Steve Perlman unveils white paper explaining "impossible" wireless data rates - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2011/07/28/steve-perlman-unveils-dido-white-paper-explaining-impossible-wireless-data-rates/ <comment><USER2> This is the basic idea from the white paper.

DIDO communication begins with the DIDO APs exchanging brief test signals with the DIDO user devices. By analyzing what happened to these test signals as they propagate through the wireless links, the DIDO Data Center determines precisely what will happen when it transmits data signals from the APs to users, and how the simultaneously transmitted signals will sum together when received by each user device. Then, the DIDO Data Center uses this analysis, along with the data each user is requesting (e.g. video from a website), to create precise waveforms for all of the APs that, when transmitted at once will sum together at each user device to create a clean, independent waveform carrying the data requested by that user. So, if there are 10 APs and 10 users all within range of each other, then 10 radio signals will sum together at each antenna of each user's device to produce an independent waveform for each device with only that device's data.

<comment><USER3> One question that I haven't seen answered yet is what happens if the receiving antenna is not stationary. It seems to me that if it is moving at the time that the test signal was sent out there is no guarantee that the signals will sum together properly for the receiver now that is in a different location. Most devices that are wireless are wireless because they spend most of the time moving around.

But perhaps this system of analyzing the test signals and figuring out how to create the waveforms that will sum up for the receiver happens so fast that it is not a problem to recalibrate constantly to take in account cell phones in moving cars, etc.

<comment><USER4> From the patent app: "As such, in one embodiment of the invention, the channel characterization matrix 616 at the Base Station is continually updated. In one embodiment, the Base Station 600 periodically (e.g., every 250 milliseconds) sends out a new training signal to each Client Device, and each Client Device continually transmits its channel characterization vector back to the Base Station 600 to ensure that the channel characterization remains accurate (e.g. if the environment changes so as to affect the channel or if a Client Device moves). In one embodiment, the training signal is interleaved within the actual data signal sent to each client device. Typically, the training signals are much lower throughput than the data signals, so this would have little impact on the overall throughput of the system. Accordingly, in this embodiment, the channel characterization matrix 616 may be updated continuously as the Base Station actively communicates with each Client Device, thereby maintaining an accurate channel characterization as the Client Devices move from one location to the next or if the environment changes so as to affect the channel. "

<comment><USER5> "Each client device continually transmits its channel characterization vector..."

Sounds like the scheme is going to wreak havoc on the battery life of a typical mobile device.

<comment><USER6> If this continual transmission is only done during periods of network usage, when you're already powering up the CPU and antenna chipset, how much of an additional burden would this be for the client device? I doubt it would be continuously transmitting when the device is in sleep mode, and I have no indication that this is a CPU-intensive task for the client device (the data center device is a different matter).

<comment><USER5> For the mobile phone use case, it seems like the transmitter would have to be emitting constantly in order to keep the base station appraised of its current position, for the purposes of computing the channel characterization. Otherwise, how would the base station know what transformations to perform on the outgoing signals to reach the mobile device in the event that a call is received? It's not like you could broadcast that information to everyone, because that would end up corrupting the spectrum for everyone else, which defeats the entire point of this system.

The whole scheme seems really dependent on knowing the position of all transmitters/receivers at all times.

<comment><USER7> The "paging channel" problem is already present in existing mobile radio systems. Solving it pretty much requires some form of TDMA — i.e. scheduled transmission — because only TDMA gives you the ability to actually power your radio off most of the time. Even Wi-Fi has features for this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "The complete answer to this question is very long, involving immensely complex mathematics, very carefully designed software and hardware, and new data communications and modulation techniques."

None of which is discussed in the white paper. If I had to guess... It seems like a MIMO (Multi-Input, Multi-Output) technique that somehow uses the environment's impulse response (via the pilot signal) to achieve phased array- like spatial independence of signals. Without the "immensely complex mathematics," this white paper doesn't really deliver any insight -- no better than marketing speak IMO.

<comment><USER4> The patent application appears to have more detail: <http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20090067402>

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Let me take a stab at an explanation. Suppose we know the positions of all the transmitters and receivers, and we know which receivers are supposed to get which signals. Then we determine the signals (waves) to be emitted by the transmitters such that at each receiver, all the other signals cancel out (interfere destructively), leaving nothing but the signal you want at that receiver.

(Oh, and don't forget to account for reflection, refraction, dispersion, etc. as the waves propagate around.)

If this is what they're doing, then wow, that's pretty cool. It's amazing the problem can be solved fast enough.

The way they get around Shannon is by taking advantage of the spatial separation of the various receivers. In effect, Shannon assumed all receivers are at the same position.

Is this an accurate understanding?

<comment><USER10> As far as I can tell yes, basically its phased-array wi-fi where the system solves for creating channels to individual points rather than beam energy.

If you are familiar with phased array RADAR (as used on AEGIS and other platforms) the system computes on the fly the necessary set of signals from an array of antenna which will constructively interfere to put a 'beam' on the target. AEGIS can track hundreds of targets simultaneously (I believe the actual upper limit is classified)

I recall a startup in the bay area that was doing something like that with WiFi access points to provide both range and better signal integrity (you could exceed the power limits on non-license use going into the antenna as measured output was still within spec), I thought they had been acquired by Atheros but I'll have to dig a bit deeper to find out for sure.

<comment><USER11> IIRC, there are already companies doing this in the mobile phone space. In essence, they beam steer using slight differences in the arrival time of the signal to actual antennas which in turn causes constructive interference in the desired direction and destructive interference in other locations. For mobile phone networks, this is only for azimuth. For systems like the ones used for AEGIS (the SPY-1 and variants) you get azimuth and elevation beam steering.

Honestly, I can't see this working without stepping on some of the patents owned by companies like ArrayCom and others.

<comment><USER5> How did they fit enough transmit elements into a cell phone to do that? I thought cell phone antennae were omnidirectional.

<comment><USER12> That is the big claimed upside of this approach, the cell phone transmitter receiver is very simple, with only 1 antenna. The base station number crunching becomes much more sophisticated, but that is fine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> ... I get the impression that the writer doesn't really understand the DIDO stuff. For that matter, neither do I, but I think I have a rough idea: if you have control over all the DIDO transceivers in the area and know precisely where each one is, you can control how the EM spectrum looks at/near each transceiver.

In effect, DIDO relies heavily on interference. We should not think of the transceivers as independent devices; instead, they are all part of the system, which is under centralized control. (for the uninitiated: interference is any combination of waves, regardless of whether it is actually detrimental or beneficial to the user)

This is harder to achieve than one might think, harder than if all transceivers were stationary. Consider the mobile devices -- those are part of the equation too, and they are variable (not to mention any intervening objects that might contribute unaccounted interference). They also need to communicate with the DIDO datacenter somehow, and this is where my reasoning breaks down...

</comment><comment><USER14> I advise you to skip the article and read the white paper instead since this article relies _heavily_ on it: <http://www.rearden.com/DIDO/DIDO_White_Paper_110727.pdf>

Can anyone with expertise in the domain chime in on the credibility of these claims?

My understanding is that the system determines how test signals are modified at each user's device because of interferences and works backwards from that to create the waves that each access points needs to send out so that they all interfere together so that they're clear at each user's device location.

Sounds ok in theory, but I don't really get how that can work in practice. For example, wouldn't all access points send the signals at exactly the same time? How can they insure that? How can they insure the interferences won't have changed between the test signals and when the real signals are sent?

<comment><USER15> "For example, wouldn't all access points send the signals at exactly the same time? How can they insure that? How can they insure the interferences won't have changed between the test signals and when the real signals are sent?"

I think the key is to see the DIDO access points as part of a larger system and not as traditional access points. "So, you can think of the DIDO APs as a vast random array of antennas extending out from the DIDO Data Center for miles" as the whitepaper says. I assume that all the access points will be stationary and will talk to the DIDO centre very regularly. This would be required, at least in my mind, to ensure that their environment characterisation is accurate and up to date and to syncronise transmissions.

<comment><USER16> "For example, wouldn't all access points send the signals at exactly the same time?"

Yes, apparently there is a timing issue.

Maybe can resolve the timing issue by having the transmitters send timing signals. Then maybe one transmitter becomes the 'central timing' source.

So, maybe discretize time into, say, time windows where each window is, say, only a millisecond or so long. Maybe get a new window each, say, 3 milliseconds. Then at the beginning of each window, each transmitter sends. To get them all to send at the same time, use the central time source with each transmitter knowing its delay from the central source. So, for a window, the central time source says "SEND", and each transmitter knows just how long to wait after receiving the "SEND" message before starting to send.

Maybe some such.

"How can they insure the interferences won't have changed between the test signals and when the real signals are sent?"

Use the test signals every few milliseconds to recalculate all the transfer functions to all the receivers. If occasionally a receiver moves a little too fast, then depend on TCP to handle the error.

Maybe.

Do ask that mostly each receiver B is logically connected to nearly the nearest transmitter A. Then for transmitters a long way away from A and, thus, also B, they should be able mostly to f'get about the signal from A to B. That should help the timing issues.

So, in some area with a lot of users where want a lot of data rate at the one frequency available in that area, put in a lot of transmitters. Then expect that each user will get associated with a transmitter of their own that is nearly the nearest transmitter to them.

The location of each transmitter is essentially fixed; if the location varies a little day by day, no problem. The location of each receiver is essentially fixed over, say, a few milliseconds; that should be okay if redo the 'test signal' handshaking each few milliseconds.

Remember that are only sending digital packet data and looking for latencies only less than a few milliseconds. So, get a little time, a millisecond here and there, to send test signals, do the handshaking to get all the transmitters sending at the same time, buffer up at each transmitter the data to send during the next time window, etc.

For the communications between the central 'smart box' and each of the transmitters, have lots of options including, say, some form of multi-drop passive optical.

To make money, a key will be to keep the costs for installation down. So, need to be cheap at the central box, the communications from that box to the transmitters, the transmitters, and the card in each receiver.

Hmm, to 'wire' a suburb, go to a homeowner and rent a few square feet in their attic! Put in the central box and, say, 100 transmitters. To this house, run, say, 10 GbE over optical. So, that would be 100 Mbps per transmitter. Put a UPS in the attic. Hope to give really good service to, say, 25, maybe, 50 houses.

Cute solution to the 'last mile'!

If an attic gets busy, then light another 10 GbE wavelength in the optical fiber to the attic and put in another 100 transmitters.

Maybe!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The idea on which it's based is described on page 12 of the whitepaper. Skip the article. It's useless.

<comment><USER17> Totally. It glosses over the issue that I wanted to understand.

"The full explanation for why this happens is very long and involves immensely complex mathematics, carefully designed software and hardware, and new data communications and modulation techniques. Simply put, DIDO is a cloud wireless system."

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I would wager that is phased array in reverse (phased array broadcasting). Constructs a 4d data space unique to all users, probably can't in this version handle moving receivers.

Think of it like this, if a phased array receiver can reconstruct the signal at any point, why can't a phased array broadcaster emit signals that recreate any signal at any point in space.

Wrong?

</comment><comment><USER19> The white paper is non-technical, but I think this is the gist:

Currently, if you have multiple users and 1 access point (AP), the users split the bandwidth. Multiple APs and multiple users on the same channel results in split bandwidth as well, since the APs operate independently and interfere with each other.

This proposal uses N APs for N users on the same channel, allowing for full bidirectional use of the channel bandwidth by each user. To send data to N users simultaneously, a central server receives the data, and calculates the signal to send to each AP such that the user receives only the clean signal meant for him post interference. This requires precise localization of the user in AP space, presumably done by having the user transmit a certain pattern at the particular frequency, and measuring the result at each of the channels.

For the N users to transmit simultaneously to the N APs, the data center can take each of the incoming signals from the N APs along with the localization of the users in AP space, and apply linear algebra to unmix the signals into a signal from each user.

I imagine this adds some overhead to each channel in order to maintain precise localizations of each user in AP space.

</comment><comment><USER20> It seems like there should be limits to how many waveforms you could combine without needing more spectrum.

Let's say I wanted to email N distinct 1MB attachments to N users. Before sending, every user generates a unique key and sends it to me. I then use my super math to encode/compress the N distinct 1MB attachments into a single a single combined 1MB attachment. I then send that resulting combined 1MB attachment to all N users. Each user then uses his unique key to decode/decompress the 1MB combined attachment and, viola, he gets the distinct 1MB attachment intended for him.

Now scale that up to very high values of N. Linearly. While the keys are changing constantly. And keeping the combined attachment fixed at 1MB.

Is my analogy way off? If not, I don't see how this would be possible.

<comment><USER21> This is a bit off. Consider it rather like this: you can transmit a sine wave of varying phase and/or amplitude. With a single transmitter and no multi-path interference, each receiver sees the exact wave, plus some noise. Shannon's paper defines the limits on what you can transfer.

Now consider when you have multiple coordinated transmitters transmitting with different phases and amplitudes. Each receiver receives the sum of these functions at a relative offset equal to the varying distances, so will decode as a different symbol.

Visual aid:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Two_sources_interference.g...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Two_sources_interference.gif)

That's the simplest interference pattern you'll see. It's obvious to see that the wave a receiver gets will be dependent on location (e.g. notice the bands of 180 degree flipped phase). As a thought experiment you could imagine varying the phase and amplitude of the two transmitters such that receivers in 2 different places would see either similar, or different waveforms. There is almost certainly a limit to how many users you could support with N transmitters, but with good enough math and feedback, it's potentially fairly high, which is what these guys claim they can do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Definitely very interesting technique but it sounds like the big challenge will be scaling up to large numbers of base stations and mobile (vs. semi- stationary) clients. Inverting the matrices mentioned in the patent and continually updating the parameters to create the interference bubble around the roving antenna is going to take a lot of processing horsepower. As mentioned in another comment, getting reasonable battery life out of a mobile device using this technology is going to be tricky.

I didn't read the whole patent, is changing environment (e.g. cars passing by) taken into account? I imagine that multi-path reflections off of neighboring objects would be too dynamic to update in real time.

</comment><comment><USER23> So, they claim this has much lower latency than WiFi, on the order of 1ms and yet they need a round-trip /over the internet/ to their datacenter to generate a waveform. That AP-Datacenter communication inherently adds more latency than a WiFi link. What am I missing?

<comment><USER24> Perhaps what they mean by "data center" is simply a server running at each wireless access point?

<comment><USER25> Except you need to combine the waveforms of multiple access points, so the APs need to send the current radio profiles to a shared server, the server needs to receive the proxied information and generate the waveforms for each AP, then the waveforms need to get sent back to the APs and transmitted over the radios.

Obviously, this is not what they are referring to in the 1ms timing, but I don't know what it is they are referring to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This is snake oil until there is much better documentation.

If the original signal had the capacity to carry more signal as an overlay, why wouldn't that capacity have been available to the original sender as well? I haven't seen anything here which contradicts that proposition. There's some hocus pocus about APs arranging for distinct signatures, but that's irrelevant to how distinct signatures can be overlaid without reducing the capacity available to any one signature.

Now, maybe the original had spare capacity which it couldn't use for some reason. But that doesn't contradict Shannon.

And there's no third option. Either Shannon is true and Perlman is false or vice versa.

<comment><USER27> This is not the case. If you have N spatially separated antennas then you can transmit information at a rate of N * the Shannon limit. This is the case with MIMO as well, except in MIMO both of your terminals have N antennas. This DIDO concept seems to use multiple base station antennas which may be physically separated but only one mobile antenna. Of course, as a consequence the increased channel capacity is strictly one-way.

<comment><USER28> Are you sure that makes it one-way? Can't you apply the same mapping in reverse to extract received data?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Oversimplifying, Shannon's theorem applies to a single channel between source and destination.

Current Wifi uses the same channel for all destinations, since there is no way to spatially separate destinations - thus the signals to different destinations interfere and proportionately reduce the capacity to individual destinations.

DIDO is creating spatially separated channels to each destination by modeling the spatial domain and creating signals from different APs which interfere to deliver independent channels to each destination.

</comment><comment><USER30> I'm no network security expert at all but could something like this, if implemented by a company, render DDoS attacks useless? I know DDoS attacks have to deal with the server's ability to process the packets but could this technology be engineered to allow these attacks to occur without any affect on the site under attack?

<comment><USER5> Even if a user can utilize the maximum bandwidth provided by a wireless network, it still doesn't necessarily follow that the resulting data transmission rate would also be capable of overwhelming the information processing capacity of some server.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Can you use this for the uplink also?

Does the base station has to update the clients with the calculated and needed transformations? But still you can't fit that with the data of all the other clients.

Am I missing something?

</comment><comment><USER32> Article about this from Wired last month: [http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/06/perlman-holy-grail- wi...](http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/06/perlman-holy-grail-wireless)

<comment><USER33> Perlman also gave a talk at Columbia in June where he discussed this a bit (if only superficially): <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QxrQnJCXKo>

It's around the 55:13 mark.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Wish I had read the HN comments first, I came to same conclusion: read the white paper, not the article.

Fascinating stuff, this could very well be revolutionary if it's proven to scale up.

</comment><comment><USER35> But what about the uploads from user devices to access points ?... according to the explanation provided, this seem to be optimized for data transfer from access point to user devices..

</comment><comment><USER36> A question: Is there antenna tech that would complement this and hopefully move it towards mass application/adoption faster? Or has antenna tech reached its limit?

</comment><comment><USER37> FTA: "Rearden has built a test system with several access points in Pflugerville, Lake Austin, and Austin — all cities in Texas."

Great. Show us the data.

</comment><comment><USER38> very interesting. It sounds like they are precomputing the streams into a single stream so that the interference at a given location only has to be calculated against background noise and not other signals. So in other words its not one signal overriding eachother, because there is only one signal at a given location and all devices know how to eavesdrop their signal out of the master one. Interesting concept.

</comment><comment><USER21> I've got the basics of how base-station -> mobile works, but how about the reverse? Is upstream still shared bandwidth?

</comment><comment><USER39> The difficult task to get this technology to people- Telecom Monopolies and the complex Taxes

</comment><comment><USER16> Looks doable in a straightforward, simple, elementary way:

We start with some background in 'signals'. Suppose for time t we have real number u(t). Suppose we have a 'time invariant linear system' and send in signal u = u(t). Suppose the signal that comes out is s = s(t). Suppose the 'transfer function' of the system is H = H(w) for frequency w (H must exist because our system is time invariant and linear). Suppose U = U(w) is the Fourier transform of u and S = S(w) is the Fourier transform of s. Then, presto, for each frequency w,

         S(w) = H(w) U(w),

and the output s = s(t) is just the inverse Fourier transform of S = S(w).

If for time t we have only a finite interval and for the signal have all the power in a finite 'band' (have a 'band-limited' signal), that is, have a maximum frequency with any power, then we can discretize both time and frequency and use the fast Fourier transform (FFT) to do the Fourier transform work (actually a non-trivial signal cannot be both time limited and band- limited at the same time, but as we discretize time the signal can be band- limited and zero at all our discrete time points outside of finite interval of time -- don't worry about such things!).

Suppose for some positive integer n we have n transmitters at distinct geographic locations. Suppose we also have n receivers at distinct geographic locations.

Suppose for receiver j = 1, 2, ..., n we want to send to receiver j signal s_j = s_j(t) for time t. Here we are borrowing from TeX where _j indicates a subscript.

Suppose by sending 'test signals' we have, for transmitter i = 1, 2, ..., n and receiver j = 1, 2, ..., n, 'transfer function' H_ij = H_ij(w) where w is frequency.

So, we want signals u_i = u_i(t) so that when, all at the same time, for all i = 1, 2, ..., n, transmitter i sends signal u_i, then each receiver j receives the desired s_j.

Let U_i be the Fourier transform of u_i and S_j be the Fourier transform of s_j.

Then borrowing from TeX, for each frequency w

         S_j(w) = sum_{i = 1}^n H_ij(w) U_i(w)

Now pick a particular value w of our discrete frequencies.

Let's let S(w) be the n x 1 matrix with S_j(w) in component j, H(w), the n x n matrix with H_ij(w) in component i, j, and U(w), the n x 1 matrix with U_i(w) in component i.

Then we have

         S(w) = H(w) U(w)

where on the right we have matrix multiplication of n x n H(w) and n x 1 U(w)

Then

         U(w) = H(w)^(-1) S(w)

where

         H(w)^(-1)

is the inverse of n x n matrix H(w).

Do this calculation for each w and have all of U = (U_i). For each i = 1, 2, ..., n, take the inverse Fourier transform of U_i = U_i(w) and get u_i = u_i(t). Done.

The math was not very advanced! Sorry 'bout that!

But there is an issue with Shannon's theorem: As n grows, the total power in the signals u_i, i = 1, 2,, ..., n, stands to grow. Shannon's result was for bounded power on the communications channel or at least bounded signal to noise ratio.

</comment><comment><USER40> " _The complete answer to this question is very long, involving immensely complex mathematics, very carefully designed software and hardware, and new data communications and modulation techniques. The following is a highly simplified explanation_ " = BULLSHIT

Sorry, guys, but it sounds like somebody is trying to raise money for vaporware.

<comment><USER41> Perhaps you should read the white paper and the patent application before writing off a decade's worth of work as bullshit?</comment></comment>


A Muslim PhD student gets targeted as a security risk; now he wants to know why - <AUTHOR> http://features.crosscut.com/black-muslim-grad-student-security-risk <comment><USER2> The reason is very clear and simple: because he is a Muslim and terrorist attacks by Muslims are very common nowadays. The real question is how far are we willing to go to prevent terror attacks. Are we willing to let innocent people get harassed on a regular basis?

<comment><USER3> You don't seem to be surprised by the content of the article. May I ask what your stance is on the issue of further marginalizing Muslims living in America? I am a Tunisian-American Muslim by the way.

<comment><USER4> It like saying you have to eat only at Mcdonald's and its unhealthy for you. Everyone would like to complain about that, unless there is no food and you're starving...then McDonald's seems like a more reasonable solution.

<comment><USER3> The biggest problem I see with this kind of argument is that once you _enable_ the explicit and outright marginalization of a particular group, it becomes essentially impossible to ensure that it stays limited to said group. See: "First they came...".

There are two other problems with this mindset. The first is that _objectively quantifying_ the benefit vs. downside of marginalizing a particular group doesn't happen. Instead, feelings and opinions seep in -- a fear of the "other", if you will. The second is that, by marginalizing a group, you more often that not end up making your problem worse.

The "other way" is to try to understand the root causes behind such attacks, and work with the communities that are closest; in this case, Muslim communities around America. It's quite known by now that American Muslims are very willing to cooperate with authorities when the need arises.

<comment><USER4> It's not that confusing.

We don't see radical Buddhist bombing things?

<comment><USER3> You are missing the point entirely. It's not about the "why", but rather the precedent it sets.

> We DON"T have Radical Christians, Radical Hindus, Radicial Buddhist trying > to blow up civilians.

Ehh there are in fact radical Christians who kill innocents in the US. Radical Hindus and Buddhists also exist, but in other countries.

> It does mean however that more specific attention should be paid to muslims, > as they are most likely to contain the threat.

So I assume you think it's OK to profile people of other religions and/or ethnicities (e.g., African Americans)?

<comment><USER4> " there are in FACT radical christians who kill innocents in the Us?"

Where? That doesn't sound credible, but let me give you the benefit of the doubt.

Don't get 1 nut job...show me what you mean?

<comment><USER5> Read the United States Government Accountability Office: [http://www.gao.gov/assets/690/683984.pdf](http://www.gao.gov/assets/690/683984.pdf)

"Of the 85 violent extremist incidents that resulted in death since September 12, 2001, far right wing violent extremist groups were responsible for 62 (73 percent) while radical Islamist violent extremists were responsible for 23 (27 percent)."</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Website to Help Those Streaming Rosary Prayer Online (Bahasa Indonesia Language) - <AUTHOR> https://rosario.sawirstudio.com <comment><USER2> Interesting.

I'm part of a group that prays the Rosary over video conference (VC). It's organized pretty well. There's an organizer who has a slideshow with each prayer on it and an animation counting them (e.g. a slide for each Hail Mary). During each mystery there are 2 people unmuted: the mystery leader and the mystery responder. They each say their respective halves of the prayers. All the other people say the response, but are muted; this avoids the muffled mess of multiple people talking simultaneously over VC. Between each mystery the organizer announces who the leader and responder are for the next mystery; this makes sure it's organized and no one forgets.

The organizer advances the slides so no one loses count. And the slides have the prayers on them, so even people who don't have them memorized can take part.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Thorrez, that's nice

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I make a Rosary prayer website to those who use OBS software and stream it online.</comment>


Akiyoshi's Illusion Pages - <AUTHOR> http://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/~akitaoka/index-e.html <comment><USER2> My senior undergraduate research thesis was based on the illusions Dr. Kitaoka had constructed. I tested people's ability to perform tasks that required them to understand heightmap data given one of three randomly selected renderers: a top-down, completely flat map with no height rendering as a control; a similar rendering but with Akiyoshi's "A Bulge" illusion generated on the fly for each "hill"; and an isometric rendering where the hills were rendered in 2.5D. I was able to show that the illusion method was about 95% as effective at conveying heightmap data as the isometric map, while being no more computationally complex than the flat map. At the time (2005), it was one of the first direct uses of optical illusion in computer graphics. It was also one of the first papers to discuss the importance of changing graphics techniques to extend battery life on mobile devices.

EDIT: forgot I had put up all my stuff into a Github repo a few years ago: [https://github.com/capnmidnight/optical-illusions-in- cg/blob...](https://github.com/capnmidnight/optical-illusions-in- cg/blob/master/final_draft.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER3> For context, he got a little boost recently from his "strawberry cake" illusion tweet : [https://twitter.com/AkiyoshiKitaoka/status/83674359846907084...](https://twitter.com/AkiyoshiKitaoka/status/836743598469070849)

</comment><comment><USER4> Something so refreshing about this unapologetically 1996 styled web site and vast amount of incredible content. This is a great find.

<comment><USER5> I miss the 1996-1997 type web sites. Ads and money has changed the web so much.

I recently had the idea to start a like 1994-style Yahoo-style web site that only links to sites which fulfill these conditions:

a) they have a lot of quality content

b) they only have minimal or no ads (absolutely no signups, freemium sites, 14-day trials etc).

c) no obnoxious self-advertising of a company's own brand (e.g. "Will It Blend? | Presented by Blendtec").

d) (this one is hard to quantify, but it's a kind of "I know it when I see it" thing) they were made with love and a desire to spread thoughts and creations.. rather than a desire for making money.

Obviously this directory site would not be a vehicle for making money. I also don't want this to be a hipster coolness thing. It's not the retro-ugly layouts I'm after, it's the content.

Stupid? Does it already exist?

The site that I came across that triggered this thought was [http://www.americanradiohistory.com/](http://www.americanradiohistory.com/) .

<comment><USER6> What you're talking about making is how Yahoo! started out. As a directory of the web. Curated by humans. If you start one please share a link.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Having seen the rotating snakes illusion before, I decided to stare at it, playing with the focus of my eyes until the illusion of motion stopped.

Once it did, I found that many of the other illusions also didn't work. Also, I have a headache, and everything not on my screen seems slightly unfocused.

Clearly I tried a bit too hard!

<comment><USER8> Frustrated by trompe oeils, defiant HN nerd uses concentration and focus tricks to hack his biological GPU to dump raw eye input. Optical illusions disappear. But to his horror, the rest of the world actually naturally blurry. Moral of the story: don't hack on production.

<comment><USER9> Frustrated by trompe l'oeils, a defiant Hackernews uses concentration and focus tricks to hack his biological GPU to dump raw eye input while waiting for his Idris proof of the commutativity of addition to finish compiling. Optical illusions disappear. But to his horror, the rest of the world is actually naturally blurry. Another Hackernews shows up to satirise said idiot's "experience", as massing clouds of Strikeforces of all sorts loom darkly in the distance, smelling neural buffer overflows.

(Honestly, though, that website is amazing. The "idiot" was purely for effect.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is a little off topic but seems as good a place as any to ask:

Is anyone working on computer vision that is "tricked" by illusions? I'm curious because it seems like a good way to test how accurately computer vision maps to human vision (then again, I'm not even sure that's a goal!)

<comment><USER11> Sort of. Computer vision is susceptible to illusions, although as you can see in the link, not the same type that we are.

[https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/195789-bad-news- future-c...](https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/195789-bad-news-future- computers-are-easily-tricked-by-optical-illusions-too)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Many of these are fantastic, I could swear some of them used actual animation. For example [http://www.psy.ritsumei.ac.jp/~akitaoka/kagero3e.html](http://www.psy.ritsumei.ac.jp/~akitaoka/kagero3e.html)

What causes the appearance of movement?

<comment><USER13> I suspect it's your brain trying to reconcile misleading shadow/highlight information.

<comment><USER14> I thought it was misrepresentating the shadows and highlights as the "negative" afterglow you get after something has moved on the retina.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I can't get the rotating rays one to work. Just stays stationary. All others are fine.

<comment><USER16> Similar here. Got it to work somewhat by staring at a fixed point on the image and using my mouse to scroll the page up and down slightly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Aghh, this is what it feels like to have a migraine with aura, except that with a migraine your vision looks like this no matter what you're looking at.

</comment><comment><USER18> Nice paper from 2008 here exploring how to make specific patterns : [http://graphics.csie.ncku.edu.tw/SAI/](http://graphics.csie.ncku.edu.tw/SAI/)

</comment><comment><USER19> After looking this page everything seems to be moving.

</comment><comment><USER20> Am I the only person who is made nauseous by the rotating snakes illusion? I had to hit the back button before the page was done loading.

<comment><USER21> > Should you feel dizzy, you had better leave this page immediately

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> "A bulge" is brilliant! Pinch-zooming on a phone and lining up the square lines against the screen edge is mind blowing.

</comment><comment><USER23> Some of them don't move at all for me... except while scrolling the page.</comment>


Ask HN: How are you preparing for your remote intern? - <AUTHOR> I imagine many of us are in the same boat - we've mentored many on-site interns but due to COVID-19 we're now managing a remote worker for the first time. How are you preparing for this?<p>In a more general sense: Managers who have never managed remote teams, what have your experiences been transitioning to a remote team and/or on-boarding new employees? <comment><USER2> Quick tip:

Have a person that has call with the new intern every day for the first 1-2 weeks.

Blocked to be 30mins, meant to be 15mins.

It allows to "bring stupid questions / blockers" to the next day's meeting. It create bonding and team culture understanding.</comment>


Show HN: Adopted a dog, had no clue what meds she needed, did some research - <AUTHOR> http://www.dogmedicationdb.com/ <comment><USER2> I just want to say that this is an beautiful example of the hacker ethos being put to use. The creator got into a new field, saw a hole in information, and put together a neat, useful resource. Just perfect.

<comment><USER3> +1

Actually, I was having this exact same issue last week, as my dog was sick and I found myself scouring google for even a semi-organized resource. Excellent job!

<comment><USER4> I am going to save, but I think it still could use some medications to be complete. I think some commonly used "farm" medications, like the very effective de-wormer; panacur would be a good addition. For example, this drug can be given orally in food as a paste, tastes ok, is safe and will eradicate roundworms, hookworms, whipworms and certain tapeworms.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I would recommend adding a warning for Hartz products - they are notoriously toxic and kill pets. [http://www.hartzvictims.org/](http://www.hartzvictims.org/)

<comment><USER6> Showed this to my wife, a veterinarian, that was her first comment - don't use Hartz, their products kill cats and dogs.

Her second comment was that the matrix seemed outdated, most meds were available in oral form now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't want to be a downer, but I don't like this concept. I understand the desire to educate yourself about the medicine you need for your pet, but the best thing you can do is find a good vet that you trust to give you this advice. In fact the mechanism that you have where by you allow the user to buy said medication from Amazon makes it seem like your putting this list out as an alternative to proper medical care.

There is much more to taking care of a pet then reading the packages of some medication and then buying it from amazon.

<comment><USER8> This is terrible advice. Whether it's for your own heath or your pet's you should always educate yourself. Doctors/veterinarian are heavily influenced by drug/pet supply companies. From her first days veterinary school, my girlfriend was constantly lobbied and given perks and educational material from the industry. It's not that she's not a good vet, but the system is corrupt.

In the case of my grandfather, multiple times we caught the doctor prescribing expensive prescriptions when more effective generics were available. In the case of my dog, my local vet pushes for Purina pet food[1] and vaccines when my doc is regularly titered. She is oblivious or fails to acknowledge the risks of a Lyme Vaccine carries [2] and serious allergic reactions that her recommended flea control can cause.

The only way to guarantee the best health care for yourself and your pet, is to educate yourself.

[1] [http://www.aplusflintriverranch.com/define-menufoods- petfood...](http://www.aplusflintriverranch.com/define-menufoods- petfoodrecall.php)

[2] [http://www.alldogsgym.com/health-and- nutrition/articles/heal...](http://www.alldogsgym.com/health-and- nutrition/articles/health-and-nutrition/nh-sunday-news-dog-tracks-column- sp-67677413)

<comment><USER9> I still remember my vet having recommended opening my cat up (at a cost of thousands), with big chance for dying, for a sickness the vet couldn't figure out that my cat recovered on her own after we decided to let her come home and die with us instead. The vet said it was urgent because she wouldn't eat but actually our cat just needed a bit more attention when being fed while sick. She recovered after I took a day off and fed her a biscuit by hand the whole day, every 5 or 10 minutes.

<comment><USER10> This is a single anecdote. This kind of thing happens with human doctors, lawyers, auto mechanics, and even engineers.

With incomplete information, you sometimes make an incorrect diagnosis. It doesn't reflect the overall value of the profession.

Your cat could just as easily have died, and from the experience of dating a vet for many years, I can tell you that they very often do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is there an algorithm that would find the minimum subset of these to cover every parasite/bug?

<comment><USER12> It'd be a really bad idea to just load your dogs up on meds. The risk of these parasites varies greatly by geographical region. For example, in the pacific northwest, there's no need to protect against heartworms.

<comment><USER13> Are you sure about this? My wife and I fostered a dog last year (here in Southern Oregon) that had heartworms. The treatment was nasty and dangerous to the dog, but the dog did recover.

<comment><USER12> Dogs won't contract heartworms naturally here but dogs brought in from other areas are definitely at risk of already having heartworms and possibly sharing those via feces. Basically an invasive species.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Awesome. Problem found, solution created. See, you don't need to create ridiculously overfunded ( - exuse my language -) bullshit products in order to "put a dent in the universe". Just try provide a solution to a real problem. Thumbs up!

</comment><comment><USER15> This is really great, thank you for doing this.

Could you please add Advantix, Scalibor, Kiltix and Foresto for us Europeans :)

We use most of the others here also, but those I have listed above are used alongside the ones you have listed.

</comment><comment><USER16> Trifexis is awesome and what I use for my active dog (and we have never had flea problems). The problem is that the pill smells very, very strongly of mold. I have to smash up the pill and mix it into peanut butter for my dog to even look at it. I also administer it outside and use gloves, because it will have your house smelling of mold for days. With a smaller dog (thus smaller dose/pill), you could force it down, but a 30+ lb dog will have too big of a pill and won't eat it normally for any reason.

<comment><USER17> Does your dog throw up often when taking Trifexis? I was considering making the switch, but my parents dogs both have had a really hard time with it. Eventually they (my parents) gave up on Trifexis and went back to topical stuff because the vomiting was so bad.

To that end, I wouldn't mind maybe an accompanying table to the OP's medical list that maybe listed the negative side effects of some of these treatments. Might be a bit too much to ask though.

<comment><USER16> No, I haven't seen any vomiting. I was worried about that since I was breaking up the pill (and it smells awful) but my vet said it was fine since it is supposed to be chewable. I always serve it right after a full meal (usually the morning).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> A Veterinarian with reasonable prices is greatly valued. So valuable, with the right marketing I feel people would leave their estates to your business; I would. That's all I really have to say to Veterinarians, but I feel a lot of you need to ask for some businees advise. I see a lot of people skipping the trips to the vet because they just can't afford the high priced boutiqe veterinarian practice. I know people are inherintly cheep, but I think most just want to be treated fair. I also know what happens when vet hospitals offer too much for free. (SFSPCA offered a "no kill" policy. People started to abandon their animals, and ruined a great organization.) I will pass along-- I've always had big dogs. A Bullmastiff, and mixed breed American Bulldog/Pit. They look sturdy, but they are fragile. The purebred Bull Mastiff was always at the veterinarian. She had multiple problems from huge paws that attracted Foxtails/grass seeds to Entropian. I had a great income so going to the vet was no problem. I now have a low income and thank goodness for the mixed breeds. They are still fragile, but don't need to go to the vet as often. I still hear vets telling big breed dog owners about the benefits of exercise. Yes, exercise the dog, but let them choose when and where. All my dogs were over 100lbs, and when I exercized them too much their bodies fell apart. For the Bull Mastiff, a walk around a small lake was too much on a summer day with a gallon of water. She just dropped half way around. I sat with her until dusk, and then we just made it back to the car. My point is they, especially the Bulldog breeds are fragile.

</comment><comment><USER19> The NRDC has a listing of various products and safety concerns at:

[http://www.simplesteps.org/greenpaws- products](http://www.simplesteps.org/greenpaws-products)

I'm using NexGard(not listed - just approved in 2014) and seems to be working fine so far - but since its new there isn't much data on it. I preferred the oral over a topical so I didn't have to worry about topical applications transferring to the home, others, clothing etc.

</comment><comment><USER20> Heardgard and Frontline are usually all that anyone needs.

</comment><comment> k-mcgrady Interesting to read this thread to see that lots of people have to medicate their dogs. Is this a regional thing? I've had my dog 8 years and apart from the required injections it has never needed any medication.

<comment><USER21> In the US, yes. My dog gets two medical treats every month: one to prevent heart worms and one to keep ticks and fleas away.

<comment> k-mcgrady Interesting. Is this something most dog owners you know do? Like I said it isn't the case for me and I'm not aware of any of my friends medicating their dogs unless they've had a procedure at the vet or something serious happen that required a vet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Nice! It'd be helpful if one could check the column headers for the things you need to treat, and then the list is filtered for what is effective against those :)

</comment><comment><USER23> If the place you adopted the dog from didn't give you information, you should talk to a vet about what parasites are common in your region and what treatment options there are. --Many times vets will offer a couple of options for non-prescription treatment and prevention.

If you're in a region that doesn't have fleas and ticks, there's no reason to treat your dog for them. The same goes for many of the other parasites listed.

</comment><comment><USER24> Very cool. Nerd question -- can you talk a bit about how you made it? Tech stack used, etc.? Always curious about that stuff, especially when on Show HN.

</comment><comment><USER25> Nice site. Interesting to see the information clearly laid out like that. This should exist for everything as a decision making tool.

It's not an either-or. We have a vet, but we still do our research on everything they recommend to understand the decisions that are being made. It all works very well for us. We're informed, but we also have a trusted adviser.

</comment><comment><USER26> We just asked our vet.

<comment><USER27> Good first step, but you should research on your own. Vets can get kickbacks for pushing one and/or may not be up to date on all the latest studies and products.

You'd be surprised how bad vets (and doctors) can be with drugs. (Wife a pharmd.. and they drive her nuts)

Always value their professional opinion and experience, but never treat it as law

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Interesting that nothing protects from everything. Is that just not possible or is that on purpose?

<comment><USER10> You don't need to protect from everything. Several of these issues are so rare that you're better off treating them than preventing them and your dog suffering side effects.

You should really just talk to your vet. There's way more to it than a simple chart. They know the pharmacology, effectiveness, and necessity of all these drugs.

My girlfriend is a vet, and our dogs only take Trifexis. It works for our animals, their lifestyles, and our part of the country. Her prescription might change for an animal with short fur that goes hunting a lot. It all just depends.

<comment><USER29> In addition to not needing coverage for everything, some of the treatments require prescriptions because they can be dangerous to the pup. An example is preventative heartworm medication can be devastating to a dog with heartworms. A blood test is done to make sure a dog is heartworm negative.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Would be really awesome if there was some way to provide feedback on the effectiveness. My experience with cat medicine showed that what it says on the package is not to be trusted (for example all the "natural" stuff against fleas was completely useless)

<comment><USER10> Some of the "natural" stuff is also extremely dangerous.

Neem oil, for example, can kill your pet. You should never use neem oil anywhere near an animal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> In your research, did you explore other common immunizations like bordetella, parvo, rabies? (I realize these wouldn't fit into any overlapping things like you have here, I'm just curious if you might add it at some point.)

</comment><comment><USER32> The main question is: In what area/country are the parasites resistant against those toxins. e.g. in Bremen neither advantage nor frontline works against fleas.

And I'm missing ARDAP by Shell in this list.

</comment><comment><USER33> Awesome idea! Just a suggestion to the developer (if reading this), would be good to also have a list of what is okay to use on what breed/group (such as advocate for pastoral breeds).

</comment><comment><USER34> While this is a good list, these medications are kind of snake oily.

I've had 5 dogs in my lifetime that have lived to age 15+. All I do is take them to the vet yearly and feed them good quality dry dog food.

I have lived in rural Arkansas to the east bay California, as far as exposure to various things. I've had a half wolf dog in AR that would routinely kill and eat armadillos, opossums, terapins, and all kinds of small wildlife. He was probably exposed to all kinds of nasty things.

Never did I give him any of these dog preventative medications that seems to be so popular today.

<comment><USER20> I have fostered multiple dogs afflicted with heartworm and it's terrible to keep an active animal still for months to prevent them from having a pulmonary embolism. It's widespread, difficult to cure, and otherwise fatal.

You don't note if your dog was an indoor dog, but on that front, some of us do not like to have fleas and ticks in our houses.

edit: also, if you have dog and cats, you really need to have your animals on heartworm prevention. Heartworms are much more dangerous to cats than dogs.

<comment><USER13> +1 - I have also fostered a dog being treated for heartworm, and it's not easy, plus dangerous to the dog. Prevention is really important.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Do you have a template of this. I can think of 20 other areas where something like this would be useful. Nice work.

</comment><comment><USER36> Why not do something like that for humans?

<comment><USER37> Physicians use this book:

[http://www.amazon.com/Sanford-Guide-Antimicrobial-Therapy- Gu...](http://www.amazon.com/Sanford-Guide-Antimicrobial-Therapy- Guides/dp/193080878X/)

It has huge spreadsheets of antibiotics based on organism, resistance, etc. But there are a LOT of nuances to choosing the right medication.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> this is cool. i adopted a shelter mutt about 2 years ago and i love him to death.

comment/feedback on the table: make the headers float with scroll, so that when you get to the bottom of the table, you can still see what the columns are.

</comment><comment><USER36> I started clicking randomly, expecting it to change the Xs into Vs and vice- versa.

</comment><comment><USER39> Pretty neat! Care to share with us what type of tech you used in the backend?

</comment><comment><USER40> That dog will be alright. Great job you did there on the website.

</comment><comment><USER41> Would you do this to your child ? See a vet.

<comment><USER42> Don't be silly. A dog is not comparable to a person.

<comment> ryan-allen I like my dog more than I like other people's children. There's a comparison for you!</comment></comment></comment>


After_create bug in Rails 3 - <AUTHOR> http://ablogaboutcode.com/2011/08/17/after_create-bug-in-rails-3/

<comment><USER2> Rails bug reports can be submitted via <https://github.com/rails/rails/issues/new></comment>


Holding College Chiefs to Their Words - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124155688466088871.html

<comment><USER2> The sidebar has links to the complete essays. What a treat to get to read something personally penned by my alma mater's president!

(I also cannot help but read the essay in said president's voice and cadence, which was rather... unique)</comment>


Bill Hader Channels Tom Cruise – DeepFake [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWrhRBb-1Ig <comment><USER3> Does anyone know what models / software this person is using? I assume it's something off the shelf, because there are an abundance of other videos in this space produced by different people:

[https://www.cnet.com/news/parks-and-recreation-ron- swanson-d...](https://www.cnet.com/news/parks-and-recreation-ron-swanson- deepfaked-as-every-full-house-sitcom-character/)

I've been doing ML for audio (Tacotron, WaveRNN, etc.), but haven't stepped into the video world. I also work in film and want to apply this technique to my work.

How do they keep the frames from blurring or not needing to be rekeyed? The motion tracking is spot-on.

Would someone operating in this space be open to meeting over Hangouts or Skype to discuss the tech? I'd be happy to pay someone for a short survey of the space.

<comment><USER4> Pretty sure most of these crew are using DeepFaceLab, [https://github.com/iperov/DeepFaceLab](https://github.com/iperov/DeepFaceLab)

This was in the news for being the first(?) public GitHub repo that you needed an account to access. I believe to try and stem the tide of deepfake revenge porn or celebrity porn.

<comment><USER5> The shots in the gallery aren't nearly as impressive, though...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This video is helped by some superficial similarity between Hader and Cruise, and the transition to and from Seth Rogen's face is slightly less smooth. Still, this is incredibly well done.

<comment><USER7> The unsettling part is how fast the quality of deep fakes seems to have improved, to me that's unsettling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The Arnold Schwarzenegger video from the same guys is arguably better: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPhUhypV27w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPhUhypV27w)

<comment><USER9> Why have they not made the actual video they discuss with a baby's body in a diaper with Arnie's head on it. That would be classic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is the first deep fake I've seen that was good enough to fool a random Facebook user that wasn't looking for fakeness. Cool how far it's come.

<comment><USER11> Your friend was fooled to think that Hader did that on his own?

<comment><USER12> I'm technologically experienced enough to be posting and reading on HN.

It fooled me on the first view, I just didn't even see it, it was seamless.

<comment><USER7> Me as well, I thought to my self ' _that dude has some resemblance to Tom Cruise_ ' for a second and the next moment the similarity had dissapeared and I fully dismissed my initial reaction since he afterwards had no real resemblance.. Dismissed it and thought my mind had played a trick on me because of sleepiness or something. Only after glancing the video comments (after first full view) did I understand what was going on.

<comment><USER13> Same. I came across this clip a few days ago without the context.

It's a little embarrassing frankly. I kept thinking that he's such a good impersonator that he's able to manipulate his facial muscles in just such a way as to embody Tom Cruise.

My defenses are now up a bit higher.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Same creator as "Bill Hader impersonates Arnold Schwarzenegger", which I think is easier to see the shift in since there's less resemblance and higher quality: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPhUhypV27w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPhUhypV27w)

<comment><USER15> I think the subtlety of Hader/Cruise makes it even more disturbing.

<comment><USER16> What's disturbing is that people think he's literally shape shifting. Or they are trolling and I am getting too affected by it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Same user also did the Jim Carrey in Shining deepfake which is as well done as this and at times really unsettling. From now on I can safely say that I can't trust any video footage I see. This is that well done. The algos will only get better and do a convincing blend in 4K in the future.

<comment><USER18> Those The Shining clips are simply the best. Here is another that always make me chuckle:

[https://youtu.be/aUphMqs1vFw](https://youtu.be/aUphMqs1vFw) [Full House of Mustaches]

<comment><USER8> Thank you for that link. As a kid growing up in the 90s, that is just pure gold. Cant believe it only has 3000 views...

<comment><USER19> It is a repost as YouTube removed the original.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Once that deep fake technology algorithm gets in the hands of the masses (Adobe Premiere After Effects plugin, Instagram/Snapchat filter, Apple Facetime filter, etc) ... so many obvious directions it will take:

\- dating / flirting apps

\- job candidates being interviewed remotely via webcams will use software to make them look younger

\- "facelift" every television personality (news anchors, etc) and every movie actor. Both for creative purposes (younger/older timeline aging), for vanity, and for extending careers.

\- generate fake but convincing political ads to put words in the mouth of opponent that he/she never said

\- a growing distrust and skepticism of all videos _including archive footage_ because we never had SHA256 authenticated hash of the old videos widely disseminated _before_ deepfakes became ultrarealistic. E.g. There will be a subset of tomorrows kids that will not be convinced JFK ever actually said, _" landing a man on the moon"_. The WTC towers were never hit by airplanes. All that old footage will be dismissed as fake. Video evidence becomes useless. Yes, society will try to counteract it with software the detects deep fakes but some of the public still won't be convinced. (Same as evidence against anti-vaccine being rejected.)

<comment><USER21> Counterpoints:

1\. We don't have videos of The Gettysburg address. History existed before video.

2\. There will never be another generation (in the near future) like boomers who didn't grow up tech savvy

3\. Videos, like any form of documentation, are anecdotal evidence easily manipulated by what's "not in the frame"

4\. The general problem you are describing comes from a faulty attribution of truth to video in our current day and age. The sooner we dismiss that the better

Yes, the transition will be awkward, but no need for hysteria.

<comment><USER22> I don't know if there's need for hysteria, but I think this is a much bigger change than you're making it out to be. It's a different league than artful editing and framing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I've been thinking a lot about this one, and it gets a ton of help in the fact that Bill Hader is actually good at facial impressions, and that's what really sells it.

<comment><USER24> Yeah, he really nails Tom Cruise's mannerisms when he shakes his head at 1:27.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Directors can use any actor to portray any character, and then make the character appear any way they want. Decouples acting talent from appearance.

Peter Jackson's Bolg and Azog could have been much more convincing, just 7 years on.

<comment><USER26> It isn't too hard to image a future where actors no longer sell their skills but rather just their name and likeness. And – similar to photoshop or autotune — expressions, dialog, posture and everything else can be edited as needed.

<comment><USER27> How does one become a name actor then?

Assuming you mean they build up a name and then license their image ... I'm not sure you've met an actor before. This goes against every impulse of a great actor. They're completely obsessed with controlling their image and practicing their craft.

I think you may have meant celebrities.

<comment><USER28> >They're completely obsessed with controlling their image and practicing their craft.

I'm sure textile workers said the same thing before their skill and craft was replaced by a machine. Every artist and artisan thinks they're irreplaceable. Currently, many programmers think theirs is the only industry that can't be automated because there's some magical golden juice in their minds that produces some creative and intellectual quality no machine will ever be able to replicate. Like textile workers of old, their time will come too.

As much as actors may want their work to be art, their work is also product. When it becomes possible to manufacture an acceptable equivalent product through automation, then artists of all stripes will simply have to adapt to the new terms of the market like everyone else, or find other work. No one is going to care about the effort an actor puts into their performance when it becomes feasible to pay a few dollars to stream Marlon Brando into the original Star Wars.

<comment><USER27> Elite actors of the world are extremely rare, talented individuals. They compete in one of the most cut-throat fields I can think of. How is that analogous to a textile worker?

As long as there are humans, then actors, musicians, dancers, etc will be fine. People are fascinated with artists because they demonstrate a spectacle of skill and a genius which we don't have.

<comment><USER28> >Elite actors of the world are extremely rare, talented individuals. They compete in one of the most cut-throat fields I can think of. How is that analogous to a textile worker?

The textile workers replaced by automation were also once extremely rare, talented individuals. Rugs were once prized works of art, infused with culture and artisanal techniques passed down through generations. Now you can buy them at Wal-Mart. Unfortunately, the post-industrial market doesn't optimize for skill, it optimizes against it.

>People are fascinated with artists because they demonstrate a spectacle of skill and a genius which we don't have.

Most people aren't fascinated with skill and genius, they're fascinated with celebrity. Art isn't made to be appreciated nowadays, it's mass produced to be consumed like fast food, with little regard beyond the immediate satisfaction it provides, and the familiar comfort of mediocrity.

Sure, there will always be a place for human artists, dancers, musicians, etc, just as there is still a place for people who can weave rugs. But I do believe that most mainstream art will be automated as soon as the result is acceptable to the mainstream, and that includes automating the persona of the artist as well.

<comment><USER27> Artisanal textile workers, categorically, were not as talented as elite actors because the size of their competitive pool and the barriers to creating work were minuscule compared to that of Hollywood actors - who emigrate from all over the globe and assimilate to US culture to use their talent.

While a lot of cultural products (not art) like movies and shows are created like fast food, people are drawn to them because of the unique talent, charisma, looks, presence etc of the actors that participate. I don't see Avengers: End Game breaking box office records if it didn't have those rarefied individuals.

If you go back to my initial post, I pondered whether the original comment meant celebrity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Some of the tracking is still janky, but I'm surprised by the transitions - <USER2> can see when they shift, but I don't see any weird morph.

<comment><USER30> I think our brains are helping the transition along, given that before and after are both believably configured faces.

<comment><USER29> Totally, but that's exact same for our brain fooling us about the motion itself. And in motions case our brain throws in interpolated middle frames, not so in the face morph.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Is the (poor) video quality intentional? I'm curious if that is used to disguise the effects, or just due to the original video.

<comment><USER32> I believe it is due to the quality of the original video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zS1Aee2X3Yc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zS1Aee2X3Yc)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> These are super cool, but it makes me wonder how much longer before we get to an era where video evidence is no-longer admissible in court.

Yeah, you can see occasional artifacts and glitches with current deepfakes, but surely the software will only get better.

<comment><USER34> Clipping a video, reordering scenes, or reversing it, or just showing it in the wrong context can be enough to manipulate the viewer.

We should add integrity checks and digital signatures to videos.

<comment><USER33> That's an interesting idea; how would you go about suggesting we do that? Have some kind of hardware-signing thing that we put into video cameras, and sign every keyframe with it before its written to the SD card?

<comment><USER34> Reusing concepts from existing DRM technology.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I feel like it was just last year when some deep fakes were coming out and people waved them off as having obvious artifacts and too easy to ignore

</comment><comment><USER36> I thought these effects were going to be real fun, but it's kind of spooky and scary now. Perhaps good for horror movies.

</comment><comment><USER37> I don't see any change throughout the video. I don't see tom cruise even once. Where is he?

<comment><USER3> Tom Cruise was the source video. His face has been replaced by Bill Hader.

<comment><USER37> Ah, I've never seen the source video so that's why I didn't pick up on it.

<comment><USER38> I can't tell if you both are joking or not but watch the whole video. The source video is of Bill Hader. Bill hader's face changes to Tom Cruise everytime he talks from Tom's perspective. And then once to Seth Rogan for that impersonation.

<comment><USER37> I honestly can't see much change in the face throughout the video.

It probably doesn't help that I am so horrible at celebrities that I couldn't picture Tom Cruise or Bill Hader in my head if I tried, nor do I know what they're famous for. I just know that Tom Cruise sounds familiar and everyone seems to act like Bill Hader is significant so I go along with it.

I guess there's a some change in the face when he switches "voices". It's not nearly as exciting as the one of Obama saying stuff he's never said before though.

<comment><USER39> If you know Bill Hader's face, the change to Cruise is pretty obvious. The Cruise resemblance is subtle but strong.

Part of the point with fakes like this is it's not just gluing a head on someone else's body, like a bad photoshop. It's actually changing the facial features of the target to resemble someone else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Only on LSD have I seen faces change that seamlessly. There were a couple of spots that I noticed the transition, but that was like the 3rd viewing. I hope I never piss off someone with these abilities to make me say/do things I'd never imagine. The damage that can be done is mind boggling when used for that purpose.

</comment><comment><USER40>
       Photos do not lie, it is said. But frequently they tell partial
       truths. They tear moments out of time's flowing river and separate
       them from what has come before and what will follow. They can
       misrepresent as well as represent.

                    - JIM HOAGLAND

<comment><USER41> And that's before we even begin to discuss intentional manipulation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> I liked this Tom Cruise Deepfake by Node from a month back: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vHvOyZ0GbY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vHvOyZ0GbY)

(With making-of.)</comment>


British researcher who stopped WannaCry ransomware detained in US - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/aug/03/researcher-who-stopped-wannacry-ransomware-detained-in-us <comment><USER2> Another discussion from today:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14918545](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14918545)</comment>


Startups, Start Your Engines – The First Premium .CO Auction For Startups - <AUTHOR> http://morganlinton.com/startups-start-your-engines-announcing-the-first-premium-co-auction-for-startups/

<comment><USER2> Geeky comment here but this.co would go great with some company/business looking to educate the masses on namespacing. If only...</comment>


The World's First Bitcoin Conference - <AUTHOR> http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/networks/the-worlds-first-bitcoin-conference/0

<comment><USER2> I am a researcher and I publish papers...for the record. I am not proud of every paper that I publish. For those uninitiated with the research industry, take conferences (in general, not referring to this particular one), etc. with a pinch of salt. In some ways, conferences are the main mechanism for the organizing body to make money/achieve sustenance, committee members to embellish their resumes, researchers to add to their publication list while milking taxing-payers/profits (depending on her affiliation) to go on 'vacation' to present.

<comment><USER3> Based on this, it looks like the conference organizer is quite the sleezeball: [http://buttcoin.org/has-bruce-wagner-pulled-off-the- financia...](http://buttcoin.org/has-bruce-wagner-pulled-off-the-financial- biggest-scam-on-the-bitcoin-community)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is what has always confused me about Bitcoin.

How is it not a great scam?

The way I see it, the creators of Bitcoin have the lion's share of the coins. Since they're hard to mine, it's not like supply is increasing at a rate where it can offset that big initial pooling.

As a matter of fact, some of the big crashes I've seen are from mass cash-ins from people with exactly these large pools.

So, if Bitcoin actually becomes ubiquitous, as are the creator's goals, do the creators come out millionaires?

<comment><USER5> > How is it not a great scam?

How is it a great scam? Who is scammed here? No false information is provided, the protocol and program source code is all open source for you to examine.

Of course some bitcoin users can tell you that "I believe bitcoin value will rise tenfold in the next year", but that is not scamming. It is the same as I would say that "I believe nokia share will rise tenfold in the next month". If you believe me and buy Nokia shares, you are just stupid, not scammed :)

<comment><USER6> Or as some would tell you:

Bitcoins are backed by gold. Comedy gold.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Actually, probably first article I seen which describes correctly what bitcoin is (distributed ledger to which all parties have read access and parties having correct private keys have write access to corresponding parts of the ledger).

</comment><comment><USER6> Special keynote lecture by Bill Cosby?

<comment><USER8> It's an in joke. [http://buttcoin.org/bitcointalk-forums-hacked-bill-cosby- pim...](http://buttcoin.org/bitcointalk-forums-hacked-bill-cosby-pimping-new- cosbycoins%E2%84%A2-to-all-the-members-breaking)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Bitcoin's an interesting experiment but it's ultimately doomed because of the increasing "cost" (in terms of CPU cycles) of generating new bitcoins. <http://goo.gl/I34VL>

<comment><USER10> That's actually not specifically the problem with crytocurrencies. The CPU cost is dynamic in bitcoin, and has changed in the past to reflect more or less people mining new bitcoins.

The real problem with crytocurrencies is scaling transactions. In a model where every participant has to be aware of every transaction, it is extremely difficult to imagine it (quickly) handling millions of transactions a day.

<comment><USER5> > The real problem with crytocurrencies is scaling transactions.

Bitcoin economy should grow pretty big before scaling really becomes a problem. I think it won't be a problem for at least 1-2 years, unless things really explode. That would mean new world order :D

Some of the scalability issues are addressed here: <https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Scalability></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Do you feel that the software industry is stagnating? - <AUTHOR> Looking back at the industry breakthroughs, that fundamentally changed the way software is developed, to me, is the Hadoop map-reduce and HDFS.
I don't feel that some of the recent technologies - Docker, lambda, etc have contributed towards taking the CS, as a subject, or the Software, as an industry, forward.
Please share your opinion about the state of the software industry or the computer science subject, and where do you see/feel/think the field headed? <comment><USER2> > Please share your opinion about the state of the software industry .... > where do you see/feel/think the field headed?

A world where no consumer device works without the blue sky alignment of internet availability, vendor goodwill and security uneventfulness.

This is based on trends I've observed on most (but not all) new consumer devices I've purchased of late [1]:

* Requires internet for setup (always) and operation (usually)

* Only supports wifi (ethernet ports are rare, thus no easy VLAN option)

* Vendor mobile apps required (HTTP servers are crippled if available at all)

* Depends on MDNS / SSDP / proprietary multicast for discovery

* Requires a vendor user account (and rarely supports family access)

* Sends telemetry and updates firmware without any opt-in

* Service addresses are unconfigurable (eg NTP, DNS, MQTT)

* Documentation does not publish ingress or egress ports

The pendulum has swung too far toward plug and play (at the expense of reliability, security and privacy). Perhaps someday there will be an "ethical device" self-certification brand to promote those vendors trying to be more balanced.

In the meantime I mitigate using different SSIDs, VLANs and email accounts per vendor; relaying discovery protocols across IP subnets; logging traffic and denying by default; rewriting destination IPs for certain ports like DNS and NTP; local DNS to 127.0.0.1 attempts to call home; disabling options if given etc.

[1] Solar inverters (Enphase), house batteries (Sonnen), irrigation controllers (RainMachine), speech assistants (Amazon), amplifiers (Sony and Sonos), alarm panel (Paradox), EV (Tesla), SIP ATA (Cisco), home automation controller (Hubitat)

</comment><comment><USER3> Containerization and cloud services are applications of CS, not CS. They are to CS today what typesetters were to CS of the 1970s - pretty boring to consumers, but behind the scenes created an economy where things like Unix weren't just toys or research but projects backed by capital investment.

If you take a step back and look at the technological developments that the products you use every day are built upon, there is a lot of exciting things going on.

Just off the top of my head, immutable data structures and functional paradigms are becoming increasingly _useful_ to real products, and performant implementation of them is an exciting area of development.

There's also a lot of exciting development in programming languages themselves, and with the (hopeful) propagation of things like the Language Server Protocol developing and using _new_ languages is getting easier, distributing them is easier, and people are more receptive to using them. There's a new language craze going on right now and it's fun to be a part of.

</comment><comment><USER4> I get the feeling that most consumer software is consolidating on a single universal platform (the web). Whereby soon the web browser will essentially the gateway through which most users do their computing.

Rob Pike wrote Systems Software Research is Irrelevant [1], which I recommend you give a read based off the question.

[1] - [http://doc.cat-v.org/bell_labs/utah2000/utah2000.pdf](http://doc.cat-v.org/bell_labs/utah2000/utah2000.pdf)

<comment><AUTHOR> From the paper -Programmability􏰄, once the Big Idea in computing􏰄, has fallen by the wayside.

Can you help me understand what's this idea about?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> >I don't feel that some of the recent technologies - Docker, lambda, etc have contributed towards taking the CS, as a subject, or the Software, as an industry, forward.

I wouldn't except consumer software like Docker or Lambda to have any measurable impact on computer science. How much is the landscape of astronomy shaped by advancements in home telescopes?

<comment><USER6> > _How much is the landscape of astronomy shaped by advancements in home > telescopes?_

I'm pretty sure that was the _only_ way that the study of astronomy moved forward when it was a nascent field.

<comment><USER5> Computer science isn't a nascent field, and comparing the discoveries of individuals centuries ago to the collective academic pipeline of today is silly.

<comment><USER6> > _Computer science isn 't a nascent field_

That's like, just your opinion.

But, in all seriousness, do you really think CS is a mature field? We've barely scratched the surface of what is possible with quantum computers, and once that ball gets rolling, who knows what happens next. I would happily put money on the fact that the majority of breakthroughs in computer science have yet to come.

> _comparing the discoveries of individuals centuries ago to the collective > academic pipeline of today is silly_

Why would you say that? In the 1500-1800s, _most_ serious and important discoveries were generated by individuals (most who funded themselves).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> in the 90s, it was obvious that an app user interface was made by developers: tons of options, hierarchical actions, keyboard shortcuts, ergonomics optimized for speed. in 2019, it is obvious that apps are made from marketers: total lack of options, repetitive designs, optimize for cuteness and wasting time.

</comment><comment><USER8> I think it is regressing, UI design is touchscreen first, the old text interfaces were more information dense, default font size is 16 or 18 now.

But software? Compiler writers keep finding clever ways to improve software performance. There are demos from the demoscene that have 3D graphics and run on the Commodore 64.</comment>


Ask HN: Do you use dedicated GitHub/NPM/etc. accounts for work? - <AUTHOR> I'm tired of work notifications mixing in with notifications about my personal projects on platforms like NPM and Github. I'm thinking of making separate accounts for work. It occurs to me that others might have found a nice solution to this problem. Is there any better option than simply making a second series of accounts? <comment><USER2> Since anything created for work belongs to work in most cases unless waived in your employment agreement. It is always best practice to keep work and personal accounts separate, even when you are the owner of the company for liability reasons.

</comment><comment><USER3> I use my personal GitHub account for work. As far as I'm aware, all it means is I don't have to faff around with extra account logins and passwords; my account is already 2FA-enabled, and my individual repos are completely separate to my work code. My company repos are all private so it doesn't show in my public profile. The company admins can immediately lock me out of our repos. So, other than my GH handle being a HHGG reference, there's no real benefit to me using a separate account.

</comment><comment><USER4> At employers where I trust the hardware not to be compromised I happily use my personal accounts. At my current place IT support can't easily get root access on my machine (at least without an audit trail) so I feel okay to enter my personal account's credentials into the work machine.

If your IT staff has full remote root access on your machine I would avoid this though - they can easily key log your password or add a root certificate to break HTTPS and get access to your personal account's password, and from there all hell can break loose.

</comment><comment><USER5> I have 2 github accounts: one for my job and the other one for my personal projects. It really simplify the process of dealing with notifications and when you leave your job, you just forget about your account.

</comment><comment><USER6> Not sure if you use it but I think you can assign a notification email for organisations in GitHub

<comment><USER7> Indeed, under Settings → Notifications → Custom Routing.</comment></comment>


NoFAQ – A tool that corrects your console commands - <AUTHOR> https://nofaq.cs.wisc.edu/submit.html <comment><USER2> I like that, in response to a name resolution failure in a ping command provided by the "See a random example" button, it suggested

        sudo rm -rf /*

Maybe a little curation might be of value here?

<comment><USER3> Indeed curation is required, as an example you forgot to include ..

        --no-preserve-root

;)

<comment><USER4> Using '/*' doesn't need --no-preserve-root. Only 'rm -rf /' needs it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Not sure how well it works:

\- Suggested `ls` for `sl` despite the fact that the latter [0] is a wonderful utility.

\- `chomd` didn't yield any suggestion. Neither did `fskc`.

A similar utility that actually helps is thefuck [1].

[0] [https://github.com/mtoyoda/sl](https://github.com/mtoyoda/sl)

[1] [https://github.com/nvbn/thefuck](https://github.com/nvbn/thefuck)

<comment><USER4> Oddly enough, both of the points you bring up are handled perfectly by zsh's built-in correction. zsh will only suggest 'ls' for 'sl' if 'sl' isn't installed, and it'll catch 'fksc' and 'chomd'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> A lot of these suggestion things are nifty - another one is a machine learning code helper _(spots errors, identifies errors, etc)_.

Not sure if this even _has_ an api.. but i want it to. Despite that, my problem with them is that there's no way i'm going to send every failed command or all my code to some random 3rd party. It just isn't happening.

I'd _love_ for this thing to be a local install, and then i can pipe any command failures i have to it locally, and feel semi-secure about them.

Really, i think i just need to bite the bullet and improve my understanding of the math behind ML _(i 'm terrible at math)_, and take a course or two on ML. I feel like there are so many opportunities for ML in your local life, that you would _never_ ship off to a 3rd party. Hard to profit from, but seems great for open source projects.

 _(Note, i didn 't mean to imply that this site used ML at all.. the other code suggester service does.. and the two, from a UX perspective, feel similar to me)_

<comment><USER7> Thanks for your feedback! Currently, we don't have an external API, for curation and server load reasons. Also, we want to be as transparent as possible about what data is collected - the current website is a wholly "opt- in" sort of design.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Warren Teitelman implemented a rule-based command correction facility in BBN Lisp in the 1960s ([https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/6905](https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/6905)) that later became known as DWIM in InterLisp ([http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/LISP/interlisp-...](http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/LISP/interlisp-d/3100186-Interlisp_Oct83.pdf/view)). It was notorious for introducing weird errors: [https://groups.google.com/d/msg/comp.lang.misc/hBQ1autWqlI/I...](https://groups.google.com/d/msg/comp.lang.misc/hBQ1autWqlI/IL0TYoHljXEJ). There is also an anecdote about it deleting files in ESR's Hacker's Dictionary ([http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/D/DWIM.html](http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/D/DWIM.html)) that seems to be ESR's made up bullshit - the syntax is wrong, the anecdote is not in the old jargon file, and also the fact that Interlisp had undelete. A lot of people seemed to have liked the facility though.

</comment><comment><USER9> I remember a nifty little python app called 'fuck', where you'd typo something, then type "fuck", and it'd take a guess at correcting it for you.

Was pretty cool!

<comment><USER2> It's even cooler now! [https://github.com/nvbn/thefuck](https://github.com/nvbn/thefuck)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10>
        $ git pull origin master
        Your local changes to the following files would be overwritten by merge: user.abcd.suo

Suggestion: git rm --cached user.abcd.suo

Wooaa, no! (Now your local changes are gone.)

<comment><USER11> And maybe that's desired.

Or maybe it isn't.

The main problem with this, as I see it, is the lack of knowledge of the user's intention.

Without that, it's only good for total basics that built-in correction or 'thefuck' would handle.

With that, well.. that's StackOverflow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Needs a way to downvote bad data. Someone put in:

       Command: ls -l .bla
       Error: [ no output ]
       Suggestion: ls -lah .bla

Is this real?

Which environments have a Unix-like ls which refuses, without -a, to list an _explicitly named entry_ which exists, but starts with a dot?

<comment><USER7> Flagging of bad data is currently in the pipeline. We hope to push the feature soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This definitely needs some cleanup. I like the idea, but the suggested fix for "git remote" is "sudo rm -rf /". Thankfully it doesn't have --no-preserve- root, but still..</comment>


Ask HN: Best tool for saving web passwords? - <AUTHOR>

Hi.
I'm considering using lastpass.com for generating and storing all my passwords for various web sites, so I can login from my computer, phone, or some remote computer.
Is it safe?  Anything better?
Thanks! <comment><USER2> Lastpass. It has the ability to do secure notes in the browsers, so no more fumbling for my wallet when I need to order something. It works for all browsers, including mobile, and it is easy to back up.

Also, the just bought XMarks, and will be rolling that in. I see it becoming something of an information storing and syncing suite.

</comment><comment><USER3> I use 1Password. It has versions for Mac, Windows and iPhone, with extensions for all the browsers I use. For the rest they offer an HTML version of your keychain that works almost like the native app, so it is very convenient.

The only thing that is missing is a sync service (they used to have one but they chickened out). The keychain file can be shared on DropBox or something, so that kind of solves that problem, but it is not ideal :)

I haven't tried many alternatives, but so far I am happy with this solution :)

</comment><comment><USER4> I use Keepassx - the Linux sibling of Keepass. It is not as well developed but what makes it a workable are the field variables so you can more or less template teh whole setup.

My keepassx experience got a whole lot better when I stumbled on this page: <http://keepass.info/help/base/autourl.html>

and this one: <http://keepass.info/help/base/autotype.html#autoseq>

So for ssh sessions something like this in the url field: cmd://xterm -e "ssh {USERNAME}@{TITLE}"

and websites are similar... mutatis mutandis works with passwds too.

Right click the entry and select "Open URL" and you are in.

There has been some talk about Keepassx on the commandline which would be nice.

</comment><comment><USER5> I use 1Password with my keychain file in Dropbox. It works perfectly.

</comment><comment><USER6> I use revelation password manager. <http://oss.codepoet.no/revelation/wiki/Home>

It may not be the most complete manager around but it has everything that you require.

Combine that with dropbox and you can carry your encrypted password file around anywhere you go at any pc you have.

I store everything there.

I just wish there was an android version of it.

Perhaps ill do it one day if i ever manage to find some time !

</comment><comment><USER7> KeePassX databases synced everywhere using Dropbox. and just One big random passphrase to lock them all.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Noticed that LastPass is featured in the newly released Opera 11, as an example of an extension that can be installed. That's a pretty powerful vote as well!

</comment><comment><USER8> I had a License for 1password from when it only supported Windows but now I prefer to use LastPass. I work on 3 computers so it's alot easier this way

</comment><comment><USER9> KeePassX is a very popular cross-platform password manager. I think the Dropbox solution (from micheljansen) is pretty common.

</comment><comment><USER10> I just switched everything to lastpass.com and use it on my home pc, work pc, and iphone. Works great so far.

</comment><comment><USER11> I use passwordcard. <http://www.passwordcard.org/>

</comment><comment><USER12> LastPass for chrome. I've used a lot over the years and this is the one I've settled on.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Amazing how fast responses came in. I've signed up for LastPass.com. Thanks everyone!</comment>


Microsoft's new pitch: 'Every .Net developer is a Windows Phone developer' - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=5316

<comment><USER2> I hope the overall experience is better than current .Net development for Windows Mobile. I'm not a huge fan of XAML/Silverlight, but I can understand why they chose that for their mobile platform. XNA is going to be a huge hit too!

<comment><USER3> Yes, WinMob 6 development, at least with the Compact Framework, is not a pleasant experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> And every Java developer is an Android developer. Is Microsoft planning on opening a Windows Phone App Store? I'd be interested to see what that looks like.

<comment><USER5> No, not really. If WinMo 7 has full silverlight or wpf xaml support, the same code you run on the phone can run on the desktop as well (native or in the browser). Not so with Android. Think more like JavaFX, but on devices that'll actually ship.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> That was already true for what they're now calling "Windows Phone Classic."

</comment><comment><USER7> I guess this means be prepared for a ton of applications that are buggy, memory and CPU hogs. I'm a C# developer and developing for the iPhone has made me a much better developer in general. Things you don't have to worry about in .NET, like memory and thread management, are all in vogue now because Apple forces you to pay attention to them. And the compiler does a great job of letting you know that your application is as leaky as 100 year old plumbing.

Now the only question I have is will they take a cue from Apple and include free WM7 development tools in VS Express, or do you have to pony up $800 for the privilege?

<comment><USER8> I agree that programming in lower language like C (and Objective C to some extent) makes you a better programmer, since you are figuring out the nuts and bolts of a computer.

But the other part about only C# programs being CPU/memory hogs is all wrong. Though I have not coded in C#, I do know that a bad programmer can have memory leaks all over a C/Objective C program. Similarly a good C# programmer would write a robust program.

<comment><USER9> I take it you are not familiar with "Build and Analyze" in XCode.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> So you could write a mobile app in F#? Neat.

</comment><comment><USER11> No. Most desktop developers don't get PowerManagement. Unless they've managed to abstract all of this away now? :D

I'm interested to know how much of a change this is, is this a new skin or REALLY a brand new operating system? Can I finally send sync on a socket AND use a timeout? ;)

<comment><USER12> >I'm interested to know how much of a change this is, is this a new skin or REALLY a brand new operating system?

It's a brand new operating system. You might want to look up one of the articles about it that came out a few days ago.

<comment><USER11> Yea but there wasn't much tech there, only "it is a new OS" which can be interpreted differently if you're talking to techies or consumers, for example.

Only thing they've shown (afaik) is a new UI. What is underneath?

<comment><USER12> It's a ground-up rewrite .

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> What phones use the windows mobile os? Everyone I know is on an android, iphone, blackberry, or an old school phone. I've never seen a phone using windows.

<comment><USER14> Considering that a majority of HTC phones (the champion of Android) are WinMo, and you can also find (recent) WinMo phones from Samsung, LG, Acer and Motorola ... your assertion is out of sync with reality.

Historically yes, WinMo phones suck ... one of my uncles (who's a truck driver ... i.e. a normal person ... has one) and I hated it from the first second I touched it, but he's happy with it. And I once owned an HP iPaq, which was a lot more useful than an iPhone.

I wouldn't underestimate the power of Microsoft, or the number of .NET developers who would want to go mobile if WinMo 7 is a success. They only need focus, and sometimes they can pull it off.

<comment><USER13> The assertion is definitely not out of sync with reality. I literally don't know a single person with a windows mobile phone. I'm not trashing WinMo...

I'm a .Net developer myself and my first thought was "what kind of app can I make." My second thought was why write an app when I've never seen a windows mobile phone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> sweet, now we can have botnets and trojans on our phones!

</comment><comment><USER16> No Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER17> developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers...</comment>


What should I do now? - <AUTHOR> Hello. I am 3rd year undergraduate CS student. This academic year my annual GPA fell low(because of burnout). University is going to cut my waiver scholarship one level(from 80% to 60%). My family is barely affording 20%. Next year(last year of school), it will be 40%. What should I do?Should I freeze? <comment><USER2> Learn a skill and start freelancing. You can make some good money.

<comment><USER2> Anyway, good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you:)</comment></comment></comment>