MacBook Air Apparent: I Have Never Used My Computer's Optical Drive - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/15/new-macbook-air/

<comment><USER2> I use the optical drive mainly for reinstalling OS. An old habit carried over from the Windows time. Later I discovered that OS X is probably the easiest OS to install from alternative media. (It is probably also the easiest to run from alternative media too. Tried portable hard drive and USB stick. Works flawlessly.)

I did three clean installation of OS X 10.6. I tried both installing from DVD, and installing from an image of the DVD residing on a partition of a portable hard drive (created with the system default Disk Utility tool) via USB. The hard drive option is much faster, quieter, and cooler (pun intended).

I am always wondering if Apple will ship an OS on a tiny USB stick instead of a stupid DVD disc some day.

I hate optical discs and drives. Mechanical and fragile. I want to go all solid state.

<comment><USER3> You can install Windows 7 from a USB flash disk (or external hard drive if you wanted to) with the Windows 7 USB tool. Works great and installs much faster than from a DVD. Even on my desktop, I haven't used disks to install software in forever. Hey, you can even download a trial of Office, Photoshop, or almost any major software, and then activate it with a key from a physical package. Works great.

<comment><USER2> I tried that too on some PC's around. It's a nice feature given the need to reinstall the OS more often... There are some compatibility issues with USB booting on different BIOS, but other than that it is really helpful.

Now the next question is how do you run Win7 from a USB stick...

<comment><USER3> I've done it with XP back in the day, but never tried it with Win7. That might make an interesting project...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> First the Iphone is supposed to be for on the go, then the Ipad is supposed to be in between the Iphone and the Mac Book Pro, now he wants something in between the Ipad and the Mac Book Pro. Kudos to Apple for convincing people they need all this.

<comment><USER5> I think this article is about what you _don't_ need. Apple has a long tradition of omitting "features", which is applauded in hindsight but cause quite a stir at the release.

(Examples: floppy and optical disc drives, modems, firewire and ethernet ports, expansion slots, physical buttons, ...)

<comment><USER6> "how will the iMac survive without serial, parallel, and ADB ports?"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I vowed that my next computer will not have an optical drive in it.

As for MacBook, you can make some use of that space with optibay <http://www.mcetech.com/optibay/>

<comment><USER8> Or, you know, Buy a Thinkpad. My ultra-bay has had a hard drive in it for years. But I can on the fly swap that out for the CD unit. Or a battery pack. It's built to be useful and not just to look pretty.

<comment><USER9> Gloating about _your_ notebook of choice just makes you an asshole. I don't want to swap out the components in my notebook every week, that's not a useful feature for me. It's objective!

Instead of lame invisible magic scrolling areas on the side, what if I want a large trackpad with lots of gestures, 2-finger scrolling & right-click? Or a slot loading DVD drive instead of a shitty tray one? Backlit keyboard? Magnet based power adapter so the dog doesn't drag my notebook off the table? LED battery life indicator on the side? 1" thickness? 5-8 hours battery life? Or just want OS X? And yes it looks good.

If you don't care about those things that's fine. I think it's even worth sacrificing an eSATA port even though I'd like one. Different people are willing to make different compromises.

As everyone says the CPU, memory and disks are the same now. Only difference is software and other hardware features. I don't understand why people have a mental block about looking at Apple's hardware objectively. "It looks good so it's clearly not meant to be useful!" ... wtf?

Let me guess, the Vaio Z isn't useful either because it looks good and doesn't have a swappable SATA bay. Even though you can get it w/ dual SSDs and a Core i7. Give me a break.

<comment><USER8> Apple do a lot of things right. But they optimize hard for the 80-90% rule. Maybe even 95%. If you want to do anything in that 5-10% -- you have challenges.

Woz wanted power and flexibility and options. Jobs wanted beauty and simplicity and ease of use. There's nothing wrong with simplicity. In fact - most of the time it's a benefit. But lets call it for what it is -- Apple's design ethos will choose simple over flexible almost every time.

<comment><USER9> That's true. In the Sculley interview that was posted the other day a recurring theme was that Apple is a design company first. I think that's good. I like products designed for humans even though my inner geek likes to solve puzzles (figuring out a bad interface is like solving a puzzle, it tickles the same part of our brains).

Some lament the fact that you can't change hibernate/sleep settings without running a few defaults commands in the terminal. I like that the machine does something sane out of the box and I don't have to think about it. I just focus on what I want to get done. Again, people care about different things. I care less about tweaking & tinkering as I get older and lazier.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> So this is where _I_ groan over MG groaning about having to carry a couple extra pounds in his purse.

And perhaps I'm missing some greater MG-context, but using the first person singular pronoun that often in a speculative review of a device (or whatever) is a bit off putting. Which is to say, whiny hyper-personalized reviews don't really cut it for me.

</comment><comment><USER11> A smaller Air would be awesome, and I think would be a better sale than the current one. It's not quite comparable, but I still miss my 12" Powerbook because I could take it frickin' _everywhere_. It was even smaller than almost any book I carried (textbooks).

If they shrank it a bit more, they could start to compete more directly with both ultralight laptops _and netbooks_ , but with more power than either, rather than being just a smaller, lighter, slower, and more expensive laptop. Though yes, part of the appeal of netbooks is how cheap they are.

My 15" I have now is nicer for _work_... but then again I can always attach an external monitor if I _really_ want size. But in the vast majority of cases where size matters, I'd prefer my laptop to be smaller so I can always have it with me, and not use up most (or 110%) of the available space.

<comment><USER12> I agree ... I have a 13.3" and an old, broken 12.1" and I really feel the difference. I also have an 11.6" and love the size but it's a netbook so it's pretty crap.

A high quality 11.6" would be _awesome_ if the price is nice.

<comment><USER13> When you say you feel the difference, I'm curious if you mean in terms of size or weight or both. I ask because believe it or not the 13.3" MacBook Pro is actually ~0.1 pounds (0.06 kg) lighter than the 12.1" PowerBook G4.

Sources:

13.3" MacBook Pro Tech Specs: <http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/specs-13inch.html> 12.1 PowerBook G4 Tech Specs: <http://support.apple.com/kb/sp48>

<comment><USER12> I don't have Macs, I have/had PCs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> They need to have a Macbook Air Pro

Ethernet

Better graphics card

I would kill for a 200+dpi screen on a 12 or 13 inch screen

With no optical the machine should be much lighter and the battery last longer. Throw in built in 3g and I'll even splurge for the overnight shipping.

The optical is used so rarely offering a $99 external USB seems like the perfect solution.

Edit: formatting

</comment><comment><USER15> It seems the author of this article doesn't have netflix.

<comment><USER16> The first thing I see when I go to netflix.com is "Unlimited TV episodes & Movies instantly over the internet"

<comment><USER17> Of course, why would they want to clearly state that Instant only includes a fraction of the titles available on DVD?

<comment><USER15> On my queue, there are about 125 movies. About 30 of them have "Play" buttons.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> As I remember it, people were mostly annoyed that it only had one usb port. I got my x61 2 years ago and never worried about the lack of optical drive, but it has 3 usb ports I certainly could not do without.

In fact, the lack of an optical drive doesn't even make it on this list: [http://apcmag.com/macbook_air_top_10_things_wrong_with_it.ht...](http://apcmag.com/macbook_air_top_10_things_wrong_with_it.htm)

<comment><USER19> In my experience (as an MBA owner) people who buy it don't really carry around a backpack full of USB devices to plugin. Kind of defeats the purpose of buying an ultra-portable. Sometimes I dock it to a USB hub at home though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I love my MacBook Air, and am dreading the release of a new improved one which I'll be deliberating over buying for months.

That said, a little bit smaller and higher-res screen, 500g lighter, 4GiB of RAM and a 3G modem would be almost irresistible.

</comment><comment><USER21> Well--for one I use optical drive to install linux and do recovery with a live disk, but besides that, he's absolutely right. I think one USB optical spare would be critical for a lot of geeks

</comment><comment><USER22> I would love a MBP that doesn't include an optical drive, but it isn't going to happen for a while. The problem is DRM on DVDs. I'm perfectly capable of ripping my movies, but without access to a DVD ripper that's as easy to use (and included for free with the OS) as iTunes, the average person hasn't figured out how to rip DVDs and still needs an optical drive to watch movies. The Air is going to be stuck in a niche for a while, unfortunately.

</comment><comment><USER23> The Air is what Jobs shipped when he couldn't ship the iPad yet, but wanted to focus on elegant ambient computing.

<comment><USER24> As a tool for doing work though, people that spend most of there time working on the go aren't able to really do this with an Ipad, sure the MBP is fairly compact but to carry all the time the air definitely has a market.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The last (and only) use I've had for the optical drive was to install the operating system. Which makes me think that there's no use for the optical drive at all once you'll be able to upgrade to Lion through the App store.

</comment><comment><USER9> I feel the exact same way, but I don't want to give up any specs. I like my Core i7, 8gb, and 250+ GB SSD. Time will solve it but waiting can be hard when you can see the future on the horizon.

</comment><comment><USER25> I seldom miss the optical drive in my netbook either, although occasionally I feel the urge to watch a DVD. Fortunately with Netflix instant and Hulu I can usually get my fix.</comment>


SSDs have a 'bleak' future, researchers say - <AUTHOR> http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9224322/SSDs_have_a_bleak_future_researchers_say <comment><USER2> The stupidity of this article will be more visible, directly proportional to the time since its publication.</comment>


Ars Technica staff PGP keys - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/ars-staff-pgp-keys/

<comment><USER2> ... served, of course via HTTP only ...

<comment><AUTHOR> Instead of what?</comment></comment>


One Cool Trick to Simplify Reducer Functions - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/javascript-scene/one-cool-trick-to-simplify-reducer-functions-bbbffe488bb6 <comment><USER2> Note that our official Redux Toolkit package [0] already uses Immer by default, and we have recommended using Immer with Redux in our Style Guide docs page [1]. (We also specifically recommend _against_ using Immutable.js in that page as well.)

Fun fact: because reducers are _just_ plain functions, there's not actually anything Redux-specific about them. That means you can use any reducer with React's `useReducer` hook as well. I've used RTK's `createSlice` function to generate strongly-TS-typed reducers for use in React components a number of times.

[0] [https://redux-toolkit.js.org](https://redux-toolkit.js.org)

[1] [https://redux.js.org/style-guide/style-guide#use-immer- for-w...](https://redux.js.org/style-guide/style-guide#use-immer-for-writing- immutable-updates)</comment>


Ask HN: Is there a way to determine your Hacker News karma percentile? - <AUTHOR>

At stack overflow, in our profile it tells you what percentile you fit into according to your reputation. Is there such a thing for hacker news? If you have the most karma, you're the top 0%, when you first register, you are in the top 100%, etc. This is something I want to build to learn ruby, but I want to know if it already exists first. <comment><USER2> To the best of my knowledge, this does not exist. Ensure that you are at least familiar with <http://news.ycombinator.com/leaders>, <http://www.hnsearch.com/api>, <http://jacquesmattheij.com/The+Unofficial+HN+FAQ#api> and the rest of that document, be ready to be asked to stop, and enjoy!

(This doesn't look like a trivial application of any of the APIs above, by the way.)

</comment><comment><USER3> You can figure this out using the dataset at HNSearch[1]

<http://www.hnsearch.com/api></comment>


Wow, even Lispers hate Lisp - <AUTHOR> http://smuglispweeny.blogspot.com/2013/08/wow-even-lispers-hate-lisp.html <comment><USER2> But let's not forget that while CL can be critisized, it is still the best programming language ever!</comment>


Announcing C++ Just My Code Stepping in Visual Studio - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/vcblog/2018/06/29/announcing-jmc-stepping-in-visual-studio/ <comment><USER2> There are already options for this, you check the 'just my code' box and then it doesn't work.

Are they announcing getting a feature to finally work as a new feature?

<comment><USER3> While that worked great to avoid the bowels of win32 functions, it didn't work for a lot of STL library calls which are very obtuse.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nice I'd really like to have something equivalent in gdb, I'm really bored of stepping in shared pointer's code

<comment><USER5> with gdb 7.12 or later, you can exclude files matching a glob with "skip -gfile", e.g. "skip -gfile /usr/*".

<comment><USER4> Thanks a lot for the tip!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> How would one implement this in a javascript debugger?</comment>


Outside.In Scales Up - Case Study - PHP to Rails - <AUTHOR> http://engineyard.com/about/customers/outsidein

<comment><USER2> Self-promotional post alert! This is from jiparker.com, the homepage of the guy who posted this item:

"After almost 10 years at Ameren as a developer, I will be taking an Account Manager position with the internet start up Engine Yard out of San Francisco."

<comment><USER3> who cares? The post is either good or it isn't, where the poster works or his intentions are unimportant.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This really has no business being on the site. I program in both PHP and Ruby, but there are no bench marks or explanations as to why the company needed to switch to Rails. What was the problem in PHP that they couldn't solve that needed a complete port? What were the "architectural" problems that required the expensive & time-consuming process of switching languages?

Without any kind of data or insight into the train of thought behind the change, this falls into the infotainment /advertising category. We can do better than this.

<comment><USER5> Perhaps it's for maintenance reasons? Who knows probably the first iteration of their site was the standard PHP + SQL+ HTML format.

<comment><USER4> Is it really that hard to create maintainable PHP code? I've been guilty of making spaghetti code myself, but after a little studying and re-learning the stuff I learned in college, I improved measurably in a matter of weeks.

It isn't so hard to write maintainable PHP code; although maybe the nature of this application was different. If they had written the rationale, I wouldn't have any of these questions :(

<comment><USER5> While I agree with you on your premise I'm sitting next to a guy on the cubicle to my left writing a mediumish CMS for a client in the usual PHP sort of way. Although his code is nicely indented and formatted for reading. He's having a hella of a time navigating his code base(which is like what? 3000 LOC) when the client requests for simple changes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is simply an ad for Engine Yard.

<comment><USER7> Not a very good one - the site is slow as hell right now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Here's the actual blog post: [http://blog.outside.in/2008/01/22/outsidein- switches-to-rail...](http://blog.outside.in/2008/01/22/outsidein-switches-to- rails/)

PS. Disclaimer: I work at outside.in too :)</comment>


Passwords that are Simple--and Safe - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.in/computing/25826/

<comment><USER2> Dup: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1534794>

Just the two comments ...</comment>


Ask HN: Who are the women that inspire you? - <AUTHOR> It's International Women's Day. Who inspires you? <comment><USER2> My mother - she immigrated to america when she was 18 and has since always pushed me to achieve.</comment>


Springboard. A new incubator (in Cambridge, UK), takes no equity. - <AUTHOR> http://springboard.red-gate.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> They provide (amongst other things)...

      - mentoring (10 weeks in incubator, then ongoing)
      - speakers e.g. Ryan Carson, Joel Spolsky
      - office space
      - <USER2>
      - money (expenses & living allowance while in incubator)
      - free breakfast and lunch every day
      - sessions on product management and sales

...and take no equity (atleast initially?), tie you down at the end, or even require you have a company.

Seems the motivation is work with "smart, exciting people" and build relationships with those trying to build "companies where the customers are other businesses rather than consumers".

They describe this as an "accidental incubator"...

      "Over the course of the last 10 months we've managed
       to create an accidental incubator.

      After meeting start-ups at various events, we found
      ourselves playing host to about a dozen people across
      five companies here at our offices. They all seem to
      like it, and we like them, which inspired us to put
      together Springboard."

Also, building on a MS stack will probably increase your chances of acceptance if you are applying (as Red Gate, the host company, builds tools for MS software), but I know first hand some of the companies already involved build using other tools e.g. RoR/Scala/Erlang.

<comment><USER3> I've recently dealt with Red Gate's support team for a minor issue I was having (I couldn't find my serial number), and I honestly can't remember the last time I've had such a good experience with any support anywhere. They even followed up with an email a few days later.

They seem like a really stand-up bunch of people (and I really like SQL Compare as well).

<comment><USER4> I'll second that. I purchased one of Red Gate's flagship products (ANTS Profiler) about a year ago to use on one of my last projects for school (a .NET-based numerical library), and I remember thinking that they were the first company that had ever made me think, "Their customer service is _so_ good, I'll definitely buy something from them again."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This seems like a good idea and a great deal if you're have an idea for a startup.

Though this has made me wonder about the value of working with an incubator that _does_ take equity. In the case of Springboard, you don't have to give up any part of your company, but I think that there's substantial value if the incubator does have equity, as they have skin in the game from a financial standpoint.

<comment><USER6> That all depends on how much skin. Most incubators I've heard of take small stakes in a lot of companies. The start-up just becomes one more fish and it rapidly becomes a numbers game for the incubator. I might be wrong though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is this sponsored by the local government? Are they hoping for it to be sustainable?

I mean, this can (and likely will) be really beneficial for those who get in... but what/where's the endgame?

<comment><USER8> I doubt there's any endgame. For the price of some unused office space they get smart people to bounce ideas off, free introductions to anyone the founders know who can help their business, and a bunch of publicity. It's the same reason why already established people often like to cowork.

<comment><USER7> Hmm... I understand the coworking benefits, and the opportunity to either sell Red Gate products or invest in a later stage that babul mentioned, but this is still a huge investment.

Living expenses for 10 weeks and meals for however many people, plus high- profile speakers? This is going to be expensive, even with the benefits you two mentioned.

Just a note: I'm not "suspicious" of Red Gate's motives (I believe them when they say that this is catch-free and that they made this program to help others); I'm curious as to who is funding this and why.

<comment><USER9> I think this is a great move, and I know and can happily vouch for the people behind it. Neil has been a big fan of Y-Combinator and that is clearly part of the inspiration.

As for their motives, I see part of it is about 'real-world karma', and part of it is that it's really not a huge cost to them with a range of benefits.

Providing (presumably spare) office space and canteen meals (albeit in their nice company restaurant) to a small team for 10 weeks isn't going to be a huge cost to a company that employs 160 people.

If the startups they have fail, but they have smart people, then it's potentially cheap recruitment for them (it costs about US$10k on average to recruit an average software developer in Cambridge via agencies). If the companies succeed, at least to the point of getting a promising product, then presumably it provides a range of commercial opportunities.

I think this is a great move, and something I hope other companies might follow. Red Gate are in the fortunate position of being profitable and not having external shareholders to worry about, which has perhaps made this easier for them to do. But if they can demonstrate the model can work, then it will make it easier for others to copy.

<comment><USER6> This could only happen since Neil and Simon are co-founder/CEOs. I can't imagine any external shareholders would have approved it (if they had them).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> How do they make money?

<comment><USER11> Probably by making and selling add-on tools for Microsoft products: <http://www.red-gate.com/>

My guess is that they have some office space and cash to spare (it's probably not all that expensive to run such a program). Plus, they're going to get a lot of positive PR as a result.

<comment><USER6> Not really about PR. We want to find start-ups and teams we can build long- term relationships with.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Too bad i don't have a passport at the moment..

<comment><USER4> If you are in the US, you can get a passport in a hurry at one of the national passport offices if you need to leave the country within 14 days; if you can't make it to the office in person, you can ask for expedited service to speed up the processing for your passport application though (at an additional cost).

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> It would be really awesome if they (or someone else) did something similar in London. Cambridge is not very far from here (60 miles or so) but still, there are a lot of developers and would-be entrepreneurs in London and I believe the program could be even more successful here.

<comment><USER14> Cambridge is only 45 minutes from London by train, and London does already have Seedcamp.

If you're early stage, Cambridge makes a lot of sense. Low living expenses, and a TON of angel money is around. A good number of the angels have the resources to do VC-level rounds. (VC's like Amadeus also have offices in Cambridge.)

<comment><USER15> I'm not sure any VC in Cambridge is suitable for startups gearing towards Seedcamp. I'm not sure if Springboard is geared towards these style companies, or more ramen profitable & scale without external help style companies. I suspect the latter.

I think there is massive benefit in having _all_ the key VCs in one area, Cambridge can't compete - but Cambridge does have tons of angels. YMMV

<comment><USER14> I was mainly trying to point out the strength (and resources) of the angels in Cambridge.

I agree that Cambridge VCs tend not to be interested in the less hard-tech investments that are usually found in Seedcamp and similar programs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> glad to see more options coming about. As to the no equity part, thats cool that they can do that. I think the YC model, if it fits your startup, has an equity basis that I would call a "token". I'm sure there are angels throughout the world that could offer investment for no or low equity as YC and others are doing it.</comment>


What the Global Positioning System Tells Us about Relativity - <AUTHOR> http://www.metaresearch.org/cosmology/gps-relativity.asp

<comment><USER2> The first GPS satellites had a switch to enable the correction for relativistic effects because there was some skepticism if it was needed to do so.

It didn't take very long before it was decided that the switch needed to be permanently in the 'on' position, and it was dropped from subsequent models.

EDIT: makes you wonder if Einstein had not made his predictions regarding relativity, this would have been the first real opportunity to find out in a 'natural' way, how long it would have taken them based on the observation that things did not work as intended.

<comment><USER3> No, there have been numerous other signs of relativity, going all the way back to the unexpected aberration of the orbit of Mercury that Einstein was aware of. Eventually somebody would have noticed the gravitational deflection of the stars during eclipses, too, though it could have been decades before that happened. (Not because of technology, of course, which clearly existed in Einstein's day, though just barely, but simply because nobody might have _noticed_.)

Einstein was definitely ahead of the curve, but wasn't running on zero data, even if we discount the purely mathematical issues, such as the inability to reconcile the lack of a reference frame in the Maxwell equations with the need for a reference frame for all other physics of the time.

(It might be worth pointing out here that _relativity itself_ was not a new concept; now when we say "relativity" we mean Einsteinian relativity, but there is also, for instance, "Galilean relativity". Relativity wasn't a surprise, it's just nobody could make it all work out properly without contradictions until Einstein.)

I really recommend this online book: <http://www.mathpages.com/rr/rrtoc.htm> It is both a great (IMHO) introduction to relativity, Einsteinian and otherwise, and also has a lot about history of Einstein's theory and the general state of thought at the time. I do not mean to diminish Einstein's accomplishment, because like I said he legitimately was ahead of the curve, but it wasn't quite the "bolt from the blue" that it is often portrayed as. All the math pieces Einstein needed had been developed, and his genius was largely the combination of figuring out how to put them together in a way that explained reality, and doing so while discarding inappropriate assumptions that were holding back the physics community at large. I'm actually more impressed by the latter, lest you think I'm trying to diminish that accomplishment; that's a hard harder than that sentence may make it sound.

<comment><USER4> That's for special relativity. I've read claims that if Einstein hadn't developed general relativity, we'd probably still be waiting for it.

<comment><USER3> I think those sorts of claims are an insult to the hundreds of smart people who came after Einstein, including the many smart people who are still practicing physics today. In fact, I think the whole idea of "If X hadn't done it, it wouldn't be here today" is virtually useless beyond a 20-year timeline at most.

Have you _seen_ those string theorists? I'm not a big fan of string theory, but anyone who can even remotely navigate those things could work out GR in a few afternoons, with all the advantages another 100 years of evidence and developments would bring. (Sort of a weird thing to say since it's already worked out, but still.)

You think all those smart people would just be diddling around, going, _gosh, I sure wish I could reconcile this overwhelming data that points at a 100+ year-old mathematical formalism, but I guess we'll just have to dick around for a while longer!_?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The article is fine until it starts talking about Lorentzian Relativity vs Special Relativity. Then it starts making amateur errors and misses obvious points.

As a random example, the traditional exposition of special relativity depends on working in an INERTIAL reference frame. Hence the answer to Richard Keating's puzzlement is that the time dilation depends on absolute velocities relative to an inertial frame. A convenient inertial frame being approximately the vector sum of the Earth's rotation and the airplane speeds. (Approximately because the Earth still goes around the Sun, and the Sun around the Milky Way. And then there are the effects of gravity.) Calculating relative speeds in a rotating frame of reference gives an incorrect answer, and SR predicts that fact.

To address the more fundamental problem, nowhere does he address the point accepted by Lorentz himself that the Lorentz transformations with a preferred frame of reference causes every other inertial frame of reference to make absolutely identical calculations. Therefore there is no possible experimental difference between Lorentzian Relativity and Special Relativity. Or, put alternately, there is absolutely no way to single out any particular inertial reference frame as being preferred.

Furthermore Lorentzian Relativity has no theory of gravity. So it is intellectually dishonest to include corrections from GR in a discussion about LR. Fundamentally you can't discuss GR without accepting the idea of not only having no preferred inertial reference frames, but in fact having no _inertial_ reference frames at all!

</comment><comment><USER6> This looks interesting, but read carefully - while I haven't had the time to look at the article and the site in detail, it seems that it could be described as 'fringe science'...

<comment><USER7> I've actually seen a BBC Horizon documentary a while ago, "Do You Know What Time Is?" [<http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00fyl5z>], that also talks about this. On top of all the theoretical background, they interview people at the US Army that manage the GPS sattelites, and show how they have to resync the internal clocks every day because of this.

Worth a watch if you like this kind of material.

EDIT: Sorry, I believe it was a different episode: "What On Earth Is Wrong With Gravity?" [[http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/broadband...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/broadband/tx/gravity/)]

Here are the online video links to both episodes:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3aYKAJEVfQ>

<http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-421765295887486158>

<comment><USER6> Oh, I don't doubt the effect, it's just that this article seems to have an anti-Special Relativity viewpoint, and espouses a different explanation for the effect. But I have just scanned it quickly.

Thanks for the links by the way!

<comment><USER8> The discussion of the twin paradox and SR seems to be lacking. There's a focus on only the time dilation effects and nothing on length contraction which would resolve the issue. Instead it becomes a mess of confusion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > The accuracy of this comparison is limited mainly because atomic clocks > change frequencies by small, semi-random amounts (of order 1 ns/day) at > unpredictable times for reasons that are not fully understood

What?</comment>


JP Morgan Puts Debt Issuance on the Blockchain - <AUTHOR> https://altcoinreport.co/jp-morgan-puts-debt-issuance-on-a-blockchain/ <comment><AUTHOR> JP Morgan has launched a test of logging transaction data from debt issuance onto the blockchain.</comment>


"Wait, What? Our Microservices Have Human Users?" Stefan Tilkov at MicroXchg - <AUTHOR> http://www.infoq.com/news/2016/02/tilkov-microxchg-human-users <comment><USER2> This is my favorite quote from this article "building services that "actually do something" is a recommended practice". This is an argument I make all the time at work when a team wants to create microservices to serve very specific data types so you can get, put, delete data about a Person, and Organization, or whatever.

The service endpoints are easy to define, easy to test, clean and simple... and nearly useless to expose to the frontend. Congrats - you've exposed the database over HTTP. The layer doesn't accomplish anything, so it's pointless. To my mind, every layer should _do something_ or it should be removed.

The end result in some cases has been creating microservices that clients can theoretically build upon, but the orchestration of them is super complex because the services are too data-specific rather than workflow-specific. To do something, a frontend has to make 6 calls just to gather data before it is even ready to present a page of UI.

I'm not making an argument against microservices, just the architecture of exposing data in tiny self-contained (self-absorbed?) chunks. Microservices can expose data that people may want in those tiny pieces, but they should be wrapped up together by other services to aggregate related data to expose to consumers that need to care about workflow. So build a Person service, Organization service, Blog Post service, whatever. But present a Context service that returns large collected pieces.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree - I'm seeing some application frameworks even encouraging developers to expose CRUD functionality via REST (Spring Data REST, I'm looking at you)

There may be a few narrow use cases where this is valid, but in general we really should avoid doing SQL joins over HTTP :-)

As Stefan argues in the talk, one of the original sins with SOA was caring too much about the services (and potential "reuse"), and forgetting about the notion of offering a cohesive piece of business functionality i.e. a bounded context with well-defined responsibilities</comment></comment>


Hollywood studios say they're quitting Netflix – the truth is more complicated - <AUTHOR> https://www.al.com/life/2019/06/hollywood-studios-say-theyre-quitting-netflix-but-the-truth-is-more-complicated.html <comment><USER2> Nobody has mentioned the real problem is that most Hollywood movies these days are recycled garbage.

People are probably going to switch from Netflix over to Disney+ once it is launched. Once Netflix is gone, Disney+ would then jack up its price to $40/month. I think we have all seen this movie too many times before.

<comment><USER3> I'm disappointed, but not suprised, to see this post so high. Despite all the ways of watching films at home, cinema is having its most successful years ever, so clearly many people are enjoying the films Hollywood is putting out.

<comment><USER4> I'm disappointed, but not surprised in your measurement of success. Many tout record box office takings as clear success but I rather think that really reflects on inflation (both real and artificial).

Look at admissions over time. I only have UK numbers to hand [1] but despite an increasing population, we're still at barely a tenth of our 1950 numbers. MPAA stats [2] seem to show the US in decline over the last few years but I cant find a nice table to do an 84y comparison.

So again, cinema might be taking absolutely more money than ever before, but that's probably through higher ticket sales. Numbers of bums on seats is not breaking any records.

1: [https://www.cinemauk.org.uk/the-industry/facts-and- figures/u...](https://www.cinemauk.org.uk/the-industry/facts-and-figures/uk- cinema-admissions-and-box-office/annual-admissions/)

2: PDF!! [https://www.mpaa.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/MPAA- Theatri...](https://www.mpaa.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/MPAA-Theatrical- Market-Statistics-2016_Final.pdf) (there are other reports for other single years but they're hard to grok out the attendance numbers).

<comment><USER5> A big (huge) driver is the Asian markets, with China having allowed more foreign movies in - and a huge upsurge of cinemas being built there. A lot of (blockbuster) movies are actively made nowadays with the huge Chinese market in mind, and / or are being co-produced and / or funded by Chinese companies.

(There's some common tropes in that category; PG-12, if that rating, has to feature at least one major Chinese city and one or two Chinese actors, and the Chinese are never the bad guys. These things also apply to the Americans. Basically, the two propaganda machines combined.)

<comment><USER6> I have also noticed a decent amount of new releases have both a Chinese and American production company associated with the movie, and there appear to be cultural and character references that resonate with both.

Pretty cool.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> For me it's a simple equation that has as much to do with time and hassle as it has to do with money. I'm not going to juggle five different monthly subscriptions. I'll pay Netflix for their decent original content and all my old favorites like Star Trek. I'll buy a month of Hbo every couple years to catch up with them. I'm not going to pay $200 for a cable subscription and I'm not going to pay for Netflix and YouTube Red and Disney+ and Hulu and CBS All Access and whatever other service all at the same time. It's already a pain in the ass to figure out if Movie X is available on the services I already pay for. I'll just go back to piracy like I did before Netflix existed.

<comment><USER8> Am I the only one who doesn't threaten piracy when I don't get exactly what I want for the price I want? Is it really that unusual to not take things that you shouldn't? I mean if Hulu doesn't have a movie I want to watch I'll just watch something else, I won't go take it because I feel entitled.

<comment><USER9> > I mean if Hulu doesn't have a movie I want to watch I'll just watch > something else

Would anyone loose anything if instead of something else you ended up pirating the movie that you wanted to watch?

<comment><USER8> Yeah, I'd lose respect for myself. I don't take things that aren't mine.

<comment><USER10> I appreciate where you are coming from. Many people understand that, physically, 'pirating' is more akin to copying than taking though. ..And then there is an argument that increasing the availability of content increases the revenue of the producer in the long run. Some game developers and many musicians are even releasing official torrents of their content, assuring quality control. I'm curious how this would work out if bigger studios dabbled with it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Most people dont know but you can get P4S (plex for share) where you pay (or free) someone to get added on their plex library. Some of these servers have CDN and have 90+TB storage with automated requests system. Thousands of shows and movies. You can also get IPTV, which is basivally cable TV through internet for 10$/month. 5000 channels. You ask how its possible? Basically fly by night companies redistributing cable. Some have sweared by it being good. Does anybody in HN hsvr more ecperience in

<comment><USER12> Am I misunderstanding the idea behind the first thing, or is that just piracy that you pay for? If you're going to go to the trouble and / or risk of pirating things and have enough technical knowhow to setup Plex on your local device, I don't know why you wouldn't just go for an old fashioned approach ... which is usually free, better quality, more reliable, etc.

<comment><USER13> Being able to setup a legal program like Plex and knowing how to pirate high quality versions of all the media you want are two different things. People bought into Hulu and Netflix when you could get nearly everything you wanted to watch on their services.

<comment><USER12> Plex is legal to use, but not all that easy to set up, at least in my experience. At least, I would expect anyone capable of using Plex longterm on a TV to also be able to pirate stuff.

The point about legality wasn't about Plex, however. It was about paying someone to torrent stuff for you, which is still copyright infringement.

<comment><USER14> True. Running your own server probably costs more than 5$/month on electricity alone. No brainer if you do it yourself vs some other dude.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Piracy is alive and kicking in a lot of countries still, as I'm sure some of you know. Netflix is probably partially at fault for this.

When I travel to different countries and pull up Netflix, I see shows available in that country that aren't available in another. It's annoying.

Of course, a VPN takes care of this (to an extent).

<comment><USER16> I used to always use a VPN for Netflix but then they started cracking down and it stopped working. Are you still able to use a VPN to view content from a different region?

<comment><USER17> if the vpn is well known it gets blocked by netflix, have to experiment with what doesn't get tracked

<comment><USER18> Setting up you own VPN with a cheap VPS has a higher chance of working but you have to be careful about your VPS provider. For example, I know that a lot of OVH owned IPs are banned from Netflix.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I find the arguments about pirating interesting; they often go into arguments about "intellectual property", but what we're really talking about here are different _publishing methods_. BitTorrent is one fairly effective publisher that does offer content for free, but it does require a consumer to take on some costs: risk of going to a sketchy site and risk to their computer (viruses). If a streaming service is good enough and cheap enough, it can offer enough value to a consumer that the consumer will choose the streaming service over BitTorrent.

Considering that this is going to require streaming services to really reduce the cost to the consumer, how can the streaming services have a sustainable business model over the long term to support themselves? The subscription model is one way, but the gaming industry may be ahead here: charge for each individual item, but make it really cheap. For example, a consumer might scoff at paying $3 per episode of GoT, but $1 or $.50 might be pretty nice... add that up for a season, and your streaming service has made almost as much as a subscription would have made. Of course, this requires streaming services to continue to offer new, good content to continue to entice consumers, which they might not like having to do.

</comment><comment><USER20> I don't think piracy will come back as streaming becomes more segregated, people generally will go with the legitimate market over illegal means as long as the fiction is under a certain level. Most Americans would rather pay an extra $15 a month for streaming that to pirate content and go through the "hassle" of getting that pirated content on their TV. How many non-tech people do you know who can mirror a PC or laptop to their TV?

<comment><USER21> My old dad would rather pirate then pay any amount of money and still have commercials shoved down his throat. He feels it is double dipping so to speak. Plus pirates get 4K streams vs Netflix which serves you quality based on what you pay. I feel the hassle was fixed a long time ago. It's pretty much point and click these days.

<comment><USER22> > Plus pirates get 4K streams vs Netflix which serves you quality based on > what you pay.

 _And_ based on your operating system and browser. Even FullHD is hard (might still be impossible even) to get if you run a free software stack. Netflix wants you to run the heaviest DRM stack possible (even though their content is available in 4K from your local friendly neighbourhood torrent site).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Of all the streaming services, Netflix is the one I'm most likely to cancel soon. The quality of Netflix original content is dismal. They have jumped the shark. Used to invest in serious drama, now it's all lowest common denominator crap hidden behind a huge marketing budget to capture zeitgeisty hype.

I just watched the first episode of When They See Us today: total crap. Ridiculous over-acting, awful writing that feels at every minute like a bad attempt to modify a true story into a cinematic exaggeration (despite the content of the true story it's based on, which needs zero punch up), choppy editing that needlessly obfuscates character development and makes various scenes feel almost comically unnatural (especially the police interrogation scenes).

It was similar with Seven Seconds. I'm tired of feeling suckered into Netflix dramas that fall apart like a wet napkin.

<comment><USER24> > used to invest in serious drama, now it's all lowest common denominator crap

Given that it's Netflix we're talking about here, I find this extremely depressing as it likely means the studios were right; people don't want nuanced thoughtful drama, they want mediocre predictable sitcoms and cop dramas.

<comment><USER23> HBO seems to still be producing very good dramas. Prime has had one or two offbeat gems recently. I think there's still a strong market for it, but Netflix is clearly pursuing something else.

<comment><USER25> What's good on HBO? I used a VPN to subscribe to HBO and Hulu and ended up canceling it because I ended up watching more Netflix than those services...

<comment><USER26> Deadwood, Westworld, True Detectives and The Wire are some series I like. There is also Game of Thrones.

<comment><USER25> I couldn't get into westworld or the wire. Currently watching Dead To Me, Punisher, Bad Blood, Good Girls. Not seen deadwood or true detectives.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> > But their shows were a boon for Netflix's nascent streaming service, which > had a small library of old movies when it debuted in 2007.

That's exactly what Netflix is _right now_. There's a dearth of new content besides Netflix's own originals. Netflix routinely suggests titles from 10-15-20 years ago and rarely any newer titles (outside some of the bigger blockbusters like Star Wars).

<comment><USER25> I don't know what Netflix is like in America but all my content is nothing but new stuff... The only thing that's "old" that shows on my "popular on Netflix" (or what ever its called) section is Friends.

<comment><USER27> I'm watching from Sweden, so that may be the reason, but my suggestions are laughably bad: [https://twitter.com/dmitriid/status/1120410479954993153](https://twitter.com/dmitriid/status/1120410479954993153)

<comment><USER25> [https://imgur.com/a/dl4P7ag](https://imgur.com/a/dl4P7ag)

Hope this link works. Took a while to figure out how to upload without downloading the app.

This is what I see in Singapore. Atleast on my phone. But I mostly browse the recently added or originals sections.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How a Teenage Entrepreneur Built a Startup on Bitcoin Riches - <AUTHOR> https://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/advisor/teenage-entrepreneur-built-startup-bitcoin-riches-160200205.html <comment><USER2> This doesn't detail "how" a teenage entrepreneur built a startup on BTC riches. It's not a very exciting story, either.

Here's what happened: in early 2012, he put all his money into Bitcoin. Then he cashed out when they peaked (probably around December 2013). Then he used the money to start yet another e-learning business/service.

I don't see what the point of this article is. He used money that was given to him to bet on speculate on a wildly fluctuating asset, and came out lucky. Now he's trying to invest his money sensibly. So what?

To me, the only interesting part of this article is that he pays most of his employees in Bitcoin. The rest is just fluff.

<comment><USER3> Its an article on yahoo.com, are you actually expecting hard hitting reporting?

<comment><USER4> It's a link on Hacker News, so I would expect (or rather, hope) to not see links to uninteresting stories.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Who would have thought... I've read about this boy a few days ago on Reddit (subforum _Entrepreneur_ ). Someone suggested that he should get his story in the media, because it's rather interesting (especially his age, and Bitcoin is still hot nowadays). A month later, here he is!

[http://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/25u81a/im_15_a...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/25u81a/im_15_and_i_have_20_people_working_for_me_all/chkzw5c)

<comment><USER6> I just clicked on that and read the first root comment. The kid more or less admits to using fake reviews on his site. He offers to "fix" a review, which not only sounds incredibly fake, but in which the person claims to be in NY but then claims being in LA.

Err, not sure if this is off to a great start. The skills to speculate bitcoin may not be the skills that get you ahead running an e-learning company. The kid comes off as incredibly dishonest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm not clear what the lesson is here, unless it's "you should have bought Bitcoin in 2012".

</comment><comment><USER8> Who gives $1000 to a 14 year old grandchild for Easter? #JustRichPeopleThings

<comment><USER9> Not necessarily. It was given to him by his grandmother. Perhaps she's divesting herself of some of her retirement funds for whatever reason (e.g. maybe is actually not all that well off but she wants her grandkids to "have something" but is anticipating losing all she owns in end-of-life care).

That said, there is little to this story that seems impressive to me. Regardless of whether his family is rich or not, being given $1000 for easter is a big deal when one is 14, and therefore most of the rest of this kid's story is better attributed to good luck than talent. What's impressive is that he didn't spend all the bitcoin-windfall on video games, apps, and trying to impress his friends.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Maybe it's not a popular thing to say around here, but that $1000 in BTC could just as easily be worth $500 right now.

</comment><comment><USER11> This title "How a Teenager Entrepreneur Built a Startup on Bitcoin Riches" is misleading.

The kid took his grandma's money and bought and sold bitcoin at the right time.

His startup consists of himself and two other dudes.

This isn't Shawn Parker Napster impressive to me.

Is he smarter than your average 15 year old or myself when I was 15? Yeah but not that smart.

</comment><comment><USER12> > When 15-year-old Erik Finman turned a $1,000 Easter gift from his grandma > into $100,000 after cashing in on his Bitcoin investment, he wasn't all like > Cristal, Maybach, diamonds on your timepiece.

It would be kind of difficult to buy a Maybach with $100,000 given that even a used one costs more than that.

Putting the article's heavy dose of fluff aside, it would be interesting to know if Finman paid capital gains on the $100,000. Additionally, if he truly has "employees" that he's paying in Bitcoin, it would be interesting to know if he's properly doing withholding, since you have to pay that in USD.

</comment><comment><USER13> fluff. How to build a business on finding a gold nugget. How to build a startup after you bought Google IPO. etc etc</comment>


Free Market Communism - <AUTHOR>

I think I have a way to cure poverty. What if we created a national auction system for low wage labor. The person is paid $11.15 an hour(poverty rate). Their time is auctioned off. They can refuse an offer but the difference between an offer they take and the highest offer is subtracted off their pay. They can work less than 40 hr a week but again subtracted off. And it's paid for by a national sales tax. So how much would cost? To pay the 10.5M unemployed cost 234.3B. Subtract unemployement benefits 116B. Bring Minimum wage and lower to $11.15/hr. 3.6M cost 28.8B The rest of the people in proverty 31.9M assuming avg pay at 9.15 hr. 127.8B.
Total of 275B.
National Sales tax of 3.05% on 9T personal consumption(assumes not taxing unprepared food, housing etc.)
feedback? <comment><AUTHOR> about $72 a month sales tax to the average family</comment>


Ask HN: what do you think of this book website  - <AUTHOR>

Website is http://bit.ly/cD6Deh . Any and all comments welcome. Thanks <comment><USER2> I don't understand your target demo well enough to pass judgement, but I did notice that the word bane is misspelled "bain" in one of the testimonials. Superficially, it looks clean and corporate.

I'd also guess that you won't get a lot of great feedback here. For me, the site design and presentation called to mind a "business for business's sake" stereotype that I, and I expect many on HN, are a little suspicious of. I'm not saying my reaction is fair or accurate--just observing a superficial kneejerk--but my impression is that HN-ers are interested in business only insofar as it is a means to achieving cool stuff, and not necessarily for its own sake. If you think my assessment is inaccurate or undue, I'd be happy to read your reply (and I'd also like to hear from HN if I'm off base about the community--still getting a feel for this place). Good luck with this and the next.

<comment><USER3> I guess the website is just a advertising channel for that specific book/person and not even a demo...

<comment><AUTHOR> What would you to demo here

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is it really necessary to use a shortened link here? There's no reason to save space, so shortened links, to me, seem like their main purpose is to conceal the destination.

<comment><AUTHOR> Apologies</comment></comment>


Previously male-only Hearthstone competition now open to all genders - <AUTHOR> http://www.polygon.com/2014/7/3/5867015/international-esports-federation-reverses-gender-segregation-policy

<comment><USER2> "the segregation was in accordance with IeSF tournament regulations and was to 'avoid possible conflicts (e.g. a female player eliminating a male player during RO8 [round of eight]) among other things.'"

What makes that a 'possible conflict'?

<comment><USER3> The previous IeSF regulations had separate male and female tournaments, and there wasn't a female one for Hearthstone, so allowing a women to knock a man out when she couldn't go forward herself made no sense.

Fixing it by allowing women to go forward was what made the most sense.

<comment><USER4> Hmm, and do you know what was the reasoning behind the original rule that said women couldn't go forward?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, before IeSF changed their rules yesterday (under massive social media feedback + comments from Blizzard), there was no world championship for women in Hearthstone; it was male-only.

So even if the local organizers in Finland would have rebelled (which they did not), and allowed women to participate in the national event (which would have been against the IeSF rules), they probably could not have sent the national champion – in case she was female – to the international championship games.

So the local organizers decided to follow the IeSF rules and not allow female participants. But something like this stands out in Europe, so there was something of a media storm, and everything turned out nicely: IeSF decided to update their rules.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Makes sense to me. There's nothing intrinsically making either gender better at computer games.

It's not like running the 100m or a marathon, where women aren't capable of competing, so there's no reason to keep them segregated.

Also - it's fascinating how fast changes happen nowadays. A bunch of people point out how stupid something is and it changes within days.

</comment><comment><USER5> Wait instead of men's and women's, it's now women+men and women-men? How is _that_ equal?

<comment><USER6> Systems like this are pretty common in programs where one gender greatly outnumbers the other (such as eSports). At my university, which is mostly (75%) men, broomball is a popular sport among students. Within our broomball organization, there was a main league (for men or women) and a women's only league. The main purpose of the women's league was to get them involved in a male-dominated sport in a way that makes them feel more comfortable.

In the case of Hearthstone, the main tournaments are primarily men anyway. So having the women's league in addition to the mixed league will help women get involved in the activity. As the gender gap gets closer to 50-50, the need for the women's league decline and they could consider switching to a mixed only league.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Small web tool to create gifs with 2d glsl code - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/antoineMoPa/shadergif <comment><AUTHOR> I started working on a 3D version that I should post soon.</comment>


Proving something exists nonconstructively using probability. - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probabilistic_method <comment><USER2> yay! i like seeing math posts on HN, even though the prob method usually leaves you feeling less than satisfied. the proofs, at least the ones i've seen, don't usually elicit that AHA moment. but that's just me. i think i still have the copy of the Spencer book i checked out of the library years ago.

<comment><USER3> Perhaps there are alien minds constructed out there whose organizing principle for their version of rational thought involves optimizing Bayesian belief networks, and when they look at these, the deductive reasoning part is unsatisfying, but the probabilistic part gives them the Ah-Ha!

<comment><USER4> What's the probability of that being true?

<comment><USER3> AH-HA!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Title seems a little misleading, in that some constructive proof techniques are used to set-up the probabilistic tools.

<comment><USER5> That's not how constructivity works, though --- it's all or nothing. You can be careful about the points at which you use classical reasoning (or, here, probability), but then the whole proof is no longer constructive. The argument in favor of the constructive approach is that you can very carefully decide when you depart from it.

For a (Curry-Howard) corresponding intuition, a program is no longer functional the moment any computational effect is involved (mutable state, control effects like continuations and backtracking, etc.).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The best description I was ever given of the probabilistic method: "It's not like we're searching for a needle in a haystack here. We're searching for hay in a haystack... But every time we reach in, we find a needle" - Laszlo Babai This was said of the Ramsey number (Example 1) which is very hard to construct examples of (AFAIK there isn't an algorithm to do it), even though a randomly generated graph will be an example with probability tending toward 1.

</comment><comment><USER7> The Princeton Companion to Mathematics has a good description of this starting on page 572.

Basically the proof goes like this: Define a random variable that can only take on integer values. Show that the expected value is less than one. The random variable must therefore sometimes take on the value of zero.

If your random variable was defined to mean something interesting at zero, then the above is an existence proof. What they mean by "non-constructive" is that you still don't actually have an example of the thing existing -- you just know it does. Very cool.</comment>


AT&T Explains iPad Security Breach - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/13/att-explains-ipad-security-breach/

<comment><USER2> First thing I thought of when I read this "We apologize for the incident and any inconvenience it may have caused. Rest assured, you can continue to use your AT&T 3G service on your iPad with confidence."

is this from 37 Signals:

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>

"We apologize"

You say "I apologize" to someone when you bump into them on the subway, not if you spill your coffee all over them. Then you're "really, really sorry!". If your service is important to your users, it's a lot more like spilling coffee all over them than it is like bumping into them when you go down.

Also, you should find someone willing to take personal responsibility. Even if it's not directly their fault. There's always someone who's in charge, someone who stops the buck. Hiding behind a faceless "we" is weak.

"Any inconvenience"

First of all, if I depend on a service and can't get to it, it's not an inconvenience. It might bloody very well be a full-on crisis. An inconvenience is when I can't get my flavor of milkshake at Potbelly's or if there's line at the grocery store. This ain't that.

Using the word "any" makes it even worse. It's implying that you don't really care what bucket my frustrations fit in. Every feeling I have about this will apparently fit the "inconvenience" header. Wrong.

"This may have caused"

Again, this is slighting the very real experience that I am actually having right now. If this didn't affect me, you don't really need to say you're sorry. If it did affect me, it didn't "may have caused". It caused! Stop wavering.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>

[http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1528-the-bullshit-of- outage-l...](http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1528-the-bullshit-of-outage- language)

</comment><comment><USER3> From the hacking group:

 _all data was gathered from a public webserver with no password, accessible by anyone on the Internet._

Sounds like an AT&T's-website security breach (big shocker there, their sites are _horrendous_ and half-broken at all times). Further down they describe the attack:

 _Members of the group used the UCC-ID that is on each iPad 3G and pinged the AT &T login page with it. That page returned an e-mail address associated with that iPad 3G. They then wrote a simple script to ping the page with a series of numbers repeatedly until they had 114,000 e-mail addresses._

So... AT&T is a moron (further shock. Can you feel the shock? It's shocking.). It has nothing to do with the iPad.

</comment><comment><USER4> Why is AT&T making ALL "Hackers" out to be BAD? AT&T: That Huge iPad Security Breach Wasn't Our Fault -- It Was The Fault Of Bad People Called "Hackers"

Has anyone else seen the movie, "Hackers Wanted" [2008] that was narrated by Kevin Spacey?

</comment><comment><USER5> > _"that affected some of our customers with AT &T 3G service for iPad"_

The way AT&T's whole email is worded seems as though AT&T went to great lengths to avoid clarifying if your particular email was stolen.

</comment><comment><USER6> Are the ICC-ID numbers hard to guess, or are they sequential/predictable?

<comment> matthew-wegner Here is the actual script. Have a look: [http://praetorianprefect.com/archives/2010/06/114000-ipad- ow...](http://praetorianprefect.com/archives/2010/06/114000-ipad-owners-the- script-that-harvested-their-e-mail-addresses/)</comment></comment>


Hobbyists Use Etsy to Trade Day Job for Hard Work - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/17/fashion/17etsy.html

<comment><AUTHOR> It's interesting (if not terribly surprising) how most of these Etsy businesses simply don't scale. The thought of making the _same_ thing over and over again is really quite foreign. I sometimes forget how much leverage we have as coders.

<comment><USER2> These business could scale, if they're owners weren't so attached to making the things themselves.

I'd bet the lady selling scarves could simply design the patterns and farm the production out to a couple women paying them $30k / yr (and take home $80k+ herself).

<comment><USER3> You are misunderstanding the Etsy community. If she did that, she would lose all of the sales she is making. Because the buyers at Etsy generally only purchase when they have a reasonable certainty that the item will be produced by the original artisan, by hand.

It is very much a Catch-22.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Here is another view on Etsy that isn't as positive. Take a look, I think the NYTimes article dances around this idea but isn't brave enough to come out and say it. It does dance around it a little bit on page two, I guess, but this article makes it the point that most aren't $100K seller and are women who are married and home with their kids.

"Etsy.com Peddles a False Feminist Fantasy"

[http://www.doublex.com/section/work/etsycom-peddles-false- fe...](http://www.doublex.com/section/work/etsycom-peddles-false-feminist- fantasy)

<comment><USER5> Thruth be told, this fantasy applies to all genders.

Consider stock photography sites, Second Life, programming sites(rentacoder etc), iPhone development and dare I say Mahalo and their ilk.

What do these seemingly dissimilar outfits have in common? They present a fantasy on making a living doing something you love or at least don't despise. Good PR/press only encourages this view.

Reality? Few outliers make out exceptionally, while the average participant makes less than minimum wage(sometimes even for China).

Problem is, as soon as you start making a living out of a hobby/game/craft, you inevitably start treating it like a job and with that goes the fun.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> There are a lot of sellers there who either see it as pure fun or simply discount their time heavily, and as a result many items are an incredible deal.

Because of those people I was assuming almost no one was pulling a living wage, but it's interesting to see those 6 figure numbers.

</comment><comment><USER7> unfortunately being able to live on making crafts in the US is not at all due to 'hard work', that is simply a red herring in terms of difficult things facing these producers. Instead, it is likely due to obscurity or the novelty of that market. Someone in the story is already hiring employees to do the work, it is only a matter of time when those employees, and then even the entrepreneur will be outsourced outside the country.

<comment><USER8> I don't know that they'll be outsourced. For those who buy crafts from Etsy, the whole point is that you have direct contact with the seller and you're getting a handmade, one of a kind item. I know several individuals who buy things from Etsy, and being able to get a cheaper version made in China doesn't deter them. I tend to lump the growth of Etsy in with the increase in people buying local, organic food and fair trade products -- the buyer consciously avoids supporting that kind of outsourcing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Countdown to IRS audits on all of them begins...</comment>


Your phone could become a tool for detecting lies - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnet.com/news/your-phone-could-become-a-tool-for-detecting-lies-with-veritaps/ <comment><USER2> > Aske Mottelson, one of the paper's authors, says the algorithm's ability to > detect lies is comparable to that of a polygraph.

So in other words: useless.

> However, it has its limits and shouldn't be used in courtrooms or other > high-stakes environments, he said.

Good thinking. Anxious people (innocent people are often anxious, I'd say) would most likely fail at the test.

Come on, you can't detect lies based on physiological indices such as blood pressure, pulse, respiration, and skin conductivity. Those are unreliable, and not proof or evidence of anything.

"Polygraphs measure arousal, which can be affected by anxiety, anxiety disorders such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), nervousness, fear, confusion, hypoglycemia, psychosis, depression, substance induced states (nicotine, stimulants), substance withdrawal state (alcohol withdrawal) or other emotions; polygraphs do not measure "lies". A polygraph cannot differentiate anxiety caused by dishonesty and anxiety caused by something else."

<comment><USER3> I don't know sounds like a pretty awesome app combined with a bunch of "Liar"..."Liar Liar pants of fire" type sounds coming out of your pocket when someone is talking...especially if you could get Jim Carrey to do the voices.</comment></comment>


Sleep Support: An Individual Randomized Controlled Trial - <AUTHOR> https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/02/17/sleep-support-an-individual-randomized-controlled-trial/ <comment><USER2> I usually like Scott Alexander's work, but this article left me scratching my head.

He was sleeping an average of 8 hours without any supplements, so it's not surprising that he wouldn't see much difference with sleep aids. I wouldn't expect most of the named supplement's ingredients to have much impact after 8 hours anyway.

That said, Nootropics Depot has been moving more toward branded proprietary blends lately, presumably to increase profit margins. Some of their recent marketing material has really been over the top and exaggerated (see the CBD material). I trust their quality control, but they're not a great source of information about compounds.</comment>


The 150 Things the World's Smartest People Are Afraid Of - <AUTHOR> http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/what-150-of-the-worlds-smartest-scientists-are-worried-about

<comment><USER2> I used to be afraid of Peak Oil, but it seems we are willing to burn whatever we can find, and it would be a slow death, so now I would say it would be a Carrington type event (apparently we were really close to another one in July 2012) followed by a few nuclear meltdown.</comment>


The Cognitive Profile of People with High-Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorders - <AUTHOR> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6406692/ <comment><USER2> I've not been diagnosed with ASD, but I did have to take parts of the Wechsler a few years ago. My results were lopsided, as this paper describes. My doctor was surprised at how fast I completed the block design and matrix reasoning parts. He said he had never seen them completed so quickly. Yet, my verbal scores were relatively low. I did similarly on the SATs - I perfected the math section but did horribly on the verbal parts.

I have challenges processing words. I strain to use them. It feels like I'm translating from one language to another over a couple layers. Then again, I didn't begin speaking until I was 3. So, maybe I missed some developmental stages.

But, I often wonder if I have ASD. Reading this paper reminded me of it. Is there any benefit in getting a diagnosis?

<comment><USER3> > Is there any benefit in getting a diagnosis?

A dx can help explain your life and things that happened to you and how you respond to stuff.

It can be useful if you need to ask people for reasonable adjustments.

<comment><USER4> Very good to have on the job. Employers will take advantage of autistic work habits, attention to detail, lack of time wasted with water cooler talk, etc. But you need to have a diagnosis in hand to get an accommodation or a free pass when you say something stupid that you are not supposed to say.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This seems to be quite a dense paper, I've just scrolled through thid study of Iranian children, although the sample size of 30 seems quite low.

However since I'm learning statistics this is the first time I've noticed the use of the Kolmgorov-Smirnov test in the wild, so I'll be trying to go through it in more detail to see how K-S is used from a different angle.

<comment><USER6> The statistics for this paper are pretty straight forward. The sample size is small, so recovering a significant effect with frequentist hypothesis tests like MANOVA with 30 samples is challenging. However, the authors went to great lengths to filter out subjects with confounding factors. So even though the final sample size is small, it's intentionlly focused on the main effects of the study.

<comment><USER7> Ok, so can you say the results? Spent a couple minutes reading and still have no idea what they are trying to say.

<comment><USER6> I think the most interesting conclusion is that ASD (particularly "High Functioning" ASD) may actually be ADHD. Clinicians should do more rigorous testing to differentiate ASD and ADHD in their patients. Also, they add that "High Functioning" may not be a useful label. ASD is ASD. They demonstrate that IQ tests alone aren't that great a tool for comparing intelligence for people with high-functioning ASD vs typically ASD. But that some differences in subjects emerge when you use other measures of intelligence. They add that "subjects with high-functioning ASD showed a good competence in Matrix Reasoning and weaknesses in Comprehension." This means that people with a high-functioning ASD may be better at reasoning through complex spatial problems (like puzzles, mazes, matrix operations and linear algebra, solving rubix cubes :P) than a typical person with ASD.

They also note that the prevalence of ADHD symptoms and diagnoses are unusually high in ASD populations (37-85%). You can see the how strongly correlated ADHD symptoms are with ASD in their indices in their Tables 1 & 5 -- look at the negative effect with comprehension that's shared with typical symptoms in people with ASD's in table 5.

So, if you are a high functioning Aspie -- you may actually just be ADHD. And in other cultures, your profile may look very different than what is manifested in the West. Maybe shedding that label is important to you. It isn't to me.

<comment><USER8> It might be useful to you to know that your post was dead. I vouched for it, but you might have triggered some screening criteria.

<comment><USER6> Thx, mate. I'm a TOR user. Happens all the time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Line plots to compare categorical variables? Please don't. (Scatter plot with text labels or bar plots would work so much better!) The only worse way is to use radar plots.

</comment><comment><USER10> Based on what I've read and personal experience, there seems to be a significant amount of overlap between ASDs, ADHD, OCDs, and bi-polar. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a significant amount of underlying complexity we're missing that ties these disorders together.

<comment><USER11> The common characteristic seems to be a deficit in executive functions and cognitive control. Individuals have a lower ability to autoregulate their emotional state, making them less able to deal with frustration, and more vulnerable to compulsive behaviors, addiction, anxiety, and depression.

<comment><USER12> i believe this, too. essentially: paying attention to things and trying to make sense of them drives you crazy. the world only has pockets of order. you have to act crazy/stupid in many cases. it's hard to align strategy with situation. society is a mechanism for cataloging these strategies, but demands equal payment. you have to help them to get them to teach you which mode to be in. and they're still wrong often. just knowing this can drive you crazy.</comment></comment></comment>