The irony of Apple homepage and Safari WebP support - <AUTHOR> https://mobilerank.co/post/apple-homepage-webp-irony <comment><USER2> That is to save 146KB on one image an 99KB on another, to save 2 seconds you'd have to using a 1mbps connection.

The first random internet article I pulled for real world cellular speeds suggests even unwired, people are getting 30mbps so that changes the article to:

 _Apple could load 66ms faster by adopting WebP_

… but these are cached resources, so maybe…

 _Apple could perform the initial load 66ms faster by adopting WebP_

… would be better.

Looking at the assets needed for an initial load, the fonts alone weigh in at about twice those images, so it probably wouldn't be noticeable.

<comment><USER3> 1) "real world" cellular speeds at 30mbps? That sounds ludicrous to me. Maybe in America, definitely not in many countries across the world.

2) I don't know a lot of people who are repeat visitors to apple.com. Mentioning the fact that the time is initial load time would be redundant.

<comment><USER4> > Maybe in America I'd say maybe _outside_ America. Our cell service is pretty > terrible if you leave major metropolitan areas, or if you try to actually > use your "unlimited" data.

<comment><USER5> It's inconsistent.

I live in rural Arkansas, and typical get about 50Mpbs via LTE in a hammock on the shore of the lake.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Firstly, i don't get what apple has to gain by not supporting webp... Nevertheless:

The screenshot puzzles me, it shows two assets, and states that compressing these by an extra ~ 250 kb would save 2 seconds. Maybe on very slow connections?

Also

> Lack of proper support for [...] web notifications on mobile

I can do without these i guess

<comment><USER7> The author didn't actually compare the different images in each encoding with examples of file size and image quality tradeoffs, just a screenshot from lighthouse.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Note that it's not only Apple who's been slow to adopt WebP. Mozilla was pretty skeptical for many years and only implemented this ~a year ago (instead they did a lot of improvements to JPEG encoders in the meantime).

At this point I'd be more interesting in Safari supporting AVIF, though for compat reasons WebP would be nice to have as well.

I'm not defending Apple, but I think the issue is that if Apple implements a new file format, it has to work reliably _across whole Apple ecosystem_ (OS, image editing programs), not only in the browser. This is probably a huge undertaking. You don't want to download a picture and then your image viewer not being able to open it.

</comment><comment><USER9> This is only one half of the story. Given the increased network bandwidth, decoding speed matters. And here, JPEG is much faster. Also note that the JPEG decompression algorithms are highly optimized and coded in assembly language, and there are maybe even hardware decoders.

On android:

WebP 66% less file size than JPG, 267% more time to decode.

WebP 38% less file size than JPG, 258% more time to decode.

WebP 89% less file size than JPG, 319% more time to decode.

[https://stackoverflow.com/questions/37812950/jpg-vs-webp- per...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/37812950/jpg-vs-webp-performance- on-android)

<comment><USER10> On Android, JPG decoder lib may or may not use a DSP on Qualcomm SoCs, WebP doesn't have any hardware decoding support.

Any size gains will be much more noticeable in the context of network transmission.

<comment><USER11> Which comes back to people having good phones most probably will have better internet and people habing cheap phones will have less good internet.

So you'll lose time either on transfer or decoding.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I get the argument, but the estimated savings are bogus.

All the images on the mobile version of apple.com add up to a grand total of 500KB. If reducing their sizes by ~40% (that is, 200KB) would save 2.25s, it means the whole page (just over 3.5MB) currently takes 40 seconds to load. But obviously nobody in the developed world is waiting 40 seconds for apple.com to load. The real savings are probably somewhere between 0.05s and 0.5s depending on network conditions. Not insignificant, but much less than what is promised.

If you really wanted to minimize the time it takes to load apple.com, you should start with the 10 scripts, 7 stylesheets, and 9 webfonts that together make up over 80% of the page size and consume a considerable amount of resources to parse and execute. But the benchmark doesn't tell you that. It's just a checklist of micro-optimizations that doesn't even start with realistic assumptions.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm happy that Apple hasn't adopted WebP. JPEG XL and AVIF are better formats. Even Google is considering creating WebP2. WebP is already an outdated format (no HDR support), which should just die.

<comment><USER14> Disagree.

There's various web standards that export to webp: web recording, video conferencing etc. [1]

Apple have effectively veto'd a web standard, pushing developers and users into their ecosystem yet again.

[1] [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/API/MediaRecord...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/API/MediaRecorder/isTypeSupported)

<comment><USER15> >web recording, video conferencing

Why cant those be done on H.264?

<comment><USER14> Whether they can or can't is besides the question.

They're not in the standard.

And Apple have thereby again damaged an open standard's wider-scale adoption.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> At the expense of quality, at least it was Apple's argument against supporting webp.

And no, they didn't ignore it, it was included in one of the previous betas of macOS and iOS and removed later. Don't remember which.

<comment><USER7> I was also wondering about this and what exactly happened there, I wonder if there are some underlying issues either technical or political there.

<comment><USER17> Or equally possible they didn't see meaningful real world improvements?

<comment><USER7> Yeah sure but why implement it at all in a beta? I remember reading that years ago employees from both Mozilla and Apple looked into the format and both concluded it wasn't worth implementing. Firefox dragged it's feet with this too and eventually caved early last year, probably due to pressure from web developers looking at Google's lighthouse score telling them to use webp.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Apple doesn't even support their own HEIF on Safari. Why would one expect them to support WebP? Not to mention the gain on WebP is actually relatively small. JPEG, despite its age is still getting encoder improvement.

You would have expected or assumed nearly 30 years since the introduction of JPEG, we could compress an image at 0.5 bpp ( bit per pixel ) that has higher quality than the best JPEG with 1.0 bpp.

It turns out that is still not the case, Not with WebP, AVIF is closer but still not there. Just like in Audio, Despite all the marketing claims about mp3pro, HE-AAC... etc having mp3 128kbps quality at half the bitrate. It took us nearly 30 years to get an Audio Codec that sounds better than the best mp3 encoder at lower than 128Kbps bitrate. And that was Opus at 96Kbps. ( At this point no body cares about those bitrate savings any more )

That is not to say image compression aren't improving. [1] Is an 4K image compressed by the next generation VVC _Reference_ Encoder at 350KB.

[1] [https://imgsli.com/MTI1NDA](https://imgsli.com/MTI1NDA)

</comment><comment><USER18> Could anyone one please tell me what is the purpose of the Web Notifications, other than invasive marketing.

<comment><USER19> They're useful on desktop, for having things like Gmail open in the background, but they're not hugely useful on mobile. Usually if you want notifications you would already have the app installed.

<comment><USER20> The whole point is that if Apple would allow this, you wouldn't _have_ to install the app. You could just use the website.

Forums are an example where the website is perfectly fine without an app, but I'd really like to be able to choose whether or not I get push notifications from them on my phone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > The irony comes from the fact that Apple decided not to add WebP support to > the Safari browser

I don't get it. Why is this ironic? Did Apple create the performance optimisation tool that suggested WebP?

<comment><USER3> It's ironic because it's apple.com that of all sites would benefit from Apple supporting WebP. (according to the author, not me)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> "Apple can save the load time if they use the WebP"

Says the writer who use jpeg on his article.

<comment><USER23> He probably has to support Safari...

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Could this be related to non-network performance? The WebKit team seems very conservative in adding features to preserve/balance CPU usage and Battery Consumption. Which I generally applaud them for.

<comment><USER25> In general it's far better to reduce network usage in exchange for more CPU processing, not to mention that with faster websites you save on screen time as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Apple.com loads in around 1 to 1.5 seconds on either of my phone or my macbook. This is on wifi though, I guess the article presumes 4g.

</comment><comment><USER27> The webp issue is truly infuriating. I'd like to support it in my own websites, but I literally can't since a huge chunk of visitors use Safari.

The only hope seems to be mobile linux initiatives like PinePhone, etc. But I'm not holding my breath.

<comment><USER28> > I'd like to support it in my own websites, but I literally can't since a > huge chunk of visitors use Safari.

Wouldn't using the <picture> element[0] allow this this? It's pretty widely supported (every browser that supports WebP and Safari)[1] and allows a fallback to a JPEG in an <img> tag.

[0] [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/pi...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/picture)

[1] [https://caniuse.com/#feat=picture](https://caniuse.com/#feat=picture)

<comment><USER29> Would this be susceptible to tracking issues? E.g. place a hidden picture that loads WebP or PNG otherwise, to track which users support it and which don't

<comment><USER30> Browsers tend to advertise what formats they accept outside of a very basic set to the server on requests via the HTTP Accept header: [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Ac...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Accept)

For example, Firefox on macOS sent this Accept header for this request: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,image/webp, _/_ ;q=0.8

Chrome sent text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,image/webp,image/apng, _/_ ;q=0.8,application/signed-exchange;v=b3;q=0.9

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> 1\. Apple's users won't care. The ones who know about "WebP" will explain it away by claiming "Apple rejected it because it doesn't meet their high quality standards. The page looks more beautiful this way; WebP will drain the battery; WebP isn't secure; etc."

2\. I'm pretty sure this isn't "irony." [https://www.dictionary.com/browse/irony?s=t](https://www.dictionary.com/browse/irony?s=t)

</comment><comment><USER32> As an experiment I grabbed all the images from v/home/f/images/iphone- takeover.

Originals: 584 KB for 18 files. After running them through ImageOptim: 353 KB.

So, I made the images ~40% smaller on average just by running everything through a JPEG optimizer.

When you compare that to the ~50% average reduction the author saw for two of the images, it makes WebP seem even less interesting.

</comment><comment><USER33> Their stubbornness around WebM is even more frustrating to me, honestly.

</comment><comment><USER10> Protip: if you are still hellbent on using huge picture with transparency, you can use two JPG files one original, and one as an alpha mask.

</comment><comment><USER34> Is this utility comparing to the same resulting quality?

</comment><comment><USER35> At this point, I don't think it's too fringey a conspiracy theory that Apple is opposed to the advancement of web technology, while trying to plausibly appear to be in favor of it. Their motive would be obvious. Keep the native app experience superior.

<comment><USER36> They're also financially benefiting by pushing competing HEIC and HEVC formats since they're patent owners and collect royalties for big scale implementations. In light of that, it's not surprising they refuse to support royalty free formats.

<comment><USER15> Apple would paid more for HEVC royalty than they receive, or a break even. I doubt royalty payment is an incentive of any kind to Apple. But much rather patent protection.

<comment><USER36> I work in video streaming business and I haven't seen anything to support this (if anything, they were exempt from royalties from their own patent pool), can you please link something that confirms this?

<comment><USER15> I think for Clarity I need some explaining. I dont have any hard data or fact, and I doubt anyone would have because of the sensitive nature.

But it is just some Numbers from Facts and Data put into to it and guess work.

If we look into the list of patents from HEVC from three patents pool, along with those missing such as Technicolor, the list from Apple is comparatively very tiny. As a matter of fact I would be surprised if they even get 2% from it given hundreds of companies are in the license pool.

Lets assume Velos Media is in good faith ( FRAND ) and charges similar to MPEG-LA and HEVC Advance, the total is estimated to be capped at roughly $100M per Enterprise annually. Despite a huge market increase in volume since H.264 era, the amount of Consumer Electronics _companies_ ( Enterprise ) is actually not growing. While we are shipping ~1.2B Smartphone every year, ( A market that doesn't even exist during H.264 invention ) Huawei, Apple, Samsung represent over 50% of the Smartphone unit volume already. Top 10 vendor represent close to 90%. Once you factor in Tablet, PC, are in similar situation and many overlap ( since they are by the same Enterprise and count towards the cap ). The total addressable market from HEVC patents is at best $3B from large volume vendor ( $100M Cap x 30 Enterprise ) . You tie in the loose end from other electronics, Blu Ray disc at $2B per year. You are looking at a Total of ~$5B.

Ignoring the 2% Apple exempt from their own products and they actually paid 100M annually. $100M is exactly within the 2% they received from ~5B pool.

Generally Speaking in Reality Apple has many cross licensing agreement with like Samsung, Qualcomm and LG etc they are highly unlikely to be paying anywhere close to the Cap as they will all be exempt from it. And Apple would also not be getting anywhere close to 2% mark, but the argument is still the same.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Bitcoin could be here for 100 years but more likely to collapse Nobel laureate - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/19/bitcoin-likely-to-totally-collapse-nobel-laureate-robert-shiller-says.html <comment><USER2> Why would bitcoin collapse a Nobel laureate?

</comment><comment><USER3> ok cool, so either one could happen, thanks</comment>


Remind HN: Changes Your Clocks Tomorrow (If you observe DST) - <AUTHOR> http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/11/05/daylight-savings-time-dst-extra-hour-clock/

<comment><USER2> I remember last year watching the clock tick from 1:59 AM to 1:00 AM during a marathon coding session. For some reason, it's way more amusing than it should be.

How does one refer to the two hours labeled as 1-2AM? Is there an official way to do it, or just "first|second 1:30AM"? Of course, you could break out the POSIX timestamps...

I keep conjuring this mental image of a Law & Order case were the murder somehow gets off clean because he abused the ambiguity.

</comment><comment><USER3> Did we need to have the link with this?

<comment><USER4> Someone would ask for a citation if he didn't, just by pure hacker habit.

<comment><USER5> And foxnews.com made the most sense, right? Good hacker friendly site. :D</comment></comment></comment>


Wil Shipley: My "Doom" 20th Anniversary Stories - <AUTHOR> http://blog.wilshipley.com/2013/12/my-doom-20th-anniversary-stories.html

<comment><USER2> This is amazing.

I just love how Carmack has always upheld The Hacker Ethic and had no issue sending the source code for his games to others for the greater good. I do often picture business guys tearing their hair out when I read about this stuff and smile to myself.

He is truly a person to aspire to. It's a shame I'll probably never be as great as he is. The best you can is good enough!

</comment><comment><USER3> Wil Shipley has always been my programming hero, growing up. I spent a lot of time reading his Pimp my Code series, and learned quite a few things about Cocoa from him. Not only is he a great coder, he's also an incredibly compelling writer and speaker.

[http://blog.wilshipley.com/2005/07/self-stupid- init.html](http://blog.wilshipley.com/2005/07/self-stupid-init.html)

<comment><USER4> Thank you so much! Unfortunately my [super init] thing is now wrong—Apple has modified the runtime and actually reserves the right to change the object returned by [super init] from the object you allocated.

<comment><USER5> Ha. Hi Wil! Here's an updated link to the source code described there. Unfortunately it'd need some updating to compile - ObjC cut off access to the raw class structs in the runtime.

[http://kenferry.com/temp/WilShipleyInitChallenge.zip](http://kenferry.com/temp/WilShipleyInitChallenge.zip)

<comment><USER4> Man, I'd forgotten about that. I really have to update the old entries so they're easy to find and contain responses and are validated for Mavericks.

<comment><USER5> I just updated it for Mavericks, for the heck of it. The code got simpler.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> can somebody give me a bit of insight on why they needed to port to NeXTStep when the games were being developed on NeXT?

fascinating story, i so much enjoy ID stories from the 90ies.

<comment><USER4> The games were developed on the NeXT but a lot of things were missing. Like, key bindings. And the mouse. And sound. Also, there was no dithering on grayscale machines, and most of them _were_ grayscale back then.

Also, he was just blatting bitmaps to the screen from a simulated VGA buffer he had, so it was quite slow (blatting bitmaps was NOT fast with Display Postscript). We ended up hooking into something called "Interceptor" which was a very early version of direct VMA (and which he'd done experiments with, and turned us on to).

But, make no mistake, Carmack did ALL the heavy lifting here. I in no way want to take credit for Doom or Quake. I just hooked the plumbing up so we NeXTers (and later OS Xers) could enjoy the amazing games he wrote.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Interesting. The only email that I had from Id was one that "We" (Me and other guy) was violating Id EULA & Copyright... We was making a Unreal Tournmanet DOOM Total Conversion mod (original DooM in UT !!!). Obviously we must to stop... It was a few moths after DooM 3 launch.

</comment><comment><USER8> \- It's so funny to see "developer's advocate" being used...I would've sworn that that was a term that has only recently been coined but there it is, in a 20 year old email.

\- the connectivity of today's Internet is cool in its ubiquity, but emails were so much more engaging back then, even through text terminals...today emails have become such a mental burden, what with its connotation with spam and the implied demand of instant reply...that I can't imagine ever again writing the kind of thorough email as in the OP.

\- too bad Woz's biggest hacker years were a little bit before email. Given his willingness and generosity in responding to just about anyone today, you could imagine him sending the Apple BASIC source and his chip layouts all over the Net if it had existed back then

<comment><USER4> I learned to program by reading Woz's assembly code for the Apple //e. They used to give you books of "source" code when you bought the machine. Crazy times.

A few years ago my old business partner Mike Matas was at a party and he called me and was all, "Woz is here!" I asked if I could talk to him, and so I chatted with Woz for about 10 minutes. He was the nicest guy you could imagine. He was so incredibly happy to hear that I'd learned to code from his stuff.

When we first launched OmniWeb Woz bought ten or fifteen copies. He was always a huge supporter of the little guys. A real mensch.

<comment><USER9> I was thinking lately of porting the original DoomEd from id to Mac OS X. I reasoned that it shouldn't be too difficult since it was written on NeXTSTEP (minus all the api deprecation that happened over the years I guess). Sadly, id never released the source for that. Out of curiosity, do you remember whether the DoomEd source was ever part of any Doom Source package?

I used to do a lot of Doom Level editing on DOS back in '95, but most serious Map Editors seem to be for Windows. It would also be a great learning exercise, I guess, to try to port it so that it all the new technologies that we have nowadays...

<comment><USER4> We never saw "DoomEd." In fact, I have no idea what it is. I assume it's a level editor?

<comment><USER9> Yeah, it is the original level editor for doom. It ran on NeXT. Many people built separate implementations, based on the reverse engineered wad format. Doombuilder, Slade, etc are examples. There's even one named 'DoomEd', it is, however, not related to the original, never-released one from id.

[http://doomwiki.org/wiki/DoomEd](http://doomwiki.org/wiki/DoomEd)

Thanks for your answer, so it really seems the sources never made it out of id. :(

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Great anecdote, I love the way he ends this post!

<comment><USER4> Thank you. Actually my programmer "Mila" suggested I fix the entry—for the first couple hours it ended with the bit about us doing other ports, which was pretty weak.</comment></comment>


Did an F-15 airplane successfully land with just one wing? - <AUTHOR> http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/9884/did-an-f-15-airplane-successfully-land-with-just-one-wing <comment><USER2> My Dad (retired air force) also forwarded this to me, which I found pretty interesting. One of the 'features' of the X-29[1] demonstrator (which was exploring dynamically unstable flight) was that it continued to fly in all sorts of 'outside the envelope' scenarios.

The part that amazes me though is that any human being can sit there and figure out that adding thrust or doing some other action helps or doesn't help when sitting in a chunk of steel that wants to hit the ground hard. I have total respect for folks who stay stone cold rational in the face of their imminent demise.

[1] [http://www.nasa.gov/centers/armstrong/news/FactSheets/FS-008...](http://www.nasa.gov/centers/armstrong/news/FactSheets/FS-008-DFRC.html#.UxoSXNuVuM8)

<comment><USER3> The thing is, it just sort of happens. It's not some massive effort to remain calm, but rather you just automatically focus. That's how people have described it, and it's been my own experience. I've never experienced anything close to this bad, but I've had a couple of aeronautical close scrapes and there's just no room for fear.

Edit: had the same experience in a car once as well. Total focus on solving the problem. Terror comes after.

<comment><USER4> Forethought (visualization) and training play a big part as well.

You reminded me of something that happened to me while driving a few years ago. I was on the highway in the far left lane going about 70mph. I was driving an Audi A4, which had much better (sensitive) handling than the pickup truck I was used to driving. There was a breakdown lane to the left of me (unusual for most highways) and I thought to myself, "if I suddenly needed to swerve out of the way for some reason, I could flick my wrist and get into the left breakdown lane to avoid whatever was happening in front of me".

Not more than a few seconds after having that thought, I saw the car in front of the car in front of me jump up onto the car in front of it. The car in front of me slammed on his brakes. I flicked my wrist to the left without thinking. Only when I passed (in the left breakdown lane) all the cars piled on top of each other did I realize just how closely I dodged a serious accident. If I had not visualized what I would do in such a scenario a few seconds earlier, I'm not sure if I would've done the same thing.

<comment><USER5> Good driving involves always being aware of safe exits if you need to make an evasive maneuver. It's a habit that comes well in handy as you say.

<comment><USER6> And safe following distances.

<comment><USER4> Plenty of close calls have taught me the value of always knowing my exits and always leaving plenty of space between me and the car in front of me (driving instructors often teach 1 car length for every 10 mph: 70 mph = 7 car lengths).

Unfortunately a lot of these rules only work if other drivers on the road are also following them (around here, in the Boston area, you'll be lucky to have 2 car lengths of space in front of you no matter your speed), so I've learned that simply being aware at all times (no phone, no distracting conversations, and holy hell no text messaging or emails) is the best thing anyone can do for improving their safety while behind the wheel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's always impressive to see pilots who are able to recover from seemingly impossible situations:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Transat_Flight_236](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Transat_Flight_236)

[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/4288383.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/4288383.stm)

More tales of derring-do that will be a thing of the past when everything is automated.

<comment><USER8> This one impressed me the most: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_232](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_232)

After a total hydraulic failure, the pilots still managed to land just using thrust difference between the two engines. I'm impressed anybody survived.

<comment><USER9> I've always been extremely impressed and awed by the pilots of the Gimli Glider.

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

<comment><USER10> "The aircraft's fuel gauges were inoperative because of an electronic fault which was indicated on the instrument panel and airplane logs (the pilots believed flight to be legal with this malfunction)."

Dudes, wtf? Unless Canadian regulations differ from US ones, you're not even allowed to fly a single-seater in day VFR without a fuel gauge.

<comment><USER11> this story is longer, I think: [http://www.damninteresting.com/the-gimli- glider/](http://www.damninteresting.com/the-gimli-glider/)

it explains why they flew without a fuel gauge. tl;dr - they knew the gauge was broken, but regs allowed the flight if the maintenance crew did a manual sounding of the tanks and the measured fuel was enough. they sounded and measured, but converted incorrectly between pounds and kilos. I think the pilots were severely disciplined for that failure.

<comment><USER9> They were disciplined by Air Canada as Air Canada held the pilots and ground crew at fault even though the Aviation Board found Air Canada at fault.

Their disciplinary action was later overturned and "the pilots were awarded the first ever Fédération Aéronautique Internationale Diploma for Outstanding Airmanship."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Kim Campbell landed a severely damaged A-10 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Campbell_(pilot)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Campbell_\(pilot\)) [http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com/Stories1/001-100/0016_...](http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com/Stories1/001-100/0016_A-10-battle- damage/story0016.htm)

The A-10 is designed to fly with one engine, one tail, one elevator, and half of one wing missing.

<comment><USER13> Mandatory A-10 worship post requirement satisfied. Now onto why guns > missiles, and how the SR-71 was really cool.

<comment><USER14> Hard to believe that the SR-71 is almost 50 years old and it's still the fastest plane in the world.

[Update] For some reason, I can't reply to the X-15 comment, so I'll add the extra info here. The X-15 is dropped from a B-52. There are a set of rules to qualify for the record. An unpowered scramjet dropped from another plane isn't going to quality either.

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

<comment><USER15> Does anyone know why the reply function breaks sometimes? Or is it a feature?

<comment><USER16> The deeper the nesting, the longer it takes a "Reply" link to show up. Wait a bit, reload, and it will be there, or follow the "link" link and it will be there immediately.

This is a deliberate feature to slow down "discussions" that are actually unproductive back-n-forth arguments.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> A better explanation is the adaptive fly by wire system used the remaining wing to generate some lift which would normally cause roll however it compensated by using tail's control surface. Combined with thrust vectoring a high angle of attack to maximize lift from the airframe and a ridiculous amount of thrust and you only need one wing.

PS: You can also fly an F-15 sideways the stall speed simply goes through the roof.

<comment><USER18> Neither the original F-15 nor the F-15D mentioned in the article have fly-by- wire, which is considered as a feature for the updated F-15SE Silent Eagle.

So interesting aerodynamics and mad flying skills, not fancy electronics :-)

<comment><USER19> I'd assumed the phrase "I reconnected the electric control to the control surfaces" referred to fly-by-wire, I guess it refers to something else?

<comment><USER20> See the descriptions of the PRCA and ARI here: [http://www.f15sim.com/operation/f15_hydro_mech.html](http://www.f15sim.com/operation/f15_hydro_mech.html).

When people use the phrase "fly by wire" they usually mean a system where the control stick feeds a digital signal into a computer, which controls the hydraulic servos for the control surfaces directly. The F-15 doesn't have that. Instead, what it has is a system where the stick is connected mechanically to the hydraulic system. On top of that, two electronic systems (the Pitch/Roll Channel Assembly and Aileron Rudder Interconnect) can provide an additional variable control input to the hydraulic actuators, to even out the feel of the stick in varying flight conditions. It also provides inputs to improve the dynamic flight characteristics of the plane: [http://www.f15sim.com/operation/f15_flight_control_system.ht...](http://www.f15sim.com/operation/f15_flight_control_system.htm) (see the paragraphs under "Control Augmentation System.")

So the F-15's control system provides additional electronic input to the control services to improve flight characteristics, but isn't totally in charge of the airplane in the same way as a true fly by wire system. For example, the electronics cannot move the control surfaces through their full range of motion, and are strictly reactive to the pilot's stick input.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This is not related, but still an interesting event. The Cornfield Bomber: An F-106 that went into a spin, pilot ejected, plane then managed to recover from spin and land itself.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3M2XZEYqIpQ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3M2XZEYqIpQ)

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

<comment><USER22> Thus demonstrating aeronautical symmetry: pilot landing w/o a wing, vs. wings landing w/o a pilot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> >No warning light was on and the navigation computer worked as usual; (I just needed a warning light in my panel to indicate that I missed a wing...)."

Hilarious.

<comment><USER24> Missed a wing is a rare event, but I find it strange that there are no warnings for all the control surfaces that are not there anymore

But then again it's a fighter jet, so maybe the "distraction level" is lower and too many warnings means eject.

<comment><USER25> Thea would need a percentage based hull integrity display.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> (domestic backing for the story)

This is a true story, known for years here in Israel.

The pilot, Zivi Nedivi, is a successful business man, has been running an hedge fund (AXION) and todays he's in charge at Cyalume [1][2].

This is the video with the pilot telling the story [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t739hAxWnxM](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t739hAxWnxM)

[1] [http://cyalume.com/](http://cyalume.com/) [2] [http://investor.cyalume.com/management.cfm](http://investor.cyalume.com/management.cfm)

</comment><comment><USER27> Interesting.

High speed aircraft can generate enough lift to fly just with the fuselage. Wings are really only needed for take-off and landing at low speeds.

You will notice that the F-15 pilot said he landed at high speed, 250 knots or so.

The F-14 Tomcat, F-111, and B-1 bomber have swing wings, which extend on take- off but retract for high-speed flight. The F-14's wing sweep has a computer control mode so that the wing sweep angle can change dynamically while the plane is maneuvering.

There are lots of stories about airplanes missing wings.

One of my instructors in flight training was flying an F-11 Tiger, and lost both wings during a high-G maneuver. He said that he noticed that the controls got "mushy". In a lot of jets, the horizontal tail surfaces can angle up or down independently and replace the "ailerons" normally on the wing outer edges. He reported a problem to the tower and did a fly-by. They told him his wings were gone. I don't know if he landed or ejected.

There have been numerous documented incidents where planes have launched from carriers with the wings folded. I know of cases where this has happened with A-1 and F-4 type aircraft.

When I was in the Mediterranean, I saw an F-4 land on the carrier with an outer wing panel (beyond the fold line) hanging straight down after a collision with a Russian Bear bomber.

I also saw an A-6 land at Naples air facility with a missing outer wing panel as a result of a collision somewhere over the Med.

The F-15 video was pretty impressive. It really shows how much lift is generated by the fuselage, and how at some point, the wings don't provide any lift but are just pure drag.

If you have enough thrust, you don't need any wings at all. But then it's not an "airplane" but a rocket.

</comment><comment><USER28> Hacker News seems to love fighter planes recently. They are pretty cool. However, there is one fighter plane that I absolutely hate everything about. The F35.

<comment><USER29> Care to elaborate?

<comment><USER28> It is a huge waste of money ~$200m each. The project has been plagued with technical problems (it doesn't meet its performance specifications, it has structural problems, etc.). It does not perform any better than current fighter planes in war game simulations. It is being made for a war that we will never fight with fighter planes. I wonder if America has fought its last human controlled air-to-air dog fight, or it will be extremely rare. And it was shoved down the Pentagon's throat by lobbyists. Take a look for yourself [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_II)

<comment><USER30> > I wonder if America has fought its last human controlled air-to-air dog > fight, or it will be extremely rare.

Yes. Drones and long-range weapons delivery (either high energy or SCRAM- driven missiles). Fighter jets? Might as well call out the buggy whips and horse drawn carriages.

Obligatory A-10 shoutout: We still need something that can provide air-to- ground support to ground troops with a long dwell time, but high-speed cruise to fast deployment (shamelessly stolen from The Avengers: [http://www.impdb.org/images/a/ae/Avengers2012CGI_2.jpg](http://www.impdb.org/images/a/ae/Avengers2012CGI_2.jpg)).

<comment><USER31> There is a F-35 variant that's designed to provide close air support, but it's the USMC variant and it's designed to replace the Harrier, which is little consolation to the Army.

Of course, designing the same airframe to replace both the Harrier and the F-16 is a ridiculous notion and the F-35 suffers for it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Kinda disappointed the total emphasis is on him being a "hell of a good pilot" instead of the control engineers who allowed the plane to compensate for losing a wing. There's no way that plane would have stayed in the air without their work.

<comment><USER33> Everyone would have been safe if they were on the ground without all that extra potential energy. Maybe it is the engineers' fault that they were in the air in the first place.

That said, I imagine being controllable while missing a wing was a side effect of the performance goals addressed with the fuselage's lift, or the design goals addressed with the width of fuselage relative to the wingspan. Flightworthiness without a wing probably was not a goal, though we can assume that many features such as the one-way fuel valves that make it able to sustain inflicted damage were very important to its survivability in this case.

It sounds like the pilot adapted his tools and equipment, and successfully used them in a situation they were not designed for. If you develop some innovative software, it may not have worked without the specific compiler you used, but that isn't the same as saying the person who wrote the compiler wrote your software. It is difficult to tell from the story whether landing was something that very pilots could have done, or whether it was a more or less natural response to the feedback he was getting from the aircraft in the cockpit.

<comment><USER34> If you go back far enough eventually some germ will get the credit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I had no idea there was a skeptics stackexchange site. That's very cool (although not as cool as landing a plane with one wing).

It will be interesting to see if this site has any effect on Snopes.com

</comment><comment><USER36> "Passengers may notice a slight reduction in the number of wings" \-- Bob Newhart

<comment><USER37> "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too much distress."

Actual announcement from a BA 747 flight:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_9](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_9)

<comment><USER38> Wow. You have to love the British...

<comment><USER39> "Quiet desperation is the English way..."[1]

[1] [http://www.pink-floyd-lyrics.com/html/time-dark- lyrics.html](http://www.pink-floyd-lyrics.com/html/time-dark-lyrics.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> This reminds me of a case study sponsored by DARPA where a plane that suffered significant damage to a wing could still land when autonomous systems took over.

Here's a link explaining the project: [https://www.rockwellcollins.com/sitecore/content/Data/Succes...](https://www.rockwellcollins.com/sitecore/content/Data/Success_Stories/DARPA_Damage_Tolerance.aspx)

And here's a youtube clip showing a demonstration of the system. A UAV has part of it's wing removed mid-air and the plane manages to land. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGiPNV1TR5k](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGiPNV1TR5k)

</comment><comment><USER41> For people that missed the wiki page about the incident: [http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Negev_mid- air_collision](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Negev_mid-air_collision)

</comment><comment><USER42> Also about this incident: "Nedivi (the pilot) reportedly was demoted for disobeying his instructor's order to eject and immediately thereafter promoted for saving his airplane—which two months later was repaired and flying again." [1]

[1] [http://www.historynet.com/the-10-greatest-emergency- landings...](http://www.historynet.com/the-10-greatest-emergency-landings.htm)

</comment><comment><USER43> Why doesn't the pilot eject and let the plane crash? Is the plane more valuable than the pilot's life? (A damaged plane, no less.)

<comment><USER3> Ejection isn't a get out of jail free card. I've heard it described as being just _barely_ preferable to crashing. There's a decent chance of significant injury and even death in an ejection.

<comment><USER44> This poor fellow did it at supersonic speeds and lived: [http://jalopnik.com/5894022/what-happens-when-you-eject- out-...](http://jalopnik.com/5894022/what-happens-when-you-eject-out-of-a-jet- at-800-mph)

<comment><USER3> Here's one who ejected slash got thrown out of the airplane at over mach 3:

[http://www.916-starfighter.de/SR-71_Waever.htm](http://www.916-starfighter.de/SR-71_Waever.htm)

He lived, his back-seater did not.

I recall seeing someone run the numbers, and it turns out that the guy in your link had it worse, as the much lower altitude more than made up for the lower speed.

<comment><USER44> Wow, thanks for the link. What an astounding story.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I apologize in advance for posting rather far off topic but I am compelled.

Did anyone else who watched the Youtube video have trouble following the dialogue due to the 'background' music? It seemed entirely too loud in the mix for me. The fact that the highest quality was 240p means the audio was also low quality, I'm too lazy to look it up but likely 64kbps or less. Perhaps that is also relevant.

Not to be discounted is the fact of my age and the fact that I stopped watching television some years ago. Which is the cause and which the effect is not entirely clear to me.

</comment><comment><USER46> The F-15 is an amazing plane. It blows my mind that it can accelerate in a 100% vertical climb.

I've heard stories about A-10 warthogs landing on one wing, too.

<comment><USER47> _It blows my mind that it can accelerate in a 100% vertical climb._

Not to diminish this feat, because it is indeed impressive, but it's a natural consequence of having a thrust:weight ratio significantly greater than 1. It's also _horrendously_ expensive in fuel.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Wait... how did the pilot not know he lost a wing?

<comment><USER3> Well, how would he? He was too busy flying the airplane to look, and the wing is well behind the pilot in this plane.

<comment><USER38> The video also says that his co-pilot could not see the damage due to fuel spilling out in a plume and covering the area where the wing should be.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Partially being facetious here, but if he were a "hell of a good pilot" wouldn't this landing not have had to happen? That said it's pretty impressive that he managed to pull this off

<comment><USER50> Remember that the plane he collided with was being piloted by someone else. I haven't found any evidence to suggest it was the other pilot's fault, but nothing points to this pilot's negligence either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> In thrust we trust.

</comment><comment><USER52> Thank you John Boyd and McDonnell Douglas.

</comment><comment><USER53> Yes, The answer is body lift + speed.

</comment><comment><USER54> The still @ 3.28-29 is surreal.

</comment><comment><USER55> the shape of the F-15 isn't exactly unique. but yes.

</comment><comment><USER56> Am I missing something? Why is this and other articles about planes doing on Hacker News?

I like planes, but I thought this site was about internet startups?

<comment><USER56> Wow. Downvoted. This place really has changed.</comment></comment>


Yahoo's Marissa Mayer: Hail to the Chief - <AUTHOR> http://www.vogue.com/magazine/article/hail-to-the-chief-yahoos-marissa-mayer/#1

<comment><USER2> >It was far from clear that a six-months-pregnant, 37-year-old Google engineer and first-time CEO could remove the air of irony that had attached itself to Yahoo's purple exclamation point.

I had to stop reading here. If anything, in my little segment of the world, the Yahoo! purchase of Tumblr made them more of a joke. By looking over the acquisition history for Y!, it's quite clear that they're quite skilled at buying hard to monetize, existing services, and reporting a loss.</comment>


Ask HN: will iOS 9 support cmd+tab app switching on bluetooth keyboards? - <AUTHOR>

Tab selection of inputs? (not VoiceOver) <comment><USER2> That's what Craig showed in the iOS 9 walk through.</comment>


California to list glyphosate as cancer-causing - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-glyphosate-california-idUSKBN19H2K1 <comment><USER2> Here's the current California Prop 65 list. It's... extensive.

[https://oehha.ca.gov/media/downloads/proposition-65//p65sing...](https://oehha.ca.gov/media/downloads/proposition-65//p65single01272017.pdf)

I don't think this means as much as the headline makes it sound like. In the State of California, alcoholic beverages are also carcinogens requiring warnings.

California cognitive dissonance: the science suggesting carcinogenicity of acrylamide, which is present --- in significant amounts --- in most cooked food and especially roasted meat and potatoes, is far firmer than the science suggesting that glyphosate is a human carcinogen. It'll be awhile before California Prop 65's a bag of potatoes, though, won't it? _but see below, where it turns out I 'm wrong about this_

<comment><USER3> Yep. Just a clarification: supermarkets, restaurants, bars, and coffee houses already have a single sign warning about cancer-causing agents per Prop 65. The "bag of potatoes" in your example would not have to be individually labeled. The Prop 65 warnings are basically invisible to Californians because they are literally posted everywhere food is sold.

<comment><USER4> If everything has a warning on it, what's the point?

<comment><USER5> The proposition was perhaps a good idea that was horribly executed. The idea is to get companies to stop using potentially dangerous chemicals, so the proposition required that companies give a warning if they use any of a set of chemicals on a certain list. Which might be okay, except it has several problems:

* Private citizens are able to initiate civil enforcement and collect penalties; it's not limited to regulatory agencies. Which virtually guarantees that enforcement is going to be about milking money rather than trying to actually reduce harm.

* There's no consideration for dosing, anywhere. So a potential trace contamination is considered as equal a violation as dumping vats of the stuff in the public water system.

* The requirement for listing a chemical is .001% of causing cancer of 70 years. That is a ridiculously low bar, which means many low-risk chemicals are going to be swept up.

* There's no danger for excessive labelling, and the labels remove the liability for violations.

Taken together, it's a recipe for companies to just slap the warning on everything.

<comment><USER6> _was perhaps a good idea that was horribly executed._

This describes some rather large fraction of laws, period.

<comment><USER7> It also describes California's entire proposition system!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Last time roundup came up here I made the claim that it killed my dad (healthy guy, came from a healthy long lived family, he died about 15-20 years sooner than his relatives from the cancer that is associated with roundup, you can google "non-hodgkin's lymphoma roundup" and you'll see a zillion lawyers wanting to talk to you about it).

Yet hackernews people shouted me down saying that it wasn't possible. I'm not an oncologist, I have no idea who is right, it was my Dad who told me he was convinced it was roundup, so what do I know? But it is weird that now the state of California sees it as carcinogen, the lawyers are salivating over it (not that they are oncologists either but they tend not to get excited unless they believe they will win), yet I'm sure people are going to reply that roundup is fine.

I don't know what to believe. It sure _seems_ like there is some bad juju in roundup, there shouldn't be this much fuss if it is just a conspiracy theory. But who are the people here that keep defending it? It would be oh-so-nice if someone who was clearly objective and an expert could lay it out. Does it cause cancer? How much do you have to be exposed to to get cancer? Do you have to eat it? Or does just getting it on your skin or breathing the fumes do it?

<comment><USER2> There's very little epidemiological evidence to suggest glyphosate is a human carcinogen. Millions of people are exposed to it, some in significant amounts on work sites. If there's any correlation between heavy occupational exposure to glyphosate and human cancer, it's very weak.

Similarly: there's not a lot of first-principles logic to carcinogenicity of glyphosate. It's active in a metabolic pathway that animals don't have.

Finally, there's a lot of fuzz around glyphosate that would lead us to be skeptical of its danger. In particular: glyphosate is most closely associated with genetic modification and Monsanto (part of the appeal of glyphosate is that you can genetically engineer plants that resist it). But glyphosate itself is not a product of genetic engineering!

It's not impossible that glyphosate is a human carcinogen! But it's not impossible that a lot of things are carcinogens. To be intellectually consistent about the precautionary response to glyphosate, you're going to have to get rid of a whole lot of other features of modern life as well.

Acrylamide, which is produced in basically all human dry-heat cooking, is a _known_ human carcinogen. The science behind the risks of acrylamide is, relative to that surrounding glyphosate, very solid. But we're never going to "ban" acrylamide, or, realistically, do anything to mitigate our exposure to it.

In that light, it seems reasonable to push back on public policy interventions for a useful chemical that has, based on current evidence, much less risk than "almost all cooked food".

<comment><USER9> First, research is showing it has sub-lethal effects on many species of animals, particularly pollinators like bees where field-realistic doses can significantly reduce colony performance. Second, glyphosate persists and drifts easily from 'controlled' plants to nearby wild habitat, destroying and eroding critical forage.

Glyphosate is hugely responsible for the conversion of massive amounts of land into corn and soy cropland, where reduced pollinator habitat actually reduces crop yields (or requires more agricultural abuses like migratory honeybees).

To say this is a useful chemical is misleading. It's designed to kill things and like all such chemicals, there are significant tradeoffs, regardless of whether it is directly carcinogenic to humans.

<comment><USER10> Uhm, glyphosate doesn't affect pollinators.[1] It's an herbicide. And drift that reduces "critical forage"? That's not even part of the glyphosate controversy. Glyphosate either works on a plant or it doesn't. Where you're killing your neighbor's plants by drift, you're going to get a citation or sued or both.

[1] [https://goo.gl/lGpC1k](https://goo.gl/lGpC1k)

<comment><USER9> > Uhm, glyphosate doesn't affect pollinators.

It does affect pollinators, show in some examples of recent research [1][2], and effects on other non-insect animal species like frogs [3] and fish [4][5]. We may not know why it does yet, but there is plenty of evidence. This is just a tiny sampling.

> And drift that reduces "critical forage"? That's not even part of the > glyphosate controversy.

This is very much part of the controversy. As one example, glyphosate has been linked to decline of milkweed habitat, significantly impacting monarch butterflies. The NRDC petitioned the EPA in 2015 to restrict the use because of this [6]. Just because of the widespread application in agricultural and urban areas, drift and runoff contaminate large areas of habitat, impacting countless non-target species of both plant and animal.

One could also draw the conclusion that glyphosate-tolerant corn and soy have been particularly responsible for the conversion of over 150 million acres of land (almost the size of Texas) into food or biofuel development in the last ~25 years. This land is no longer animal/pollinator friendly and is leading to a rapid decline in plant/pollinator relationships.

[1] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25063858](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25063858) [2] [http://jeb.biologists.org/content/jexbio/218/17/2799.full.pd...](http://jeb.biologists.org/content/jexbio/218/17/2799.full.pdf) [3] [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1890/11-0189.1/abstrac...](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1890/11-0189.1/abstract) [4] [http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/es404258h](http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/es404258h) [5] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17933590](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17933590) [6] [https://www.nrdc.org/media/2015/150624](https://www.nrdc.org/media/2015/150624)

<comment><USER10> The milkweed concern isn't over drift. It's over monocultures, which is a different argument entirely. As for studies 1 and 2 below, I'll look into them more, but as cited above, there's also plenty of science indicating the opposite.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I really hate Prop 65. Those warnings appear everywhere without a strong scientific basis backing their claims, so not only does everyone ignore the warnings, it drowns out the real important ones. Those cavalier exaggerations erode public trust.

<comment><USER12> yes. it's the boy who cried wolf.

one building may have some asbestos fibers in the interior of its walls, used as, say pipe insulation many decades ago. the asbestos is contained and does not enter the air.

another building, say, an auto body repair shop, may have organic solvent vapors floating around at a relatively high concentration on a daily basis.

both have the prop 65 warning. which one should i prefer to work in?

(the real answer is i don't know and i don't care because, like most Californians, i don't pay any attention to those signs. i don't even know what they mean. it's all noise to me. i think i'll have two bags of potato chips on my lunch break today.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Seems to me that the evidence surrounding this isn't strong enough to warrant designating glyphosate as "cancer-causing" for humans, but the evidence surrounding the adverse effects in animals is pretty strong (based on my skimming of the wikipedia article: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyphosate#Humans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyphosate#Humans)).

Would like to hear thoughts from anyone close to the matter, I'm sure you have a different perspective than I.

<comment><USER14> After this disaster: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A9ralini_affair](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A9ralini_affair) I'm _very_ skeptical about claims of glyphosate being "cancer-causing" (whatever that means when no measure of effect size is mentioned), even in animals.

<comment><USER15> Why? Flawed studies get run all the time. If you see a flawed study about bat flight, does that make you more skeptical about all bat flight studies?

Do you get joy from hippies being wrong? That's probably going to cause huge biases in your science reading.

<comment><USER16> The point being it is the only study that seemed to point to a link to cancer. But it was hugely flawed and was retracted. Given the hysteria over roundup you would think there were a bunch of such studies.

<comment><USER17> Reminds me of aspartame. It's probably the only drug that's been studied more than glyphosate as a result of bad science causing public outrage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> California thinks EVERYTHING is cancer causing. I took my kids to Disneyland last year and right after the security screen there was a Prop 65 sign saying (roughly) that "Disneyland contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer". How is that helpful at all?

<comment><USER19> It's as helpful as the cookie notifications on all the European websites.

<comment><USER20> EU Cookie law was mostly to deter the use of tracking tools (and actually allows them for login etc) but people ignored it and just slapped banners on.

<comment><USER21> Stupid real people creating unintended consequences for the well-meaning legislators. How's a legislator to regulate anything around here ?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I switched from using RoundUp to a vinegar/salt/dish soap solution this summer and can't believe how well it works.

It seems to be just as effective as RoundUp.

<comment><USER23> Depending on the vinegar/soap it may contain alcohol which is known carcinogen where glyphosates are a suspected carcinogen. On toxicity, acetic acid in vinegar is pretty high and associated with things like osteoporosis which has been seen in people who consume apple cider vinegar on a daily basis. Along the same lines LD50 of glyphosates is 10,000mg/kg where acetic acid in vinegar is fatal at 3000mg/kg.

<comment><USER24> LD50 and carcinogenesis have very little to do with each other.

<comment><USER23> Both are related to mortality.

<comment><USER24> Yes, and the topic of discussion is most assuredly _not_ : which will make you drop dead while using it.

Rather, it's "which will give you cancer through long-term exposure".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I've already switched to vinegar, salt, and a pump sprayer from lowes, it's cheaper and i can buy gallons and pounds of it from costco

<comment><USER16> but probably more toxic than glyphosphate. [https://geneticliteracyproject.org/wp- content/uploads/2014/0...](https://geneticliteracyproject.org/wp- content/uploads/2014/04/toxicity-table4.png)

<comment><USER26> And more detrimental to soil life (though maybe that's exactly the point here)

<comment><USER25> i only use the soap + vinegar + salt on the driveway, and just the soap + vinegar on the "drought friendly" gravel backyard

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Avoiding the various herbicides and pesticides is the reason everyone I know who eats organic and non-GMO food does so.

As always you should do your own research, draw your own conclusions. Be aware there is a shocking amount of astroturfing on this topic.

<comment><USER2> Ironically, by avoiding "GMO foods", your friends are probably increasing their exposure to herbicides that have a much clearer connection to human health risks.

<comment><USER27> That would be ironic and sounds interesting, do you have a source that demonstrates organic food increases herbicide exposure?

<comment><USER2> Please respond to what my comment actually said, not what you wish it said.

<comment><USER27> > Ironically, by avoiding "GMO foods", your friends are probably increasing > their exposure to herbicides that have a much clearer connection to human > health risks.

I am responding to that comment from you. I'd love to read about how avoiding "GMO foods" increases exposure to herbicides, do you have any information on that?

<comment><USER28> > I'd love to read about how avoiding "GMO foods" increases exposure to > herbicides,

The OP comment doesn't say that.

It says that probably is increasing their exposure more toxic herbicides, not that is increasing the exposure to herbicides

<comment><USER27> > It says that probably is increasing their exposure more toxic herbicides

OK, that sounds very interesting, can you show me the supporting data?

<comment><USER28> I don't have any data and I'm not the one making the claim, I just was correcting a misunderstanding about the claim

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Even when I've been outside of California I've noticed the "known to the State of California to cause..." warnings. I wonder why

<comment><USER30> It's because most products in the US are sold in multiple states, including California, and the logistics of ensuring your "known to cause cancer in California" warnings are only printed on the "California version" of those products just isn't worth the effort. Better to just have one version of your product that can be sold in any state.

<comment><USER29> Aha! Thanks for explaining.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Would this affect produce in a grocery store? I thought the pesticide was supposed to be mostly gone by the time the product is harvested. I mean there are stories of farmers blasting it on crops later in the cycle but those seem to be an exception.

<comment><USER5> Pesticide residue is absolutely not a concern. If you're still terrified of it, just rinse your fruit and vegetables off first, and that will eliminate it.

Glyphosate itself really isn't a problem unless you're dealing with 55-gallon drums of it on a regular basis (and even then, the evidence is less than compelling). But such is chemophobia that we can't treat repercussions in an industrial settings with solely OSHA-style rules but must freak out about it even in situations where it's clearly not an issue.

<comment><USER31> Oh, I meant the labeling requirements. How much glyphosate is allowed to be on the produce before they have to label it? Or once the food has been touched, is it tainted forever (legally speaking)?

<comment><USER5> As far as I can tell from Proposition 65... any amount is sufficient to necessitate a label.

The current law states: [the requirements to not expose anyone to such a chemical are waived for] an exposure for which the person responsible can show that the exposure poses no significant risk assuming lifetime exposure at the level in question for substances known to the state to cause cancer, and that the exposure will have no observable effect assuming exposure at one thousand (1000) times the level in question for substances known to the state to cause reproductive toxicity, based on evidence and standards of comparable scientific validity to the evidence and standards which form the scientific basis for the listing of such chemical pursuant to subdivision (a) of Section 25249.8. In any action brought to enforce Section 25249.6, the burden of showing that an exposure meets the criteria of this subdivision shall be on the defendant.

So basically, the minimum amount you need to label is the minimum amount you'd be unable to convince a jury that exposure to is safe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I switched from glyphosate to a mix of diquat dibromide, fluazifop-p-butyl and dicamba (sold under the brand of Spectracide) but I don't know if that's any better.

</comment><comment><USER33> Last time I looked, there was no solid evidence against glyphosate. Has the situation changed? Or is California reacting off of hype?

<comment><USER2> From what I can tell, everything that's been published since the IARC publication has been in the direction of glyphosate not being carcinogenic. As well: the World Health Organization walked IARC's claim back in a subsequent publication.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> The "you may be entitled to compensation" ads are already out in full force.

</comment><comment><USER27> (nevermind)

<comment><USER2> Don't comment like that here:

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=author:dang%20astroturf&sort=b...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=author:dang%20astroturf&sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment)

<comment><USER27> It was mostly a joke, but I get your point and it's fair enough.

Here is some interesting reading instead:

[http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-20...](http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-2045%2815%2970134-8/abstract)

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4756530/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4756530/)

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25801782/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25801782/)

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/?term=glyphosate+cancer](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/?term=glyphosate+cancer)

[http://www.nytimes.com/1991/09/04/us/lawn-herbicide- called-c...](http://www.nytimes.com/1991/09/04/us/lawn-herbicide-called- cancer-risk-for-dogs.html)

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22222006](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22222006)

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/?term=2%2C4-D+cancer](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/?term=2%2C4-D+cancer)

<comment><USER2> It's not a joke. It's like the 4th comment you've posted on this thread claiming that people who disagree with you must be paid shills.

As for your links: the ones actually about glyphosate are all based on IARC's assessment, which the WHO was later forced to walk back (see upthread). The remainder are about herbicides that aren't glyphosate. Nobody is arguing that all herbicides are safe. The discussion is about whether glyphosate is a human carcinogen. The evidence suggests: probably not.

<comment><USER27> (nevermind)

<comment><USER10> Commonly? 2,4-D is a selective herbicide, and glyphosate is not. In most circumstances, adding 2,4-D to glyphosate would be burning money. And if you're going to target broadleafs, you would not, of course, add glyphosate. They're rarely used together. And even if they were commonly mixed, is your argument really that the carcinogenicity of one should be attributed to the other?

<comment><USER27> I'm always amazed at the level of specific knowledge people have on random topics on hackernews, it's why this is one of the best discussion communities online.

(nevermind)

(nevermind)

(nevermind)

<comment><USER10> While Enlist blends the two, 2,4-D resistant GMOs are brand new and still rarely used. I'm not as familiar with the toxicity/carcinogenicity of 2,4-D, but I think it's fair to confine this conversation to the carcinogenicity of glyphosate as that's the focus of the CA proposal.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Ling Language – Modular and Precise Resource Management - <AUTHOR> https://nicolaspouillard.fr/talks/ling-32c3 <comment><AUTHOR> 32c3 talk [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dagxIy4ZNSQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dagxIy4ZNSQ)

</comment><comment><USER2> In the software verification community, it is quite common to supplement every new approach with a real-world case study. I wish this practice were more common in the PL world (and especially in the FP world) -- though I realize the cost of a case study are much higher when a new language is involved -- because here's the general problem with a language that relies so heavily on advanced type systems:

We know that verifying any property of a program has a computational complexity cost, and we know that that cost is _very_ high (the problem is PSPACE-complete even for languages that are very far from Turing complete). When types are involved and the program's property is correct by construction, that complexity does not go away (it can't; that would violate a mathematical law), it is just transferred elsewhere: to the machine doing the constructing. So when I come up with an algorithm and decide to verify one of its properties by encoding it in the type -- in Ling, Idris or whatever -- the verification complexity is incurred by the machine performing the verification, which is composed of two parts: the compiler, which shares just a bit of the burden, and my brain, which incurs the lion's share. So coming up with a new type system (like built-in session types) is basically coming up with a new verification algorithm that is to be run by the human brain. As we know the complexity of general verification is humongous, all we can hope for -- as with any verification approach -- is that our approach would be tractable for a certain class of programs (which is why verification algorithms require case-studies). So as we run our verification algorithm not on a von Neumann machine but on a biological computer, we need to study how our approach runs on that machine; without such a study, our approach is no more than a conjecture of effectiveness. Not that raising conjectures isn't interesting, but it's a far cry from showing the way forward.

A type system that is not accompanied by results of the effectiveness of its verification algorithm on the machine that's going to run it -- namely our brains -- is an outline of an algorithm with no complexity analysis or any actual runs on a computer. A type system without a case study is no more than saying "this is an algorithm which we _believe_ may be effective on such-and- such inputs". The only possible response is to say, "hmm, interesting!" and to move on, because we really have no way of evaluating this.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm going to ask these here because I don't know where to ask them. Because HNers are smart. Please don't think this is off-topic!

1) What would a database system look like that had an advanced type system that could specify user defined data types? Is this what an object-oriented db is? Is this possible with graph databases? Relational databases? Hierarchical databases?

2) What would type reusability look like? Not code reusability, not object reusability, but type reusability. Does this even make sense?

3) Would it be possible for multiple different languages to share a type system?

4) Would it be possible for the one language to have multiple type systems? (Pluggable, modular, if you see what I mean)

Thanks!

<comment><USER4> 1\. disregarding "advanced" because thats subjective, you can think of a new type in a relational database as a table, where instances of that type are rows.

2\. assuming by type reusability you mean something like polymorphism, sql affords subtype polymorphism through "disjoint subtyping" which means a single table which tracks multiple sub-tables, with a single entry existing in at most 1 of these sub-tables. sql also offers a limited row polymorphism through select and views.

3\. assuming you're talking about all programming languages, yes. that doesn't mean instances of those types are shareable between languages.

4\. yes. several interpreted languages have competing and optional type systems.</comment></comment>


Supercomputer cracks sixty-trillionth binary digit of Pi-squared - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/02/supercomputer-cracks-sixty-trillionth-binary-digit-of-pi-squared/

<comment><USER2> seems like those cycles could have been better spent protein folding or looking for aliens or something</comment>


Graph Isomorphism update - <AUTHOR> http://people.cs.uchicago.edu/~laci/update.html <comment><USER2> This update is actually a big deal. The algorithm runs in subexponential time, but not quasipolynomial time after all.

</comment><comment><USER3> Update on the update: quasipolynomial claim restored

[http://people.cs.uchicago.edu/~laci/update.html](http://people.cs.uchicago.edu/~laci/update.html)

</comment><comment><USER4> This work was heralded all over the internet when it came out. Here's some great HN discussions: [1] on a blog post by Jeremy Kun, and [2] on a Quanta Magazine article. Kun has already updated his post to reflect the retracted claim.

A little disappointing that it's not quasipolynomial, but subexponential is still a great achievement! It means, as Babai says, the asymptotic complexity is better than e^(n^epsilon)) for any epsilon > 0\. Have a look at the graph of e^(n^0.01) for huge n to get an idea of what this is like.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10553879](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10553879)

[2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10731022](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10731022)</comment>


NYC cops did a work stop, yet crime dropped - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.co.uk/science/2017/09/nyc-cops-did-a-work-stop-yet-crime-dropped/ <comment><USER2> The article deflates its own headline:

 _During the slowdown, police continued to respond to calls, and the arrest rate for major crimes (murder, rape, robbery, felony assault, burglary, grand larceny, and grand theft auto) remained constant. But the arrest rate for non- major crime and narcotic offenses dropped, as did the number of stop-and-frisk events._

So the crime that dropped was that which the cops stopped pursuing because there were no calls about it. No action means no official, recordable data.

There's a lot of shady and shoddy data in the social "science" around crime. As has been said more generally, torture the data enough and it will tell you whatever you want to hear. IMHO, the best indicator to look at is murder rate, because there is a body which has to be dealt with and accounted for in the stats, despite any political pressures.

<comment><USER3> >in the social "science" around crime

This is likely to provoke strong reactions from people who think you're against social science as a whole, but you raise an important point: much of what passes for academic social science is political activism in disguise.

<comment><USER4> Especially the closer you get to certain topics (like crime).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The _reports_ of crime dropped.

<comment><USER6> Yeah and the whole point of the article is to discuss why. Thanks for your contribution anyways

<comment><USER7> The headline says "crime dropped". It's clearly misleading, parent is just correcting it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Researchers are now arguing about what this tells us."

Don't we have like tons of history showing us that police doesn't actually exist to fight crime? Not much to argue about, unless you believe in government propaganda.

</comment><comment><USER9> One question seems to have been left unexplored: why did the stoppage stop? Could it have been that police themselves observed by the drop in crime how superfluous or even deleterious their usual contributions to society must be? "We've got to get back to work, or else there will be much less work to get back to!"

</comment><comment><USER10> What was the purpose of this article? It didn't give a definitive conclusion either way nor did it give enough information to discuss intelligently.

</comment><comment><USER11> That's Huffington Post level of reporting.

</comment><comment><USER12> Yeah, crimes dropped because cops aren't reporting in to work, thus not reporting to file crime rates. — in other news, the water is wet.

</comment><comment><USER13> Is arstechnica broken for anyone else? Every time I scroll down, the page slowly scrolls back up.

<comment><USER14> Browser? Have seen some odd behavior since I updated to safari 11

<comment><USER13> Chrome on windows</comment></comment></comment>


Drone testing to come to 6 states - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/video/drone-testing-coming-to-six-states-jobs-to-follow-jZE4LzVnSVqqlbw4NkOZQw.html

<comment><AUTHOR> I can't understand why the American people are not protesting drone use.

Given everything learned about US govt surveillance and their obvious intentions is it not absolutely crazy to let this happen?

<comment><USER2> This is to test private/commercial applications, not government.

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually if you watched it, the claimed purpose is not for commercial, bloomberg is just trying to tie that link for reporting purposes.

Besides that, it's a govt run op... do the math.</comment></comment></comment>


Cambridge pushes back against bankers' censorship - <AUTHOR> http://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2010/12/25/a-merry-christmas-to-all-bankers/

<comment><AUTHOR> Just realised that's a dup of

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2039117></comment>


Success is complex, Failure is a no-brainer - <AUTHOR> http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/004674.html

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure I fully buy this argument.

First of all, it puts down failure as something inferior. Failure is a natural step to success. Calling it a no-brainer devalues its incredibly valuable teachings. I have a chance at being successful in my current start-up in part because of the issues I had in my previous one.

Secondly, it over-simplifies the definition of success. Is wandering the oppressive halls of a Microsoft really success? Sure, for Bill Gates, Microsoft is a success. But it didn't become a success through the oppressiveness of its halls - the most valuable game-changing moves happened long before it was a huge mega-corporation, when it was busy building things like MS DOS and Windows and setting up all the dominos to fall in the right place.

It's an interesting thought overall, but I don't really see the value of applying it so directly to business or careers.

<comment><AUTHOR> My understanding of the post is that one single mistake might be enough to ruin your business or career. To grow and succeed, you have to get everything right. Or at least the majority of things. And this gets more and more complex.

I totally agree with you, failures can be very valuable, as long as you learn from them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> When starting a company in the beginning it's really clear what success means: Hitting payroll and staying alive.

Once you clear that hurdle it get's a lot more complicated. No longer is it black and white. Alive or Dead.

It's actually easier to live on the edge, though far less desirable. Things are a lot more clear.</comment>


Study: Traffic lights should respond to cars, not the other way around - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/63481/title/To_tame_traffic,_go_with_the_flow

<comment><USER4> Not to sound like a radical libertarian but imagine a world in which roads were operated with some sense of incentives to actually MOVE TRAFFIC THROUGH.

Lets have Tolls - but you get a refund when you are delayed. I imagine construction would suddenly be done 24/7 and be finished in half the time. Traffic light systems would be heavily automated/AI so that there isn't much traffic.

Instead they give out construction contracts to the "cheapest", which ignores all of the wasted time and gas the public endures in traffic, a secondary cost of the project.

<comment><USER5> Almost every place I've lived in the US construction does occur 24 hours, but maybe not 7. Commute and daily traffic require it. Maybe you're just not out 24/7 to see it?

Most traffic systems are automated and their goal is to MOVE TRAFFIC THROUGH. The minimal use sensors in the roads to help determine when to switch lights. The most advanced are integrated and use many metrics and algorithms in controlling traffic signals <http://trafficinfo.lacity.org/html/atsac_1.html>

<comment><USER6> While their goal is to MOVE TRAFFIC THROUGH, they move it in the worst possible way. Ask any traffic official, they program the system to limit the speed of the vehicles, rather than help them find the most effecient. This "safety feature" leads to exactly what the article cites: stop lights that inhibit someone from going too far without stopping or at least slowing down.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> A sort of vague way to do the green wave, but okay I guess. But -- and I say this in all seriousness -- one of my PhD graduate students had a far more interesting and elegant technique five years ago.

In short: each car has a piggy bank. As you're sitting at a red traffic light, it dispenses tokens into your piggy bank. When you go through a green traffic light you have to give some tokens back. Here's the catch: when deciding who to give the green to, a traffic light awards the green light to the compatible set of lanes which have cars with the most total tokens. [Also: tokens expire. And emergency vehicles can be given infinite tokens].

Thus if you've been waiting at a zillion reds, you'll accumulate enough tokens to force your way through green lights later on. The idea is to spread the pain.

<http://cs.gmu.edu/~sean/papers/aamas06-traffic.pdf>

<comment><USER8> It's a good idea but would really require the car to have interaction with the system, or the system to read and interpret individual cars (to assign the token).

I think the advantage with the system shown is they are only measuring throughput rather than keeping tabs on individual cars. Thus I assume it's an easier problem to solve.

<comment><USER7> Well yes and no. Our proposal wasn't to keep tabs on cars. There's no tracking whatsoever. Lights have no idea of knowing where you have been or who you are: you're just telling them how much pain you've been suffering in the near past. The tokens aren't marked -- they're simply currency so to speak.

The approach does require two-way communication between cars and nearby traffic lights. But the approaches that various people are suggesting, including this article, largely rely on communication as well: just one-way. The lights generally need to be able to detect cars approaching and at quite a distance. This requires the cars announcing their presence: either the lights have a sophisticated sensor system ( _lots_ of plates in the road, or a vision system) or -- more likely -- the cars need to have beacons installed which let the lights know they're coming. A great many of these methods also benefit from knowing not only that cars are approaching but where they intend to go -- are they going to turn left or right or straight -- well before they get into their lanes. This requires additional signaling.

What Gabriel Balan picked up on, is that to make the system fairer _and_ more efficient, you need to be able to transfer historical information from light to light. Not only information about how many cars are coming, but what their previous histories were. If you don't want the lights communicating with one another -- essentially tracking your car -- you can do what he did: have the cars build up a history on their own and relay that to the lights as they approach them.

<comment><USER8> I understand what you're saying. I think in your design you can keep it essentially one-way without needing anything on the car. This could be done by reading the plate and assigning it to the system, which would then allow tokens to be added/subtracted on the system side only. This does, however, mean that all the traffic lights are hooked up together, but still this is much easier than asking that all cars be modified.

The congestion charging system in London works in a very similar way - <USER2> doesn't pretend to know when a car is going to come in or out - just reads the plate and stores it in the database.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Radical, but there's only one word needed here.

ROUNDABOUT. Build some.

<comment><USER10> I live in a small midwestern town that has recently taken to the idea of roundabouts. At first, I was extremely pleased (having good experiences with them in Paris/French HW systems) but I quickly became discouraged when I realized that 90% of drivers had no idea what they were doing.

I now avoid certain routes through town because I'm afraid of getting in an accident.

<comment><USER11> What's so hard to get for those people? Roundabouts seem simple enough to me (though I may be biased, coming from Europe and now living in Britain).

<comment><USER12> The roundabouts near me seem to be working well...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> In plenty of countries this is a reality already. Sensors are placed anywhere from a few meters to hundreds of meters ahead of the actual lights to determine the flow of traffic, there are 'green waves' which you can synchronize with to guarantee uninterrupted passage (both for congestion control and to save fuel) and there are adjustments made based on the expected flow from different routes depending on the time of day.

The future, in this sense at least, has already arrived.

Sure there are plenty of places where this is not common yet, but infrastructure upgrades are expensive.

<comment><USER14> The wire sensor buried in the pavement has been around since the 1960's, and nothing has improved since then.

You don't need to place sensors anymore, a simple camera can do it.

<comment><USER13> It's a bit more involved than that, nowadays there are many sensors instead of just one to detect a waiting car in front of the light, the speed gets measured as well as the number of vehicles.

As for a 'simple' camera, nothing that you deploy in all weather conditions is ever simple if it is to operate reliably.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Getting rid of cars as much as possible in congested areas is the best way. Promoting very good public transportation and prioritizing people walking and riding bicycles.

If they optimize the flow of cars in a little time there will be more people using cars in those areas and no operations researcher can solve that bigger traffic jam. People, like any biological entity, adapt to the environment.

<comment><USER16> buses, trucks, emergency vehicles, bicycles on the roads, taxis, people going places too out of the way for public transportation to service and whatever other uses of the roads that aren't immediately obvious would all still benefit from this.

smoother traffic flow and reduced time on the roads would also reduce accidents, which would require fewer vehicles be manufactured, which is a nontrivial environmental impact in and of itself. oh and fewer humans would die in horrific accidents.

<comment><USER17> plus it will be easier to integrate the infrastructure when cars go automatic

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> "Traffic lights should respond to cars, not the other way around"

True, but believe it or not it is incredibly difficult to get right.

I'm on my local council and we recently did some prep work to look into adding "AI" to the towns traffic lights.

Here is the problem; you have to do a significant portion of the lights - <USER3> it actually gets worse. A stupid amount of planning goes into light sequencing (at least it does here....) on a macro-scale - so all of the towns lights are pretty much synced to optimize traffic flow as much as possible.

Imagine doing that on the fly for the entire town.

What ''has'' been suggested, and looks good, is a sort of hybrid approach - where traffic levels are monitored and a number of different optimized sequences used to clear traffic jams as appropriate. Even this is a pain because it is essentially the same as replacing the towns system three or four times over :)

And we are lucky in having a medium sized town with large areas of uninhabited farmland (read little traffic) around it.

Not that it isn't a good idea - but I don't think it is a very simple option.

<comment><USER19> And let's not get into "intelligent pressure pads". The number of times I've had to run a red light at night because the pad doesn't register my bicycle...

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Where I live there are roads to nowhere and traffic lights in quiet neighborhood intersections. I'm not sure who 'engineered' the streets, but one car can stop a swarm of traffic, and the speed limits are many times ridiculously low i.e. 35mph on a two lane street in a non-residential area, high visibility, and no intersections within 2mi.

This is a broken system in which much of my time is wasted daily, and the "green wave" is not the system's goal. It's nice to see some people experimenting to find better ways to regulate traffic. It should be obvious that 90% of the time the current flow is not the calculated daily average.

After all, Since when do 50,000 cars/hour drive on a street at 2am?

</comment><comment><USER20> If I had a nickel for every time I was at a stoplight and thought the same thing...

</comment><comment><USER21> even better: here was someone who tried to change it for good:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Monderman>

<http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.12/traffic.html>

there is also a brief interview on youtube with him explaining his theory of change.

<comment><USER22> The only reason his intersections are safer is that the lack of signage makes drivers uncomfortable and therefore more careful. Get rid of signs everywhere and that discomfort goes away.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Surely they mean "Traffic lights should respond to cars, AND the other way around?" The lights aren't really necessary if nobody's responding to them.

</comment><comment><USER24> Shouldn't lights be optimized first to reduce accidents? I've always understood inefficiency to be an intentional safety feature.

<comment><USER25> Keep all lights red.

Nobody moves, pretty simple heuristic solves for reducing automobile accidents.

<comment><USER24> Maybe the ideal is that there are signals that permit bicycles and pedestrians, but if cars want to go they have to get out and push a button to get the light to let them through.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Well, then just remove the lights and go back to cars responding to cars.

<comment><USER27> I do remember there being an article on here about just that. It seems to have some success.

Also: Roundabouts.

Edit: I guess I should read the two links that I open in background tabs _before_ posting. Now I feel like a fool.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> If they remove timers from lights entirely, they better improve the sensors. There are already numerous lights that do not detect the presence of my motorcycle.

<comment><USER29> When I'm riding my bike and I need to turn left, I'll jump up and down on the sensor. I look like an idiot, but usually it works! ;)

<comment><USER30> Why not just buy a neodymium magnet? This usually does the trick to trigger the sensor.

<comment><USER31> Then one day, you kneel down to check your engine oil, and bam, there go all your credit cards. There are downsides.

I'd prefer if they just made the loops a little more sensitive. A 200 lb piece of metal would seem to suffice for a true positive...

<comment><USER32> Seriously, anything except a pedestrian should trigger the sensors. Car, motorcycle, bicycle, wheelchair, or a freight train from your subconscious trying to crush everything in its path... whatever it is, if it's sitting in front of an intersection and it's not on the sidewalk, chances are it's waiting for the green light!

Sure, you might get a false positive from time to time, but whatever causes the false positive probably shouldn't be in the car lane in the first place.

<comment><USER5> With sensitivities that low false positives are triggered by cars in other lanes. Induction loops are very sensitive to variations. Believe me, I spent many hours on tweaking detectors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> As a motorcyclist, I'm going to disagree completely if the standard technology that is used to detect cars is used. Generally there's some sensor in the road that detects a large metal object above. If you're riding a 400 pound motorcycle, it doesn't trigger.

I've sat at lights for several cycles trying to get a left turn signal, only to be required to run the light (illegally) to get through while traffic built up behind me. Not cool. They need a better way of sensing cars.

</comment><comment><USER34> Also for pedestrian crossings, tear up the button controlled lights and put in a zebra crossing. Those are so much faster. No need for the pedestrian to wait (nor scramble across in a panicked hurry, if they are old or disabled), no timer keeping the cars waiting after the pedestrian already crossed, and no pressed buttons which operate the lights after the pedestrian has gone

</comment><comment><USER35> Here in Denmark a lot of traffic lights respond to road sensors.

Another cool thing is the countdown in seconds for the pedestrian lights.

<comment><USER36> Those metal detectors 6 feet from the light post? This system seems to ensure that entire _columns_ of cars can flow nicely through _several_ intersections.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> The city I live in doesn't have any of it's lights on timers...Every intersection I've come to has sensors...

</comment><comment><USER38> Too bad our government is too big and slow to actually do it.

<comment><USER39> I think it's more a matter of the money the government makes off of tickets and such. That's the biggest obstacle - the revenue that is impacted by this change.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Here in downtown Seattle the traffic lights are timed for pedestrians. One can walk from one end of the city to the other without waiting for a light to change.</comment>


August Smart Lock - <AUTHOR> http://www.august.com

<comment><USER2> Locks are the kind of thing that you don't want computerized unless it involves biometrics. The 'tech-it-all' attitude is getting kind of tiresome. I've had newer washers with spin alignment sensors that break every year as oppose to my old analog washer that lasted 20 years.. A lock simply shouldn't have any hackable components. A microcontroller with wireless connectivity inside of a lock is the kind of ignorance that the 'omg, tech' attitude invites. As much as I like technical people, there are some folk who will orgasm at anything that has a microcontroller on it - I'm kind of ashamed of those folk - tech is a means to an end, not something you need to turn everything into.

I will say this is very cool though. I would not use it or recommend others do because the components and firmware are NOT open-source, and therefore it cannot be audited and is a HUGE security risk.

</comment><comment><USER3> It seems cool but I have a couple of concerns. Firstly, how exactly is it detecting when someone is nearby? The iPhone doesn't have NFC for example and GPS isn't exactly the most accurate thing in the world. Secondly, it seems as though the device somehow connects to a front panel with a direct shaft to move the lock mechanism, it seems as though it would be fairly easy to compromise with a bit of brute force. How solid is the front panel? The large size also gives a lot of leverage for breaking off.

<comment><USER4> The site says it uses Bluetooth and attaches to a standard deadbolt (that panel is presumably only on the inside of the door).

<comment><USER2> It's not particularly difficult to use two devices to act as a bluetooth mirror and rob someone's house by just walking next to them for 5 seconds.

<comment><USER5> I doubt the phone is just constantly broadcasting an unlock code. If it's correctly designed, the lock and the phone would authenticate each other cryptographically using a nonce or time/date to prevent replay attacks.

<comment><USER2> And that doesn't mean anything when the signal is mirrored in duplex. We're talking about EMG, a wireless signal, not quantum bits that can be secured against reflection.

It isn't a man-in-the-middle attack, because nothing is being altered, crypto doesn't mean shit.

I'd call it a man-in-the-mirror attack ;-) The receiver/sender can't tell the difference.

Automatic unlock is a huge vulnerability.

I would not trust a company that doesn't bother to even mention these issues, even if they've defeated them, which I highly highly doubt. This product plays on the convenience factor, and does not really address anything technical. Cute, but no thanks. I'd rather have a safe house than a hipsterly cute one.

<comment><USER6> Say it with me now:

Physical locks aren't unbreakable. A deadbolt does not make your house a fortress.

I am all for good data security here, but if someone has targeted you to the point of following you around to clone your phone's interaction with your front door, I am pretty sure the glass windows provide a far easier target. Most of them can be just lifted out of their frame.

Yes, it could be breakable. No, it is no less secure than an existing deadbolt. Threat model matters.

<comment><USER2> I'm not 5. I don't need to 'say it with you now.' Take that smug attitude and shove it up your ass.

Physical locks with heavy-set sprung pins, double shear lines, mushroom pins, and additional security features can be almost unbreakable given the amount of effort and noise that picking or breaking them will incur.

Your post is a contrite logical fallacy. The bluetooth mirror is trivial to execute once the mirror is created. No one has to 'follow around', they walk next to you for 2 seconds, and the signal is transferred bidirectionally, the door unlocks.

Yes, it is way less secure than an existing deadbolt. Your post is akin to saying a new operating system is secure because no viruses have been coded for it. And we might as well put shitty locks on our doors, because they can break in through the window anyways..right..and no one has bars on their windows, because you don't?

Now, say it with me: "I'm okay with lax security, so everyone else should be too."

Also say: "I don't know shit about pin-tumbler locks, so I can make posts about security to misinform other people."

Now slap yourself twice for being a dolt. Thanks, class. Now back to nap time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Correct me if I'm wrong, but can't somebody pull the batteries out from the outside and lock you inside your house?

<comment><USER8> no, that's on the inside. it replaces the "knob". the keyhole/tumbler remains on the outside so that it can be opened with a key.</comment></comment>


The Notebooks of Anton Chekhov - <AUTHOR> http://jacket2.org/commentary/twenty-six-items-special-collections-r <comment><USER2> Now, that's what I call a good start to a Saturday morning: Jacket2 + Chekhov thinking. Very inspiring.</comment>


CFA finance exams to grill hopefuls on AI, big data and robo-advice - <AUTHOR> https://www.ft.com/content/28d94422-3588-11e7-99bd-13beb0903fa3 <comment><USER2> paywalled article.

As if the CFA weren't challenging enough of an examination without the AI, big data, and "robo-advice"?</comment>