experience, sometimes it's valuable to go through those mistakes yourself.

I'm around your age and part of a community of developers in high school on Facebook. Shoot me an email (in profile) and I'd be glad to add you to the group.

</comment><comment><USER7> You certainly do seem restless and confident, but it seems to me the qualifications you list (PHP, Python, js, html/css) put you still near the bottom of a very long ladder. If you feel you're exceptional, then prove it. What have you written that's exceptional? What projects have you contributed to?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks; that's true and in my opinion only logical; my experience isn't going more than five years back. Why do you feel like it's a matter of languages wheter to be able to be exeptional? I feel like I'm an exeptional learner and I can prove that with the projects I've worked on, but I really stand out in my passion and willingness to become one of the best in more than only programming, but (as already mentioned) the entire stack.

<comment><USER7> I don't think the language matters that much - but there are a _lot_ of people with the skillset you describe (myself included.) PHP in particular has a reputation for poor quality programmers and code (which you'll easily see every time someone posts a PHP project here and gets asked to justify even using the language.)

I'm just suggesting that, if you're looking to impress a future employer, a portfolio might serve you better than eagerness, unless you're willing to start at the bottom.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I'm only seventeen years old, so yeah I was thinking about starting at the bottom. The question I'm asking tho is: what should I look for in my future employer? He/she will be much like a mentor to me and I think the right choice will make a ton of difference down the road.

<comment><USER8> "I haven't got a PhD but I can (at least) learn and think on that level."

"I'm only seventeen years old"

Man, I really miss the good old days when I knew everything as well :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> You have a terminal case of Dunning-Kruger.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect)

<comment><AUTHOR> Lol. Thanks for the reference, but I think that you haven't understood my question by only the slightest bit. I expressed my ability to learn quickly and found myself (this is actually validated by real word examples) to be able to work on software projects with the skills I dug up in the past 5 years. I am looking for a place (not a university) where I can learn software devlopment in a quick matter and with a more hand-on experience. I apprieciate that you try to tell me that you think I'm overrating myself, but I'd like it if you had some ground to do so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> You seem confused about a couple of things. First, you don't understand what a PhD represents. It isn't a measurement of how intelligent you are. It shows a meaningful understanding and contribution in some specialized part of your field.

Second, I agree with other replies that brought up the Dunning-Kruger effect. You feel that you were on par or better than a teacher of yours that has a PhD. Does your teacher agree?

Third, if you really want to do well in business you should improve your communication skills. Judging by your cultural references I'm assuming that English is your first language. Your post and replies have several typos, grammatical errors, and areas where your meaning is unclear. Why do you point out you don't have a PhD when the reality is you probably haven't graduated high school yet? What does "by choice" mean in reference to JavaScript? Did someone hold a gun to your head and make you learn PHP?

I've worked with good coders that didn't have a degree but having that piece of paper opens some doors. If you're as smart as you claim to be you should be able to get into a pretty good school. Once you're there you'll be surrounded by other smart people. Spending time with smart people has lots of benefits. If you want to learn to run a business you can start one while you're in school. It'll probably fail. Figure out what went wrong and try again. In four years you'll have learned a lot about running a business, made good contacts with smart people, and have a nice piece of paper. If you get lucky and the business works out you can always just drop out.

</comment><comment><USER11> Hi Mike Ross,

I was (am) you. I skipped college/university 15 years ago because I felt it couldn't teach me anything.

On the one hand, I now sit beside someone with a Masters in Computer Science in a lateral position to him, so I've done OK.

On the other hand, if there's one thing I've observed about mentorships, etc., it's that they don't exist out in the real world. Companies are there to _do their business_, whatever that might be. They don't have time to hand-hold you. IF you want to make great connections, find great peers and mentors, go to college or university and talk to everybody. Do the tedious grunt work... and get the credentials while you're at it.

Entering the workforce with your (supposed) capability AND a degree will make you unstoppable. Also, chances are you may bail on the degree, but you should only do that if you and a couple peers are making something super cool.

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER12> Sounds like you have a healthy ambition, which is uncommon, especially for a teenager.

You have two options: find the job, or create the job yourself.

In order to find this job, you need to first find someone who is open-minded enough to let you learn by doing on the job. They would likely expect to see projects that you have done to decide if you can do what you say you can. It can be relatively hard to find someone at an established company to give you such an opportunity without a university education. Most people follow an established route - they are not trailblazers. Therefore your challenge would be to convince someone to see things the way you do.

If you have a vision of how things ought to be, you need to avoid the first option. This will help you learn/grow fast. Otherwise you would be wasting lots of precious time and be held back from the expectations of others.

The second option is to create your own job. You can either start your company, or join an early stage company. Either case would still require you do be able to demonstration that you are capable of taking action. Your chances of getting this opportunity is much higher in the startup world.

There are pros and cons to both options. You just have to decide what you value most: learning or comfort.

Embrace making mistakes. Learn as much from others as possible, but know that the fastest way to learn is to do, and to do, you will make mistakes. Mistakes are the requisite to experience. It is a healthy and unavoidable part of life. The journey is yours alone and no one can do it for you.

</comment><comment><USER13> Hey, since you can write all that, where is your portfolio? Show your github.

Don't have a portfolio? Build one.

Mike Ross could read along with a text book that he had memorized. If you embody any aspect of him, it's the arrogance he holds to throughout the series, the idea that his gift means he shouldn't be beholden to the expectations of others.

Because that is how you come across. Arrogant, without any reason to be.

The good programmers let their work speak for them a lot more... they know you don't tell somebody you are good, you show them.

Also you should know that your numerous typos do detract from your claimed intelligence. Programming is one place where typos REALLY matter.

</comment><comment><USER14> I love your description of the opportunity you are looking for :)</comment>


How mobile devices will become smarter with contextual awareness - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/video/2011/08/31/how-mobile-devices-will-become-smarter-with-contextual-awareness-video/

<comment><AUTHOR> Definitely think contextual awareness will be a huge part of of future. Loved the line 'right now you learn your phone, but if your phone learns you...' endless possibilities.

For example I was recently in New York, just wandering the streets just after midday and I was getting hungry. My phone I am in New York (an area I don't know), it also knows that it is lunch time. Lets say it new from my past behaviour that I like Thai Food, and from my bank account that I hadn't swiped my card for lunch that day. It could then send me a notification of a great Thai restaurant running deals as I walk past it.

Or if I am on my way to a meeting and the person I am meeting is running late (too far from meeting location to be able to get there in time), I could be pinged with a 'Expect Bob to be late notification' and his current location.

There are loads of augmentations that could happen in our daily lives that we could benefit from. The beauty is that all the technology is behind the scenes. If the usability is done right, it would seamlessly fit into our lives.</comment>


50% of Millennials would give up their right to vote to get student loans erased - <AUTHOR> http://www.foxbusiness.com/features/2017/09/13/50-millennials-would-give-up-their-right-to-vote-to-get-student-loans-erased.amp.html <comment><USER2> Ugh. There are so many fucking problems with this. Here's the survey for reference. [https://www.credible.com/blog/survey-millennials-student- loa...](https://www.credible.com/blog/survey-millennials-student-loan-debt- forgiveness#methodology)

Read that and tell me it's sensible to extrapolate that and validate the title. There's a reason it's not linked as a source. Because it's crap.

TL:DR Amongst other huge problems like only providing the final percentages of selected answers, 50% is exactly 250 people who have student loans with the company. It's not a "personal finance" company. It's a student loan provider who all of the respondents likely owe varying amounts of money to.

This is exactly an actual debt collector asking it's debtors what they would do to get their debt forgiven while dangling their life in front of them.

Intellectually, it might be an interesting hypothetical discussion. But this article and the survey aren't worth much.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's a simple economic calculation.

Let's say I have $130k+ in college loans. Would voting for a particular person (or a set of people over the rest of my life) give me $130k+ in direct benefits? Probably not.

The more poignant conclusion here is that our votes are actually worth very little.

Another conclusion is that "values" are more important than money, and we vote to establish values, not to make money.

<comment><USER4> Your right to vote does a lot more for you than get you money, it can keep you alive! For one it could reduce the likelihood of the draft being reinstated and people forced to go due in Vietnam.

Additionally it could keep you out of jail.

<comment><USER5> >voting could reduce the likelihood of the draft being reinstated

... only in the unlikely event that my vote changes the outcome of an election, and the candidate I voted for would also be able to affect such a big legislative change.

Millenials as a group might be worse off if many traded away their right to vote, but that's not the same thing as saying that individuals benefit in a tangible way from that right.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> That survey seemed to be designed for a the sensationalist headline. When half the country's vote doesn't matter anyways (due to the Electoral College) it's easy to trade "the right to vote in the next two presidential elections" with tens of thousands of student loan debt that prevents you from, say, buying a house and starting a family.

</comment><comment><USER7> Once you lose the right to vote, you are on track to lose all your other rights too. Suddenly you'll find out the trade was not worth it, albeit it'd be too late.

Never surrender voting rights for any reason. No vote == no voice in government.

<comment><USER8> A list of things that I think give a loud voice in government besides voting.

\- Donating to a candidate

\- Volunteering to help a candidate's campaign

\- Running for office

\- Working for a government agency

\- Writing about politics in blog, news publication, or scholarly journal.

\- Writing and circulating petitions

\- Protesting

\- Flyering for a cause

\- Creating tech that supports a political cause

\- Calling and emailing candidates and politicians about an issue

<comment><USER9> Having worked before at a government agency in a program explicitly designed and chartered to cause change in the respective agency, I really can't agree with that particular item. As organizations get larger and older they become ossified and (in the absence of systems designed to improve standards) slower, which tends to cause a vicious cycle that all large organizations suffer from private or public sector. Not all agencies are described this way, but the ones I have interest in changing (the most influence) are very, very resistant to change and what changes do happen are the opposite of the what I'd wish due to cultural resistance stuck in a feedback loop. This is at least leading to failed companies in private sector oftentimes, but it's even sadder in public sector.

I think many people see this list and the first reaction will be "how will this enact change?" because many of us see that these actions are oftentimes ineffective against very well funded political machines and an increasingly jaded public. I basically don't look at political flyers and thanks to ad blockers I saw almost zero ads this past election cycle. But I did see lawn signs in Atlanta's record-setting congressional race this year.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think this really shows 2 things.

1) the amount of debt accumulated by this group for their degrees is much larger than they're comfortable with 2) how much more important personal finance is as compared to government finance at this particular point in time

<comment><USER11> Student loan terms are the worst loan terms our country has had since debtors prison was taken off the table.

You have to go to college to be allowed to sweep the floors (so to speak) and because bad loans are available, college tuition grows to match the available balance.

The result is that people are forced into loans with bad terms by necessity only to find out they can't buy that house because they already have a horrible mortgage on their education.

The idea of trading the chains of bad loans now for a few votes (and only potential chains later) understandably becomes appealing.

If anything, this shows that college needs to go back to basics and become sustainable again. Capping student loans at amounts way below current market would be a good start (perhaps at what colleges cost in 1980 before super inflation happened).

<comment><USER10> Capping student loans would definitely be a positive first step in the process. A study conducted by the federal reserve bank of NY found that:

"We find apass-through effect on tuition of changes in subsidized loan maximums of about 60cents onthe dollar, and smaller but positive effects for unsubsidized federal loans. The subsidized loaneffect is most pronounced for more expensive degrees, those offered by private institutions, andfor two-year or vocational programs"

[http://www.newyorkfed.org/research/staff_reports/sr733.pdf](http://www.newyorkfed.org/research/staff_reports/sr733.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> From Plutarch's "Lucullus":

"Lucullus now turned his attention to the cities in Asia, in order that, while he was at leisure from military enterprises, he might do something for the furtherance of justice and law. Through long lack of these, unspeakable and incredible misfortunes were rife in the province. Its people were plundered and reduced to slavery by the tax-gatherers and money-lenders. Families were forced to sell their comely sons and virgin daughters, and cities their votive offerings, pictures, and sacred statues. At last men had to surrender to their creditors and serve them as slaves, but what preceded this was far worse, — tortures of rope, barrier, and horse; standing under the open sky in the blazing sun of summer, and in winter, being thrust into mud or ice. Slavery seemed, by comparison, to be disburdenment and peace. Such were the evils which Lucullus found in the cities, and in a short time he freed the oppressed from all of them."

"In the first place, he ordered that the monthly rate of interest should be reckoned at one per cent., and no more; in the second place, he cut off all interest that exceeded the principal; third, and most important of all, he ordained that the lender should receive not more than the fourth part of his debtor's income, and any lender who added interest to principal was deprived of the whole. Thus, in less than four years' time, the debts were all paid, and the properties restored to their owners unencumbered. This public debt had its origin in the twenty thousand talents which Sulla had laid upon Asia as a contribution, and twice this amount had been paid back to the money-lenders. Yet now, by reckoning usurious interest, they had brought the total debt up to a hundred and twenty thousand talents. These men, accordingly, considered themselves outraged, and raised a clamour against Lucullus at Rome. They also bribed some of the tribunes to proceed against him, being men of great influence, who had got many of the active politicians into their debt. Lucullus, however, was not only beloved by the peoples whom he had benefited, nay, other provinces also longed to have him set over them, and felicitated those whose good fortune it was to have such a governor."

[http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/e/roman/texts/plutarch/l...](http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/e/roman/texts/plutarch/lives/lucullus*.html)

</comment><comment><USER13> [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/go-to-prison-and-get- you...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/go-to-prison-and-get-your-federal- student-loans-forgiven_us_57fe798de4b0f42ad3d258ee)

Afaik this is already possible, just commit a serious enough felony and make sure you go to a federal prison :) you won't be able to vote anymore, plus easy way to get rid of your student loan(s). I wouldn't advice it though.

<comment><USER14> How does going to prison get rid of a loan?!

<comment><USER13> read the article :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> People give away their vote for a couple beers. This is a no-brainer.

The power of a voting block scales with the square of the size of the block. Individual votes are near meaningless.

</comment><comment><USER16> Sure, the survey is questionable, and the results are even more so.

But I feel like someone could equally do the same thing about baby boomers and medical costs. A lot of people are just desperate, and would basically give anything to solve their very real problems. Really the title should be "desperate people willing to do anything to solve really hard problem agree to ridiculous hypothetical for magical solution"

</comment><comment><USER17> Aside from the silliness of the title and lack of any credible statistical analysis, that page looks like it was slapped together by a middle schooler back in 1998.

I honestly thought it was comical spoof site or an impostor and had to double check the url to make sure it was really "FOX News".

I'd offer FOX News has sunk to new lows with this, but that would be inaccurate too.

</comment><comment><USER18> That would be a double whammy since debtors have diminished political influence/lobbying power even _with_ the vote.

</comment><comment><USER19> Half of millennials didn't even vote in 2016. And people who did vote should know the weight of their vote varies by what state they live in.

I'm only surprised the % of millennials giving up their right to vote isn't far higher.

</comment><comment><USER20> That's a trade I'd support!</comment>


How Nike sold its first shoes - <AUTHOR> https://marketingexamples.com/direct/how-nike-sold-first-shoes <comment><USER2> Shoe dog is a great book. It was really interesting to read him talk about his issues with liquidity and him lamenting the lack of VC funding at the time. Of course he doesn't really address the downsides of VC funding but the local bank he works with is a quaint reminder of how far things have come. A good story and a great reminder that choice of founder partner is crucial to your success.

It contributes to my belief that there are way too many technical founders working on absolutely horrible ideas that would be able to the foundation for a great company but don't have the skill set to determine what that is. I think after the impending recession when VC money dries up this skill will be in high demand.

<comment><USER3> _A good story and a great reminder that choice of founder partner is crucial to your success._

Let's not forget Bill Bowerman.

His wife Barbara's waffle iron is in the same league of corporate lore as Hewlett-Packard's one-car garage.

And the reason Nike's address is One Bowerman Way, Beaverton, Oregon.

<comment><USER4> Dude is a legend. One of my favorite parts in _Wild Wild Country_ is when they're interviewing "local rancher" Jon Bowerman. Paraphrasing, but there's a part where he's talking about his father and it goes something like: "He fought in the war...went behind enemy lines in Italy and convinced the German 8th Army to surrender. Then he led the Ducks to 4 national championships and became US Olympic coach, but retired heartbroken after Munich. Then one day he was in the garage and melted some old retreat rubber with a waffle iron and glued it to an old worn out shoe. The result became...uh...Nike""

<comment><USER3> You would have liked Arthur Lydiard as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Can't resist a little gem from "Shoe Dog".

Nike wanted to introduce a shoe during the 1968 Olympics being held at Mexico City. In honour of the location, they initially called it the "Aztec". But Adidas already had a shoe called "Azteca Gold" and naturally threatened to sue. Bowerman asked "Who was the guy who kicked the shit out of the Aztecs?" . Phil replied Cortez and the iconic Nike Cortez was born :-)

Edit: It seems that Bowerman asked the question. Corrected!

<comment><AUTHOR> haha! I remember reading this. Made me smile

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Shoe dog is a great book - about how you can afford to be a terrible business person if you have rich parents who bail you out and can live out of their garage. I don't see why people are so impressed by it? Nike shoes aren't even that good today.

How to mistreat your allies (Jeff Johnson)

How to mislead your suppliers and almost lose in court.

Do the marketing methods they used, which is perhaps the impressive part, even work today? Do you show up to track meets with shoes from an unknown brand? I don't think so. Do things that don't scale, but not the exact same things that worked decades ago.

</comment><comment><USER7> I love reading anecdotes like this, they inspire me to do similar "non- scalable, good old personal approach".

But sometimes I wonder if they no longer work because we live in different (modern) times?

<comment><USER8> Sports is probably very specific. Amateurs will mostly buy what professionals recommend, or what their coach wears. These days you see sports stars and brands through social media and on TV, but in those days less so. Going to clubs, track meets, talking to the professionals/enthusiasts/hardcore fans, he would've been talking to the equivalent of Instagram influencers today.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Numbers are impressive, really. But with all of that activity on mailing list and personal visits I wonder if he had enough time for life (rest, family).

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed. Life's a trade off and Johnson did indeed get divorced. Shoes were his love.

Was it all worth it? Who knows!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I like the story. What about product development though? If you come up to athletes, head coches and parents in track events with an average shoe, I don't think this would have worked. I'd love to hear the story how he developed a superior product.

Or is it that in 1964, there was no real track shoe at all.

<comment><USER8> I did wonder, what other brands existed at the time? I have no idea.

Was coming to a track meet with branded, fashionable shoes in 1964 the equivalent of turning up in 1998 with an awesome animated Flash website?

<comment><USER11> _I did wonder, what other brands existed at the time?_

The Japanese brand Tiger, for one (later becoming Asics). IIRC, though cannot quickly find a reference, it's the brand Phil Knight was selling out of the trunk of his car before starting Nike with Bowerman.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I can't help by wonder what his commission was?

And was it some company honor system that prevented him from starting his own shoe business instead of being the employee? (since he could obviously sell from scratch)

I don't have any idea if a non-compete would be a standard part of the contract in that time.

<comment><USER13> Well, you could probably ask the same question of any good salesperson today. The answer is likely that people stick to what they want to do and what they're good at. If you want to build a company, you build a company. If you want to sell, you find a product you can sell and you excel at that.

I'd hazard a guess that Johnson was really great at doing what he did to create Blue Ribbon when he had the backing of an established company behind him, but starting from absolute zero might not have been his cup of tea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've been having a hard time getting people to sign up for my service, I found that it's easiest to get to know a person then shill them your product. I guess that's the equivalent of what Jeff Johnson was doing. It's a lot of work for little return, especially for a social media site. A shoe has a lot bigger profit margin compared to a website (per user). I'm still learning though, the site has a lot of other useful examples

</comment><comment><USER15> From LinkedIn to here. Hmm.

</comment><comment><USER16> I didn't see anything about how Nike willingly enabled child labor and human rights violations?

<comment><AUTHOR> thats cause they didn't "enable child labor" or "violate human rights" to sell their first 50,000 shoes

<comment><USER17> But it is part of the Nike history and should have been mentioned. It is disgusting to read that kind of fanboy publication, deeply bowing before a company that helped to construct the modern international slavery system.

<comment><USER8> Personally, it's a great example of amazing sales and how to build a brand.

There's no reason why brands today couldn't learn from Nike's sales/branding story without having to emulate their manufacturing sins.

<comment><USER16> Learn what? Create a cult of people that buy subpar quality for expensive prices.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Adobe Flash Vulnerability CVE-2015-7663 and Mitigating Exploits - <AUTHOR> https://www.endgame.com/blog/adobe-flash-vulnerability-cve-2015-7663-and-mitigating-exploits <comment><USER2> Blogging pro tip: I've you're posting an article about a vulnerability and your first sentence starts with "Today", display a publication date.

<comment><USER3> blogging pro tip: if your blog doesn't include a publication date (which includes year, month, and day, in iso standard format of 20YY-MM-DD, or an unambiguous format like 12 Nov[ember] YYYY or Nov[ember] 12 yyyy) on _every post_ , you're doing it wrong.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Mitigation: use Chrome? None of the recent Flash exploits were able to break out of the sandbox, at least not on Linux.

</comment><comment><USER5> Flash still exists? My small world of unix (with a lean Firefox) and Android have spoiled me.

<comment><USER6> There are millions of people a day that play Flash games across many websites. Many of the members on HN have a flawed view that just because they don't use flash then no one else does.

<comment><USER5> Different view = flawed?

Though, I guess you were right. My comment was unhelpful and meant to be tongue-in-cheek. My mistake. Downvotes welcomed.

Edit: As much as I liked Strongbad and JoeCartoon, flash still sucks.

<comment><USER6> Flawed was probably the wrong word to use, maybe unrealistic view would have been more appropriate. As a developer in the Flash gaming community, one of my pet peeves is the loud outcry from the tech community to kill Flash. Flash is still the best way to ship cross-platform games that can be played from any browser, and there is a huge community of interest in that.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Fast Compilers for Fast Programs - <AUTHOR> https://crawshaw.io/blog/fast-compilers <comment><USER2> Related:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15725942](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15725942)</comment>


Child Donated His Piggy Bank to NASA Got a Call From an Astronaut - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/the-6-year-old-who-donated-his-piggy-bank-to-nasa-just-got-a-call-from-an-astronaut/282336/ <comment><USER2> "To realize that dream, however, he needs NASA to have a fully functioning space program when he's an adult"

Or, you know, he could get a job with SpaceX or Virgin Galactic or any of a few other companies (or the additional companies that will be founded once this becomes obviously economically viable) who eventually are going to need a manned presence in space for any number of reasons. Some of them will probably even be doing asteroid mining, or similar other cutting-edge tasks.

<comment><USER3> The fault in your logic lies at "once this becomes obviously economically viable". If and when it becomes economically viable. And even if there is "asteroid mining" during his lifetime, what makes you think that it'll be a manned mission?

NASA's space program has nothing to do with profit, it has to do with knowledge. And that can never be replaced by private companies.

<comment><USER4> > NASA's space program has nothing to do with profit, it has to do with > knowledge. And that can never be replaced by private companies.

Why not?

<comment><USER5> Because long term research requires immense levels of upfront spending with no requirement to turn a profit.

<comment><USER4> IBM, Bell and Xerox are pretty well known for their research efforts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is the stuff that dreams are made of. This kid will no doubt remember this for the rest of their life. If this would have happened to me when I was a kid I would have went nuts.

</comment><comment><USER7> I am pretty sure China is going to get the claim to that "last person on the moon" this decade, at least with our insane ratio of war spending vs education and research spending.

<comment><USER8> Perhaps it's just the moon isn't that interesting. It's just the closest rock to throw stuff at.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> For anyone interested here is a link to the petition, i couldn't find one in the article.

[https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/increase-nasa- fund...](https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/increase-nasa-funding-so- we-can-discover-new-worlds-protect-us-danger-and-make-dreams-come-true- cj/1Qq31jDb)

</comment><comment><USER10> We need more of this. Challenging children to greatness is what keeps things interesting.

<comment><USER11> Can you recommend any books?

<comment><USER12> Harold and the Purple Crayon

[http://www.amazon.com/Harold-Purple-Crayon-Anniversary- Editi...](http://www.amazon.com/Harold-Purple-Crayon-Anniversary- Edition/dp/0064430227)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> They should send his money back. As a total percentage of tax dollars NASA's budget has fallen, but in inflation adjusted dollars has remained pretty consistent for the past 30 years.

I've been extreme sad to see program after program cut from NASA, but just looking at the numbers it seems like more of a management issue than a budget issue - double the workforce with an inflation adjusted-only budget increase?

There have been a handful of years when NASA recived less in nominal dollars than the previous year (but not the majority), but like every government program, a budget cut isn't a reduction in funds, rather a decrease in the rate of increase for the program.

Source: [http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA)

<comment><USER5> You are aware inflation isn't a constant across all sectors of the economy correct? A better comparison would be to look at the Producer Price Index for the relevant industries.

Additionally, NASA is legally obligated to use several subcontractor's who's prices have far outpaced inflation.

<comment><USER14> _Additionally, NASA is legally obligated to use several subcontractor 's who's prices have far outpaced inflation._

Are you claiming this is a feature? This kid gave NASA his piggy bank as a donation. If NASA were to be rated alongside other charities by whoever - givewell, charity navigator - how well do you suppose it would look?

<comment><USER5> No I'm not claiming it's a feature. It's a result of private enterprises lobbying for contracts, and the end result is legally mandated inefficiency.

<comment><USER15> "legally mandated inefficiency" is "corruption" in 3 words, right?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I applaud this. This is the spirit we need to succeed in space.

</comment><comment><USER17> Awesome call. Props to both the kid, and his new favorite astronaut!

</comment><comment><USER18> Alternatively, teach this little man chinese.

<comment><USER17> Or Hindi.

<comment><USER15> Hm, he's 8, so he can take Farsi lessons as well too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Really cool. You're never too young to chase your dream.</comment>


Low-tech microfluidics - <AUTHOR> http://science-practice.com/blog/2015/01/29/low-tech-microfluidics/

<comment> xkcd-sucks "Shrinky-Dinks" [0] and PDMS cast on home-etched copper PCBs are approaches which might be a little more "micro" and a lot more reproducible

[0] [http://shrink.eng.uci.edu/papers/2008_Grimes.pdf](http://shrink.eng.uci.edu/papers/2008_Grimes.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER2> Since these structures are disposable (generally non-reusable), I guess what is needed is a cheap way to print them.</comment>


On Google's 10 Percent Pay Hike . . . And Antitrust Law - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2010/11/10/on-googles-10-percent-pay-hike-and-antitrust-law/?mod=yahoo_hs

<comment><USER2> Google needs to up its base compensation because it can't comp on stock anymore. The upside just isn't there, like it or not Google is pretty much blue chip at this point.

<comment><USER3> Well, either that or they could work on providing more and more unique non- remunerative employment benefits.

<comment><USER4> There's only so much that a company can provide until it takes over an employee's entire life 100%. That's a limit they can't break, no matter how creative the company is. Monetary compensation, however, has no limits. It can just keep going up and up and up, assuming the profits also do. Obviously, profits can't keep going up infinitely, but I bet you employees have higher capacity/bandwidth to accept more pay than they do to accept non-monetary benefits.

<comment><USER5> I can verify this claim for myself. I am saturated on the non-monetary benefits I can absorb at Google. In fact, I think the line has already been crossed where, in order to enjoy the benefits I have, I have become less productive at my actual work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I call BS. Facebook was not part of the no-poaching group. And that's where most Googlers are going.

<comment><USER7> [citation needed]

<comment><USER8> ?

When I looked at the article itself, it explicitly pointed this out.

<comment><USER7> Sorry, in my eagerness to be cute I was unclear: I was questioning the second sentence, "that's where most Googlers are going".</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Chrome tests "discarding" background tabs to save memory - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/07/chrome-tests-discarding-background-tabs-to-save-memory/

<comment><USER2> I have a plugin that suspends tabs, although to be honest, I haven't noticed huge improvements.</comment>


Guy Steele on Parallelism [2006] - <AUTHOR> http://labs.oracle.com/projects/plrg/Publications/ICFPAugust2009Steele.pdf

<comment><USER2> Previously: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=814632>

Of note, fawxtin posted video of the talk: <http://www.vimeo.com/6624203>

By the way, it was 2009, not 2006.</comment>


Layoffs at Microsoft Studios - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.seattletimes.com/microsoftpri0/2014/04/03/layoffs-at-microsoft-studios/?syndication=rss

<comment><USER2> Microsoft is not doing massive layoffs these days like it did in 2009 _. And apparently if they lay off certain number of people they don 't have to report it.

_[http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2009/01/microsoft- layoff-2009-n...](http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2009/01/microsoft- layoff-2009-now-what.html)</comment>


TDD brings little business value and isn't worth it - <AUTHOR> https://www.thedroidsonroids.com/blog/tdd-part-1 <comment><USER2> The title here is clickbait, pure and simple. It's neither the original title, nor the conclusion.

The wrapup at the end says:

> _Now you see why developers insist on TDD. This isn't only a "cool tool" > from a technical point of view. It is more like a way to make the project > more robust, and your business more profitable._</comment>