Leaving Windows Phone 7 to Return to Android - <AUTHOR> http://robpaveza.net/leaving-windows-phone-to-return-to-android <comment><USER2> He clearly used Android first. WP7 tries to put everything right in front of you, and reserve menus and tap-and-hold for rarely used operations (like delete). Not to say there aren't problems with Windows Phone 7 right now, but:

> On the call history screen, if I tap-and-hold a phone number, Windows Phone > gives me: Delete

However, if instead you tap the number itself (and don't hold), you get the full contact (should it match, with call, text, FB comment, email, etc), or Call Number and Text Number

> In the text messages list, the context-sensitive menu doesn't give me an > option to call the person with whom I'm messaging.

But if instead you tap their name or number at the top of the screen, it gives you their contact (from which you can call, text, FB comment, email, etc) or if it's just a number, call and text.

Gmail support is through exchange at m.google.com, not IMAP. It does uses folders, but archiving email is a simple as deleting it in the WP7 UI. Google keeps a copy in All Messages, just removes it from the tag or inbox.

I've used 4 different models from three manufacturers (Samsung, LG, HTC), and can say that the audio and touch screen issues must be device specific. I use a Focus as my primary phone, and have carried other WP7 phones for weeks at a time -- I've had no problems.

As a developer, and as a user, you can do a _lot_ more with Android. I still use my Nexus One quite a bit. But WP7 is a solid first offering, and while there's a lot missing, what they did they did very well.

<comment><USER3> Related to the hardware buttons complaint...that's maybe relevant for HTC phones. LG, for instance, has REAL buttons not those touch sensitive crap and you really can't press those by mistake.

<comment><USER4> afaik all the consensus "good" Windows phones (HD7, Focus, Venue Pro) have touch buttons, though. They don't _totally_ ruin the experience, but it's really annoying that they'd do something so dumb as to squander much of the advantage of having a hardware button to begin with. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Best thing about WP7 (for me) are the tools that they provide to developers. Visual Studio (Phone) compared to Eclipse for Android is so much better. The IDE itself and also debugging. Using eclipse after is like doing a brain surgery through arse. I use and develop for Android, but once I tried WP7 tools I got very jealous.

<comment><USER4> What is the deployment and debugging experience like on Android or iOS? I was impressed with the Visual Studio integration when I played with WP7 development a bit - you can just hit F5 and your app starts up on the phone in debug mode in, like, two seconds, and you can then step through it in Visual Studio, set breakpoints, hover over variables to see their values, and even evaluate expressions in the immediate window.

I was vaguely expecting some cumbersome deployment process, but it feels no heavier than running something on the PC. But I've never developed for other mobile platforms, so maybe this is just standard?

<comment><USER6> That's about how it is on Android. Maybe more than 2 seconds, though. 3? 5? Something like that.

<comment><USER5> With WM 3 seconds? It takes only to boot up 3-4 minutes. Emulator is painfully slow. Whole internet is full of complaints about it...

<comment><USER4> Debugging on the actual device is a much, much better experience than debugging on the emulator.

<comment><USER5> I agree. I'm doing it myself also, otherwise it would be impossible to develop for android. But you need to test your application on different screen sizes, dpi etc. Or you can buy loads of different phones to test on them all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't know how WP7 is going to turn out in the consumer space, but once MS releases a deployment mechanism for the enterprise, I think it'll really take off. There are so many .net developers out there working a corporate job that WP7 become the obvious choice for when you need to outfit your 10,000 insurance claim adjustors with a phone.

I'd love to see it take off in the consumer space because it has such great tooling, but I don't think it'll have the same market share as iOS or Android.

</comment><comment><USER8> "HTTP is an abstraction of Berkeley Sockets."

Wait, what? HTTP is a protocol that can run on Berkeley sockets, certainly.

<comment><USER9> People still call them "Berkley sockets"? Isn't that akin to calling your "Von-Neumann Machine" something like "Turing complete"?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> > If I call a local number by only using its seven-digit number, WP7 never, > ever figured out to map it to the relevant contact. My old Motorola RAZR > phones did that.

What part of the country still allows 7 digit dialing?

<comment><USER6> I suppose a cellphone might recognize a 7-digit number and prepend the phone's own area code. A landline can't do that, of course.</comment></comment>


PyBay – 1st Annual Bay Area Python Conference Happening Next Week - <AUTHOR> http://www.pybay.com <comment><USER2> If you and 4 other friends or co-workers want to go together, write firstname.lastname@example.com for a special discount!

[http://www.pybay.com/#!registration/yh9or](http://www.pybay.com/#!registration/yh9or)

Highlights: \- Pre-conference workshops with Wesley Chun ("Core Python" book author) and Raymond Hettinger (CPython Core Committer) Keynotes from Jessica McKellar and Raymond Hettinger ~ 38 main talks covering Web, Data, Python Fundamentals, Internals and Performance \- Dedicated Hackers Lounges for all weekend-long sprinting and mingling with open source leaders and other devs \- Job Fair / Software Tools Expo on Sat night with reception Lightning talks and unconference style Open Spaces talk slots (sign-up at conf) \- $20 access to world-class gym with outdoor rock-climbing wall, racquetball courts, swimming pool, yoga and more to keep you in top physical and mental shape

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> SFPython is organizing this amazing conference in San Francisco, featuring Jessica McKellar, Alex Martelli, Simon Willison, Wes McKinney, Armin Ronacher, Andrew Godwin and the list goes on, including special tutorials by Wesley Chun and Raymond Hettinger.

Would you join us?</comment>


What Is Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder - <AUTHOR> http://www.freud-sigmund.com/emotionally-unstable-personality-disorder

<comment><USER2> Was this article written by a Markov chain or something?</comment>


Node.js for Server Noobs - <AUTHOR> http://blog.dtrejo.com/nodejs-for-server-newbs

<comment><USER2> 19 people upvoted this? Did you even check? It has 0 content.

The 'meat' of the "article" is

      webby# curl -O http://nodejs.org/dist/node-v0.2.0.tar.gz
      webby# tar xvzf node-v0.2.0.tar.gz
      webby# cd node-v0.2.0
      webby# ./configure
      webby# make
      webby# make install

Which I think most people who can read docs can work out.

<comment><AUTHOR> I did say it was for noobs.

Main useful bits:

* cheap host, $10/month, root access so no configuration headaches. My search didn't turn up many of those, and the node hosting wiki page is non-obvious: <http://github.com/ry/node/wiki/Hosting/_edit> (and only just added webbynode to the list)

* how to set up that machine in particular

* points to other helpful resources once node is installed

<comment><USER3> rackspace cloud is $10/mo for the smallest vps. I've loved it over the last year.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> FYI apt-get update does not update any packages. It just downloads the current list of packages and their versions from the repository.

<comment><USER5> That is right, apt-get update only updates the list. apt-get upgrade upgrade currently installed packages to the latest version.

If you want to do it all on one line, "apt-get update && apt-get upgrade" is the answer.

The && means "run the second command only if the first command completes without an error" .

<comment><USER6> Note that on modern Debian systems, _aptitude_ is preferable to _apt-get_ because it has better dependency resolution etc:

        aptitude update && aptitude safe-upgrade

You can also run _aptitude_ without any arguments which starts a nice text UI:

        aptitude

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> btw, it is time to put the support for clang++ in V8's scons build system. It is not obvious what file should I modify. In the case of a traditional make I just redefine one environment variable before doing ./configure or modify one variable in a Makefile (clang is compatible with gcc's command line arguments).

</comment><comment><USER8> Anyone have any info on using Node.js server code to talk to SOAP services?

<comment><USER9> Do you have an specific SOAP API in mind, or do you want a generic "SOAP sink" powered by Node? If the former, you can get away with your own lousy in-house implementation (2 pages of javascript, really.) If you want a full blown SOAP client implementation, including WSDL parsing, you better hope there exists something already.

My recommendation, as the developer of a SOAP client/server library; don't bother. Use Java or PHP, as those have the best SOAP libs out there, and figure out a way to pipe SOAP requests through your own java/php "proxy" app and let those libs take care of the cruft.

Using Node for SOAP is sacrilege. The two are diametrically opposed in their philosophies, and SOAP will easily negate any performance gains you might have made from using an event-drive server.

<comment><USER8> Thanks for the advice. I just wanted to use Node as a way of "pushing" events down to the browser, but the only way Node will know if an event has happened or not is by polling a particular SOAP service. I do own the SOAP service though, so I suppose that I could add a new interface and let Node just connect with TCP?

What's the standard way of doing RPC between Node an other types of services?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> ytuytyotiu im

<comment><USER10> Woah, how did this get here? I honestly have no idea what this is about, please don't downvote.</comment></comment>


Humble Book Bundle: Make: Electronics 2018 - <AUTHOR> https://www.humblebundle.com/books/make-electronics-2018 <comment><AUTHOR> At $20, this whole bundle is fantastic value for anyone also willing a practical intro to mechatronics and IoT.</comment>


Ask HN: What 'smartphone' should I get my mother? - <AUTHOR> Some background:  My mom is 78, lives alone, and is very bad at technology.  She has difficulty using a mouse, lost the password to her chromebook, and cannot remember where she puts the wi-fi password for the home, so currently is disconnected from the internet.
She says she wants a smartphone so that she can stay in touch with the world.  I'd like to get her one so that she can keep up with news, write emails, but I want information egress to be as limited as possible (to prevent identity fraud or asset theft).  Even if I tell her to never input her email address, I don't want her to click on a link that will download an app, for example.
Are there any non-obvious solutions to this?  Otherwise, would IOS or Android be better?  (I use Android, but consistency with me is a secondary factor) <comment><USER2> Get her a feature phone (a 'seniors' phone with the large buttons) and an iPad.

Use parental controls (now called 'Restrictions') to lock the iPad down. You can prevent app installs and limit their permissions. See: [https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201304](https://support.apple.com/en- us/HT201304)

</comment><comment><USER3> iPhone.

It's much harder to screw up on there than on Android (where she can be tricked into enabling unknown sources and installing a malicious APK), and overall the experience feels simpler - an iOS device will always feel like an iOS device, where as Android changes between manufacturers (which could be a problem if you need to replace the phone and buy a different brand).

</comment><comment> a-saleh We got my 80yo grandma a low-end android (I think it runs 3.x android?) tablet with keyboard-cover. It took some learning on her side and sometimes answering some really confusing tech-support questions on my side (i.e. I was reading news and suddenly everything dissapeared, how do I get everything back?)

She basically uses the tablet as her Hangouts machine and sometimes she reads news. She likes the keyboard-cover, as she was a touch-typist when still working 25 years ago.

In your place, I would probably talk to her, if the chromebook she already has wouldn't be the best solution, re-configuring it in a way that the she wouldn't need to remember the login password and wifi-password should be doable.

If she really wants a phone, I would buy something with large enough screen, sturdy, with a good grip and affordable enough to be replaced once every year. I would choose operating system I would be able to do tech support for on the phone.

</comment><comment><USER4> Mi phones come with a Lite mode -- aimed at senior users.

[https://c.mi.com/thread-263484-1-0.html](https://c.mi.com/thread-263484-1-0.html)

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm considering buying the recently-released Nokia 8110 for each of my parents.

Good things:

\- 4G

\- Physical keypad

\- Google just invested in KaiOS, so the main Google apps will probably be available on the device

Bad:

\- Limited apps, e.g. there are rumours WhatsApp will be available soon, but I haven't seen any announcement.

\- No QWERTY keyboard, even on screen.

</comment><comment><USER6> Get her an Android phone since that is what you use. You'll be her first line of tech support. Also, if you don't live with your mom, look into software that you can use to remote access her phone in-case you need to do any troubleshooting.

</comment><comment><USER7> Jolla will be launching new version of the Sailfish OS this quarter, aimed for 4G-enabled feature phones. You could try that.

I'm currently using Sailfish OS 220.127.116.11 on my Intex Aqua Fish and the experience so far (last 1.5 years) is so good that I've decided to never use Android phones in future. (Brief - No home and back button wasting your time, just have simple gestures to navigate to different menus etc.)

PS: Sailfish OS can also run almost all Android apps.

[https://jolla.com/sailfish3/](https://jolla.com/sailfish3/)

</comment><comment><USER8> Maybe your mom doesn't need an iPhone?

</comment><comment><USER9> After Iphone 4s announced. Its my best decision to buy iPhone for my mother, now she can do everything.

</comment><comment><USER10> i would say ipad.

1\. Bigger display.

2\. Lesser chances of clicking the unknown.

3\. When things are bigger, they look more friendly.

<comment><USER11> Also at 78, she is probably farsighted so needs to see bigger text. There's an iOS setting for that. But it doesn't work so well for browsers.

I wish mobile browsers would let you increase text size and not magnify/zoom. I remember old Android browsers let you before. And of course there is the Javascript Safari hack. It's just they aren't permanent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> On a side note, would amazon echo or google home be a better option?

<comment><USER13> I don't think it's ready for prime time and you can't read email on it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> iOS my mum struggles with the android. She doesn't understand how to get her photos/videos off it cause of the folder structure. I wish I got her one.

</comment><comment><USER15> How about an iPad?

</comment><comment><USER16> I would recommend windows phone.

</comment><comment><USER17> iOS</comment>


What I Learned About Life at My 30th College Reunion - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/10/what-my-harvard-college-reunion-taught-me-about-life/573847/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> >discussions throughout the weekend centered on a desire for love, comfort, intellectual stimulation, decent leaders, a sustainable environment, friendship, and stability

This is the realization that comes after years of living. May be these are the things worth living for too.

<comment><USER3> >discussions throughout the weekend centered on a desire for love, comfort, intellectual stimulation, decent leaders, a sustainable environment, friendship, and stability

Wait, so the average person doesn't care about GDP or debt or trade wars? They don't want to be an economic robot?

How surprising!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _Many classmates who are in long-lasting marriages said they experienced a turning point, when their early marriage suddenly transformed into a mature relationship. "I'm doing the best I can!" one classmate told me she said to her husband in the middle of a particularly stressful couples'-therapy session. From that moment on, she said, he understood_

Loved the sentiment of that. But surprising that the metamorphosis happens in marriage. I wonder what percentage of people wait for their relationships to mature before getting married? Or if marriage, as a societal construct, is this mental barrier people feel like they have to overcome before their relationship really evolves.</comment>


Facebook Graph API v1.0 Deprecation - <AUTHOR> https://developers.facebook.com/docs/apps/api-v1-deprecation

<comment><AUTHOR> Did this affect anyone's business significantly? If so, how?</comment>


Lame Stuxnet worm 'full of errors', says security consultant - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/01/19/stuxnet_male_decry_security_researchers/

<comment><USER2> I suppose it's politically incorrect to say this, but perhaps it was terrorism and it was meant to be found out eventually, as a warning?

In any case, some people would argue that being good enough to get the job done is good enough, regardless of elegance.</comment>


The Smartphone as Application Server - <AUTHOR> http://vijayan.ca/blog/2015/03/17/the-smartphone-as-application-server/

<comment><USER2> What I don't understand is why the smartphone is the _server_. Naïvely, I'd expect the server to be the Raspberry Pi, and for clients to be the smartphones. Clients connect to the server and push content which the server displays on the screen. Something like X11, in other words. Looking at what the application does, I don't even think it would be that difficult to convert it to an architecture like what I described above - in essence you'd be reversing the arrows on your interaction diagram.

Can you elaborate as to why you built the server on the smartphone rather than Raspberry Pi? What does that get you? How do you get around the limitations that phone operating systems (especially iOS) impose on background processes? What's the impact on battery life?

<comment><USER3> Author here. The point of the design is that I'm treating the Pi as the display server (i.e. the client, or X11). The smartphone is the app-server because it hosts the relevant state.

The reason it's structured this way is that we want the ability to push code, logic, and data to the endpoint and have the endpoint execute it.

Consider a traditional usage scenario: your computer is the display server (web client), and the app server sits somewhere out on the cloud. The app server holds the application and the state, and you download it on the fly. The client (browser on your PC) is largely stateless, and the cloud-based server is the state carrier that ships both logic (in the form of a webpage + js) and data to the client on an as-needed basis.

In this design, the thing that's stateless is the endpoint (the thing connected to the TV). The state-carrier is the phone. The state-carrier needs to send logic and data to the client so that the client can execute it locally. This approach is in fact very natural.

Now, as you note, the actual transport details can be flexible. We _could_ design it so that the transport is handled by a small proxy that runs on the Pi. The proxy would be started when the browser session is initiated, and both the browser and the phone would connect to the proxy, and the proxy would act as mediator. But that would be an implementation detail. In the abstract, the phone would still be the server and the endpoint (the pi) would still be the client.

Fundamentally, we're starting an application on the phone, and sending parts of it to the pi for the pi to execute. The most natural model for that is for the phone to be the HTTP server (the state and logic originator) and for the pi to be the web client (the stateless device).

It's a bit counterintuitive, but if you think about it for a bit, it starts fitting together really well.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the clarification. I think the point of confusion for me was around the word "endpoint". As a web developer, I'm so used to thinking of the phone as the "endpoint" that the notion of the phone as the app server threw me a little.

One other concern I have is input lag. You mention gaming, which can require some pretty precise input timing. Have you run into any issues around that? Or are modern wifi network generally Good Enough that lag isn't a problem?

<comment><USER3> I only had enough time to whip up the quick demo here. The responsiveness is pretty tight as far as latency goes - it "feels" like the photo on screen moves in tandem with the one under my fingers. No perceptible lag.

I wanted to try out some more interesting demos. One idea I had was to run the HexGL racing game ([http://hexgl.bkcore.com/](http://hexgl.bkcore.com/)) on the endpoint, and then have the app on the phone interpret the gyro as steering and send it over to the endpoint.

However, I found that WebGL on the pi is slooooow, for both Chrome and Firefox. I don't think this is a raw power issue so much as using desktop browsers on a mobile device, where the browsers haven't been compiled with driver support for the graphics chipset (the Pi can run Minecraft just fine, so it should be able to handle a simple racing game).

My educated guess (from just the photo-viewing demo) is that the latency is good enough to support responsive gaming input.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> We explored ideas around this space at Emotely and Brass Monkey. There is much yet unexplored. This approach basically gets you a WiiU/Chromecast second screen platform: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NE8-TntjYB4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NE8-TntjYB4) [http://francoislaberge.com/blog/my-time-at-brass- monkey/](http://francoislaberge.com/blog/my-time-at-brass-monkey/)

<comment><USER3> This is sweet. I knew this was obvious enough of an idea that other people would have had it, and potentially taken it further.

One of my longer-term thoughts on this approach is that it may extend beyond simply a "controller" notion. Ultimately, I was thinking the phone could become the sole state carrier, and all other devices (workstations, laptops, game consoles, projectors) could become stateless endpoints which are ephemerally controlled as needed.

For example, you could arrive at home, connect your phone to your home computer, and initiate a "home session" which kicks off all the 'webapps' you have defined for your home-computer environment, on your home computer. The apps are structured client/server, and they save their state back to the phone (but use the computer's processing, display, audio, etc.). When you're done, you disconnect and leave. All your state is saved to your phone, and any other computer you come across can temporarily become your "home computer".

Likewise, any computer can be your "work computer". And any game console can be "your" game console.

The phone, in this context, seems like the ultimate proxy for the individual. It travels with a person. It has access to the inputs and data in the vincinity of the individual. It can be controlled by the individual. What better place to put all of your computational state, than in there?

Anyway, this was some far-fetched, pie-in-the-sky thinking I had about the long-term implications of such an architecture.

Happy to see other people working on the concept.

<comment><USER4> I agree. We focused on the controller use case as it made for a simpler API, but it was always my interest to make it more generalized. Just perhaps through a different product that was more open and generalized.

Things like having your phone cache webapps that could be casted over LAN (thus not requiring a persistent connection), this would useful for playing say games/apps when on planes or log cabins, etc.

Or having the phone create metascreen, synchronizing multiple monitors with fullscreen webpages open that you would split up the graphics of a game or movie to run across all the screens, thus making a bigger screen.

So many possibilities. Ultimately though, I'm still on the fence to if this is the best approach vs a mixed approach of using bluetooth, zigbee, wifi, http, websockets, normal sockets, and etc all abstracted to use whatever each device has to offer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Built something like this at YC Hacks, except any device or even a webpage could function as the server and provide a real-time or REST interface. We had 5 demo apps showing off various examples, including a super cool two-factor auth demo..

Trying to explain the concept to people in 30 seconds was non-trivial.

</comment><comment><USER6> This is neat. I have a hard time thinking of uses off the top of my head, but the idea of a no-installation phone-paired TV app has potential.

Thoughts of [https://youtu.be/_mjxd47OVUI?t=57s](https://youtu.be/_mjxd47OVUI?t=57s) go through my head.</comment>


Armies of Expensive Lawyers, Replaced by Cheaper Software - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/05/science/05legal.html <comment><USER3> I've written software to replace this type of thing, in my case it was classifying communications as to whether they were attorney-client privileged or not. It has to be cheaper, it was about a month of my time. And about a week working with a high priced lawyer to write the ruleset and confirm it caught everything and was excluding all the right stuff. With that software they've essentially got their best lawyer going through every piece of communication.

It has to be cheaper, I can't imaging paying someone with a law degree to go through all of that. And now their lawyers are freed up to do something more useful.

<comment><USER4> is it possible for you to mention, how you went about doing this ? technology stack, algorithmic approach, etc.

<comment><USER3> Tries for text search, that's really the only thing I learned is that if your searching through a body of text for 40,000 odd keyword you need to turn the document in to a trie. But that's something you'd learn as soon as you read any of the research on the topic.

It's basically a programming language for text search that's stored in a database. If I had to do it again I'd base if off a parser-generator and use a DSL, possibly using git for versioning.

I ended up basically storing an AST in the db and then creating an object for each node in the decision tree. It was written in perl but that was more of a constraint than a choice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Things I didn't know (no idea how accurate they are, if anyone has more detail, chime in):

On the Enron Corpus:

"He bought a copy of the database for $10,000 and made it freely available to academic and corporate researchers. Since then, it has become the foundation of a wealth of new science — and its value has endured, since privacy constraints usually keep large collections of e-mail out of reach. "It's made a massive difference in the research community," Dr. McCallum said.

The Enron Corpus has led to a better understanding of how language is used and how social networks function, and it has improved efforts to uncover social groups based on e-mail communication."

On future law employment:

Quantifying the employment impact of these new technologies is difficult. Mike Lynch, the founder of Autonomy, is convinced that "legal is a sector that will likely employ fewer, not more, people in the U.S. in the future." He estimated that the shift from manual document discovery to e-discovery would lead to a manpower reduction in which one lawyer would suffice for work that once required 500 and that the newest generation of software, which can detect duplicates and find clusters of important documents on a particular topic, could cut the head count by another 50 percent.

The computers seem to be good at their new jobs. Mr. Herr, the former chemical company lawyer, used e-discovery software to reanalyze work his company's lawyers did in the 1980s and '90s. His human colleagues had been only 60 percent accurate, he found.

"Think about how much money had been spent to be slightly better than a coin toss," he said.

<comment><USER5> It's mainly accurate. My wife works for a major vendor in this sector, and I'm a pre-law student with a hacking background, knowing more about this technology than I can say here. However, discovery is just one part of the legal industry. Lynch's numbers are exaggerated, though his basic points are correct. Don't generalize too much from this.

<comment><USER6> Correct. This has little to no effect on transaction or corporate practice. Some of these vendors claim to handle M&A due diligence. Having been through one or two mergers/sales myself, I am convinced that no expert system in the near term will be able to replace humans in that area. Unlike discovery, which is focused on a readily-searchable data set like email, the job of piecing together a company's assets and contract obligations is extremely complex business, where the bottleneck is often the mish-mash of paper records and broken contract management tools, and nuanced judgment calls about critical asset dispositions must be made every few hours over the course of months and months. I'm not saying there isn't an obvious, eventual technology solution to these problems – just that it isn't anywhere near as mature as litigation support, discovery, and patent practice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Over the long run we find things for people to do. The harder question is, does changing technology always lead to better jobs? The answer is no."

Overall, I have to disagree. Letting machines do all the mind-numbingly boring work leaves the rest for human beings. And we pay a lot less for the final products, leaving resources for new jobs, which will also have the boring parts automated.

Disagree? Hire a hundred people to do all your drudgery. Then pretend you're paying them hardly anything. I submit your life will suck less.

<comment><USER8> You're assuming most human beings are capable of doing knowledge-based work. I don't think this is true. The reason knowledge based workers make so much is precisely because the skills necessary to perform it are rarer than manual labor. Fully automating manual labor means a large class of people (possibly a majority) will not have any marketable skills from which to make a living.

Furthermore, there are much fewer knowledge based jobs necessary to run an economy. At the end of the day, most knowledge work is a one-off thing. Once the program is written, it can be duplicated at no cost. Once the drug is discovered, that knowledge is spread for no cost. Of course there are many exceptions to this, but this is a trend. There is necessarily orders of magnitude fewer knowledge based jobs necessary to run an economy than labor jobs.

When the automation revolution comes we're going to need a new basis for the economy because the current one just doesn't fit in that world.

<comment><USER9> You seem to be assuming that knowledge-based workers can deplete the corpus of knowledge work.

I don't think that's the case; once one program is written, another will be needed, once one drug is discovered, there will be still more diseases to cure and more side effects to eliminate.

I'd even go so far as to say that knowledge work is growing and will continue to grow - The more you know, the more you know you don't know, right? There wasn't a need for working on computers or airplanes as short as a century ago. Now how many people are employed in those fields?

<comment><USER8> My assumption is that growth in knowledge work is dependent on there being growth in disposable income for the population. In my scenario where a large portion of the population has no marketable skills and therefore can't find a job, this effectively puts a cap on the amount of knowledge work the economy can sustain. See my reply to stretchwithme for a further explanation of my thoughts on this scenario.

<comment><USER7> The growth in knowledge is dependent on how much brain power there is. Everything we do is subject to improvement by anyone that cares to analyze and innovate.

In the scenarios of those against technology 50 years ago, they also could not see how the economy would evolve or how people would adapt. But that lack of vision isn't proof that they were right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> We're rapidly approaching (have almost certainly passed) the point where it would be feasible for the average worker to do far less than 40 hours a week.

Notwithstanding the cultural & structural reasons we can't get there from here, that is.

But at some point in the future, most of what we now call "work" will not be done by people.

This has the potential to be incredibly liberating, if by then we will have found ways to decouple a persons ability to meet basic economic necessities from their ability to find a job.

</comment><comment><USER11> "The future is already here, it's just not evenly distributed." - <USER2> Gibson.

</comment><comment><USER12> For those that don't know, this is the model by which electronic discovery is generally conducted today: <http://edrm.net/>

It's over a billion dollar market and there are plenty of enterprisey vendors that have positioned themselves into every box on that EDRM chart. Lawfirms and corporate counsel will happily pay for this stuff because the amounts at stake in litigation are so huge.

<comment><USER13> Actually, the EDRM model is only one model, and it is rapidly falling by the wayside. For example, ECA - early case assessment - is becoming a very important part of ediscovery but you can't fit ECA into the EDRM as the EDRM is essentially linear and doesn't allow for loops.

<comment><USER12> Wha? EDRM has loops built into it..

I admit that my understanding may be off, but it seems like ECA is just using the same EDRM model and iterating faster upfront. I feel that it's more of a vendor buzzword than a new way of conducting electronic discovery.

<comment><USER13> The industry is full of buzzwords, hype, and snakeoil, alas. ECA is one example, and I'd argue that the EDRM is another. The EDRM was good a few years ago but hasn't really evolved to reflect current, and developing practices.

ECA describes a part of the process that was hard to do in the early days because the tools didn't support the faster iteration upfront. As people realized the value of that iteration, the tools improved and the term gained power and marketing presence.

In other words, I agree with you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> One of the things the article doesn't address is how do we determine the accuracy of these tools and processes?

Self-serving answer - [http://integriography.wordpress.com/2011/03/04/building- virt...](http://integriography.wordpress.com/2011/03/04/building-virtual- crime-scenes-for-the-ediscovery-world/)

It is a real problem and not one we're trying to create. There was a lot of discussion at Legal Tech this year about the need to determine the accuracy of ediscovery processes, and in particular, review processes.

</comment><comment><USER14> I think we can expect much more of this sort of thing. Technology always removes humans from the work force and we now have the right set of resources - reliable, cheap computers and a large enough pool of skilled programmers - to do to office workers with software what we did to farm works with tractors and auto workers with robots.

<comment><USER15> There is still a big piece missing -- the methods for translating business rules used by these people into workable software is error-prone, cumbersome, and ad-hoc.

<comment><USER16> That really doesn't sound like a huge problem.

The method for building robotic arms was full of early errors in robotic arm programs(and likely still is), but the programmers identified those errors and fixed them, over and over again. For that matter, programming in general is error prone. Bugfixing happens.

Businesses which can hire ten men to oversee a buggy program rather than twenty men to do the actual work will do so, and over time, the program will get better and need less overseers. Its an iterative process, and one that doesn't need perfect programs to bootstrap.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> One of the difficulties in the legal analytics space is that there's not much incentive for lawyers to spend less time on a case. In fact it's the opposite, the more billable hours they can charge for their work, the better. Speeding up their process is not necessarily hitting their pain point.

<comment><USER18> Consider the firm or lawyer being compensated on a contingency fee basis -- they must cover all the expenses and overhead related to prosecuting the case, including the salaries for attorneys and paralegals working the case -- and if they lose they get nothing. Since their reward for winning the case is fixed, at usually 1/3, reducing the time and cost they expend on a case, particularly during e-discovery (which can consume quite a bit of time and manpower), is both valuable and in their best interests.

<comment><USER17> Any idea how common this is?

<comment><USER19> Very common for plaintiffs lawyers in many types of cases (consumer class action (sort of), personal injury, among many others). Almost impossible to have a contingency fee for a defendant. And often the defendants are the ones with the burden of producing (and first reviewing) a high level of documents.

<comment><USER20> In the last few years , there was in the legal industry for fixed-fee arrangements(probably because of the financial crisis).

Does a similar business model change happens in the defense part?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Finally, here is a technology I can get with. Most of the web entrepreneurs seem to embrace a "Field of Dreams" breed of business plan: build it and they will come. And when they do come - advertise, upsell, follow, track and slice and dice the hell out of them! Thanks, but no thanks.

But saving millions of lawyer hours a year? Realizing substantial savings on significant business costs will always prove valuable. Win for society, win for technology, win for capitalists. While I wouldn't say that lawyers are parasites, reducing the proportion of lawyer cost strikes me as highly positive for the economy.

<comment><USER13> If you literally want to get behind it, let me know ... I can throw in "hold lawyers, SaaS providers, and vendors accountable for the quality of their offerings in a court of law."

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I wonder if something like this could help solve the patent troll problem. As I see it, there are two conditions that allow patent trolls to function:

1\. The ease of obtaining frivolous patents. 2\. The cost of litigating patent disputes exceeds the cost of settling.

The software industry has focused primarily on the first point, but if we could reduce the costs of litigating, it may well reduce the financial benefits of being a patent troll.

I'm thinking of something like IBM's Watson being used to find prior art, auto-filing court motions, etc. Of course, it all comes down to what some jury in Texas thinks so I'm probably just dreaming.

</comment><comment><USER23> This thing reads like a press release... Sponsored post?

<comment><USER13> I know several of the firms quoted pretty well. I don't think they sponsored it, I think they just have very good PR departments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I read somewhere that it's easier to spot a lie in written communication than from listening to a tape. People are magnificent at bluffing, if you listen to the tone of their voice, but when you look at the transcript they become a lot more transparent.

</comment><comment><USER7> There are probably all kinds of potential jobs in the real world that are way too expensive to have a human do and that computers are better at or will be soon.

Like gold mining. I'm sure there are rivers in Canada that haven't been fully explored. Send in the drones!

</comment><comment><USER25> this technology wont hurt legal employment because it enables so many more lawsuits. every document on earth holds potential tort value that can be exploited now. after discovery its still a manual process to litigate so the number of attorneys should rise.

<comment><USER13> Enhancing the quality of automated review tools will significantly reduce the number of lawyers employed doing sweatshop style review.

Just because a technology might enable more lawsuits (which I am not certain is the case here) doesn't mean more lawsuits will be filed. Oftentimes, finding evidence causes parties to settle rather than go to court.

Further, the existing courts can only handle so many cases per year. You can't suddenly up the throughput on the court system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." --William Shakespeare, Henry VI

Maybe this is coming true in an unexpected way.

<comment><USER26> Hmm. So either you don't get the not-that-nuanced reference, or you just look for any opportunity to vote people down. I used to take downvotes more seriously -- but less and less so these days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I think we are behind schedule for Back to the Future 2's 2015 prediction of the abolition of all lawyers.</comment>


Mary Meeker's 28 page take on Covid-19 - <AUTHOR> https://www.axios.com/mary-meeker-coronavirus-trends-report-0690fc96-294f-47e6-9c57-573f829a6d7c.html <comment><USER2> There are the 'have's' and the 'have not's'.

I don't think that it is easy for the 'have's' to see how the situation affects the 'have not's'.

For those in the first world that are in managerial positions, healthy and on a pension or with inherited wealth the situation is very different to that facing those living paycheck to paycheck or without a paycheck.

Essentially this means there is some class struggle going on, between the 'have's' and 'have not's'. If you are a 'have not' then this is centre stage, if you are a 'have' this is curiously absent. I found this report was written by a 'have'.

</comment><comment><USER3> Has anyone done an analysis of her past reports to see if she's really any good at prognostication? I feel like in the past she stuck to describing incremental changes and trends but this was much more opinionated.

<comment><USER4> I look at these reports as checkpoints of trends that are already happening. All you need is a keen observational eye and some data to back up the qualitative observations to produce something like this.

I don't view these reports are being in the business of predicting the future.

They are describing what's already obviously happening with maybe an optimistic eye towards the future.

<comment><USER5> Accurately separating what is important from what is trivial in the flow of current events is indistinguishable from predicting the near future.

<comment><USER4> That's fair. I was more commenting on her Internet Trends Report.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> (pdf) [https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6842117/Our- New-W...](https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6842117/Our-New- World.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER7> Many years ago (10?) she published a PowerPoint deck that blew everyone's mind and we all learned her name. Every year since she publishes a PowerPoint deck that is full of numbers and is otherwise no more insightful than any other analyst's PowerPoint deck full of numbers. Each time she releases a new deck I open it hoping for another like the first one, and each time it's utterly disposable.

</comment><comment><USER8> Covid looks to me like that space stone that finished dinosauruses. Basically it just accelerated/cleared path for the trends which were already well underway (feathered flying dinosauruses, mammals, online retail, cloud, etc. in while the classic dinosauruses and retail, onpremise datacenters/applications, regular commuting to the office and assigned desk, etc. out).

</comment><comment><USER9> Is this health care's year of linux? I have been working around remote video telehealth since the late 90s. It has always been right around the corner.

<comment><USER10> We always had teledoc, but it's an imperfect technology, can the doctor examine you with a stethoscope, can he check your BP, can he check your throat or blood-oxygen levels? NO? All he can do is ask for your symptoms and suggest what is at best an imperfect diagnosis and medications.

<comment><USER11> The Teladoc program will actually upload some of your ios health data if you permit it (I might, but the privacy granularity is inadequate). So in theory the doctor could get my BP, HRT, BG etc...assuming I, the layperson, used the cuff properly.

Instead I just tell him/her the readings.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Just watch china. Its 2 months ahead in time. Right after lockdown, traffic jams are back. Though borders are still closed. But watch them. In case the outbreak returns.</comment>


Ask PG: Please publish frequency data for karma-points - <AUTHOR> I would like to do some statistical analysis on the distribution of karma-points.  I was just about to write a script to get the required data from the site.  But then I did not want to mess with it.
Could you please publish how many items got which score?  I have some hypothesis I would like to test.
Thank you! <comment><USER2> Can you tell me precisely what question you want the answer to?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes.

I want to see if giving an item upvotes makes it more likely that it gets more upvotes still.

I hope to be able to distinguish statistically between the influence of inherent quality and current upvotes.

My arm-chair hypothesis is that prevalence of inherent quality leads to a geometric distribution. And prevalence of attention grabbing effects should make the distribution look more like a power-law.

If that simple histogram turns out to be inconclusive extending the analysis from the final scores of items to their value over time might help.

P.S. A simple observation started me on this line of thought: I had the feeling that upvoting comments close to mine makes it more likely that mine will be upvoted. I wonder whether such strategic voting really makes a difference.

<comment><USER2> How about this: can you tell me precisely what statistic you want?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes.

For each n, please state how many comments got exactly n points.

Is this precisely enough?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> There are other sites that index YC for search purposes etc., so if you are doing something that will index this site to parse threads and scores I'm sure you will be OK.

</comment><comment><USER4> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=185512> may be useful for your purposes.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for that pointer. Though it's not quite what I want to analyze.

Perhaps I'll just have to write my own toy-parser then.</comment></comment>


Apple plans to cease using conflict minerals by 2015 - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/feb/14/apple-conflict-minerals

<comment><AUTHOR> Good. Others are also looking at this issue - let's see more being done. [http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/intel- confli...](http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/intel-conflict- minerals-ces-congo-electronics)</comment>


France put Yahoo-Dailymotion acquisition-killer in charge of the Digital Economy - <AUTHOR> http://www.rudebaguette.com/2014/04/02/france-just-put-guy-killed-yahoo-dailymotion-acquisition-charge-digital-economy/ <comment><USER2> God … I thought that this was a joke. Liam you just ruined my day …</comment>


Ask HN: Please explain ("controversial penalty") - <AUTHOR>

This article
http://hackflow.com/blog/2014/06/22/why-every-language-needs-its-underscore/
contains the following text:
> P.P.S. Please stop commenting on Hacker News, a controversial penalty is killing this post. Use reddit thread instead. Sadly, HN is not a place for discussions anymore.
I do not understand what he is talking about. In particular, what is meant by "controversial penalty". Explain?
BTW, the HN post apparently being referred to is here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7927578 <comment><USER2> This will help you understand the problem better: [http://www.righto.com/2013/11/how-hacker-news-ranking- really...](http://www.righto.com/2013/11/how-hacker-news-ranking-really- works.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks.</comment></comment>


Airtime Launches - <AUTHOR> http://blog.airtime.com/post/24471686727/hello-world

<comment><USER2> A blog post about a product launch with a sketch of the founders seems... pompous. If there is an image, I would rather it be a screenshot of the product or product related, or if you want people then one of the entire team. This feels, from the start, about the founders more than the product.

<comment><USER3> Here is our introductory video to give you a taste of the product:

<https://www.airtime.com/about>

We're still working on our team page, we've been a bit busy lately.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "You grant Airtime and its successors a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty- free, perpetual, sublicensable and transferable license to use, copy, distribute, transmit, modify, prepare derivative works of, publicly display, and publicly perform any such User Content, including without limitation, for the purposes of commercially promoting the site."

I know this is pretty much boilerplate, but it's still a bit scary.

<comment><USER3> This is boilerplate. The important part is having the freedom to keep the site absolutely safe.

<comment><USER4> What do you mean "safe"?

<comment><USER3> When you are chatting in the "public" area anonymously with other users, we take screenshots to monitor for abusive behavior. When you direct call someone from your buddy list, that is a private conversation that is not monitored (like a phone or Skype call).

Also, legal says we should cover our asses :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> They just got $30M for _this_ , before signing up any users, and we're supposed to believe the Good Times II are over?

I'm guessing the revenue model is completely based on displaying ads before the connection is established, which makes them quite vulnerable to lulls in the advertising market. That's not even getting into whether the implementation is actually widely appealing enough to create a market for those ads in the first place.

<comment><USER6> It'd be hard to have a more proven founding team than theirs.

<comment><USER5> That's what they said about Color.

<comment><USER6> True, which is precisely why Color was able to raise what it raised.

<comment><USER5> Thank you for reinforcing my point. I'm glad we agree.

Maybe the fact they got $30M instead of $40M indicates that the bubble is popping... : P

<comment><USER6> If your point is that investors are willing to fully fund notable, proven founding teams, I suppose we do agree.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _Today we're excited to launch Airtime, the first live video network._

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is flatly inaccurate, isn't it? Justin.tv has been doing live video for a while now.

<comment><USER8> There are a number of players doing live video, but I believe what they're arguing more on is the networking aspect.

<comment> olog-hai Tinychat[1] and especially vChatter[2] have served the same purpose on Facebook for a while now. Exactly what is "first" about Airtime?

[1] <http://techcrunch.com/2010/12/03/tinychat-facebook/>

[2] [http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/21/vchatter-launches-a-pg- rate...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/21/vchatter-launches-a-pg-rated- version-of-chatroulette/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Chatroulette never became a commonly used service with its ease of anonymity. With Airtime putting a users identity in to the mix, I still can't imagine that people will hop on to video chat with strangers. I might be overly cynical about this, but video chat seems like a difficult service to build a user base around. Few people I know use Facebook's video service or even FaceTime to chat with others they already know, let alone strangers who just happen to like the same TV shows and bands that they do.

<comment><USER10> Yeah - I don't think many people will return to this again and again unless they can build an interesting product around live events. I could see people enjoying chat around sports or concerts.

Also, they haven't show anything beyond 1-1 conversation, which means Google+ and Skype have a significant advantage.

[http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/5/3065343/airtime-brings- frie...](http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/5/3065343/airtime-brings-friends- strangers-and-celebs-together-for-browser)

<comment><USER11> I just told a co-worker that AirTime was like 'Chatroulette with pants".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I would think they could sell it a bit better than "Create shared experiences with people you know, and people you want to know." The point of a one liner is to hook the reader with something unique and memorable--you could transplant this phrase onto half the social startups out there.

</comment><comment><USER13> Demo video: <https://www.airtime.com/about>

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm not sure if it's a bug (I'm using Chrome 20 beta, on Lion), but as soon as I've visited the Airtime landing page, my browser behaved automatically, as if I pressed the "Launch Airtime button" and I've instantly received a "Welcome to Airtime" email, even if I didn't accept their request of permissions.

I didn't have a look to the code, but I really hope this is just a bug and not a malicious use of Facebook authentication...

<comment><USER3> We would most certainly not do anything like that intentionally. The normal user flow is the standard facebook app authentication dialog that clearly lists all the permissions required for the site to work.

<comment><USER15> The same thing happened to me. Chrome 19 on Lion. Just visited the site and within seconds I had an email from you guys saying I had created an account, even though I didn't click anything. You should fix this ASAP.

<comment><USER3> Please send your facebook id to email@example.com to help us track this. Thank you!

<comment><USER14> I've just sent an email.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Besides the chatroulette meets facebook aspect, how is Airtime creating a live network that's any different than what Ustream and Justin.tv has already done?

<comment><USER3> Airtime is about extending your social graph one algorithmically-matched individual at a time (one-to-one). Ustream and Justin.tv are about broadcast channels (one-to-many) of which only a small percentage of the browsable directory are active at any point in time.

<comment><USER16> So it's chatroulette but with more intelligence using your FB social graph. Like "you might want to talk to this person because they like cats and are friends with your friend Jane." This seems to have good applicability in the dating world.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This has been done before (Chatroulette off Facebook) and numerous other Facebook platform apps. None of which have taken off. The core problem they will face is that most people don't browse Facebook (much less a video conferencing app) to meet new people...

<comment><USER18> Well, Chatroulette validated the idea that people are naturally curious to meet other random people, but the execution was poor.

To me Airtime seems like Chatroulette done right -- user authentication, tools to interact with eachother, harder to post nudies... Now to see if it catches on...

<comment><USER19> The entire value in Chatroulette is the anonymity.

You're absolutely right that Chatroulette is done wrong, the product sucks in so many ways, but what Airtime have done is take one of the parts that _doesn't_ suck and "fix" it.

<comment><USER3> We're trying to have the best of both worlds.

You are not anonymous to Airtime -- so you can be held accountable for your actions in the public areas of the site. However, you are always anonymous to new people that you meet. We do not send your facebook id, name, or geolocation to anyone you don't know until you mutually friend them.

<comment><USER19> oh, that's much better. You should make that clear somewhere on the site before starting to chat[1], I signed up and was unaware that I remained anonymous so decided not to go any further. I saw my details listed so made the assumption everyone saw them.

[1] I see "Anonymous You are anonymous until you send an add request" but that's after I started to search for people just now to check, I would never have got that far if you hadn't explained about anonymity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm so sorry for being such a pedant, but I have to get it out somewhere:

"Whom." Not "that."

<comment><USER21> This is as good a place as any to get your "whom" out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Let me guess, demographically, Airtime just like Chatroulette and all the other dating sites, will have 99.5% of one gender and 0.5% of the other. This will be another sausage fest (no pun intended)

</comment><comment><USER23> I don't have facebook account and I don't want to signup for facebook. How do I use airtime ?

</comment><comment><USER24> The UI is horrendous. Especially if you attempt to use it without a video camera.

</comment><comment><USER25> Well it's a very pretty website. I really like the design.

<comment><USER3> Brought to you by the genius and taste of Matt Cahill, our Lead Designer. Illustrations by Shyama Golden.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> No demo or screenshots?

<comment><USER27> [http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/05/airtime-experience- together...](http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/05/airtime-experience-together/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I don't have Facebook. Does Airtime provide alternative ways to sign up, and if not, why not?

<comment><USER29> I usually bash these posts, because being a developer who has previously built a number of apps using solely Facebook login I can understand why they don't provide another means of signup. For the apps I have built people who don't have a Facebook account aren't the intended target audience, and I believe it could be easily argued Airtime fits this category. The amount Facebook gives for free (friends, chat, payments, a verified email address, demographics) is really hard to replicate via other means.

In this case though I think they ask for too much before giving anything or even saying what it is about, firstly access to my Facebook account, then requires enhanced permissions (which are meant to be optional, however the app barfs if you don't allow them), then requires you to allow Flash to access my webcam. It's more of a UX thing, but at least tell me what I am signing up to and show me what I can get out of it by allowing access to all of this.

<comment><USER3> Read your posts: allow us to prepopulate your video library with YouTube videos that you've shared on your wall in the past.

XMPP permissions: we are deeply integrated with facebook chat. Your friends online on Facebook can send and receive xmpp messages to you on Airtime.

Agreed that we could improve the messaging. Thanks for the feedback.</comment></comment></comment>


Broken Windows - <AUTHOR> http://daringfireball.net/2004/06/broken_windows <comment><USER2> The article is dated Friday, 4 June 2004 :

"This Trojan horse got through my defenses despite the fact that I was running the Release Candidate 1 (RC1) version of Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) with the firewall turned on."

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, thought it was ~10 years old, some of the points of arguments holds good till day. Like a poor chap re-installing windows machine from scratch. When was the last time someone did it on Mac?</comment></comment>


Map Simplification with Visvalingam's Algorithm - <AUTHOR> http://bost.ocks.org/mike/simplify/ <comment><USER2> I wrote an implementation of this for this project: <http://vimeo.com/uuorld>

It's MUCH harder if you want adjacent borders to line up w/o gaps. You have to find all shared verts, run the smoothing algo on them, do the same for the coastlines / islands and then put all the pieces back together. I think 10% of my code was cleaning dirty data (removing duplicate points, detecting and fixing self intersection) 80% of my code was breaking everything up and putting it back together and 10% was the Visvalingam / Whyatt algo.

The biggest time sink was dealing w/ messy data. Between countries, states, counties, zip codes, neighborhoods etc, we hit A LOT of crappy corner cases. If anyone else is endeavoring to do the same, contact me and I can probably save you a week of work.

<comment><USER3> Willy, I've tried e-mailing you through your about.me site, but it seems to get stuck on "Sending..." (and showing the spinner).

The message I sent was:

"I'd be very interested in any data you might have of this type (to overlay on a 3D model of Earth I'm building for a flight tracking project).

What data do you have?"

If you could respond via the address in my profile I'd be most grateful!

<comment><USER2> Willy dot Pell at gmail dot com

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The source code is here, if you're interested: <http://bost.ocks.org/mike/simplify/simplify.js>

I'll probably package it up as a Node module so that it's easy to enable dynamic simplification of GeoJSON files. (A more efficient representation of shapes would also be helpful, though I like the convenience of plain text.) Or possibly a D3 plugin; it might be useful to extend the d3.geo.path shape generator to support more efficient dynamic filtering of points.

<comment><USER5> Have you experimented with topologically consistent simplification? In my experience, that's the hard part - otherwise when simplifying (e.g.) state borders, the borders no longer match up.

<comment><USER4> No, but that's next on my list! I'm familiar with at least one approach—identify borders shared by multiple features, simplify those independently, then stitch everything back together. I'm curious as to whether you can identify shared points and then use the average area of the associated triangles to prioritize removal.

<comment><USER6> I would be impressed to see an implementation of this. Topology is absolutely critical for serious GIS applications. Of course, ESRI makes it looks easy within their software, but I haven't seen what a basic algorithm looks like for this task. Good luck!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is a great alternative to Ramer-Douglas-Peucker. However, it is not quite what I need for my application (where I'm still searching for a good algorithm, maybe I have to develop my own).

The problem is that the area _always shrinks_ (for a convex curve). This is simply because all those polygon simplifiers work by selecting a subset of the points, and removing points (from a convex curve) means that you always "cut corners".

For my application, this is totally undesirable. I'm starting with a convex polygon, and the simplified polygon should _fully enclose_ the original polygon. Thus, the simplified polygon has to consist of points _outside_ the original polygon.

Is there any existing algorithm which accomplishes that? That is, which adds to the (convex) polygon rather than removing from it?

<comment><USER8> Invert your polygon (so all points at a distance `x` from the center get moved to a distance `1/x`), apply Visvalingam, then invert the result back.

<comment><USER7> I don't see how this would help. Visvalingam selects a subset of the inverted points, so when inverting back, I'll still end up with a subset of my original points. So the algorithm still cuts corners instead of adding areas.

<comment><USER8> If you add a midpoint along each edge Visvalingam creates, invert the reduced poly then remove the original points, you'll get a containing polygon. I think. But we're heading rapidly into hackish bodge territory :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> can anyone clarify "There is no guarantee that removing a point increases the area of the adjacent triangles; thus, the algorithm considers the effective area as the larger of the associated triangle and the previously-removed triangle" - it does't appear in the original paper (afaict) which seems to emphasise that the method is point-based (implying no such "memory"). and i can't see why it's needed.

it's clearly there in the source, but i don't understand the comment there, either. what am i missing?! (i understand the lack of a guarantee of increasing area - what i don't understand why the algorithm should "care"; once the point is gone, it is gone...).

<comment><USER4> The line from the original paper is in section 3.3: "If its calculated area is less than that of the last point to be eliminated, use the latter's area instead. (This ensures that the current point cannot be eliminated without eliminating previously eliminated points.)"

<comment><USER9> ah, thanks. and i think i understand now - it doesn't affect filtering, but it makes the precalculated list have a monotonic value that can be used to select a "degree of smoothing". maybe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've had an interest in polyline simplification for the last couple of weeks, and I eventually stumbled upon the Ramer–Douglas–Peucker algorithm and a JavaScript [1] and Python [2] implementation of it.

However, one thing it doesn't do (and Visvalingam's algorithm doesn't either) is remove loops. In many cases you wouldn't want that, but sometimes you just want to draw a line that looks right, and being able to remove redundant parts of the polyline would be very helpful. For example, in the case where you have a GPS track of a run where you run to a nearby oval, do ten laps, and then run home, and you want the simplest polyline that looks right.

1: <https://github.com/mourner/simplify-js> 2: <https://github.com/omarestrella/simplify.py/>

</comment><comment><USER11> Of course, I am sure many realise that this is applicable to visualising anything of a fractal nature, e.g. plotting stock price history at various zoom levels.

</comment><comment><USER12> Where's Michigan? I'd be curious how the algorithm handled a shape like that.

<comment><USER4> These are cultural vectors, and so the sovereign territory includes the Great Lakes. Though, come to think of it, I should have picked the physical vectors if I wanted to stick to the coastline paradox theme!

<comment><USER12> Interesting. I'll have to read more about the nuances of the algorithm.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is a surprisingly different algorithm from Douglas-Ramer-Peucker. Visvalingam's algorithm gradually removes detail, while Peucker gradually restores removed detail.

I'm really curious, too, how Visvalingam performs when the variance of the heights of the triangles is large. Intuitively, it seems like it'd be much more aggressive than Peucker about removing spikes in data, which, depending on what you were aiming at, could be good or bad. Imagine processing a polyline whose coordinates are:

[0,0],[4,2],[8,0],[9,-9],[10,0],[14,1],[18,0]

Peucker would preserve [9,-9] until very last. It seems like Visvalingam would remove that relatively early.

edit: Either way, it's a nice algorithm to add to the quiver.

</comment><comment><USER14> This is used to great effect with the Alchemy software synthesizer's "Detail" knob, allowing you to edit sounds with surgical precision or to make broad strokes. Hand-editing additive sounds is almost impossible without it.

Alchemy in general is a jaw dropping piece of kit. It would give the UX types here a seizure though...

</comment><comment><USER15> It is strange to try to notice the subtle changes of an algorithm that tries to minimise visual change as much as possible.</comment>


DustMite: A General-Purpose Data Reduction Tool - <AUTHOR> https://dlang.org/blog/2020/04/13/dustmite-the-general-purpose-data-reduction-tool/ <comment><USER2> Seems like a relatively standard test case reduction tool aimed for D.

The tool reduces test cases to make them easier to debug. It removes pieces from input data and testing each variant to see if it still reproduces the bug.

In the end you have a much smaller reproducer which is easier to debug. Here's a tutorial for gcc [2].

Most serious compilers use one in some shape or form, e.g. delta[1] (which probably was the first widely used one) or creduce[3] (which hugely improved the state of the art for C), and also various descendants reducing on something different (like LLVM bugpoint [4]). A lot of the original ideas go back to Andreas Zeller's delta debugging [5]

Somehow the blog author forgets to mention this rich history.

[1] [http://delta.tigris.org/](http://delta.tigris.org/)

[2] [https://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/A_guide_to_testcase_reduction](https://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/A_guide_to_testcase_reduction)

[3] [http://embed.cs.utah.edu/creduce/](http://embed.cs.utah.edu/creduce/)

[4] [https://llvm.org/docs/Bugpoint.html](https://llvm.org/docs/Bugpoint.html)

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

<comment><AUTHOR> The forum post he linked to where he announced DustMite says it's inspired by Tigris Delta and lists some advantages:

[https://email@example.com...](https://email@example.com)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This _is_ cool, in any case.

TL;DR: DustMite feeds reductions/variations of a data set (like your source code) into an oracle which tests if it satisfies some property. The primary example is reducing your source code to a local minimum that still exhibits some compiler failure.

The article's conclusion notes some other cool uses; my favorites were:

\- "reducing a large commit to a minimal diff"

\- "reducing a commit list, when git bisect is insufficient due to the problem being introduced across more than any single commit;"

\- "reducing a large data set to a minimal one, resulting in the same code coverage, with the purpose of creating a test suite;"

\- "if you have complete test coverage, it can be used for reducing the source tree to a minimal tree which includes support for only enabled unittests. This can be used to create a version of a program or library with a test-defined subset of features."

</comment><comment><USER4> I would be interested in a performance comparison of delta debugging tools, in my experience the performance of this type of tool has not been great (to be fair I have only tried creduce, delta, and my own coding experiments), although I might give dustmite a try

</comment><comment><USER3> Is this the intended entry point? should this have linked to [https://dlang.org/blog/2020/04/13/dustmite-the-general- purpo...](https://dlang.org/blog/2020/04/13/dustmite-the-general-purpose-data- reduction-tool/) or similar?

<comment><USER5> We've changed to that from [https://firstname.lastname@example.com...](https://firstname.lastname@example.com). Thanks!

(I also detached your other comment so that it can float to the top and get more attention.)</comment></comment>


iOS Security Guide [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.apple.com/business/docs/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> """ To further discourage brute-force passcode attacks, there are escalating time delays after the entry of an invalid passcode at the Lock screen. If Settings > Touch ID & Passcode > Erase Data is turned on, the device will automatically wipe after 10 consecutive incorrect attempts to enter the passcode. This setting is also available as an administrative policy through mobile device management (MDM) and Exchange ActiveSync, and can be set to a lower threshold.

On devices with an A7 or later A-series processor, the delays are enforced by the Secure Enclave. If the device is restarted during a timed delay, the delay is still enforced, with the timer starting over for the current period."""

      Delays between passcode attempts:
      Attempts Delay Enforced 1-4 none
      5: 1 minute
      6: 5 minutes
      7-8: 15 minutes
      9: 1 hour</comment>


'Temperamental' Big Ben was ringing up to six seconds late - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-34051053 <comment><USER2> It's had all sorts of challenges over time. The Circle and District are just under the surface nearby, the Jubilee line is deep but still affected the foundations. The building across the road was demolished down to about six levels below ground level. The buildings it is attached (including Parliament and a school) to are up to 1000 years old and need to be vacated for major works from every type of damage, including WWII bombings. Also it's on the edge of what was once an island, and there's an underwater river nearby.

</comment><comment><USER3> > The clock is altered by adding and removing old coins from its pendulum to > change the rate at which it swings.

British engineering at its finest. I understand they have a stock of discontinued six-pences and ha'pennies which weigh only a few grammes each and are used for these fine adjustments.

<comment><USER4> Do they literally have to put these and take them of as the thing is swinging back and forth?

I am also thinking of unfortunate scenario where someone adds /removes momentum accidentally while trying to place pennies.

<comment><USER5> I don't believe a pendulum's period is affected by its momentum at any point in its arc, just the length and its mass.

<comment><USER6> Just the length, rather. The mass has no effect on the period.

<comment><USER7> For a frictionless pendulum in a vacuum this is certainly true.

The article repeatedly says they add weights to the pendulum though, which makes me wonder whether either (a) it's some connected mechanism they add weights to, or (b) this is somewhere reality diverges from the simple model.

<comment><USER8> [https://youtu.be/5qEPDXDVxvw?t=169](https://youtu.be/5qEPDXDVxvw?t=169)

They're added directly to the 'pendulum shelf' which looks like it's right at the top of the pendulum. That would adjust the length up (shorter) by a tiny amount by shifting the center of mass of the pendulum up. This squares with the simple model of a pendulum.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Damn it. Knowing how hard it can be to tune a mechanical wrist watch to be within some seconds of atom time in 24 hours, this kind of precision on a clockwork that big is really amazing.

Would never have thought that. I am totally impressed.

</comment><comment><USER10> Definitely a neat fix for something that worked for 150+ years and only needed to be checked a couple times a week.

Now that it has to be manually checked at least once a day though ... I don't know. Seems like a lot of trouble for something that could be solved with an Arduino and a water pump.

</comment><comment><USER11> >Mechanics discovered it became delayed over the weekend of 15 and 16 August but have now gradually fixed it.

I would love to automate this with a nagios-like alert system and perhaps a robot arm to add/remove coins.

</comment><comment><USER12> I guess the BBC would notice this pretty fast - they have a microphone live broadcasting the bells for the beginning of the radio news

<comment><USER13> From the article: "The incorrect chimes had caused interruptions to BBC Radio 4, which broadcasts the sound of Big Ben live."</comment></comment>


Megaupload Search Warrants Ruled Illegal by High Court - <AUTHOR> http://torrentfreak.com/megaupload-search-warrants-ruled-illegal-by-high-court-120628/

<comment><USER2> Does it make the slightest bit of difference even if the courts decide that the entire action was unwarranted? What remedies are available to Dotcom, if any?

<comment><USER3> It's pretty simple really. He can get his freedom back, his servers back, his content back, and then find a location that is far outside the influence of the US Gov't.</comment></comment>


jQuery 1.4.3 Released - <AUTHOR> http://github.com/jquery/jquery/commit/2d201873ff47b927a8c1efcee07191a47033744c From the jQuery blog: There are a few areas in jQuery that have seen extensive changes since 1.4.2 was released:
    * .css() and related css-handling methods were all overhauled.
    * Logic for determining element visibility and toggling of display in animation code.
    * Much of the traversing logic has been improved and changed (is, filter, closest, find).<p>Why are you still reading? Go update your sites! <comment><USER2> Does anybody have a link to the release notes?

<comment><USER3> Not the release notes, but here's the documentation/changelog (note the "new in 1.4.3" tags):

<http://api.jquery.com/category/version/1.4.3/>

Also, it's on their CDN now:

<http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.4.3.js> <http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.4.3.min.js>

Release notes look like they'll appear here tomorrow, during the conference:

<http://blog.jquery.com/2010/10/16/jquery-143-released/></comment></comment>


US intelligence: Russia was recovering missile from the sea when it exploded - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.de/us-intel-says-russia-recovery-of-new-missile-caused-explosion-2019-8 <comment><USER2> Interesting that it was so volatile even after crashing, I would otherwise expect that things poised to go BOOM would do that in a crash rather than during recovery.

Apparently some independent russian media reported claims that the explosion happened during recovery some weeks ago, maybe that's that account is the basis for this intelligence assessment.

Original source for the posted article is CNBC: [https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/29/intel-says-russian- explosion...](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/29/intel-says-russian-explosion- was-not-from-nuclear-powered-missile-test.html)</comment>


India Plans to Launch Moon Mission in July - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-12/india-to-launch-moon-mission-in-july-eyes-entry-into-elite-club <comment><USER2> Before some western-media starts their well known statement like "India is a poor country and they need to focus on their healthcare, education etc before wasting money on Space projects like this".

They need to examine themselves, "Have we ever said above statement when our country lobbying for multi-million/billion dollar defence deals from India?"

<comment><USER3> I have no problem with India doing whatever it wants and prioritising certain things above others. I do object to my taxes funding foreign aid to a country that have a well developed nuke program, a big military and a burgeoning space industry. Good for them but not with my money thanks.

<comment><USER4> If a poor country spends all its money feeding its citizens chances are it will stay poor.

If they invest in the future chances are there will be better jobs in the future and less hungry people.

<comment><USER3> Yeah I don't see what that has to do with my comment. I don't want my taxes sent to subsidise their space industry, nuke program or military. Not a big ask really.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> India has to push on all fronts. Increasing momentum in tech advancements is especially important. Focusing only on poverty/water scarcity/culture would be narrow minded.

Besides, I can't imagine how exhilarating it will be for the engineers actually working towards this. I'm sure engineers here will relate with the need to "implement it themselves" when trying to understand or build confidence in a particular area/concept. It does not matter that it has been done before. Why should it just be for acknowledgement from other countries?

<comment><USER6> > _India has to push on all fronts. Increasing momentum in tech advancements > is especially important. Focusing only on poverty /water scarcity/culture > would be narrow minded._

Why? There's tons to do at that level, and money can be much better invested there (with huge returns even for tech and innovation) than some me-too moon landings.

You get more innovation by getting people out of poverty and into tech school, than by sending some mission on the moon with people starving...

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> ISRO is also helping to launch satellite's designed by students for free.

[https://www.firstpost.com/tech/science/isros-new-pslv- varian...](https://www.firstpost.com/tech/science/isros-new-pslv-variant-to- launch-power-student-satellites-for-free-starting-25-jan-5933331.html)

[https://theprint.in/science/isro-to-launch-free-satellite- tr...](https://theprint.in/science/isro-to-launch-free-satellite-training- programme-for-students-from-developing-nations/72948/)

</comment><comment><USER8> Why is there so much hostility against an achievement that is still pretty rare? How many countries out of all the countries can boast about their space program?

Why does everything have to be so political. People are ready to take a Jab at Modi's govt at every single opportunity.

<comment><USER9> They are taking a jab at Indian government. They took a jab even when Modi was not in power because the "west" says "India is a poor country and should focus on food security than space program"

It is pure racism? I'm not sure of the exact term.

P.s. I remember such a cartoon when India had asked for some missile technology few decades ago.

It is not about Modi but about general attitude of the west towards India

<comment><USER10> Having spent considerable time in India, I might argue that running water and sanitation might be a bigger accomplishment than landing on the moon. Much of India is profoundly poor — some of the worst absolute poverty I have ever seen anywhere on Earth. Sending rockets to space seems to be a mission of vanity and pride more than an actual benefit to the Indian people.

<comment><USER11> tehlike's response earlier in the thread is particularly appropriate here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20171915](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20171915)

<comment><USER9> Exactly! We just see the price but not the inventions or background technology created as a by product of space research

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Chandrayaan-2 homepage: [https://www.isro.gov.in/chandrayaan2-home](https://www.isro.gov.in/chandrayaan2-home)

</comment><comment><USER13> This will inspire a generation of Indians. If any country can have a space program, they should. Like Elon Musk says, solving one problem after another is necessary but not sufficient. People need to feel hopeful about the future. The 1969 Moon landings have inspired a whole generation in the West. Despite of the high costs, we are still reaping its benefits. I am a huge fan of all agencies, ISRO, NASA, ESA, CNCA, Roscosmos etc.

</comment><comment><USER14> The first mission in this series Chandrayan-1([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrayaan-1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrayaan-1)) had provided more evidence of presence of water on moon [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_water](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_water)

</comment><comment> happy-go-lucky > ISRO's next priority is the $1.4 billion Gaganyaan mission, which aims to > put three Indian "gaganauts" -- at least one of which will be a woman -- > into orbit.

According to this wiki [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronaut](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronaut), they are vyomanauts, coined from the Sanskrit word व्योमन् (vyoman meaning 'sky' or 'space').

The wiki has some interesting terminology as to what spacecraft crew members are called by different space agencies.

 _Dryden preferred "cosmonaut", on the grounds that flights would occur in the cosmos (near space), while the "astro" prefix suggested flight to the stars_.

 _In English-speaking nations, a professional space traveler is called an astronaut_.

 _NASA applies the term astronaut to any crew member aboard NASA spacecraft bound for Earth orbit or beyond_.

 _By convention, an astronaut employed by the Russian Federal Space Agency (or its Soviet predecessor) is called a cosmonaut in English texts. The word is an anglicisation of the Russian word kosmonavt_

Polish uses kosmonauta and astronauta, _and the two words are considered synonyms_.

In Chinese, _Yǔ háng yuán (宇航员, "Space-universe navigating personnel") is used for astronauts and cosmonauts in general, while hángtiān yuán (航天员, "navigating outer space personnel") is used for Chinese astronauts_

 _The term taikonaut is used by some English-language news media organizations for professional space travelers from China_.

 _With the rise of space tourism, NASA and the Russian Federal Space Agency agreed to use the term "spaceflight participant" to distinguish those space travelers from professional astronauts on missions coordinated by those two agencies_.

 _and the Indian Space Research Organisation hope to launch a spacecraft in 2022 that would carry vyomanauts, coined from the Sanskrit word व्योमन् (vyoman meaning 'sky' or 'space')_.

 _In Finland, the NASA astronaut Timothy Kopra, a Finnish American, has sometimes been referred to as sisunautti, from the Finnish word sisu_.

<comment><USER15> A proper terminology would be "Vyom" \+ "maan" (like shaktiman - someone with shakti/power).

Vyoman. almost sounds like Woman. :D Even sounds similar to "Viman" (Vee-maan) which stands for planes/flying ships in sanskrit.

<comment> happy-go-lucky > Vyoman. almost sounds like Woman. :D

The word _vyomanaut_ (vyo‧ma‧naut) is a portmanteau of Sanskrit _vyoman_ (sky or space) and the suffix _-naut_ which forms nouns meaning a voyager.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Just going to leave it here

Quotes from anime Space Brothers

Tomii Ryūnosuke: The American thinker Buckminster Fuller once called our planet "Spaceship Earth." On the other hand, British scientist James Lovelock stated that our planet was a life form named Gaia. I was always puzzled by the contrast between spaceship and life form. But the British scientist Richard Dawkins helped tie it together. Humans can be considered the Earth's genes. The planet is trying to self-replicate. That is natural behavior for a life form.

Tomii Ryūnosuke: Michael Ende once compared humans to cancer cells, but I believe that humans are germ cells. However, there is the possibility that any of us could become the cancer cell that destroys Earth.

Tomii Ryūnosuke: If we are truly Earth's genes, the purpose of space exploration is because mutation is necessary.

</comment><comment><USER17> > _Chandrayaan, which means "moon vehicle" in Sanskrit_

Doesn't _Chandrayaan_ mean _a journey to the moon_?

<comment><USER18> "Chandra" [चन्द्र] is one of the Hindi/Sanskrit words for the _Moon_. Other examples are _chaand_ and _chandni_.

"Yaan" [यान] means _vehicle /coach_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> The budget of ISRO (their NASA) for what they have accomplished is amazing.

It is critical for India to retain the talents of own people rather let them be poached by HB1 visa's and eventually emigrating to the US.

</comment><comment><USER20> It's indeed "the west" that's in need of advice like this. I'd be a bit weary of neo-colonialist arguments like this as well. There's a sense of entitlement there that is increasingly at odds with the facts.

I think the west might need to wake up to the notion that increasingly China, India and others are running the show according to their own agendas rather than following in the footsteps of the west. A lot of the CEOs of companies like Google, Microsoft, etc. are Indians. Lots of Indians are also active in core industries in the US and the EU. Likewise, lots of Chinese can be found across our industries at all layers and both are primary customers for our best universities. Both have the education, expertise, and economies to produce a moonshot. And neither of them is lacking in ambition. I think it's become more a question of when than if, and sooner rather than later.

Either way, there's a new space race on and I think this is a good thing. We've been stuck not getting back to the moon mostly for budgetary and other non technical reasons. It's about time people go back there.

<comment><USER9> The "west" is busy with their political agendas.

Mr Trump thinks Mars is a part of moon. And NASA isn't getting funding due to myriad reasons

Countries like India take pride in space achivements and defense related ones

That's why India China are shooting ahead while west is seemingly lagging behind

I read somewhere that ISRO is able to launch satellites at fraction of a cost as compared to SpaceX.

<comment><USER21> "Shooting ahead" == repeating what the west did 50 years ago. Interesting definition of shooting ahead. The west (as if that's even a coherent body for topics like this) has many problems. Being overtaken by India isn't one of them. So far it's all "we want to do this, we want to do that" \- I want to be a billionaire, doesn't make me one. We'll see if they can pull it off.

> I read somewhere that ISRO is able to launch satellites at fraction of a > cost as compared to SpaceX.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

<comment><USER9> Well, shooting ahead of themselves :)

I didn't say West is lagging behind India or India shooting ahead of the "west"

Our competition is with ourselves and not with others.

Coming to cost of ISRO vs SpaceX

> There is also a big difference in terms of cost per mission. For example, > the Falcon 9 launch vehicle's cost per launch comes up to $62 million, while > ISRO's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) costs roughly $15 million per > launch.

Source: [https://www.thequint.com/tech-and-auto/tech-news/isro-vs- spa...](https://www.thequint.com/tech-and-auto/tech-news/isro-vs-spacex-where- does-indias-premier-space-agency-stand)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The space program department[1] is under prime minister authority. So, this is the obvious one.

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

</comment><comment><USER23> Looks like another PR move by the Modi government.

<comment><USER12> How is this parent comment getting upvotes? Stop spreading false information. This mission was approved in 2008 by the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh[0].

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrayaan-2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrayaan-2)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'll be very happy if they pull this off without creating a massive cloud of orbital debris like their last "space triumph".

[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/02/world/asia/nasa-india- spa...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/02/world/asia/nasa-india-space- debris.html)

<comment><USER25> That was the DRDO, analogous to USA DARPA. The Moon mission is from ISRO, analogous to NASA.

<comment><USER26> IMHO, DRDO cannot be equated with DARPA.

DARPA tries to solve every challenge, irrespective of the field, by opening contracts to the national public and holding contests among them. The winning solution is often adopted for further enhancement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> lota-putty India is very fortunate to attempt this feat* in 21st Century.

1\. 1991 USSR Collapse

2\. Technology today

3\. NASA insufficient funding

4\. Globalisation

Visit public-hospital at any sub-district/Taluk or any public-school in a remote village.

I mean, potential is very high but most of it is misplaced. Chandrayaan, Mangalyaan & Gaganyaan are easier today as opposed to improving public health & education.

<comment><USER27> What,exactly, are you on about?

<comment><USER12> Moonshine.. maybe.</comment></comment></comment>


A pair of Australian bridges try to cure concrete cancer - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2019/10/31/a-pair-of-australian-bridges-try-to-cure-concrete-cancer <comment><USER2> So the bridges themselves came up with this idea? I'm impressed with the AI now being put into modern bridges.

/sarcasm

This is an indication of how bad journalism is getting. Sloppy writing and sloppy editing.</comment>


Ask YC: Feedback on idea - <AUTHOR>

Since this community seems to be the greatest thing since sliced bread, I thought I would ask for some advice on an idea.
The problem that I've identified is the extreme difficulty of finding indie fashion designers online. Unless somebody directly tells me about them, there is no way I'd find them.
I was thinking of creating a platform where users can create a brand page giving information about the brands history, products, reviews etc. Each brand will have links to "similar brands" so that they can all be connected in  one giant web of insanity :p (my biggest struggle is that once i find a cool brand, its hard to find others like it).
I think a cool business model would be something similar to Yammer and giving brands the ability to claim their page, they can then produce updates and notifications for users who are interested.
I know fashion is about as far away as you can get from hacking, but this is a super group and I'd appreciate any help you can  give.
Thanks <comment><USER2> You might want to check out <http://www.smashingdarling.com>. Not saying that there's not room for multiple competitors in this space, but thought it might be a good place to see what's working, what's not, and some areas where you might be able to make improvements.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the link, I will have to look over it in more detail. My intent was to have more of a focus on brands then individual products, although products could be added to the brand pages.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> <http://etsy.com> has a category for clothing. I'm not sure of your definition of "indie fashion designers", but since you mentioned difficulty in finding them, that might be a good place to look for new users/contributors.

</comment><comment><USER4> i'd like to point out that this would work for other things beyond fashion, like local/indie/small-time bands. if you're going to build it, why restrict it

<comment><USER5> Restricting it might be useful as to not dilute his idea and make it unappealing to die-hard 'indie fashionistas'. Perhaps making his code generic, were this to ever be completed, would be useful in creating spin-offs.

<comment><USER4> well, i wasn't necessarily implying to have one site that dilutes the idea, but the solution for fashion could be cloned into another app for music, and so on.

the idea itself is reusable. suggestion engines could always use improvements.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yea the real idea is to help people find hidden gems and from there find similar gems. The music scene is already pretty crazy though with last.fm and pandora and the millions of other sites trying to help people discover new music

<comment><USER4> true enough about music overload. and also book overload.

if i could come up with a truly good idea offhand, though, i might be working on it instead of sharing ;)

i'm sure there are other relevant applications for this concept beyond the big ones.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> i'd say it'd be a great resource for people interested in that sort of thing.

i'm not sure how large a market it is, so i really can't judge how successful it would be, or what you would even consider successful in that niche. it's definately a step away from your standard hacked news startup, i think you have a good idea on your hands though, that's a gut feeling hehe

<comment><AUTHOR> It is rather hard to tell how big the market would be since its hard to find the designers (hence the idea). But I think a lot of designers could use it as a marketing platform and to market beyond their geographic location, which is what a lot of them have to do.

Now I just have to learn to code it hehe. I know, I'm on HN but I don't code</comment></comment>