Ex-Goldman Sachs Trader Says Bonus Cut to $8.25 Million Unfair - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-18/ex-goldman-trader-says-bonus-cut-to-8-25-million-unfair.html <comment><USER2> A messy situation. If you are giving bonuses related to how much money the person makes for the company, but then docking them based on other factors, there's a lot of room for abuse by the company. Every dollar you don't pay as bonuses to this guy get paid to soemone else, right?

</comment><comment><USER3> As much as it sucks that GS lied about him getting a raise for making them a bunch of money, he really should have gotten their promise in writing.

As any trader knows, words mean nothing. This isn't kindergarten.

<comment><USER4> Traders don't know that at all. They often make deals solely on coming to a non-written agreement. For example, trading in the pits.

<comment><USER3> He wasn't a pit trader, and GS isn't a pit. If the guy can handle making a couple of billion trading mortgages, I'm sure he can handle contracts 101. Pits work entirely on trader to trader rep. Bonuses are discretionary management items, and the rule is if you don't like their discretion, you jump ship and stick it on base at Bank 2.

If you want a bonus guarantee, get it in writing, and stick it on base.

Otherwise, suck it up.

<comment><USER5> _> He wasn't a pit trader, and GS isn't a pit._

Pit trading changed a lot in the late-90's. And moved to Level-2 systems in office buildings with near real-time access to all ECNs giving a unforeseen level of control and participation (yay tech!). As expected all proprietary traders and everyone else called it the pit.

And sure, GS isn't a pit. But until late 2009 - early 2010 when they wound up most of their proprietary trading business in response to Dodd-Frank they were one of the mightiest pit traders, with multiple seats on every pit, this was beyond their market makers and remote traders.

Their trading activity on CME (Chicago Mercantile Exchange) was legendary. Some would say they had seats on the exchange, other may say they owned the pit (figuratively).

But you're right that still doesn't make them a pit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I understand that bonuses are supposed to be performance based compensation. But if this guy is claiming that he's consistently performant and has a great reputation, maybe that portion of his compensation should have been moved from bonus to base. I can't blame him for leaving, but I also can't really sympathize with him for thinking any portion of the bonus was guaranteed.

</comment><comment><USER7> Is there a bigger picture that I am missing? Not sure why this is significant beyond the sheer amount of money.

</comment><comment><USER8> This guy sounds fantastically unhappy. Welcome to the hedonic treadmill. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill)

<comment><USER9> Does he?

> Deeb Salem, a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) trader who said he helped > the bank earn more than $7 billion, wants to be paid the almost $5 million > difference between his 2010 bonus and what _he told his mother to expect_.

Money is the glue that keeps these firms together. If I felt I was legitimately owed this money, I'd pursue arbitration too. I'd rather buy my mom an island somewhere than pad the pockets of Goldman's shareholders with my money.</comment></comment>


Bots Are Playing a Bigger Role in the Election Than People Realize (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://dev.to/ben/bots-are-playing-a-bigger-role-in-the-election-than-people-realize <comment><USER2> I understand what they're getting at but it still seems like every single person is of the opinion that they view the facts and come to logical conclusion. Everyone also believes that everyone other then themselves is a simple minded dolt easily manipulated.

In the context of this article my biggest problem is that there's an assumption that only one side is easily manipulated (i.e. those idiots who voted for Trump but left to their own devices would have voted for Clinton) and only one side does the manipluating (i.e. our side puts out an honest version of the facts which obviously is complicated and difficult to understand. The other side lies to get morons to side with them.)

If we can all just get on board with the idea that everyone except for me is a simple minded dolt I think we'll all be happier.

</comment><comment><USER3> so 4chan once again gamed the internet using bots, for their own amusement, to attempt to help the campaign and to irritate people they see as political enemies. We've seen this so many times now, why is it still surprising or attributed to nebulous groups ("it's the Russians!") rather than a well known group of internet rabble-rousers? Not that this article does so, but the wider press often seems to.

It wouldn't be half the impact if every time they did something like this, the wider media brushed it off as "4chan did something that was meant to be provocative again".

<comment><USER4> 4chan (really, just /pol/) is one of many communities doing this. The Russian government is another entity that's doing this. There's no reason it can't be both.

<comment><USER3> absolutely, but I guess I'm seeing way too much attribution going towards the Russians. If some twitter account with an anime avatar tweets some blatantly incendiary stuff it's "Russian troll accounts" now. It's a bit OTT even for the scope and scale of the Russian interference, which was grand.

<comment><USER4> Yes, and that was partly the point all along: to spread FUD about people being Russian agents, events being Russia-manipulated, and ideas being Russia- propagated. Russian intelligence has surely succeeded on that front.

The rational people out there aren't throwing around any such accusations, though. Instead, they rely on the documented instances of proven Russian trolls, as uncovered by law enforcement, the intelligence community, and Facebook and Twitter's security teams. Accusing an account of being on the Kremlin's dime is pretty absurd without forensic evidence. Very obviously, the vast majority of pro-Trump accounts out there are either organic, or not organic but operated by Trump-supporting US nationals.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How to Make a Hit Viral Video - <AUTHOR> http://google-cpg.blogspot.com/2010/06/how-to-make-hit-viral-video.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OfficialGoogleCpgBlog+%28Official+Google+CPG+Blog%29 <comment><USER2> As articulate as I can put it: No.

I've said it once, Spike Jones has echoed my statements, and I'll say it again: Just because you call it viral does not make it so.</comment>


Double Robotics has started shipping its iPad-equipped telepresence robots - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2013/05/30/double-robotics-has-started-shipping-its-ipad-equipped-telepresence-robots/

<comment><USER2> We are probably the biggest user of a Double being the first to get beta access and having a co-founders (drolnitzky) remote. At one point early in the beta, we were bigger user than every other user combined.

Having a double has been one of the best boons to our productivity. I personally spend most of my team working with drolnitzky and this is the best thing that has happened to me professionally. It's like having him in the same room. The meetings are much easier, discussion is impromptu, asking a question doesn't require getting on skype, asking for permission etc.

Double is one of those things that you think you don't need but if you have remote team members, it becomes the most indispensable tool.

I can't say enough good things about Double. It's an amazing amazing thing.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wonder - why not to make an empty plastic shell similar to a human in form? Uncanny valley? Similarly, why now to make empty heads - possibly custom-made, for each person who's going to use the robot?

<comment><USER4> I tried that in an early version of Anybots (see [http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/09/anybots-rolls-out-qa- the-...](http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/09/anybots-rolls-out-qa-the- telegenic-telepresence-robot/) for pictures). It caused people to expect it to be a Robot with a robotic personality, and were disappointed when it was just a proxy for a person. It was confusing since there were two human-like things involved. I analogized it to designing a phone to look like a human head.

The goal is communicating transparently with the remote person, so a minimal design works best.

That said, a humanoid torso would be a fun aftermarket accessory for the Double.

<comment><USER3> May be it's a design question. The torso shouldn't be human-like, but the idea is to make it - less ugly, subjectively? - than a stick with an iPad on it. Yes, it somehow should avoid being confused with robot - so may be it shouldn't look like a stereotypical robot.

I agree that everything has a price; the question is, is it justified by perceived improvement in looks. To me, a Segway with a stick looks odd, especially in a company of a few people walking somewhere. Something more resembling "a figure" could likely improve the perception.

A head model could both make easier to realize who you're talking to - I guess this can be useful - and also improve overall looking. I agree that it's also not as easy - and reconfigurable - as just having an iPad.

It seems to me there is a potential for improvements.</comment></comment></comment>


Retirement of Prof. Andy Tanenbaum - <AUTHOR> http://www.cs.vu.nl/tanenbaum/ <comment><USER2> And maybe the only person to ever successfully troll Linus Torvalds and then get an apology from him (ok just an excuse to link the epic debate in [1]).

Thanks Mr. Tanenbaum, your various works have been a huge inspiration as well as incredibly interesting to read or tinker with.

[1]: [https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/comp.os....](https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/comp.os.minix/wlhw16QWltI%5B1-25-false%5D)

<comment><USER3> _" Don`t get me wrong, I am not unhappy with LINUX. It will get all the people who want to turn MINIX in BSD UNIX off my back. But in all honesty, I would suggest that people who want a MODERN "free" OS look around for a microkernel- based, portable OS, like maybe GNU or something like that."_

Hehehe.

<comment><USER4> What's even more amusing about that remark is that - as of MINIX3, at least - MINIX has in fact adopted the NetBSD userland.

<comment><USER5> He is not talking about the userland, he's talking about the kernel structure, mirco vs. monolithic.

<comment><USER6> Ya...part of the design goal is that a microkernel as envisioned by AST should be able to able to have interchangeable userlands, including multiple different userlands running at the same time. So in that sense, AST was spot on.

<comment><USER7> Oh, and:

\- device drivers as processes (so you can actually debug them)

\- increased security by isolating various parts of the core OS _from each other_

\- easy scaling from single machine to cluster by message passing

\- treating devices as networked resources

\- file systems in userspace (which we have now with FUSE)

and so on.

The benefits of microkernels go a lot further than just being able to use multiple userlands.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I can't really emphasize enough how well-written his books are. I picked up some of Tanenbaum's books early in high school (specifically: Structured Computer Organization, Modern Operating Systems, and Computer Networks). They were so well-written and engaging they I could hardly take my eyes off of 'em. They really cultivated an interest and love for Computer Science in me.

<comment><USER9> I always liked how he would crack the ocassional joke every now and then in his books. "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway."

<comment><USER10> That's not actually a joke, once you do the math ...

<comment><USER11> Jokes don't have to be false — it's actually in vogue these days for jokes to be accurate observations of reality stated in funny ways. For example, Louis CK's joke about the unfairness of banking fee structures:

 _Ever get so broke that the bank charges you money for not having enough money? The bank calls up and says "Hi, we're calling because you don't have enough money." And you go, "I know!" So they say, "You have insufficient funds." "Yep, that's a good way of putting it too, I'd agree with that. I find my funds to be grossly insufficient." "You only have $20, so we're going to have to charge you $15." Fifteen dollars, that's how much it costs to own $20. But here's the fucked-up part — now I only have five. Now I don't even have the money that I paid to have._

I think Tanenbaum's joke is a good example of this sort of humor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> My small Tanenbaum story. When Prof. Tanenbaum came to speak at my college I showed up a bit late to a very packed room.

Many people were standing in the back, but it looked like there was one seat left in the first row, a few seats in. I proceeded to walk up, force everyone to stand up and politely asked everyone to move so I could use the last seat. Some old crusty professor didn't hear me , so I had to explicitly ask him to move.

About 1 minute later the crusty old professor stood up, walked back behind me and started his speech :). Oops. All my classmates asked me afterward WTF was wrong with me...

<comment><USER13> Reminds me of when I was at Dark Carnival in Berkeley browsing books. There was this comfy chair in the middle of the room, so I sat down to read a little of the book I was browsing. It was something by Poul Anderson, from the display next to the chair.

So, I'm sitting there reading and a crowd starts to gather. I look up and a bunch of people are looking at me. There's this older gentleman closer than the others. Then, it dawned on me, it was Poul Anderson. Oops. There to sign copies of his new book.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> My MOS book was stolen from my car when I went to college. I like to think a drug addict somewhere will go on to develop the next great operating system.

<comment><USER15> I put a few outdated textbooks outside with the trash in Amsterdam, and when I came back after getting groceries, there was this homeless guy sitting on the curb, enthralled in Structure of Computer Organization.

<comment><USER16> Have you seen any differences between Amsterdam homeless and American homeless?

<comment><USER17> My inner (OK, outer) snide cynic says that he already answered your question.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> My 5 cents, an email send to Tanenbaum.

>Hi Professor,

>I'm interested a PH.D in Amsterdam. I have worked in

>Accenture Italy since one year.

>There are a opportunity to PH.D in your study group?

>Best Regards ..

After 5 minutes

>I don't have any openings. Sorry

>Andy Tanenbaum

This is a simple mail, but I liked his courtesy and fast response

<comment><USER19> You write english text with an italian accent. Bravo.

<comment><USER18> I try to reproduce my usual speaking. I want to be coherent :D

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> When I was sixteen, I attended open house classes for computer science for both universities in Amsterdam, the UvA, and the VU. At the UvA, they let us draw Mickey Mouse in Pascal on an ancient Mac.

At the VU, Andy Tanenbaum gave a lecture on operating systems, and handed out floppy disks with Minix at the end. All I knew then was DOS. Mind blown. Thank you ast!

</comment><comment><USER20> In the US the university administration encourages even distinguished professors to retire in order to hire new faculty. It allows to hire another distinguished professor who will bring in more research money and quality students. Full professor slots are very limited even at the richest US colleges. A Supreme Court decision a couple decades ago prevents forced retirement of faculty at any age. But the administration guilts the professor about hurting department prestige. And the retiring professor can often negotiate some aspects of his replacement. Its resembles debates about when US Supreme Court justices should retire whom also have lifetime tenure.

<comment><USER21> Some context: Andy Tanenbaum is born in March 1944, so already 70. That's five years after the common retirement age for his age group in The Netherlands (assuming that he paid his social taxes here).

So, in all respect a well-deserved retirement... and I guess that retired or not doesn't stop him contributing to the CS field. Well, he will have less Ph.D.-students, so more time to writing, programming and lecturing!

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> A wonderful contribution: Modern Operating Systems by Andrew S. Tanenbaum.

<comment><USER23> Is it $125.75 Kindle Edition wonderful?

So is this book the type of OS book that is fantastic knowledge for technical people to really know about their computer or is it really just aimed at those that want to move into OS development?

<comment><USER22> The book presents OS theory and is more suitable for OS developers.

<comment><USER24> In my opinion a well rounded developer needs a good understanding of what happens at the OS level, even if he is never going to write a device driver. Tanenbaum's books are excellent for that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Best wishes for his retirement.

I have a clear memory of my first Minix[1] boot. It was in an old PC-XT (Intel 8088) with 640Kb of RAM and 10MB Hard drive. Coming from MS-DOS, this was pure black magic to me.

[1] [http://www.minix3.org/](http://www.minix3.org/)

</comment><comment><USER26> Best wishes for an enjoyable retirement and thanks for all the great books.

</comment><comment><USER27> I will never forget minix. This tiny unix booted from one floppy and ran on the Atari ST (among others). It even had a C compiler. Tanenbaum built it as an OS education tool.

<comment><USER28> How does it compare to TomsRtBt?

[http://www.toms.net/rb/tomsrtbt.FAQ](http://www.toms.net/rb/tomsrtbt.FAQ)

<comment><USER29> Heh, I don't think parent's point is that minix is the most practical small UNIX option _now_ so much as that it was a big deal for them back in their Atari ST days.

<comment><USER30> As someone who was really trying to get 386BSD when I was kid, I had no idea that minix already ran on my Amiga 500. :( Time machine me would have loved to run this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Ah... I really enjoyed the courses by 'ast' at the VU Amsterdam: Computer Architecture, Computer Networks and Modern Operating Systems. With respect for the other teaching staff, but Andy somehow was the modest, funny and inspiring hero of the CS department. The clarity and completeness of the books, the relevant assignments and the humor and kindness in his lectures... let's hope that his retirement doesn't stop him making contributions to the field. Unbelievable that he's been at the VU Amsterdam for 43 years.

Signing up for farewell lecture now...

</comment><comment><USER7> Thank you very much Andrew, I won't ever forget our talks at your house in Buitenveldert/Amstelveen they came at a very important point in my life and made a positive and lasting impact. You were amazingly accessible even to 'outsiders'. I regret never to have been able to study at the VU, I'd have happily done so. One thing you did is to instill a life-long habit of looking at the world as an asynchronous hard real time affair and to appreciate micro- kernels as a very elegant solution to a lot of problems.

</comment><comment><USER31> Oh, Tanenbaum. His book is still my OS bible.

<comment><USER32> Was that an intentional pun?

<comment><USER33> For those who don't get the question: [http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_Tannenbaum](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_Tannenbaum)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> He still has a Sun Blade 100 on his desk?

<comment><USER35> I don't doubt it. When I worked at a university, some of the very old profs still had very old computers dating into the 90s. I was pretty amazed that they even worked, but most of them only ever used them once every few weeks or months.

<comment><USER36> Perhaps he's using it just as an X server. Around 15 ago, some of the other people on my systems programming team didn't care to run a fat Linux PC desktop -- they just had a X machine that booted over the network from a "big" UNIX server and logged into to their FVWM or such environment. That's handy as you could go and login on any other X workstation and get the same desktop environment.

<comment><USER35> Looking at the Wiki page, the Sun Blade 100 dates from 2000 to 2006, PCs from that era were reasonably powerful by most modern standards, just lacked 1) a lot of cores, 2) shitloads of memory. For most uses, they are still great for daily tasks, and at a university, he probably had access to some remote supercomputer if he really needed it :P

My ageist perspective here is that what you're describing takes a bit of work and most "older" profs can't be arsed to do that work, so the simplest explanation is that he just still runs an old computer :)

<comment><USER37> Letting someone else worry about your backups and such is a benefit of centralized servers w/ remote X11 displays. Assuming you trust the network.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I found the actor to portray his biopic, _Stephen Tobolwsky_.[1]

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

</comment><comment><USER39> The man responsible for explaining OS and Network topics for masses. The professor who "attacked" programmer.

From Computer Networks Book DNS section

"Take the pro domain,for example. It is for qualified professionals. But who is a professional? Doctors and lawyers clearly are professionals. But what about freelance photographers,piano teachers, magicians, plumbers, barbers, exterminators, tattoo artists, mercenaries, and prostitutes? Are these occupations eligible? According to whom?"

</comment><comment><USER40> This is one of the guys that i have learned a lot from. Even though i have never seen him nor have i ever met him.

But his words still echo in my mind. Modern Operating Systems and Computer Networks , both extremely well written. They certainly did taught me alot.

Here is to Prof. Tanenbaum , Thank you sir , for teaching me .Even though i've never met you nor i may ever meet you in this life but you should know that some guy from South Asia is thanking you from the bottom of his heart.

</comment><comment><USER41> Feel privileged to have studied at his department, and his lessons on microkernels and distributed operating systems are at the heart of what I do today.

</comment><comment><USER42> I don't know you Mr. Tanenbaum, but you were my first teacher. God bless you.

</comment><comment><USER43> "Designed and implemented MINIX, on which Linux was developed"

Is that really true?

<comment><USER44> Well... The link is not to onion, is it?

"In 1991, while attending the University of Helsinki, Torvalds became curious about operating systems[31] and frustrated by the licensing of MINIX, which limited it to educational use only. He began to work on his own operating system which eventually became the Linux kernel.

Torvalds began the development of the Linux kernel on MINIX and applications written for MINIX were also used on Linux. Later, Linux matured and further Linux kernel development took place on Linux systems.GNU applications also replaced all MINIX component" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux#Creation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux#Creation)

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> He is speaking about Minix at Eurobdscon later this year [http://2014.eurobsdcon.org/talks-and- schedule/](http://2014.eurobsdcon.org/talks-and-schedule/)

</comment><comment><USER46> That 'now' picture has to be pushing 20 years old...

</comment><comment><USER47> His Computer Network book is one of the few that I never sold back to the bookstore. Mine is less than 6 feet from me right now, should I need to consult it.

</comment><comment><USER48> Besides his books on Networks and Operating Systems and his work on MINIX OS, I also recall he launched the website electoral-vote.com.

</comment><comment><USER49> I thought that Tanenbaum's book on operating systems was an excellent example of what such a book should be.

</comment><comment><USER50> I have two of his books on my shelf right now, I can see them from where I sit. Thanks Prof Tanenbaum !

</comment><comment><USER51> Is it allowed for non VU students to attend his final lecture?

<comment><AUTHOR> It says everyone is invited, so I'd assume it's not just for VU students.

The Aula at the VU is pretty big and I hope there will be enough space for everybody, but regardless they won't complain if non-students join as well (at least I assume so).

I really wanted to attend as well, but unfortunately I will be away from the country in those dates, you can take "my place" if you want :P

<comment><USER21> The Aula at the VU Amsterdam has 900 seats. With this kind of announcement (and showing up at HN) I guess the seats will be filled quickly. Registration is free, and it is polite and appreciated so the organizers know how many people they can expect, but registration is not required. Anyhow, if you want to attend the farewell lecture: show up early :-)

And it would not surprise me if they relocate the lecture to a bigger auditorium nearby, if interest or registration goes way beyond 900.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Does anyone know if he will still run electoral-vote.com?

</comment><comment><USER53> I wonder how sweetie 𝜋 will react to this news.

</comment><comment><USER54> Thank you Prof. Andy Tanenbaum.

</comment><comment><USER55> Never saw the guy face to face, just read his books. Thought when I'll go to US will meet him, sit for his lectures. Don't think it will happen now. :(

<comment><USER56> Going to the US to meet him or sit in his lectures was never going to be a winning strategy ;)

<comment><USER57> Well, prior to ~1971, going to the US to meet him could have worked. :)</comment></comment></comment>


Working from Home: Why It Rocks - <AUTHOR> http://artisansystem.com/blog/entry/26

<comment><USER2> Slight tangent: For some reason, it seems like everyone I know who has worked from home ends up making Maury part of their schedule. What is it with geeks and baby daddy drama?

For whatever it's worth, my working from home schedule was almost _exactly_ the same as yours - Maury included.

I also feel like I am far more productive when working from home. Partially due to the lack of interruptions as well as the fact that my home office has been built specifically for the the exercise of writing software.

<comment><USER3> Because it is an entire life's drama in one episode and sometimes there are three. It's always the same scenario, but they're always different people. So you get to know them very well by how they react to the news.

They are real life stories, no one knows what is inside the envelope and we are all in it together wondering what it will say.

It allows us to experiment with our human reading skills. Do the individuals know themselves as well as we know them. Is she honest when she says it could /only/ be him? Is he honest when he says he knows it isn't him.

The amount of shock at the result is illustrative of the idea that the world around us can be exactly the opposite of what we believe it to be -- or want it to be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> get lonely and need more interaction: join a sports team (the fun leagues, eg indoor soccer or intramural ice hockey), join a pickup game, go to weekly yoga or art classes, form a trivia group, hang out with friends, live in a coop.

there are many hobbies i wouldn't necessarily roll into a career. friendship and human contact is one of them. work for me is about loading my weekly design ideas and code changes into the "RAM" of my brain and getting into the flow. there is plenty of time around that to schedule meaningful human interaction, which is usually meaningful precisely because it isn't professional work interactions. i never try to code while interacting with others, though i do like to work in RAM while doing solitary things like swimming or falling asleep.

</comment><comment><USER5> I work from home and I find everything around me to be a constant distraction. I can't wait for the day when I can afford an office, wake up in the morning and actually go to work, as opposed to the 2ft commute, or better yet, not have to work at all :)

</comment><comment><USER6> Writing freelance from San Francisco is pretty satisfying for me when I have clients in New York. I can at least get a lot of the busywork of answering email out of the way by 9 AM.

</comment><comment><USER7> Discipline. All you need.

<comment><USER8> I have a theory that there's two types of programmers: The ones who interrupt others, and the ones who get interrupted.

The interrupters have a more social-oriented personality hate working at home.

The ones like me who always seem to be getting interrupted, prefer working at home because we find all our solutions the hard way, Googling and experimenting, and would only ask someone else as a last resort. So we get much more done from home.

Where the discipline comes in is in working a full day, since often you can get done in 3 hours what would take you a full day in the office.

<comment><USER9> Re: Two types of programmers

I totally agree that people are generally more on one side of that spectrum or the other. That said, the problem with way too many organizations and methodologies is that they don't take into account that it's not a static thing -- i.e., to be productive as a team requires a balance of both. Periods where there's little to no interruptions and periods of high-interactions.

Alas, one very key facet is that the majority of managers tend towards the extreme of the interrupter end of the spectrum.

As a segue, I've always found it interesting that a lot of the best CEO's actually get up really early in the morning so that they can get a few hours of "real" work done before jumping into the over-scheduled, interrupting rest of the day.

Re: Full days work

This is another area where the Taylor-istic mindset has completely corrupted notions of "work".

Reminds me of the study of taxi drivers. A lot of them worked backwards from what they wanted/needed to make each month to come up with the number that they needed to make day. Then, they'd usually work until they hit that number and then go home. But, that completely misses the burstiness of the business -- some days you're in the zone and cranking while other days it's a waste because things are dead. They could make more money by working long days when the pickings are good.</comment></comment></comment>


Osquery - <AUTHOR> https://osquery.io/ <comment><USER2> I realize WMI[1] is a Windows-thing only, but if you're already on the Windows-platform, WMI comes shipped out of the box and has been for probably a decade or more, and is overall very well supported.

It has its quirks, but there's practically no part of the system you shouldn't be able to get information about using WQL[2].

[1] [https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/ms186146(vs.80).asp...](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/ms186146\(vs.80\).aspx)

[2] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/WQL](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/WQL)

<comment><USER3> The nice thing osquery can have is disconnecting what's currently turned on and connected this second from what records you're getting back.

OSquery can pump results into a DB that you look through, WMI I've got to check for myself what's turned on, did it all report etc.

A driver for wmi in osquery would be a great addition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Posted because it came up in the discussion of FSQL:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14343967](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14343967)

Previous discussions:

Release: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8528460](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8528460)

Windows release: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12600790](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12600790)

(Links courtesy of [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14344549](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14344549))

Personally upvoted because it's news to me that it supports Windows now, and because it still appears to be very actively developed despite existing for years now.

<comment><USER5> I only heard about this yesterday on that thread. And by facebook? I really should pay more attention to what they are doing over there... FSQL is pretty cool too and surprisingly fast.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you're in a security team adding this to your stack, we're building a visual playbook & pivoting system, and have been wanting to experiment with scenarios that include an osquery connector. Can share more @ email@example.com , would love to explore!

<comment><USER7> What is a "visual playbook and pivoting system"?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Outside of facebook, what's the largest install base of osquery?

<comment><USER9> We have an ongoing project and existing prototype that combines OSquery with the Bro network security monitor. This enables correlation of network and host state in the same framework.

More details here: [https://www.bro.org//bro4pros2017/Haas_OSquery_Bro4Pros2017....](https://www.bro.org//bro4pros2017/Haas_OSquery_Bro4Pros2017.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Can anyone shed some light on how exactly Osquery can be used to leverage checking, for example, of vulnerabilities? I wasn't able to gather information on how it exactly communicates with the rest of the infrastructure. Am I correct to understand that I can set up a single host that has Osquery installed and it can go out and automatically query a heterogeneous set of other hosts based on pre-existing configuration files, given that (I assume) some set of ports are open?

<comment><USER6> Indeed -- Osquery, and the commercial precursor Tanium and the native Microsoft equivalents, can help when you've identified one incident and want to find active repeats. Ex: "I just cleaned evil.exe from this box, are any other hosts running the same process? What other processes do they have in common?". I've seen hunting use cases as well.

Your example is why we're building our visual playbook system. In this case, query your network scanner for open ports, and then feed the identified hosts into more targeted osquery calls.

<comment><USER10> Thank you for the reply; however, I am still having a hard time understanding how exactly Osquery works under the hood. How does it communicate with other hosts? With what does it query for information once it reaches a remote node? What kind of overhead does it have in terms of network transfer when querying? Maybe I am completely off base and am mistaking how this works... Is Osquery set up on every individual host and I query for that information remotely using whatever tools I have at my disposal?

<comment><USER11> You can configure osquery to execute periodic queries (scheduled queries) of all kinds: computing md5 of your binaries and other files, taking a snapshot of sockets/connections per process, and so on.

By default, osquery uses glog, which means it'll output the results to a local file that you can ship anywhere you want. There's also logging plugins to help you push the results of scheduled queries to other systems.

Once you have that data flowing through your pipelines you can start doing security/anomaly detection on things.

<comment><USER12> But do you need an installation of osquery on the remote machines too? Or some kind of remote agent? Or does it just try to login to each remote machine over e.g. SSH?

<comment><USER13> It's a remote agent. If you want the scheduled execution, you install the program and configure it internally to run on a schedule.

I haven't finished the work yet, but my employer will be feeding the log results into our ELK stack.

There are other frontends like 'doorman' which allow for ad hoc queries. That is a little more work to stand up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've worked on something similar except that we used a stream database. Today you might use RethinkDB or something similar.

The osquery events seem to solve these kind of monitoring/alerting problems. But I didn't find easily find their documentation.

</comment><comment><USER15> Can it be used to find Windows machines without MS17-010 installed? :)

<comment><USER16> Definitely. And you could write queries for the various indicators/files/etc., too (or use the built in YARA support and grab the rules from US-CERT).

I just started working at Kolide ([http://kolide.com](http://kolide.com)) a couple weeks ago where we're building a whole product on top of osquery. I'm constantly surprised by "can it do (x)" and the answer is almost always yes. It's pretty solid!

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> cannot upvote this enough! seriously great open source project. I have been able to use it in large scale cross-platform deployments with great success.

</comment><comment><USER18> Not directly related to Osquery, but we're using Tanium to run queries against ~180,000 endpoints and we get good results back in about a minute.

<comment><USER19> Tanium says, the max # of endpoints that the "core" can support is 33K. How did you scaled this to 180 K.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> How do you issue queries programmatically from another program? Just execute "osqueryi"? I see mention of a Thrift API but no details.

</comment><comment><USER21> Can this be used to troubleshoot DPC-related audio latency issues?

</comment><comment><USER22> Useless out of the box:

"If there are no USB devices added or removed to the laptop, this query would never log a result again. The query would still run every 60 seconds but the results would match the previous run and thus no state change would be detected. If a USB memory stick was inserted and left in the laptop for 60 seconds the daemon would log"

So if you unplug your evil USB earlier, this won't tell you.

I wonder if they've heard of udev.

<comment><USER23> Oh please. It may be useless out of the box at detecting evil USB devices, but to accuse it of being outright useless is ridiculous.

I'm sure it was sarcastic snark, but of course they have heard of udev: [https://github.com/facebook/osquery/search?q=udev](https://github.com/facebook/osquery/search?q=udev).</comment></comment>


Man faces libel allegations over Amazon book review - <AUTHOR> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/man-faces-libel-allegations-over-amazon-book-review-6259431.html

<comment><USER2> As a cultural note: "litigant in person" tends to fall into two broad groups. Plucky rebels with no money fighting huge corporations[1] or wingnuts. Here we appear to have both.

Here's the review page.

([http://www.amazon.co.uk/product- reviews/0956471404/ref=cm_cr...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/product- reviews/0956471404/ref=cm_cr_pr_btm_link_1?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0))

[1] (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McLibel_Case>)

[2] ([http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/184/4/352.abstract?ijkey=9fb1...](http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/184/4/352.abstract?ijkey=9fb15eebb6f1a9027bf1cca78e01413cad5913ce&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha))

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Looks like he won! [https://twitter.com/#!/vaughanjones82/status/185734936509157...](https://twitter.com/#!/vaughanjones82/status/185734936509157379)

"Case struck out and claimant to pay £75k"</comment>


Ask HN: Detect Coronavirus Fever via Webcam? - <AUTHOR> I have an idea for creating an open-source zero marginal cost, digital thermometer to detect coronavirus. Can you help?
Here's the idea:
1. Heart rate can be estimated via (webcam) video of someone's face with high accuracy (even with poor video quality).[1],[2]
2. This heart rate can then be used to estimate core temperature with high accuracy.[3],[4]
3. Fever (body temperature ≥38°C) [5] is the most typical symptom of C19 - in 88% of confirmed cases.[6] (Though some C19 transmission might be asymptomatic[7] and presymptomatic.[8],[9])
4. Can we start an open-source project to create a digital fever thermometer? This could be used as a smartphone app or on the web (ala donottouchyourface.com). A webcam could continuously monitor people's temperature and alert them to it if they have a fever.
'Thermometer Guns' have drawbacks: they're more expensive, you need to get close to someone's head to take temperature, they are not very accurate, they don't provide continuous measurement- yet it is still used for coronavirus containment.[10]
I feel if this would work, it might be a very cost-effective intervention to diagnose coronavirus.
[1] "Detecting Pulse from Head Motions in Video - People.csail.mit ...." http://people.csail.mit.edu/balakg/pulsefromheadmotion.html
[2] "Heart rate estimation using facial video: A review " https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1746809417301362
[3] "Estimating Resting Core Temperature Using Heart Rate" https://journals.humankinetics.com/view/journals/jmpb/1/2/article-p79.xml
[4] "Real-time core body temperature estimation from heart ... - NCBI." 13 May. 2015, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25967760
[5] "Early Transmission Dynamics in Wuhan, China, of ... - NEJM." https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2001316
All other citations here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1D4nhDux-ncnsZjXJrmXkZiK7LJjH_tyxWkVJR3fOOJ0/edit?usp=sharing <comment><USER2> How would you know the fever is because of Corona virus?

Are you going to assume all fevers are Corona? That seems a bit biased and over-reactionary

</comment><comment><USER3> Great idea! Even though this will not help detect coronavirus directly, it will help ease off the load on the testing facilities.

</comment><comment><USER4> It may well be, but in all seriousness, buy a thermometer and do accurate testing.</comment>


Safari Tech Preview 8 achieves 100% ES6 support - <AUTHOR> https://developer.apple.com/safari/technology-preview/release-notes/ <comment><USER2> I frequently see members of the Firefox, Chrome, and Edge teams at various JavaScript Meetups (in the Bay Area) as well as conferences, though I've yet to meet someone from the Safari team.

Perhaps this is due to the secretive nature of Apple, and as a result I'm always surprised when new Safari features come out. By the time a feature lands in a different browser, we already know it's coming.

<comment><USER3> I wish they would be more flexible with their secrecy. The open-source pieces of Apple (the CLI-stuff in OS X, Safari, etc) would gain much by being less secretive.

(and it wouldn't hinder them from being gold silent on other matters; hardware, business, etc)

<comment><USER4> WebKit, which is the heart of Safari, is open source: [http://webkit.org](http://webkit.org)

I've been tracking many of these issues on the WebKit bug tracker: [https://bug.webkit.org](https://bug.webkit.org)

For example: [https://bug.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=80559](https://bug.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=80559) (Bug 80559 - [ES6] Add support for ES6 Harmony).

The release notes linked to also links to the public commit that implemented each noted fix/update/new feature.

<comment><USER3> I know much of it is open source (darwin is, too).

It's just that they don't engage much and it doesn't feel prioritized.

Take this website for example: [http://opensource.apple.com/](http://opensource.apple.com/)

The design feels like it's from the early 2000. There is almost no documentation besides the raw data/files.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I find the title quite misleading as I was expecting support of ES6 modules syntax, which is one of the most important change that came with ES6. But it looks like it's still work in progress (see [https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=147340](https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=147340) ).

</comment><comment><USER6> Chrome Canary with experimental JS features enabled fails two tests: "Array.prototype.values" and "no assignments allowed in for-in head". First one on purpose to maintain web compatibility ([https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=615873](https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=615873)). Wondering what is the reason behind the second missing feature?

<comment><USER7> compatibility, same as the first one

[https://bugs.chromium.org/p/v8/issues/detail?id=4942#c4](https://bugs.chromium.org/p/v8/issues/detail?id=4942#c4)

> Per > [https://www.chromestatus.com/metrics/feature/timeline/popula...](https://www.chromestatus.com/metrics/feature/timeline/popularity/1238), > this syntax is still seen on the web, and any such pages would be broken by > this change.

[https://github.com/tc39/ecma262/issues/260](https://github.com/tc39/ecma262/issues/260)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Still no Service Workers or Web Push unfortunately: [https://jakearchibald.github.io/isserviceworkerready/](https://jakearchibald.github.io/isserviceworkerready/)

<comment><USER9> While I wish they had these things, these are not JavaScript features and not relevant to the article.

<comment><USER10> > _While I wish they had these things, these are not JavaScript features and > not relevant to the article._

Do you mean "not relevant to the title the submitter chose"? The "article" is the release notes for the entire browser.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The final piece to the JavaScript puzzle is ES7's async and await. Whilst this is awesome news, if it included async and await then the circle would be complete.

<comment><USER12> Unfortunately, async and await didn't make it into ES7. ES2016 (ES7) was finalized with Array.prototype.includes and the exponentiation operator [0]. We'll have to wait for ES2017 at the earliest for async/await to make it into the official spec [1][2].

[0] [http://www.ecma-international.org/ecma-262/7.0/](http://www.ecma- international.org/ecma-262/7.0/) [1] [https://github.com/tc39/proposals](https://github.com/tc39/proposals) [2] [http://www.2ality.com/2016/02/ecmascript-2017.html](http://www.2ality.com/2016/02/ecmascript-2017.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Yet waiting for WebMIDI support for years.

<comment><USER14> You, me, and maybe 6 more people :P

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> ...but still lacks on other web standards such as getUserMedia() which is the one reason I still have to use flash.

<comment><USER4> To be fair, MediaDevices.getUserMedia() is still highly experimental and only in the Editor's Draft stage. Chrome didn't support it until December.

It's definitely not ready for primetime/production use yet.

Navigator.getUserMedia() is deprecated, so support for that won't be coming ever.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Tail call optimization included?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes. You can see a list here: [https://kangax.github.io/compat- table/es6/](https://kangax.github.io/compat-table/es6/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Wait, Safari 8? What about the already released Safari 9? They're all the way up to 9.1.1 now...

<comment><USER18> It's the 8th release of the Technology Preview of the next Safari. Safari 10 Beta 8 if you will.

<comment><USER19> Actually, there's a separate beta of Safari 10 for Sierra, El Capitan and Yosemite: [http://iphone.appleinsider.com/articles/16/06/23/apple- relea...](http://iphone.appleinsider.com/articles/16/06/23/apple-releases- safari-10-beta-for-os-x-el-capitan-and-os-x-yosemite)

<comment><USER18> Ah, thanks for the correction. I guess the Tech Preview is more about the WebKit core, while the 10 Beta includes newer macOS-specific UI etc.?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


An introduction to Objective-C - <AUTHOR> http://thinkvitamin.com/code/ios/an-introduction-to-objective-c/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+vitaminmasterfeed+%28Think+Vitamin%29&utm_content=Google+Reader <comment><USER2> This tutorial is riddled with dangerous errors even though it's pretty basic. To start with, here's his initializer:

      - (id) initWithTitle: (NSString *)aTitle{
        self = [super init];
        if (self) {
          title = aTitle;
        }
        return self;
      }

aTitle isn't retained (and no, he's not using ARC). This is such an obvious, basic mistake that I have no faith in the author at this point.

Here's another error:

      For example, this is valid code:
      NSObject obj = [Book createBookWithTitle:@"A Brave New World"];

That's not true. It's missing the pointer (NSObject *, not NSObject). Furthermore it's otherwise syntactically valid but comes dangerously close to violating Cocoa best practices for memory management. The method (which returns an autoreleased result in their examples) should be named "bookWithTitle:".

Putting "create" in the name doesn't actually violate the memory management rules (in Cocoa, only methods that have alloc, new, copy, or mutableCopy return owning references). But it will cause confusion with the Create Rule from Core Foundation:

      Object-creation functions [have] "Create" embedded in the name...
      it is your responsibility to relinquish ownership (using CFRelease) when you have finished with it

Sure, Core Foundation is not Cocoa. But since it's often intermixed, sometimes explicitly with toll-free bridging, boy are people going to be confused someday!

<comment><USER3> Heh, as a person that loves Cocoa but doesn't own an iOS device (ok, I do have an iPod touch I got for free with my MBP), initializers like that are _all over_ my code.

<comment><USER4> initializers should look like that. the problem is this:

title = aTitle;

he should say self.title instead to avoid memory issues.

<comment><USER3> Oh, what I meant is that on the Mac we can use garbage collection, so it's not always a problem.

I don't really like the property dot syntax though, I always use the `setProperty:` form for consistency (is it a struct or an object? why is the = operator sending an Obj-C message?)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wrote a longer Obj-C & Cocoa getting started guide (about 30 pages) that's free and available here if anyone is interested: <http://designthencode.com/scratch/>

<comment><USER6> wow Mike, very nice. Cheers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Please, start with Scott Stevenson's tutorials instead:

<http://cocoadevcentral.com/>

</comment><comment><USER8> First two images with basic explanations what is what is most valuable for beginner.</comment>


Tesla's Musk Takes Charge of Model 3 Production as Problems Persist - <AUTHOR> https://www.theinformation.com/articles/teslas-musk-takes-charge-of-model-3-production-as-problems-persist <comment><USER2> _" Can't believe you're even writing about this. My job as CEO is to focus on what's most critical, which is currently Model 3 production. Doug, who I regard as one of the world's most talented engineering execs, is focused on vehicle engineering."_

 _" About a year ago, I asked Doug to manage both engineering & production. He agreed that Tesla needed eng & prod better aligned, so we don't design cars that are crazy hard to build. Right now, tho, better to divide & conquer, so I'm back to sleeping at factory. Car biz is hell …"_

[1] [https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/980910671763193856](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/980910671763193856)

[2] [https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/980913157739765761](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/980913157739765761)

<comment><USER3> I can only imagine how much experience and knowledge Elon is gaining by micromanaging (a good thing) this much, compared to say how much the top executive at other vehicle manufacturers have evolved to become.

Edit: Downvotes on this comment? Really? What, do you think you're able to imagine the amount of experience he's getting? Do you think the top execs at other manufacturers have the same experience and hands-on approach?

<comment><USER4> From personal experience I can say that I am certain that both Dieter Zetsche and Harald Krüger know more about basically every aspect of producing cars than Elon Musk ever will. Both are very much hands-on people and have 3-4 decades of experience.

<comment><USER5> You know all 3 of these people well? Wow.

<comment><USER6> "Zetsche joined Daimler-Benz in 1976, working in the research department. In 1981, he became Assistant Development Manager at the Vehicles business unit. He became a member of DaimlerChrysler's Board of Management in 1998 and served as the President/CEO of Chrysler Group from mid-2000 to 31 December 2005, where he was credited with a turnaround of DCX's American operations. Since 1 January 2006 he succeeded Jürgen Schrempp as Chairman of DaimlerChrysler (now Daimler AG), being succeeded in the position of Chrysler Group CEO by Thomas W. LaSorda."

and

"Mr. Krüger joined BMW in April 1992 and served as Director of its Production Strategy, Control and Planning Division. He managed BMW Group's engine plant at Hams Hall in the UK and served a number of positions within the Human Resources division. He served as the Chairman and Director of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Ltd. from May 1, 2012 to March 31, 2013. Mr. Krüger serves as a Director of BMW Manufacturing Co. LLC."

Yep, quite a fair bet that any of those two know far more about auto-making than Musk ever will.

<comment><USER7> Ever is a long timeframe especially if Tesla continues selling double yoy.

<comment><USER8> I'm not sure how Musk's experience grows with sales on a linear basis.

Or how sustainable "double yoy" sales are.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have no interest or involvment in Tesla. But from an outsider's perspective I can't help but notice that when you're this little company with no chance of making it, the press is very bulish about your company.

As soon as you become large, they look up at you and can't wait to see you fall, overly negative.

Who thought making cars was difficult? And mass production? And electrical cars, pushing the boundaries or batteries.

The light are still on in the factory, so the company's doing well.

<comment><USER10> His big problem is over promise. Yes, he promises big but does not deliver. The press loves to play both sides. It reports the promises and the lack of delivery on his part too. The press couldn't care either way as long as it brings in readers.

<comment><USER11> He only overpromises when it comes to timelines. Most other things he actually achieves. Elontime is a real thing though...

<comment><USER12> FWIW a Martian year is 687 days.

<comment><USER13> Unfortunately that's not their financial year. They still need to generate cash or find more investors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Learn much from overcommitting and under-delivering yet [1]

Still waiting on the self-driving vaporware that thousands paid advance for...

1\. [https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/823727035088416768](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/823727035088416768) 3 months maybe, 6 months definitely 23 Jan 2017

<comment><USER15> The NHTSA faulted Tesla for the last fatal crash and its likely they will get faulted for the current. I am just shocked that after this one that they haven't suspended its use. The level of chutzpah this company operates at is very dangerous to its future but the public as well.

The production issues are a whole different can of worms but the autonomous driving accidents are what the public sees.

People need to understand that Tesla is not the only company that can deliver self driving hardware nor are they the only manufacturer of EVs. They are currently the maker of the more desired EV but with some of the old school automakers joining the fray they will see their high end model profit vanish.

finally, I am still not convinced they ever plan to actually sell a base model.

 _downvote edit_ Please see an owner recreation using the same version AP with the same condition z[https://youtu.be/6QCF8tVqM3I](https://youtu.be/6QCF8tVqM3I)

What is the rational thought it permitting that on the road.

<comment><USER16> The same rationale that applies for allowing cars with Cruise Control? Is it impossible to have a fatal crash when you set the car on cruise control and doze off? Chances are probably exponentially higher than that of a Tesla on an Autopilot.

<comment><USER17> No, the same rationale does not apply at all. It's not even close. Cruise control does nothing but maintain a set speed. No steering, no lane assist, nothing else. All drivers know that if they set cruise control, they are still in control of the car and have to remain aware of the road to handle all the actual driving while their foot gets a break. On the other hand, here was a conversation with my dad in his Model 3 yesterday:

Me: Why aren't your hands on the wheel?

Him: They don't need to be. It tells me once in a while when I need to touch the wheel.

Think about that for a minute. This is representative of your average driver. People are so blindly trusting of autopilot that they deliberately don't even touch the wheel at all, opting instead to play with their phone until the car nags them to pay attention for one second.

This is so completely different than cruise control that the two are barely comparable in terms of driver mindset.

<comment><USER18> That's not even the average driver, but an early adopter. The average driver would more likely think they can take a nap in the back seat while autopilot drives them to the office.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I think Musk is outstanding, but I could never see how he could run SpaceX, Tesla, OpenAI, the Boaring Company, Hyperloop all at the same time. It could be twice as Smart as the next smartest individual on the planet but there's no free lunch. Time spent in one place is time given up somewhere else. We've known that Tesla has had production problems for a long time and if I was on the board I would have said drop all of your side projects and focus on fixing this company. I'm sure Musk has fired people for a lot less.

</comment><comment><USER20> Musk has tweeted:

"Can't believe you're even writing about this. My job as CEO is to focus on what's most critical, which is currently Model 3 production. Doug, who I regard as one of the world's most talented engineering execs, is focused on vehicle engineering."

[https://mobile.twitter.com/elonmusk/status/98091067176319385...](https://mobile.twitter.com/elonmusk/status/980910671763193856)

<comment><USER21> He has also tweeted : "About a year ago, I asked Doug to manage both engineering & production. He agreed that Tesla needed eng & prod better aligned, so we don't design cars that are crazy hard to build. Right now, tho, better to divide & conquer, so I'm back to sleeping at factory. Car biz is hell …"

[https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/980913157739765761](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/980913157739765761)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> This article feels a bit over reaching to meet the current narrative that Tesla is failing. As someone who has owned a Tesla, I'd much rather they ramp when they are ready to ramp than skip steps just to hit their targets. QA is a very important step that they have to get right.

</comment><comment><USER23> Here's an article not behind a paywall:

[https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/02/elon-musk-takes-charge-of- te...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/02/elon-musk-takes-charge-of-tesla- model-3-production.html)

<comment><USER24> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I thought he was already sleeping at the factory..

I wish success to Tesla, at least a little bit, but I'm really curious to know how they fixed their assembly line

</comment><comment><USER26> Ah yes, the tried-and-true method of jump-starting a project by adding managers.

</comment><comment><USER27> Wait. The author wants me to pay for what appears to be an outside-in, uneducated, irrelevant take on Tesla's internal problems? No thank you. Let them deal with it.

</comment><comment><USER28> paywalled</comment>


Show HN: Raskell, a Haskell interpreter and editor for iPad - <AUTHOR> http://slidetocode.com/2013/12/29/raskell/

<comment><USER2> Looks great (and has a great name to boot). Why Hugs though?

<comment><AUTHOR> \- clean code so straightforward to extend, port and embed \- lightweight \- suitable license \- I still use it a surprising amount on Desktop

Hugs hasn't been maintained for a few years, but Im quite fond of it. Once I get it refactored a bit, I hope to bring it up to date</comment></comment>


Methods to Organize CSS - <AUTHOR> https://css-tricks.com/methods-organize-css/ <comment><USER2> I've had much better luck using npm.im/styled-components. The trouble with the techniques laid out in this article is that they depend on humans performing tasks that machines are better at. Even on a small team, this is a losing proposition.

If you haven't started using styled-components yet, listen to this talk where Max Stoiber (one of the authors) explains what it is and how it can help you organize your CSS better: [https://youtu.be/bIK2NwoK9xk](https://youtu.be/bIK2NwoK9xk)</comment>


Show HN: Space Battle: a strategy game with only a HTTP interface - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/guardian/techtime/tree/master/Coding%20Challenges/Space-Battle <comment><AUTHOR> I run the Weekly Coding Challenge series at the Guardian and the author of the game. Comments are welcome :)

<comment><USER2> I created a viz of the map here if anyone is interested, it also displays scores. It's here : [https://low-beret.glitch.me/](https://low- beret.glitch.me/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey!, I have just noticed that answer and the map visualiser. This is absolutely awesome! This is indeed the first ever visualiser for the game map :)

I didn't know about [https://glitch.com](https://glitch.com), will have a really close look. Cheers!</comment></comment></comment>


How Police Body Cameras Influence the Way People Assign Blame - <AUTHOR> https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/01/how-police-body-cameras-influence-way-people-assign-blame/580117/ <comment><USER2> In summary, from the story, the body cam wearer is not seen commiting a crime in the bodycam footage. a dash cam however visually depicts an individual acting in a criminal manner. regardless of that person being a cop or civilian, seeing someone doing something wrong assigns guilt, seeing the perspective of the wrongdoer without them appearing in camera has no image of a person to assign guilt toward.</comment>


7400 Quad 2-Input NAND Gate: Neglected Survivor from a Pre-Microprocessor World - <AUTHOR> https://hackaday.com/2018/12/28/the-7400-quad-2-input-nand-gate-a-neglected-survivor-from-a-pre-microprocessor-world/ <comment><USER2> Surprising they didn't mention the PO74G00A and its friends.

[http://www.potatosemi.com/datasheet/PO74G00A.pdf](http://www.potatosemi.com/datasheet/PO74G00A.pdf)

Note before you try to make a 1 GHz CPU using 1970s design with those chips, for current limit reasons those chips can only switch in the GHz range with output capacitance below the input capacitance of a single gate input, so your redesigned PDP-11 is only gonna run at a mere 500 MHz not in the GHz range.

I'm a little unclear where you buy their products other than their ebay store. Digikey doesn't seem to stock. They DO seem to be real, not a meme.

I've never screwed around with the PotSemi products but I've seen the youtube videos where some dude makes a classic ring oscillator out of an inverter that runs at some high UHF frequency like seven hundred MHz or so. I thought I was pretty cool making ring oscilators running at 20-something MHz back in the 80s. If you're really bored or don't have a tape measure you can measure a length of cable by inserting it into a ring osc and recording the resulting frequency and applying some correctional math based on the speed of the inverter... I suppose with a GHz class inverter the correction factor would be round to zero for any cable longer than a couple feet and could be ignored. You can also make a toy TDR using what amounts to a ring osc and a very fast (expensive) o-scope.

Power supply noise decoupling caps must be "fun" with those chips, what happens if you put a very old 0.1 uF cap that self-resonates at a freq lower than the switching freq of the chip? Nothing good, I imagine. I know you can buy 0402 SMD caps that resonate in the higher GHz range so thats OK, but you know some goofball is going to try an 0.1 uF electrolytic for decoupling LOL.

In the "Old Days" you used strange fast high power logic sparingly to eliminate race conditions, obviously the 74F would always latch up before the 74LS or whatever so careful use of ttl family could eliminate race conditions. I would imagine that, and strange interfacing tricks, would be the purpose of modern TTL. If you wanted a slow arduino to intelligently monitor a 30 MHz signal, a little TTL support might make it possible in certain very limited cases.

<comment><USER3> That datasheet is unclear about what exactly is required to get that 1GHz+ performance; my naive reading is that the CL=2pF case is _half_ of another gate's input capacitance, which seems implausible.

OTOH, if CMOS compatibility isn't a problem you can go waaaaay faster with things like this:

[https://www.analog.com/en/products/hmc746.html](https://www.analog.com/en/products/hmc746.html)

Single gate per package, but supports 10+Gbps data rates. 290mW per gate power consumption o_O

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you want to get experience with 7400 series, i had a great time building an 8bit computer following this YouTube series [https://eater.net/8bit/](https://eater.net/8bit/)

</comment><comment><USER5> I've had a lot of fun over Christmas assembling a Gigatron TTL - a computer built almost entirely out of 74-series chips. It's amazingly easy to follow exactly how it works just by looking at the schematics. (More build photos coming on my blog in a few days: [https://rwmj.wordpress.com/](https://rwmj.wordpress.com/))

<comment><USER6> I looked over the few solder joints that are visible and I think your soldering technique needs some work. First make sure your iron is actually hot enough, a hotter iron works quicker and the result is less, not more heating of the joint. Then, try to work like this: first heat up the joint with just a tiny bit of solder on the tip of the iron, much less than you need for the joint, just enough to transfer heat, do that for 1 to 2 seconds, then feed in _just_ enough solder from the spool to make the joint, withdraw the spool and then the iron and let it cool without moving at all. That way your joints will flow nicely instead of beading above the PCB and you won't have too much solder in the joints. Good luck!

<comment><USER5> Yup I'm totally sure my soldering sucks. In fact I started out my career as a hardware engineer, and there's a few reasons why I'm a software engineer now :-)

(Edit: To be fair the picture shows the first few joints where I was basically getting into the swing of things. Things improved after that.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm delighted to see this make the front page. A couple of years ago I submitted "50 years of TTL" and several comments were about confusion of "time to life" with the logic. Which is _not_ to make fun of anyone; what I found interesting as the primary technical plaything of my early teen years has long been displaced.

It's easier than ever before to get started playing with circuits, but in many cases why would you? Just whack a mpu or even a RPI or Arduino and get going It's a similar issue with ham radio: this is a great time in many ways to be a ham, but there are so many alternative and less fiddly ways to talk to others.

<comment><USER6> > there are so many alternative and less fiddly ways to talk to others.

That's the main reason I never became a ham, there was a ton of interesting tech and a couple of very knowledgeable people around the place where I lived as a teen but the majority of them were engaged in hour long chat sessions with their buddies rather than to work on even more interesting tech.

So, now with the internet you can chat to people halfway around the globe without even knowing what EME or Heaviside layer means.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Neglected? Not so much I'd say

It's the basic component for digital electronics experiments (pre microprocessor ones)

<comment><USER4> Agreed. I think it's probably more famous than anything mentioned, except maybe the 555.

<comment><USER7> 741\. When I was starting it was easier to make simple waveforms with the 555 so I have a warm spot in my heart for it and the SSI TTL parts, even if the 741 has ended up handier over the years.

There was a nice front page post on the 555 a couple of months ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18190765](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18190765)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Discrete logic chips are still in use all over the place, I've seen them in reset circuitry. Modern versions come in smaller packages like 4-pin bgas, or sot-23 and are available on Digikey.

</comment><comment><USER10> The caption under the picture of the Xero Alto states:

>"We could have featured a minicomputer such as a DEC PDP-11 as an example of a CPU built from 74 series logic. But the 74-driven Xerox Alto makes a greater point about 74 logic as the progenitor of modern computing devices."

Can anyone say how many discrete logic chips the CPU for the PDP-11 or the Alto used in the design of their CPUs?

Might anyone have some links or suggested literature regarding these pre- microprocessor CPUs?

<comment><USER11> Plenty of literature, including schematics, can be found here:

[http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/](http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/)

[http://bitsavers.org/pdf/xerox/alto/](http://bitsavers.org/pdf/xerox/alto/)

<comment><USER10> Wow this is a real treasure trove, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> O yeah, good old K155LA3 (the Soviet clone of 7400). Was very popular among the electronics enthusiasts.

</comment><comment><USER13> TI and Fairchild make a 6 pin "tiny logic" part that can be configured for any gate. I use them frequently for glue logic.</comment>


Snowden: WikiLeaks document dump on CIA hacking capability 'looks authentic' - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/edward-snowden-wikileaks-document-dump-on-cia-hacking-capability-looks-authentic/article/2616670 <comment><USER2> Has anybody asked Snowden if the Uber greyballing documents look authentic yet? This is just lazy journalism at its laziest.

<comment><USER3> There is no reason to expect him to have any particularly valuable insight on that.

<comment><USER2> Yet his Twitter posts show he has worse insight into these documents than a complete outsider like myself. This is not the "first public evidence USG [is] secretly paying to keep US software unsafe." The government has already explained that it keeps some vulnerabilities for itself and has even publicly explained the process. [https://epic.org/privacy/cybersecurity/vep/](https://epic.org/privacy/cybersecurity/vep/)

<comment><USER3> Everyone, including experts, makes mistakes. In fact less than an hour ago I corrected a respected intellectual property lawyer in an email discussion about patent law. Yet it is clear to everyone, including me, that he has better insight into the law, and intellectual property law specifically, than I do.

Edward Snowden's special expertise is on the state of our covert cyber operations as of when he fled in 2013. He said that this leak is naming real departments whose existence is classified. I pay close attention to that because he is the one saying it, and there are very few sources on that topic that I trust. He may be wrong, but his judgement is more likely to be accurate than mine.

When you move away from that topic, lots of people can have similar expertise.

<comment><USER2> > He said that this leak is naming real departments whose existence is > classified.

The example he gave is the IOC, whose existence is not classified. [https://fcw.com/articles/2015/10/01/cia-digital- directorate....](https://fcw.com/articles/2015/10/01/cia-digital- directorate.aspx?m=1)

He has confirmed nothing that more credible sources haven't already confirmed, and he has added clearly false interpretations of documents that others like Rob Graham have already explained correctly.

As far as his "special expertise," he got so many things wrong in his own leaks that he hardly seemed credible in 2013. Now that we've heard from those around him (see the last two paragraphs of [https://www.thecipherbrief.com/article/exclusive/first- ciphe...](https://www.thecipherbrief.com/article/exclusive/first-cipher-brief- snowdens-boss-shares-lessons-learned-1095) and his failed analyst test in [https://news.vice.com/story/exclusive-snowden-tried-to- tell-...](https://news.vice.com/story/exclusive-snowden-tried-to-tell-nsa- about-his-concerns) and subsequent success after getting the answer key off the intranet), I can understand why he gets so many things wrong.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Cathedral of Computation - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/01/the-cathedral-of-computation/384300/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> From the article:

> _Here's an exercise: The next time you see someone talking about algorithms, > replace the term with "God" and ask yourself if the sense changes any._

This comes immediately after a paragraph that lists four instances of people saying things about "algorithms" ... not one of which would have meant the same thing if it had said "God" instead.

Most of the recent occasions when I have used the word "algorithm" it's been in contexts like "We can probably come up with an algorithm to distinguish this case from that case" and "I spend a lot of my time designing and tweaking algorithms". Replacing "algorithm" with "God" doesn't make much sense there, either.

I suppose the author isn't really thinking about people who actually work with algorithms every day, but about the general public. I would hazard a guess that at least 75% of the general public have no idea what "algorithm" even means, are not familiar with (e.g.) the fact that Google's search engine is (kinda) executing one, and as a consequence don't have an attitude to "algorithms" that remotely resembles that of religious people towards their gods.

The sentence I quoted seems like the kind of thing people say to sound clever and insightful, without actually paying too much attention to whether it makes any sense.

There are (I think) some good points in the article, but having such overblown bullshit so prominent so early in it really doesn't encourage me to read it with the care the author presumably thinks it deserves.

<comment><USER3> > "I spend a lot of my time designing and tweaking algorithms"

"I spend a lot of my time designing and tweaking Gods." sounds like the first line to a good Charlie Stross short story.

<comment><USER4> Max Gladstone's Craft Sequence is a lot like this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The biggest obstacle to overcoming this is the bloody jargon. If there is one thing that helps to establish a moat that the unwashed masses can't cross and so forms a cornerstone of the cathedrals foundation it is the fact that two IT people talking might as well be from mars when it comes to comprehension by non-IT people.

Obviously this applies to just about any field and is a form of data- compression to save bandwidth in communications but it can certainly leave a non-initiate totally in the dark.

<comment><USER6> A personal favorite of my in the use of big-O where a short phrase involving the words "exponential", "linear" or "constant" would have sufficed, and been comprehensible to any humanities major who didn't sleep through math in junior high.

<comment> Ar-Curunir But Big-O does transmit useful information that is not captured by 'constant', 'linear' and 'exponential'.

Quadratic time doesn't fall into your categorization, nor does O(n \log n) time.

Technical jargon exists for a reason, and that reason is that it is precise and specific. It conveys exactly what it means, no more and no less. Dumbing down terminology so that everyone can understand it is a poor tradeoff if said terminology becomes vague and thereby loses meaning.

<comment><USER7> GP said _use of big-O where a short phrase ... would have sufficed_. That's pretty common, with people throwing around O(1) and O(n).

<comment><USER6> Precisely what I meant. In those cases its use serves little purpose save as a shibboleth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I liked the article very much. I don't believe that we know or are even near to explain consciousness for example. When working on the fundamentals of computing and mathematics, it is important to remember that these things are a part of life, but do not explain all of life (yet maybe). Any kind of religion is wrong. That does not mean that you cannot have beliefs, but you should be prepared to change them.</comment>


Superior audio and visual experiences with WebGL - <AUTHOR> http://www.thx.com <comment><USER2> I think that's the fastest loading page with heavy graphics I saw on Hacker News today, and I saw a lot of pages because I've been training an A.I.</comment>


Show HN: Votebox, a secure voting platform - <AUTHOR> https://www.votebox.co/ <comment><AUTHOR> Thriving to allow you to vote for general election from your couch. Working on integrating blockchain proof of process to bring the highest level of security. Dreaming about a more direct democracy.</comment>


Facebook could theoretically owe the FTC $7.1 trillion for recent data scandals - <AUTHOR> https://thenextweb.com/facebook/2018/04/10/facebook-theoretically-owe-ftc-7-1-trillion-recent-data-scandals/ <comment><USER2> They should sell it to Hooli. That'll get Gavin Belson's goat.</comment>


Hulu's New Guarantee: Someone Watched Your (Whole) Ad - <AUTHOR> http://adage.com/article/special-report-digital-conference/hulu-s-guarantee-watched-ad/234164/ <comment><USER2> Here's the problem with Hulu's guarantee.

Sure the ad plays all the way to the end when I'm watching a video. Thats because it has to in order for me to watch the rest of my show. I'm already invested so unless I have to leave I'm going to let those ads run through. But I don't watch the whole thing. Most of the time I don't watch it at all. I hit the mute button and check something else for that minute and a half. It's the same as fast forwarding on the DVR except you still have to wait till the end of the ad. Sure Hulu makes money from the ad showing, but the advertiser gets nothing in return, the ad ran but I didn't watch it.</comment>


Evaluating the security of OpenWRT, Part 3: adventures in NOEXECSTACK'land - <AUTHOR> http://blog.oldcomputerjunk.net/2014/evaluating-the-security-of-openwrt-part-3-adventures-in-noexecstackland/

<comment><USER2> Sounds like it was a fun journey. Don't forget to figure out how to make ccache work in your cross-compiler toolchain... it doesn't always speed things up that much (I have some projects that seem to spend more time linking than compiling), but all those minutes add up :)</comment>


Show HN: Get fast and real feedback of your design assets - <AUTHOR> https://www.producthunt.com/upcoming/pickoutt <comment><USER2> Yes, We're designers/developers and we can not find a great place to share our assets in order to receive fast and real feedback.

All we did was annoy our friends by sending them chats and emails, and mmmm I think we've lost friends for that hahaha (I understand why they did not invite us back to pub crawl weekend).

We would like to know what you think of this, even the site is not built, but we would like to know if we are not the onlye ones with this problem.

Thanks in advance!</comment>


New yeoman generator: generator-generator2 - <AUTHOR> https://urosjarc.github.io/generator-generator2/ <comment><AUTHOR> Milestone v1.0.0 is due by December 31, 2016. This will be first production ready release.</comment>


Please review my startup, cloud306.com - <AUTHOR> http://cloud306.com/ You can use email@example.com with the password demo to access some demo hypervisors. <comment><USER2> bug: when i press the "buy" button for the free plan on my galaxy s2 i'm redirected back to the same page</comment>


Show HN: Thought Train 2 – An app for replacing sticky notes - <AUTHOR> https://thoughttrain.cc <comment><AUTHOR> Hey ya'll

A few months ago I posted a preview of my app built to replace your sticky notes, after loads of work by myself and co-developer, I'm pretty happy to say it's finally live and ready to download.

The app has a subscription pricing model, however there's a trial period to get going, and if you are arriving from HN and you want to activate after trial just mail me if you want a coupon, I'll gladly work out what you need.

I really just want people to use the app and enjoy it the same way I do.

Thanks!

<comment><USER2> In what use cases would you think users would prefer paying for this rather than using Apple's notes app, which also syncs to my phone, ipad, etc?

<comment><USER3> Ditto. The best notes are the ones you have with you.

<comment><AUTHOR> Makes sense to me, I've build a mobile version of Thought Train but it's really just for myself to test out the mobile UX right now.

Appreciate the comments</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why is there such an emphasis on having a coding founder? - <AUTHOR>

Why is there such an emphasis on having a coding founder, especially when applying to incubators? The two most common restrictions I've seen when applying to incubators are:
Chances are low if you're applying as a single founder.
Chances are low if you're applying as a non-coding founder.
I happen to fall into the worst part of that hypothetical Venn diagram.  The catch is that the app that I'm working on was selected as a Staff Pick in the Android Market back in January.  I'm not saying it's perfect (there's still a ton of work to be done) but it shows that it's possible to have success as a noncoding, single founder.
So, why is there such an emphasis on having a coding founder? Since I'm not a coder, I hired a great offshore team to develop the code based on my UI designs, process flows and logic, wireframes, an excel spreadsheet of the algorithms, and database requirements.  It's worth noting that I didn't throw piles of money at my team, in fact the first version, the one that was selected as a staff pick, cost me $300 to develop the code.  So why is this approach looked down upon by incubators?
I implement SAP for a living, and this style of work is done quite often. For example, much of the technical team is offshore while the functional team works onsite.  So why are startups penalized for taking this same approach when applying to incubators?  I'd argue that the ability to quickly scale your team based on current project scope is a very potent tool, which outweighs the argument that because of the time constraints of an incubator you have to have a code friendly cofounder to churn out code.
Just something I've been thinking about, I'm curious to hear what everyone else has to say.  Thanks for your time.
Just to give reference, the app I built is called Amazing Grocery List, and it's available in the Android Market. <comment><USER2> You're relying on someone else to build the core of your business. While it works in some cases (maybe yours), there are many problems that can arise. For example, it could be harder and slower to iterate new versions of your product. It can also be expensive, and as a startup you want to keep your expenses as low as possible.

A friend of mine had outsourced development and later on that dev team said they wouldn't finish the product unless they take 50% equity of the company. Of course this happened because he had very little experience outsourcing, so if you have found a reliable team to do your work then it's fine.

I just think incubators are worried about it because a large majority of the time it doesn't end up working.

As far as single founder goes, I've found it invaluable to have a co-founder. Even just for the emotional aspect and to keep each other accountable for the work is an important part of having a co-founder.</comment>


Automata: engineering for a post-oil world? - <AUTHOR> http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2010/11/automata-engineering-for-a-post-oil-world.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+typepad/krisdedecker/lowtechmagazineenglish+(Low-tech+Magazine)

<comment><USER2> I imagine as you start scaling the size of machines/automata up, it becomes more efficient to have your crank/windmill/whatever turn an electric generator that then drives an electric motor. Any ideas on where this tip over point is?

You lose the artistry though.

<comment><USER3> I am not sure to understand what you mean by "scaling up size", would you mind to elaborate?

On the other hand...

>> it becomes more efficient to have your crank/windmill/whatever turn an electric generator that then drives an electric motor.

Efficiency is not an absolute property of systems, but it depends on the variable that you are seeking to optimize. If you talk about _energy_ efficiency alone, this is a really bad idea. First you use the crank to turn the chemical energy of the meal you just had into mechanical energy, then you turn this into electric energy by using the generator, then the generator powers a motor to turn that one back to mechanic energy. Every step of the process has a conversion factor < 100%, and besides that, every step of the chain has leeks in it. The longer and more complex the process, the less efficient. Period.

Now, if you need a _steady_ source of mechanic energy, but you have just a sporadic one, this begins to make sense. You connect your sporadic crank/windmill/whatever to a generator, the generator to a battery, and feed the motor from the battery... and you get a small steady flow out of a big but unreliable one. But it all depends of what you are trying to optimize for in the first place.

<comment><USER2> In my (probably overly simplistic view), a generator-motor system will have roughly constant energy efficiency as you make it larger and larger, while the energy efficiency of a purely mechanical system will decrease, as you spend more and more energy on moving the mechanical connections which increases in mass by the cube, while your energy gathering surface goes up by the square.

So for example if you had some wind drive automata that plowed a field for you (and assuming constant wind), if you were talking about a machine that worked 1m^2 per minute, a purely mechanical system would have higher energy efficiency. But if you made the design larger so it could work 4m^2 or something, the now you have higher energy efficiency with a generator-motor system.

<comment><USER4> The notion of wind-powered automata plowing fields immediately brought Theo Jansen's Strandbeest machines to mind- very evocative. Oh, now I need to find some watercolors... or perhaps some plastic tubing.</comment></comment></comment></comment>