The perils of online college learning - <AUTHOR> http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hiltzik-20130728,0,2408536.column <comment><USER2> This article and a lot of the articles on the San Jose State are all of over the map when it comes to improving MOOCs: more TAs, more focus on the content, etc. They _do_ , however, share one major thing: that half of the kids failing the SJSU class is, in fact, a problem that we need to fix.

 _What?_

What about the other half of the kids? Think about it. This was an online class, with presumably very little (if any!) vetting of the students, with little or no supervision (they didn't even know a lot of the kids didn't have computers until three weeks in!), and a whole 50% _didn 't_ fail? I mean, this isn't a failure, this is a revolution.

Let's face it, these courses aren't designed to signal anything more than competency and --arguably-- the only way to actually display your competency to the world is to have not everyone pass. Because imagine if everyone _did_ pass? You would go to your future employer and say, "Yeah, so, I took this course, online, where not a single person failed, and it's obvious that I'm competent, because they have this, ya know, innovative learning algorithm." If everyone passed than you might as well do MIT OCW. Which, by the way, is the exact same thing as a library, which we've had in every modernized municipality on the planet for 200 years.

No, online education is to regular education as the CFA is to an MBA. What is it, like 30% of people pass the CFA? Yeah, 30%! But no one is clamoring about how the CFA needs to be fixed. Quite the opposite--it's the gold standard. And not only that, it's downright democratic: anyone can take it in the world, and if you _are_ in fact one of the ones that pass, the certification really does mean something. I mean, people put CFA after their name!

That's the future in online education. Not prestige, not A-'s and B+'s, and not feel-good relationships with professors: no, it's cold-hard certifications and frankly it's a godsend.

<comment><USER3> 50% pass is quite good compared to Learndirect in the early days. An overview with links to more detail[1]

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It isn't about replacing in person instruction with online. It is about making college courses available to anyone.

At the turn of the 20th century, my grandfather certainly could not afford college. He did what people at the time did who wanted to get a college degree - he took it by correspondence (by mail).

He liked it enough that he started a business selling correspondence courses. He met my grandmother through selling her engineering courses (she was a mechanic for the phone company).

Online courses are just a modern version of that.

<comment><USER5> This is what I've been trying to get across to people in the wave of FUD that's been going around for the last year or so. It's clear a lot of educators feel threatened by MOOCs, but I truly wish they would consider how many people worldwide are priced out of a college education.

<comment><USER6> Why? Their opinions are irrelevant.

It's not nice of me to say, but it's true. People only ever come around after the fact. Sitting around advocating positions in hopes of furthering corresponding causes is perhaps the most/least efficient way never to accomplish anything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think the real failure here is the belief that the majority of people need to pass for something to be worthwhile. It doesn't seem likely that online learning will work better for everyone, but I strongly suspect that it will work better for some subset of people. In the long run, personalization will be extremely important in education.

Have you ever had a great teacher you really engaged with, but also heard from other people that they didn't really like the teacher? For myself, I'd say that I've found that only about 5% of teachers are actually engaging, with depressingly few of those before college. Imagine if you had a personal learning profile built up over your education, so that over time you were matched with the best possible (world-class) instructor for your learning style for every class. I'd bet most of the people here were near the top of their class; imagine never having to slow down for anyone, and automatically skipping reinforcement you don't need, so you can learn and advance as quickly as you are able. I think some people respond best to coursera style lectures, others respond better to Udacity-style continuous socratic method lessons, while others respond better to group work and discussion. Why bother trying one-size-fits-all solutions, when technology can allow for direct personalization. My Netflix experience isn't like anyone else's, why should my education.

I think there is actually a great opportunity to build a platform business in this space, where different instructors can design and build different types of courses. Imagine 20 different calculus courses, but the student only sees one. The best lessons are cherry-picked for them, and the curriculum and delivery is tailored to the rate that they are learning. I'd really like to build something like that, if anybody else wants to give it a shot, shoot me an email.

</comment><comment><USER8> > Anyone who has come into personal contact with an inspiring professor at the > top of his or her field knows that the experience can't be reproduced by > remote control.

I was in Andrew Ng's first class of Machine Learning. He is one of the best professors I have ever had the pleasure to learn from, online or offline. He can transmit his passion for machine learning plenty well through video.

It's not the medium. It's some of the professors that teach online courses that haven't risen up to the standard imposed in the first classes.

If it's going to be an online class for millions, then at least find the most inspirational speaker you can before starting to record. Coursera has grown up too fast for its own good, probably many classes are just so-and-so.

Then the author goes on to say:

> My own entire graduate school experience was made worthwhile by a single > extraordinary teacher, without whom it might have been an utter waste of > time.

Exactly what I thought. Many people pass through brick-and-mortar universities wasting most of the time and money. It's not like real life education has magic. All it has is a real life person monitoring your presence in the lecture hall. It is just a little bit of motivation that is added on top.

We could simulate that with human monitoring - we don't need professors to monitor people taking online classes. We could do with "coaches"/people with psychological skill that would also have access to the students' online stats and have regular contact with the students.

Everybody works better when their efforts are being acknowledged. We are social animals and rely a lot on the social signals to build our motivation. So, why don't we just think of a way to have this aspect of offline learning in MOOCs?

<comment><USER9> Recently my son and I were watching Sussman's 6.001 SICP lectures on YouTube. That has the effect of enabling my son to see what I learned decades ago from a very inspiring professor, and in period costume. It makes we wish there were videos of Doc Edgerton teaching Strobe Lab.

It seems as if the reason for the "failure" of the SJ State experiment is that they underestimated the fall-off rate. That may be an indicator something was wrong with the courses, or there might be nothing at all wrong with the courses and that's the fall-off rate you get at a $150 price. The article doesn't give a hint.

The real threats to MOOCs probably come from the threat of cheating debasing the value of degrees and certifications that use MOOCs. But if the quality of assignment grading and exams can be kept high, the fall-off rate mentioned in the article is just a characteristic to be managed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think the author buried the lead... Let's say 40% passed. At 7.5% of the cost of normal tuition, I would say this is a net positive. The students who passed have course credits and saved over 93% what they normally would have spent and the students who did not pass were able to see if college is right for them, without being destroyed by debt.

Not that the author's views are without merit, but this feels like it was warped into a story about greedy university administrators and profit-blind venture capitalists.

<comment><USER11> Also buried (on the second page) was this nugget:

 _The school explains the courses ' high failure rate by saying the students were "an atypical sample" — half were San Jose State students who had already failed the courses once.

The other half were students from an underprivileged Oakland high school. Many of the latter had no computer access, a fact the school only discovered three weeks into the online term._

<comment><USER12> This should be the first comment on this page.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> What kind of complete and utter _idiocy_ is this?

50% of these brand new college students passed an _entirely online_ course at a _tiny fraction_ of the cost for the student, a _tiny fraction_ of the cost for the university, at an infinitely increased level of convenience.

Does no one else see this as downright _incredible_?

</comment><comment><USER14> > Anyone who has come into personal contact with an inspiring professor at the > top of his or her field knows that the experience can't be reproduced by > remote control; my own entire graduate school experience was made worthwhile > by a single extraordinary teacher, without whom it might have been an utter > waste of time.

As a CS undergrad, I can tell you that I've studied under a few professors that are famous academically, but the lectures themselves were nothing to write home about. In fact, when video was available for a course, I'd save myself an hour of commuting and just watch the lecture at home.

There might be certain disciplines where the style of the lecture is more dynamic, and where the lecturer needs to interact with the students, but I don't believe this to be the case with STEM subjects. Graduate school might be different, but I don't know much about that.

> But what the school also overlooked is that students with academic problems > may not be the best candidates for distance learning. "They need people > almost literally holding their hands, watching them do work," says Newfield, > "being there when they get frustrated at the moment when that happens."

No one cares if you fail courses, and no one holds your hand in the University. The professor doesn't know you, and he isn't going to check up on your progress. The only difference is that you the professor might have office hours where you can ask him questions personally (something not many students do, by the way).

<comment><USER15> The worst professor I had, for a physics prerequisite, was a Nobel prize winner. Suffice it to say, I got my highest grade out of all my physics prereqs by explicitly not attending lecture and just studying through that hour. But our physics program also had labs and smaller mandatory group sessions guided by TAs, which is where most of the learning happened anyways.

That being said, for students in trouble, the university can provide a lot of resources that are not related to lectures (TAs, study centers, office hours, etc...).

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The article doesn't really convince me that there are perils. Turns out the class where 50% of students failed was one were lots of students had already failed the course before, and a a major other part of the students didn't have access to a computer. Surely MOOC isn't for everyone, as it probably provides less hand holding. It's still a great resource - I have already learned a lot from such courses.

</comment><comment><USER17> As someone who has taken large lecture classes both in person and online, there's really no difference. A seminar is one thing, but no one gets anything interactive out of a class in a 300+ person lecture hall.

More students failed because they lowered the bar; I sure as hell won't fail a class I pay $2000 for but I might lose interest in one I paid $150 for. There's nothing wrong with a "low" pass rate in this case, it's just a different situation.

</comment><comment><USER18> At my university, quite some classes have 50% failure rates, especially introductory. What's so special about that that its deemed a failure?

</comment><comment><USER19> "They pointed to the risk that the edX model would lead to two classes of universities: a top tier "in which privileged students get their own real professor; the other, financially stressed private and public universities in which students watch a bunch of video-taped lectures and interact with … a glorified teaching assistant."

Unless a college professor is a thought leader in the field, with influential publications and books, aren't most of them "glorified teaching assistants" already, teaching from other people's books and distributing other people's papers for further reading and discussion?

<comment><USER14> Even if the professor is a thought leader in his field, that doesn't mean he can teach well (and from experience, not many of them can).

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> > "Having a scholar teach and engage his or her own students in person is far > superior to having those students watch a video of another scholar engaging > his or her own students," the professors wrote.

I beg to differ. Lecturing has been demonstrated to be a flatly terrible method of instruction/learning, and I see minimal difference between watching a professor 50 feet away versus on a screen. When the educational method is so poor that a minimal number of students learn anything from it they couldn't learn studying textbooks on their own, digitizing it can hardly make it much worse.

[http://www.npr.org/2012/01/01/144550920/physicists-seek- to-l...](http://www.npr.org/2012/01/01/144550920/physicists-seek-to-lose-the- lecture-as-teaching-tool)

This article illustrates the flaws with lecturing and, by proxy, with the current efforts made by MOOCs, Khan Academy, and so on. Ironically, this is not new information. People like Maria Montessori developed teaching methods more than a hundred years ago by studying children and constructing tools, classrooms and methods of instruction around how they learned.

From the linked article -

> Mazur's physics class is now different. Rather than lecturing, he makes his > students do most of the talking.

> At a recent class, the students — nearly 100 of them — are in small groups > discussing a question. Three possible answers to the question are projected > on a screen. Before the students start talking with one another, they use a > mobile device to vote for their answer. Only 29 percent got it right. After > talking for a few minutes, Mazur tells them to answer the question again.

> This time, 62 percent of the students get the question right. Next, Mazur > leads a discussion about the reasoning behind the answer. The process then > begins again with a new question. This is a method Mazur calls "peer > Instruction." He now teaches all of his classes this way.

> "What we found over now close to 20 years of using this approach is that the > learning gains at the end of the semester nearly triple," he says.

Maria Montessori recommended teaching children in age groups of 3 years at a time (3-6 year olds in one classroom, 7-9 in another, etc.) The final stage of learning material is when you can teach it to others, and requires a greater mastery; hence, a classroom that spans ages/grades provides opportunities for older students to instruct younger ones and strengthen their own knowledge of the material.

This is effectively what Mazur has rediscovered and applied; by having students debate among themselves, the ones that are correct and hence, have a better understanding of the material, can explain to the others their reasoning behind their choice, as well as improving their grasp by having to defend against questions from the others.

Montessori also developed a wide variety of tools and "works" for students to use, allowing for a kinesthetic learning experience (something I would consider vastly more effective than lecture or video at younger ages, and of continuing importance even through college) - note that when Mazur's students largely got the question concerning gravity wrong, even after learning the mechanics of it in lecture, he resorted to practical demonstrations. There are few better examples of this than the Binomial Cube, which is introduced in Montessori preschools(!)

[http://www.montessoriworld.org/sensory/sbinoml.html](http://www.montessoriworld.org/sensory/sbinoml.html)

Preschool students are not expected to understand the math behind the cube, which is after all algebra, but the work is meant to prime them for when they do encounter it several years down the line, as well as providing a physical construct that the math can be related back to at that point.

Which brings me to my final point: rather than trying to move traditional, ineffective methods of instruction online, edtech really should be aiming to maximize the learning capabilities of computers, which can allow things and methods of learning that simply aren't possible in the physical world. For example, the binomial cube, as good as it is, is still a fairly complex concept; a computer representation of it could extend it by allowing a student to reshape pieces in a 3D space, or provide values for the x, y and z variables and see how the cube transforms. This would allow for an even more powerful and intuitive understanding of how the pieces, sides and full cube relate to the binomial equation; and its manipulation that you could only do in a virtual environment.

That said, I don't really expect this to happen any time soon. Newspapers are still being dragged kicking and screaming into the digital age; I'd guess genuinely effective new teaching methods will similarly take years to come together. (It might be useful to start by discarding the concept of a "class" and look to MMOs for inspiration - material created for people at a variety of levels of understanding, with no real required time frame, where students can form groups to tackle difficult concepts/projects, or mentor others...)

</comment><comment><USER21> Failing a class doesn't tell me anything. What does it even mean? Did 50% of the student not learn the material, didn't they learn but parts of it, what were the requirements, the criteria for "passing"? Who made that criteria, and what was it based on?

A single pass/fail ratio from a single case study doesn't tell me anything. Especially if the data is not explained.</comment>


Learning versus Education - <AUTHOR>

The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.  - Albert Einstein<p>http://www.slideshare.net/HishamForadian/uzity-foradian <comment><AUTHOR> <http://www.slideshare.net/HishamForadian/uzity-foradian></comment>


Hacked NBC News Twitter Spreads Fake Attack News - <AUTHOR> http://mikecanex.wordpress.com/2011/09/09/hacked-nbc-news-twitter-spreads-fake-attack-news/

<comment><USER2> it's one thing to see lulz make example of unsecured sites, but tasteless acts like this make my blood boil.</comment>


A Facebook Browser - How far away can it be? - <AUTHOR> http://www.trickjarrett.com/2008/09/04/a-facebook-browser/

<comment><USER2> Seriously?</comment>


Millennials Lead the Trend to Less Driving. Will It Last? - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2013/05/planning-our-transportation-future-millennials-mind/5575/

<comment><USER2> >It's not entirely clear, though, exactly why this has happened

Really? It's not clear why miles traveled has gone down since 2004? Line up these graphs for the last 10 years [1]. Or perhaps this one [2].

Gas prices are at record levels since 2004, and unemployment among the 16-24 year old population has skyrocketed. It's not any wonder why millennials are driving less. They can't _afford_ to drive more. The rising cost of college is putting even more strain on the pocketbooks of the young work force. The article seems to want to attribute this trend to one source and no more than one source. The real world doesn't work that way.

[1] <http://gasbuddy.com/gb_retail_price_chart.aspx>

[2] [http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/12/22/the- global-...](http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/12/22/the-global-youth- unemployment-crisis/)

<comment><USER3> _The article seems to want to attribute this trend to one source and no more than one source._

? The article calls gas prices _twice_ as well as other economic problems as reasons for the decline. For example: "Researchers have not yet been able to disaggregate how much of our current decline in driving has been attributable to gas prices, or the economy, or changing attitudes toward car ownership or urban living"

<comment><USER2> It does say that, yes. It also says that it's not known why, and it says that further up the article than any facts. They're implying that because researchers are looking at multiple factors they have yet to filter it down to one specific cause. I'm not discounting the researchers. I'm discounting the article, and their false sense of mystery behind this trend.

<comment><USER4> I don't think that implication is the author's intention. I read that as an opening to say "researchers are still investigating the causes", not "researchers have not yet found _the_ cause."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have a license, and my wife has a car, but I don't drive. Haven't, with some exceptions on vacations and long road trips, since about 1998. Having grown up in a rural community where driving was compulsory, I made it a goal, upon moving to a large city to attend University, that I would live close to grocery stores, restaurants, and my workplace so that I could walk and ride my bicycle to work and class. It was a conscious lifestyle choice, and I still adhere to it, 15 years later.

Side benefits are immense. I walk or ride somewhere in the neighborhood of 700 miles each year. Overall, the pedestrian commute energizes me in the morning, and helps me quickly recover and decompress at the end of the day. The money that would otherwise go into a second vehicle, fuel, insurance, and maintenance instead goes toward higher quality food.

<comment><USER6> "I walk or ride somewhere in the neighborhood of 700 miles each year."

"The money that would otherwise go into a second vehicle"

I don't think you're going to like the math very much.

700 miles divided by 4 mph which is real slow for a bike (maybe up a hill?) or real fast for a walker, times maybe $100/hr as a consultant, equals about $17500/yr or about $1450 per month. You can rent a decent new Porsche 911 for about one grand per month as per leasetrader, so ... More realistically selections of vehicle and billable rate scale hand in hand. Or if you like a cost basis, my cost per mile has averaged under fifty cents per mile for my car so you're talking about around a buck per day, which buys like one organic apple around here. Which is better for you than no organic apples. I'm just saying the extra food probably isn't enough to fatten you up.

Note I walk about most nights after dinner and also after lunch. For health, and fun. Have to be realistic that neither of us are saving any money doing so. Long term medical bills, maybe.

<comment><USER7> ~700 miles each year is about 2 miles each day. Presumably if saintx hadn't structured his or her life around maintaining walkability then it would be necessary to travel longer distances each day. This would drive the total cost up. I don't know anyone who owns a car and only drives 700 miles each year.

<comment><USER6> "I don't know anyone who owns a car and only drives 700 miles each year."

My grandma and mother in law resemble that remark. Once you get old enough that shopping is an agony instead of a fun hobby, and you no longer work, there's not much but Dr visits. Also beyond a certain age people expect to drive to visit you rather than you drive to visit them, sign of respect or whatever. Finally, much like maintaining / living in a suburban single family house, still being able to drive a car at advanced age becomes a status symbol rather than a tool or recreation. "I might be old, but I'm still healthy enough to drive that thing... if I wanted to" An 80 year old woman in a suburban house, with a car, is pretty much the same mentality as a 40 yr old dude with red sports car and girlfriend half his age.

<comment><USER7> Sorry. What I meant was I don't know anyone who owns a car and is able to charge a $100/hr consulting rate and only drives 700 miles each year. Barring edge cases, I expect the usage pattern for the average person for car driving is >700 miles per year.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> With expensive safety features and the increasing cost of college, we are no longer in a world where most middle-class teenagers could realistically save up for and purchase a (reasonably safe) car. My parents wouldn't want me in something without a strong frame, airbags, ABS, and traction control. That puts the minimum cost of safe car at more like $5,000 than $500.

If I ever see that much money in one place (I haven't), it'll go straight to my tuition bill. No way could my family justify spending that much on my entertainment. And even if it never needed repairs, I doubt I'd break even on driving to a minimum-wage job for 2-3 years.

Owning and taking pride in our cars is not a part of life for teenagers in my town like it was for my parents in the 60s and 70s. Things have changed, and I think college and car ownership costs are a major factor.

<comment><USER9> That's a rather strong definition of reasonably safe. I will certainly push back on traction control, in situations where it impacts safety more than handling, a teenager will generally have the flexibility to just stay off the road (which is even safer).

ABS is a little more in the middle, but a safe driving mentality will provide a lot more safety than ABS, so I probably wouldn't look at it as make or break for a teenager car.

All cars have reasonably strong frames. Safer modern vehicles generally gain some of that safety by crumpling, which they do by being weaker than their predecessors. A Model T would bounce off a tree at moderate speed...

<comment><USER8> I live in the Wisconsin, where snow and ice do make safety features that improve handling a bit more important than they might be in the Valley. A safe driving mentality only goes so far when the roads are coated in ice for the several months.

By strong frame I mean a car that hasn't been in a serious collision yet.

<comment><USER9> I learned to drive in the U.P.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Also: In 2010, the median marriage age was over 26 for women and over 28 for men. More and more young people are staying in cities, where cars are much less necessary.

[http://www.theatlanticcities.com/jobs-and- economy/2012/09/ne...](http://www.theatlanticcities.com/jobs-and- economy/2012/09/next-big-question-facing-cities-will-millennials-stay/3229/)

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm a Millennial. I went to college in a city, and happened to just stay (halfly because I'm sick of suburbia). I use public transit to go everywhere. I make enough money to buy a car, but I don't need it.

</comment><comment><USER12> Sure it'll last. Until they have children.

<comment><USER13> Because it is impossible to have children without a car. Right!

<comment><USER12> That's correct. It's just solid, non-debatable science.

:p

But seriously, unless you have the perfect storm of public transportation systems and public schooling systems, you're either getting a car to shuttle your kids to school or you move to the suburbs for better public schooling.

Of course there are exceptions. I'm talking trends, as this article is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> In the unknowable category, it seems like the availability of self-driving cars will drastically change the cost-benefits ratio of driving and could easily lead to a dramatic increase. Are you really going to want to fly from San Francisco to Los Angeles, spending 2+ hours in transit time, when you could get in your personal car, browse the internet or read a newspaper for the 6 hours you'd spend driving?

I strongly suspect that any theories that we will be driving less will go out the window in the next decade or two.

<comment><USER2> Proponents of self driving cars seem to be forgetting the story that electric cars are telling us right now. People (en masse) will choose the immediately cheaper and more entrenched option. Maybe an electric car will save you hundreds on your gas and maintenance bills. But it's also $5000 more upfront. So people are not buying electric cars, even with all the studies showing that a great number of people will not lose anything by being range-limited.

Will self-driving cars cost as much as gasoline cars? As much as electric cars? Or will they cost more than both option? So pulling numbers out of my ass: who is going to be buying a $50,000 self driving car when they can get the electric option for $40,000 and the gas option for $35,000? We can't even get them to buy electric.

<comment><USER14> That is a true point for the first years that self-driving cars exist, but it is not true on the timescale of a couple decades. The first Tesla Roadster was delivered in July of 2009, and they are going to ship 20,000 cars this year (compare with 5 million light vehicle sales in the last 12 months, for the sake of honesty in statistics), in an environment where their car is at a significant disadvantage due to lack of infrastructure. The first self-driving car will be expensive, but eventually it won't be, and eventually it will have a huge impact on people's driving habits. Unless everyone stars telecommuting, which is a social change that will probably happen slower than technological changes, I don't see how miles driven per year would reasonably go down.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Will they also lead the trend in riding in cars that drive themselves?

<comment><USER16> Maybe, but my theory is that this stems from a couple of factors: 1) Higher driving costs, and lower incomes/ higher unemployment. 2) Less appeal of consumerist lifestyle 3) Preference for walkable neighborhoods 4) Strong avoidance of situations that involve drinking and driving

Only the last one is a case that they'll be interested in self driving cars.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I hope so. Clearer roads for those of us who like driving. Vrrrrooom!</comment>


Faith, Risk, and Uncertainty - <AUTHOR> http://esthertsai.com/essaypages/faith_risk_and_uncertainty_essay.html

<comment><USER2> There's an awful lot of waffle in there about free will and choosing to do things and what if other things happened instead. As usual, I have someone else's brilliant content to link to and recommend:

"""We've previously discussed how probability is in the mind. If you are uncertain about whether a classical coin has landed heads or tails, that is a fact about your state of mind, not a property of the coin. The coin itself is either heads or tails. But people forget this, and think that coin.probability == 0.5, which is the Mind Projection Fallacy: treating properties of the mind as if they were properties of the external world.

So I doubt it will come as any surprise to my longer-abiding readers, if I say that possibility is also in the mind.

What concrete state of the world - which quarks in which positions - corresponds to "There are three apples on the table, and there could be four apples on the table"? Having trouble answering that? Next, say how that world- state is different from "There are three apples on the table, and there _couldn't_ be four apples on the table." And then it's even more trouble, if you try to describe could-ness in a world in which there are no agents, just apples and tables. This is a Clue that could-ness and possibility are in your map, not directly in the territory."""

\- <http://lesswrong.com/lw/rb/possibility_and_couldness/>

Also, from the original submitted article,

"""Even if the outcome is partly fixed by our free decisions, the fact that God infallibly foreknows - and has always foreknown - whether we will fail or succeed, is really frustrating."""

"""I often wish for a similar promise. If God said to me, one day in this life you will produce great work that touches a lot of people, then I would be very happy with that."""

Aren't these two sections contradictory? She doesn't want God to know for sure if she will succeed or fail, yet she does want God to promise that she will succeed?

"""I often wish for a similar promise. If God said to me, one day in this life you will produce great work that touches a lot of people""" - and after all that, what if the 'great work' turned out to be medical?

And what if the whole point turns out to be that God sent her to exist on earth to spend a lifetime as a makeup artist who ultimately isn't successful at being a makeup artist but does learn an awful lot about other stuff from trying? Her simple summary of "So maybe what I really want to know is that God doesn't infallibly believe I will definitely fail as an artist" leaves out that 'failing as an artist' is not the only outcome of a life of trying to be an artist.</comment>


Sumo Logic S-1 - <AUTHOR> https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1643269/000119312520227201/d821436ds1.htm <comment><USER2> Wow! The numbers, 837 PB/day. 18.6B events/s. I wonder who is the biggest player in logging/monitoring and what's their rate of ingestion/processing is, how much do they store and their infrastructure efficiency/usage is.</comment>


Personas, data science, k-means - <AUTHOR> http://www.craigkerstiens.com/2014/05/08/personas-data-science-k-means/ <comment><USER2> It was always my understanding that there was a 'need' or 'goal' attached to a given persona, helping you to account for (read: remembering) a range of users when designing a certain aspect of a product/interface. For example, what works for Joe might not for Mary.</comment>


Verizon is killing Tumblr's fight for net neutrality - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/21/15816974/verizon-tumblr-net-neutrality-internet-politics-david-karp <comment><USER3> They're also forcing all adult-oriented content on Tumblr (which isn't limited to porn, although porn makes up the majority of their userbase) behind a logged-in-users-only wall, blocking it from non-Tumblr users and in turn, external search engine results.

[https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/20/tumblr-rolls-out-new- conte...](https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/20/tumblr-rolls-out-new-content- filtering-tools-with-launch-of-safe-mode/)

<comment><USER4> Oi, I suppose archiving Tumblr is this weekend's project.

<comment><USER5> They currently have 150B posts ([https://www.tumblr.com/about](https://www.tumblr.com/about)) so I expect that to be quite challenging. If you seriously make any progress though, it'd be cool to see.

<comment><USER6> Maybe 1:100 of those (being _incredibly_ generous) are actually _unique_ posts and not someone else reposting something from someone else, so maybe it's not such a hard task...

<comment><USER7> It's fairly common for commentary to be added to a reblog via tags rather than after the quoted post, so even reblogs without commentary may need saving.

<comment><USER8> This assumes there is commentary on _Tumblr_ worth saving.

<comment><USER9> I'm guessing you've bought into the meme that Tumblr is literally nothing but left-wing politics.

<comment><USER10> Are you saying that meme is inaccurate?

<comment><USER11> Are you implying it's not?

<comment><USER10> Yes. The meme aligns with my own experience of tumblr, so I'm inclined to believe it over contrary anecdotes (of course a more rigorous study would be a different story)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If you're a founder and looking to sell your company, is there anything you can do to guard yourself against these kinds of situations?

I imagine it might be some particular part of a golden handcuff / golden parachute deal, but making it work for everyone involved sounds super hard...

<comment><USER13> This is my biggest qualm with building a company aimed to sell (either to public markets or another company). You are binding yourself to pursue as much profit as possible through whatever legal means possible. Even if those legal means go against everything you stand for, you have to pursue them because you have a fiduciary duty.

<comment><USER14> > Even if those legal means go against everything you stand for, you have to > pursue them because you have a fiduciary duty.

This is not true, and never has been even a little bit true (in the US). It's a commonly misquoted trope.

Assuming your company happens to be public (the only way this matters) - <USER2> still can do whatever you like as controlling CEO short of outright fraud or negligence. If you decide to switch your Fortune 500 company to it's sole goal being charity - you could definitely do that without going to jail or being liable for anything.

You might lose your job though.

If you own a private company you started yourself and own the equity? You can do everything up to and including burning the building down.

<comment><USER13> > You might lose your job though.

That's what I was trying to get at. I didn't mean to make it sound like you'd go to jail.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I realize that Verizon and Verizon Wireless are now separate businesses. Nonetheless -- and also because of increasing suckage at Verizon Wireless -- once T-Mobile deploys on its newly acquired lower frequency spectrum and fills in some rural holes I need, I'm going to drop Verizon Wireless like a hot potato.

I wonder how much PR and good will damage/loss Verizon's behavior is generating.

</comment><comment><USER16> tl;dr: Verizon owns Yahoo now, so it owns Tumblr too.

<comment><USER17> Buying yahoo was a very dumb move for VZ unless they just want hold assets OR completely overhaul yahoo. Yahoo has been a losing brand since circa 2000. Soon as yahoo took over tumblr it started to suck more.

source : I work on other peoples tumblrs site all the time

<comment><USER18> AOL does a lot of advertising. Yahoo has a ton of eyeballs. Verizon has data. That already is a good match for all three. Yahoo is still close to a top 5 site. Definitely top 10. Yahoo also owns some advertising infrastructure like Brightroll and Flurry. I have experience in Brightroll myself. It's not that rare to run across people spending close to $100K a week on Brightroll.

It wasn't a bad move at all. They were also able to take off a few hundred million from the price because of the hack. Made the deal even better.

Verizon will definitively be the 3rd biggest advertising platform after Google and Facebook. Not a bad place to be when you already make billions in profit from your Verizon Wireless oligopoly.

About Tumblr. Yahoo has already written off at least $700M of its original purchase price. So Tumblr isn't a big factor when buying Yahoo.

Note: In no way do I like what Verizon will be doing. Using their vast amounts of data on users via their internet/phones services and now all the web properties they own for advertising and targeting is awful for privacy and plain old decency. I just mean strictly business-wise, this is likely to be a great deal for Verizon.

<comment><USER19> If Verizon can execute, it could even be bigger, given that they also have the FCC in pocket, and they have both mobile carrier data and snooped home internet data.

<comment><USER18> Yeah def they can be a legitimate powerhouse with web properties and ads. It's hard to guess how much revenue and profit Oath will be doing in 5 years. We won't know anything too soon since first Yahoo needs to be fully acquired and some time needed to adjust to Oath being the parent company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Net neutrality? Don't make me laugh. Yahoo was one of the biggest PRISM benefactors.

<comment><USER21> What does PRISM have to do with Net Neutrality?

<comment><USER22> Not only is the OP wrong to try to link them (?) but they are wrong about Yahoo being a beneficiary (??)

Yahoo fought hard against Prism and only gave up when threatened with a $250,000/day fine.

[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/11/yahoo-nsa- laws...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/11/yahoo-nsa-lawsuit- documents-fine-user-data-refusal)

[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/14/technology/secret-court- ru...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/14/technology/secret-court-ruling-put- tech-companies-in-data-bind.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I strongly suspect that an economic collapse is going to come less than a year after these sales (not just talking about Yahoo). That would be a good time for Verizon to begin selling off its utilities. AOL and Time Warner was another example that happened just before the bubble burst: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Warner#Merger_with_AOL](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Warner#Merger_with_AOL) I think this is partly because of how the economy is based on consumption and debt.

</comment><comment><USER24> Net neutrality makes internet more expensive for everybody so Torrent and Netflix users can be subsidized.

It looks right, but it is WRONG to "defend" it using law and force.

<comment><USER12> I want to downvote you because of how intensely I disagree with everything you're saying, but you're saying it nicely so I won't.

Instead - The major concern about losing NN is that instead of just paying for _volume_ of data, I'll also be required to pay based on type and/or source of that data, and that the entities providing the data will also be required to pay based on type and/or destination.

Do you think this concern is not valid? Why? Do you think this concern and there is a better way to address it? What?

If defending it using law is wrong, what would be a right way to defend it?

And if "free market" is part of you answer, can you talk about the handling of last-mile connections?

Finally, I just straight up don't understand what you mean by "defend it using... force". Can you explain?

<comment><USER24> Thank you for not downvoting me. Free market would be part of my answer if I had one.

I'm not well-informed enough to say much, but imagine you have a local link in a small rural town that only support some absolute number of packets or whatever: if you have one big consumer that is eating the major part of that every day, making the others miserable, isn't it reasonable to limit that consumer's bandwidth somehow?

Then if some law is enacted to prevent you from limiting that consumer, then you'll either make the lives of the others miserable or you'll be forced to spend more on your link and luckily pass the cost down to all your consumers. Right?

Please correct me if I'm assuming things wrong (I'm likely doing it).

> The major concern about losing NN is that instead of just paying for volume > of data, I'll also be required to pay based on type and/or source of that > data, and that the entities providing the data will also be required to pay > based on type and/or destination.

I don't understand what is the problem of that. In every other situation of life you pay for the "type" of the thing you're consuming. When you go to a restaurant you don't pay for volume of food, but for the types of food you're asking. There are indeed restaurants where you pay for mass of food, but you don't have all the expensive options available. I can see a world where you would have to pay a little more for Netflix and a little less for sshing to your VPS.

<comment><USER25> I don't think your 'small rural town' metaphor is solved by removing net neutrality. From the provider's point of view, who cares if someone is using up 1000 packets of youtube or 1000 packets of nytimes? They cost the same from the provider's stand point (unlike 1kg lobster vs 1kg of bread for a restaurant). Filtering by content doesn't change anything, network providers can already charge by amount of traffic. If they can't provide enough, they can raise prices, free market style.

The issue with removing net neutrality is that it enables censorship and removes 'the free market' of the internet. The internet provider doesn't like your political blog? Well now they can wall it off under a addon package just like cable TV. Facebook makes an exclusive deal with the internet provider? Now Twitter is locked behind an addon package or completely unavailable.

You might say, "well people will just use a different internet provider!". The problem with that is that many places in the USA only have one, maybe two providers to chose from; So it's not like a restaurant where they can just go somewhere else.

You might say, "well more internet providers will be created if no-one likes the current ones!". But its very expensive to create a network of fiber optic cables. Billions of dollars, maybe trillions. A start-up can't just 'interrupt' the market. And usually when a new internet provider is created, they have to lease the big-company lines just work. And you can bet if they make that deal with existing companies they'll have to accept big-company's traffic policies.

<comment><USER26> Right.

> A start-up can't just 'interrupt' the market

...like they can on the Internet. Unless... Even on the Internet... They have to fight themselves into a preferable "package" as created as the result of no net neutrality.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google to track users across its sites, whether they like it or not - <AUTHOR> http://www.thetechblock.com/articles/2012/google-to-track-users-across-its-sites-whether-they-like-it-or-not/

<comment><USER2> Huh, Wasn't this always the norm? as specified in <http://donttrack.us> .

</comment><comment><USER3> The other opt out option is to not sign in. Sign in to gmail, sign out, then sign in t YouTube. Of course that's pretty much a waste of time so the tracking in this case is no biggie. I don't see the danger. It seems like a lot of hype to me though I could be just missing something. Ever since Facebook started this when they decided to track every web user ever and now Google seems to be forced to compete. The lesson is, once one site does it the rest will be following close behind. To stop this sort of thing before it spreads we'll have to throw a SOPA-style tantrum. It might be way too late now though.</comment>


Ask HN: Current and future perspectives on college and life in STEM academia? - <AUTHOR>

Hi HN, I don't know if this has been asked before and it possibly doesn't have enough to do with hacking, but I would like to share this. I am a graduating US high school senior and I was recently admitted to a top US university with strong STEM programs and will be attending. I however was not admitted to its peer institutions with perhaps stronger programs and more prestige. I am grateful for the opportunity to go this school, but I can't help but think what could have happened differently had I been admitted at those places. I'm sure a lot of you have gone through this and I am interested in your perspectives. I do hear that college doesn't really matter, but I am not looking at this from an entrepreneur's standpoint who wants to get out of school as fast as possible. I am strongly considering pursuing some kind work in academia and am also worried I don't have the brains or talent of someone who gets to the top of those fields so I'm also interested in hearing from grad and PhD students. Thanks in advance. <comment><USER2> I can't speak for the TEM in STEM, but for science it doesn't really matter that much where you do your undergrad. In fact, if you choose well, it's better to go to a less prestigious university if you will have an opportunity to do actual research (and take full advantage of that opportunity). It's a lot more important to have solid bench experience than a degree from Harvard. A degree is just a piece of paper. If you aren't happy with where you're at when you are finishing up your undergrad, you should also consider using a masters degree as a stepping stone to a better PhD program. It matters a lot more who you do your PhD and postdoc with (and to a lesser extent where).

On the issue of brains and talent, this is something I didn't appreciate for a long time. People get to the top through a lot of hard work and dedication. It's not like a Hollywood movie where there are people that are just born brilliant and are able to make things happen without effort. When you see someone college-age doing amazing things, it's usually because they've been working at it for a long time before college. If you focus beyond just passing tests, four years is a fair amount of time to catch up. When you see a brilliant 60 year old scientist, that outcome is the result of a career of hard work.

You will go far if you spend some time thinking about what you need to do to get yourself to the next level and start acting like it. If you want to be in academia, be the undergrad that thinks and works like a grad student. When you're a grad student, act like a postdoc; when you're a postdoc, act like a professor. And it shouldn't be just an act, you need to actually take on the responsibilities and do the work of someone at the next level. Let your work speak for itself rather pretending to be at the next level by talking down to your peers. When you think this way, it makes it very easy to take the next step. People making the hiring decisions won't have to think very hard to imagine you stepping up to the next level.

</comment><comment><USER3> Don't doubt yourself so much. While talent is undeniably an advantage, in the long term, someone who is persistent, overcomes obstacles, and has real interest in the work will win over raw talent 9/10 times [grit,1]. The fact that you were accepted to a good school is justification that you have more than enough intrinsic ability. Just find some area that you're interested in and you feel is important and challenging, and stick with it day after day and you'll be rockin it soon.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H14bBuluwB8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H14bBuluwB8)

</comment><comment><USER4> To make it in academia, you have to produce research -- conference papers, journal papers, grant applications, maybe even books (depends on your field). Demonstrating intelligence in the form of good grades and high GRE/GMAT scores is important for getting _into_ a PhD program, but to actually finish, you need to be able to stick to a difficult multi-year project and finish it. There are many "ABDs" in the world. These are people who had the intelligence to do the PhD "all but dissertation" but didn't have the persistence to finish the dissertation.

I am a new faculty member and not yet working with PhDs, but if they put me in charge of PhD admissions, I think the number one indicator that a candidate could succeed would be "did they do a masters thesis?" and the number one indicator of whether they could handle a research masters would be "did they do an undergrad honors thesis?".

So my suggestion is, work hard to get straight A's, but also make a point of doing research projects. That might mean joining your school's honors program, or doing independent study courses, or working as a research assistant for a professor. Get your name on some published research, and (this is important) make sure you have an advisor (or two) who are active in their fields and who will be known to professors on the admissions committee at schools you'll apply to.</comment>


What if we never run out of oil? (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/05/what-if-we-never-run-out-of-oil/309294/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> 'Because the costliest stuff is left in the ground, there will always be petroleum to mine later. "When will the world's supply of oil be exhausted?" asked the MIT economist Morris Adelman, perhaps the most important exponent of this view. "The best one-word answer: never."'

Yes, but it does not follow: "Effectively, energy supplies are infinite."

This is such a massive failure of basic logic that I really do not think anything more needs to be said. Yet I will say it. The fact that a given energy source requires more energy to produce than it can yield does not make it an infinite source! Nor does a source which can yield a positive flow but does not present a better return on capital than other existing sources off an infinite supply. Just because it will never be used does not mean it is infinite!

<comment><USER3> You are misreading the author. His sentence is hyperbolic.. He says "effectively" to address your concern --- and then addresses why the whole notion requires further investigation in the next paragraph.

The very next statement is "Sweeping claims like these make Jean Laherrère's teeth hurt."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Suppose we want to reduce our oil consumption. What can we do?

1) Increase efficiency. Jevon's paradox makes this a fail, if you make consumption more efficient then you effectively make it less expensive and so people do it more.

2) Impose prohibitions or taxes on petroleum consumption, or incentives for alternative energy consumption. This also fails because oil is a global commodity. If you inhibit its consumption in one country, the global price goes down which causes consumption to increase in other countries where the taxes or subsidies don't exist and offsets the bulk of the benefit. The only way this one works is if you can do it on a global scale _and_ prevent anyone from cheating, which you can't.

3) Subsidize research into alternative energy production methods that would be cost competitive with oil on their own merits. Once brought to market, these methods would be more economically attractive than petroleum consumption world-wide and bring about a significant global reduction in petroleum consumption. This is the only one that actually works, and it has the added benefit of reducing energy costs.

<comment><USER5> _if you make consumption more efficient then you effectively make it less expensive and so people do it more_

Will that really be a big factor in petroleum use? My driving is not dictated by the cost of Petrol (not yet anyway). I am not going to start driving twice as much if my car suddenly only uses 50% as much fuel.

<comment><USER4> > Will that really be a big factor in petroleum use? My driving is not > dictated by the cost of Petrol (not yet anyway). I am not going to start > driving twice as much if my car suddenly only uses 50% as much fuel.

Plenty of people might buy a large hybrid SUV if its fuel consumption was closer to that of a conventional compact car. Fuel cost goes into the calculation of whether to drive instead of taking the train, or carpool, or how much you're willing to pay in rent to live closer to where you work (or to mass transit), or how much you're willing to sacrifice in fuel to get home sooner, or whether to take a road trip, etc. etc.

It's also not all about cars. Coal and petroleum are used to generate electricity and heat homes. Make it cheaper to move the thermostat five degrees in the direction of comfortable and people will.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> TL;DR - There seems credible evidence fossil fuels will always exist for us and they'll always be affordable.

So getting past the strawperson replies about how nothing is infinite, fuel x is not oil or limiting factors....

It is interesting. For years naysayers have gone on about peak oil, yet the opposite might be true, technology might be able to rip fossil fuels out of the earth faster than we can use them for hundreds of years.

The fact fracking was only possible due to increased computing power and is now changing local industry due to energy actually getting cheaper shows to me we are in an era of incredibly complex and quick changes.

<comment><USER7> But it's never been about oil availability. Oil extraction is nowadays far more expensive than it was a decade ago, both in cost and in energy expenditure. Renewables are becoming cost-effective not just because of technical advances, but because oil will continue to get more expensive.

No amount of technical advances will defeat thermodynamics.

<comment><USER8> If normal economic forces naturally and relatively smoothly bring on renewable energy resources online over time (including sufficiently-clean "nuclear" as renewable for this purpose), and if the economy can be run more-or-less entirely on renewable + nuclear resources, and if there are in fact things other than "oil we could drill in 1970" to fill in the gap, then the only significant remaining problem is the carbon dioxide generated in the meantime, and very little special panic or angst for energy resource limitation is called for. People have been panicking and angsting about this for quite a few decades now, so if this is the ultimate resolution, that is a change in viewpoint worth discussing. This would leave us energy (literally and figuratively) to focus on the many other problems in the world.

(We might not want to blithely sail into the perfectly-well-known future of energy unprepared... but... there's a _crapload_ of money to be made providing energy to people, one hardly need create subsidies to make the transition happen if that's how the economics are going to line up, when there's billions or even trillions to be made by being the ones to get it right.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Basic economics already says we will never run out of oil. Sure it may be $10,000 per barrel, but it will still be available.

<comment><USER10> All known resources are finite.

<comment><USER11> Yes but as the supply of oil dwindles it will approach a point where it's more expensive to extract than it costs to use a substitute. At that point we'll be "out" of oil but there will still be plenty left in the Earth.

<comment><USER12> That's been predicted many times; each time we find cheaper ways.

<comment><USER13> Good ol' fracking! Who needs to do expensive things like drill holes and pump in fillers to displace the stuff we're trying to harvest? Let's just smash the lithosphere like a dinner plate on the slate floor and collect all the goodies that pour out!

It's not like we actually need that land to grow food on or anything.

<comment><USER12> Actually we have an embarrassment of land to grow food on. Its fair to examine the wisdom in that tradeoff. At some point it becomes untenable, but right now actually we're doing OK. E.g. Iowa can grow enough food to feed 2 United States.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> We don't know how much oil exists,but we do know it is finite.

The sun's energy will out last us all, millions of times over. Plants have it figured out. We should ask them.

Plus what happens when we are ready to leave Earth? Surely we'll need a way to feed off of the stars then anyway, so why not start now.

<comment><USER15> The supply of sand is also finite, but we aren't likely to run out any time soon.

Just because the supply is finite, doesn't automatically mean we will exhaust it.

<comment><USER16> True, but I would guess that oil is used at a much higher rate than sand, especially considering the relative availability of each.

<comment><USER17> The question is whether we will use it all up before renewables become cheaper though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> We won't ever run out of oil. What will happen is that oil EROEI will drop and cost will increase until other sources of energy are more cost-competitive and oil becomes obsolete. (... OR if other sources cannot replace oil, economic collapse and demand destruction until demand equals supply.)

<comment><USER19> "Energy" is a little broad, it's already obsolete for non portable applications. Oil will still be in demand when eroei goes below 1, unless there's a cheaper compatible non fossil replacement.

<comment><USER15> Obsolete for stationary applications? Not true at all, especially if we are talking about "fossil fuels" rather than simply "oil". Natural gas is a huge portion of the USA's electricity supply.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Previous submission of this 2013 article (which I think is not the only one, as I remember another with more comments):

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5615686](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5615686)

</comment><comment><USER21> So, if we switch to using methane hydrates and shale gas instead of coal and oil, we will be emitting less CO2 - obviously not as big a step away from fossil fuels as going all renewable (and/or nuclear), but seemingly better than doing nothing...

<comment><USER22> It doesn't matter how quickly we put carbon in the atmosphere. It has a 200 year effect - taking 60 more years versus 20 is meaningless if you end up putting it all up there anyway. The only difference would be how soon we suffer the worst effects - it's too fast for adaptation in nature for most evolutionary or migratory processes either way. I suppose you could hope for a technological silver bullet but that's effort made while dealing with a much more costly carbon economy.

Also, we should really avoid the worst effects. Even the middling effects are pretty awful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I wonder how much power we could generate if we really have an affordable solar panel for everyone to use, put a giant sheet of panel up in the space, storing mechanical and wave energy as we walk, drive on the road and move things around the house, convert organic waste (human and animal poop) into energy.

<comment><USER24> Solar irradience on the surface of Earth is about 1200 W/m^2 Total energy consumption in 2008 was 143,851 TWh

Take panels that have 20% efficiency, and assume they can absorb for 6 hours a day, for 70% of the year (255 days). You can generate 368 kW/year. To generate the total 143851 TWh, you'd need about 3.91e11 m^2 of area. That sounds a lot, but it's only a square of land 625 km per side, or about 90% of the area of California. Note that this is of course a very hand-wavey order of magnitude estimate.

The problem isn't the abundence of energy sources, it's the collection, retainment, transmission and generation reliability of it (those factors overlap - generation reliability can be offset by better transmission and vice versa).

We don't really have to go looking far for energy sources, we just really struggle to harness them with current technology.

<comment><USER12> Folks criticize orbital solar collectors, because of the inefficiency of transmitting energy to the ground (losses in the laser creation and reception). But consider ground-based solar collectors are in the dark 50% of the time on average, no matter where you put them. Its hard to do worse than that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The even bigger deal about methane hydrate is its release from the formations as climate warms (and it's a feedback loop) - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis)

<comment><USER8> As the Wikipedia article itself says, the catastrophe scenario is now "thought unlikely"... I'd add that any such instability just sitting around would have been triggered by now anyhow. It's essentially impossible for the climate to be _that_ unstable. So "thought unlikely" is quite reasonable and well- founded, and probably putting it lightly.

While I'm sure that once we start tapping into these resources environmental groups will subject us to an endless haranguing about the "Clathrate gun hypothesis", it will merely serve as further evidence that many (not all, but many) environmentalists are narrative first, science fourth or fifth.

<comment><USER19> That "unlikely" quote isn't entirely consitent with the rest of the article, and was also about the cause of the previous ice age's end...

In contrast, also from the WP article,

"A study from 2010 concluded with the possibility for a trigger of abrupt climate warming based on metastable methane clathrates in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS) region"

and

"In 2008 the United States Department of Energy National Laboratory system[28] and the United States Geological Survey's Climate Change Science Program both identified potential clathrate destabilization in the Arctic as one of four most serious scenarios for abrupt climate change"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is something I know a bit about, and the article is terrifyingly stupid. The more you look into the utter dependence of modern life as we know it on petroleum and natural gas (coal to a much lesser extent), the unbelievable amount of it that we burn, the rate of discovery of new supplies, and the rate of depletion of known supplies... it's very uncomfortable to imagine 70% of the planet's population suddenly dying off over a 5 year period in the next 50 years but it's entirely plausible.

The most sobering part is that given a deep enough interruption in humankind, it's possible we'd never recover since the hydrocarbon frontier is in ultradeep, clathrates, and shale and none of those would be possible without a bootstrapping from easier hydrocarbon sources (which have been long since exhausted)

<comment><USER26> Could you connect your thoughts to themselves and to the article please? I have no idea why you think the article is stupid, and also no idea how you get to 70% of the population dying over a five year period.

<comment><USER25> I really offered no thoughts to connect, just my opinion...

To sketch it out, though: easy oil has been found, there are widely available charts on the count/size of new discoveries by decade. Newer sources like clathrates, subsalt, and bitumen are exceedingly difficult to extract (ie, lower net energy production). In particular, shale depletion is extremely rapid per well, and there is some question as to how net-energy positive/economically viable it is. Clathrate reserve estimates have dropped _dramatically_ over time.

As to why I think it could result in a permanent reversal in civilization: transportation is key to modern life. Low energy requirements per capita in urban settings are only possible by mass transportation of goods and services. Petroleum is the overwhelming transportation fuel. Plastics and high-density agriculture are fundamental to modern life, and both are dependent on natural gas (PE feedstock or Haber process).

The world generally has 3-6 months of inventory or less of oil, less of gas. A supply crisis would not have good effects. Some people point to the US supplies of coal and the Fischer Tropsch process, but that doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

[http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp- content/uploads/2013/07/28210_...](http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp- content/uploads/2013/07/28210_2012_flow_chart_high_res.jpg) is a useful chart. There's another for global usage that I can't find right now, but shouldn't be hard if you look for it. You might also look at the fracking depletion curves in various shale plays (they differ based on reservoir characteristics).

You may also note from that chart that a huge percentage of energy is wastage from transmission loss, which makes the tragedy of postponing a widescale (Manhattan project level) deployment of solar PV even more depressing.

edit: random, somewhat informative article on shale fracking: [http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-10-10/u-dot-s- dot-...](http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-10-10/u-dot-s-dot-shale- oil-boom-may-not-last-as-fracking-wells-lack-staying-power)

<comment><USER27> Alright, now that I've had some time to read through your sources let's get down to it.

First of all, I agree that civilization is wholly dependant on petroleum, and that's probably not going to change much even in the next 30 to 50 years. If we are unable to find new sources of petroleum and/or migrate to another energy source there will be a collapse and likely the vast majority of humanity will die off. That probably would be the death kneel of civilization.

Now it looks like part of your argument is that shale oil and fracking is not going to produce nearly the amount of petroleum as is forecasted. That businessweek article gives some good information I didn't know about, so good source on that. However, it looks like there is still debate around how much oil is recoverable from shale deposits. Sounds like the debates of peak oil from the past decades with one side optimistic and the other side pessimistic. I'm not a geologist, and only time will really tell who is right. But I think there is a good chance that technology will continue to improve and oil prices will rise enough to make recovery of more oil possible.

Now you also say that Clathrate reserve estimates have continually dropped over time. In the OP article it says,

>Estimates of the global supply of methane hydrate range from the equivalent of 100 times more than America's current annual energy consumption to 3 million times more.

It sounds like no one has a very firm grasp of how much Clathrate is available. But even if we take the low estimate given, that's a substantial amount. It would likely be enough to fulfil global energy needs for a couple decades. Unless you have good proof that Clathrate reserves are overestimated or that it's unlikely we can viably tap those sources, I'm going to say that you haven't refuted anything in the original article.

You said the OP article was terrifyingly stupid, but all I see as a rebuttal is that shale oil reserves are debatably not as large as we think. Or are you trying to say that our energy consumption and reliance on petroleum is at such a high and rising level that even sustaining our current production isn't enough? To that I would argue that hopefully alternative energy sources will free up enough petroleum from electricity production to keep us above water so to speak.

<comment><USER25> I hardly know how to respond. The decline curve of frac wells was new information to you, and you have no idea how much gas is present in clathrate deposits (but assume I have no insight). Why do you want to continue this discussion? Why do you imagine that I would?

Let me leave you with some thoughts:

1\. One random mistake in the article is the characterization of bitumen production in Alberta. He describes in situ, but a larger portion is still open pit.

2\. One thing the author is correct about is judging energy by EROIE. What do you suppose is the EROIE of clathrate methane production? It either requires heating or CO2 substitution. What is the value of using more than one bboe to produce a single bboe?

3\. "I would argue that hopefully alternative energy sources will free up enough petroleum from electricity production" \- as is clear from the chart I posted, of the 34.7 quadrillion BTUs of petroleum consumed by the US, 0.22 goes towards the production of electricity. That is true across the world except in some very oil rich countries, very isolated countries, or very poor countries.

<comment><USER27> >I hardly know how to respond.

You could respond by dropping the know-it-all attitude. Look I'm not an expert and I'm probably wrong on some things. That's why I'm trying to gather info from a bunch of sources on this, and also why I'm not taking everything you say at face value. But even if your facts are correct you aren't going to go around convincing people by being an arrogant prick and calling articles you disagree with stupid. Get the fuck over yourself, you aren't a god damn child and your ego doesn't exist on the internet. If you don't feel like discussing these things with me then don't. Why do I want to continue this discussion? Because I'm learning from it. Clearly you already know everything though, so I guess if you don't want to say anything more just stop.

1\. Ok, but does that change the points he put forth much? Isn't the EROEI of either method still economically viable?

2\. If the EROEI of clathrate methane was little to negative, then why are the Japanese throwing so much money at it? There must be some potential at economic viability for it. I didn't see anything in my 2 second google search that gave a good overview of it's economic potential, but if you have a source that gives a better picture on the EROEI then by all means I'll take a look.

3\. Yes I noticed the graph, but I was kind of assuming that a lot of transportation in the next couple decades will move from petroleum to electricity. Perhaps that's somewhat of a stretch, but I think we are already trending in that direction somewhat. I'm willing to admit I'm probably overly optimistic about this though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> What if the sky rained donuts!

</comment><comment><USER29> Methane hydrates are not oil. This article is amateur nonsense.

<comment><USER30> The author doesn't claim that; you ought to read more than the first few paragraphs. He is relating the discovery of methane hydrate beneath the seafloor in the 70s to newer unconventional oil extraction methods, namely tar sands and hydraulic fracking, in terms of their impact on energy markets... not saying that they are the same.

<comment><USER29> I did read the article. Your gloss of it makes even less sense than the article itself, since tight oil and fracking have changed the energy market already and methane hydrates have had no effect after forty years. The actual thrust of the article is that fracking worked, so methane hydrates will work. And as I pointed out, this has nothing to do with oil. The author explicitly defines "petroleum" so as to include natural gas, which is simply an error. If this article had been posted to a forum of chemical engineers instead of one of software engineers, it would have gotten nowhere.

<comment><USER30> True, the article is more about the potential of methane hydrate if it were used on a larger scale.

I assume you're referring to this line:

> Petroleum is a grab-bag term for all nonsolid hydrocarbon resources—oil of > various types, natural gas, propane, oil precursors, and so on—that > companies draw from beneath the Earth's surface. The stuff that catches fire > around stove burners is known by a more precise term, natural gas, referring > to methane, a colorless, odorless gas that has the same chemical makeup no > matter what the source—ordinary petroleum wells, shale beds, or methane > hydrate.

This does rely on the common-use definition of petroleum = hydrocarbons (loosely incorporating refined outputs as well) and not the technical definition of petroleum = crude. But that usage can be found all over academic and industry writing as well; sometimes it is shorthand for something like "petroleum-based products". A few examples:

\-- "Petroleum is a complex mixture of organic liquids called crude oil and natural gas, which occurs naturally in the ground and was formed millions of years ago." \-- Australian Institute of Petroleum, [http://www.aip.com.au/industry/fact_refine.htm](http://www.aip.com.au/industry/fact_refine.htm)

\-- "Petroleum - A generic name for hydrocarbons, including crude oil, natural gas liquids, natural gas and their products." \-- Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, [http://oil- gas.state.co.us/cogis_help/glossary.htm](http://oil- gas.state.co.us/cogis_help/glossary.htm)

\-- "petroleum n: a substance occurring naturally in the earth in solid, liquid, or gaseous state and composed mainly of mixtures of chemical compounds of carbon and hydrogen, with or without other nonmetallic elements such as sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. In some cases, especially in the measurement of oil and gas, petroleum refers only to oil—a liquid hydrocarbon—and does not include natural gas or gas liquids such as propane and butane." \-- U.S. Occupational Health & Safety Administration, [https://www.osha.gov/SLTC/etools/oilandgas/glossary_of_terms...](https://www.osha.gov/SLTC/etools/oilandgas/glossary_of_terms/glossary_of_terms_p.html)

Either way, dismissing the entirety of a sophisticated, well-researched article in a respected publication because you disagree with the way one term is used is pretty glib.

<comment><USER29> People who know what they're talking about can get away with using less precise language. They would never conflate "the potential of methane hydrate if it were used on a larger scale" with oil. But this author did. Therefore the fact that he used this loose definition is not irrelevant - it points to the central problem. This article is not sophisticated or well-researched, it's simply long. The fact that it was this high on Hacker News is sad.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Dynamic animated GIF - <AUTHOR>

So, I was experimenting some stuff and ended doing this, a node backend that uses your ip to find your location, fetch gmaps images and return a dynamic animated gif.
Nothing major, but for some reason people are freaking out, maybe most people didn't think they could be found just by using their IP address or maybe they think that's a hacker's thing.
Wanna see it? http://www.redraw.in/here.gif <comment><USER2> Mine was close, but wrong neighbourhood. One of my friends said it wasn't anywhere near him.

<comment><AUTHOR> It happens, it's not 100%... I thought about some techniques to bring in more precision but still didn't have the time to implement it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> API limit :)

<comment><AUTHOR> not as accurate but it's back</comment></comment>


Working part time next to study in Tokyo - <AUTHOR> I only have classes for 24 hours a week at most at the moment and still have 4 months left in Tokyo, does anyone have experience in working part-time in Japan, where would you get a job in development in Japan?
my visa is not an issue as long as work + study is not over 50 hours a week total. <comment><USER2> How good is your Japanese? Wantedly is commonly used for hiring, you could check on there and ask companies you are interested in. Besides that, I heard from a few people that found part time gigs through tech meetups that happen pretty often.

Since you are only staying 4 months, I think your best bet is through people you know either locally or remotely. Finding a completely new company that is hiring you short term and part time might be a bit hard to find.

<comment><AUTHOR> My Japanese is pretty terrible, I'll check out the site.</comment></comment>


Google pulls Huawei's Android license, forcing it to use open source version - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/19/18631558/google-huawei-android-suspension <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19954673](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19954673)

</comment><comment><USER3> >That also means Huawei will only be able to push security updates for Android once they're made available in AOSP, assuming the company uses its own update system. It's not clear yet how this will affect the full range of Android integrations that Huawei depends on, but we will update this story when we receive additional clarification about the impacts of Google's decision.

Do I understand that right, existing android phones will be cut from their current update mechanism? This is absolutely unbelievable on Googles part.

<comment><USER4> Huawei is on the entities list, if Google didn't stop providing Play Services to new devices shipped by Huawei then the Feds would be apt to get involved.

<comment><USER5> The executive order[0] doesn't actually call out Huawei by name. I also can't find them on the OFAC search[1], so which entities list are you referring to?

[0]: [https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive- or...](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order- securing-information-communications-technology-services-supply-chain/)

[1]: [https://sanctionssearch.ofac.treas.gov/](https://sanctionssearch.ofac.treas.gov/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As much as I distrust Huawei, this is one of the main reasons why I don't like Android and iOS security models.

That is, imagine if an update in the Linux kernel meant that Debian wouldn't install on Thinkpads. Would we be OK with that?

Conversely, consider all the outrage about Secure Boot initially not working for Linux distros. And then requiring Microsoft approval, and the use of closed-source software.

Edit: And yes, this is just Google complying with US law. However, without Google's power to discriminate against Huawei phones, that would be moot.

<comment><USER7> What? If Apple decides to stop supporting a device, you need to buy a new phone. If Google prevents support or the manufacturer stops support, you can install AOSP or any other version of Android you can find that still gets updated, AND you can manually install Googles play framework and store. Hell, if Huawei is forced to use AOSP, nothing is stopping you from still installing all of Googles stuff and using your phone like before. You have complete freedom and... You have a problem with that?

<comment><USER6> Sure, I guess.

But you still couldn't run Huawei's version, use Google stuff, and get updates. So that's hardly "complete freedom".

<comment><USER7> The freedom is in being able to use your device how you want, regardless of what Google or the manufacturer wants or decides. This means that you always have access to Google's framework/store if you want it and you'll always have access to updates in one way or another. So, yes, complete freedom. Show me a phone platform that gives you more freedom than that.

<comment><USER6> Linux. With nothing from Google.

Using Qemu, KVM or VirtualBox, I can run just about anything on it. Windows, Android, MacOS. Maybe even iOS, although I haven't found an open-source release for that, yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This actually makes me consider buying Huawei. Using open source version sounds great!

<comment><USER9> AOSP but still with their crappy buggy shell above it. Don't be so optimistic yet. Let's see what comes out of this first.

<comment><USER10> And not to mention potential government mandated spyware. I don't trust my (US) government much, and I trust the Chinese government even less.

<comment><USER9> Nothing ever stopped them from doing so with official android builds prior to this point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is very good news for the android ecosystem. Having a variety of stores and services can only be good for the users.

</comment><comment><USER12> Nobody in China can use play store or Google services. There are many local equivalents of them all

</comment><comment><USER13> Let's hope Huawei develops an alternative to Play Store or even OS.

<comment><USER14> [https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3001685/huawei- co...](https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3001685/huawei-confirms-it- has-built-its-own-operating-system-just-case-us)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Will they have enough time to build their own operating system?</comment>


Show HN: Falcon – A markdown based note-taking app for iOS and OS X - <AUTHOR> http://falcon.star-lord.me <comment><USER2> Previous discussion before iOS support: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11258673](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11258673)

In Firefox, the screenshots on the landing page are distorted via elongation. This makes them hard to read and in my opinion produce an unattractive effect.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry about that, I forgot to fix the site for Firefox. I will get it fixed soon. I am kind of a CSS noob, so I'll have to ask for help from someone.

<comment><USER2> There's no need to apologize. Maybe simplifying the layout to avoid browser specifics is an alternative to layering on state dependent conditions?

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually I picked up a template from HTML5 UP & modified it a bit to make it look like the idea I had in mind. But I guess I changed some part of the CSS for side-images, that has resulted into this issue. I'll look into the browser-specific tags, I think I might have messed it up there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> If you guys are using OS X notes app & need to export the notes to markdown for easy transition to Falcon, you can use the exporter app ([https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/exporter/id1099120373?ls=1&m...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/exporter/id1099120373?ls=1&mt=12)).</comment>


UK's new ID card hacked within minutes - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1204641/New-ID-cards-supposed-unforgeable--took-expert-12-minutes-clone-programme-false-data.html

<comment><USER2> Maybe I just don't get it, but why would it be good to have information encoded on a card or passport? Wouldn't it be better to have an ID number on the card that could then be linked up to a record on the computer?

Like, let's say that an officer needs my ID. What is he going to trust more: the information stored on my card that could be tampered with or the information in their database that I don't have as easy access to? If it just looked me up by ID number, they'd get my picture, name, address on their screen, but it would be harder for me to get in and fake that - since, even if I changed the ID number, I might be able to fake that I'm a different person until they compare the picture on file. And heck, if each card had a unique ID, you could then determine if a card was a stolen card. If the data is just on the card, it remains valid after being reported stolen. Heck, cryptographically sign the ID number so people can't fake it easily.

Not that I'm defending or promoting whatever their aim is, but even if you agree with their aim, why put the data on the card? Keep it secure and only have it available when the card is scanned by a legitimate person. The card carries whether state benefits are given to a person? How soon until someone can just switch that boolean on the card?

<comment><USER3> The information on the card should be digitally signed; the information on the card should be verifiably untampered. I'm convinced the article itself fails to take account of how digital signing works.

The benefit of keeping signed data on the card is to avoid network lookups; a reader should be able to, for example, decode a jpeg photo of you held on the card and allow a policeman with a hand-held reader to tell that you are who you say you are.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why the _hell_ would you put that kind of information on a card?!

The card should have a serial number on it. That's it. _Maybe_ a name so that people don't get their cards mixed up.

Surely the people working on the national security of the UK are smarter than little old me.

<comment><AUTHOR> its like having my complete account balance and transactions in my debit card, instead of just the card number. sounds silly, can't understand why they are doing it.

<comment><USER5> So they can scan the card with a device that is not connected to any network. At best they could cryptographically sign the card to insure the information is at worst a copy of valid information. But, I don't see them doing this any time soon.

PS: As to why you would want a device that can work without a network think terrorists taking down the network, classic government incompetence, or just lower costs.

<comment><USER6> If terrorists have already taken down the network, what's the point of an ID card or any of the billions spent on increasing our "safety"....?

On that subject, has anyone done the numbers on the number of people that would be saved by putting the same money spent on anti-terror bullshit into the NHS vs the number of people saved from terrorism?

<comment><USER3> The intent isn't (purely) anti-terrorism. It's an effort towards reducing things like benefit fraud, too. So any success from the card reduces these kind of budget 'leaks.'

<comment><USER6> And an ID card prevents this...how? ID cards will be optional for UK citizens...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Here's what I think they really did. From this;

"Each one of these files is supposed to be protected with a special digital key, so that if anyone attempts to change it, the card would be identifiable as a fake to any official with a digital chip reader."

The information (name, address, etc) is stored as plaintext, then signed with a private key (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_signature>) to prove it's a real government card.

What the reporter and his friend did was read the plaintext (which is exactly what is intended), then choose some new data and sign it with their own private key, claiming they had 're-locked' the card. But of course they haven't -- the digital signatures will be different. When the cards are used (validated against the corresponding public key) you'd find that the signature was invalid.

I think what they've proved is that plaintext is readable, and that if they had a government private key, they could add a digital signature. And that it's easy to produce cards with new data, so long as no-one verifies the digital signature.

</comment><comment><USER7> From the article it appears that the ID card is using the ICAO eMRTD standard: <http://www.hasbrouck.org/documents/ICAO9303-pt3.pdf>

Field 15 of the card is reserved for PKI. Specifically, this field can be used to sign the rest of the data on the card. There's really no reason why the state can't sign the data on the card using a private key and make a public key available for verification.

<comment><USER3> I think that's what they're doing. From the OP: "Each one of these files is supposed to be protected with a special digital key"

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The point of the ID Card is to make people _feel_ safe. The point of the Daily Mail is to make people _feel_ scared. So this article is not surprising.

Note I'm not saying the card makes you safe or that the Daily Mail actually puts you at risk. It's all about how you feel.

<comment><USER9> The sound of a million Daily Mail readers spilling their cornflakes: _With a few more keystrokes on his computer, Laurie changes the cloned card so that whereas the original card holder was not entitled to benefits, the cloned chip now reads 'Entitled to benefits'._

<comment><USER10> While fraud and false entitlement are the obvious problems and motivation for criminality, what really bothered me was the potential for 'swatting', as exemplified by the 'I'm a terrorist, shoot on sight' gag; I'm surprised the DM editors left this in. (Swatting is a term for extremely anti-social phone phreakers to call down heavily armed law enforcement on an entirely innocent party for lulz).

Consider that it's not so unusual for a contractual applicant (eg a new hire) to hand over their ID to a trusted person so they can make a photocopy for their records. It would be easy to arrange a deliberate switcheroo or other unauthorized modification. But good luck, as the holder of a card, trying to explain to the anti-terrorist squad why your ID card is screaming a warning to them after a police officer scans your ID after falling for some pretext (a 'noise complaint from a neighbor', for example).

Obviously, this is more likely to be the stuff of professional espionage rather than casual trollery - but my point is that it would be relatively easy to implement, while positively Kakfaesque for the victim, thanks to bureau- and securocratic faith in technology. The first time I applied for a driving license in the US (as a recent arrival from Europe) I was astonished to learn that there was an arrest warrant out for me - or more accurately, someone with my name and birthdate - in Georgia, and it took me several minutes to convince the DMV person that I had only arrived in the USA 72 hours previously.

<comment><USER11> That's why there will have to be corroborating evidence that you are a terrorist - like brown skin.

There used to be a similar problem in the old days, the police test for explosive also showed positive if you had handled playing cards. So there had to be corroborating evidence - being Irish.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12>
      * The ID scheme will likely be scrapped
      * It was planned to be voluntary anyway
      * This is hacker news, not the Daily Mail. Lets keep it that way.</comment>