Running Sinatra apps on Google AppEngine (Java) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.bigcurl.de

<comment><USER2> It's funny, we don't hear much about the wonders of Java web app development until google announces AppEngine Java support.

<comment><USER3> Some of us have been excited about running JRuby Web apps on Glassfish for some time now. I have one (using Ramaze) in production.

What's exciting here is that GAE offers a new venue for deployment of JVM- based languages: JRuby, Clojure, Jython, and so on.

Java language is no fun, but Java the platform is great.

<comment><USER4> I'm using Java on xp-dev.com. I did run through a bunch of frameworks (Spring webflow, Wicket, Struts), and just decided to rollout a home grown one.

See, I'm still two minded and really really undecided whether Java is a good or bad programming language. One mind says Java is verbose and does not support nice things like closures (there are anonymous classes, but it's still not pristine) and then the other mind says, but but.. look at the IDE support - in a bunch of keystrokes you end up with loads of code, and you can refactor nicely and whatnot

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Important note: JRuby has moved to git, and the svn repo may not give you the most current code.

<http://github.com/jruby/jruby></comment>


Protesters attack Google bus in West Oakland, smashing window - <AUTHOR> http://pando.com/2013/12/20/breaking-protesters-attack-google-bus-in-west-oakland-smashing-window/

<comment><USER2> One thing that may be happening (or start happening) here with these bus protests is that unrelated leftist groups from the Bay Area will seek to piggyback on to this and cause havoc. This is a definite trend if you follow political action in Northern California.

By far one of the most notorious offenders are the "Black Bloc" anarchist groups. One of their codewords during protests is "direct action" which means "break stuff, smash windows." I can't say anything about their political views, but it's a fact that they attract a greater and potentially more violent police presence.

<comment><AUTHOR> Now that the protesters, at least in Oakland, have shown they are going to physically attack the bus, the safest course of action for a driver who encounters a "blockade" like this would be to drive on, ideally not directly through any of the protesters, but as necessary to get away. Somehow I doubt Bauer has sent their drivers to security driving school, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I would think Google would be one of the last companies protesters would be taking their anger out against, but I guess for them locally it's the big target. Google really is pretty well behaved socially on the net and IRL as companies go.

<comment><USER4> These people are essentially upset that Google pays their employees more than they get paid.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Why would people do this? What did us Big Data geeks do to deserve this? Don't they know we're building a better world?"

You guys have no idea, do you? You're just literally oblivious. Anyone as smart as you who remains oblivious is doing it by choice, so there's no point in trying to educate.

The best approach is a direct one. If you won't do the right thing because of your conscience, do the right thing because you're tired of being hassled, because you're tired of worrying what people will do if they find out who you serve.

You can protect Google, but Google can't protect you.

<comment><USER6> Please explain what the "right thing" here is.</comment></comment>


Oracle Critical Patch Update – April 2014 - <AUTHOR> http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/security/cpuapr2014-1972952.html

<comment><USER2> Please do not editorialize in HN titles. It breaks the site guidelines. (Submitted title was "Java April Patch: still vulnerable as hell".)</comment>


Ex-FB exec: The dopamine-driven feedback loops are destroying how society works - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78oMjNCAayQ <comment><USER2> Tristram Harris [1][2] is worth listening to on these points, I'm sure many on HN are already aware.

Without rambling too much, I'm one of those over-sensitive, slightly aspie types that reads SSC and gets carried away with over-analysing the zeitgeist. Uncharitably, you might say 'smart but weak-minded'. The longer I spend in front of social media, the more and more in tatters I feel. I spent a week entirely disconnected from the 'net a month ago and I can't stress how restorative it was for me. Though, alarmingly, I was back in full swing soon after I returned.

For those of you who have problems with self-control and sustaining your attention, and think it has something to do with your browsing habits, I highly recommend you - I urge you - to disconnect in a significant way. Of course it's up to you what that means.

In September I gave up smoking, and the physical and psychological changes I underwent were pretty surprising. I felt more present and in-the-moment (and other barely-describable-but-definitely-nice feelings) than I had done in years. Despite smoking 25 a day, I have found quitting Reddit much, much harder; despite being convinced it's as bad for my mental health as smoking was for my physical.

I think there's something to be said about identifying addiction patterns in your life and exorcising them. The small amounts of progress I've made recently have certainly felt as though they've increased my net level of agency and free will. I wish that flowery metaphors about demons were more readily acceptable, because software is a lot like wizardy - and it really does feel like dark sorcery has been cast to possess the West.

[1] [http://www.tristanharris.com/essays/](http://www.tristanharris.com/essays/) [2] [https://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/what-is-technology- do...](https://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/what-is-technology-doing-to-us)

<comment><USER3> Can you elaborate on how you felt after you took your week off? In particular I'm interested in differences in sleep requirements & quality, difficulty handling eye contact (the 'slightly aspie' stuff), and general cognition. "In tatters": can I get a description of that also?

Only reason I ask is because I've had a similar experience...twice. Once when moving into an apartment (no power, close proximity to roommates) and again when on a trip (golfing all day, close proximity again). My "symptoms" include pretty serious social anxiety and an inability to think during conversations, inability to focus on non-interesting work, and just a general feeling of being dumber.

<comment><USER4> > My "symptoms" include pretty serious social anxiety and an inability to > think during conversations, inability to focus on non-interesting work, and > just a general feeling of being dumber.

Well, I guess I'm not alone. I feel like I've struggled with that for many years.

<comment><USER5> Sounds kind of like ADD (or ADHD-PI, as it's now called)... do you find that coffee helps at all?

<comment><USER3> FWIW - I drink nearly an entire pot of coffee every day. No creamer or sugar or anything, just black. It's indispensable IMO.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Just want to make a couple points:

\- I think everyone understands this, but it bears repeating: dopamine isn't the problem here, as it will be involved in any rewarding behavior. The real claim being made is that we have created technologies that give us too much and/or the wrong kind of pleasure.

\- We should consider that "junk food" pleasure (the internet, TV, drugs, actual junk food, etc.) can be useful as a coping mechanism for individuals facing trauma, stress, depression, or other psychological issues. We should consider the possibility that healthier coping mechanisms might be insufficient or unavailable in certain situations. It might actually be a good thing that we've come up with a portable technology (the smartphone) that can be used on the go for short bursts of dopamine. In terms of addictions, you could do worse.

All that being said, I agree that people can develop unhealthy relationships with technology, and we should be working (as always) in the direction of harm reduction.

<comment><USER6> Every new massively successful technology requires a new kind of social education. When cars became popular people had to be educated to respect pedestrian signals and not jaywalk. With the mass adoption of credit cards and ATMs people had to be educated to keep their PINs secret and not write them right on credit cards.

Social networks require new social education that should start with realizing their potentials downsides which I believe is still the most difficult part.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> He stated what I have felt for years, in words much better than I could.

If you struggle to disconnect from social media because you feel like you'll miss out on friends, remember this: If social media is the only thing connecting you to a friend, they aren't that good of a friend anyway. Your true friends will not disappear if you delete Facebook.

<comment><USER8> What's true for you is not necessarily true for others. Are you still in touch with the people you knew in kindergarten? How many years ago was that? Consider that some people might have two or three times that many _adult_ years of changing cities, changing jobs, changing life circumstances, each change resulting in more people with whom staying in touch is not automatic as it is with current classmates or coworkers. Some of them might have less free time because of family and other obligations. Some of them might have disabilities. Some might be more introverted than you are, which does _not_ mean that they need human contact less but that it might take more effort to sustain it. Many people who are not exactly the same as you might find great value in having a lightweight way to maintain those tenuous contacts. Deriding them as not "true friends" or assuming that only "true friends" matter is very egocentric and privileged.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This was posted over a month ago [0] — and has been discussed in numerous ways since then.

[0] - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMotykw0SIk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMotykw0SIk)

EDIT — Thanks to _cpv_ (below), this is the discussion I should've linked to: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15900551](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15900551)

<comment><AUTHOR> This is not entirely true. Your link leads to a 56 minutes video while my linked video is just 4 minutes and providing the relevant discussion point.

Moreover, I couldn't find any larger discussion: I searched HN with the link you gave and found only two postings, one with 1 point and another one with 7 points and only 2 comments.

<comment><USER10> Probably this one [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15900551](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15900551)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks and this link makes much more sense (but the video is again 56 minutes but there is a marker).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is what a lot of us have figured out and stopped using facebook. I briefly checked in last year and was overwhelmed by the number of engagements, marriages, newborns, relationships. The eerie thing is everybody's life looked very similar from one another, happy, smiling instagramed filters where they momentarily pose for selfies.

Then it hit me. I know what makes me disappointed about society today. It's that we consider the image of success more important than reality. For example, the mainstream collectively considers steve jobs as the ideal entrepreneur, when when we knew he made billions off the backs of children and women in horrible working conditions in an authoritarian government. How about Bill Cosby, Mel Gibson, Lance Armstrong, Trump, Weinstein? How great did you think those people were before revealing themselves to be a complete hoax? Especially when society has been reduced to spamming a running commentary of bullshit masquerading as insight, our social media faking as intimacy. Or is it that we voted for this? Not with our rigged elections, but with our things, our property, our money. I'm not saying anything new. We all know why we do this, not because Hunger Games books make us happy but because we wanna be sedated. Because it's painful not to pretend, because we're cowards.

<comment><USER12> Wait, you mean people 'keep up with the Joneses' online as well as in real life? Social media ia new venue for an old behavior. People who are shallow online are shallow in real life, it's just more 3d. Likewise, people who are thoughtful and interesting online tend to be similarly so in person.

I also have a jaundiced view of society, but it's naive to think it was great and than got completely wrecked by social media (or TV, or jazz music, or dancing, or...). Going down that path will just lead to being a bitter reactionary. Instead, examine your prior premise of what you thought society was or should be, and consider whether that was a historical actuality or a frustrated desire. A good deal depends on whether you conceive of people to 'naturally' be good or bad and whether/how they are shaped by society or vice versa, so your consideration should include some philosophical reading since this is a fundamental question philosophers struggle with.

Read some history too. If you're American, I suggest 'American Nations' by Colin Woodard, which offers a sweeping overview of the competing forces that have shaped US society and makes for an interesting contrast to the increasingly dysfunctional idealogical monomyth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> He provides good examples and reasoning for his fears, but still it'd be great to have a larger book/discourse on this.

One of Facebook's defenses of this is that they hire psychologists etc, but it's to better train this system.

More people coming out against this sort of thing after they've had first hand experience is good!

</comment><comment><USER14> For those winding who the exec is, it's Chamath, who iirc was FB's first heat of growth.

</comment><comment><USER15> I think this was evident on porn's impact on relationships, and you're just seeing it hit mainstream via facebook (wider audience).

</comment><comment><USER16> This reminded me of Reciprocality/The Programmers' Stone, which I hadn't heardf about in a while.

[https://www.datapacrat.com/Opinion/Reciprocality/](https://www.datapacrat.com/Opinion/Reciprocality/)

</comment><comment><USER17> Amazing how Facebook is the new Dungeons and Dragons, corrupting people's minds through (now scientific) invisible demons.

</comment><comment><USER18> Talk is cheap after you got rich off of it.

<comment><USER19> Can you explain your point more clearly? Are you saying that he's not credible because he got rich off of it?

<comment><USER20> Perhaps that he could have done more, earlier, but choose the money instead.

<comment><USER21> Perhaps, but its easy to be outraged at people in both hindsight and outside of the situation they're in.

We should be encouraging this kind of discussion, not trying to shame or judge past actions incessantly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I have been saying that for a while now.

Social media is great for the individual but horrible for society.

<comment><USER23> It's just a tool, thought. It doesn't preclude the capacity for any individual to have a critical thinking about news and events.

<comment><USER22> It does not preclude it but it certainly does not make it easier.

I think you suffer from the delusion that the human mind is rational and logical. It can be, under certain limited conditions. But under most circumstances it is a complete mess.

<comment><USER23> > I think you suffer from the delusion that the human mind is rational and > logical.

I don't suffer from it, not more or less than the countless text of law that base their logic on citizens from being trustful agent in the society, but thank you for your concern.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> [https://twitter.com/AaronGreenspan/status/945716138939269120](https://twitter.com/AaronGreenspan/status/945716138939269120)

</comment><comment><USER25> Oh get over yourself, this video is disgustingly egotistical. "ripping apart the social fabric", I absolutely doubt that. This is getting way out of hand. Social media isn't ripping any core values apart, and nothing he has said in this video proves it.

<comment><USER26> Just curious if you've any anecdotes about behavior of nouveau generation. While not a parent myself I've heard many times from parent and youth peers that the new generations are entirely lacking IRL social skills, instead deferring their social lives entirely to their digital presence. As a result, basic conversational skills development is limited.

<comment><USER25> I work with many people who are still in high school or right out of high school and none of them seem to be lacking social skills.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> He has no proof of that</comment>


Ask HN: How are large software teams split up? - <AUTHOR> Common wisdom for management is to have teams in the 5-12 range. What happens to software teams that grow beyond this size? How are organizations like this structured?
For example, you've grown organically to about 20 engineers involved in a single shipping software product. You plan to grow the team to 50, so you know you'll need a handful of teams. There are no clear architectural boundaries (client/server) that make the decision obvious. Most new features that need to be built require touching many parts of the code (frontend, backend, integrations, documentation). You only know you need to grow the engineering team because there's a never-ending list of features & enhancements you'd like to make.
For the AWS development teams, for example, it seems obvious there would be division around products - this team looks after S3, that team looks after DynamoDB. But what happens if the S3 team is itself 30 developers and needs to be divided up? How do you decide which team owns what?
I'd appreciate any real-world examples of insights on this. Not so much what the teams do (we all do standups, etc.), but how they drew the boundaries in the first place. Deciding 5-12 people teams is the optimum size feels like deciding the ideal electorate constituency is 100,000 people; the devil is actually drawing the boundaries on the map. <comment><USER2> I've seen plenty of teams with 20-30 engineers working on the same product. At this level, what usually happens is, everyone has a specific role along with their main one, and I don't mean front-end, backend, database. More of: somebody builds internal dev tools, somebody else maintains documentation, somebody acts as a semi-architect if there's no designated one, somebody helps QA team automate their stuff, somebody participates more in higher-end meetings, etc.

This knowledge comes from a couple of teams that use my product [https://archbee.io](https://archbee.io)

</comment><comment><USER3> Typically companies and teams are split up by either function or by product (See [https://stratechery.com/2016/apples-organizational- crossroad...](https://stratechery.com/2016/apples-organizational-crossroads/) for some thoughts on this). Assuming that you will have 50 engineers working on one product, they will probably be working on different parts of that product. While you can do a front-end/backend split it's more common for a team to support certain functionality of the application. If you take Github as an example, they probably have a team supporting git operations, a team for Issues, a team supporting adding new security features. Similarly your product will have groups of features that one team will support whereas another team will be responsible for features C, D and E.</comment>


Webix Grid - 1 000 000 Rows and More - <AUTHOR> http://webix.com/featured-blog-posts/webix-grid-1-000-000-rows-and-more/

<comment><USER2> It looks good and seems fast. However, the UI is broken for 1M rows because clicking the down arrow on the scroll bar causes the 6-row grid to jump 32 rows. In other words, you can't scroll to any arbitrary row. (Try to scroll to see row 15, for instance.)</comment>


Generalized Secure Hash Algorithm - <AUTHOR> http://www.tedunangst.com/flak/post/generalized-secure-hash-algorithm

<comment><USER2> After lurking on the firstname.lastname@example.com, the Password Hashing Competition's mailing list the last several months, I can say I am initially skeptical of this.

One of the primary concerns for PHC was making an algorithm which is hard to speed up on custom hardware. Bill Cox, Solar Designer, et al. went at this very hard, and I think their approach will turn out to be favored.

I'm a little bit concerned that if the algorithm is now flexible enough, to not be implemented efficiently in a more generalized circuit, then is it flexible enough to behave possibly erratically?

But I'm not even sure if this GSHA type algorithm really would be all that difficult to implement in an ASIC.

Of course, the great thing is that an algorithm promising such benefits is in high demand, Proof-of-Work algorithms, and so anything which shows merit will probably be explored and tested.

<comment><USER3> It certainly seems like he hasn't heard of a barrel shifter. That alone would make this pretty damn easy to implement in an ASIC.

It's also assuming that the constants don't matter for the security of the hash function. They do.

<comment><USER4> Agreed, I'm not sure it's a good idea to change the # of shifts or any other constants. They are/should be optimized so Differential and Linear properties are minimal over the whole cipher, which is certainly a non-trivial optimization.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I can't see how this help with the brute force attack: you start with a password and compute hash. The suggested scheme doesn't make it more difficult (i.e. cpu expensive) to compute the resulting hash from a given password than simply repeating the same MD5 or SHAXXX the given number of times. Moreover, the parameters for the hash functions (e.g. bit shift) are not random. They have been chosen on purpose. Using the input (password) to set these parameters will most likely result in some very weak hashes for specific passwords (including hash collisions).

<comment><USER6> The idea (I think) is that it's more difficult to build dedicated hardware for the brute force attack that's cheaper than doing it with a general-purpose CPU.

<comment><USER7> But, it only makes it unbreakable for 50% of passwords? Would it not be better to have an alternating scheme, i.e. MD5 -> SHA1 -> MD5 -> SHA1 repeated 100,000 times, rather than choosing a scheme deterministically at the start.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Why does he think you need to build millions of ASIC/FPGA/GPUshaders, one per parameter? Couldn't you just build _one_ "über"-ASIC/FPGA/GPUshader? Is there something magical about "gsha.c" that makes it impossible to implement in hardware?

Isn't the cost of an ASIC containing an MD5+SHA1 algorithm about the same as the cost of an ASIC containing only one of them?

</comment><comment><USER9>
        from crypto to bcrypt to scrypt

Hang on. I thought the consensus was to use bcrypt. Is scrypt better now?

<comment><USER10> The scrypt paper includes comparisons to bcrypt: [https://www.tarsnap.com/scrypt/scrypt.pdf](https://www.tarsnap.com/scrypt/scrypt.pdf) decide for yourself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> > GSHA will almost certainly give up collisions than SHA, but collisions are > not a practical concern for password hashing or KDF operations.

Pretty sure collisions are a practical concern for password hashing... More collisions = more "valid" passwords for a given account.

<comment><USER12> But if the cost of finding any of the "valid" passwords increases faster than the number of "valid" passwords (collisions), it's still worth it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> A curious case of rolling your own crypto and security through obscurity. Well, interesting thoughts but I'd be extremely hesitant to put any of this to use (as the author says in the last line).

<comment><USER14> * It's not the case of rolling your own crypto, as this phrase usually applies to the case of implementing your own crypto algorithms/protocols in an application. The author _proposes_ a new crypto algorithm.

* It's not the case of security through obscurity, as there is no secrecy of the algorithm design.

(As a side note, I don't see how this algorithm prevents cheap hardware implementations of it.)

<comment><USER15> It's security through improbability. According to the author, there's 2^512 possible variants of his algorithm, all depending on the parameters fed to it. This means that specialized hardware wouldn't be impossible, but that it'd be highly improbable that your adversaries' hardware matches the variant of the algorithm you used to create the hash.

<comment><USER14> Ha, but it doesn't work like this: his algorithm is described in 150 lines of C + SHA512 implementation. I'm pretty sure it can be implemented in hardware as well.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Git or Mercurial for beginning students? - <AUTHOR>

I regularly teach Git to students at the senior level that are building RoR applications. Even though we only cover the basics, they seem to struggle quite a bit with both the concepts and the mechanics. They are on Windows for the most part, and are required to push their code to Bitbucket. The seniors have suggested that I introduce the topic much earlier in the curriculum in a sophomore level Java class. The students in that class have had one prior programming class, but generally are still struggling with the basics. I've been thinking about using Mercurial at the sophomore level instead of Git to see if that eases the introduction to the concepts. Any thoughts one way or the other? <comment><USER2> I guess that they are simply not accustomed to work in command line, given that Windows gives terrible terminal and shell. I would rather expose them to Linux (or maybe BSD), possibly through providing them shell accounts on some server and requiring code to be built primarly there. Then it should not be too difficult to jump from working with files in command line to working with version control in the same command line.

<comment><USER3> >given that Windows gives terrible terminal and shell

Though the command set is a little verbose I think powershell is pretty nice. If you get posh-git([https://github.com/dahlbyk/posh- git](https://github.com/dahlbyk/posh-git)) and use powershell it makes the git experience on windows quite pleasurable.

<comment><USER2> > Though the command set is a little verbose I think powershell is pretty > nice.

Last time I checked, PowerShell made more or less sensible programming language, but was awful in term of command completion. If that hasn't changed, it is still a terrible shell.

<comment><USER3> The commands themselves are verbose but I've never had a problem with completion. Can you highlight some problems you had?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Last time I checked mercurial has better windows-support and tooling. And since the concepts generally is the same they should have no issue learning git later on if the need it.

[http://tortoisehg.bitbucket.org/](http://tortoisehg.bitbucket.org/)

<comment><AUTHOR> The windows support was one of the issues that I was considering. I think you are right that it is a bit better than Git from that standpoint.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> On whether to use Git or Mercurial, my gut suggests you teach Git, but if you have the ability, poll alumns of the program and/or companies who are nabbing grads to see what they have/haven't used. Personally, I've never been around an environment that uses Mercurial, but that's just my particular situation.

Also, the basics of version control should be taught in the very first programming class. You can then expand on the basics in further courses.

<comment><AUTHOR> My gut has been Git as well, since I have always used it in commercial development. My guess is that the companies the students are going to use Perforce or a commercial tool since most end up in energy / oil related companies that tend not to use open source at all. That said, I'll see if I can get more info on what they are using. I don't have control over the first class they take (yet) but I do agree with getting them started early. Most of the programs (CS,EE, etc.) don't even teach version control at all at the undergrad level, so I am doing what I can to remedy that issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Are you talking about high school students?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry - should have been clearer. These are undergrads in a 4 year bachelor of science technology program. They are not CS majors, so they have limited programming background in general.</comment></comment>


What a Border Collie Taught a Linguist About Language - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/what-a-border-collie-taught-a-linguist-about-language/ <comment><USER2> I feel that my life would be missing something important without a border collie. Other dogs I have had kind of existed alongside me; my border collie seems to integrate herself into everything I do.

Highly recommend Donald McCaig's book, _Eminent Dogs, Dangerous Men_ : [https://www.amazon.com/Eminent-Dogs-Dangerous-Men- Searching/...](https://www.amazon.com/Eminent-Dogs-Dangerous-Men- Searching/dp/1599210592/)

<comment><USER3> Can you give any examples, to help (non-Collie) dog owners get past 'My dog is integrated in everything I do; there's no way yours is more so than mine!'?

<comment><USER4> I agree with the sentiment. BC's are awesome dogs.

I think it's because they are so damn smart. It's the closest thing to having a human, except all the benefits of having a dog. My dog was insanely in-tune with my body language. I don't think I trained him very well but we naturally communicated very well. I could nod my head from across the dog park and he knew it was time to go home, stuff like that. If we were walking, I could glance my eyes in a certain direction and he knew to cross the street. (I usually didn't have him on a leash).

He made judgement calls. I would watch him do stuff he knew was wrong, and I refuse to believe it was an impulse. It was calculated. You could see it was conflicted but he seriously thought it through and concluded; eating raw chicken > ramifications. I could look in his eyes and _know_ what he was thinking.... Maybe that was all in my head but I don't think so.

That said, the key is having a very smart dog. It can exist outside of the BC breed but with BC's you have a high success rate of having an intelligent dog. We've had Labs too. Some similar to the BC, others good loving dogs but just dogs. We have a Yorkie now, she's an idiot.

<comment><USER5> I felt like this with my Australian Cattle Dog/Australian Kelpie mix. It's like she could read my mind. I think that herding breeds tend to be especially intelligent and in-tune dogs - they would have to be, to work with their owner and often other dogs to manoeuvre sometimes very large herds of bigger animals in just the right way.

<comment><USER4> It's very much like mind reading. Or like a language you have with the dog. My theory on herding dog intelligence is because they are reliant on their vision and their brains need to be better at processing all that vision requires equates to smarter dogs. My BC was so reliant on his sight, I have several memories of him not being able to find a treat or something because he didn't see where it landed or it went under something. He knew he saw me throw it, so he'd get kind of frantic an look all over the place. Eventually, he would realize he had a nose and could smell around for it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > _Rico could infer the name of a third, unfamiliar object when presented with > it alongside two of his toys. Chaser could learn names by exclusion and > remember them, just like Rico._

Neil Degrasse Tyson demonstrates the above with the actual dog Chaser:

[https://youtu.be/_6479QAJuz8?t=66](https://youtu.be/_6479QAJuz8?t=66)

I almost always prefer the written explanation rather than watching a video, but this is one case where it's worth seeing.

</comment><comment><USER7> Really interesting article.

In regards to: "Cooperation leading to the development of language is one of the leading hypotheses for what makes human beings unique among the animals."

The core difference between humans and animals is that humans can reason; we possess cogitative powers. Philosophers of mind and language, like PMS Hacker, have written extensively on this topic. Humans can ask "why?", can plan, can hope, can wish, can dream, all through language. Language is an ability and allows us to reason, give reasons, and have reasons. Dogs and animals can't ask "why?" "Why?" is beyond their limit of expression because they do not possess language. They can be confused, but confusion is not asking "why?" because "why?" is a demand for reasons. Confusion is simply not knowing what is going on, while reasoning is thinking in future and past tenses, it allows us to plan and introspect.

I think the equation of whistling with full language is interesting, but it potentially reads cogitative powers in dogs when it might simply be the humans reading themselves into the dogs.

The point around cooperation is fascinating in this regard, in which case, the cooperation might be that humans reason for the dog. In other words, the dogs provide the brawn and the handlers supply the brains. We domesticated dogs because they worked for us.

<comment><USER8> > _The core difference between humans and animals is that humans can reason_

So there's a body of research suggesting beyond reasonable doubt that no animal - except us - is capable of reason? Do you have a link?

<comment><USER7> Do you have evidence that animals can reason? Have you seen an animal give or express a reason for planning to do something in 3 days or 4?

Animals may end indecision, but ending a state of indecision is not the same as choosing something for _this_ or _that_ reason. The limits of thought are the behavioral expression of thought. With the absence of language, it is nonsense to apply rational thought to animals. That's even in the article itself when they discuss how animals displaying complex behaviours can fall a part when presented new problems. That doesn't mean they don't think. Far from it. It means they do not have the same cogitative powers that we have.

Analytic philosophy has touched on these ideas at length starting with Ludwig Wittgenstein. Two good books on the subject are PMS Hacker's series, which, coincidentally, often use dogs as an example:

1\. Human Nature: The Categorical Framework 2\. The Intellectual Powers: A study of human nature

(I should add that PMS Hacker's series heavily interacts with cognitive neuroscience.)

<comment><USER8> You seem to be severely confusing absence of evidence with evidence of absence.

Do you have anything in particular in mind with the somewhat arbitrary sounding "3 days ord 4"? Otherwise my answer is a definite yes. I have seen cats, dogs, pigs, ferrets, rodents, and corvids perform well thought out, planned, and by all appearencies deliberate and conscious strategies.

<comment><USER7> It was a rhetorical question to make a point. You seem to be severely confusing the difference between cogitative and cognitive powers. Animals aren't stupid, but all animals are not humans. We are different in quite particular ways that animals simply are not or so far from us that it is nonsense to imply that gap means we are similar.

The "arbitrariness" of "3 or 4 days" is to emphasize that language is the means we have of expressing our cogitative powers. We have language, an ability to express our reasoning. Animals don't. We are introspective, ruminative, hopeful, and fearful, we can be those things because we have the language and the cogitative and conceptual depth to express them. Animals think, and animals are intelligent. They can plan. But that is no reason to assign any amount of the depth of our cogitative powers to animals. Because they can't express that cogitative depth because they lack language.

<comment><USER9> You seem to be arbitrarily limiting "language" to a specifically-human definition. Animals can certainly express thoughts and emotions, and there's no reason to suggest that they have any limit on the levels of emotions they feel. If you want to see hope, just wait for an animal to start hoping that you'll feed them in the very near future... And they'll likely communicate the idea very clearly as well. Language so far has only been a barrier in _human understanding and acknowledgement_ of these capabilities in animals.

As much as this is an appeal to authority, I'll refer back to the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness [0]:

"The neural substrates of emotions do not appear to be confined to cortical structures. In fact, subcortical neural networks aroused during affective states in humans are also critically important for generating emotional behaviors in animals. Artificial arousal of the same brain regions generates corresponding behavior and feeling states in both humans and non-human animals. Wherever in the brain one evokes instinctual emotional behaviors in non-human animals, many of the ensuing behaviors are consistent with experienced feeling states, including those internal states that are rewarding and punishing. Deep brain stimulation of these systems in humans can also generate similar affective states. Systems associated with affect are concentrated in subcortical regions where neural homologies abound. Young humanand non-human animals without neocortices retain these brain-mind functions. Furthermore, neural circuits supporting behavioral/electrophysiological states of attentiveness, sleep and decision making appear to have arisen in evolution as early as the invertebrate radiation, being evident in insects and cephalopod mollusks (e.g., octopus)."

[0] [http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConscious...](http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConsciousness.pdf)

EDIT: I'd like to point out that human language _does_ , as far as we know, have some very unique features which have not been entirely duplicated by any animal. However, that very fact is also what makes it extremely limiting and self-serving as a "barrier of entry".

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

<comment><USER7> You have to be careful about describing an animal's emotions, even more-so with assigning language to animals. You brought up leaving a dog without food. It very well might hope you come with food. But the sensation it is feeling is hunger. From its behavior, you understand it is hungry: it whines, runs around, looks for where the food normally comes from (you/owner). But the dog is not saying "I hope I can get food." It's not saying, "If I have one hope in the world, above all other hopes, I hope my food would come." Because it can't say that. That's _our_ language, us, assigning concepts to the dog.

I'll put a similar quote, for my argument, from the philosopher PMS Hacker who has written extensively on this topic:

"Animal life is full of fear; human life is also full of hope. Only human beings are aware of their mortality, can be occupied or preoccupied with their death and the dead. We are unique among animals in being able to strive to understand our lives and the place of death in life....

The horizon of possible thought is determined by the limits of the expression of thought; but with us, unlike other animals, those limits are set by the linguistic expression of thought. If one has mastered the use of tenses and of temporal referring expressions, one can think of the past and the future. One can remember not only where – as exhibited in an animal's seeking or homing behaviour – but also when. Non-human animals may prepare for the future – bury food for later consumption, build dams or dig burrows, but only man can plan for the future.

If a creature has mastered a language with logical connectives and quantifiers, then and only then is it possible for it to conceive of general truths, to think both of how things are and how they are not, to think both of what exists and of what does not exist, to think conditional thoughts, and with the aid of tensed verbs and modal expressions, counterfactual thoughts."

 _This is from Human Nature: The Categorical Framework, pg.238, published 2007. I had to pull the book out to get the quote right lol._

<comment><USER9> "Animal life is full of fear; human life is also full of hope. Only human beings are aware of their mortality, can be occupied or preoccupied with their death and the dead. We are unique among animals in being able to strive to understand our lives and the place of death in life...."

Disagree. There's plenty of documentation of dogs understanding dangerous situations and assisting humans in exiting them. If they only had "fear", this would not be possible. They obviously have enough agency overcome such basic instinct.

"The horizon of possible thought is determined by the limits of the expression of thought; but with us, unlike other animals, those limits are set by the linguistic expression of thought. If one has mastered the use of tenses and of temporal referring expressions, one can think of the past and the future."

Also disagree. Genie [0] was raised without language. When discovered, she could not use language to describe her experiences. Later, after learning language, she could _retroactively_ describe these situations. That means that her experience was _not_ limited by not having known language. This also includes emotive elements of the experiences.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genie_%28feral_child%29#Recall...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genie_%28feral_child%29#Recalling_past_events)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> whistled language [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silbo_Gomero](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silbo_Gomero)

</comment><comment><USER11> The smartest dog I had was a Border Collie/Breton Espanol mix. Very curious, very smart at learning new things. I miss her.

They need a yard/open space as they are very lively dogs, and we have a large backyard. They are not meant to be apartment dog.</comment>


Fast request routing using regular expressions - <AUTHOR> http://nikic.github.io/2014/02/18/Fast-request-routing-using-regular-expressions.html <comment><USER2> Are regular expressions are good choice for routing? A trie seems like a better choice than a sequence of regexps. O(n) vs O(log n).

<comment><USER3> Or, O(n^2) vs O(n log n).

<comment><USER3> Now that I read the article, seems like they're merging all the regexps into one, which really could be O(n). However, the trie will not be O(log n). You have to at least look at every character in the input, so there's a hard O(n) lower bound.

<comment><USER2> You're confusing n size of route set, with k length of the path to be matched. With a trie the worst case running time to match a route grows O(log n) with an array of regexps it's O(n). The length of a path string to be matched is independent of how many routes are in the route set.

<comment><USER4> In theory, the combined regex could be O(1) in the size of the route set.

Of course, in practice it's not. PCRE is backtracking-based rather than automaton-based, so increasing the complexity of the regex does have an effect on runtime.

<comment><USER5> Which probably means we should be using a NFA-based engine for routing, rather than PCRE, because I don't think "don't backtrack" is a very serious restriction for routing. (Yes, of the hundreds of developers who may read this, one of them may have used backtracking in a routing expression. But in general I don't think it's that serious a restriction.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's a shame that the regex API doesn't seem to provide a way to indicate which part of a (?:foo|bar|...) matched. The underlying regex code must know this. A large part of the article is coming up with workarounds to solve this problem.

<comment><USER7> > It's a shame that the regex API doesn't seem to provide a way to indicate > which part of a (?:foo|bar|...) matched. The underlying regex code must know > this.

As lmm points out (I think), one can get a big advantage precisely by _not_ requiring the regex code to know this. (Regexes are 'really' DFAs, and a DFA that makes it to its start state not just _does_ not but _can_ not know how it got there.) The more power one gives regexes, the less, well, regular they are, and the slower they become to match.

<comment><USER8> A DFA can give you more than just a yes/no decision, though sometimes they're narrowly defined as only machines that give yes/no decisions. But if you have multiple accept states and number or label the states, a DFA can report not only 'accept' but 'accept' plus the label of the accepting state (this could be seen as a special case of a Moore machine, in which you only care about the last output).

You'd have to compile the DFA differently, of course. A really simple version would just compile each alternation into its own DFA separately, and then chain them together with "try each in sequence". That's still a DFA, so it's not a matter of a different class of computations, though it's often slower by a constant factor (due to not being able to share any information between the alternations when matching them).

<comment><USER7> Good point: a DFA can do _exactly_ what joosters asked, namely, distinguish between "matched regex '(a|b)' to input 'a'" and "matched regex '(a|b)' to input 'b'". However, it may be worth noting—as I'm sure you know, but others may not—that there is no way for even a juiced-up DFA to say, for example, how many a's were actually in the input when the regex is 'a * ' (spaces to fool the Markdown processor).

P.S. I might as well mention that I obviously meant to refer to a DFA reaching its end, rather than start, state.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Fast until you hit the catastrophic backtracking problem, and then your routing code spins indefinitely. I've hit a production issue of this form.

For this kind of problem you need to use actual regular expressions, not Perl's bastardization of the concept. Or produce your own DFA - it's not as hard as it looks, and gives you a much better idea what's going on.

<comment><AUTHOR> You won't hit catastrophic backtracking problems with the types of regular expressions you need for routing.

Even if you do use some very weird expression, the worst that can happen is that you hit the backtracking limit and a route fails to match because of that. There won't be any code spinning indefinitely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> its interesting to see this. i don't often use regular expressions but for the most general case of this problem they are a good fit - however the specific example given, and most real world cases i imagine can be optimised further by doing away with regex altogether and using more traditional lookup and transformation approaches.

the example given can determine the route required by everything following /user/ \- in the case that the 7th character of the string is a digit then we have the last case - all that remains to distinguish the other two is to count the number of slashes - if you want to distinguish bad matches then validating the extracted values will be necessary too. of course this kind of logic fails to scale to the general case - but for real world optimisation i can imagine it being much more fruitful (possibly you could do a match like i described faster than the regex function will parse its own input string before doing any matching at all!)

there is the smell of a very classical problem here though - "guess optimising". optimisation should be driven by measurement - identify the slow part then optimise it. timings that show the performance of the solutions overall are interesting and prove the point - but what would be more interesting imo would be 'this was the hot spot (point at timing), therefore i was right (point at new timing)'.

</comment><comment><USER11> ctrl+f tree

No results.

The chunking seems like a missed opportunity. It still uses a loop, so it's still O(n) in the number of routes. That is, 200 routes will take twice as long. 1000 routes will take 10 times as long. But maybe 100 routes is all we ever see in reality?

Regardless, it's a small leap from that to using a tree. I would like to have seen timings for that, and for larger numbers of routes.

Building a trie from a list of strings is trivial. Building one from a list of regexes is not. But you don't need the complexity of inspecting or interpreting the regexes.

With a regular binary tree, you'll need to compile multiple regexes. The root is a regex with all urls in only two groups: (a|b|c|d)|(e|f|g|h). If the first group is non-empty, then you move to the next node: (a|b)|(c|d). If the second group is non-empty, then you try (c)|(d). If the first group of that is non- empty, then the url was c. That should be O(k * log n) where k is the length of the url and n in the number of urls.

The grouping method requires 10 regex matches for 100 routes. 2^10 == 1024, so the tree method can do 10 times more routes in about the same amount of work. A million routes with a tree is only twice as hard as a thousand, or twice as hard as a hundred with chunking. A million routes with chunking in 10,000 times harder than a hundred.

On the other hand, the tree requires O(n * log n) memory, where n chunks of constant size requires only O(n) memory. Perhaps that's significant.

edit: misplaced asterisks triggered italics.

edit2: Actually, you don't even need to add or check groups. At each node you only need to combine half the regexes into one with no outer group. For example, the top node regex from above could be just a|b|c|d. If it matches, go to the left node (which is just a|b). If it doesn't match, go to the right node (which is just e|f). As an edge case, the right-most tip node will all need to have a regex to distinguish between it and non-matching urls. This also makes it easier to dynamically add routes without recompiling the whole tree. Just add the route to the right side of each node, which requires no work until you get to the rightmost tip. Occasionally rebalance. Is dynamically modifying the routes something that people do?

<comment><USER11> Or how about this: a single regex, but with groups that you can walk like a tree:

(((a)|(b))|((c)|(d))) | (((e)|(f))|((g)|(h)))

The number of groups will be O(n * log n). So 10-20 times the number of urls at most. It's certainly not quadratic.

The groups will in depth-first order. It's slightly complicated by the fact that the regexes contain capturing groups themselves, but you can precompute an offset table that accounts for them.

Or give each tree-group a name:

(?<0>(?<00>(?<000>a)|(?<001>b))|(?<01>(?<010>c)|(?<011>d))) | (?<1>(?<10>(?<100>e)|(?<101>f))|(?<11>(?<110>g)|(?<111>h)))

If you use names like that, walking the tree is easy. Just concatenate "0" or "1" to the current node node to find the child nodes. Also, the final matching group name is a binary number corresponding to matching route's index into the list of routes. For example, url "e" has the name "100". That's a binary 4, which is url "e"'s position in the list.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I built a router like this for Rails back in the 2.3 era. It was ridiculously fast for small route sets, but as the sets grew, the standard approach was actually faster. If your route set is small and routing is a bottleneck, though, this approach might work for you. :)

(I don't know how it would stand up against Journey, the Rails 4 router business. I imagine it's only gotten faster so there may be next to no gain)

<comment><AUTHOR> Did you read on to the end? I also had the problem that performance degraded with large route sets, but resolved it by matching in chunks of ten routes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Oh that is so neat how you bundle the whole thing up and then extract which one was hit! Bravo at exploiting the significant regex compiling technology to the max. That's one trick that I will remember.

</comment><comment><USER14> That's a nice clear exposition of the thought process which most of us would go through to (eventually) get a decent solution.

</comment><comment><USER15> This ... is insane

<comment><USER16> Why?

<comment><USER15> Because it would be a nightmare to maintain.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not like you're writing the regular expressions and lookup tables per hand. You write the routes in whatever format you deem nice and it's automatically translated from there ;)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


NSA spied on UN, breaking active agreements - <AUTHOR> http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/nsa-hoerte-zentrale-der-vereinte-nationen-in-new-york-ab-a-918421.html <comment><USER2> Some English translations from the original German:

      New documents prove to SPIEGEL information:

      Even the United Nations headquarters in New

      York was tapped by the U.S. NSA, although an

      agreement prohibiting just that. Even the U.S.

      Consulate in Frankfurt served as a listening post.

      -----

      The U.S. Secret NSA has not only the European Union

      bugged, but also the headquarters of the United

      Nations. This is evident from the NSA secret

      documents, the DER SPIEGEL has analyzed.

      -----

      > "The traffic gives us the internal video
         teleconferencing the UN (yay!)."

      Within three weeks, the number of decrypted

      communications had risen from 12 to 458th

      In one case, the NSA had also caught the Chinese

      intelligence in it, also a spy.

</comment><comment><USER3> See also, GigaOM article:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6271259](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6271259)

</comment><comment><USER4> Very difficult to read if you do not understand German. The German text is clearly written, but The google translation is awful. Is it a plot of Google to convince people to learn foreign languages ?

<comment><USER5> > The German text is clearly written, but The google translation is awful. Is > it a plot of Google to convince people to learn foreign languages ?

Automated German to English translation has never been a walk in the park. Nicht wahr?

But it could be worse -- it could be English to German, which is in some ways worse, among other things always longer than the original.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Not only did the NSA spy on the UN, but Hillary Clinton instructed State Department employees to spy on the UN. Here's an article from Der Spiegel from 2009 that I stumbled upon:

[http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/diplomats-or- spook...](http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/diplomats-or-spooks-how- us-diplomats-were-told-to-spy-on-un-and-ban-ki-moon-a-731747.html)

And this spying by the State Department may have provided the NSA with the information they needed to do their own spying:

 _" The State Department was also particularly interested in the UN's internal communications facilities. In her wish list, Clinton wanted to find out everything possible about the organization's telecommunications infrastructure and also extensive information on "current technical specifications, physical layout, and planned upgrades to telecommunications infrastructure and information systems, networks, and technologies used by top officials and their support staffs." The intention seems clear: This information would make it easier for the National Security Agency, the US intelligence agency responsible for wiretapping of phones and interception of electronic communications, to easily attack telephone, computer and e-mail accounts."_

This information came from the diplomatic cables leaked to WikiLeaks by Bradley Manning.

</comment><comment><USER7> To summarize my two other comments, talk of anything remotely against the whims of HN mods gets your account, your submissions deaded.

Nevermind how _hackers_ who have taken on the White House, Washington Post and others are defecting against Assad due to his chemical attacks[1]. The topic involves a whiff of politics so it must be moderated against! Any hacker, technical, code related aspects are ignored if one shred of the topic goes against the whims of HN mods.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6252592](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6252592)

<comment><USER8> If you keep going like this I think you'll need a new account soon. HN is pretty fair when it comes to talking about things that go against the whims of the moderators, if it weren't I would have been banned long ago.

<comment><USER9> From the other posts, it seems this individual has spare accounts to burn.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> One of my accounts was hell-banned for this very topic.

If HN wants to halt discussion they are finding a very effective way to do so.

edit: Why is this comment getting down-voted? Must I start collating a list of users complaining their submissions are being overrode by others? Or show how they get down-voted/dismissed when bringing it up?

Is this what HN has come to?

<comment><USER10> Maybe you should try writing a more coherent comment, instead of spamming the thread with a lot similar comments. You can also edit your comment.

<comment><USER7> If form is the best critique you can muster, please don't even comment. If you wish to read a longer more heart-felt comment of mine regarding egregious copyright violations, here[1]. It is a topic that pains me to this day, take a moment to read if you will.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6262162](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6262162)

Edit: Read before down-voting.

<comment><USER11> This is not a critique, just an observation:

You're well on track to get hellbanned again. Do you learn from your own mistakes?

<comment><USER7> One article I submitted was overridden by an elder member when he submitted it. Long after the thread gained positive discussion. Pointing out this flaw, received me one of my first hell-bans.

What I am to learn from this? Do not submit things older members may later submit? Do not point out the flaws in such a system?

edit: Thanks swombat for ending with a question, a way to further discussion instead of making it a pointed statement. :)

<comment><USER12> It's the wrong conclusion. For example, yesterday there were two submissions of "Linux 3.9 introduced a new way of writing socket servers"

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6269332](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6269332) (222 points)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6270330](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6270330) (dead, 3 points, 5 hours later)

The second one was submitted by a user with more karma, average, and days in HN.

Sometimes a story is submitted by two persons and the dupe detector fails. One of them get traction, the selection is by random events, like the hour of the submission, how many upvotes it get's in the first hours, which other stories are in the first page, ... I have seen some good stories that get only 2 or 3 points, and after a month someone else submits a similar story from another source and it gets 50 points. It's also a matter of luck.

<comment><USER7> Was the second article posted with the '/2' at the end of the link? Things like that seem to cause most filter hiccups, I tried to discount those obviously.

For science and all that, can you think of other examples?

edit: Oh I see it is different chapters, /1 /2 etc. Nevermind that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Infact, in another topic I provided very technical details to an event being linked[1]. That article was deaded, rendering my commentary on the technical aspects useless.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6248144](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6248144)

edit: In-case users are down-voting before reading what was linked. The comments I provided showed how monitoring hardware was used to track people of 'interest' like religious followers. I have been attempting to focus on the ramifications for hardware like Bluecoat's ending up being used to monitor and persecute others.

This persecution is not just using to harass others but to know what leaders of Sunnis to 'cleanse' as to make populating Alawites easier[2].

[2] [http://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/syrian-army- ren...](http://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/syrian-army-renews- offensive-homs)</comment>


Tesla's giant battery saved $40M during its first year, report says - <AUTHOR> https://electrek.co/2018/12/06/tesla-battery-report/ <comment><USER2> This is going to become more and more common. Li-ion battery costs are falling at a constant ~15% per year and there is no real reason why this shouldn't continue. Similar to what Moore's law did to semiconductors, this will mean that batteries are poised to have a massive impact and eat any energy application that can't keep up. New tech will have a hard time to keep up simply due to momentum this has already developed, aka it will have to be at least a magnitude better AND keep on scaling.

This is why Tesla is valued higher than GM, Daimler or pretty much any other car company. Tesla at it's heart is a battery company with products built around that. From what I've read, from 2025 onwards traditional internal combustion engines will not be able to compete on price with electric cars.

Something similar will likely happen to energy storage, though this is of course still a relatively novel industry that has been spurred on by renewable energy's intermittent availability. Interesting times..

Edit: percentage of annual battery price drop after doing some googling

<comment><USER3> > _This is why Tesla is valued higher than GM, Daimler or pretty much any > other car company. Tesla at it 's heart is a battery company with products > built around that._

It was Samsung, not Tesla, who supplied the actual cells [1]: _Tesla's giant new Powerpack project in Australia will use battery cells made by Samsung_

[1] [https://electrek.co/2017/08/09/tesla-powerpack-project- austr...](https://electrek.co/2017/08/09/tesla-powerpack-project-australia- battery-cell-samsung/)

<comment><USER4> And in Tesla's Gigafactory 1, it's Panasonic who make the batteries. [https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigafactory_1](https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigafactory_1)

Someone else owning your key competitive advantage sounds like a vulnerability...

OTOH you could similarly say the _touchscreen_ was the key to the first iphone... invented, developed, manufactured and owned by someone else.

<comment><USER5> I believe it (the Tesla battery plant) was built as a joint venture with Panasonic giving the IP and tooling and Tesla operating the plant. They're using a custom cell format also, away from the ubiquitous and standard 18650.

LG, Panasonic and Samsung make almost all the lithium ion cells used today so it doesn't seem odd that Tesla would license one of their technologies to start. The r&d savings would be in the billions.

<comment><USER6> The 2170 (or 21700) batteries used in the Model 3 were not invented for the Model 3 originally. AFAIK, they predate the development of that vehicle.

<comment><USER7> They might not have invented the format, but they are fairly certainly using chemistry optimized for their cars.

Not sure whether Panasonic does it for them but the way I hear them talk about it they seem to have quite a bit of R&D in house.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> For anyone that might be interested, here are live graphs representing different generation types and their current cost for the Australian energy market (caveat: not all of Australia):

[https://opennem.org.au/](https://opennem.org.au/)

[https://opennem.org.au/#/regions/sa](https://opennem.org.au/#/regions/sa)

South Australia - where the battery is located - is an outlier in the Australian market due to its relatively progressive energy generation composition. It's worth noting the battery charge/discharge values depending on the market price of wholesale electricity. Arbitrage in action! :)

The application is open sourced and available here:

[https://github.com/opennem](https://github.com/opennem)

<comment><USER9> That's a horrifyingly large amount of coal there for a developed country.

<comment><USER10> Because the left in Australia is deathly afraid of nuclear and the right finds that it constituents are those who work in coal, one of our major industries.

Our largest 3rd party, the greens just won't even consider nuclear, to them it's solar/wind or bust.

<comment><USER11> Nuclear would be ridiculously expensive for Australia. Renewables and gas would be achievable in under 10 years.

<comment><USER12> Australia has 34% of the world's low-cost uranium reserves.

<comment><USER13> Fueling a nuclear power plant is never expensive comparing to just about anything else there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> So it cost $66 million and saved $40 million.

That's impressive. I assume most of the saving is from grid stabilisation, rather than supplying/storing energy but still.

Why is this not more wide spread? These figures suggest this is a no brainer. Am I missing something?

<comment><USER15> So it paid for itself in 1.65 years, which comes out to an ROI of ~52%.

Why is this not more widespread? There must be some barriers.

<comment><USER16> I think part of the savings don't go directly to the battery owner, but instead prevent the electricity suppliers from price gouging the customer.

Happens a lot with renewables. You personally don't capture all the value you provide. This is part of the reason that rooftop solar should get paid more than the going rate but even 1:1 rates get attacked as some kind of scam, even as they reduce peak load which may be literally 1000x more expensive than average.

<comment><USER17> Correct. A proper grid system would pay a premium for the size of the solar grid that fulfills solar-induced demands.

After that, solar should get paid grid rate.

I have no idea if anyone has bothered to calculate what the solar-induced demand is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is only the beginning. Companies like this one here:

[https://eosenergystorage.com](https://eosenergystorage.com)

Are already delivering zinc-air batteries which have many advantages over li- ion with one huge disadvantage being low power density - not a problem for grid storage. AFAIK if you shorted such a battery it would bleed out its charge without much fanfare.

<comment><USER18> Is anyone working on massively scaling up the production of these types of batteries, the way Tesla is with lithium?

<comment><USER13> Sort of. Those mentioned secured funding for a plant:

[https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180924005178/en/Eos...](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180924005178/en/Eos- Energy-Storage-Secures-Strategic-Investment-Manufacturing)

But the scale isn't there yet since only recently someone was able to finally demonstrate a rechargeable zinc-air battery.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> One dynamic that's underestimated in markets where the optionality of substantial non-marginal costs (CapEx, RegEx, etc) is amortized over volume (rather than optionality charges: access charges) is that a 10% decrease in use will never (in the long run) result in a 10% decrease in costs of the product. i.e. Consider a Crusoe economy, where you buy a magic box that supplies free electricity 99% of the time. Do your electricity costs (in the long run) go down 99%? No because the electricity supplier will now have to amortize all their costs over the 1% time when you need to buy electricity.

Regulation delays this (inevitable) blow up, allowing the magic-box seller to oversell the market before prices are allowed to adjust to snap down to what would have been the post-magic-box equilibrium without regulatory friction.

Electric-utility arbitrage batteries are basically physical call-option contracts: you pay a premium for the right to purchase electricity below market rate. The question for a firm assessing this gambit is, is the ratio of the premium to in-the-money(ITM) payoff time profile worth the premium.

<comment><USER20> Note that the arbitrage batteries can also respond faster than the rest of the grid, so you also gain some of the benefits of HFT with your call options.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I've often wondered if the plan is to use "worn out" batteries for this kind of thing. After 250,000 km, an electric car's battery might be down to only 80% of its original capacity, rendering it not ideal for cars any more. But grid scale storage doesn't care about energy per volume or per mass, so those old cells can be out to pasture for a few years before they are ultimately broken down.

<comment><USER22> The data coming in so far is that with a lot more kilometers that than Tesla's batteries degrade less than 10%

<comment><USER21> Yeah I've heard that, yet when I picked mine up I got a speech about not using high speed charging too often, or charging past 90% all the time...

I'm not convinced these battery packs are as durable as they say.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> For those who are interested, you can see in real-time the charge/discharge of the battery on the electricityMap: [https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=country&solar=false&rem...](https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=country&solar=false&remote=true&wind=false&countryCode=AUS- SA)

<comment><USER24> That's a nice visualization!

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> For a huge "site battery" like this, what does lithium ion offer over storing energy as mechanical potential energy (pumping/moving something uphill)? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_storage#Mechanical_stor...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_storage#Mechanical_storage)

I'm sure the battery can come online faster, but a it seems like a small battery can provide the "quick response" while the gravity-driven generator comes online.

<comment><USER9> The energy density of mechanical storage is pretty terrible, and you need the right geography to help.

<comment><USER25> > and you need the right geography to help.

That's true of things like pumping water upstream, but I was thinking of something like this: [https://qz.com/1355672/stacking-concrete-blocks-is-a- surpris...](https://qz.com/1355672/stacking-concrete-blocks-is-a-surprisingly- efficient-way-to-store-energy/)

I'm curious how much real estate it would take with that approach to equal the energy storage capacity of the Tesla battery.

<comment><USER26> I always heard that gravity was very poor for energy storage because it's such a relatively week energy. I haven't done the math so I'm not outright dismissing the idea but your article states:

>A 120-meter (nearly 400-foot) tall, six-armed crane stands in the middle. In the discharged state, concrete cylinders weighing 35 metric tons each are neatly stacked around the crane far below the crane arms.[...]

>The system is "fully charged" when the crane has created a tower of concrete blocks around it. The total energy that can be stored in the tower is 20 megawatt-hours (MWh), enough to power 2,000 Swiss homes for a whole day.

That seems like a huge hassle for a relatively meager storage. You'd need more than 6 of these to match Tesla's giant battery. Sounds like it would be an eye-sore too, but that's always a bit subjective. Maintenance-wise it could be rather tricky too, the article mentions complex systems to lift the blocks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> $66mm initial cost, so just short of a 20 month ROI. That's impressive.

<comment><USER17> It is diminishing returns though.

The more you shave the most profitable peaks and fill the deepest valleys, the less volatility you have to work with.

<comment><USER28> The world energy market is huge, though and this is in one small area. It also seems like a pretty easy thing to evaluate the utility of - energy costs are public domain, and the way that the batteries work is pretty clear. Calculate the possible cost/benefit over the last year and increase until you're no longer willing to build more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> One of the most interesting parts in the report, albeit brief, is on page 25 where they mention possible new frequency markets that can take better advantage of the capabilities of batteries.

Particularly of interest is the "Simulated Inertia" market, where the battery operates without a frequency deadband configured.

</comment><comment><USER30> What is the recycleability of these things like? IIRC most batteries contain a bunch of rare earth metals and aren't great for land filling. When these are worn out in 10-15 years how much environmental impact is there to replace / refurbish / recycle them?

<comment><USER31> > IIRC most batteries contain a bunch of rare earth metals and aren't great > for land filling.

That's incorrect. Batteries don't have any rare earth metals. You're thinking of cadmium telluride thin film solar panels, which have been replaced by silicon solar. They were a contender for cheaper solar panels, but it didn't work out in the end. They were also so terrible for the environment that they tainted the reputation of completely unrelated technologies.

> When these are worn out in 10-15 years how much environmental impact is > there to replace / refurbish / recycle them?

It seems likely that the battery will last a lot longer than 15 years, but Tesla gives 15 years expected and 10 warrantied. Disposing of li-ion batteries involves shredding and burning them, which leaves behind a ceramic clinker (sold for concrete filler) and several metals (nickel, cobalt, copper, aluminum and steel in order of importance). Cobalt and nickel are the only hazardous materials and are fully collected since they're also the most valuable. Lithium is not cost-effective to recover; it's sold with the clinker.

The incineration process only gives off CO2 and water. This comes from the electrolytes and plastics being burnt. It's obviously not great and the heat isn't captured for use (AFAIK) but there's no other pollution and the net CO2 savings are still great.

<comment><USER32> Tellurium, like e.g. gold, is _rare on Earth_ but not a _rare earth element_. CdTe panels aren't terrible for the environment either. They have a faster energy payback time than crystalline silicon. The cadmium doesn't leak out of the panel any more than arsenic leaks out of cell phone power amplifiers. But CdTe modules have lost ground to crystalline silicon panels because c-Si has reduced costs faster. There's just one significant producer of CdTe modules today, First Solar.

NiMH batteries do contain mixed rare earth elements (mostly lanthanum), but the particular elements used are fairly abundant. And of course NiMH batteries look like they can't keep up with lithium ion and will see their niche shrinking further.

<comment><USER31> Whoops, you're totally right- got my Chinese metals mixed up. 75% of US tellurium comes from China, and I must have gotten cross-contaminated.

> The cadmium doesn't leak out of the panel any more than arsenic leaks out of > cell phone power amplifiers.

The actual cells are perfectly safe but the mining and manufacturing process is not. The extremely lax controls in China 20+ years ago aren't representative of the present, but they did do terrible damage and mining cadmium will always cause contamination.

> NiMH batteries do contain mixed rare earth elements (mostly lanthanum), but > the particular elements used are fairly abundant.

Yes! That's what I had been thinking of, besides magnets obviously. Lanthanum is also notable in that it's used to make gasoline, along with cerium.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I think it is definitely interesting, but doesn't South Australia have a particularly screwed up electricity system (and I say that as an Ontarian)?

<comment><USER34> Ontario has one of the best and cleanest grids in North America, if not the world. Coal was completely phased out years ago, and dependence on gas-fired peakers is low.

South Australia has the cleanest grid in Australia (except Tasmania), with extensive wind generation, but does not have the nuclear and hydro resources that somewhere like Ontario can call on. Thus it depends, at times, on dirty, lignite-fired imports from neighbouring Victoria for balancing. By building more solar and battery storage over time, SA can reduce the need for imports (and expensive gas-fired peakers), making their grid even cleaner.

<comment><USER33> As an Ontarian, sure we have a decent amount of hydro and nuclear, but there's been a lot of problems. Fair Hydro for one.

<comment><USER35> As an Ontarian, no one has been able to explain to me what our problems are.

We have moderately priced electricity that is very clean and reliable. If the rest of the industrialized world looked like Ontario electricity-wise, we'd be decades ahead of where we are in fighting climate change.

<comment><USER17> Politicized cancellations of power plant projects, instead building them far from demand and beefing up the grid because of the new distance.

Wind and solar subsidy policies based on ??? Other than "wind and solar are good, we should pay whatever it costs, locked in for decades, to switch to it".

<comment><USER17> I'll also add mandatory submetering for apartments/condos.

So now I pay a $37/month fixed fee on top of my $17 in actual electricity use.

Historically, an entire building would pay one delivery fee. Albeit higher, but still less than every unit paying its own monthly fee.

A stupid way to encourage conservation (by the lowest electricity users anyway) when they have to pay more in new monthly fees than they could ever save by conservation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> It cost $66 million but saved $40 million its first year?

How's the projected rate of return on that guy look?

It's about time people realize "green" can be profitable.

</comment><comment><USER37> Honestly the concept here is not new, and the more I think about it the more likely I see levels of storage from fastest to slowest (and capacity in the same vein) ranging from batteries/capacitors to pumped storage systems. Between all of those they should be able to normalize the inputs into the grid I would think.

</comment><comment><USER38> Seems like an interesting take on peak energy supply -- charging it up for "free" from renewable sources and discharging instantly when needed.

Edited for clarity: For people that are in the know regarding grid-level energy: is this the path of least-resistance for renewable adoption? I.e. Renewable+energy storage for peak demands, something else for baseline production?

<comment><USER9> > better ways to use clean energy?

I'm not sure what this question is really asking? Better ways to store it to match supply to demand?

In response to edit:

> is this the path of least-resistance for renewable adoption? I.e. > Renewable+energy storage for peak demands, something else for baseline > production?

This is a false dichotomy. There is baseline _demand_ ; on the other side the supply can be divided into dispatchable and non-dispatchable. Renewables can't be turned on by demand, so they're non-dispatchable. Perhaps surprisingly nuclear plants go in the non-dispatchable class; they produce a constant amount of power, apart from occasional month-long shutdowns for refuelling or maintenance.

The path of least resistance is to just keep adding more wind and solar, for the time being. A certain amount of highly dispatchable gas plants are needed to cover the difference. The tricky thing is working out how they should be paid, as they run less and less often.

The battery is then just another piece of dispatchable power generation, and can be paid to cover peaks.

Eventually we reach a point where the spread on the spot market between high and low prices becomes very wide: there will be times when electricity is being given away, and times where a plant is fired up a few times a year to cover midwinter. A good market for more batteries.

<comment><USER38> Sorry, edited my question to make more sense. I didn't really put enough effort in the first time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> $40M AUD, which is ~ $29M USD

<comment><USER40> It looks like the 66m is USD cost.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> If these batteries are as good as the one in my iPhone, they'll need to be replaced after a year and a half. Given that the plant cost 66M, sounds like they're going to make break even approximately.

But kidding aside, how long are these batteries really supposed to last?

<comment><USER42> There's little in common between an EV/stationary battery pack and a smartphone battery. What's the redundancy and the battery management/cooling system in the latter?

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> as battery prices drop - it will be interesting to observe Jevon's paradox in action as demand increases for the batteries and surrounding technology.

</comment><comment><USER44> It may be important for readers to know that Electrek has some kind of financial interest in Tesla.

<comment><USER45> Indeed. Electrek is a biased source, and to be taken with a large grain of salt. They openly admit it.

"Some writers of Electrek maintain positions in $TSLA and other green energy stocks"

Https://electrek.co/about/

<comment><USER46> Not the first time I've read this kind of dismissive tone with respect to Electrek's articles on this site. Maybe if you have better facts or articulated opinions, you could share them?

Sure, they are biased, and quite openly so. It's quite obvious from looking at their site that they are not funded by the oil lobby and they are most likely somewhat concerned about such things as global warming and other tree-hugger stuff. It's not like they are being very secretive about that.

However, that does not discredit their articles or mean that they are wrong about stuff. They generally do a fairly decent job of separating their opinions from facts they are reporting, linking to source materials, quoting individuals, etc. Decent journalism in other words.

In this case they are reporting some simple facts, citing a few key people, and voice some opinions/interpretations that don't strike me as outrageous or unreasonable. There's no need for them to up sell/sugar coat this in any way.

<comment><USER47> I've read a lot of their articles. In general they are high on facts, low on fluff, and they are not afraid to criticize Tesla. It's what journalism should be.

I think everyone without a vested interest in oil or short selling Tesla wants (or should want) to see them succeed. You don't need to own Tesla stock for that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Around 2,034 MW of industrial solar was built in 2017 in SA. More than 100MW of Solar was installed on rooftops from the time the battery was first discussed to the time the contract was signed. A lot more was installed after delivery.

This means that these sources, along with industrial efficiency and scaling, they are in effect a virtual battery installed more quickly, and more cost effective than the battery.

It is estimated that by 2023 the whole state can be powered by rooftop solar alone. The battery is good to suck up the excess wind power, and provide energy in times of need.

There's still lots of peaks the wind+solar combinations don't cover. Like high frequency trading, the batteries are able to act quickly to demand peaks outstripping supply.

However, most times this happens is on a hot day... and on those days it's extremely predictable. These are the times when gas wins. It's also the time when rooftop solar is the most cost efficient.

Around 2020-2023 rooftop solar will decimate the gas providers. The wind farm batteries will probably still be useful in these times however.

How long will that demand last? Will the prediction technology and dynamic industry power usage (including desalination plants) come online by then? What about smarter cooling technology? That's be rolled out too.

One of the states main industrial power users also has started building solar and pumped hydro. Reducing gas further. These molten pools of metal are very much like virtual batteries.

The wind farms have lots of excess sometimes. Well, that is being exported across state lines in these times. There's much more than can fill such batteries. Note that in times of excess wind, the gas is still burning at a less rate. Even though there's more than enough 'free' wind energy to cover their use. I expect this will change in time.

What about other wind farms coming online in other parts of the state? These are supposed to cover the current valleys in power generation too. If all of the wind that is under construction or planned comes online by 2023, that's more than enough to cover the needs of the state even at peak... let alone the valleys.

Electric car technology is expected to generate some demand, but mostly this will be charged with the excess rooftop solar/wind.

Large batteries like this are an important, but stop-gap measure. It's cheaper to build another wind farm in a very different part of the state which has the same effect. Because it can fill up the valleys in power generation where the batteries currently snipe good returns. Probably they would be cost effective to buy more in the next 1-2 years, if they can be installed much more quickly than wind farms (that often require approval, whereas the existing wind farms can be fitted out with much less of an approval process).</comment>


Comixify: Transform video into a comics - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1812.03473 <comment><USER2> wow this is awesome i love comics and video this is a win win</comment>


Entrepreneurs offer their life's future earnings for an investment - <AUTHOR> http://deals.venturebeat.com/2010/03/03/life-investment/#

<comment><AUTHOR> Moderating this event in SF tonight. Anyone can come: <http://lifeinvestment.eventbrite.com> \- trying to get some discount codes for HN users now

</comment><comment><USER2> Although not looking for explicit % of income type returns, lots of us on HN have entered into structured deals much like this. We call it parenting.

</comment><comment><USER3> The original website was posted on HN a while ago.</comment>


Stupider Than You Realize - barry-cotter http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/07/stupider-than-you-realize.html <comment><AUTHOR> I've found that your perception of how smart other people are goes up with the quality of the education you receive.

Good schools have a filter to keep out the worst of the riff-raff; and once you are out of school, most of us spend most of our time after school with our peers. Many of my peers went to very good schools, and nearly all of those people have a much higher opinion of humanity in general than i do, simply because they have never been exposed to a group of average people. See, I went to one of the worst high schools in the state, then I skipped college to get a .com job, so my last interaction with the proletariat was unfiltered.

<comment><USER2> What's an example of how average people deflate one's expectations of humanity?

<comment><USER3> Watching people who can barely afford to eat play the lottery because they think they might actually win.

Watching people who shouldn't be buying anything on credit judging the qualify of a loan by the monthly payment.

Watching people base their entire lives around a book written by a bunch of ignorant (by modern standards) pre-industrial men, and praying to the sky weekly to make their lives better.

<comment><USER4> Watching people who think they're so smart that they can sit in judgment of others without understanding them.

<comment><USER3> I do understand them, I grew up among them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I was amazed to learn that ~15% of adults in America are functionally illiterate. They can put letters together and sound out words - but couldn't, for example, answer simple questions about a short text they just read.

Over 20% of American adults are 'quantitatively illiterate'. They are unable to add two small numbers together - or parse a simple chart or table that has numbers.

Only 13% of the adult population is proficient in reading, writing, math - where proficient means being able to do simple things like compare viewpoints in two editorials or compare the cost per ounce of food items.

That means ~9 out of 10 American adults are seriously lacking in their ability to read, write, or interpret numbers.

<http://nces.ed.gov/NAAL/datafiles.asp>

<comment><USER6> I was a volunteer tutor for a 5th grader for few months. He had the reading ability supposedly of about a 3rd grader I was told. He could pretty much read any word, but we'd crack a book, he'd point at the word, say it, then continue to the next word. Punctuation meant nothing. He could have probably done it for days. Part of my job was to stop him and ask him questions about what was going on. Blank stares. I moved and couldn't tutor him any longer, but I don't think I helped, which was frustrating. The thing is, he had been in the program for years. And was undoubtedly going to passed to 6th grade, and probably won't break out of illiteracy without an intensive program. Point being, I don't think his situation is all that unique.

<comment><USER5> Wow, that is a little depressing.

Just out of idle curiosity - are you _the_ djb (qmail, cdb, etc)?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Really? I've experienced the opposite, that people are smarter than I initially expect. Is there an age trend here, perhaps?

<comment><USER8> I think people are as smart as they need to be. You don't need to be able to summarize tabular data if you work at a fast food shop (e.g. as a waiter).

And it definitely has to do with the circles you hang around in. As a programmer you're more likely to be in a rather smart circle.

<comment><AUTHOR> dono. I've met more than a few smart people working in the service industry. (I've hired a few, too, with good results.)

Personally, when I hire someone, I rate hobby experience as more desirable than paid experience. I can give you paid experience. At least for SysAdmins, I can train you in all the gotchas of production. But I can't make you like it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> One can't necessarily conclude from what people _did_ answer correctly on a test what they _could_ answer correctly. Were they trying their best? Why would they? It's boring and they weren't presented with any powerful reason to really care a lot about doing their best.

There is a further issue of how long it would take people to learn these skills, if they genuinely wanted to, and got helpful explanations. If someone doesn't know a skill, but could learn it in 30min if he ever wanted to, then that's no reason to call him dumb. I think to judge people you have to look at how well they learn rather than what they currently know.

</comment><comment><USER10> A common mistake among smart people (and everyone else) is to overestimate people on some things and underestimate people on others.

I'm not sure what the article is saying beyond this.

</comment><comment><USER11> You have to keep your personal bar set high, though not letting that demoralize you, and not self-congratulate yourself too much when comparing yourself to the "average" person. Just being in the top 2% or 0.2% of IQ, does not guarantee success (sometimes quite the opposite!).

</comment><comment><USER12> I think it might be fairer to say that most people don't realize how _many_ stupid people there are. This drags the average down, of course, but most of them aren't relevant to me. Hanging out with intelligent people leads me to believe that people are intelligent, which is a) wrong and b) totally fine. Because it holds true for those people with whom I interact, my mistaken assumption is perfectly safe, and on the whole can lead me to make more accurate judgments in most cases.

</comment><comment><USER13> All of these questions could be categorized as testing "critical thinking". Should we really find it all that surprising that a majority of people lack such skills when a large number of jobs (dare I say most) only require skills along the lines of rote memorization of a finite amount of information. I find it scary how few people lack the capacity for independent thought. They just wait for others to tell them what to do and then follow unquestioningly.

</comment><comment><USER14> Understanding a bar chart or a pie chart is something you learned at some point. It takes a while to learn to inteprete these things.

Most people are not dumb. They are rather smart, but they focus their thoughts on the things they have interest in. In other things, they do not pay attention.

</comment><comment><USER15> Stupid compared to what?

There are functionally illiterate people who make millions of dollars per year. And there are people with sky-high IQs that collect subway cards and remain jobless.

When you start throwing around words like "stupid" or "smart", you have to provide some kind of context. For instance, I have a high ability to learn languages. Yet I only know English and a smattering of French. To somebody who speaks seven languages, I'm dumb. But to me, I just never developed that talent. Whereas to me, the guy who knows seven languages and can't create a web page is stupid (perhaps), etc.

Lots of people don't know or can't do things that I can do. Likewise, I don't know and can't do a lot of things other people can. If I were to dwell on this disparity, it would say a lot more about my ego than the human population.

<comment><USER16> Sorry, I'm hung up on your high ability to learn languages. If you only know a "smattering" of another language, how can you say you have a high ability to learn languages?

<comment><USER17> Having ability to learn and having learned are quite obviously different. For example, I was good at languages in school, and could easily have gone on to a language degree at a good university, but decided to do law instead. 3 years later and my French is very out of practice. It is (unfortunately) easy to have a talent for something and fail to cultivate it.

<comment><USER16> Again, how do you _know_ you have a talent for something unless you actually do it?

Put another way, how do you know your abilities were actually above average if you didn't follow through on them?

<comment><USER15> "Again, how do you know you have a talent for something unless you actually do it?"

You do a little of it, then compare yourself against statistical norms.

For instance, I have a talent at playing the piano. I took lessons for around 10 years. At the end, I was able to compete against other people who took the same amount of lessons and win a scholarship. Now -- I did not continue developing that talent, so compared to say, a concert pianist, I'm a complete musical idiot. I know enough to be dangerous. But of course, looking at some guy on the street playing the kazoo, he's the idiot compared to me, etc.

Same goes with languages. Usually there are standard ways of teaching language concepts. You apply the teaching for a small amount of time (say an hour or a few days) and then compare with statistical averages.

It's not foolproof, but it's more right than wrong. That's how statistics work.

This work-vs-talent equation works at all levels. I knew a guy who became a supervisor for around 30 employees. Smart guy, knew his stuff, but he couldn't spell. He, quite frankly, looked stupid compared to most of the people who worked for him. So he took the time and boned up on his spelling. He was no more stupid than I am -- smarter in a lot of ways -- but he just didn't see the point in emphasizing spelling until later in life.

You're always stupid compared to something else. The word "stupid" doesn't exist in a vacuum. There's always some subtext involved when you use it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> _Point of view is worth 80 IQ points_

</comment><comment><USER19> Stupider is not a real word. Using words like 'Stupider' or 'Stupidest' are stupid.

<comment><USER20> 'is stupid'. Sorry :)</comment></comment>


Landing Page Feedback anyone? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@EmilBruckner/day-7-zero-to-mvp-in-30-days-what-a-bad-landing-page-1f3dd843b991 <comment><USER2> 1\. If you haven't verified that the analytics work, why would you add them at all? Tracking for the sake of tracking is lame.

2\. The chat pops up itself; that's a turn off for me. If I want to chat, I'll click the floating button or look for an email address.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER3> The header could have a better background</comment>