Artificial intelligence risk research - <AUTHOR> https://80000hours.org/career-guide/top-careers/profiles/artificial-intelligence-risk-research/ <comment><USER2> Be sure to de-lurk if that's the case!

I guess. A lot of people already did.

[http://lukemuehlhauser.com/if-youre-an-ai-safety-lurker- now-...](http://lukemuehlhauser.com/if-youre-an-ai-safety-lurker-now-would-be- a-good-time-to-de-lurk)

</comment><comment><USER3> _The possibility of human-level artificial intelligence poses significant risks to society [...]_

No. It simply does not outside of the realm of science fiction. Understanding HGI will help us understand enough about ourselves and our motivations and ethics that it won't be an issue.

Humans augmented by machine learning systems, on the other hand, are here now and a wholly different question. Institutions empowered by AI research have a power / person ratio unlike any of those of the past.

<comment><AUTHOR> The purpose of the profile isn't to argue a risk exists. We largely defer to the people we take to be experts on the issue, especially Nick Bostrom. We think he presents compelling arguments in _Superintelligence_ , and although it's hard to say anything decisive in this area, if you think there's even modest uncertainty about whether AGI will be good or bad, it's worth doing more research into the risks.

If you haven't read Bostrom's book yet, I'd really recommend it. [http://www.amazon.com/Superintelligence-Dangers- Strategies-N...](http://www.amazon.com/Superintelligence-Dangers-Strategies- Nick-Bostrom/dp/1501227742)

<comment><USER4> I read this book. Got about 4 chapters in before I had to give up at the sheer ridiculousness of the whole thing. The problem with this entire line of reasoning is that at this point it is nothing more an a thought experiment. Many of the key underlying assumptions that are required for Artificial General Intelligence simply have not been realised, and while Weak AI is progressing at a strong rate, we are hardly anywhere close to a place where we should start worrying about all this stuff.

It's about as likely as a meteor hitting the planet and wiping out the entire human life. Possible? Sure. Should I be panicking about this right now? Nah.

The book is nonsense. I'll start paying attention when someone who has real experience in the field of AI research (and I'm not talking charlatans like Yudkowsky here), but someone like say Norvig come out and say it's a reasonable concern today.

<comment><AUTHOR> The expert consensus says 10% chance of human-level AI in 10 years: [http://www.givewell.org/labs/causes/ai-risk/ai- timelines](http://www.givewell.org/labs/causes/ai-risk/ai-timelines)

Many computer science professors have publicly said they think AI poses significant risks. There's a list here: [http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/05/22/ai-researchers-on-ai- ri...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/05/22/ai-researchers-on-ai-risk/)

Also see this open letter, signed by hundreds of experts: [http://futureoflife.org/ai-open-letter/](http://futureoflife.org/ai-open- letter/)

<comment><USER4> Your last link, the open letter, says nothing about human or > human level AI. Just "robust and beneficial usage" of AI. In all likelihood that means the current AI technology and the letter is aimed at (I'm assuming) people who are trying to use these techniques in things such as modern weapon systems. While that is of course a concern, it's not the same as the concern for a Skynet like scenario.

Some experts in the second link you gave are concerned, sure. But I can probably find an equal number who dismiss it as well. There isn't a clear consensus over AGI. I still remain skeptical. Same with your first link, which tries to "forecast" AGI. People can't forecast next month's weather correctly, so forgive me for not believing in a 10% chance in 10 years.

Actually, I take back my appeal to authority argument in its entirety, because I just remembered the first thing I saw in my AI class was a video of experts claiming the exact same thing. The video was from the 50s.

EDIT: Found it: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlBjhD1oGQg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlBjhD1oGQg)

<comment><AUTHOR> The letter isn't (just) about modern weapon systems. It was put together by this group: [http://futureoflife.org/ai-news/](http://futureoflife.org/ai- news/)

Also, no-one is worried about a skynet scenario. The worrying scenario is just any powerful system that optimises for something that's different from what humans want.

Second, the point is that even uncertainty is enough for action. For AI to not be a problem, you'd need to be _very confident_ that it'll occur a long way in the future, and that there's nothing we can do until it's closer. As you've said, we don't have confidence in the timeline. We have large uncertainty. And that's _more_ reason for action, especially research.

Consider analogously:

"We've got no idea what the chance of run-away climate change is, so we shouldn't do anything about it."

Seems like a bad argument to me.

<comment><USER4> Except, in the case of climate research, we have a plethora of evidence of the possible harmful effects and we can see it happening today. Everything about the potential harmful effects of AI is pure conjecture, because there is no human-level general intelligence AI system that exists today. It's, once again, something philosophers like Bostrom will make a career out of.

I'm 100% with Torvalds on this when he laughs at the prepostorous notion that AI will become a doomsday scenario. I think it'll become more and more specialised, branch out to other fields and become reasonably good. But there's a huge leap to go from there to HGI.

> any powerful system that optimises for something that's different from what > humans want.

Except this notion rests on the premise that humans will not be in full control, which leads to the exponential growth argument which leads back to the Skynet like scenario.

> the point is that even uncertainty is enough for action

And that action is...what exactly? People won't stop building intelligent systems. There is no real path that we have from where we are to HGI, so it's not like researchers have a concrete path. Just what exactly does this research look like?

> "We've got no idea what the chance of run-away climate change is, so we > shouldn't do anything about it."

Extremely Poor analogy. We have decades worth of concrete data that tells us the nature and reality of climate change. We _demonstrably_ know that it's a threat. Can you say the same about AI?

Also, I'll take the time to re-iterate how heavily skeptical I remain of groups like MIRI that are spearheaded by people who don't believe in the scientific method, believe in stuff like cryogenics, have history of trying to profit off of someone else's copyrighted material and have someone managed to convince a whole lot of people that donating them is the best way to fight off the AI doomsday scenario. People should do their research before linking to stuff like that. :(

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not saying we don't know whether climate change poses a tail risk or not (it obviously does). I'm just saying that claiming uncertainty isn't a good reason to avoid action.

In general, if there's a poorly understood but potentially very bad risk, then (a) more research to understand the risk is really high priority (b) if that research doesn't rule out the really bad scenario, we should try to do something to prevent it.

With AI, unfortunately waiting until the evidence that it's harmful is well established is not possible, because then it could be too late.

What AI risk research could involve is laid out in detail in the link.

<comment><USER5> "poorly understood but potentially very bad risk" is something you could say about the risk of an alien invasion.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


I'm new to Linux. I've got Ubuntu and K&R. Now what? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> What do you want to do? Join one of the smaller open source projects, get a mentor and build something amazing! :-)

Seriously, I do think that some hands-on useful development is the fastest track to become a master of your domain! :-)

</comment><comment><USER3> If you have enough balls to learn C from K&R;, you could try learning C++ from Koenig & Moo's "Accelerated C++" instead. C++ contains everything in C, and has a lot of handy higher level constructs. You can deal with the specific idiosyncrasies of pure C later, but can get started quickly with C++. <http://tinyurl.com/26cjz9>

If you don't have any background in programming, or don't really know that you want to learn C or C++ specifically, I would recommend starting with Python. C++ is good if you know that you want to write systems software, or need to interface with C/C++ libraries. If you're just looking to learn to code, then learn Python. kyro said that he enjoyed learning from the free ebook "How to Think Like a Computer Scientist: Learning with Python". <http://www.ibiblio.org/obp/thinkCSpy/>

<comment><USER4> Hmmm, I definitely wouldn't recommend newbies learning C++. Every time I've tried to dig into C++, it's been a turn-off. K&R;'s great. C's great, and it's small enough to get your head around, but if you want to know a language like C++, yeah, definitely agreed about Python.

<comment><USER3> What's the trouble with C++? It seem to me that using the higher-level constructs of C++ is a lot friendlier than having to malloc and free things all over the place. You don't have to jump into C++ template metaprogramming. :-)

<comment><USER4> True, it's just that if you want those features of C++ you're better off jumping up to something modern: Python/C#/Java. Those languages (perhaps even Java) feel well-designed and friendly instead of like a hacked-on OOP addition to C.

I'm aware that C++ is not just a hack, but compared to modern designed-from- scratch languages, it does feel like one a lot of the time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What's your aim? If you've K&R; are you trying to learn C? If you want to learn the Unix philosophy then get Kernighan and Pike's _The Unix Programming Environment_. If you want to create a web start-up, learn Python and Django. What skills do you already have?

<comment><USER6> Are you a Django fan? If not, what's your motive for solely recommending Django, instead of TurboGears or Pylons?

(Yes, the fact that Python has multiple frameworks is a problem, but settling on Django is not a solution.)

<comment><USER5> Django is a reasonable enough one to learn. He hasn't the skills to examine the possible contenders and make a good decision himself. After learning Django, then he may be in a position to better appraise the competition.

Likewise, I didn't say "read a book on Unix" but gave a specific, worthy, contender. As a complete newcomer there's little more annoying than general hand-waving.

<comment><USER6> Hm, I guess that's fair enough. My main concern is that if he starts with Django, he might never know there's other frameworks.

<comment><USER5> If he starts with Python, he may not know there's other languages. If he... If he starts with digital computers, he may not know there's analogue ones. :-)

<comment><USER6> Yes, yes.. But I hang out in #python.web on freenode, and you'd be surprised how many people I get who think that Django, or mod_python, or CGI is the only way to make Python webapps. Not the best way; the only way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Here's information on cgi programming with C: <http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/forms/cgic.html>

Not many people do cgi programming (especially with C) anymore, but it will teach you a lot about Linux and programming. You will have to get a working web server for one. Configuring Apache on Ubuntu should be a good learning experience. If you can also get a working database server such as PostgreSQL (my preference) or MySQL working with your website, you will know the basics for building a real web-based application.

</comment><comment><USER8> Surely the next step is to contact some VC companies and ask for say, $10 million :-). This really is an open ended question! If you are about to start programming then there is no limit to the possibilities so you'd better pick a direction to go in that you will find interesting. Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER9> _'... I'm new ... Now what? ...'_

Learn how to become a hacker ~ <http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker- howto.html>

<comment><USER10> He should also read _Snow Crash_ or _Cryptonomicon_ to become inspired to hack. Man I love those books.

Snow Crash at scribd: <http://www.scribd.com/doc/10862/Neal-Stephenson-Snow- Crash>

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Congrats :) I have first edition of K&R; in my bookshelf and I still love it. It cost 25 slovak koruna /approx $1/ at that time :)

</comment><comment><USER12> Start compiling Gentoo. When it's done, you'll be ready for it.

</comment><comment><USER13> ... go start a company?</comment>


Chaos Communication Congress is moving to Leipzig - <AUTHOR> http://ccc.de/en/updates/2017/34C3-in-leipzig <comment><USER3> I'm really exited that they've found a new location.

Berlin was nice but was restricted to less than 4k people IIRC. Hamburg was awesome and the Congress suddenly grew to 12k visitors. The upper floors there still had carpet which was really cozy and the largest lecture hall spreads across three stories and accommodates a couple thousand people. You don't get that anywhere else here. It's really unfortunate that they have to renovate the building, now that we've settled. Everything was working so well.

It's still going to be awesome and I hope we can grow even more, now that more exhibition halls are available. See you there ;)

</comment><comment><USER4> Awesome choice! I live in Berlin and was close to suggesting Leipzig after they had asked for alternatives at the congress. Now I am actually surprised that Congress Center (or even Messe?) Leipzig agreed, given the requirements of a hacker congress. Let's hope and make sure that it will be as good as always.

Just a few notes:

* Accommodation will be cheaper (no holiday season, and Eastern Germany has lower costs of living in general). The city is currently extending their local transportation networks into surrounding small towns, so there should be more to choose from.

* The area is outside the city, but not remote. Trains from Berlin and from Leipzig-Halle Airport stopped at Messe Leipzig in the past (not sure whether this is still the case), which made the journey from Berlin even shorter than the 1h 15min it takes now. It is also a popular stop for cheap long-distance buses.

* I am personally not aware of halls that can hold thousands of people in the Congress Center itself like in Hamburg, but I am not sure as I have not been there in a while. Here is a hall overview: [http://www.ccl-leipzig.de/raeume-technik/raumuebersicht/](http://www.ccl-leipzig.de/raeume-technik/raumuebersicht/) I guess CCC would need to make use of the actual big exhibition halls as well for the really popular talks if they don't exist ( it would be quite cool if they could use just one of them ). Well, I always wanted to have a CCC cardboard stool (Papphocker).

* Leipzig has a vibrant cultural, art and alternative scene. Google "Baumwollspinnerei" or "Viktorianisches Picknick / Wave-Gotik Treffen".

* A start-up scene exists, but it is not as developed as in Berlin and Hamburg. In general the city feels less international (while still being home to some international audience e.g. due to having the trade fairs, the said creative people, a big university and three Max-Planck Institutes)).

* Architecture: The hall of the main station is the biggest one of a terminus station in Europe. Visitors tend to like the "Leipziger Passagen" that traverse the inner city. Völkerschlachtdenkmal. And (just saying ;) ) the computer science and math faculty of their university resides in a newly built landmark temple of glass and light with quite an interesting history ("Paulinum").

<comment><USER5> Yes, it's outside, but it's 8 minutes by train ride from the central main station.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Leipzig is a great town. Especially if you are a Bach-head like me.

<comment><USER7> Or if you're into printing and typography! Museum für Druckkunst - "Museum of the Printing Arts" \- is really cool ([http://www.druckkunst- museum.de/Museum_en.html](http://www.druckkunst-museum.de/Museum_en.html)).

<comment><USER6> I missed that one, and I've been in the printing industry most of my life.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm wondering why they didn't choose Hannover as it is somewhat in the middle of Germany, has an international airport, is accustomed to heavy spikes in tourism and has the world largest fairground due to the Expo in 2000. Hannover also is a major crossing point of railway lines and highways (Autobahn).

<comment><USER9> Hannover itself may be centrally located and quite reachable, the Messegelaende in Hannover is not. There is, for example, no tram service going from Messegelaende to the city center between 2130—0400. With the last talks of the day usually lasting until after midnight, that's clearly unacceptable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Make sure to visit the "Runde Ecke" in Leipzig to get a feel for what happens when we let the government create unlimited surveillance.

</comment><comment><USER11> I hope the CCC rotates among other German cities in the future, so with the excuse of the CCC we could also enjoy other beautiful cities in Germany :-)

</comment><comment><USER12> Is it feasible to attend the CCC as a non-German with only a basic grasp of the language? I've always had the impression that it was very German-language oriented, but seeing the amount of English in this thread has me reconsidering.

<comment><USER7> I don't speak German and I've been to every Congress since 2009. My favorite event every year. As mentioned most - or at least the majority - of the talks are in English, and the organizers very much cater to non-German-speaking visitors (e.g. the official wiki - main source of information - is mainly in English; here's last year's: [https://events.ccc.de/congress/2016/wiki/Main_Page](https://events.ccc.de/congress/2016/wiki/Main_Page)).

Also the price (iirc 100 EUR for a standard 4-day ticket last time) is ridiculously low given the massive amount of talks, often very high-caliber, and very varied. Check out last year's schedule to get an idea: [https://fahrplan.events.ccc.de/congress/2016/Fahrplan/schedu...](https://fahrplan.events.ccc.de/congress/2016/Fahrplan/schedule.html)

And there's _so_ much more besides the talks! They typically open the venue the evening before (26th), and then it goes on 24/7 non-stop until the 30th. Go if you can. I've persuaded various people to come over the years - <USER2> and non-techies alike - and everyone's had a blast.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I love it.

Leipzig is a great city. The attendees will like it here, although the congress is always at the worst season of the year.

Moved back to Leipzig over a year ago (from Berlin). I guess, I can attend again without discomfort.

<comment><USER14> Be sure to make room to acommodate people. ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Can't say I'm too happy as being in Hamburg and Berlin were integral parts of CCC. But hopefully will be as good as ever.

</comment><comment><USER16> I get that people like Leipzig but getting there is bad for almost anyone who is not from Germany.

</comment><comment><USER17> Flights of 5 hours with stopover from Sweden :(

<comment><USER7> Fly to Berlin and take the train to Leipzig (1h30m).

<comment><USER16> Sadly I can only recommend against that. Because you can't book them together you need to plan in a lengthy stop in case of delays. I made that mistake twice and both times I was badly burned.

<comment><USER18> There is a train every hour. If you don't buy a discounted ticket, you can take any train you want.

You can also take the bus, which is a lot cheaper but takes longer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Are the hotels cheaper there than in Hamburg?

<comment><USER20> Yes. It's also not much of a general holiday destination for the time, so it'll be cheaper all-round, just much worse to get there.

I would have preferred Frankfurt, but I heard the local fair company didn't understand what they are missing out on.

<comment><USER21> Not much more difficult than Hamburg, 1:30 train from Berlin or a direct flight from Stansted (although not sure if that Ryanair flight runs over Christmas)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Great news as Hamburg is the most boring town there is in Germany.

<comment><USER23> Congress is the best thing in the world, it doesn't matter where they put it.</comment></comment>


Bolidea, a self-described startup incubator in Montreal, Canada - <AUTHOR> http://blog.bolidea.com/about

<comment><AUTHOR> I ran into this company while browsing a portfolio of a designer who made a logo for them. So the link is more of an FYI rather than a recommendation of any kind.

If anyone knows people on a founding team, it'd be interesting to hear some first-hand details.</comment>


Show HN: Scrambl - Golf Without the Hassle - <AUTHOR>

No more hassle emailing, calling and texting friends to figure out where and when to golf. Just get the ball rolling with a few simple clicks and we take care of the rest.
URL: http://www.scrambl.com
I'd love to hear your feedback!
-Michael <comment><USER2> My initial thought is...why just golf? Surely people don't just have problems planning stuff only when it comes to golf. There are more solutions to this problem online sure, (doodle.com, agreeadate.com) but I don't see the merits of focussing on golf.

<comment><AUTHOR> We wanted to be different from those other sites and focus on a niche, which is golfers. Also, we have some cool features planned that are directly related to golf.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> Oh and something is wrong here: <http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2819425/Picture%206.png>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. Can I ask what browser you are using?

<comment><USER2> Safari on OSX. (1024x768, maybe that's it?)

<comment><AUTHOR> The issue is with Safari. I will get this fixed. Thanks!

<comment><USER3> I had the same problem in Chrome (osx, 1440x900)

<comment><AUTHOR> This should be fixed now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Really like the page design, simple, uncluttered (at least the homepage). Are you using a template (link?) or did you write the css from scratch?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. I wrote it from scratch.</comment></comment>


The missing piece to changing the university culture (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v31/n10/full/nbt.2706.html

<comment><USER2> The main insight is that it is possible to create a mutually beneficial situation whereby you leverage the expertise of grad students and post-docs to help business while simultaneously allowing those same academics to get a taste for realistic alternatives to the increasingly brutish environment of academia.

I'm of two minds on this development. On one hand, I think it is great to offer alternatives to the increasing toxicity of academia, and I would have enjoyed engaging in such a program when I was a PhD student. On the other hand, I'd like to see proposals on how to fix the toxicity itself.

That is, the increasing businessification of academia (e.g. profs do battle in the time-sink brutal competition for grant money to secure tenure) is troubling and there have been many articles that discourage PhDs from going down that track, because you will not end up doing much research, or you will be largely beholden to chasing money, which disincentivizes basic research not certain to pay off.

Are there any proposals on how to reform academia itself? Such that it returns to more of an engine for basic research and a place for creative thinkers to create fundamental knowledge, instead of a pressure-cooker for grant money (which may be tied to military/business interests instead of those of humanity at large).

<comment><USER3> This is an ongoing discussion between my girlfriend (a grad student) and myself. I'm of the mind that the one of most valuable changes that could be made is to tie a school's accreditation (or more accurately, a given department's) to their tenure-track:phd ratio. If every school were required to maintain something approaching 1:1 in those numbers, the disproportion of phd's to open positions across the industry would eventually level out. likewise tying accreditation to a maximum ratio of adjunct faculty would force schools to increase tenure positions. Finally, grad students should unionize. In the grad student level, schools hold far too much power over student's careers with no moderating influences. Given the amount grad schools depend on their own students for duties ranging from teaching to research, this is unacceptable, and unionization is historically one of the few effective means of balancing the scales.

<comment><USER4> Have you thought this through? Approaching a 1:1 tenure-track-PhD ratio is not desirable. Universities can't just raise the number of faculty without a big increase in permanent funding. The other option would be to drastically lower the number of PhD positions, and then you can watch how your country slowly fades into irrelevance compared to the research that other countries are doing.</comment></comment></comment>


Where Can I Buy a Fully Automated Drop Shipping Store? - <AUTHOR> I am looking for Shopify Store <comment><USER2> easy flippa.com</comment>


Nike's Vivid Shoes, and the Gray Area of Performance Enhancement - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/08/sports/nikes-vivid-shoes-and-the-gray-area-of-performance-enhancement.html?_r=0 <comment><USER2> Whether through material science technology (shoes, swimsuits, rackets), medical advancements (supplements, techniques, steriods), and general knowledge (nutrition, training, form), sport is always advancing.

Other than devices that add energy from a stored reserve, like hidden motors in bicycles, I have a really hard time drawing a line of "cheating". Why were shark suits banned? [1] Why is blood doping to allow for quicker recovery "bad", but a finely calculated nutrition regimen to allow for quicker recovery _de rigueur_? Why are these fancy new shoes so egregious, when compared to races run 50 years ago, the current shoes are futuristic and unobtainable.

Excepting the most basic sports (running), every other sport is reliant on technology. So there's no way around advancement.

And I'm in _favor_ of it! I want to see more awesome suits that blast world records out of the literal water. I want to see someone top 2:00:00 in a marathon. I want crazy new F1 cars with ideas no one's had before. Let's do it. That's more "human achievement" than some guy running really fast.

[1] "Because Michael Phelps complained." [http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/07/25/why-ban- ful...](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/07/25/why-ban-full-body- olympics-swimsuits-a-scientist-explains-polyurethane.html)

<comment><USER3> I think what it comes down to is that sport is of course primarily a vehicle to sell people things when they try to emulate professionals.

You can't sell a swim suit that breaks down after a few uses. You can't sell people on autologous blood transfusions. If it was about technology bike racers would all be using recumbent bikes, but that is not very popular with consumers.

It's a very finely tuned balance; enough advancement so you can keep selling new stuff, not enough to make it predominantly an absurd R&D game and obscure the human talent.

<comment><USER4> The UCI banned recumbents because the upright bike manufacturers didn't want a faster bike to compete. People these days don't buy recumbents because they are very expensive due to being a low-volume niche item.

<comment><USER5> There is a good history of the recumbent ban by UCI in 1934 here:

[http://www.helsinki.fi/~tlinden/winforb.html](http://www.helsinki.fi/~tlinden/winforb.html)

There is no mention of bike manufacturers involved at all. Do you have a citation for your claim?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Gray area"? Like the "gray area" when my high school went from cinder track to all-weather, and my mile times dropped dramatically? Or how an Olympic- quality track is noticeably better (with correspondingly better times) than my old high school's track? Modern shoes that are more cushioned, allowing more training without injury? Or the Adidas shoes from a few years ago (Boost, I believe?) with their energy-returning midsole?

Look, it'd be one thing to have little batteries and motors in the things. But these just take the energy that I've already expended and returns a bit more of it than my old shoes. But I've still got to do the work. And, hell, they're only $250 in a world of $120 race shoes, so I don't consider them to be outlandishly out of reach. Were I still obsessively racing, I'd buy a pair. And were I beaten by someone that has a pair, even if I didn't, I wouldn't have a problem with it.

So it boils down to this: how inefficient does my equipment have to be in order to follow the rules? Put a number on it, manufacturers can build to it, _boom_ , sorted.

<comment><USER7> > Look, it'd be one thing to have little batteries and motors in the things. > But these just take the energy that I've already expended and returns a bit > more of it than my old shoes. But I've still got to do the work.

How about Pistorius style blades that extend your feet? There's no external power source[1] so would that be okay in your book?

[1]: *Assuming they're not "primed" by compressing them prior to the race starting so you bounce off the starter.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, I bet I could bear Usain Bolt if I was on a bike.

Also see: flippers.

<comment><USER9> For 100 meters from a standing start? He'd crush you. Time yourself someday.

<comment><USER8> True, but over a few KM I could. I couldn't name any longer distance runners off the top of my head.

<comment><USER10> Usain Bolt claims to have never actually run a few KM at a stretch

[http://time.com/4436498/usain-bolt-has-never-run-a- mile/](http://time.com/4436498/usain-bolt-has-never-run-a-mile/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > Some critics have accused Nike of staging a publicity stunt, or a marketing > campaign, instead of a credible sporting event.

Well it got them an ad disguised as a feature article in the New York Times. Go with what works.

<comment><USER12> Nike's history of supporting runners and track and field athletes speaks for itself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've been following the sub 2 project (Breaking2) for a bit now and it's fascinating.

To put it into perspective, you need to keep pace with the ghost of the current 30km record holder by within a few seconds, _and then_ finish off the last 12.2km on horribly depleted and beat up legs at the same or very slightly slower pace. For those who have completed a hard marathon, you know the pain and damage cuts deep past the 32km (20 mile) mark and often takes athletes up to a month of recovery before a regular training can be picked up again.

It's mind-boggling the difference in human performance a 2:02:57 marathon performance is from a 1:59:59 one. I can't make enough popcorn for this. It's going to be a very exciting next couple of years in the running world. Already, we've seen an honest attempt at a world record a couple weeks ago at the Tokyo marathon that fell short. Above all else, the doubters (like myself) want to desperately be proven wrong and want to see it done legitimately.

<comment><USER11> >Above all else, the doubters (like myself) want to desperately be proven wrong and want to see it done legitimately.

Are you referring to Breaking2 as "legitimate"? I was hyped on the initial announcement, but between the technology, the shitload of pacers, and now running on a car racing track it is just going 100% publicity stunt and any result isn't going to feel legitimate to me.

<comment><USER13> I've probably given it the most thought out of any commenter in this thread, and I'm still on the fence. I don't believe it's 100% publicity. I'd above all else, like to see it done in one of the six marathon major events, or at least one qualified as a gold standard label. But the racing track doesn't really bother me.

<comment><USER11> >I'd above all else, like to see it done in one of the six marathon major events

Well, duh. I don't think there's anybody who's like, "yeah a 2hr. marathon would be awesome but only if run on an Italian racetrack."

<comment><USER13> That's a strange quote... this reply has no use to the discussion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The way it's going, there should be a rule requiring that any equipment used in certified competitions must be released under GPL or another type of license that strikes a balance between vendor innovations and commercial interests. For instance, such license would grant anyone the rights to reproduce the equipment with a limit of 1000 units at no fee. Anything above the limit needs to be licensed on commercial terms. This will protect vendor IP and at the same time, ensure that the playing field is level in int'l competitions.

</comment><comment><USER15> So maybe switch to barefoot running?

Especially for indoor venues that seems completely possible.

> shoes began to incorporate air bladders and gels for cushioning

And yet springs are illegal. But an air bladder is a spring, no matter that they call it "for cushioning".

<comment><USER16> >But an air bladder is a spring, no matter that they call it "for cushioning".

Everything that "absorbs energy and returns it" is a spring.

<comment><USER17> that definition is way too broad. is a solar panel + battery a spring?

<comment><USER6> Fine, "stores mechanical energy and releases it". You probably knew what parent meant, though.

<comment><USER18> Flywheels are springs? ;)

(I think that coming closer to a definition of spring would be "stores mechanical energy through compression and releases it through expansion").

I think that you could somewhat legitimately differentiate between an object that stores mechanical energy and releases it due to its atomic structure (ie, every object), and one which stores and releases it at an improved ratio due to macroscopic structure, such as a, well, traditional spring.

<comment><USER19> If we're nitpicking, you can use a spring backwards too (but don't expand it too much, or it won't return)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> It is sort of hypocritical when people talk about unfair advantage in the context of only doping or such technology. I think unfair advantage of some sort is built right into all sports & life in general. Sometimes it is genetic, geographical and lot of times it is because your sports federation has money to afford world class facilities as your nation has a lot of wealth to invest in sports. By leaving the decision of what constitutes as unfair in the hands of few, we are inhibiting technological progress and this is bound to be a cat and mouse game since authorities deciding what is unfair will always be behind the ones looking for advantage. It is also providing incentive to people with money to invest it in finding those advantages. I think a technology, performance enhancing drug on anything such should be allowed as long as everyone in the sport has access to it and there are no adverse health impacts.

Edit - Grammar & typos

</comment><comment><USER20> Many sports are running into the issues that powerlifting had to address in the past. Powerlifting used to only involve "gear" meaning suits, shirts, and wraps that store energy elastically and release it when performing the lifts (squat, bench, deadlift). The IPF, the biggest drug tested international federation, limits the techniques used in making the suits: singly ply of material, seams must me made in such a way without adding more material, wraps can only be two meters long, etc. The IPF now requires the manufacturers to obtain approval (with a fee, natch) for each piece of personal equipment as well as for the bars and plates used.

Other feds are attracting lifters by allowing multi-ply gear, not using an approved gear list for single ply, and not mandating the exact shape of your underpants when competing (seriously), and allowing for specialty bars for each lift.[1]

If the IAAF wants to go down this rabbit hole of limiting the assistance that equipment may provide, they might end up with a list of approved shoes if they aren't careful, or breaking the race into barefoot, foam sole, and springy sole divisions. That just increases the cognitive load for fans and in my opinion decreases the prestige of the various champions who have an asterisk by their records.

[1] There's also the whole angle of drug testing: the IPF is the premier drug tested international fed and the USAPL (its US affiliate) is the premier fed in the US. Competing feds without drug testing have actually started adding tested divisions presumably to attract lifters who want to be competitive without drugs.

<comment><USER21> Here's a personal anecdote about the underpants. A few years ago when I competed at an USAPL meet, I was weighing in in my underwear and the judge there said I couldn't wear my boxers (hanes). Since I did not have any extra pairs of underwear, I had to run around the venue to try and find a pair of scissors to trim down my underwear and make it legal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Lance Armstrong was just on Howard Stern and he brought up how in the very early cycling days, riders would run fishing line to a cork...hide the cork in their mouth while the other end was hooked up to their team/pace car. Old school blood doping.

Before judging him, I'd listen to the interview and his interview on Joe Rogan.

Point being, especially in cycling, people are always finding new ways to cheat and get an edge.

<comment><USER23> One rider used fishing line in 1904. He was caught, and he didn't try to deny it and smear anybody who pointed out his cheating or coerce his teammates into cheating under threat of losing their livelihood.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Amusingly, Ariat paddock boots have carbon fiber inserts. Riding boots need something to stiffen the sole, since all the load is on the stirrup bar. Ariat used to use steel, but this caused so much hassle at airport metal detectors that Ariat switched to carbon fiber.

But there's no energy storage, as with these Nike running shoes.

<comment><USER25> Similarly, clipless cycling shoes. Either hard plastic in cheaper models or carbon fiber in more expensive ones to stiffen the sole and allow more energy transfer to pedals. But then again, everything is carbon fiber in modern cycling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Swimming ran into this kind of problem with full body swim suits. It turns out that reducing friction _really_ sped up the swimmers, and the fancier suits were subsequently banned from FINA races[0].

There is probably always going to be some technological advantage found with various sportswear. In some sense, the "fairest" option is to just make everyone wear "equally capable" sportswear. In swimming, everyone wears the same swimsuit; in running, everyone wears the "same" shoes (quantify the benefits that are given by the shoes, and then keep everyone within those bounds).

Unfortunately, with the benefit of marketing that shoe makers get from these kinds of things, I doubt this will happen.

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

<comment><USER26> I wouldn't mind a "natural" league where people compete with their junk out, like in good old Roman olympics. That would shift focus fully back to the athletes and their performance, as opposed to the technology they're using. I am concerned that is _very_ difficult if not impossible to come up with precise rules that put everyone in equal standing with regard to technology. Someone will always find a way to gain an advantage, within the allowed limits, or the limits are made in such a way that they favor certain people and conversely.

But this wouldn't solve the problem of doping.

<comment><USER27> Even that wouldn't solve it completely. If you look at horse racing, the 'going' ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Going_(horse_racing)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Going_\(horse_racing\)) ) hugely affects results. Similarly, in running, some people run better at height, others in the rain, etc.

<comment><USER28> But for the most part, track conditions affect all contestants equally so I wouldn't compare it to technologically advanced sportswear which gives an advantage to individual athletes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Such shoes could be used as a means of human powered transport. But probably fashion is more important to people. No one would like to be associated with lazy-shoes - especially people that run regularly enough to think about buying special shoes. At least it is not on the same level as Segway.

I used to bike to work, but after hours of sitting I was not happy to sit on even smaller seat. I was afraid of getting hemorrhoids. Because my butt hurt. Now I usually use kick-scooter and in case of my commute it is a bit faster, because I don't have to take time to lock a bike. I just fold the scooter and take it with me. Also I don't put more pressure on my butt.

Other means of human powered transport without butt pressuring: running (and then that shoes could help), roller-blading and skateboarding.

</comment><comment><USER30> As far as I know there is no scientific evidence that these or other shoes improve performance (or even prevent injuries I think).

So basically this is Nike using journalists that do not bother to do proper research to gain free publicity.

</comment><comment><USER31> This is a sporting event, there are two purposes - one is to amuse spectators, and the other is to compete against yourself/others.

If they pitched this as "this piece of equipment lowers the entertainment value of the sport", I'd understand. However, why is performance enhancement even in a grey area?

</comment><comment><USER32> Is this a PR story because of Salazar?

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/athletics/2017/03/07/fbi-joins- pr...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/athletics/2017/03/07/fbi-joins-probe-mo- farah-coach-alberto-salazar/)

</comment><comment><USER33> Force everyone to wear the same shoe. All you get is a size choice (in both length and width).

That's how they solved it for windsurfing - just forced everyone to ride the same exact gear, no matter the weight of the athlete or how strong the wind is, even though normally these two factors are absolutely defining when you select which sail/board to ride.

The rule

        "must not be constructed so as to give an athlete
        any unfair additional assistance, including by the
        incorporation of any technology which will give the
        wearer any unfair advantage."

doesn't make any sense. Of course shoes are slightly different, and so some are bound to be better than others. It's an unsolvable problem, unless you standardize the gear.

<comment><USER34> Except people have different needs in shoes. For example I can't run 3 miles in any shoe Nike makes without having a huge problem. The lasts do not fit my foot shape. But I can wear other brands perfectly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Applying material science to increase performance is not a gray area and there are numerous examples in other sports such as swimming, tennis, bicycle racing, etc.

</comment><comment><USER36> Holy bananas, how these shoes are ugly.

<comment><USER6> If they're as good as claimed, there's little chance that you'll have to suffer seeing me wearing them for more than a brief moment at the starting line.</comment></comment>


Sendtools: Tools for composing consumers for iterators/companion to itertools. - <AUTHOR> http://pypi.python.org/pypi/sendtools

<comment><AUTHOR> Good Reddit discussion as well: [http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/ccoxw/ann_sendtools_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/ccoxw/ann_sendtools_if_you_like_itertools_iterators_and/)</comment>


Why Criminals Target Patient Data - <AUTHOR> https://www.protenus.com/blog/a-virtual-goldmine-why-criminals-target-patient-data-part-1 <comment><USER3> The lead(lede) is burried in part 2 [https://www.protenus.com/blog/a-virtual- goldmine-why-crimina...](https://www.protenus.com/blog/a-virtual-goldmine-why- criminals-target-patient-data-part-2)

the tl;dr is

Sell patient info repeatedly on the black market, using the profits to fund other activities

Obtain expensive medical equipment, prescriptions, or procedures

Commit tax fraud

Expose or blackmail specific individuals, such as politicians or celebrities

Receive medical care

Undergo surgery

Purchase or sell prescription or controlled drugs

*edit grammar fix

<comment><USER4> s/lead/lede

"Lede" is the newspaper term, "lead" refers to a toxic metal element, or to someone who is followed.

Also, the second part basically just says "they sell them, they're worth this much", but doesn't really get into why others are willing to pay that much.

<comment><USER5> > "Lede" is the newspaper term, "lead" refers to a toxic metal element, or to > someone who is followed.

If you're going to be pedantic you should at least be correct.

Lead here is fine, especially since lede is a neologism.

[https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/bury-the- lede-...](https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/bury-the-lede-versus- lead)

> Although evidence dates the spelling to the 1970s, we didn't enter lede in > our dictionaries until 2008. For much of that time, it was mostly kept under > wraps as in-house newsroom jargon.

<comment><USER6> In fact, lede is a deliberately misspelled version of "lead"; like TK, it exists to be picked easily out of copy without being confused by the real text.

So it's especially strange to criticize the use of the word "lead".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I read the article and didn't catch what the criminals are doing with the data. So ransom attacks are a diversion so they can exfiltrate the data quietly. Are they engaging in identity theft? Are they blackmailing people? What exactly are they doing?

EDIT: Prior to Snapchat, I envisioned an iOS application that would track the "chain of custody" of images and electronic documents. iOS isn't perfect, but it is one of the more secure platforms for this kind of app. A cloud-based server would manage keys, which would only be available per-use of each document. Is that what protenius is doing? Such a system would provide ample data for detecting fraudulent use of medical records.

<comment><USER3> The answer is in part 2 [https://www.protenus.com/blog/a-virtual-goldmine-why- crimina...](https://www.protenus.com/blog/a-virtual-goldmine-why-criminals- target-patient-data-part-2)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I don't mean to be condescending but the only thing I learned from this article is this 88% statistic (and the linked source timed out while trying to load it)

This seems like marketing speak at its finest, trying to land some of the readers' within the customer target demographic of this company.

<comment><USER9> I actually got the article to load but it also alludes to some other study that says 88% again with no link to the source material.

Another "source" on that linked article just takes me to an email contact form.

While I do not agree that hospitals are lacking in their security practices and that most EHRs are archaic pieces of software with little concern for security I find a lot of what this article presents as word of mouth marketing garbage.

I also take issue with the fact that this article does not offer any solution to this problem other than 'get good scrub'

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm completing my thesis on EHR systems, and poor security is a huge issue for almost all healthcare software - but it's a symptom of a larger issue - <USER2> cost of distributing new software to healthcare institutions.

</comment><comment><USER11> "Victims can easily spend thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours simply trying to put their life back together."

While that may or may not be true, this particular post certainly is nothing more than a piece of propaganda. For example, HIPAA regulations require PHI to be encrypted in transit and at rest, contrary to what this post tries to scare readers with. In general, healthcare organizations tend towards being extraordinarily conservative when it comes to security and require providers to jump through unnecessary hoops tO access data. Citrix seems to be deployed widely across hospitals, which is a pretty blunt security iinstrument for things like even access to email. It's true that there is tons of work to be done to improve security and access to healthcare data, but for pretty much none of the reasons stated here. Lastly, how exactly is patient data a virtual gold mine? Given the risk of dealing with federally protected data, is there a marketplace for actually selling stolen PHI for a reasonable return?

<comment><USER3> I work in the space, and can say for certain that while everyone talk a good game about their encryption, and compliance policies, the reality is often a bit different.

<comment><USER12> Indeed. If you believe HIPAA has ensured everything is encrypted you've been suckered by the potemkin village that is EHR compliance pencil whipping. The work is farmed out to all sorts of fly-by-night shops that are expert at passing the audits and filling out the applications that make the grant money flow and get the necessary boxes ticked with the feds.

<comment><USER3> It kind of depends, I think. I work with some really great companies who take this stuff very seriously and do a really good job. There is however a gigantic attack surface. The vulnerability to plain old spear phishing alone is gigantic.

Additionally a lot of hospitals have too few, poorly paid and trained IT staff running their in house infrastructure. This is a big mistake, but they think doing it this way is more secure.

And, as you suggest, there are some bad actors. Fortunately there's been a lot of consolidation on the EHR side that's wiped out a lot of the fly by night operations. Third party contractors, are of course another story and a mixed bag.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Add no point in this piece of clickbait will you learn "Why" criminals target patient data.</comment>


Ask HN : How colors affects personality of website? - <AUTHOR>

I'm designing my website, http://www.anujkumar.com, and wondering how colors used in site affects the preception of viewer about site and its designer/owner.
I played with three different color schemes, that can be easily switched using links at the top. Can you guys share how these color schemes affect your perception about site and the designer?
The site is currently under development and low in content - only four static pages. I will add features like social updates, blog etc as and when I get time but any suggestions regarding improvement in site are always welcome. <comment><USER3> Default/Dark: Makes me think of a "hacker" blog; a lot of the ones I've been to have that kind of theme, perhaps because it reminds them of terminal windows?

Light: The blue background is a bit wishy-washy -- it's not pale enough to be unintrusive, but it's not dark enough to seem professional/formal.

White: Facebook. This is completely facebook.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah. Inspired by facebook. Is it something bad to do?

<comment><USER3> It seems like it was less inspired and more directly copied. That color scheme is 100% synonymous with Facebook for me right now, and it looks like you're using the exact same colors, too.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah. The blue used at top is same but the fonts and text colors and menus are different.

<comment><USER4> I don't think there's any issue withing using the same blue. It makes me think Facebook as well which isn't terrible, but probably not the first though you want someone thinking when they visit your site (It doesn't look like you do much work with Facebook). Try a darker blue or a different style to the header bar (rounded corners, slight gradient, etc).

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually, my another startup project is a web application that integrates deeply with facebook and will have an interface similar to facebook to provide consistent user experience. So, I thought it will be nice if my personal site also looks similar. Anyway, I will experiment with other shades of blue but I think I should settle with black. It is more appealing to my target audience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I asked my wife - because she's a "typical" internet user - <USER2> hesitation, she said white. I would expect this from typical users because of the likeness to Facebook.

Personally, I also found the white the "easiest" on the eyes, but for some reason, the black appealed the most to me.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think it would be great if I can somehow know the type of internet user - typical or hacker and then apply the color scheme accordingly. Just Kidding. Btw, the site isn't for typical users. It is meant for hackers and entrepreneurs who for some strange reasons like black more. So, I think I will stick with black. I will also experiment with various other white/blue combination in case I need to switch to more traditional version in future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The white with dark blue looks the most professional to me but is a bit bright for my eyes. The pale blue gives me the feeling you are not to be taken seriously -- you are some cotton-candy lightweight with delusions of grandeur. (The exclamation mark after "Hello" doesn't help.) Even though only the color changed, the site feels a lot more shapeless and ungrounded than the black background. The black strikes me as more of a personal site, kind of like an emo, will not conform vibe. The light blue touches on the black background really don't work for me but that might be an individual thing.

Stuff I have read years and years ago suggests a dark blue (like you have on the white version, not the pale blue on the blue version) is generally interpreted as a "serious, business" color. This may not generalize to all cultures. It may be specific to the US and similar cultures.

HTH and good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> So, according to you which one of these color schemes is best for a personal site for which the target audience are other entrepreneurs, hackers and investors?

If none of these are good enough, can you suggest some other color scheme or links of similar sites that you like?

<comment><USER6> Probably black since entrepreneurs/hackers tend to be non-conformist. But tweak it some. Here is a black/dark gray Wordpress theme I picked for one of my sites (site is under construction, please ignore that as it is not the point of your question): <http://www.solanorail.com/>

<comment><AUTHOR> ok I will try that.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


"Me": The one word journalists should add to Twitter searches - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@bydanielvictor/the-one-word-reporters-should-add-to-twitter-searches-that-you-probably-haven-t-considered-fadab1bc34e8#.cgkrddxco <comment><USER2> > "Imagine what your perfect source would tweet, or what you yourself would > tweet in that situation, and search for the words that would probably be in > it."

This is a technique I used to use a lot more in the days before Google became the dominant search engine, when I was using Lycos, Alta Vista and Yahoo. In those more primitive search engines that were doing something closer to a full-text search, it was important to use the words and verb tenses that were likely to appear in the answer (or target page/tweet), not in the question.

So for example, instead of querying "Which museum is the Mona Lisa in?" it was best to query "collection includes the mona lisa" and similar phrases.

Needless to say, third generation search engines like Google made this all unnecessary, and hopefully, Twitter will get there too, eventually.

<comment><USER3> This is still how web searching works. I have no idea why you would think otherwise--at its core Google is still fundamentally an indexing service, and you use indices by figuring out which words may be in the documents you want to read and then finding the documents containing those. Without doing this, it becomes impossible to distinguish documents which _are_ what you want from documents which _describe_ what you want (and which often refer to something behind a paywall or in a private or non-digitized collection).

<comment><USER4> I dunno...

[https://www.google.com/search?q=how+can+i+pirate+movies](https://www.google.com/search?q=how+can+i+pirate+movies)

Seems to have no results about pirate movies.

<comment><USER3> The only result, of the 10 on that page (right now, for me), that answers the question is [https://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-bittorrent-is-the-best-way- to-...](https://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-bittorrent-is-the-best-way-to-pirate- movies-and-tv-shows-130323/)

But if you search "using * to pirate movies" (google will match the star, even in quotes, with a word or phrase in result context), _every_ result will include the name of a method for pirating movies, which you can investigate further. I see "popcorn time", "bit torrent", "pirate bay" and "camcorder" on the first page. These are all direct answers that a human would consider reasonable (though of varying efficacy) to the question.

<comment><USER5> I mean, but if you only need one link that answers the question, 1/10 is not any less useful than 10/10.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have an interesting dilemma.

On one hand, I want to commend you for not using the author's clickbait title.

On the other hand, I don't want to give the author more exposure (because of the clickbait title) by increasing this post's comment score.

In the end, the first hand won. Thanks! :)

<comment><AUTHOR> OP here, Thanks for noticing the linkbait work-around. I thought it was a useful piece, but similarly didn't want to reward the original title.

<comment><USER7> Well, you get two upvotes from me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is a really naive search method for a person whose job is to be good at this.

It's like watching the Spotlight team going through volumes of data themselves…

Isn't Data Journalist a thing already?

<comment><USER9> What's your argument exactly? That they should have used narrower terms until they found an article that was already written?

<comment><USER8> They use a syntax-aware search (thus refining for ME, MY, …). I thought (hoped) that journalists among all people would be the best at semantic search.

Here the guy is just saying "whoa great dude and next I'll use regexps oh my god woaw". We have word2vec, doc2vec, many cores, … why aren't journalists using the tools they should be using?

<comment><USER10> I would read this post if you wrote it... because I don't know what word2vec & doc2vec are and why they are useful.

If you write the post maybe someone will be inspired to build a tool for journalists using these algos.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is why Twitter is awesome and something entirely different from Facebook. It would be a shame to see it go.

</comment><comment><USER12> This insight seems like a great opportunity for classification or tagging. I wonder what a stream of tweets which were purely autobiographical would look like.

</comment><comment><USER13> (what is that orange number above the nick? is it related to klout?)

</comment><comment><USER14> This is really interesting. A great tool to search geocoded tweets is the MapD Tweetmap [http://www.mapd.com/demos/tweetmap](http://www.mapd.com/demos/tweetmap) (full disclosure, my company). For example, here ([http://bit.ly/1KIPSqh](http://bit.ly/1KIPSqh)) are tweets containing "seat" and "me".

<comment><USER15> Now every arsehole spammer will add the words "I'm OK me my" and when a major accident occurs the mode of transport or disaster related noun to their tweets

And this is why we can't have nice things. Twitter doesn't kill spam bots fast enough and Twitter spammers and slimey SEO douchebags crap in their own backyard. No wonder Twitter is going down: between the gamergaters, doxxers, trolls, female hating mysogynists, outraged eavesdroppers, rape loving, NLP wielding pick-up artists, swot-abusers, and vapid, brain-dead, useless celebrities - how does Twitter even exist?

It's truly amazing how a medium with only a 140 character limit can a. make money, b. communicate anything really worthwhile, or c. be read by anyone with any serious intent! Several years ago the criticisms were that everyone tweeted about mundane crap and it went down frequently [1], now it's being abandoned because it's no better than swimming in a sewage system [2].

1\. [http://youtu.be/b5Ff2X_3P_4](http://youtu.be/b5Ff2X_3P_4)

2\. [http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/02/stephen-fry-quits- twi...](http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/02/stephen-fry-quits-twitter- baftas)

<comment><USER16> Do you really think those (abhorrent) kinds of people make up the bulk of Twitter's voice? Because my feed certainly isn't.

<comment><USER15> Yup. Your feed might not be full of spam, but how are you going with searching for specific tweets? And I'm assuming you aren't a female who tweets about feminism or calls out mysogynists and who consequently gets threatened with rape or murder; you're not a woman or defending women who build or critically review games; you aren't being doxxed by gamer gaters; you aren't trying to debate a controversial issue so you aren't getting flamed or trolled; you've never quietly joked about a dongle at a tech conference and not realised you were a little bit too loud and subsequently lost your job when someone tweets your photo instead of confronting you directly or taking it to conference organisers; and lastly, you aren't a teenager being influenced by celebrities encouraging you to buy into a vapid and stupid lifestyle instead of contributing to society in some meaningful way.

You live in a nice world if that's the case. Twitter is great for _you_ , but pretty awful for everyone else. Which is great, but let's leave Twitter to this niche market and let everyone else find some other medium that isn't so corrosive for them. People of course don't leave this medium, and it beats me why.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Uhhh.. I think I just found what twitter needs to do to make more revenue. Find a way to charge journalists searching for easy sources to make their deadline.

</comment><comment><USER18> Some of the screenshots include the sources' email addresses in the DMs. The author really should have taken a moment to blur them out.

<comment><USER19> They're not DMs, they're public responses. They should still have removed them though, out of courtesy.

<comment><USER20> It would have taken 10 seconds to add a box over the username while he was adding those arrows, given the context of the article, it seems outright irresponsible.

<comment><USER21> Hardly. He's asking permission to talk to them in the first place, and presumably asked permission to use their names in the article. And the article body mentions them by name. _And_ the article is about _how to find them in the first place_.

You're advocating blurring the names out but then telling readers how to find them very easily (it's the point of the article) - this would justifiably open the author to ridicule.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Personally, I don't understand why the people in the first article, that this one is about, were upset that someone of another religion wanted to adhere to their faith.

It seems fairly reasonable that, on air planes non-the-less, that you will encounter many cultures that seem strange to you. Why would that aggravate you?

<comment><USER23> It really is a case of some being too easily offended.

One woman was offended that a Hasidic Orthodox Jew would not sit by her, thinking it was hatred of women.

In reality, the man is following his convictions to avoid touching women other than his wife.

<comment><USER24> Actually, it seems to be an external blaming behavior in that at least one of the people involved said he didn't want to be tempted when his wife wasn't there. That would imply that, by either touching or being near the woman, that she would become desirable to him by some behavior. It's that _behavior_ that is being judged (and frequently pre-judged) by these people based on their beliefs, which is at the root of the problem.

<comment><USER25> Do you mean blaming someone else's behaviour? If so, I disagree.

If there was porn on the back of the seat, I think the guy could reasonably say "I don't want to look at that, I don't want to be tempted". That's not blaming some behaviour by the porn, he's just saying "in this situation, I will react this way, and I don't want to".

(I don't like the way they're acting, but I don't think "they're blaming other people" is what's wrong with it.)

<comment><USER24> > in this situation, I will react this way, and I don't want to

If the "situation" involves another person, then that person has a right to participate (or not) in whatever emotional response that is happening. If I'm attractive to you and you don't mind sitting next to me, I'm not required to show interest in you. If you continue with unwanted advances, you are liable for sexual harassment. Conversely, if I'm attractive to you and you do mind sitting next to me because I am attractive to you, I'm not required to help solve it because _you are attracted to me_ yet are unable to manage your emotional responses. It still involves me, so I get a say in whether you can show that attraction in a specific way, including discriminating on me. So is anyone else, for that matter, given it's cognitive dissonance believing it's someone else's problem to deal with your inability to contain and manage your own "purity", which is really a fear of attraction to someone else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Isn't "me" a stop word in most search engines? See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_words](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_words).

<comment><USER27> I think if you put it in quotes like you did, funnily enough, it'll force it to be included

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> In my opinion journalists need to stop using Twitter as a source altogether.

<comment><USER29> Why? Twitter is a fantastic way to find leads and potential sources. You can't and shouldn't cite a tweet from a random person, but you can cite reporting done after finding a source on Twitter.

<comment><USER28> >You can't and shouldn't cite a tweet from a random person

Except this is exactly what ~90% of the articles that "cite" twitter do.

<comment><USER30> You have a point, but it's explicitly _not_ what the author did. His screenshots show him replying to each of the tweets, asking to talk to their authors, and he goes on to tell their stories in the article. If anything, this shows how valuable a research tool Twitter can be when used properly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Thank you for de-clickbaiting the title

<comment><USER32> Is there any documentation on what a clickbait title? HN has guidelines on what to do when the title starts with a number, but the only line about clickbaiting is kind of generic.[1] Personally, I'm not sure if "I'll know it when I see it" is the best policy for this, as different people have different opinions on what clickbait is.

And then we have the problem of people just commenting on the act of editing the title, and not the actually content. That's hypocritical of me to complain about, though.

[1] "Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait."

<comment><USER33> > different people have different opinions on what clickbait is.

Not really, there are just people who haven't seen a specific type of trick not used ad nauseam, while others have seen it a thousand times already.

"I'll know it when I see it" is sufficient here, since there's a wide variety of them and with enough experience they can be easily recognized.

In case you would like to have an easier way to learn it though:

Typically clickbait is when the article communicates something (anything, really) that could easily fit in the title itself, but refuses to do so. Advanced users compose titles that specifically pique curiosity in the average person.</comment></comment></comment>


Addicted to Addiction - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/29/opinion/sunday/addicted-to-distraction.html?_r=0 <comment><USER2> Ironic mistake in the HN title, the actual title is "Addicted to Distraction"</comment>


Underactuated Robotics - <AUTHOR> http://underactuated.csail.mit.edu/underactuated.html <comment><USER2> Interesting. I used to work on legged locomotion in the 1990s.[1]

The notes point out that locomotion on the flat is a special case. Too much work on legged locomotion assumes flat ground. On the flat, balance dominates the problem. Once you get off a flat surface, slip/traction control dominates.

Slip control is like "ABS for feet". You have to keep the forces applied parallel to the ground below the point where slip starts. That changes the shape of the problem. Classically, most robot control is positional. Slip control is in force space. Until you have slip control, hill climbing will not work. So the first step is to constrain those forces to stay below the break- loose point.

I pointed out in the 1990s that legs with three joints allow manipulating the contact force vector and the position independently.[2] This is visible once you watch people climbing hills, and even clearer with horses, where the leg bones are closer to being of equal length.

Most legged robots don't make fast starts and stops or fast turns. Even the Boston Dynamics machines usually start by trotting in place and then shifting to forward. Motion with high accelerations is traction-limited.

The first step is like ABS, constraining the forces below the break-loose point. You need that because in the real world bad stuff is going to happen and recovery involves backing off the forces until traction is regained. The second step is considering forces when planning, so that movements get near the limits of traction but don't exceed them. This is where you can begin to do more aggressive movements.

The lesson notes are finally going in the right direction, looking at this as a two-point boundary value problem. Most previous work has focused on finding some expression that measures stability and maintaining that. If you want agility, you have to give up stability maintenance throughout the gait cycle. You need good landings. Everything else is secondary.

You have a set of constraints that apply at a landing, as a foot touches down - be within slip tolerance on forces, joints not too close to limits, impact not too high. And, importantly, the situation must be within the basket that allows stability recovery during the ground contact phase. Land, stabilize, launch, reposition for landing while in air, repeat.

Most work focuses on stabilization. That's only part of the problem. What to do in the air is classic rocket science trajectory planning. Launch control is mostly force-limited, and that's when you get to apply big forces and get big accelerations.

How far ahead do you plan? One landing ahead for basic locomotion, two landings ahead for athletics. If you plan two landings ahead, the stability criterion for the first landing can be relaxed somewhat. You might fail to zero out rotation in yaw because that will be fixed at the next landing, for example.

This stuff is cool, but there's no market. It was fun to work on, though. In the end, I sold much of the technology to a game middleware company, so it worked out OK.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kc5n0iTw- NU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kc5n0iTw-NU) [2] [http://www.animats.com/papers/articulated/articulated.html](http://www.animats.com/papers/articulated/articulated.html)

<comment><USER3> I've been thinking about this stuff for decades but never saw anything like this. I think you're the first person to nail the three-joint thing. Super impressive, thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Another version of this course (I _think_ it was an OCW version on YouTube.) had a video of a fish holding position in a stream. There was an obstacle in the stream, and the fish swam up into its wake to save energy. Neat. Then they showed a video of a dead fish being towed through a simulated stream by a line. It exhibited "swimming" behavior that could be dismissed as just flapping in the current right up until the _dead_ fish swam up into the lee of the nearby obstacle for shelter.

It's amazing how much adaptation and complex behavior can be embedded into an underactuated system. A fish's dead body "knows" how to save energy when swimming against a current!

<comment><USER5> I'm curious the results of that experiment with a towed sphere. My gut says it too would find the lee, simply because that's a local and stable energetically favorable configuration of the system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This looks very good. It's actually a stealth optimization textbook ;)

Relevant recent work from Google AI: building a dynamic model of the world from pixel observations only

[https://ai.googleblog.com/2019/02/introducing-planet-deep- pl...](https://ai.googleblog.com/2019/02/introducing-planet-deep- planning.html)

</comment><comment><USER7> I took the course in 2015, when it was Matlab-only and Russ was working on a C++ version; it was one of the best courses in robotics I've taken (together with Udacity's Self-driving car ND). It also had a simple version of Boston Dynamic's Atlas robot that was massively improved recently. Does anyone know if the course contains new content related to the recent advances at BD? Is the optimization code now compatible with ROS? Thanks!

<comment><USER8> All the new optimization code has C++ and/or python (2.7) bindings.

I don't think TRI has made ROS wrappers but it could conceivably be done without much pain I think.

Not sure there is much in there about new stuff from BD. There is some deep RL stuff now though, not really sure how much the course has changed since 2015.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The course on edx is here:

[https://www.edx.org/course/underactuated-robotics- mitx-6-832...](https://www.edx.org/course/underactuated-robotics- mitx-6-832x-0)

<comment><USER10> Looks like it's archived. There are video lectures available at MIT's OCW: [https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and- compu...](https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer- science/6-832-underactuated-robotics-spring-2009/video-lectures/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is somewhat relevant if you are interested in underactuated robots in production. One of our customers, Tokyo Kitty [1], a nightclub in Cincinnati uses two underactuated robots to deliver drinks to private rooms without spilling. We use convex optimization (chapter 10) to not spill, the bartenders and patrons love it [2].

[1] [https://www.facebook.com/thattokyobar/](https://www.facebook.com/thattokyobar/) [2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_PeLAlVpzQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_PeLAlVpzQ)

</comment><comment><USER12> This makes me wonder: imagine you have a quadcopter-type drone or something, where some of the propellers are mounted on inverted pendulums, or double- inverted pendulums, or something equally wildly unstable.

Could one then learn to control it with deep learning, and maybe gain some benefits from doing so? Like gaining the rapid maneuverability that birds have.

<comment><USER13> You don't need an inverted pendulum to make an aircraft unstable. See the Grumman X-29, the forward-swept wing made it aerodynamically unstable, and it piloting it was only made possible by feedback control software.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumman_X-29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumman_X-29)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Relating to the current deep RL hotness... If I'm training a network to control a walker/swimmer, will simply adding a penalty on energy expenditure, on top of whatever the goal may be (e.g. maximise forwards distance), lead to underactuation?

</comment><comment><USER15> This looks really really interesting. Thank you for posting this!

Right now I am trying to build a quadruped robot and still a bit scared of that mathematics, but its awesome and I'll fight my way through it.

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm wondering if/when all the control theory will be replaced by some simple generic black-box deep-learning scheme.

<comment><USER17> It really depends on your application. If your system is so complex that you give up on understanding the dynamics, then a "generic" ML algorithm makes sense. However, a big problem with applying ML to robotics is you need a ton of data and producing a representative dataset for your system can be hard. Traditional control methods don't need nearly as much data, including the system discovery process.

<comment><USER18> I think that depends on how good our physical simulations become? If we can model our robot to a sufficient degree of physical precision, and our world simulation is good enough, with the right objective functions it seems like one probably build a robust control system without really understanding any of the control theory at all? Granted this might take the equivalent of 50 years worth of learning but it seems possible? This is how animals have learned to move over time right?

<comment><USER19> Why is it a useful goal to not understand control theory?

Animals like us have plenty of control theory built into our firmware, even if we aren't going through the calculations on the cognitive software level.

A control system, tuned and running, is a few lines of code in a fast loop, or a feedback amplifier circuit. Just like a neural net, it takes a while to tune the coefficients but then it becomes muscle memory. And since much of control theory is fully general (like Bode's sensitivity integral), those principles must also hold for biological systems as well.

A baby doesn't think about Laplace transforms when learning to walk, but neither do they think about backpropagation.

If you're keen to replace control theory with something else, I recommend solidly understanding it first.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> One of the few MIT classes I had the pleasure to attend in person. So good. Russ Tedrake is amazing.

</comment><comment><USER21> Thanks for posting this! It looks very interesting. I wish I had the time to go through all those books!</comment>


Developers: a new kind of IDE arrives in Cloud9 (First look) - <AUTHOR> http://scobleizer.com/2011/03/10/developers-a-new-kind-of-ide-arrives-in-cloud9/

<comment><USER2> Having an IDE as a "service" is a pretty big leap for me. Paying a monthly fee for this is beyond my current ability to fathom.

For $22/month I can get 10 users on a private github - the 2 ios devs can use xcode, the 3 rails guys can use textmate, etc..

When you compare this against the more "corporate" stuff - VS or IntelliJ, well...most large corporations aren't ready to store source outside of their firewall, and they have volume licensing anyways.

Eh, but I'm generally wrong about this sorta thing anyways...

</comment><comment><USER3> I actually started using it today, maybe two hours before it got posted on Scobleizer and while I didn't experience any super-fancy code assist features, it is fast, responsive and does not get in the way. Fell in love right away and I am basically not a fan of hosted coding environments like this but as my code is pretty much standalone JS for now it seemed to make perfect sense.

Basically I only went there because I had it bookmarked a few days ago and Aptana crashed my box when I tried to create a new file (yeah, I know, that was a wild idea). But now I am kind of glad I did.

Too bad it's down right now but if you can't get through and haven't seen it yet, give it a shot some time later.

<comment><USER4> Aptana crashed my box...

That's why I don't use IDE's. ;)

<comment><USER3> Because bugs are restricted to IDEs?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It appears <http://cloud9ide.com/> is down and thus the problem with this solution.

<comment><USER6> We're back up. A combination of reaching maturity and offline support will make this a problem of the past.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> How would I use it? I wouldn't. I have my editor in the cloud. I log into my remote server via a terminal and I fire up Vim. ;) There are plenty of people who have tried the editor in the cloud thing, nobody seems to have been able to build anything which has stuck. Meanwhile, Vim and Emacs are still going strong and perhaps the best editors available. It would be tough to create something which could provide an alternative to something so versatile and has had years of community add-ons and improvements being made.

<comment><USER7> I think you're right about the versatility aspects. If a cloud editor is going to grow I think it's going to come out of somewhere like Heroku. Where it exists in one "opinionated" niche and can be customized specifically to work with that environment.

<comment><USER4> Interesting you mention Heroku as they first started out with a Rails editor. That seemed to be one of their big features aside from hosting Rails applications.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I followed the roots of this with interest, back when it was called Bespin, then SkyWriter. The idea is compelling: most web developers just need a highlighting-capable text editor with online connectivity. Many of us work directly on staging servers, so in theory if there was a capable web-based editor around, you could work from pretty much any computer without having to install something. You could log into your web-based editor and all your bookmarks, SSH certs, everything would be there.

Now, Cloud9 is - from what I understand - the commercial version of this concept. Right now, signup seems to be broken, but I'm curious how it turned out.

<comment><USER6> Sign-up is back up, the entire site was down for a moment. We're improving monitoring systems to deal with this better in the future.

<comment><USER8> Great, thanks! I just signed up and tried it out. You guys did an awesome job! The gitHub checkout was flawless and the editor is really nice.

There is, however, one "problem" that prevents me from switching to c9 and trying it out for a few days: as far as I can tell c9 allows us to edit files on your server and then push the updated project back into the git repository. For a web dev like me this would mean a commit after _every_ edit and then I'd have to manually pull the changes from GitHub onto my dev server _every single time_.

I don't know if I'm the exception here, but I pretty much need my editor to save files directly onto my server (preferably via SFTP). The git integration thing is still great, it's just not compatible with my workflow to do a commit and manual pull for every edit. I don't spend hours making changes and then test them all at once - instead I make small changes, save, and then run tests immediately.

<comment><USER9> Yep, SSH/SFTP integration is currently number 1 on the list, stay tuned!

<comment><USER8> Cool, keep up the great work! :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Having worked at what was probably the first company to build an IDE in the browser (Bungee Labs) that subsequently crashed and burned, I wish them luck with it. I think you can be successful, but you have to VERY carefully target your customers (and if you think "every" developer is interested, you might as well hand the investors their money back and go home now).

</comment><comment><USER11> I believe this is based on what used to be called Mozilla Bespin. Interesting project to be sure. I'm skeptical overall though.

</comment><comment><USER12> I watched for a few seconds, then jumped a few seconds later, and then closed the window.

A few reactions:

\- show me, not tell me. lots of blah blah

\- i still hate "building 43" as a name. it's a strange reference to a part of another company; is rackspace SO limp that they have no corporate culture whatsoever?

</comment><comment><USER13> I would be very wary. You are trusting the "cloud" even for access to work on your code let alone store and secure it. I just don't think it's there yet. Maybe I'm just old school but I like having a copy of my code where I know it's safe and secure and where I can get to it on a moments notice if needed.

</comment><comment><USER14> I really like these ideas, and I'd love to see one of them go. I did notice the demo url was 127.0.0.1 though... I know, it's just a demo..

That said, one question.. Do you guys work 100% in your own IDE? And hosted (not localhost)? I think that's a must if you want other shops to use it.

Also I think a zero-barrier demo on your site would be huge. I ought to be able to click a link, land in an editor, and write some running code, a-la the mongodb shell on their site.

<comment><USER9> I had to demo Cloud9 on local URL since i didn't have internet there, that made debugging an online process a bit hard. We wil have a much more capable offline version of Cloud9 with online/offline mode soon. Our entire team is developing and debugging Cloud9 within Cloud9. Its a great way to stabilize. We dont really have database support yet in our cloud version, so only the devs that do the UI / DB-less backend work do that on the hosted version right now. This should become 100% hosted pretty soon.

<comment><USER14> Thanks for filling in the details :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Hmm... now maybe I can use my Cr48 for something...

</comment><comment><USER16> This seems awesome! Is there a way to connect this to a server via SSH or something? So that you can work on your development server from everywhere.

<comment><USER9> We have a short-list of features we are adding first besides stabilization, SFTP/SSH support is pretty much number 1.</comment></comment>


Simplify Your Message, and Repeat Often - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/23/business/john-lilly-simplify-your-message-and-repeat-often.html <comment><USER2> This is a really interesting point:

 _When I was a V.C. at first, I would just ask my questions and kind of poke, poke, poke, poke. And now I'll say: "Look, I'm going to ask some things, and this might be kind of awkward, but I'm just going to say it, and let's work our way through it. And it doesn't mean I don't believe in you and your company. I just want to understand where you are and what you think. I'm going to ask some things and they might be wrong, but let's figure some things out together."_

\--

I've noticed that people have different assumptions about what it _means_ to ask questions. Some folks (like the interviewee here) just ask away, because they want information -- their questions have no malicious intent behind them.

But on the receiving side, this can cause problems. Some people, when asked probing questions (or any questions at all), will get defensive. Just the fact that someone is _asking_ must mean they think something is _wrong_. Questions like "Why did you choose Node.js instead of Java?" can be (and I think often are) interpreted as "The questioner thinks I made the wrong choice, so I have to defend my choice now."

People in the tech community seem particularly affected by this assumption. Interesting that this VC ran into that problem too.

<comment><USER3> Here is a little hack around that to not put people on the defensive. Instead of asking "Why," say "For what reasons." It makes people less defensive. (Source: Was a qualitative market researcher for 10 years, learned this through hundreds of customer interviews).

<comment><USER4> I'm going to use this when asking about legacy code. Thanks!

<comment><USER5> My go-to answer for questions about legacy code is: "We did it for legacy reasons." ;)

<comment><USER4> Or: git blame | grep exployees.txt

(pardon my lack of grep/git command line knowledge!)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This Q&A really hit home for me.

 _Q: Early leadership lessons for you?

A: I didn't understand the role of simplicity and messaging early on. One of the things that happened at one of my start-ups was that I would get bored saying the same thing every day. So I decided to change it up a little bit. But then everybody had a different idea of what I thought because I was mixing it up.

So my big lesson was the importance of a simple message, and saying it the same way over and over. If you're going to change it, change it in a big way, and make sure everyone knows it's a change. Otherwise keep it static._

<comment><USER7> The best thing I've even seen in this space is the Brand Strategy Canvas. It's like the Lean Canvas or Business Model Canvas but walks you through the positioning and messaging for a startup.

At my last company, we didn't use it and had pieces of a strategy, message, and an awful name. Then we sat down and spent ~2 hours and worked through it block by block. It was painful but on the other side, we had a better name, a clearer Vision, a simple way to describe that Vision, and lots of sound bites to use in conversations, blog posts, etc.

My only complaint is that we didn't do it a few months earlier.

Here's a video of the creators walking through it: [https://vimeo.com/112098978](https://vimeo.com/112098978)

<comment><USER8> This is super interesting and great timing for me but I can't seem to access the PDF anywhere,

Various links that I have found through google all point to what seems to be an old half used domain...

Any suggestions?

<comment><USER7> Looking for a copy of it.. drop me an email and I'll see if I can dig up a copy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > The other thing I would say is to stay close to professions that create and > make things, and stay away from derivative professions like finance. I think > makers increasingly have the power in our society.

Wow, interesting words from someone who works in finance.

</comment><comment><USER10> Like for example speaking at a 4th grade level and having simple four word slogans?

</comment><comment><USER11> FTA: _" I remember when I was in second grade, we needed a new TV. All my friends would just go to the store and buy one, but my dad bought a Heathkit, and we had to put together the parts."_

What an awesome parent.

</comment><comment><USER12> Although message consistency is important, what message are you trying to communicate, and to whom?

</comment><comment><USER13> Please let's ban paywalled articles or else change the link to a google search so that the free version can be clicked.

<comment><USER14> The web link is the google search. Paying for news is arguably one of the ways to improve news quality, and quality news is valued by many HN users. The submission includes the source. If you don't want to visit a paywalled source, HN already provides you with the information you need to make that decision.

<comment><USER13> > Paying for news is arguably one of the ways to improve news quality, and > quality news is valued by many HN users.

The NYT has lost its position as the paper of record and has lost so much credibility. I used to be close to re-subscribing, but the horrible coverage of the 2016 election has helped me vow never to subscribe again. The NYT is America's Pravda and it continues to disgrace itself by trying to create a narrative to supports its political interests (Judith Miller, etc.)

Posting paywalled stories is an attempt to help the organization generate revenue, much like posting a link that adds an item to cart and funnels the user right to the checkout page.

<comment><USER15> I don't understand your point.

\- Is paying for news categorically bad, or is it OK?

\- If it is bad, why do you think volunteers will magically produce better results than paid journalists/editors/etc.?

\- If it is OK that news gets paid for, why do you object to posting paid news sources on HN?

\- If you do not object to paid sources, but only to some sources, and the sources are indicated when the link is posted, why do you think they should the system should prevent the links from being clicked rather than let users choose which sources to visit?

<comment><USER13> > Is paying for news categorically bad, or is it OK?

Imagine if many HN posts were links to academic journals with subscriptions costing $250 per year. There's nothing wrong with it, but it's not fun to continually click on links and be greeted by a paywall.

> If it is bad, why do you think volunteers will magically produce better > results than paid journalists/editors/etc.?

It has nothing to do with how the writers are paid, it has to do with how the publication generates revenue.

> If it is OK that news gets paid for, why do you object to posting paid news > sources on HN?

I simply don't like clicking on a link and finding myself at a paywall. I'd prefer to be able to filter out all such links and avoid ever knowing they're there. They amount to teaser clickbait headlines for content that is not free to read.

> If you do not object to paid sources, but only to some sources, and the > sources are indicated when the link is posted, why do you think they should > the system should prevent the links from being clicked rather than let users > choose which sources to visit?

The source is low contrast and I rarely notice it when skimming the home page. My suggestion of converting the link to a google search to allow the content to be freely accessed would solve the problem.

<comment><USER15> FWIW, I believe outlets are shutting down (or have already shut down) the Google search loophole.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I think I get it. Let me try:

"Make America Great Again!" "Make America Great Again!" "Make America Great Again!"

Ok. Got it.

<comment><USER17> Spot on. Simple focused. Connecting on the deepest possible level. It was sad that the vehicle carrying it was not the best one. But it is incredibly strong and potent.

<comment><USER18> #FightingForUs, #StrongerTogether, or is it #ImWithHer today?

>The importance of a consistent message is all the more important given the candidate Clinton is on a collision course to face in November: master promoter Donald Trump. --Boston Globe, May 2016</comment></comment></comment>


Netflix angers film-makers with 'insulting' speed-up function - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-50220575 <comment><USER2> I think we have officially scraped the bottom of the barrel now on ways to increase user engagement with netflix chipmunk mode. That's it. There is no innovation left to find in the realm of increasing content consumed per day. All done here.

Let's try formulating some new goals now. What else can we create outside of trying to make this one metric increase a tiny bit next year?

</comment><comment><USER3> Sorry 'film-makers', you do not get to control what happens on my personal devices. You might be able to control the theater experience but you can't control me. If you think you can control me then you can keep your crap. You may have leverage over Netflix but I don't really need Netflix anyway. The more you try to control me the less I want anything to do with you. Its my choice to watch your film as you intended, or not.

To be clear, I haven't seen or used this feature. But 'film-makers' asserting control over my personal environment and choices is offensive. Apatow's films will not be shown on my devices - enjoy being ignored, Judd.

</comment><comment><USER4> YouTube has had this feature forever. I've actually specifically paid to watch movies on YouTube rather than watch them free with my Netflix subscription, simply because I can fast-forward the boring bits. If it weren't for this feature, I probably wouldn't have watched those movies at all. So please, filmmakers, get over it.</comment>


Influence of fake news in Twitter during the 2016 US presidential election [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.08491 <comment><USER2> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granger_causality](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granger_causality)

</comment><comment><USER3> tldr: they applied this list and wrote a paper "as if": [https://github.com/BigMcLargeHuge/opensources/blob/master/so...](https://github.com/BigMcLargeHuge/opensources/blob/master/sources/sources.json)

Reminds me of previous fake papers... although that may be the point. If not... whew. I bet you couldn't pay them for the "data" from step3, since it does not exist. I'm getting a kick out of the "source notes" field.

I have thought quite a bit how to actually do this. It's more than a hobby of mine to track how disinformation works and spreads. You would need to pick specific testable predictions and claims from a broad sample of historical news, the older the better, and start there. Things that can be measured with numbers. Predictit and other betting site questions would be a good foundation.

lol, just noticed they disabled issues.</comment>