Samsung Outsells iPhone, Breaks Shipping Records - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2012/07/27/samsung-surpasses-iphone-shipments/ <comment><USER3> Samsung vs. Apple feels like the Yankees vs. Red Socks or insert your favorite sports teams. Instead of rooting for your favorite sports team, you're rooting for your favorite phone manufacturer or tech company.

Also, shipped vs. sold makes any time a company brags on how many phones they shipped very misleading. Many companies are famous for channel stuffing to get the PR boost and to "fake it til they make it".

In Samsung's case, the sell through rate is probably pretty high, but still nowhere near as accurate as when Apple says how many devices they sold (as Apple only has 5 days inventory at any given time, Samsung probably maintains months of inventory).

<comment><USER4> _Samsung vs. Apple feels like the Yankees vs. Red Socks or insert your favorite sports teams. Instead of rooting for your favorite sports team, you're rooting for your favorite phone manufacturer or tech company._

I find the fanboy oneupsmanship from both "sides" highly tedious. As if someone can't praise both Apple and Samsung.

<comment><USER5> Some of us have tried both and prefer Samsung, fwiw.

<comment><USER6> Some of us have tried both and prefer Apple, fwiw.

<comment><USER7> Some of us have tried neither but by god I will tell you my opinion!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Apple is the new Microsoft. They license and charge fees for everything. They coerce their users to use their proprietary technologies whenever humanly possible. They try to bully their opponents rather than competing on merit.

I, for one, am happy with these trends.

<comment><USER9> Nope. The old Microsoft was described by Bill Gates famous motto: "A computer on every desk and in every home, all running Microsoft software."

They wanted to rule the world. This was never ever Apples philosophy. Not with the Mac, not with iOS. They don't aspire a 99% market share, they are even content with 10% and indeed are deliberately limiting themselves in their product range. They don't want and can't reach every demographic. It is also noteworthy that not many services/products of Apple are subsidized. It was classic Microsoft to use their Windows/Office money machine to enter different segments and outcompete others.

<comment><USER10> > they are even content with 10%

Doesn't sound like it when they constantly go suing the heck out of competitors - not for their money but for excluding them out of the marketplace. Microsoft at least allows competition to exist if they pay up reasonably.

<comment><USER11> The competition to which you refer, in this context was proven in the court of law to have infriged on Apple's copyrights. Thus the suit. Apple allows plently of competition when they aren't blatently stealing.

<comment><USER10> Both the UK and German courts said no to Apple trying to ban Samsung products. Only in the USA where Apple can manage to patent anything ridiculous are they gaining some traction with their injunctions. If you manage to patent so much that no one else can make another phone or tablet it speaks again about them wanting to totally obliterate the competition. The fact that they are allowed to do so is another, separate issue but what Apple is pulling isn't anything near being content.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I had a 2 1/2 year old Droid and was waiting for the iPhone 5. Then 9 days ago I stopped by my local Verizon store and bought the Galaxy S III on an impulse buy after checking out the beautiful 1280x720 pixel display. ( have written about it now being an iPad substitute [http://blog.markwatson.com/2012/07/new- cellphone-samsung-gal...](http://blog.markwatson.com/2012/07/new-cellphone- samsung-galaxy-s-iii.html))

My wife liked my phone so much that she bought one a few days later.

Awesome phone. I don't think I have ever been as happy with a device.

<comment><USER12> Another comment: the high resolution display really makes a huge difference for activities like SSH shelling into servers, browsing the web, showing people slide shows, watching Netflix movies, etc.

I actually wish the device were even larger physically with even a higher resolution screen, but I am happy enough with it. I am 6'4" tall, and the Galaxy S III fits really well in my hand. I understand that someone with small hands might not like the phone as much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think there are 3 main reasons for it.

1 - It's a fantastic phone. 2 - The Apple faithful already have their 4 and 4Ss. 3 - Ship-jumpers: Apple is pissing a lot of people off.

<comment><USER14> I agree with the first two points, but you may be greatly overestimating 3.

<comment><USER15> It's not just developers. A lot of _users_ really hate Apple's rules and overbearing behavior. Retroactively disabling apps like Airfoil speakers, not allowing routine apps like wi-fi signal strength checkers, not allowing porn, not allowing installing apps outside of the app store... shit like that pisses off warehouse workers and preschool teachers I know.

It's not just the bogus patent suits and insane restrictions on developers that make people dislike Apple. Developers don't like that shit, but are also in a way more inclined to pragmatically overlook it. Real users are often less forgiving.

<comment><USER16> Firstly, I don't know which preschool teachers you know but I can't imagine many of them caring about a WiFi signal strength checker (it is already built in), porn (iPhone websites already exist and you can put your own videos on the device) or installing apps from outside the app store.

Secondly, you seem to be ignorant of the Cydia App Store where there is a large number of paid apps for the more power users.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Samsung has always sold more phones than Apple. What you're seeing here is that Samsung is managing the featurephone -> smartphone transition better than Nokia.

</comment><comment><USER18> Slightly off-topic, but Samsung is actually an amazingly well-run company. I've been a Samsung shareholder for 5 years, and they consistently deliver in growth and earnings. It's cool to see them succeeding in the smartphone market.

<comment><USER19> Samsung Electronics (the division of Samsung that makes the phones) is also about 50% larger than Apple in terms of revenue.

("Samsung" is about 2.5x the size of Apple)

<comment><USER20> True, but apple is way more profitable.

2011 Samsung revenue: 247 bil 2011 Samsung net income: 18.3 bil

2011 Apple revenue: 108.2bil 2011 apple net income: 33.79bil

Apple is way more profitable. Samsung is a massive company (I don't think many people realize how massive it is). Very interesting to see a real corporate war between the two.

<comment><USER19> It would be interesting if Samsung C&T built Apple's new HQ building.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The article is misleading. This is not Galaxy S vs iPhone but a comparison of total volume of all smartphones moved by Samsung (many of which are cheap junk) vs total volume of iPhones moved by Apple

<comment><USER22> How on earth is it misleading? It simply states that Samsung _smartphones_ outsold iPhones which runs the gamut of Apple's _smartphone_ offerings. What other Apple _smartphones_ are there to measure the numbers against?

<comment><USER21> The title is linkbait. If the article title was honest it would read "Samsung sells more smartphones than Apple". Instead, it implies that Samsung has a top-end smartphone that sells better than Apple's iPhone. Which is not true. If you need confirmation that this is how people are interpreting the headline look no further than many of the comments in this very thread.

<comment><USER22> > _The title is linkbait_

You said the _'article'_ was misleading.

<comment><USER23> The article refers to one device from Apple vs tens from Samsung. I think it would be fairer to compare with one device, such as their most popular one.

<comment><USER24> Why would that be fairer? Apple chooses to compete in the market with a clear lineup of 3 device-classes that each have multiple models differing in the amount of memory only. They don't offer low-end models. They obviously think that this is the better strategy. Samsung thinks it is better served by building more models to serve a higher range of customers. It is perfectly fair to compare which strategy fares best - and by number of units sold Samsung seems to be ahead. By revenue, Apple seems to be ahead. Whether that balance is going to tip is an interesting question, but it's not answered in this article.

Unfair would be to compare the number of macs sold vs. the number of android phones sold since those devices don't compete against each other on the same market.

<comment><USER25> Apple sells the 3GS in the low end market.

Edit: My view may be too US based, but the 3GS costs nothing after carrier subsidy.

<comment><USER24> The 3GS is apples low end model, that doesn't mean it is low end compared to other models on the market. An 8GB 3GS sells for ~ 370 Euros. That price may be a bargain for that model, but I can buy Samsung phones much much cheaper.

Edit: Response to the parents edit: Yes, your view is US-based. If I buy a phone and get a phone contract without subsidy, my contract is cheaper - up to 10 euros/month. I'd be surprised if that's much different in the US - <USER2> always pay for the subsidy in one way or another.

<comment><USER26> Any phone with a 480x320 screen and free on contract (at least in the US) is low end. The iPhone 4 would be midrange and the 4S would be high but not the highest end.

<comment><USER24> The 3GS is not free on contract in Germany. Fact is that there are cheaper phones and that may be of importance in markets where the average wage is lower than in the us. And since the article is about world-wide number of devices shipped, that makes a diffence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'm sure Apple would love to sell as many phones as Samsung does. But I'm also sure that Apple would prefer to take 2x the profits on 0.5x the unit sales.

This is why Apple is so concerned about Samsung selling iPhone lookalikes, though. Samsung has the manufacturing and distribution prowess to do some damage, and Samsung has shown themselves to be a better "fast follower" than Microsoft ever was.

With a little help from Google, of course. Imagine if Samsung had to write their own mobile OS.

<comment><USER28> As someone who owns both an iPhone 4S and a Galaxy Nexus, I can't possibly bring myself to believe that Apple is going to continue making outsized profits in the cell phone market. The Galaxy Nexus is just too good a competitor; Android has gotten so much better. Maybe Apple will find a way to reinvent the smart phone again (a la MBA or iPad to laptop). Barring that, I don't see how they can maintain their dominance.

Profits are what matters, naturally, but I think market share is the writing on the wall here.

So it goes. Company innovates and offers a wonderful new product, makes ridiculous profit, is shamelessly/lovingly ripped off, loses edge, has to come up with the next big thing or die. The story of free enterprise since forever. This time isn't different.

<comment><USER27> Keep in mind that Apple makes a superior (or at worst equivalent) product, sells it for the same price, and makes 4x the profit.

I agree that market share is a leading indicator, and that Apple's biggest challenge is to run faster than everyone else, while keeping the imitators at bay and not outrunning consumers or the laws of physics.

But they've got some runway due to their efficiencies (and cash). It's not sexy, but it's how Tim Cook earned his job, and I don't think anyone at Apple is confused about any of the above. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Well, Apple released the 4S last October, Samsung had a couple new devices. It's exactly like last year. "Lackluster performance" - such words come from people which parrot people who appear to be experts, but have not even a basic idea of how Apple operates.

The pattern can be seen and you only have to add 2+2.

Revenues will get further down this quarter, leading up to the iPhone release and the holiday quarter will break all records again.

It will be interesting to see how Apple will stand next to Samsung after that quarter.

<comment><USER30> ... Meanwhile Samsung will continue releasing more phones quicker, and by the time the record selling iPhone 5 settles down, Samsung will be chugging along, breaking their own records and out selling pretty much everyone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Samsung caters to the needs of almost every segment. In India they have hugely popular dual SIM (It's a big deal in India) Android phones. I'm sure there will never be a dual SIM iPhone ever. Samsung phones are available even in remote villages , but iPhones are only available in cities. Apple will have to improve their distribution and variety to appeal to new users. So , this trend will only accelerate

<comment><USER32> Out of interest why does dual SIM matter in India?

<comment><USER31> In case of my wife, she has a private phone number only for friends & family and another one strictly official. There are many uses ,

* If she leaves her job she can give the SIM back to the company and won't get anymore calls on that

* Separate billing. Company pays for official calls only

* Switch On/off one SIM or other when required

The other use is for bargain hunters. There are so many operators to choose from. The ones with wider coverage are expensive and the others are dirt cheap . So the cheaper one is usually used for making outgoing calls when the signal strength is good. The expensive ones are used for incoming calls (which is free in India. Here calling party pays) or even for outgoing calls when the other one has poor signal.

Carrying 2 phones is expensive/inconvenient . So most of the feature phones come with 2 SIM slots in India. Smartphones are now catching up

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> While Apple wasting money on lawyers and law suites trying to ban sales of old Samsung devices, Samsung is spending money on innovation, production of new and increasingly better devices. And surprise surprise - Samsung is capturing more market than Apple! I for one am never buying anything from Apple until they stop this bullshit anticompetitive behavior and start to innovative instead of litigating.

</comment><comment><USER34> Astounding, new phone model outsells old one about to be replaced soon!

edit: Still, 50M is more than the 37M iPhones Apple sold in the iPhone 4S release quarter.

<comment><USER35> So, with your snark, are you admitting that high end Android phones and iPhones have reached parity, or just that iOS users are leaving for fairer pasturers?

I find the attempts at derision of people gaining on Apple highly humorous.

<comment><USER36> Is it not more that Nokia and HTC users are making the jump to Samsung? They'd get a superior model (and there are many Samsung models around at various price brackets) and get to keep their apps.

Does anyone have any Android vs iOS vs WP7 stats for the last quarter?

<comment><USER37> _Does anyone have any Android vs iOS vs WP7 stats for the last quarter?_

Sure.

In millions[1]:

Samsung: 93.0

Nokia: 83.7

Apple: 26.0

 _Smartphone_ sales are more difficult to come by, but Gartner has platform stats for the latest quarter. I have to guess most of these from a chart republished in The Guardian[2]:

Android: 56%

iOS: ~25%

Symbian: ~12%

Blackberry: ~8%

WinPhone: ~2%

[1] [http://thenextweb.com/mobile/2012/07/27/samsung-grabs- record...](http://thenextweb.com/mobile/2012/07/27/samsung-grabs- record-26-market-share-after-shipping-93m-smartphones-in-q2-2012/)

[2] [http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/may/16/android- sma...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/may/16/android-smartphone- market-50-percent)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I truly don't understand why people consider this 'news'. Has Apple given some indication that they want to own 100% of the smartphone market, and that every potential smartphone customer should be an Apple customer? I do not think they have, but I also don't follow these things obsessively.

If you want to bring up the patent lawsuits, I do not personally believe Apple is opposed to competition, they are just opposed to that competition 'stealing' what they feel (rightly or wrongly) that they have invented.

Apple cares about Samsung only to the extent they believe all or part of Samsung's success is built on infringing Apple patents.</comment>


The Arrogance of the Anthropocene - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/08/arrogance-anthropocene/595795/ <comment><USER2> As an addendum, the author, Peter Brannen, published another article with The Atlantic titled "What Made Me Reconsider the Anthropocene" four days ago.

In it, he responds to criticism and ultimately comes to the conclusion that - even if no trace of humanity is left (no civilization, tools, etc) in "deep time" \- the biosphere itself has been changed by humanity, and that gives the concept of the Anthroprocene validity.

[https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/10/anthropo...](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/10/anthropocene- epoch-after-all/599863/)

<comment><USER3> I think this should be front-and-center rather than an addendum point - Can't help but question the good faith of an author putting this article up while only recently having published one that appears to take an opposite view. Frankly, smells like click bait dressed up as high-brow op-ed.

I was going to post a comment in response to some of the points in the article, but upon seeing that the other article existed... what's the point?

<comment><USER4> I read both and think that the second supports the point made in the first.

The point of the anthropocene, as presented in the second article, is to acknowledge the effect humans have already had on the earth. The point of the first is to acknowledge _how little_ an effect that is, relative to other events in geologic time. The events described in that article still stand - global temperature differences of 8C over a few tens of thousands of years, sea levels 400 feet lower (and that was a blink of an eye ago in geologic time), a 90M year long ice age.

<comment><USER5> > The point of the first is to acknowledge how little an effect that is, > relative to other events in geologic time.

And speaking only about that geologic time is deceptive, without mentioning context: for the biggest part of the whole geologic time, not even multi- cellular life existed. Half of the whole geologic time, nothing was able to depend on oxygen as the modern life does -- there wasn't much of it in the atmosphere.

The time human civilizations existed is microscopic in comparison to these spans, but that much shorter time is what defines us.

And in that time, the climate was indeed quite stable. Until the last hundred or two years.

And humans did make immense impact on the life forms, and will continue to make.

<comment><USER4> I thought that was actually the point of the article. The author freely admits that from a _human_ perspective, climate change and habitat destruction and the bleaching of coral reefs are a big deal. The point he's making is that from a _planetary_ perspective, humans are insignificant. Indeed, from a planetary perspective multi-cellular life is insignificant, and life at all is a minority.

The thing is that much of the debate over global warming has been framed in planetary terms. If you frame it in human terms, you already have a good argument: climate change will cause mass migrations, historically mass migrations have caused massive wars and the collapse of civilizations, I don't want to die in a war while my whole civilization collapses, ergo it's probably a good idea to solve or at least adapt to this climate change thing before shit hits the fan. But if you frame it in terms of "climate change will make the earth uninhabitable" or even "climate change will lead to the extinction of humanity", a.) you're probably wrong - our species is remarkably resilient, and we have lived through large planetary-scale shifts in the earth's climate b.) the earth has been made uninhabitable to much of life in the past, and yet we're here and c.) so what, we'll all be dead.

<comment><USER6> From planetary perspective, multicellular life was and is huge. Oxygen catastrophe is not called that because it was invisible from space. Nor are ok deposits geologically insignificant.

It is big timeframe though compared to anthropocene.

The warming is indeed planetary, but not the magnitude of the earlier atmospheric changes. The crust changes are more visible for now, especially mining. The temperature will be pretty important at about +1 C out more globally - not quite yet. At that level moisture circulation would get affected a lot...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> >If, in the final 7,000 years of their reign, dinosaurs became hyperintelligent, built a civilization, started asteroid mining, and did so for centuries before forgetting to carry the one on an orbital calculation, thereby sending that famous valedictory six-mile space rock hurtling senselessly toward the Earth themselves—it would be virtually impossible to tell.

I consider this claim to be complete nonsense. Change my mind. There are 4 billion year old rocks still on the earth to be found. 7,000 years of civilization is not going to be completely erased in a few million.

<comment><USER2> What about if dinosaurs got to the point of early hunter-gatherers - establishing communities, language, basic tools - but were then wiped out?

It's different from the case he cites, but tracks the general point that there are limits to what we can learn about prehistory / "deep time"

<comment><USER8> Think of it this way: distance in time is like distance in space. It's just another dimension (with the catch that apparently we can't actually move backward). The dinosaurs are as far from us as Alpha Centauri, maybe further.

<comment><USER9> This is a reasonable way of looking at time for certain purposes, and the conversion factor is c. So, 65 million years "ago" is also 65 million light- years "away" in the -t direction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's obvious that human history is very short but it's less obvious that all of our buildings and trash will be so hard to find underground in five million years or so.

Wouldn't there at least be some places where ruins or landfills were largely exposed? And aren't there lots of materials that would stand out since they degrade slowly?

For example, what is going to happen to all of the concrete and steel in Manhattan in the course of five million years? Will it really be compressed to a thin layer that is barely noticeable or something?

<comment><USER11> It will all wash away, sand grain by sand grain. You can see the erosion of stone temples even a thousand years old, made of harder stuff than concrete.

<comment><USER10> The steel will wash away?

<comment><USER11> It will rust first, and the rust will wash away. The _glass_ will wash away. Water conquers all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> >Will our influence on the rock record really be so profound to geologists 100 million years from now, whoever they are, that they would look back and be tempted to declare the past few decades or centuries a bona fide epoch of its own?

Yes, there will be a thin but noticeable layer of hydrocarbons and odd pollution signatures in the crust that will act as a permanent geologic record of our existence.

<comment><USER11> "Humanity: it was thin but noticeable."

If you were specifically looking for it.

Somebody might notice a lack of elephant teeth above a peculiar boundary, or a reduction in fish bones and corals, and look closer at the boundary. But to notice a lack is much harder than to notice the advent of something new. A layer of paperclips might not attract much attention, once oxidized, or be interpreted with anything like fidelity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The holocene always struck me as odd. Here we have the final geologic epoch, and it's 10,000 years old, and every other geologic epoch is ~50M years long. And it just happens to coincide with the rise of our species, who just happens to be the one creating the taxonomy.

Paleohistory is pretty fascinating, and it's easy to forget just how small we are on this big earth and how much things differ from today. For example:

We're technically in an icehouse age. An icehouse age is defined as "any period of time where glaciers exist _anywhere_ on the planet". For about 80% of geologic time, there is no such thing as a glacier, or of snow and ice for that matter. The entire earth's surface is above freezing, even the North and South poles. What we know of as an "ice age" (a glaciation) is a feature only of icehouse states. We currently happen to be in an interglacial of an icehouse age, which is why we think of this as being a warm period. But geologically, the earth is _well_ below its temperature average.

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

It's likely that the earth has completely frozen over on at least two occasions, with the entire planet being encased in a gigantic ice sheet like Europa:

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

The larger of these two incidents may have been triggered by the evolution of photosynthesis and the addition of oxygen into the earth's atmosphere, which also likely caused a major mass extinction among the dominant anaerobic bacteria of the time:

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

Sea level over time has fluctuated by 300-400 meters. That means that anything at an altitude of less than about 1000 feet (which is the vast majority of human settlements) was once underwater. (Well, technically _land_ level fluctuates more than sea level, so most of these low-lying areas are actually sediment weathered off of nearby mountains.)

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

There've been some massive outburst floods in the past, like the draining of Glacial Lake Missoula (a pleistocene lake roughly half the volume of Lake Michigan, held in by an ice dam on the Clark River nearly 2000 feet tall) which released an outflow 13 times the size of the Amazon River:

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

<comment><USER11> And produced the whole Columbia Gorge in just two weeks.

Most likely almost all of human history in the Americas, and maybe too in Africa, is 200 feet under the sea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> It seems to me this person is missing the point. When people talk about Anthropocene, they're not talking about geological or fossil evidence left behind by humans in million of years. Anthropocene refers to the Holocene or the sixth mass extinction on the planet.

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

<comment><USER14> My understanding is that the Anthropocene is definable because human gas emissions have created a visible layer in the rock strata that will be evident for millions of years. Geological time from now, there will be a black line in the rocks that will include the toxic chemicals coming from our industrial processes and tail pipes.

<comment><USER11> He makes the point in the article that there are innumerable unnamed razor- thin layers in the rocks already. What's one more? Why would anyone be drawn to study that one?

<comment><USER14> Okay, now I get it. I missed that part of the article. That's the arrogance. I like the ideas in a lot of these articles, I just don't have time to read them all. I miss the old days of tldr's.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Has Dark Matter Finally Been Found? - <AUTHOR> http://www.kurzweilai.net/has-dark-matter-finally-been-found

<comment><USER2> No.

Ok, sorry that is a bit snarky. I dislike space.com (best read using lynx(1)) and I really dislike reporting on the hint of results from an unpublished paper which probably isn't what you think because oh-my-gosh we might be able to confuse a few hicks into clicking on one of these adverts we just threw under their mouse when they weren't looking. Woo hoo! Another buck fifty for us sucker!

Read this: [http://ams.pg.infn.it/~zuccon/Pubblicazioni/ams/physicsrepor...](http://ams.pg.infn.it/~zuccon/Pubblicazioni/ams/physicsreport.pdf) and then decide for yourself if you think their theory holds water or not.

<comment><USER3> I started using adblock plus filters to remove the worse portions of space.com and it was a pretty good experience. Got rid of social networking crap, got rid of their top bar, their bottom bar, the sidebars, the header, the masthead, the next article prompter, and the site was becoming readable, and then I slipped up and whoosh out went their content and voila, and like many inventions, one error led me to realize a greater creation than I had originally thought possible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> How does one "find" what's already been "found"? We already know _where_ dark matter is just by observing changes in gravity, we just need to know _what_ it is. Neil DeGrasse Tyson explains this the best : <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSeXyDEWgyc>

The tl;dr of that article is basically that Dark Matter is theorised to be made of WIMPs (weakly interacting massive particles) which are matter that are their own anti-matter. Mind boggling concept since when ordinary matter meets anti-matter, it's an Angels and Demons style explosion. But these particles are their _own_ "matter" and anti-matter in one, if that's what they really are.

These WIMPs give rise to positrons, which are basically anti-electrons (anti- matter variant of electrons) and this is what these sensors are alleged to have detected. WIMPs are what they think create positrons and regular electrons.

      "The smoking gun signature is a rise and then a dramatic fall" in the number of positrons with respect to energy,
      because the positrons produced by dark matter annihilation would have a very specific energy,
      depending on the mass of the WIMPs making up dark matter...

Until they actually publish that paper with conclusive evidence, this is still all speculation and ad revenue for space.com .

<comment><USER5> "when ordinary matter meets anti-matter, it's an Angels and Demons style explosion"

Oh goodness me, no. They annihilate to create a lepton pair. There is no explosion, really. Subatomic physics is much more boring than popular science would have you believe! You must try quite hard to get an explosion - it isn't chemistry, where things explode simply because it's Wednesday. Particles that are their own antimatter are not all that exotic either. Z bosons, gluons and photons are all their own antiparticles too, and perhaps neutrinos.

As I understand it (and I am a nuclear physicist, not an astrophysicist) there are few (no?) observed natural interactions known to produce high energy positrons (i.e. with energy >1 GeV). So, if you find one coming from space, it is an indicator that something unexplained has happened. Since we know where there must be clusters of dark matter and WIMPs are theorised to produce such positrons, dark matter decay is the leading candidate for an explanation for a high energy positron coming from such a direction.

Or it could be aliens, of course.

<comment><USER4> Ah! I fear Hollywood and TV has corrupted my understanding of Anti-matter. Thanks for clearing that up :)

Aliens could be enticing us to seek new frontiers for scientific knowledge, but unless this comes to us in messages hidden in crop-circles or revealed through abductions, I'm not buying it!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think the largest issue with dark matter and it's cousin dark energy is that there is no observation of either, at all. What we see is a wobble here, or a mess of background radiation and we suspect it may be something to do with this high mass non-radiating matter.

I think this may be our modern ether. Though the theory of ether was far more interesting.

</comment><comment><USER7> I have to think Betteridge's Law of Headlines applies with even more force on kurzweilai.

<comment><USER8> Kurzweilai Tagline: "Accelerating Intelligence?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Another case of Betteridge's law of headlines.

</comment><comment><USER10> Devoid of substantive and informative content.</comment>


Accelerating the Cloud with GPUs - <AUTHOR> http://www.hpcwire.com/2014/05/16/accelerating-cloud-gpus/ <comment><AUTHOR> I think this experiment is exciting because it shows that (through the cloud) it may increase access to GPUs as a more powerful computing resource since GPUs can outperform supercomputers, but at a much cheaper cost.</comment>


Uber wants access to browsing history, bookmarks, and running apps - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/4f1zih/uber_wants_access_to_browsing_history_bookmarks/ <comment><USER3> From a reddit comment:

> The permissions you see on the install screen are actually triggered by > various permissions in the permission group. I've checked Ubers (there's a > button on the web play store and you can see it in the manifest), and the > only one from the Device and App History group they actually use is > "GET_TASKS", or get a list of recently opened apps.

> Furthermore, on Lollipop this permission doesn't even do anything anymore. > The relevant function in the framework has been changed and only returns > instances of the caller's own app now. So Uber can see when you last used > Uber. Big deal.

> Basically, this is a big fuss for nothing. Uber is not accessing your > browser history, and if you're on Lollipop or above they can't access your > app history either. They may do that on lower versions, but it's most likely > to counter buggy behaviour on those older verions and not to spy on you.

<comment><USER4> Either that's not entirely truthful, or the app permission system is totally broken...

Need to find out when you last opened the app? "Get running apps"...?

<comment><USER5> This page has more detail on Android's permissions model: [http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/security/permissio...](http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/security/permissions.html#perm- groups)

I don't really understand the point of having fine-grained permissions (like READ_CONTACTS), when the user only sees broader permission groups. Can someone shed light on this?

<comment><USER6> It wasn't always this way. The individual permissions used to be displayed to the user directly; newer releases of the Play Store have "streamlined" this permissions prompt so that users see general permissions "groups", and some permissions (such as INTERNET) are considered "not dangerous", requiring a click on the "See all permissions" button to view everything the app requests.

I imagine it's because Google recognized the general insanity of the system, and presenting fewer "scary" permissions improved conversion rates.

Then they threw the whole system out with Android 6.0, moving to a much more sane flow for everyone involved, where the user is able to grant or deny individual permissions at runtime.

<comment><USER7> > I imagine it's because Google recognized the general insanity of the system, > and presenting fewer "scary" permissions improved conversion rates.

Because the way to fix "apps can demand a laundry list of permissions and users can only take it or leave it" is to sweep it under the rug?

A sane way to do it would be the way browsers deal with location data: "App [appname] is requesting permission to access [resource]. Allow always / allow / deny / deny always?"

<comment><USER8> That's how it works in Android 6.0 (Marshmallow) and above.

<comment><USER9> Kind of, but you still get the situation where an app wants to get your IMEI to identify the device, but is forced to ask for permission to 'phone', which the user promptly denies because that also allows the app to make phone calls.

<comment><USER10> What does an app want my IMEI for? How do they work on non-cellular tablets (and PCs) which doesn't have one?

<comment><USER11> Lots of apps use IMEI as a unique device identifier on Android. A practice that is discouraged by Google. Anyway, since 6.0, developers should find a different way to udid. One alternative is Advertising ID which doesn't require any special permissions but is resettable by the user (though not easily found in the system's settings)

[http://developer.android.com/google/play- services/id.html](http://developer.android.com/google/play-services/id.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Multiple comments here parroting the "this is a non-issue on Lollipop or later" defense. Per Android's own statistics [1], that leaves 60% of users vulnerable to excessive permissions.

1: [http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html](http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html)

<comment><USER13> Regardless of whether it's a non-issue on Lollipop (or later) or not, it exhibits the intent of Uber.

And google is no less: [https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2015/06/google- ch...](https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2015/06/google-chrome- listening-in-to-your-room-shows-the-importance-of-privacy-defense-in-depth/)

<comment><USER14> No, it really doesn't. It's a fundamental flaw in the earlier Android permissions model that it requests so much.

Uber doesn't try to pull anything like this on iOS.

<comment><USER15> To be fair, there is zero ability (outside of undocumented and forbidden private APIs) for an iOS app to even request access to browsing history, bookmarks, or app history.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Uber engineer here. These permissions were mistakenly introduced by an engineer on the team who thought a 3rd party library needed them when in fact it does not. We definitely do not need or want those permissions and we've promptly released new versions to the Play Store that do not request them. Please upgrade to Uber app version 3.98.3 (3.99.2 in the beta channel) which no longer requests the extra permissions.

<comment><USER17> _1\. Thanks and good on Uber for correcting this, and communicating this publicly._ That's excellent goodwill, and something the company could use more of. Now make sure this doesn't happen again.

 _2\. The change likely would not have been made had people not complained._

 _This is why I am reporting excessive Android permissions requests, both to developers and publicly._ I've succeeded in having several other instances of expansive permissions requests rolled back. Others not so much (e.g., Wikipedia).

3\. I'd argue that this _only further highlights_ how broken the Android permissions systems are if applications can request unnecessary _and highly dangerous and invasive permissions_ without the awareness of the authors. I love a few things about my Android device, _but few of them specifically pertain to Android_.

4\. As I've mentioned already: _Google need to reintroduce their applications permissions blocking tool which was released AND WITHDRAWN in 2013._ For _all_ prior versions of Android.

 _5\. Someone really needs to kick Google 's ass_ with a a) Free Software b) user-first c) privacy-respecting d) security conscious operating system for small mobile devices. Maybe Microsoft can be talked into funding Ubuntu Mobile or FirefoxOS.

<comment><USER18> > 5\. Someone really needs to kick Google's ass with a a) Free Software b) > user-first c) privacy-respecting d) security conscious operating system for > small mobile devices. Maybe Microsoft can be talked into funding Ubuntu > Mobile or FirefoxOS.

The fellows at [https://copperhead.co](https://copperhead.co) look to be doing solid work.

<comment><USER17> Thanks, I'll take a look.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This permission should just simply not exist. I had two games and an another app. The browsing history was, in this case, used for targetting ads. I did not need the apps and uninstalled the apps (it was around 2 years ago, on previous version of Android I think).

The apps on Android should be sandboxed and not be given this kind of permissions, that's all.

<comment><USER20> Exactly. If an app requests a permission it should not need, then it should simply be considered malware and rejected with a big 1-star review.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Very unnecessary overreach on android permissions.. Will be interesting to see how many of the fans of uber here on hn will try to spin this.

Just forwarded to some friends, they are uninstalling the rogue app as I type this!

<comment><USER22> Isn't permission overreach du rigueur on Android? Seriously, I thought that this was a preferred engineering pattern on Android due to platform weirdness or something.

<comment><USER23> Yes it is/was. The problem is/was that your app stops getting auto updates if you add permissions later. A lot of users never go into the update section and grant new permissions and so your app stays on the version with the old permission set for ever.

<comment><USER22> I knew I wasn't just making it up, and because of that, I'm at -2.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> My Samsung phone came with the Uber app baked into the ROM. Fortunately I know enough to disable it, but I can't completely uninstall it. And most users will be prompted ad infinitum to update until they give in.

<comment><USER25> Try an alternative ROM, such as CyanogenMod or OmniROM; they omit all the bloatware.

<comment><USER24> I have the AT&T version of the Galaxy S6 Edge, with the locked bootloader. I can't even get root on it :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> After a long break from Uber I opened it up to price compare against Lyft. I switched between the two apps and then uber offered me two free rides. It seemed like it was detecting that I was hesitating to "come back" to Uber.

I use Android Lollipop and even if the permission didn't allow them to see I was using Lyft, I wouldn't be suprised if they're trying to re-engage "hesitating" users and are snooping for whatever data they can.

<comment><USER27> Could simply be based on a campaign that kicks in after a long period of non- usage. Then again, you have the outline of a repeatable experiment here for someone with two phones and a period of Uber exile.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I've said it before but I'll say it again: this is why you create a second throw-away Google account and use that to create a new profile on your phone dedicated to snoopy apps. Seriously: screw anyone that thinks harvesting my personal data is the cost I must pay for a cab ride.

<comment><USER29> I don't think that will solve this particular problem. It wan't your browsing history from the device.

What we desperately need is a UL for privacy. Just like UL tests electronics, we need a lab to test these apps for what data they access and how they make use of that data. Then assign a score so consumers can chose not to use services that request unnecessary permissions and misuse your data.

<comment><USER30> No, what we need is the ability to modify the system software on our phones easily to stop this kind of thing. On a normal Unix system you would just run the app as a separate user (or worst case, sandbox it) but on android non of the interfaces (or really much of anything at all) can be controlled by the user.

<comment><USER31> That is simply not a solution that will work for more than 0.1% of the populace. While you meant nothing wrong, your "solution" repulses me because I don't care about this sort of thing just for myself and other supernerds, but for my friends and family and countrymen as well.

<comment><USER17> If the means are there, solutions for the 99.9% can be created.

Look at how popular adblock's becoming.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Google released, then withdrew, an interface for revoking and limiting application permissions. On existing Android devices. Three years ago.

We know they can do this. We also know they don't care.

The challenge is to make them care.

[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/12/google-removes- vital-p...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/12/google-removes-vital- privacy-features-android-shortly-after-adding-them)

<comment><USER32> Yeah, it would be awesome if they would release an android update that allowed you to revoke and limit application permissions.

[http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2015/08/building- bett...](http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2015/08/building-better-apps- with-runtime.html)

<comment><USER17> As I understand it, that puts the onus fully on application developers, whom users have to trust.

That's precisely the current problem.

<comment><USER33> No, it does not. Dangerous permission can be toggled off for all apps now. For apps on the new API level, they can no longer obtain dangerous permissions at install time. They have to trigger an OS-level prompt for the permission. They're supposed to explain why they need it before triggering the OS prompt and many apps did it poorly by adding an extra, meaningless prompt before the real one. This was't done for the old API level because it would cause crashes for permissions where data can't feasibly be faked and the user would have no indication that fake/empty data was being used if it was the default.

<comment><USER17> For Marshmallow. Which 60% of current Android users don't have _and will never have until they retire their current devices_.

Which is why Google needs to fucking fix this _retrospectively_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> My copy of Uber just updated and it doesn't seem to be requesting any of these permissions. I'm on Marshmallow, and on the permissions page these permissions are not there. Version 3.98.2 of Uber.

It's possible that these permissions are used in some obscure place in the app. With the new permissions system, you can progressively request permissions when you need them, so it's possible it will request these at some point in the future, but the app seems to run OK without them.

I also disabled access to contacts, which the app does request for some reason.

<comment><USER35> When you scroll to the bottom on Uber's play store page it displays this for me: [http://m.imgur.com/ndfjQWv](http://m.imgur.com/ndfjQWv)

They request 'running apps' only from this particular subgroup. Notice the wording on the original screenshot: 'one or more of'.

TLDR they don't request browsing history, the Android permissions screen on update is confusing

<comment><USER34> When I go to that page I see the "retrieve running apps" permission under a category "Other." It would appear that I cannot disable the "Other" category in the app permission configuration.

EDIT: There's another comment in the thread that indicates that this retrieve running apps permission actually doesn't do anything on Lollipop+: it just returns the app's own windows. Which would explain why it was moved to the "Other" category.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> this is why I don't use an android device as my primary phone, even though my perception is that you get rather more bang for your buck, hardware wise, on android phones, and even though the samsung gear VR looks like someone implemented one of my less-realistic fantasies.

On IOS, yes, uber asks for access to my contacts list, I click 'no' and uber works just fine (modulo the 'spam my friends' feature, which I didn't want anyhow.)

On an android, my understanding is that I've gotta chose between giving uber permission to spam my contacts list and simply not using uber, which is sad, because uber is way more convenient than a yellow cab.

This contributes to the perception that because IOS is paid for up-front, apple is willing to do things that might make apps less profitable, if it makes those apps better for the users, but that Android, because it is paid for by advertising, is less willing to side with the user against the app providers/advertisers.

<comment><USER37> This is how it works in Android 6 - permissions are requested as needed and user can deny them individually.

Unfortunately apps have to be build against the new API, so it does not happen automatically for old apps.

<comment><USER38> You can deny permissions individually for older apps as well.

<comment><USER9> They aren't capable of handling the case where they aren't given access to a permission though, so that makes them potentially more prone to crashing.

<comment><USER39> My idea is that if they try to access your contacts, instead of receiving a potentially unhandled "access denied" exception, they should just receive an empty contact list. Et cetera.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> SG- I don't even understand why Android would even let then happen. I can't even think of desktop apps that try to gain access to your history or bookmarks let alone a mobile app.

One time bookmark import is a thing I suppose, but that's different than gaining permanent access once granted.

<comment><USER40> Desktop apps usually have access to everything on your drive or running under the same user.

<comment> SG- Yes, obviously it's possible for them to gain access, I'm saying I don't know of any desktop apps that need access to any of that other than one time bookmark importing.

<comment><USER41> For example, you may wish to use an editor or viewer on any file on your machine.

<comment><USER42> Relevant username? :P

<comment><USER41> Your name? How?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> It is not possible for an app to get browsing history on iOS right ? ( i have never seen any app ask for that permission personally)

<comment><USER44> You are correct. This seems like a very dangerous permission to grant to apps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I hate that AI support-replies are a thing. He sent a serious mail, and got a bogus reply back. I've had the same issues myself with other vendors, for instance Steam.

</comment><comment><USER46> Presumably they want to see if you are running Lyft.

<comment><USER47> And it wouldn't do anything for if you had two phones, right? This is pretty annoying as someone who still wants to use Uber. Enough that I would consider a competitor.

<comment><USER48> In what scenario would a person be using one phone for Lyft and one for Uber?

I use two phones, but I have both apps on both.

<comment><USER49> Drivers.

<comment><USER50> Drivers have a different app, this is the consumer app.

<comment><USER49> They may well share code and or library dependencies which could be where the 'need' for the permissions comes from.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Props to whoever's responsible for itemized permissions requests on install/update--stories like these probably wouldn't exist without it.

<comment><USER52> Does this recovery attempt of a bad feature deserve praise? It wouldn't be an issue if permissions were properly implemented from the go - i.e. user had the control over what permissions the app gets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> There's an Android mod which deals with apps like that. They can try to read all the user's info, but what they get is all phony.

<comment><USER54> that should be the default... but of course Google is complicit...

<comment><USER13> Given enough incentive, Google might even be willing to issue a patch to allow permissions to apps that were not possible otherwise.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> So this is information about Uber app that I found in some blog:

\</comment><comment>-

Android Uber app code has many suspicious places. For example, it contains a namespace "com.baidu.frontia" and classes there include such code as:

        localObject = ((TelephonyManager)localObject).getSubscriberId(); // gets IMSI
        ((TelephonyManager)localObject2).getDeviceId(); // gets IMEI
        localObject1 = ((WifiInfo)localObject1).getMacAddress();
        public static void makeCall(String paramString)
        public static void sendSMS

Also there is the code that collects information about cell towers, mcc and mnc codes, scans wifi networks.

I looked quickly through the code and it seems that those methods are never called. They are probably just a part of a library not used in this app. Uber mostly uses baidu maps, authorization and payment API.

<comment><USER56> That code is from the Baidu SDK which Uber integrates into its app for Chinese users.

<comment><USER57> Still suspicious nontheless

<comment><USER58> I think you're on to something, for example the Uber app probably also uses the `true` constant in places, which could be used by `if` comparisons, and Uber could actually be using `if` comparisons all over the place. Who knows what sort of suspicious `if` comparisons Uber's app might be making? We don't know, and until we do we should probably not use this app.

<comment><USER59> Not sure if this is sarcasm or just strange.

<comment><USER60> Not sure why your post is being downvoted, when the laborious Reddit-level sarcasm in the post you replied to is the kind of useless, non-constructive crap I thought was frowned upon here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> How about make apps show us the data they collect and if they dont they dont get access to the store. Google has an pretty awesome page that lists all that crap they collect on you and you can delete it from there.

On the google store site.. when browsing apps, there should be a tab on every app page, where i can see a sample of what it collects and a declaration of what it does with that data.

after installing the app, in the app manager, i should get a tab where i can see what its grabbing from me.

right now we got strangers going into our bedrooms borrowing something they wont tell us what it is.

and really permissions dont help a lot when it comes to this. Yeah my bookmark dup cleaner has to access my bookmarks to clean.. so i give it the permission, but does it keep them? does it sell them? i dont know permissions arent that detailed. if there was a privacy tab that i could check...then i would know.

People hide nanny cams to watch the nanny. Its because they gave her permission to have access to the house and kid and such.. the cam is like my privacy tab. it makes sure she doesnt abuse the permissions. We KNOW she needs access to the house and kid to do her job.. we just dont want the kid molested. well I dont want my data molested.. So google please give me an app nanny cam.

</comment><comment><USER62> I believe the browser history lookup doesn't work anymore (I tried recently on 5.0 I believe). Also, many of the Android permissions are unecessarily broad, I think that really would be a good thing to fix. Oftentimes you only need some specific function, but have to request a much broader range.

<comment><USER63> Examples? (Especially any for browsing history, bookmarks, or running apps.)

<comment><USER62> Getting a list of accounts (needed if you want to integrate with Google login), asks the user if the app can read their contacts: [https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=189766#c8](https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=189766#c8).

Another example is phone state [https://arnowelzel.de/wp/en/android-and- read_phone_state](https://arnowelzel.de/wp/en/android-and-read_phone_state) (games use this to adjust volume to not drown out calls). There is a replacement, but it's not well known.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> ryan-allen I'm really starting to worry about this as an Android user.

If I want to keep control of my privacy there are so many apps that I can't trust to install. Even little dinky games are asking for access to contacts and messages and all sorts of other things.

An application on a desktop computer that steals data from your email application and sends it back to base is called "Malware". On Android, this is called "business as usual" from what I can tell. I don't know the app developers' reputation, I don't know anything... Except that someone in some other country has unbridled access to my phone.

As a result there are many applications I want to use and I just don't install.

It's not very cool.

<comment><USER64> Not sure why you are getting downvoted for voicing a valid concern.

<comment> ryan-allen Probably due to the lack of scientific rigor that I failed to produce in all of 3 seconds, or, just general BS of an online community. Or shills, who knows! Nobody said this was a community of rational beings.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> Anyone who knows android dev knows this is a non issue. The permission they request doesn't even do anything in lollipop and later. Sounds more like a bad dev than anything malicious.

What's the saying? Never attribute to malice with what can be explained by stupidity?

<comment><USER66> >Never attribute to malice with what can be explained by stupidity

Hanlon's razor

<comment><USER67> Is a logical fallacy that is overused and hardly ever true, and should be relegated to the dustbin of intellectual discourse where it belongs.

<comment><USER22> It's not a logical argument. It's more of a heuristic of human behavior, which tends to be right. Only rarely is there someone sitting behind a large desk making tent hands while laughing maniacally.

EDIT: On second thought, if it is a logical argument, it's a specific case of Occam's Razor. Which is more likely? Someone made a mistake, or there is a grand conspiracy?

<comment><USER68> Here's another fallacy: the fallacy of the excluded middle or the false dichotomy. There are many alternatives on the spectrum between "mistake" and "grand conspiracy".

<comment><USER69> Exactly. These include such situations as:

\- a mistake where misaligned incentives are against fixing it

\- a questionable decision exacerbated by a mistake

\- malice on the part of an external actor plus internal incompetence (essentially all data breaches)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> Crazy town app permissions are what keep me from using Android. I really wouldn't be able to install half the apps out there that ask for all sorts of permissions that are frankly obnoxious.

</comment><comment><USER71> Uber could provide much more than a point to point ride service in its current traditional sense _if_ users are willing to give up more data. For example, it could provide user a tour/travel experience to match with the proper driver if it knows you are traveling. Or send you off to a nice dining experience if it knows you are a foody, etc.

</comment><comment><USER72> Just switch to the mobile web. Same capability, same interface, no intrusive permissions requirements.

Add it to your homescreen and you even get the glorious U logo back!

[https://m.uber.com/](https://m.uber.com/)

</comment><comment><USER44> Sadly, 98% of folks will blindly accept this.

<comment><USER73> I'd venture to guess the number is likely closer to 99.9999%

<comment><USER13> Right. I remember hearing from somebody about Google Now recently. The guy was happy that it reminds him of bills etc., added that it even gets the amount and due date from the "emails" and "reminds".

Frankly, a vast majority (99.99%+) don't care.

<comment><USER74> By "don't care," you mean, "are extremely delighted when Google reminds them to pay a bill on time and avoid a late fee."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> I have often wondered why Android don't categorise or have some mechanism to allow users revoke permission later. I have been a long time Android user but recently started using iPhone. I don't like iPhone for many reasons but then the control you have on turning on and turning off location, data connectivity, access to photos etc from one screen is really something you should have on all device. I felt the need of this, when Facebook asked for permission to read my messages.

<comment><USER76> This feature has been available on Android M for a while now. Sadly, the fragmentation of versions running on the Android platform is the biggest threat to its security.

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> Didn't Uber just admit to giving Feds their data on all their users?

What's the thought on Uber having access to such data as browsing and passing that along to the feds too?

<comment><USER78> No they didn't.

<comment><USER77> Yes they did. Don't tell me know until you can learn how to Google.

<comment><USER78> Don't tell you what?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER79> I have observed on my device when i use Transit Stop to check for bus schedule, Uber app pops up.

</comment><comment><USER80> This has little to do with Uber and is all to do with Android.

Care about privacy. Use Google products. Pick one.

</comment><comment><USER81> Interesting that the headline leaves out the fact that this only applies to poor, security-less Android. Less sensational that way, I guess. (And less accurate.)

</comment><comment> awinter-py keep the big picture in mind here. If Ü can't tell what it looks like you're trying to do, they can't perfect clippy.

</comment><comment><USER69> If you are running the app on Marshmallow, with iOS-style permission requests, in what contexts does the app ask you for these?

<comment><USER82> When you update (and the permissions have changed)

</comment></comment><comment><USER83> With Marshmallow, you can just turn off or deny certain permissions. So for most people who really want to run the Uber app, the question is really whether it runs OK without all these permissions.

<comment><USER84> Uber did this knowing very well that most people don't have Marshmallow on their smartphone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER85> +1 Uninstalled

</comment><comment><USER86> Are they doing it at the behest of NSA?

</comment><comment><USER87> There is definitely an Uber presence on HN doing damage control.

<comment><USER88> People sure love to throw out the shill card without providing any proof.

<comment><USER89> The fact is there are shills everywhere. It's hard to prove them in all cases. But it is a "big" and important industry for companies to anonymously and without accountability do damage control. There have been articles and AMA's etc. from people who had worked for these firms and it's really disgusting.

So it's not people with tin foil hats speculating that shills might exist - <USER2> know shills exist and are pervasive. Given that, we should have a certain non zero belief that any given poster is a shill. Not sure what is the best way to proceed when you know for sure that there are spies around you all the time. That's a bigger discussion. But jumping on people as if we should have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that there's a shill is really counter productive and helping "them" win.

<comment><USER88> The existence of past conspiracies does not offer proof of new ones. Likewise, the fact that shills have existed in the past does not mean they exist here and now. The burden of proof is still on the one making the claim.

It's not only irresponsible but dangerous to take a guilty until proven innocent approach. You should expect somebody to prove it if they're making a claim. That's not letting anyone "win".

Look at profiles. Look for unusual voting patterns. Is it more likely that Uber is secretly watching and manipulating a forum for hackers, or could it be that a lot of people here actually quite like Uber as a company? Occam's razor suggests the latter.

Or maybe - like me - this story just seems shaky as hell with people not understanding that Android permissions (like license agreements) often over- extend themselves. That a permission requiring X doesn't mean X is being used. All the time we see things like "App requires contacts list" where it's only grabbing the owner's info.

Honestly, playing the shill card is lazy and irrelevant. If you have proof, show it -- otherwise you're just spreading FUD.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER90> Hmmm. Nobody talking about other apps that do this? Talking about Tinder[1] for example. They require "Device ID and cell information" too.

[1]: [https://twitter.com/manu29d/status/710883865955422208](https://twitter.com/manu29d/status/710883865955422208)

<comment><USER17> "Et tu" comments without even bothering to search for earlier submissions aren't particularly enlightening.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11465215](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11465215)

From myself in the past week. I've lobbied several app devs to remove/reduce permissions. I've uninstalled others.

Android's privacy model sucks. It needs _retroactive_ fixes. Highlighting the problems is how that gets fixed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Edit: interestingly, this comment had five points before the uber fans modded away. Easier to click down then explain rogue apps I suppose...

They were lucky they didn't try the beta version of the new forthcoming uber app - that version wants access to the phones of all your friends, family, neighbours, your postman, the sister of the locksmith that helped you get the spare key last year, and the chap you met on the train to work last week called Brian. Still, go uber!

<comment><USER91> Your comment was downvoted because it doesn't add to the conversation and is mostly nonsense ("sister of the locksmith?").

</comment></comment><comment><USER92> Come on guys, where are the academics? Instead of overreacting please just reverse engineer, get the facts and check WHY the Uber app actually requests these permissions. I mean, it's still Java, so you got the source. I don't think they're using native code or do more obfuscation than the average app (disclaimer, haven't checked (yet)). Who's first?

<comment><USER93> The burden of proof on the necessity of those permissions lies in the creators, not the consumers.

<comment><USER92> I agree. Yet this is Hackernews, and if the creators don't do it we can.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER94> If you have any questions, you can write Uber at email@example.com.

-iOS App Permissions [https://www.uber.com/legal/other/ios-permissions/](https://www.uber.com/legal/other/ios-permissions/)

-Android App Permissions [https://www.uber.com/legal/other/android-permissions/](https://www.uber.com/legal/other/android-permissions/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Did you read the post? He contacted firstname.lastname@example.com.

Question: [http://i.imgur.com/K1mAtiH.png](http://i.imgur.com/K1mAtiH.png)

Scripted reply that didn't answer question: [http://i.imgur.com/m9sWJZR.png](http://i.imgur.com/m9sWJZR.png)

Also, as mentioned in the post, [https://www.uber.com/legal/other/android- permissions/](https://www.uber.com/legal/other/android-permissions/) doesn't mention the new permissions.

<comment><USER94> If I made that clear, it would be less likely others would contact Uber; appears that I should have just let it be.</comment></comment></comment>


SixXS.net: Call Your ISP for IPv6 - <AUTHOR> https://www.sixxs.net/news/#12-01 <comment><USER2> Heck yes. I just rejected CenturyLink Fiber gigabit Internet at my place, because they don't support ipv6. It's Comcast Business for me for a while yet.</comment>


Ask HN: Successful companies that white label their product? - <AUTHOR> I'm trying to think of a successful company that got to where it is by white labeling their software. Anybody know of any examples?<p>Obviously because of the white labeling it is harder to know who is behind the software. <comment><USER2> It's a lot more common than you think. Look for companies that have a partner or reseller programs, often times white labeling is an option.

A couple of examples:

[1] Dell - [https://partnerdirect.dell.com/sites/channel/en- us/documents...](https://partnerdirect.dell.com/sites/channel/en- us/documents/brochure-cloudrunner-us.pdf)

[2] Rackspace - [https://www.rackspace.com/en-us/email- resellers](https://www.rackspace.com/en-us/email-resellers)

[3] IBM [https://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/35592.wss](https://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/35592.wss)

If you are interested in finding more companies that white label, check out CRN.com - [http://www.crn.com/search- results?searchterm=%22white+label%...](http://www.crn.com/search- results?searchterm=%22white+label%22&x=0&y=0)

</comment><comment><USER3> TrueCar white labels their site with various car buying programs.

They would've gone out of business years ago if it weren't for their white label program. It took a few years for their main site to make more money than the white-label versions.</comment>


JavaScript Scope & "this" - <AUTHOR> http://javascriptplayground.com/blog/2012/04/javascript-variable-scope-this

<comment><USER2> If anyone ever wonders why Python has the explicit self-variable, this is the answer. If you define a local class inside a method inside a class, you will have two variables called "this" or "self" and it may be practical to refer to both of them. Sometimes you see JavaScript with "var self = this;" or something similar.

</comment><comment><USER3> That covers it nicely.

A couple of minor typos, though: You've got extraneous ")"s in the code-blocks under "Local Scope" and "A word of Caution", and I think the one under "very bad idea" needs the last line to be "})();" in place of just "});".

</comment><comment><USER4> A good read, but a little disappointing that it didn't touch on the (function(...) {...}).bind(this) approach to passing the parent "this" context down the function tree, preferring instead to use an extra variable in the form of "_this".</comment>


Ask HN: Monetizing unused server resources? - <AUTHOR> I have a couple $5 Digital Ocean droplets (the cheapest ones they offer) that I'm using <10% CPU on. For reasons I won't get into I can't combine the stuff I'm running on them into one single $5 droplet. I was thinking about ways I could use my unused server resources, and think I've come up with a way (not involving mining crypto) that people could make $1-2 bucks a month for just running an agent that uses some CPU / bandwidth on their over-provisioned servers.
I've thought about it some and personally don't think this is viable because it would be too hard to convince people to run a 3rd party agent for only a couple bucks per month. I wanted to check and make sure I wasn't wrong though - you'd have to:
- Make an account on a site and enter a method you could get paid - Install a simple open-source (you can verify it's not malicious) agent on your server and start it. - [Optional] configure the agent to limit its resource usage OR to disable itself during pre-configured times OR to automatically disable itself if it detects CPU usage above a threshold.
Would you or anyone you know be interested in running an agent like this if it existed? What are your biggest concerns with running such an agent? Are there other ways of monetizing unused server resources I'm not thinking of? <comment><USER2> To some capacity, you are creating a product that competes with mining, which is a rather large market.

You'll have hurdles similar to coinhive, where malicious and white-hat people alike will both be interested in running your software.

Why not use this method to create a new crypto where the mining is actually a useful service?</comment>


Interactive D compiler - <AUTHOR> http://asm.dlang.org/ <comment> s-macke It would be nice to combine such a project with a Linux emulator like

[http://s-macke.github.io/jor1k/demos/compile.html](http://s-macke.github.io/jor1k/demos/compile.html)

Of course the total loading time for the website would increase. But if use such a website you stay longer anyhow.

</comment><comment><USER2> line numbering should be in hex in order to match the assembly code.

<comment><USER3> What?

Not sure if you're being humorous, but that doesn't make any sense. There's no 1:1 mapping between lines in a high-level language and the generated assembly instructions, of course.

<comment><USER4> I think reacweb is talking about the assembly line numbers on the right side.

<comment><USER3> D'oh! Thanks.

I agree, then. :) It would be helpful to have the address of each instruction visible, since it makes jumps more easy to figure out (among other things).</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What will the 'new normal' be after Covid-19? - <AUTHOR> Will we continue investing in more remote employees? What will happen to our markets and the economies we are a part of? What new businesses will be spawned from this? Will we be more prepared for the next (epi/pan)demic? <comment><USER2> >Will we be more prepared for the next (epi/pan)demic?

More, sure a little more prepared, but we won't be "prepared" (in the US). Just like Pearl Harbor, WTC bombing, 9/11, we can see all the signs after the fact but ignore them prior, until disaster.

</comment><comment><USER3> Personally, I'm using this as a trial run for early retirement. I'm eating at home and my expenses are drastically reduced.

</comment><comment><USER4> I predict the the "new" normal will return to the "old" normal once the situation stabilizes. I don't for a moment buy into the plethora of posts suggesting that we will not.

</comment><comment><USER5> > Will we be more prepared for the next (epi/pan)demic?

If we keep washing our hands, sanitizing our surfaces, and working from home, I'd expect next winter's flu season to be pretty light.</comment>


SSD reliability in the real world: Google's experience - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/article/ssd-reliability-in-the-real-world-googles-experience/ <comment><USER2> I just love how Google datacenters are somehow "the real world". Nice, cool and controlled temperatures, batch ordering from vendors knowing they are shipping to Google, stable/repeatable environments, not much mention about the I/O load, etc.

And then there's

> Ignore Uncorrectable Bit Error Rate (UBER) specs. A meaningless number. ...

> Bad news: SSDs fail at a lower rate than disks, but UBER rate is higher

meaningless, it is.

The real world has wild temperature ranges, wilder temperature _changes_, mechanical variations well above and beyond datacenter use, and possibly wil wild loads (e.g. viruses, antiviruses, all sorts of updates, etc. etc.).

It is easier to do stats this way, though.

<comment><USER3> Google is quite famous for running their data centers hotter than others.

* Title makes it obvious, but 95f : [http://www.geek.com/chips/googles-most-efficient-data-center...](http://www.geek.com/chips/googles-most-efficient-data-center-runs-at-95-degrees-1478473/)

* Increased in dns request failures(likely due to said heat) and bad routing cause internal iGoogle services to request this guy's stuff: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aT7mnSstKGs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aT7mnSstKGs)

<comment><USER4> To save others the bother: 95°F = 35°C. Warm!

<comment><USER5> For the sake of anecdote, during an Australian summer my drives can get to 50c, and will usually be around 30c to 40c for the rest of the year.

For fun, my GPU will hover around 50-70c, occasionally hitting 80c. The CPU around 50c, and the rest of the machine is a mystery!

<comment> jon-wood Thanks to some utterly awful cooling my laptop CPU idles at about 70c, peaking in the 80s. I don't know if it's within spec for an i7 or just dumb luck but its still running just fine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I had an SSD completely fail after only a month of use. It was a cheap-ish KingSpec C3000 128GB. It wasn't recognized in BIOS. Surprisingly, doing something called 'power cycling' made the disk work again. It still works after 2 years of use.

[http://forum.crucial.com/t5/Crucial-SSDs/Why-did-my-SSD- quot...](http://forum.crucial.com/t5/Crucial-SSDs/Why-did-my-SSD-quot- disappear-quot-from-my-system/ta-p/65215) > "A sudden power loss is a common cause for a system to fail to recognize an SSD. In most cases, your SSD can be returned to normal operating condition by completing a power cycle, a process that will take approximately one hour.

We recommend you perform this procedure on a desktop computer because it allows you to only connect the SATA power connection, which improves the odds of the power cycle being successful. However, a USB enclosure with an external power source will also work. Apple and Windows desktop users follow the same steps.

1\. Once you have the drive connected and sitting idle, simply power on the computer and wait for 20 minutes. We recommend that you don't use the computer during this process.

2\. Power the computer down and disconnect the drive from the power connector for 30 seconds.

3\. Reconnect the drive, and repeat steps 1 and 2 one more time.

4\. Reconnect the drive normally, and boot the computer to your operating system. "

<comment><USER7> A $15 USB3-SATA external interface will do this just as well, and you don't even have to plug it into a computer. As a bonus, it's a good thing to have lying around a workshop where you might want to temporarily plug in a drive to investigate it.

(Edit: wow, somehow I missed the line you had about that in your post. My apologies.)

<comment><USER8> Could you recommend any? At our workshop we use Startech's but I recall them being way costlier than 15 bucks.

<comment><USER7> NewEgg has a bunch of nonames for $7-12 which appear to be identical to the ones in my lab, which also have no identifying marks. Separate AC-DC power supply brick going to a switch and a 4-pin Molex, separate Molex-SATA power converter, and a small black box that takes USB on one side and has a SATA port and 3.5/2.5 PATA on the edges.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The ZDNet article doesn't say much more than the paper's abstract does.

Perhaps the link should be changed to either [https://www.usenix.org/conference/fast16/technical- sessions/...](https://www.usenix.org/conference/fast16/technical- sessions/presentation/schroeder) , or to the paper itself: [http://0b4af6cdc2f0c5998459-c0245c5c937c5dedcca3f1764ecc9b2f...](http://0b4af6cdc2f0c5998459-c0245c5c937c5dedcca3f1764ecc9b2f.r43.cf2.rackcdn.com/23105-fast16-papers- schroeder.pdf) (linked from the first link).

</comment><comment><USER10> This article is light on details, and looking at the source it would be great to know brands and model numbers.

I use SSDs in all my builds, servers and workstations. My most used are Samsung 850 EVOs and PROs, follow by the Intel 750 and Samsung 950 PRO.

Out of bout 80 or so that I've put into production over the past few years I've had about 3 850 EVOs go bad on me, just completely lock up the machine they are connected to, can't even run diag. I make sure to use the PRO series in critical environments, and EVO for budget.

<comment><USER11> > I've had about 3 850 EVOs go bad on me, just completely lock up the machine > they are connected to, can't even run diag

That's worrying. It should at least stay a proper PCI-E citizen, not lock up the computer. And it should always provide the SMART data, even if the SSD is dead otherwise. And even if writing isn't possible anymore (safely, due to many bad bits), it should lock-down to read-only.

<comment><USER12> I was using OCZ Vertex 2 SSD in the past, when (possibly due to a firmware bug) it just wouldn't appear on the SATA bus anymore and had an error LED lit up. I RMA-d the drive, and they said they have to reflash the firmware, but doing so would also loose all data because it would erase the AES key. (I never configured any encryption on the drive, but apparently it does use it by default).

Needless to say I didn't buy OCZ again, but I'm not sure if this is a general problem with SSDs or just Sandforce controllers.

<comment><USER13> I think this was just an OCZ thing.

<comment><USER14> Where I work we have had more OCZ drives fail on us than not.

I wouldn't trust then even with temporary data, no matter what performance they can push.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> FWIW Facebook published its own research on flash memory failure [https://research.facebook.com/publications/a-large-scale- stu...](https://research.facebook.com/publications/a-large-scale-study-of- flash-memory-failures-in-the-field/)

</comment><comment><USER16> It's fun to see this data come out. I did some of the early reliability tests for these devices. At the time, Google hadn't publicly announced that we were using SSDs in the data-center so there wasn't really an opportunity to publish or talk about it.

The most surprising thing to me was the correlation between age and RBER.

I would not have guessed that normal aging would play a significant role in reliability. It would be fun to understand what is happening there.

<comment><USER17> Age means chronological age?

So if I set up an SSD then take it out of the machine and put it on the shelf the data loss would be similar to one that I left in the machine?

Just checking.

If so, it's got to be cosmic rays or some kind of chemical change in the chips (anyone else remember tin whiskers growing on early RF transistors?)

<comment><USER18> In fact SSDs are not designed to retain data over very long periods while powered down.... _particilarly_ when exposed to higher temperatures, and if they have seen lots of writes.

The interesting note from this abstract is I guess they saw that number of writes didn't seem to play as much of an effect. I don't known if they tested temperature as an independent variable.

I suspect higher temps played a role in influencing Google's results. Higher temps while powered on will increase write endurance. If they were ever powering off drives for efficiency purposes this would also have an effect on read errors, which also gets worse with higher temperature.

I'll quote heavily from AnandTech's article on the topic;

"As always, there is a technical explanation to the data retention scaling. The conductivity of a semiconductor scales with temperature, which is bad news for NAND because when it's unpowered the electrons are not supposed to move as that would change the charge of the cell. In other words, as the temperature increases, the electrons escape the floating gate faster that ultimately changes the voltage state of the cell and renders data unreadable (i.e. the drive no longer retains data).

For active use the temperature has the opposite effect. Because higher temperature makes the silicon more conductive, the flow of current is higher during program/erase operation and causes less stress on the tunnel oxide, improving the endurance of the cell because endurance is practically limited by tunnel oxide's ability to hold the electrons inside the floating gate."

See: [http://www.anandtech.com/show/9248/the-truth-about-ssd- data-...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/9248/the-truth-about-ssd-data- retention)

<comment><USER17> Charge leaking away over time - arrays of capacitors - got it. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> "High-end SLC drives are no more reliable that MLC drives."

"None of the drives in the study came anywhere near their write limits"

I thought a major difference between MLC and SLC is the number of write cycles?

<comment><USER20> I think you're right, but what they are saying is that it is irrelevant because the drives/blocks are failing due to age, and not amount of write cycle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Something I was unaware of: single bit (correctable) read errors _are not_ immediately repaired in NAND. Subsequent in-error reads are repeatedly processed by ECC on the fly, while the media rewrite is scheduled for sometime later.

This inflates the observed correctable error rate to some extent.

<comment><USER16> FWIW - single-bit errors are not synonymous with correctable errors in flash.

For any given type of flash chip the manufacturer will provide a spec like "you must be able to correct N bits per M bytes". The firmware for a flash drive must use forward error correction codes (e.g. BCH or LDPC) of sufficient strength to correct the specified number of bit errors.

Dealing with a certain amount of bit-errors is just part of dealing with flash.

For example, a chip could have a spec that you must be able to correct up to 8 bit errors per 512 bytes (made up numbers). If the chip had 4KiB pages, each page would be split into 8 "chunks" that were each protected by error correcting codes that were capable of correcting up to 8 single-bit errors in that chunk. As long as no "chunk" had more than 8 bit errors, the read would succeed.

So in this case you could theoretically have a page read with 64 bit errors that succeeded.

This is alluded to in the paper: "The first generation of drives report accurate counts for the number of bits read, but for each page, consisting of 16 data chunks, only report the number of corrupted bits in the data chunk that had the largest number of corrupted bits."

<comment><USER21> Thanks for your gentle correction. (I was thinking of Gray code, as taught to me during my Wonder Years. You're right as rain of course.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The first key conclusion threw me a bit. Easy to misread as "Ignore UBER" rather than "Ignore UBER _specs_ ".

<comment><USER16> The article talks about ignoring UBER _specs_ the paper doesn't say that (at least that's not what I read).

From the paper:

        We find that UBER (uncorrectable bit error rate), the
        standard metric to measure uncorrectable errors, is not
        very meaningful. We see no correlation between UEs
        and number of reads, so normalizing uncorrectable errors
        by the number of bits read will artificially inflate the
        reported error rate for drives with low read count."

Basically uncorrectable errors are not correlated to the number of reads, so computing an UBER by dividing the number of uncorrectable errors by the number of reads is meaningless. Therefore UBER is a meaningless metric.

They don't differentiate UBER from a manufacturer spec and UBER as measured in production.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I was expecting to read about drives being bricked by buggy firmware. I guess they finally solved the firmware side.

<comment><USER24> According to the paper, these are full-custom drives with custom firmware. These are not commercial SSDs.

<comment><USER25> Where did you get that "full-custom" thing?

The FA says they tested: "10 different drive models" of "enterprise and consumer drives".

<comment><USER26> The original paper states the following:

The drives in our study are custom designed high performance solid state drives, which are based on commodity flash chips, but use a custom PCIe interface, firmware and driver.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Bianca Schroeder speaking on SSD reliability in the Stanford EE Computer Systems Colloquium: [https://youtu.be/60OmhRJ0CUA](https://youtu.be/60OmhRJ0CUA). The abstract for her talk can be found at [http://ee380.stanford.edu/Abstracts/160224.html](http://ee380.stanford.edu/Abstracts/160224.html).

</comment><comment><USER28> > _30-80 percent of SSDs develop at least one bad block and 2-7 percent > develop at least one bad chip in the first four years of deployment._

Did he perhaps mean 3-8 percent?

<comment><USER29> No, almost every NAND chip will have bad blocks. The initial ones are discarded during drive initialization in the factory. Then they ideally do some burn-in which may catch a few more bad blocks. Then over the life of the drive you may see thousands of defective blocks depending of capacity and number of NAND dies. However the drive can be designed and tested to tolerate to a expected defect limit with no data loss. Now if there is a bad chip, that can also be handled but the recovery process can be high stress on the SSD like in RAID recovery.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> More numbers with specific models would be nice. It would be perhaps useful to do a cost-benefit analysis over time of better SSDs vs. cheap SSDs with more redundancy and backups.

</comment><comment><USER31> > drive days

What is a drive day?

<comment><USER32> Much like a man-hour is a measure of one human working for one hour, a drive day is one drive operating for one day. So a million drive days could be a million drives for one day, a thousand drives for a thousand days, or any combination.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I'd love to hear about folks' experience with the Samsing 850 Pro...

<comment><USER34> Power failures result in corruption. (To be fair, true of just about every SSD except the Intel DC line. But I have personally experienced this with the 850 Pro.)

<comment><USER35> Some higher end (e.g. enterprise) SSDs have some form of power backup (e.g. capacitors) to protect against power failure induced corruption. SSDs with power backup tend to be more expensive though than the consumer grade devices (such as the 850 Pro).

<comment><USER34> The Intel DC (= datacenter) line which I mentioned in my comment has this:

[http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/solid-state- drives/da...](http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/solid-state-drives/data- center-family.html)

I'm sure there are others, but I don't know about them. Having surveyed the market myself recently, there's no consumer-grade SSD with such a feature (but the Intel ones aren't too pricey).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Ah UBER is a meaningless number (not a taxi company)</comment>


The Radioactive Boy Scout (1999) - <AUTHOR> http://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/radscout.html?resub <comment><USER2> Hahn died a year ago, age 39, likely due to fentanyl.

Wikipedia says he died of alcohol poisoning[1], however the actual medical examiner's report says, "intoxication by the combined effects of alcohol, fentanyl and diphrenhydramine."[2] It goes on to say that the blood alcohol concentration was 0.404 mg/dL. Unless there's a misplaced decimal point, that level is almost nothing; it's a trace of alcohol. The legal limit for drunk driving in all 50 states is 80 mg/dL, or two hundred times greater than what he had.

Diphenhydramine, also mentioned by the medical examiner, is an over-the- counter anti-allergy medicine. It is apparently used as an intensifier for opioids (like fentanyl).

So it seems his death was really caused by fentanyl. The medical examiner mentions alcohol only because he has to state all factors no matter how minor.

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

[2] [https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3517279-1-Page- Fax-F...](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3517279-1-Page-Fax- From-15616828151.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> Heh, this story is always interesting when it comes up. The Harper's article is well-written, too. It just boggles the mind that this kid actually made a frickin' unshielded nuclear reactor core. He actually did it, the absolute madman.

I like how the police brought him in as a kid for having a nuclear device, he made a superfund site out of the whole deal, and he still grew up to work aboard a nuclear aircraft carrier. The Navy must have known, right? I wonder what those conversations must have been like.

Also, I am super not surprised that Wikipedia says, "He was inspired in part by reading The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments." That book is just goatshit insane; the '60s were clearly a silly time, because the 'also by this author' section includes The Golden Book of Wild Animal Pets. Which, uh...I don't know. I got nothing.

Anyways, it's public domain, but before you hand it to a young child be warned that it includes phrases like, "making Hydrogen in the lab," and "have a bottle of household ammonia to sniff if you get too strong a whiff of Chlorine." Yikes.

[https://archive.org/details/GoldenBookOfChemistryExperiments](https://archive.org/details/GoldenBookOfChemistryExperiments)

<comment><USER4> Comeon, making Hydrogen isn't that crazy, you just hook up a 9V battery to a glass of water.

Edit: skimmed the book. They first make Hydrogen through electrolysis (cool!). Then they make it from hydro-chloric acid (cool! also dangerous!).

<comment><USER3> Yeah, but most books don't go into detail for separating the resulting hydrogen and oxygen, testing for hydrogen by burning it, or observing the difference in using hydrogen and oxygen to burn things.

Sure, it's easy to observe, but be careful...

I do really like the book's can-do attitude, though.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, especially as it says your lab can be in your bedroom or basement. Generating larger amounts of flammable gas indoors and burning it is less sane.

<comment><USER5> As long as you have proper ventilation what's the real issue?

Yes, I may have investigated installing a chemical hood in my house, but it was all theoretical... for now.

<comment><USER3> Sheets of acrylic can make great housings for things like this; they're transparent, and a plastics shop will cut you panels to size for cheap. One example of an instrument you can make with acrylics is a gel electrophoresis box:

[http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/labs/gel/build_gel_bo...](http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/labs/gel/build_gel_box.pdf)

Some chemicals can dissolve plastics, but hey. It's cheap, sturdy, and easy to assemble. Acrylic cement has the consistency of turpentine and sets pretty quickly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Link to the original article, which is still online: [https://harpers.org/archive/1998/11/the-radioactive-boy- scou...](https://harpers.org/archive/1998/11/the-radioactive-boy-scout/)

So this should probably be marked (1998)

And looks like the article was discussed five (!!) years ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=611583](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=611583)

And then Ars brought it up a year ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12957768](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12957768)

<comment><USER7> The half-life on this story is pretty long.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> To repeat a post I made earlier [1]: It is tragic that a child and later teen with so much curiosity and interest in science was not able to get the guidance he needed to channel his drive into a more rewarding and productive life. I suspect many HN readers will see a lot of themselves in David, as did I, and wish things could have turned out differently.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12951194](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12951194)

<comment><USER9> There is that, but it also appears that he had a poorly managed mental illness - this is as much a part of the sad outcome as anything else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> He's dead now :(

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

Another related good read is "The Boy Who Played with Fusion: Extreme Science, Extreme Parenting, and How to Make a Star".

<comment><USER11> There's always Taylor Wilson, Colin Furze and others to carry the torch of mischief. :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> There's also an interesting documentary with Hahn going through some of the methods he used, called 'The Nuclear Boy Scout'.

<comment><USER13> Wow, interesting is kind of an understatement. I found it a bit disturbing. The guy is still basically asking for it.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6Uuex4VZPE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6Uuex4VZPE)

Edit: Looks like he died in 2016 of alcohol poisoning. :(

<comment><USER14> A real life Rick

<comment><USER15> I... why? There was no need to compare this talented guy with an over-the-top, megalomaniacal and egocentric scientist from a sci-fi cartoon.

<comment><USER14> Did not mean it as an insult

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> A kid on Ars Technica did something similar.

[0] [https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=155929](https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=155929)

</comment><comment><USER17> I remember reading this in Readers Digest way back in the early 90s.</comment>


Get started with React.js in Java - <AUTHOR> http://www.jsweet.org/get-started-with-react-js-in-java/ <comment><USER2> Related: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10737058](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10737058)</comment>


15 Things You Didn't Know About 'Game of Thrones' - <AUTHOR> http://thevine.com.au/entertainment/tv/16-things-you-may-not-have-known-about-game-of-thrones/

<comment><USER2> So this goes without saying, but don't click the link _or_ read through the comments here if you aren't through season 2 and have a distaste for spoilers.

</comment><comment><USER3> Would never have thought that Lily Allen's little brother in the song Alfie would grow up to overthrow Winterfell.

</comment><comment><USER4> i was expecting some insight into Game of Thrones story.. this is just celebrity gossip.

<comment><USER5> There are subreddits for that kind of stuff.

In fact, this is the only answer I could thought of that would not potentially spoil you if you have not read the books.</comment></comment>