Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Amateur Auction Theorist - <AUTHOR> http://www.themillions.com/2016/05/johann-wolfgang-von-goethe-amateur-auction-theorist.html <comment><USER2> On eBay, bidding the highest you're willing to pay is not always optimal, because bids are not sealed, and other bidders may not be putting in their highest value, and there's a specific time it ends. Only the highest bid at any time is sealed.

If your opponent would bid, say, $500, but it's currently at $400, they might only put in a bid for $425, and if you bid more than that right before it ends you can get it for $430. While if you'd bid $475, then your opponent might have bid it up to $480, causing you to end up paying more.

Is anyone actually irrational in this scenario? I suppose anyone not using sniping tools and also not bidding their highest price is, or at least they could get a strict improvement by doing so. Given that other players aren't rational, the whole assumptions break down.

<comment><USER3> The rational bidding strategy on EBay is to always place 1 bid at the maximum price you're willing to pay. The problem is that humans aren't rational. Some people place winning the auction higher on their priority list than bidding within their budget.

<comment><USER2> I gave a scenario where that doesn't work. It's only rational if everyone else does it. If some people won't do it, then by raising the price early you may induce them to bid higher, which is bad for you.

<comment><USER3> It's not bad if they bid higher than you - you being a rational person would know that you'd be unwilling to pay higher than your only placed bid, so you aren't really "losing" anything

<comment><USER2> It's bad if, if you wouldn't have bid so high, you'd have been able to win at the end with a lower bid than your highest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> A Vickrey auction is much more interesting (and complex) when there are dozens of bidders, each with their own budget, and multiple products. Then the solution turns into a profit maximization algorithm, with the highest bidder not necessarily winning each item.

</comment><comment><USER4> So Böttiger ratted Goethe out. It's unfortunate that Goethe figured out the Vickrey auction, but not the principal-agent problem.

<comment><USER5> I see how his agent sharing the contents of the envelope hurt Goethe's attempt to gather intel for future auctions, but the outcome of the sealed envelope auction was unchanged, or am I misunderstanding? Goethe had 1000 talers as his minimum price so no matter what Vieweg offered, so long as it was above 1000 Goethe was never going to make more than that.

For this reason I find the last paragraph of the article confusing:

> Hermann and Dorothea went on to be a bestseller, earning tens of thousands > of talers for Vieweg and nary a penny more for poor Goethe.

<comment><USER6> The article clearly states that the purpose (in theory at least) was not merely to get 1000 talers but to also get a better estimate of the publisher's perceived valuation of Goethe's work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Great example of how auctions can bring benefits to both parties (as long as you can trust the middle man)

</comment><comment><USER8> So he used a single bid auction with a hidden reserve, and the sale price won't exceed the reserve, so the seller either gets the exact price they demanded or no sale at all.

</comment><comment><USER2> All that and they don't tell us how much Vieweg actually bid?

<comment><USER4> It's right in the end: Goethe's lawyer revealed his reservation price of 1000 talers to Vieweg and he bid just that.

<comment><USER2> It doesn't say "he bid just that" explicitly.

<comment><USER4> Oops, I guess you're right about that. I took the expression "nary a penny more" to mean "nary a penny more [than 1000 talers]", since I assumed that Vieweg still bought the manuscript. I see now that this isn't explicit at all.

But Moldovanu & Tietzel (1998) [0] do report in their article that "Vieweg offered exactly that sum [1000 thalers]". So there it is!

[0]: [https://www.econ2.uni- bonn.de/pdf/papers/goethes_second.pdf](https://www.econ2.uni- bonn.de/pdf/papers/goethes_second.pdf)

<comment><USER2> Good find!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are the best books for people new to CS? - <AUTHOR> I'm going to be an advisor for new students in our company (we pay for their degree and provide on-the-job training during their semester breaks) and want to put together a little "welcome packet" to start them off on the right track. Most of them come straight from high school and have never done any CS or programming beyond school classes, so I thought it would be nice to include a book to introduce them to some basic principles and prime them for what they're going to be learning and working with in the following years.<p>Back when I started studying CS, I read "Code" by Charles Petzold which I really enjoyed and would be perfect for this purpose thematically, but I feel that at ~400 pages it might be just a little too lengthy. What are some reads you would recommend to beginners? <comment><USER2> I'd be keen to give out Code Complete as it covers practical development in a professional setting, but not focusing on a particular technology.

</comment><comment><USER3> Https://teachyourselfcs.com

</comment><comment><USER4> The New Turing Omnibus</comment>


Fred Wilson: Am I Bored With Web 2.0? - <AUTHOR> http://avc.blogs.com/a_vc/2008/06/am-i-bored-with.html <comment><USER2> He links to this:

[http://discussionleader.hbsp.com/haque/2008/06/a_manifesto_f...](http://discussionleader.hbsp.com/haque/2008/06/a_manifesto_for_the_next_indus_1.html)

I'm having a hard time separating the above from revolutionary socialism, and the best I can do is simply admit that he's completely ignorant--doesn't understand economics at all, and is just spewing received wisdom like so much bilge from a cracked hull.

Google wants to organize the world's information.

Information has these qualities:

1\. It is good.

2\. It is mostly unstructured.

3\. It is found in uncountable places.

So-and-so wants to "Organize the world's hunger." Hunger has these qualities:

1\. It is bad.

2\. It is a biological phenomena, rather than a product--something you can create, and then move around, and store, like information.

3\. It is found in places with undeveloped economies.

...point is, there is absolutely no comparison. The two words have no points of connection. Information is subject to organization, hunger is not. In fact "organize hunger" is a meangingless combination of words.

So, as usual, when someone spouts literal nonsense, it becomes the reader's burden to figure out what he means. Fine. He wants rid of the invisible hand which has tricked google into benefiting mankind, and he wants to set up planning committees to eradicate (not "organize") hunger. And he wants startups to do this. Okay, that makes sense. Thanks for the viewpoint, Harvard.

Want to end hunger? No, really? Okay, shoot the latter-day communists in Africa, set up strongmen who will protect property, and let capital flow. Period.

<comment><USER3> I don't think the article makes enough sense to be called socialism. It sounds more like what would happen if you gave a 12-year-old a copy of Google's mission statement and a Wikipedia article about Joseph Schumpeter and said, "Misunderstand all of this, then write a thousand words about it."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> well i think theres a lot of room to mix the two together

web 2.0 or whatever you want to call it allows us to do two main things: move information a whole lot faster and with people anywhere in the world that we may not have known before. similar to what zuckerberg refers to as information flow. if you could leverage those concepts to help do good in the world, i think that would make a huge impact. some companies that i can think of:

a) causes by sean parker and joe green. helping spread causes youre passionate about with your network

b) terrapass. helping buy carbon offsets and green products.

long story short, but my niece and nephew had a fatal disease. my family was told they had no more than 6 months to live. first thing we did was use the internet and find other families who were afflicted with the disease+ doctors trying to solve it. Theyre now 11 and 10 years old, because we were able to connect with other people who knew otherwise. This was back in 1998. If it were 1988, they would be dead. that right there is power. Think what we could do in 2008. Thinking about this sometimes makes me think that although I love what I do on a daily basis, the world doesnt need a software company. What ive learned could be used to build an application to help connect doctors, families, companies with cures,etc. more easily.

hmm, and my hacker news comment has now turned into a blog post.

<comment><USER5> Jason, a question to ask, of course, would be -- 'what about those who can't access that information?'

I believe this is why so many are saying that mobile is the future, because all that information flow moves to those without computers -- and even those with, wherever they are.

<comment><USER4> make it everywhere. I think you make a BIG focus on helping bring access to those who wouldnt know about it. We were fortunate, we knew about the internet and what to do. in 1998, im pretty sure not many people were yahoo experts (google was in a garage still). What about those in poor areas of the country + world? They're kids + loved ones are afflicted with diseases just as much as anyone else. I would have a huge focus on making sure they knew this resource existed. Mobile is also key. i think we need to make information ubiquitous across all platforms. the faster you can make it flow, the better.

<comment><USER5> in 2008, i have friends in the US who didn't know you could use Google to find recipes.

what Fred (citing Umair), seems to be searching for, though, is a way to hack some of those big, hairy goals Umair listed:

 _Organize the world's hunger. Organize the world's energy. Organize the world's thirst. Organize the world's health. Organize the world's freedom. Organize the world's finance. Organize the world's education._

Information flow can certainly help facilitate some of those, and will most likely be an important player in all, but can information alone organize the world's hunger or thirst? Research, Entrepreneurs, Startups, Capital, Market and Reach. Very resource intensive and surely not relying solely on an increased information flow.

Information access won't change the fact you don't have water to drink. Even if you could search to see how to purify your water, if you don't have access to the materials needed to do so, what would you do?

<comment><USER4> Youre right, it's not an end all solution. There has to be more to it, but it's definitely an enabler. It would help bring people together to do something about it. It's then up to those people to fix the problem. Good quote:

"Never doubt that a small group of dedicated people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." -Margaret Meade

Sounds like this is an area of interest to you wumi?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> first, people have to care enough before they can change the world. in my experiences, many people just don't care about anything outside of their immediate surroundings, for better or worse.

second, the barrier to entry for a web 2.0 company relative to a company that will organize the world's health, hunger,thirst, etc. is a few orders of magnitude lower.

I've got a few friends with prototypes for companies that could effect serious change on the scale Umair constantly references, but they'd need several millions of dollars before having something that's even ready for mass production.

(edit: these buddies of mine, will end up working for corporate america in non-innovative companies because they just don't have the resources to be able to take their prototypes and build them into companies. One of the guys would need about 18 months and 6 full-time research technicians/machinists.)

even with PG's "be good" it's debatable how much the majority of YC companies are going to have a positive impact on the world ... but then again, is that their aim?

maybe Fred, Umair, and a few other big players idea/operations/capital wise should start a YC to attack those very problems with young, hungry, entrepreneurs. $250-$500k per entrepreneur should be fairly reasonable to get to marketable prototype/ alpha version.

<comment><USER6> that's a good idea. i have certain responsibilities to our investors that i have to live up to. but a YC to change the world is a great idea

<comment><USER7> Yes that would be a good idea!

As for organizing the world's health, we may look to the future toilet connected to the Internet as a solution?

Upon use this smart toilet sends your specimen data over the net to doctor's computer. If there are any irregularities in the data you receive an email to schedule an appointment. With the world using such a technology and all the data compiled, I'm thinking our life expectancy rate would increase!

Im not in the medical field so Im not sure if using specimen data would be a fool proof way for early detection of life threatening diseases or not?

 __*Not sure why this got dugg down? Is there someone in the medical field who knows this concept would not work or argue against it?

<comment><USER5> I've heard of a company with a similar concept, although not utilizing toilets.

 _Mashavu enables medical professionals to e-adopt children in the developing world using modern technology and communications infrastructure._

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "That's partially why I want to spend a month in Europe and will do that starting tomorrow." I can't wait until I can offhandedly toss out comments like this and follow through on them.

</comment><comment><USER9> "As the "rest" modernizes in the next 20-40 years, we have a unique opportunity to create a world where people all feel like they belong to the same society. It's already happening in business. Look at the EU to see a model of what the entire world could become."

Scary. I thought 1984 was a popular book in the US, so why is that so much people buy in that "One World, One Government, One Society" distopian future ?

By the way, did he follow the actuality of Europe at all ? When we asked the people directly (by referendum), in France, Netherlands, and very recently Ireland, they said NO to the next step of European construction. A world where the technocratic elites go against the will of the majority (aka people) isn't supposed to be a model to be followed. That's precisely what is slowely happening in Europe, you can bet that Ireland was the last referendum ever organized.

<comment><USER10> They still don't want to be governed by people with different cultures -- I think that's what it boils down to, and it's mainly a phenomenon of the lower classes who aren't really as hip to the Internet, or whose interests aren't broad enough to bring them together with people in other countries very often.

But increased communication, economic mobility, and business' willingness to adopt English as a standard language even in (gasp) France, are clearly knitting the continent together socially and economically.

I agree with the consensus that this guy goes a little nuts at the end. When I read it, I couldn't help thinking, "So, what, are we going to put hunger in neatly-labeled boxes?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Re: Umair's questions

First you have to organize people. What I work on, OfficeZilla.com helps organize people accross hundreds of non-profit organizations.

For example Mercy Ships uses OfficeZilla to upload pictures, video, and documents created out at Sea and the communications department uses that information to raise awareness of what they are doing and raise funds to do more.

Organizing people is much more power then say creating a database of resources. Organizing people creates capacity to act.

I have a child starting 6th grade. Before she starts school they are having a class on how she can get more out of school by being more organized. Using time, etc. This way she gets the most out of her own resources. Non-profits are the same way. You have to organize human resources but it is not easy, that is where OfficeZilla comes in.

</comment><comment><USER12> _There's pretty much nothing I'd rather do outside of family time than spend a few hours talking with the entrepreneurs who run OUR companies about their businesses and the opportunity and challenges facing them_

OUR? Okay.

<comment><USER13> I think it was probably meant more in the 'companies in OUR portfolio' sense than the literal 'these are OUR companies'.

<comment><USER12> I think he totally meant well, but I could not resist. I found it funny how one little word can have a big impact.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> i agree that lots of problem solving talent could go to the root and tell a more meaningful story.. i'm hoping web 3.0 is less about threadless t-shirts levering "architectures of participation" for private gain and more about the next billion of us, connecting, cooperating, identifying and solving real problems, like maybe the biodiversity crisis and finding smarter energy.

maybe better connecting we'll have chance to bust out of our monkeyspheres and denials.. it's powerful potential. then again, in 1990's i remember a John Gage quote: "What stopped the vietnam war was we told the truth about what was happening. Now the truth telling mechanisms are a thousand times more powerful".. sounds great, but look what happened: the trwtf telling mechanisms of today have sold endless war with victims unknown and gross costs, all to control stupid and ugly oil.

yes i'm complaining.. no i can't solve biodiversity and energy.. the best i can do, in my dream, is work toward universal literacy.. so even the final billion can someday read wikipedia, get informed and solve real problems..

</comment><comment><USER6> i'd like to say once more for the record that this conversation should be happening (or at least replicated) on my blog so that the people who don't know about hacker news can participate in this discussion

<comment><USER15> _"... i'd like to say once more for the record that this conversation should be happening (or at least replicated) on my blog ..."_

Hey Fred, I note from your comment getting modded down indicates not too many readers care about where the conversation occurs ~ [http://www.stoweboyd.com/message/2008/05/a-vc-web- discus.htm...](http://www.stoweboyd.com/message/2008/05/a-vc-web-discus.html) and thinking about it I sort of agree.

Quite a few hackers, entrepreneur types have figured out there is value to be extracted from _"aggregation"_ of links and the associated attention. The comments here and at other places like friendfeed ~ <http://friendfeed.com/fredwilson/comments>

      "... 10 people liked it but nobody commented ..."

are the result of someone else working on building the software, creating the community and collecting this information. Maybe even making a business out of it? Downstream attention collectors are gaining the advantage by collecting your ( _"and many others"_ ) articles. It's not really fair, but it is also a _"free market"_. Working for a rival VC firm does not help either. If you want your readers to benefit, do something about it. Manually summarise the best bits on your blog. Better still get some tools written to scour the Internet to do this automatically - a process that scales better.

If this attention leakage, the inability to maintain and capture attention is happening to your blog, a blog with readership and attention most hackers would readily kill for, it could also be happening to others.

An _"itch"_ that needs scratching perhaps hackers?

<comment><AUTHOR> Fred, with all due respect, there's almost no way to centralize the conversation anymore. Twitter, FriendFeed, Social Media, Digg, Hacker News...it has spread the conversation to many, many corners so people in many niches can discuss what's going on.

Yes, in an ideal world, the conversation would happen in one place (that's part of why I think Disqus was a great investment and FriendFeed is destined for greatness), but this is a fragmented world and fragmented conversations are going to always be a part of the world's dynamic.

<comment><USER6> totally agree that it's "happening" everywhere now

but what i want is for it to be recorded and synched everywhere as well

<comment><AUTHOR> Then we need to build the technology.

Hm, I'm thinking of ways now...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > Organize the world's education.

That's what I'm working on with my app, ezlearnz

</comment><comment><USER5> the original post: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=222486></comment>


Show HN: React Native router that much better than standard solutions - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/sergeyshpadyrev/react-native-easy-router <comment><AUTHOR> I develop multiple react-native apps. Always there was a problem with navigation. Standard solutions (react-navigation and react-native-router-flux) are very hard-to-use. They have very unobvious API and many wrongly designed features like headers, tabbars and animations. E.g., even making screen appear from the bottom is a pain. So I've developed my own router with simple API and independent animations. There are many examples in repository</comment>


1950s SciFi flame letter unwittingly contains prescient Google reference - <AUTHOR> http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/06/they-pay-brisk-money-for-this-crap.html

<comment><USER2> Hardly. Chandler was slagging SciFi by making a reference to perennial loser Barney Google, well known through newspaper comics and music in that day: [http://www.stlyrics.com/songs/s/spikejones9866/barneygoogle3...](http://www.stlyrics.com/songs/s/spikejones9866/barneygoogle324005.html#.T9iVdytYuM4)</comment>


Jack Dorsey to fund UBI experiment that could affect up to 7M people - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-billionaire-jack-dorsey-universal-basic-income-experiment-2020-7 <comment><USER2> It's one thing for a private citizen to donate money to a Basic Income experiment, it's another thing entirely to legislate the Fed into minting cash for distribution. Basic Income is a necessary future, but the Universal part does not make any sense, and even this is not a Universal experiment, it's a surgical tactical strike. More reasonably at the national level could be a Guaranteed Progressive Income that was doled out below certain economic lines. Putting water on every house just because some homes are burning is a waste of precious water (that in this case also devalues water - to stick with the metaphor).

<comment><USER3> The problem with means testing is that you eventually have to draw a line and some people who "deserve" help don't get it. I'd rather pour water on every house than accidentally let a few burn down, especially since theres plenty of water for everybody. Nobody questions printing a few 100 billion dollars for the military or a wall street bailout, but when it comes to protecting citizens suddenly we have a country full of accountants.

Do you feel the same about other social services? Should the library only lend books to people under a certain income? Maybe if people make over 20k we can charge them to use the playground

<comment><USER2> >I'd rather pour water on every house than accidentally let a few burn down, especially since theres plenty of water for everybody.

That's demonstrably false, which is where Economics comes from. "Limited Resources and Unlimited Wants."

> Nobody questions printing a few 100 billion dollars for the military or a > wall street bailout, but when it comes to protecting citizens suddenly we > have a country full of accountants.

Didn't say anything about Wallstreet or Military until now, what's your question?

>Do you feel the same about other social services?

That's misleading, as cash handouts are not in the same class. Money is a commodity and a currency. You're conflating two things as one.

>Should the library only lend books to people under a certain income? Maybe if people make over 20k we can charge them to use the playground

Do you eat books when you go to the library so the next person cannot use them, or do you return them so another human being can ocularize and assimilate the message? If you eat books, your argument is more cogent, but if you return them like every other savage then I don't understand your question. Social services are for society, guaranteed income is for people who don't have income of their own, or not enough to get by. Pardon the snarkiness, but I can draw a Venn Diagram if that helps.

<comment><USER3> > That's demonstrably false, which is where Economics comes from. "Limited > Resources and Unlimited Wants."

Money is not a limited resource.

> what's your question?

It's not really a question. We live in a country where huge amounts of money are spent on Wall Street and the military, and so-called fiscal conservatives have no problem with it. The talk of money as a limited resource ONLY occurs when the conversation is about helping people in need.

> Money is a commodity and a currency.

Money is not a commodity. You are literally using words that you don't know the meaning of. As to "money is a currency", I think I remember reading that on some pamphlets from the Department of Redundancy Department.

> guaranteed income is for people who don't have income of their own, or not > enough to get by

My point is that means tests like this leave out people who are in need but don't necessarily qualify for the means test, and open the door to additional strawman arguments like "why would anybody work if they are getting UBI". Means testing requires infrastructure and process, both of which cost plenty of money.

> If you eat books, your argument is more cogent,

"Hurr durr. If I am deliberately obtuse, it'll feel like I won the argument." Translated that for you.

<comment><USER2> Money is in fact a commodity and currency. You can buy and sell money, as well as use it as a token for value transfer. This is a sincere fact, I don't know what's contentious about it. The supply of money is not "limited" but buying power is limited and money represents buying power.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Finland did UBI experiment. Information and results can be found in primary source: [https://www.kela.fi/web/en/basic-income- experiment](https://www.kela.fi/web/en/basic-income-experiment)

Of course, healthcare and education are paid by taxes already so take that into account.

But it will be interesting to see how this works in American context.</comment>


Largest-ever meteorite crater found in Australian outback - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/11489673/Largest-ever-meteorite-crater-found-in-Australian-outback.html

<comment><USER2> Largest unless the Wilkes Land crater proves real

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

A lot of the craters seem to match up with extinction events which is kind of relevant to the debates over the dangers of climate change - if all the major extinctions were huge astroids hitting then regular climate fluctuations are less worrying I guess.

I'm kind of fond of the Antipodes lava flow theories such as that an impact may have caused Hawaii:

[http://www.rense.com/general12/created.htm](http://www.rense.com/general12/created.htm)</comment>


"Hidden" Links on Hacker News - <AUTHOR> http://news.ycombinator.com/lists <comment><USER2> This is the first link at the bottom of the page.

</comment><comment><USER3> Anyone remember when it was popular to add 'hidden' pages to websites? Was popular round 2000 - Maby its just me :)</comment>


Ask HN: How do I differentiate myself in the construction industry? - <AUTHOR> I recently joined my dad's business, going from software to construction. I'm in charge of supply stone products for commercial projects, which typically long sales cycles. I have no real sales experience before this.
I ask HN community this because of our focus on building products to solve specific problems. In construction, competition revolves purely on price and somewhat on service, leaving very little room to compete on the product. How do bring the mentality of iteration, improvement and building  products based on customer feedback to my new role in this industry? <comment><USER2> As much as I would like to have high quality when it comes to contractors, I cannot really afford it. Consequently I do no projects at all. The kinds of things I would be interested in a contractor for are more of a luxury than a necessity.

So, is there a creative way that you could address the price issue that none of your competitors can match? What drives the price - materials or labor? One of the things that can lower construction costs is pre-fab in your workshop. What could you do to pre-fab things that are currently impossible to pre-fab? What if you came to the customers's site and made 3-D scans with millimeter level precision. Could you then take that back to the workshop and accurately fab things?

So if you did all of these things you wouldn't position yourself as a "contractor" per se, you would be a service-oriented high-speed precision engineering firm, that just happens to be price competitive.

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER2> Sorry I thought of one more thing that would be huge. Let me log into a site and track the status of my project. Basically, use a CRM tool that a software company would use, like Zendesk or JIRA. Perhaps let me query the status of my project with an SMS. As someone also coming from a software background, you would zoom to the top of the list if you offered this.

<comment><AUTHOR> I should have mentioned I'm a material supplier, rather than working as a subcontractor. We supply stone products to the sub, and work with them to do the install.

>>let me query the status of my project with an SMS Do you mean you as the owner?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> You need new materials for a new product. If your a distributor find more suppliers and find niche products and go after niche customers.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's what I see happening in the industry, and that's the way we're going as well. It seems contrived though - change for change's sake rather than offering new value. Perhaps I've yet to fully buy into our value offering.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Find the pain point for your contractors/customers. Is it getting accurate measurements, is it selection difficulties etc. and find a way to automate it.</comment>


Australia fires: Misleading maps and pictures go viral - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-51020564 <comment><USER2> Misleading stats too.

I've seen countless articles mention that 500,000,000 animals have died. I was skeptical as to how you could even devise such a number reliably so I looked into the source of this statistic. First off, this number was devised by a single Uni professor. How? He multiplied the square-mile density of each species by the amount of territory that's burned. Secondly, and he notes this in his estimate, it's 500,000,000 "killed _or affected_", not just killed. Third, for almost all species, there are no density figures, so he just picked the number 10 (lol, yes, seriously). Fourth, roughly 30% of those estimated animals are birds, of which other experts say 99% would survive because, ya know, they can fly away. Of the other 70%, many others would have just walked or slithered or run and gotten away from the fire.

Basically some guy just made up a number of animals that exist and everyone else just assumed that 100% of them were killed. Terrible "science."

Many bigger news sites have braced themselves for pushback on this stat by adding "and plants" ("500,000,000 animals and plants") so that their use of the statistic can't be criticized later.

<comment><USER3> Just to challenge your scepticism a bit

> _Fourth, roughly 30% of those estimated animals are birds, of which other > experts say 99% would survive because, ya know, they can fly away. Of the > other 70%, many others would have just walked or slithered or run and gotten > away from the fire._

The fires we're talking about here aren't ones you can easily get away from if you're caught by them.

If they're near a firebreak of some kind (large river, cliff, etc) the animals may be able to escape, but otherwise these are very fast moving and very hot fires.

It's reasonable to think that for animals caught up in the fires, at least for ground dwelling animals, more were severely impacted than were not.

I'm not sure about birds. Where did you see the 99% number?

The fires can get hot enough to kill you from 100m away, cause firestorms, and are _massive_. A lot of birds would have needed to fly a very long way to be safe, and I've no reason to think that they either could or did.

<comment><USER4> The intellectually honest thing to do here would be to either try to find some precedent study of wildfire mortality for wildlife to get a coarse estimate on what happens, or to admit that you don't know. Instead, we have an "affected" number that is technically not presented as "killed", but we-kinda-sorta-hope- you-interpret-it-as-such.

I'm personally frustrated that no one has been able to dredge up an actual study on wildfire mortality patterns.

<comment><USER5> _Small mammal populations in a eucalypt forest affected by fire and drought [2009]_ [1] tracks 5 species in a particular area from 1970 until 2005.

Only the abstract is available (unfortunately), but by my reading of that it shows that a 1973 bushfire wiped out all 5 species in the area ("Following the 1972 fire, numbers fell to the lowest level recorded during the study and each population subsequently disappeared from the plot between the 1973 and 1974 winter censuses").

In further reading (I read a lot of abstracts trying to find one that had numbers!) it appears this pattern of some surviving the immediate fire but 18 months later having disappeared dur to predators and lack of habitat is fairly common.

[1] [https://www.publish.csiro.au/WR/WR08086](https://www.publish.csiro.au/WR/WR08086)

<comment><USER6> Thank you, this is _exactly_ the kind of analysis I'm interested in! (but unfortunately, far too nuanced to be comprehended or covered by media with any sort of reach).

> it appears this pattern of some surviving the immediate fire but 18 months > later having disappeared dur to predators and lack of habitat is fairly > common.

I don't think your reading of this is quite correct (or perhaps the implication that I'm incorrectly reading into it). The species didn't quite "disappear", as all of the ones claimed to have done so after the 1972 fire were able to be tracked during the 1980 fire:

> Following the 1972 fire, numbers fell to the lowest level recorded during > the study and each population subsequently disappeared from the plot between > the 1973 and 1974 winter censuses. The less intense 1980 fire did not lead > to extirpation, but numbers of A. agilis, A. swainsonii and R. fuscipes > declined as drought conditions persisted through 1983.

This suggests to me that they were repopulated according to the carrying capacity of the habitat (which itself recovered), either from areas outside of the study area or from the small populations that remained (the abstract is careful to repeatedly say "disappeared from the plot", a qualifier that you dropped despite it being significant, as sampling has error).

These dynamics are what need to be studied, or at least extrapolated from. The study you shared is based on an 0.02 square mile study area (ಠ_ಠ), of a single ecosystem type; It's possible that the vast scale of the current wildfires mean that recovery from external populations is much less likely, but the claim under discussion here is very far off either way. (For more information about these dynamics, the "Population refuges and immigration" section of this paper is interesting).

At any rate, the centrally-trumpeted claims that these animals have already died based on habitat destruction is plainly false.

I guess I should note that I don't think pushing back against these estimates suggests that this isn't a tragedy, or that it rebuts calls to action against climate change or mitigation or whatever. I just don't think it serves anyone to misrepresent the facts, or in this case, for such a sloppily-calculated, off-the-cuff figure to be spread so widely as gospel. This is exactly the kind of thing that gives anti-science skeptics traction. OTOH, maybe I'm typical- minding too hard here: most people aren't interested in an accurate view of reality in any case, and maybe being dishonest and plying the public with bullshit figures is how things need to be done. Maybe the harm from giving stupid denialists fodder is outweighed by the benefit of inciting stupid non- denialists to care. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

<comment><USER3> The author of the 480 million affected animals estimate has co-authored an article addressing this in more detail and with lots of references.

I've posted it at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21990825](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21990825)

<comment><USER6> Thanks for doing the legwork here!

<comment><USER3> You're more than welcome!

I aim to be sceptical when taking on new ideas or information, and all the questions people have are very reasonable.

It's hard to even imagine the size and ferocity of these fires.

The problem is when being sceptical twists into being dismissive. It's actually really easy to do a bit of research and contact professors - but it takes time.

When I first clicked through to the University of Sydney's statement, and clicked on Professor Dickman's profile, I was left reeling by the sheer volume of research the man has done on exactly these problems. In our emails he had an anecdote about _jumping over fire fronts_ while researching them when he was younger.

The scariest part is that the estimates given were for less catastrophic events. They are a low bound based on previous understanding, and this is a far worse event than ever seen before. I highly recommend people reading the linked article, and follow the references therein.

<comment><USER5> Do you know how he reconciles the vastly different death rate estimates from the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires with these ones?

Black Saturday: 1M animals killed with 400K hectares burnt = 2.5 animals/hectare

These fires: 1B dead with 8.5M hectares burnt = 117 animals/hectare

I don't know how the Black Saturday estimates were done, just that the source was the RSPCA.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's true that the images are slightly outlandish due to the compilation of data over a long period of time. Also not all these fires were or are of the same size or nature (winds, fast moving or slow moving, controlled or wild).

But regardless it's been tragic and devastating.

If you want to shock people, forget showing maps or even pictures of destroyed homes; just show them the footage of burning koalas being rescued and dying off their injuries; that's far more visceral. I can't even watch it without tearing up (from a local's perspective).

<comment><USER8> > _If you want to shock people, forget showing maps or even pictures of > destroyed homes; just show them the footage of burning koalas being rescued > and dying off their injuries; that 's far more visceral_

Also be sure to mention 500,000 animals have been killed in these fires.

<comment><USER9> I fully believe that a devastating number of animals have died, but when I see nice, big, round numbers like 0.5 or 1 billion thrown out there I wonder how we calculated this. How rigorous are these estimates?

<comment><USER5> The methodology is here: [https://sydney.edu.au/news- opinion/news/2020/01/03/a-stateme...](https://sydney.edu.au/news- opinion/news/2020/01/03/a-statement-about-the-480-million-animals-killed-in- nsw-bushfire.html)

<comment><USER10> Well, not really....

[https://www.scribbr.com/dissertation/methodology/](https://www.scribbr.com/dissertation/methodology/)

> In your thesis or dissertation, you will have to discuss the methods you > used to do your research. The methodology or methods section explains what > you did and how you did it, allowing readers to evaluate the reliability and > validity of the research. It should include:

        The type of research you did
        How you collected your data
        How you analyzed your data
        Any tools or materials you used in the research
        Your rationale for choosing these methods

<comment><USER5> Ok. I'd note this wasn't a dissertation and instead was a statement by a qualified scientist who previously has studied the field.

But if you want to be pedantic, that link is an explanation that includes references to the methodology.

The methodology itself is in the report referenced in that explanation and available at [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318029981_Impacts_o...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318029981_Impacts_of_Landclearing_the_impacts_of_the_approved_clearing_of_native_vegetation_on_Australian_wildlife_in_New_South_Wales/link/5955ce840f7e9b591cd74473/download)

<comment><USER10> Well sure, the methodology is touched upon, but not terribly thoroughly (perhaps there is a link to their actual calculations in there). But, that methodology rests upon other methodologies in other studies. I mean, not that that's _inappropriate_ , this is simply the complex nature of scientific studies. But on any kind of topic like this, I get a constant impression from comments that "the science" is right there for the reading, no gaps or uncertainty exist whatsoever.

Are people _literally_ saying exactly that? Well ya, a lot of the time they are literally saying that. But even if not, this is what is usually being implied, and it's _certainly_ the impression readers are walking away with. In my experience, it's a rare person who can unemotionally acknowledge the fact that much of what we loosely refer to as "the truth" is actually just a big messy collection of approximations, if not outright imaginations in many cases.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> As the BBC article suggests, generally the most accurate maps of where recent fires are and how much they've burnt are the state government fire or emergency services websites. Unfortunately they are state-by-state (which isn't usually a problem, but does mean there's not a good whole-of-Australia map), and some of them show all emergencies, not just fires.

ACT: [https://esa.act.gov.au](https://esa.act.gov.au)

New South Wales: [https://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/fire-information/fires-near- me](https://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/fire-information/fires-near-me)

Northern Territory: [https://www.pfes.nt.gov.au/incidentmap/](https://www.pfes.nt.gov.au/incidentmap/)

Queensland: [https://www.ruralfire.qld.gov.au/map/Pages/default.aspx](https://www.ruralfire.qld.gov.au/map/Pages/default.aspx)

South Australia: [https://www.cfs.sa.gov.au/site/home.jsp](https://www.cfs.sa.gov.au/site/home.jsp)

Tasmania: [http://www.fire.tas.gov.au/Show?pageId=colGMapBushfires](http://www.fire.tas.gov.au/Show?pageId=colGMapBushfires)

Victoria: [https://www.emergency.vic.gov.au/respond/](https://www.emergency.vic.gov.au/respond/)

Western Australia: [https://www.emergency.wa.gov.au](https://www.emergency.wa.gov.au)

<comment><USER12> > _there's not a good whole-of-Australia map_

This one (from WA) covers the whole country, and shows a) where the fire fronts and b) what's been burnt. This website is actually linked to in the main article (MyFireWatch):

[https://myfirewatch.landgate.wa.gov.au/](https://myfirewatch.landgate.wa.gov.au/)

It's also the one that ends up being doctored then played around social media.

As a 'side note' though, the article mentions:

> _In contrast to MyFireWatch maps (left), blue symbols on New South Wales > Rural Fire Service maps (right) give 'Advice' warnings, indicating no > immediate danger _

This is blatantly misleading. Blue means there _are_ fires still active in the area, the MyFireWatch shows _exactly_ where those active fires are. And personal experience has shown that Blue can become Yellow and then Red within a space of 10 minutes.

<comment><USER11> > [...] MyFireWatch shows exactly where those active fires are.

I didn't link to MyFireWatch precisely because it is showing 'hotspots' from the past 72 hours, which is not _necessarily_ the same thing as mapping actual reported fires, hence the confusion of some of the maps talked about in the article. The data on MyFireWatch on areas which have burned is also very inaccurate for some states (Tasmania and Victoria at least).

MyFireWatch explicitly says not to use their map in an emergency[0], because the 'latest' hotspot data can be up to four hours old, can be up to 2km out of place (5km in extremes), and may not show fires obscured from or otherwise undetectable from the satellite.

[0] [https://myfirewatch.landgate.wa.gov.au/disclaimer.html](https://myfirewatch.landgate.wa.gov.au/disclaimer.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> After the sky turned orange in New Zealand a few days ago from the smoke from the Australian bushfires [1], I stumbled across this blog post by Scott Bachmeier:

[https://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/satellite- blog/archives/35342](https://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/satellite- blog/archives/35342)

The post contains relevant satellite imagery taken from Himiwari-8 showing the creation of pyrocumulonimbus clouds from the fires, along with thermal imaging. There is also a technical explanation about how the thermal anomalies are detected.

The smoke cloud is now heading to the middle of pacific ocean and is still visible from space [2]

[1]: [https://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/118597927/in-pictures- auckl...](https://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/118597927/in-pictures-aucklands- sky-turns-orange-as-australian-bushfire-smoke-moves-to-nz) [2]: [https://rammb- slider.cira.colostate.edu/?sat=goes-17&z=1&im=...](https://rammb- slider.cira.colostate.edu/?sat=goes-17&z=1&im=50&ts=6&st=20200105125036&et=20200108003037&speed=250&motion=loop&map=1&lat=0&opacity%5B0%5D=1&hidden%5B0%5D=0&pause=0&slider=-1&hide_controls=0&mouse_draw=0&follow_feature=0&follow_hide=0&s=rammb- slider&sec=full_disk&p%5B0%5D=geocolor&x=7070.933349609375&y=18008.533203125)

</comment><comment><USER14> The Guardian has a visualisation of the total area burned in this fire season, which can be overlayed on google maps to any location. It is not the size of 'currently burning' but is the size of 'burning, or burnt'

[https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/datablog/ng- inter...](https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/datablog/ng- interactive/2019/dec/07/how-big-are-the-fires-burning-on-the-east-coast-of- australia-interactive-map)

</comment><comment><USER15> I advise knowledgeable people to look at the data themselves! Nowadays anyone can browse, download and process open access satellite data (Landsat, Sentinel, Terra, Aqua, Suomi-NPP, etc.) with open source tools (QGIS, Python, etc.). In this specific topic I recommend taking a look at the work of Pierre Marcuse: [https://pierre-markuse.net/2018/04/30/visualizing- wildfires-...](https://pierre-markuse.net/2018/04/30/visualizing-wildfires- burn-scars-sentinel-hub-eo-browser/)

I have to admit, my grandpa was a wildfire firefighter coordinator and still, I wasn't really aware of wildfires being this very thin front behaving like a fractal until I saw this kind of satellite data: [https://twitter.com/Pierre_Markuse/status/119499877723451392...](https://twitter.com/Pierre_Markuse/status/1194998777234513921)

</comment><comment><USER16> Some have been intentionally sensationalist, but the main lesson here is that maps are hard. Both making and reading them.

<comment><USER6> I'm not sure that is the lesson. I don't doubt that maps are hard, but there are plenty of capable people making decent ones all the time (the OP article contains a link to BBC's own visualizations). All of the issues described in the linked article are complete sloppiness or dishonesty, not mistakes due to the difficulties of map visualizations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm a big fan of [https://www.memeorandum.com/](https://www.memeorandum.com/) but I saw a story on there that "almost 200 people had been arrested for setting fires" ... only to find Alex Jones was one of the sources. Crikey.

<comment><USER18> Well, it does seem to be semi factual, 183 people had been arrested, "only 24 of them for arson:

        24 people have been charged over alleged deliberately-lit bushfires
        53 people have had legal actions for allegedly failing to comply with a total fire ban, and
        47 people have had legal actions for allegedly discarding a lighted cigarette or match on land.

Source: [https://www.police.nsw.gov.au/news/news_article?sq_content_s...](https://www.police.nsw.gov.au/news/news_article?sq_content_src=%2BdXJsPWh0dHBzJTNBJTJGJTJGZWJpenByZC5wb2xpY2UubnN3Lmdvdi5hdSUyRm1lZGlhJTJGODIyNjQuaHRtbCZhbGw9MQ%3D%3D)

<comment><USER19> I think their complaint isn't about the story not being factual but about the fact that Alex Jones is an insane person/outrage feeder who shouldn't be quoted as a source. Instead, they could have quoted, well, the source you give. It's much more credible, after all.

<comment><USER20> The problem is that even a broken clock is correct twice a day. And for the sort of people who follow conspiracy theory whackjobs, that's all they need.

<comment><USER21> A STOPPED clock is correct twice a day, as long as you already know what the time is you can tell that the clock is right at this time.

A broken clock will always be wrong. Even if you already know what the time it, the fact that the broken clock looks like it is working will lead you to wanting to believe that it might be right just this once.

<comment><USER22> Stopped clocks are generally considered to be a subset of broken clocks.

<comment><USER21> My apologies for not being extremely pedantic about my definitions in an allegory.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Here is a realtime satellite "hotspot" service:

[https://hotspots.dea.ga.gov.au/](https://hotspots.dea.ga.gov.au/)

And an image (as of now) incase it's geo-locked:

[https://i.imgur.com/qWEMM7D.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/qWEMM7D.jpg)

Here is another image of Victoria with current outstanding fires:

[https://i.imgur.com/izZt1lV.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/izZt1lV.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER24> There is apparently worse misinformation out there than some misleading maps, e.g., "Bots and trolls spread false arson claims in Australian fires 'disinformation campaign': [https://www.theguardian.com/australia- news/2020/jan/08/twitt...](https://www.theguardian.com/australia- news/2020/jan/08/twitter-bots-trolls-australian-bushfires-social-media- disinformation-campaign-false-claims)

<comment><USER25> Yep, While all misinformation is bad, its better that we over prepare rather than under prepare.

Reminds me of the quote that went something like "But what if its wrong, we might accidentally make the world a better place for no reason."

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm not really a social media guy, but my relatives live near the badly impacted areas and I can confirm the damage done to a lot of communities is _very_ significant.

</comment><comment><USER27> Didn't the same thing happen with the Amazon fires recently?

<comment><USER20> Yes. Celebrities were spreading photos of fires on other continents and other years and claiming that it was the end of the world.

Their apologists will claim they were "just raising awareness" or "drawing attention to the tragedy," but in reality they're doing more harm than good.

<comment><USER28> Interesting, I think that climate change, slash and burn agricultural practices on marginal land, and the inability of the biome to re-establish itself is what is doing the harm. I never even once gave a single thought to what "celebrities" or other people that were wrong are saying, just like how I deal with right wingers that deny climate change is occurring.

<comment><USER29> Celebrities actually do have influence, horrifying as that is.

<comment><USER28> And I would argue that it's hard to overstate the harm of global warming, so a few ignorant celebrities being incorrect against the mountains of well fund misinformation is not doing more harm than good. They are wrong on the scientifically correct side of the issue, and that matters. They are unlikely to cause harm to anyone, like climate change denier or Jenny McCarthy on vaccines.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> At least partly an instance of "maps which actually just population heatmaps"

<comment><USER21> Less than 1%, the rest is actual bushfires.

The area burned so far is larger than most European countries. Entire towns have been razed, breeding grounds for various animals are destroyed and the fire in Kangaroo Island decimated the population of chlamydia-free koalas.

Even worse is that this mass clearing of forests will lead to a drastic increase in new growth which will lead to worse conditions for fires next year (since young plants with shallower root systems will dry out faster)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> This pales in comparison to the actual problem, climate change. There are people that deny it is happening while profiting from it, and those people are in positions of power.

A cumulative visualization of the scope of the fires that is being misinterpreted as real time is farting into a hurricane in comparison.

<comment><USER29> >This pales in comparison to the actual problem, climate change

Seems a bit ideological to label climate change as "the actual problem" when 24 arsonists were caught, over the season, deliberately starting forest fires. Forest fires aren't a new thing but people deliberately starting them seems to be.

<comment><USER31> > people deliberately starting them seems to be (seems to be a new thing)

No?

[https://www.crimestatistics.vic.gov.au/media- centrenews/arso...](https://www.crimestatistics.vic.gov.au/media- centrenews/arson-offences-in-victoria) [https://www.crimestatistics.vic.gov.au/crime- statisticshisto...](https://www.crimestatistics.vic.gov.au/crime- statisticshistorical-crime-datayear-ending-30-september-2016/spotlight-arson- offences) [https://www.crimestatistics.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/e...](https://www.crimestatistics.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/embridge_cache/emshare/system:original/public/2016/12/b7/8cf3034ea/Graph%201.jpg)

Arson is certainly a thing that happens but isn't suddenly drastically increasing for no reason.

What _is_ increasing is the rate at which those acts become extensive bushfires. Which is caused by drought drying out the land (increasing fuel). Which is linked to ... yep, climate change.

<comment><USER29> Are those stats on people deliberately setting forest fires, something much more serious than garden variety arson?

>What is increasing is the rate at which those acts become extensive bushfires

According to MSM 24 were charged with "deliberately lighting bushfires", not committing garden variety arson that metastasized into bushfires.

Forest fires have always been easy to start, if one wanted to, but people intentionally attempting to do so seems unusual.

<comment><USER31> There is a breakdown of which incidents relate to bushfires yes.

<comment><USER29> Care to quote that rather than linking to a largish PDF?

<comment><USER31> [https://www.crimestatistics.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/e...](https://www.crimestatistics.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/embridge_cache/emshare/system:original/public/2016/12/b7/8cf3034ea/Graph%201.jpg)

<comment><USER29> Assuming "cause a brushfire" means intentional causing, rather than unintentional causing during commission of another arson, that's certainly an alarming trend. I live in a region of Canada that's had seasonal forest fires for as long as I remember and I don't recall any of them being intentionally set. Not good to see this emerge as a crime trend although I'm, in a way, not surprised given I've wondered for awhile why terrorists haven't been using forest fires as a tactic given the potentially low risk to mayhem ratio.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> not that much different if you show it cumulative (where there have been fires in recent weeks). Just not claiming to be a snapshot.

[https://i.imgur.com/VKOZ12Y.png](https://i.imgur.com/VKOZ12Y.png)

</comment><comment><USER33> Is anyone aware of any compelling evidence that these fires were meaningfully worsened by climate change?

<comment><USER5> What would you consider as compelling evidence?

Predictions made 10 years ago are now being met.

<comment><USER34> Some predictions are being met. The ones that aren't are generally forgotten.

<comment><USER5> Fire seasons are getting longer because of climate change.

[https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-17/drought-bushfire- seas...](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-17/drought-bushfire-seasons- starting-earlier-lasting-longer/10132570) (note that this is _before_ the current bushfires)

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26172867](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26172867)

Droughts are getting worse because of climate change (and of course in Australia droughts make bushfires worse because there is more dry scrub, and hazard reduction burns are too dangerous to do).

[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/06/water- re...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/06/water-resources- minister-totally-accepts-drought-linked-to-climate-change)

<comment><USER5> Hey gd1, your comment is dead so I can't reply. But here is your BOM citation (it also has your requested timeseries data):

Australia's driest year on record

Nationally-averaged rainfall 40% below average for the year at 277.6 mm

The national total rainfall for 2019 was 40% below the 1961–1990 average at 277.6 mm (the 1961–1990 average is 465.2 mm). This makes 2019 the driest year in the 119 years since 1900.

[http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/annual/aus/#tabs=Rainf...](http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/annual/aus/#tabs=Rainfall)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> This article is manipulative, bordering on malicious.

Its claim boils down to "Data visualization techniques can't be interpreted literally" \-- which is obvious -- but is titled and written in such a way to provide ammunition to climate change deniers that "the other side" is being loose with facts, or something.

Absolute and insulting garbage. Whoever wrote this, edited it, approved it for release, and whoever posted it here, should be ashamed.

<comment><USER36> If "your side" is being loose with facts, then pointing that out isn't just providing ammunition to "the other side". Arguments are not soldiers you need to support unconditionally to secure victory for "your side" in the war of public opinion. Pointing out when "your side" is wrong will hopefully help it make better arguments in the future.

<comment><USER35> > If "your side" is being loose with facts,

But "my side" isn't being loose with facts. That's my point. Data visualization techniques are always lossy, that's just how they work. The article tries to paint this lossiness as deception, and that's wrong.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I appreciate the clarity of the BBC maps. Having said that, the entire point of a map is to artificially represent something that _cannot_ be perceived naturally. All maps are a simplification of reality. And a graphically misleading map can be better because it helps people understand the truth. It is like a metaphor or analogy.

<comment><USER38> So it's okay to spread a graphic that exaggerates the data as long as it's "helping to understand the truth"? Is not your perception of the magnitude of the truth subjective? This is another way of saying that it's okay to mislead as long as the issue is sufficiently important and/or people aren't taking it seriously enough (in your judgement).

Metaphors and analogies are supposed to make a concept clearer, not to show scale. A gif with each frame showing the data from each day would have a similar impact but be clearer.</comment></comment>


Why Aren't You Developing in the Cloud? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.iron.io/2012/04/why-arent-you-developing-in-cloud.html

<comment><USER2> Because I am not stupid to pay monthly fees instead of single upfront licenses.

Because my desktop screams while my net connection is so so.

Because a native UI kicks the sh*t out of any web interface, in looks, perfomance and integration.

Because I am paranoid and I like my data in MY local net.

Because I do not mind a bunch of (easily scriptable) installs.

I short because the technical problems I am trying to solve go way beyond a trivial LAMP app...

<comment><USER3> > Because I am not stupid to pay monthly fees instead of single upfront > licenses.

You just insulted everyone here who pays monthly fees for software, including Github & Dropbox customers.

In addition, the overwhelming success of SaaS vs native apps leads me to think that your personal tastes and concerns are not representative of the average consumer.

<comment><USER4> When the average consumer has to choose between two goods they don't understand, they always base their decision on price. As they become more savvy, they begin to understand why the market has other, more complex or expensive, options. SaaS may have been a success in the short term, but our industry tends to have centralization/decentralization cycles. We seem to be in a centralization phase right now, but the downside of that is well-known, it just hasn't manifested in a catastrophic way recently. Once it does, I'd expect a large (but not total) exodus from SaaS back to run-this-on-your-own- hardware solutions like we've had in the past.

<comment><USER5> That's an interesting perspective. I agree we have gone through cycles of centralization/decentralization and that events will cause flutters of movement in both directions, that's natural. As another comment mentioned, a hybrid approach will likely be a strong story in the years to come.

However the real _purpose_ of innovation is not to simply drive price down, rather, to create enabling technologies that move mankind forward and allow people to do things they've never even imagined. We're seeing massive things with massive processing power and data, all while someone else manages that infrastructure, who LOVES managing things at scale, who I can't afford to hire an who has become the expert I never will be.

If the goal is simply to reduce cost, then we aren't creating something big. We're just moving money around.

<comment><USER4> In a way, I think reducing cost is often (not always) a necessary first step to enabling the big-picture visions you're describing. For example, cheap desalination means water for drought-struck Saharan Africans; cheap food saves lives worldwide; cheap computing leads to the situation we have today. "Moving money around" is not valueless by itself; that is, after all, what banks (and even currency itself) exist to accomplish, and manage to scrape by at it.

But again, taking your position at face value, I would counter that the level of expertise needed to maintain the data needs of most people is very modest compared to the level of expertise needed to sell everyone that amount of data at scale. If your needs are not dramatic (and most people's aren't) then "the cloud" may turn out to be more expensive than doing it yourself on top of the usual downsides of outsourcing. Not everybody has a scalability problem. And if you do have a scalability problem but your income is directly proportional to the scale, it may be cheaper to run it yourself anyway and hire those scalability experts. There are more cloud providers every year, not fewer, and Amazon and Google did it out of necessity and made a profit long before they realized they could monetize it.

In short, I think there are arguments for and against, like everything else, and people should understand the upsides and the downsides before choosing. Once the pendulum swings back there will be people leaving the cloud who probably should be there and I'll be arguing for them to use it, but for right now it seems like the herd is recklessly choosing the cloud without understanding why.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Am I the only one that hates the "cloud" buzzword? I'm trying to wade through the meaningless crud in this article, and I can't quite pinpoint what this article is advocating. It seems like he's simply suggesting to run your database, message queue, etc. on a remote server so you don't have to install it locally. That's not at all a new concept, and he's still advocating that you use a local editor/IDE, so you'd still need to install that as well as your language interpreter, external libraries, etc... Am I missing something?

</comment><comment><USER7> Please, please everybody, before saying that the cloud is amazing let it resist the test of time. I am myself using some cloud software but there is one thing that is not yet being reflected very well, the ugly monster that lurks everywhere: _Legacy_.

How will AWS/RackSpace/SaaS software handle legacy data/ code in, let's say 10 years? I have no answer to that question and I bet few people have it but time is a tough mistress for computer software and data. The good thing when your data is not in the Cloud, especially when you don't control the inner mechanics of a database like SimpleDB is that you can migrate, change it the way you want at the moment you want. When you have no control over your data, well bad things could happen in the future.

Be smart, be patient.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree with this, it's generally a good idea to use services that don't lock you in and provide common interfaces so you can move your data or take in house at any time. Like <http://www.mongolab.com> for instance uses standard MongoDB and IronMQ (<http://www.iron.io/products/mq/features>) supports the beanstalkd protocol so at any point, you can take your data and easily switch just by changing endpoints.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is not the first time I've heard this argument from a "cloud services provider", and surely it won't be the last.

I've found you can get very far on those four points (minimal configuration, accessible, collaborative, and minimal production-development gap) using shared virtual images, specifically using Vagrant. It's probably not a good solution if you require massive amounts of test data in development, but unless that's the case I just don't see the benefits of using SaaS components for development's sake.

<comment><USER5> Very true.. But often it's the service providers that think about these hard problems daily, talk to their customers, and attempt at making the world a better place by building great products. In the process it's really hard not to form opinions about the future. :)

Disclosure: I work for Iron.io

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I need processor support for certain assembler optimizations. Cloud servers don't let me constrain the processor version.

</comment><comment><USER10> Perhaps if the question were rephrased as "Why aren't you developing in Notepad", it would be easier to answer.

If you look at the spectrum of ways to edit code, with edlin at one end and VS.NET+ReSharper at the other, you wouldn't find a single one of the existing Cloud IDEs sitting more than 5% of the way off the zero end of the scale.

Give it time, and they'll get there. I'm looking forward to that day with great hope, but it still seems like it's a long way off.

</comment><comment><USER11> Don't we need to define the term "cloud" before we even attempt answering this question? Cloud can be SaaS (according to Salesforce and many other SaaS companies). Cloud can be IaaS such as that provided by a datacenter owner/operator. Cloud can be shared elastic hosting such as that provided by Amazon, Azzure, etc.. Cloud can even be private elastic hosting or "Cloud in a box" such as that the client owns/controls/manages the physical hardware AND virtualization software. Cloud can be a hybrid solution such as what has already been mentioned... but effectively serves as any combination of the flavors listed above. Last but not least, Cloud can simply mean anything "online" for most who are not geeks and still think the internet works by way of magic.

Thus... if the term is not defined... for the sake of this thread... I don't see how anyone could argue that they are NOT already developing in the Cloud? So... iron.io, what does "cloud" mean to you?

<comment><AUTHOR> Cloud has a lot of different meanings these days so it's nearly impossible to really define it, but it is possible to think of them in various different contexts:

\- Consumer cloud or SaaS for consumers (gmail, rdio, facebook, etc) \- SaaS for business (salesforce, box, etc) \- Cloud Infrastructure Services (amazon, rackspace, etc) \- Cloud Application Services - higher level services on top of cloud infrastructure (heroku, iron.io, mongolab, papertrail) \- Private clouds (which can include several of the above) \- etc...

In this article I'm referring to cloud application services because those are the high level services that just take a couple lines of code and a couple of minutes to configure and use.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Because I spend 30% of my time developing in cars, planes, and coffee shops without free wifi. Because, unless I'm learning a new framework, I'm often more productive in those spaces.

Because every second I can't work because of something beyond my control is agonizing. I put one of the biggest reasons for Github's success is that it uses Git, which is intentionally not dependent on a central repo.

Because people who think "the cloud" is the answer to everything are jokes.

Because there isn't even a problem. Set up a VM which mirrors your prod environment and give it to your developers. Done.

Because any cloud-based system which is powerful enough to support some of the applications I've developed isn't going to be any easier to configure than just setting up my own VM.

Because paying to develop is stupid. It's a disincentive to trying new projects.

</comment><comment><USER13> One word, debugging. Stopping program execution at a break point and inspecting a memory location can be incredibly helpful.

</comment><comment><USER14> Because my dedicated server with a managed host is cheaper and more convenient than doing everything myself.

I use some cloud services, but not all. Nothing wrong with a hybrid solution.

</comment><comment><USER15> > Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) has become the most popular way to consume > software

I'd love to see data that backs up that claim.</comment>


Ask HN:Is there any research available about effectiveness of video tutorials  - <AUTHOR>

I am looking out for any credible research done to find out if spoken tutorials like Khan Academy are really effective as they are generally perceived.<p>What kind of effect will it have on learning when done by an isolated individual or when assisted by a real but no so trained teacher etc. <comment><USER2> I vaguely recall a study done many years ago that looked at the ability of people to recall information they had seen in documentary style movies. Try as I may, I can't seem to find it. Check out "Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition" if you want a boatload of interesting info on learning (I may have seen the aforementioned study in there, but I doubt it).

It wouldn't be out of the question, given the modern understanding of learning and memory formation, to say that not much can be learned from simply watching content. For real benefit, the information has to be looked at a few times, and applied through practice.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot for suggesting the journal. Its my job to narrow down my search. We are pitching for a government project and hence we need strong positive evidence.</comment></comment>


Caching AJAX calls with local storage - <AUTHOR> http://fre.sc/tech-blog/a-new-approach-of-caching-in-web-applications <comment><USER2> Y'know, browsers already have several built-in mechanisms for transparent caching without having to rely on Web Storage. I'd strongly recommend taking a look at them before implementing a jQuery plugin.

The only problem is that HTTP-based caching requires sane server URLs, and the Rails code here indicates a lack of understanding of how to build a cache- friendly URL structure.

I'm also a little fazed by the fact that the 'isCacheValid' key not only checks the validity of the cache, but also _sets_ a cache key at the same time.

<comment><USER3> I'm one of the guys behind this plugin. In our case built-in browsers cache mechanisms were a no go because we needed to have a programmatic control over our cache. Our app is heavily powered by realtime notifications from the server, and we needed a way to invalidate the cache when some events occurs.

About 'isCacheValid' setting the cache key, you're right, it should have been done in the success callback. The gist is going to be updated soon with your feedback.

<comment><USER4> Couldn't you use just an extra query string parameter when you want to force a refresh? Like, ?v=12312312353. It's a little hackish I'll grant you, but so is caching HTTP in LocalStorage.

<comment><USER5> This won't actually cause anything to be evicted from the cache. It just adds a new cache entry with a new key. This is poor resource management, and removes some of the appeal of going out of your way to reuse the browser's cache mechanism.

<comment><USER4> Sure, but the HTTP cache is managed by the browser. Unless you are pulling down mammoth amounts of data, cache management is unlikely to be a concern for you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Hi, Author of locache.js (<http://locachejs.org/>) here.

I think there is a good use case for something like this in certain situations, but using the browser cache for Ajax requests is generally a better idea.

I wrote locache as a more general client-side cache mechanism for all sorts of objects rather than just caching requests. I was caching lots of backbone models and user actions - it generally worked quite well. I also actually used it quite a bit for caching third party API's that I had no control over (more specifically I was working on a mashup using three different API's and often fetching the same content). When being lazy I tried once to cache my own API and regretted it after as its basically a poor mans browser cache.

Your going to run into a bunch of issues with localStorage if you have not already - specifically to do with memory limits, the blocking API and some strange support on mobile browsers. You may find some useful things in my code, or you may want to drop me a line to discuss it further.

</comment><comment><USER7> There's no reason AJAX calls can't get cached the normal way. Just set appropriate headers on the response and the browser will cache it for as long as you want.

<comment><USER3> I'm completely aware that in most cases, the browser should do the job.

Like I said before, we wanted to have a programmatic access to our cache. It let us read what is cached, update it or destroy it when some events occurs.</comment></comment>


JavaScript speedups in Firefox 3.6 - <AUTHOR> http://hacks.mozilla.org/2010/01/javascript-speedups-in-firefox-3-6/ <comment><USER6> I'll be interested in Firefox again when they get process-per-page going. After becoming so spoiled by this in Chrome, I just can't go back...yet...

<comment><USER7> Mozilla really needs to step it up. TraceMonkey is still way behind V8. They need to do something to get competitive with Chrome in terms of performance, or there's no possibility of ever switching back for me. Chrome is always 2-3x faster.

<comment><USER8> "Always"? Check out <http://portfoli.no/>, Firefox 3.6 vs Chrome: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQ2PDbffKuQ>

<comment><USER7> "Always" in my experience, anecdotally. I am sure there are some crafted benchmarks that favor Mozilla, but they're not really fair; in every real-life deployment I've seen personally, Chrome has crushed Firefox. There may be some edge cases where Firefox performs better, but Chrome is by far the faster browser for real-life browsing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm not getting very good numbers on my machine (much higher gc times than the article suggests). Perhaps it's because I'm on a mac, but it's a pretty new MacBook and safari seems to perform much better on a number of them.

<comment><USER10> _safari seems to perform much better on a number of them_

The benchmarks on the page are mostly not intended to test relative performance across browsers other than Firefox, and almost certainly do not provide useful comparison data. They were mostly designed to exercise particular performance weaknesses in Firefox, and indicate whether those performance weaknesses are improved by the new code. Micro-benchmarks in the context of very large, complex, systems, are usually pointless...except when going after particular performance issues, as the developers of Firefox are doing.

<comment><USER11> I've been investigating a similar disappointing performance of that benchmark on my Mac install of 3.6. Turns out that Firebug and Adblock Plus can both double the GC delay time.

Trying to figure out what information to collect to report that in bugzilla right now.

<comment><USER10> The number of hooks in Firefox seems likely to be a contributing factor in it being somewhat slower (in some regards) than Chrome and Safari, which are both extremely basic in their customizability and extensibility via third party plugins. Flexibility does usually have a cost, in software and in physical systems, and Firefox definitely goes to the extreme on flexibility. I'm about 50/50 on whether the trade is worth it, and I waffle between Chrome and Firefox as my primary browser.

Firebug and AdBlock Plus are both quite demanding plugins, having to analyze and manipulate the DOM so often and in so many ways. I don't think one can expect them to have no impact on performance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I wrote a completely useless 3D effect using DOM manipulation some time ago (<http://portfoli.no>), and have been using it since to do my own personal benchmark of various browsers. Being horribly unoptimized, and probably riddled with flaws, it seems a fair middle ground for most JavaScripts out there.

FF3.6 is (obviously) by far outperformed by Chrome, but it seems to me that even 3.5x did a better job of running it. In either case, the 3.5->3.6 difference seems marginal for this one.

<comment><USER8> Your site is actually slower in Chrome than FF3.6 for me. Mouse over is about 10 times (!) slower and scrolling is about 2-3 times slower.

<comment><USER12> Which Chrome version is that? v22.214.171.124 runs it without a glitch here. I did a screencapture, but Jing can't quite keep up with the framerate of the animation, so that looks jumpy (<http://screencast.com/t/ODQxMTdmMzg>).

<comment><USER8> v220.127.116.11 for the Mac.

This isn't the only site that Chrome is slower on. There was a link on Reddit or HN a while ago about an image blurrer that was entirely written in JavaScript. FF 3.5 managed to be 2-3 times faster than Chrome for that particular page.

Chrome is faster than FF 3.6 on some sites, like Mockingbird, but it does not always outperform FF.

<comment><USER12> I've yet to try the v4 beta. Seems unlike that they've taken such a huge leap back from v3, though. I'm more inclined to say that Google's implementation on MacOS is inferior to Mozilla's.

Did you ever measure the difference with the Windows versions of the browsers, on said web sites?

<comment><USER8> No, it's been ages since I've used Windows.

In any case, FF 3.6 definitely doesn't feel slow on that site. Everything is pretty smooth except for scrolling which is a _little_ jerky. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQ2PDbffKuQ>

All in all FF 3.6 is a very nice update. It's noticeably faster than 3.5 on many websites. I used to use Firefox for general browsing and keep Chrome around for a few select websites that Firefox was slow at, but with this update FF is sufficiently fast so I don't need Chrome anymore.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've got a pretty weak single core laptop and I have to say those benchmark tests are by far much much much faster in ff3.6, these are my results:

Garbage collection:

19 - <USER2>

651 - <USER3>

dom manipulations:

213 - <USER4>

269 - <USER5>

string:

400 100

120 122

410 16

230 66

Ok, the tests they provide are used to test those things that are supposed to get faster, so it's reasonable to believe it will, but the results are pretty good none the less.

(I ran the tests multiple times in both browsers to get the average)

</comment><comment><USER14> I have been using chrome.jit for a while with conkeror, which leans on the Javascript engine quite hard. It makes it noticeably faster. Not a little faster, but "holy shit, that was fast" faster. Back when JIT was first shipped in a release build, I enabled it on my eeepc, but not my more-powerful 64-bit desktop (since there was no JIT for x86_64 at that time). The interface was much faster on the eee than on my desktop. (Pages loaded slower, of course, because Javascript was not the bottleneck. But the UI was much faster.)

Anyway, this is great news. Who ever thought back in 1995 that their glorified blink-tag-scripting-language would be compiled to native code? :)

</comment><comment><USER15> One item that, uh, confused me:

> _First, we noticed that a large fraction of the [GC] pause time was spent > calling free to reclaim the unused memory._

How about actually implementing a garbage collector? You know, the kind that doesn't have to go around freeing memory?

(I'm being somewhat facetious, as retrofitting a precise compacting GC into a codebase not set up for it isn't trivial, but it is the right direction to move in if you actually want decent GC performance.)

</comment><comment><USER16> I never noticed the supposed speed improvements of Firefox 3.5. In fact, it was the slowest browsing experience I've had in recent years (and yes, I tried disabling all the add-ons!). I don't have much faith that 3.6 will be noticeably faster.

Firefox, thanks for toppling the IE monopoly, but I'll be using the faster Google Chrome now.

</comment><comment><USER17> I installed the new Firefox a few days ago, but it feels clunky, bloated, and slower than Chrome. What happened to the old Firefox that was so streamlined and light on its feet? Over time, it seems to have been transformed into the Mozilla of old. They really need to get it in gear.

</comment><comment><USER18> It will be a competitor for Google V8?</comment>


Project M: The Shell Concept Car designed for your city - <AUTHOR> https://www.projectm.shell.com/ <comment><USER2> And people thought Google's self-driving car was ugly. It's actually beautiful compared to this.</comment>


The End of ProTube 2 - <AUTHOR> http://jonasgessner.com/protube2-statement.html <comment><USER2> I wish Google would spend some time improving their YouTube Apps. They are the epitome of awful. Casting from Chrome being the bottom of the barrel for me.

</comment><comment><USER3> Noooooooooo. I love that app.

</comment><comment><USER4> I really dislike how background audio is locked behind a paywall with the official YouTube app on iOS. Ads I get, but come on, let's not lock away OS features behind a paywall</comment>


Fast deflate with zopfli-like ratio and streaming - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/emmanuel-marty/zultra <comment><USER2> Zultra: much (10x) faster than zopfli, about half as fast as ebiggers libdeflate.</comment>


Show HN: SnooBooks – Dive Deep into Reddit's Favorite Books - <AUTHOR> https://snoobooks.com/ <comment><USER2> This looks pretty interesting! Would really like a way to filter based on genres, as there seems to be an overwhelming amount of comics that I'm not interested in at all.

Another neat feature would be to see top books of all time and for a specific year, instead of only specific months.

Looks a very tiny bit weird that when going to the next page from the first page, the "Previous" button shows up before the content has loaded.

Lastly, it might be a good idea to keep track of which comment sections have been expanded, either in sessionStorage or as a query parameter. I misclicked somewhere, and when I hit the back-button, the scroll position was off because I had earlier expanded a comment section.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, thanks a lot for the feedback! I appreciate it.

You actually can explore a whole year at a time by selecting "-All-" for the month. Originally I had the ability to do the same with year, but it was painfully slow even with heavy caching. Something to revisit!

Thanks for the feedback on the page glitchiness as well. This was my first go at it with KnockoutJS, so I'm sure I did a hundred things wrong. I learned a lot, though!

If you like this, you should check out Hacker News Books ([http://hackernewsbooks.com/](http://hackernewsbooks.com/)) which was originally posted ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12365693](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12365693)) here on HN by its creator, leandot. It was my inspiration for this project. I fell in love with it and wanted to do something similar for Reddit.

<comment><USER2> Saw that now, not sure why I missed it!

Good that you learned a lot - didn't know people still used KnockoutJS, but looks like you did well on this one.

Btw, another thing I noticed is that clicking the expand comments button a second time does another request to fetch the comments - might want to check client side if it's already fetched first, and also make sure that the requests are cacheable. Looks like there's some `no-cache` headers set. (btw2, I was in fact expecting it to toggle the comments, ie. close them, but that's another thing)

Also, it seems like you manage to rewrite the normal amazon links in comment bodies to add your affiliate code, but the smile.amazon.com-links remain unchanged. Not sure if this is intended or not, but might be worth checking out.

Thanks for the tip! Saw that post when it was on HN originally, also pretty cool :)</comment></comment></comment>


One Day After Indictment, Former Chesapeake Energy CEO Dies in Car Crash - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/03/02/468930105/one-day-after-indictment-former-chesapeake-energy-ceo-dies-in-car-crash <comment><USER2> Reminds me of the oddly timed death of Ken Lay of Enron. Without a negative medical history he dies just after being convicted, but before being sentenced. Under the law, his assets would not be in jeopardy and could be passed on to his wife/family[1].

[1] [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/discussion/2006...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/discussion/2006/07/05/DI2006070500553.html)

<comment><USER3> > Under the law, his assets would not be in jeopardy and could be passed on to > his wife/family

That reminds me of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peine_forte_et_dure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peine_forte_et_dure)

Where a person could not be convicted unless they placed themself under the authority of the court (by pleading either guilty or not guilty). By saying nothing the court could not penalize them (their family) financially, but could torture them even to death (which people preferred in order to help their family) in order to try to compel a plea.

PS. Writing that last sentence really brought home how reversed morals today are from then. There really is no such thing as absolute morality.

<comment><USER4> The origin of the idiom " _being hard pressed_ [to provide an answer]".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Shades of Cliff Baxter: [http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-mysterious-death-of- an-enron...](http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-mysterious-death-of-an-enron- exec/)

</comment><comment><USER6> A. Accident B. Suicide C. Take over of his car, similar to what some conspiracy buffs think happened to Hastings from Rolling Stone.

<comment><USER7> or D. faked death, if we're going conspiracy routes.

<comment><USER8> No, that one's easy to rule out.

<comment><USER9> Not if he thought ahead and found a way to make a clone that would pass for him.

<comment><USER10> Hard boiled Oklahoma.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It was very probably suicide, see: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11212660](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11212660)

<comment><USER12> Yep. All these conspiracy theories... but sometimes the guy just can't face consequences.... [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxVivkXUfdU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxVivkXUfdU)

<comment><USER13> I knew a guy who got wrapped up in a minor stock fraud case that might have landed him in jail for _maybe_ a year.

He killed himself rather than face the music.

Sad, actually. He didn't need to kill himself. There is life after a conviction.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> He was reportedly driving a 2013 Chevy Tahoe, which typically has OnStar. DARPA demonstrated the ability to hack GMC's OnStar system to remotely control brake and throttle about a year ago. Make of that what you will. [http://jalopnik.com/darpa-hacks-gms-onstar-to-remote- control...](http://jalopnik.com/darpa-hacks-gms-onstar-to-remote-control-a- chevrolet-i-1684593523)

<comment><USER15> Why would a billionaire be driving a 2013 Chevy Tahoe? Forgive me if I find that to be the most interesting part of all of this.

<comment><USER16> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Millionaire_Next_Door#Car_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Millionaire_Next_Door#Car_shopping_habits)

Basically, one of the traits of the kind of person who accumulates a lot of wealth, is that they don't tend to spend much of it.

<comment><USER17> McClendon is actually an exception here; He was known for being an extravagant spender.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> My friend grew up with this CEO's kids, and I can't believe this is being discussed here. For anyone that was aware of the situation when it was just an indictment it's one thing. But now with all the speculation after the death it is kinda creepy.

</comment><comment><USER19> Stock shot up 20% on the news [http://data.cnbc.com/quotes/CHK](http://data.cnbc.com/quotes/CHK)

<comment><USER20> No, it was already up 20% when the news came out. It went up a very small additional amount until it sold off 10 minutes later at 3pm EST.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Suspicious. The conspiracy theorist in me says that someone wanted to put the investigation to bed quickly and make it seem like the death of the founder puts an end to the allegations.</comment>


Hello, I'm CAESER (A social mobile humanoid robot built at NYU) - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qarRoxhWGdE&index=2&list=PLigp2s0g1ngkdEQn51mMCwV4Jn5bnUfdu <comment><AUTHOR> (Taken from the link)

Celluar-Accessible, Expressive, Semi-Autonomous Robot (CAESAR), a social mobile humanoid robot that interacts with users through non-verbal, emotional expressions, and has 30-DOFs which include it's mobile base.

CAESAR is a full-body humanoid robot designed using with cost-effective CAD and 3D printing technology, and commercially available components. We present the structural, electrical, and expressive components of CAESAR. Next, we introduce emotions as the robot's affective states and adopt a heuristics- based approach with the introduction of emotional intensities, using which CAESAR generates a diverse variety of distinct and unique emotional expressions using its facial and gestural expressive components.

We define the low-level control mechanism of CAESAR that allows the robot to move it's servos/motors to goal positions in order to generate emotional expressions with different emotional intensity levels. To validate the robustness of the proposed approach, experiments are performed as emulation tests using real data of the motors, and visual inspection is performed by applying the generated expressions physically on the robot. A study evaluates the perceived expressiveness of CAESAR by users for different emotions and intensities.</comment>