Ask HN: What is the easiest to use static site generator? - <AUTHOR> I am trying to determine the easiest to use static site generator.  I have found there are now several hundred static site generators and I understand most of these are forks of the main static site generators.<p>By easiest I mean the most user friendly to set-up and create a site, best documentation, and has an active group of users/community. <comment><USER2> It really boils down to your language preference:

For Ruby: Jekyll [http://jekyllrb.com](http://jekyllrb.com) or Middleman [https://middlemanapp.com](https://middlemanapp.com) (in case you want a site rather than a blog) For Python: Pelican [http://blog.getpelican.com](http://blog.getpelican.com)

</comment><comment><USER3> Inspired by your question I had a quick Google.

This one seems quite easy [http://gohugo.io](http://gohugo.io).

You download the built binary, no dependencies, lots of themes available. Had it working in a few minutes. (The git clone step didn't work for me but I just went to github and downloaded the zip.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the tip on Hugo, it looks good will check it out. There are so many static s. gens.

[https://www.staticgen.com/](https://www.staticgen.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Checkout Olai, ([http://olai.in](http://olai.in)), a hosted static site generator. Nothing to setup. Connect Amazon S3 or Github page and you are done. Bonus: Use your desktop blog editors, like MarsEdit.

Disclosure: Olai is my baby.

<comment><USER5> Pricing's a bit confusing. Is that 10 new posts a month or are you only allowed 10 posts ever? :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Jekyll.

If you are just getting started, you can read this tutorial I wrote for SitePoint:

[http://www.sitepoint.com/set-jekyll-blog-5-minutes- poole/](http://www.sitepoint.com/set-jekyll-blog-5-minutes-poole/)

</comment><comment><USER7> What purpose are you using them for? I tried Jekyll and found it just got in the way of me creating sites, so I found Middleman.

Middleman is _much_ easier than Jekyll if you want to build any kind-of normal non-blog website.

<comment><AUTHOR> I was trying to want to build a simple kind-of normal non-blog website also. Thanks for the tip on Middleman.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> CityDesk: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CityDesk](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CityDesk)

(or it was 15 years ago)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> >It really boils down to your language preference:

I was looking for the easiest-setup, operation, posting on web, updating content etc.

In this way I have only the preference of simple use.

</comment><comment><USER9> active groups of user/community: jekyll probably.

jekyll documentation is good too.

it's quite easy

seems to fit with your needs.</comment>


Mozilla announces PGP Support in Thunderbird, coming 2020 - <AUTHOR> https://blog.mozilla.org/thunderbird/2019/10/thunderbird-enigmail-and-openpgp/ <comment><USER2> The comments here are overwhelmingly negative so far, so I'll say something positive: even if this comes rather late for Thunderbird, I appreciate that Mozilla chose to add this functionality. Any feature that makes PGP easier to use for the average person (especially better integration into a platform) is a win my book.

<comment><USER3> There's a lot of negativity around Mozilla in general.

Like take their rewrite of their android browser. It's faster than Chrome and is currently in preview.

Add-on support is work in progress but they got plenty of snarky attacks that it's not in MVP.

The whole DNS over HTTPS attacks seemed focussed on Firefox, a browser with a tiny marketshare compared to Chrome who also implements it.

<comment><USER4> Firefox does seem to attract that demographic, or it could be just a symptom of open source entitlement. I've received some of the rudest personal attacks via extension reviews on Firefox Add-ons.

Take a look: [https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/search_by_ima...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/search_by_image/reviews/1424324/)

<comment><USER3> Wow. That user saying that you should be satisfied with just the ratings is crazy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is is the Thunderbird Project's announcement. That group did the work, Mozilla provides a legal and financial framework for Thunderbird. Mozilla's work for Thunderbird is similar to projects like the Software Freedom Conservancy or Apache Software Project.

User donations account for a lot of the work that has been done in the last year. It has allowed them to hire full time and contract workers for Thunderbird. If you want to see the project continue to progress dropping them a recurring donation would be awesome [2].

[1] [https://blog.mozilla.org/thunderbird/2017/05/thunderbirds- fu...](https://blog.mozilla.org/thunderbird/2017/05/thunderbirds-future-home/) [2] [https://donate.mozilla.org/en- US/thunderbird/](https://donate.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/)

</comment><comment><USER6> PGP support in an email client is worse than nothing. [https://latacora.micro.blog/2019/07/16/the-pgp- problem.html](https://latacora.micro.blog/2019/07/16/the-pgp-problem.html)

> _Email is insecure. Even with PGP, it's default-plaintext, which means that > even if you do everything right, some totally reasonable person you mail, > doing totally reasonable things, will invariably CC the quoted plaintext of > your encrypted message to someone else (we don't know a PGP email user who > hasn't seen this happen). PGP email is forward-insecure. Email metadata, > including the subject (which is literally message content), are always > plaintext._

In 2020, someone should know better than to to add pretend encryption to email. The metadata leaks alone should lead you to conclude that this isn't worth doing.

Don't use email for secure communications, period. Use a secure messaging app like Signal, instead.

<comment><USER7> Whoever wrote what you quoted avoided to mention that the plugin (and I'd expect this new implementation) can protect the user from replying in plaintext to the encrypted message.

And using PGP in some scenarios has an advantage for the users and is indeed less convenient for eavesdroppers. It seems that the later are especially motivated to promote fear against PGP.

<comment><USER6> "The plugin" (which plugin? I'm referring to the GPG plugin for macOS mail) doesn't prevent forwarding as far as I can see.

The point isn't "use non-PGP email", the point is "don't use email at all for secure communications. Use a secure messaging app instead."

<comment><USER8> So let's say I copy a message from WhatsApp to a message board, does that disqualify WhatsApp from being a "secure messaging app"?

<comment><USER6> The point isn't that you forwarded the secret (indeed, _that_ was on purpose).

The point is that you forwarded the secret in plaintext, because email is plaintext by default, and the forwarding person probably didn't realize that, because no email client (even with GPG plugins) posts a big red warning label saying "stop! this is plaintext" because that's 99% of all emails.

<comment><USER7> > because no email client (even with GPG plugins) posts a big red warning > label saying "stop! this is plaintext"

I've used a plugin that did exactly that: warned when the encrypted e-mail is replied to or forwarded as plain text.

If such a plugin is not commonly used with e-mail clients that can't be a proof that e-mail encryption is inherently bad, just that that feature should exist.

Mozilla implementers, I hope you're inspired.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Seeing a ton of negativity around PGP in this thread, sound like it's refresher time for HN readers:

\- PGP isn't _always_ the proper solution.

\- Yes, you do need to be aware of what metadata is involved and what it exposes. This applies to all systems.

\- Secure communication is much more than key selection.

\- Mozilla taking steps to integrate it into Thunderbird should be applauded.

</comment><comment><USER10> Theoretically this is a good thing, but it's way, way too late, since most people use web or mobile clients now.

Mozilla should include a proper PGP implementation _in their browser_. In fact, I have no idea why a browser that positions itself as pro-privacy doesn't already have a way to sign, verify, encrypt and decrypt text.

As far as I can tell, there wasn't even a discussion about this, which is ridiculous, considering the web (if you count it as a single system) is clearly the biggest communication platform in the world today.

<comment><AUTHOR> PGP Auth would be _incredible_. Imagine being able to claim an account through keybase proofs!

<comment><USER10> Yeah, that's the thing: once you get a full suite of PGP tools as a standard feature of your browser it would make a whole bunch of other features possible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I believe the actual reason for built-in PGP/GPG support is due to TB dropping support for XUL addons and going the same road with WebExtensions as Firefox.

The current PGP/GPG implementation Enigmail is XUL, and been available for years.

</comment><comment><USER12> According to the linked wiki page [0]:

> _To process OpenPGP messages, GnuPG stores secret keys, public keys of > correspondents, and trust information for public keys in its own file > format. Thunderbird 78 will not reuse the GnuPG file format, but will rather > implement its own storage for keys and trust._

First reaction: Yay! We'll get to manage everything twice!

Second reaction: I am hopeful they'll support private keys stored on smartcards (i.e., Yubikeys, "real" smartcards, and OpenPGP cards) although, if the support in Firefox is any indicator, I wouldn't bet on it actually being "usable".

[0]: [https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird:OpenPGP:2020](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird:OpenPGP:2020)

</comment><comment><USER13> > Thunderbird is unable to bundle GnuPG software, because of incompatible > licenses (MPL version 2.0 vs. GPL version 3+). Instead of relying on users > to obtain and install external software like GnuPG or GPG4Win, we intend to > identify and use an alternative, compatible library and distribute it as > part of Thunderbird on all supported platforms.

IMO this is great news. GnuPG is, IMO, awful. Every time I use it I dislike it more. I recently set up a new subkey using a hardware token and the whole experience made me wish that someone would implement a better way to deal with OpenPGP messages.

</comment><comment><USER14> In Denmark, due to the GDPR, almost non of the digital letters we receive from the government can be sent by email (since they would contain personally identifiable information such as Social Security Numbers), so instead we just get a notification by email that tells us to log into a special 'secure' hosted mailbox. Except it's not hosted by the government, but some company that won a contract to build and host this - but now it's going to be built and hosted by another company that won the latest contract. This all seems kinda crazy to me, the public paying private companies to build and run one proprietary solution after the other. Does anyone know if there is some modern protocol/system that provides an alternative to email, and guarantees end-to- end encryption and other privacy-improvements?

<comment><USER15> I'm not quite sure about your characterisation of "due to GDPR" in this instance. Personally identifiable information does and can flow to regular email, though obviously it is better that it doesn't where possible.

<comment><USER14> Really? It was my impression that not being able to guarantee encryption along the way (basically you might be sending a postcard instead of a letter) made it a non-starter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> As they say, this is too little, too late. About 15 years ago was the time when it would have made a real difference.

<comment><USER3> "This new functionality will replace the Enigmail add-on, which will continue to be supported until Thunderbird 68 end of life, in the Fall of 2020."

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Every time I try to set up an email client I end up going back to gmail.com. What are the advantages of the hassle? They never seem to do what I want them to.</comment>


The Cannonball Record has been broken again - <AUTHOR> https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a30085091/these-guys-just-drove-an-e63-amg-across-america-in-a-record-27-hours-25-minutes/ <comment><USER2> Huge car/gear nerd here and I just cant get behind this at all. The problem with this is that while you may get drivers with great skill, preparation, network and just plain old luck to have a successful run, you can also have 2 knuckle dragging morons who just want to go fast in the name of fun and "adventure". And its not a question of "if" its a question of when something will go wrong as the record requires a faster and faster average speed. If you look at the GPS "proof", their top speed on this run was 193. At that speed, you are traveling roughly the distance of a football field every _SECOND_. A deer, slow moving vehicle, mechanical failure or miscalculation will cause things to go very wrong. Even cars built for autobahn travel will not survive a major crash at that speed. Other vehicles are not going to expect someone to approach them at that speed and are also likely to make a mistake as they sort this out. This is a bad idea anyway you slice it. If you want to traverse the country quickly, catch a flight...

<comment><USER3> > This is a bad idea anyway you slice it.

I do not disagree at all. I am just confused on why this is 'romanticized' and 'published'. If I went and robbed my neighbor of $10k in a record breaking "quick" fashion, would I get journalists at my door looking to publish articles around it?

<comment><USER4> No, because anyone with a bumpkey and a couple days to kill on staking the place out can do that. If you went and broke into the Natural History Museum to steal the Hope Diamond than you too would have journalists breaking down your door in order to get your story, because the latter actually takes an impressive amount of skill.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The tech is interesting, granted. And I find the overall idea of it quite beguiling from an outlaw/risky/renegade POV. But I can't help but feel it's still massively irresponsible from both a public safety and environmental perspective.

It's one thing to drive your car into a tree in the middle of nowhere at 120mph, quite another if you drive it into someone else obeying the speed limit and going about their day.

<comment><USER6> > environmental perspective

Rolling eyes. Going insanely fast sustained > 100mph and putting other peope's life in danger I agree with. The drive being a detectable impact on the environment I'm suspect.

<comment><USER7> That's the tricky thing about the environment - nothing we do individually has a detectable impact on the environment. And yet all of us doing it has a massive impact. So maybe the best is to just try to be a good person and not pollute unnecessarily

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > "When all is said and done, there will be three kinds of reactions to an > achievement of this kind. One will be outright indignation that anyone would > endanger public safety by traveling at such speeds... To date, no one has > been killed or seriously injured doing a Cannonball or setting a cross- > country record in the U.S., but American motorists don't expect such high > speeds, and truckers usually resent it. There's potential for disaster."

> "The other responses will be from another crowd—Cannonballers and motorheads > of all stripes who believe that driving skill, and not traffic law, is more > beneficial to actual safety than simply slowing down. From this side of the > aisle there will be unadulterated joy that such a cross-country time has > been posted, as well as begrudging appreciation from former record holders > and disappointed fanatics who may have been planning record runs of their > own..."

> _Was it a good idea? No. It never has been and it never will be. But like > Everest, it presents itself as a risky challenge that is, to some, > irresistible._

To those who think it was irresponsible to attempt such a feat, a lot of what we do as humans—at our best—is frankly _irresponsible_. Humans acting perfectly responsibly, obeying all the laws of their local jurisdiction, never willing to put themselves and even perhaps others in harms way, and worried more about their carbon footprint than whether they can accomplish some mythical (to them) feat...

I imagine that without the traits that lead to these types of attempts, and without a society that is willing to at least tolerate (if not celebrate) their achievements, we would lose out on a lot of inventions, discoveries, freedoms and social progress that stems from people with the same basic instinct to _leave a dent_.

<comment><USER9> On the Everest comparison, the difference is Everest climbers primarily risk their own lives as people who agreed to make the climb.

Whereas Cannonballers risk the lives of everybody sharing the road with them. Ie, regular drivers who have not agreed to let someone charge up behind them at >100 mph.

<comment><USER10> Honestly that's not true anymore. Very few people are climbing it unaided and it is Sherpas who help that are also killed alongside these climbers. [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-48464030](https://www.bbc.com/news/world- asia-48464030)

[https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2018/04/14/599417489/...](https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2018/04/14/599417489/one- third-of-everest-deaths-are-sherpa-climbers)

<comment><USER11> The Sherpas who climb professionally have also chosen to climb, and are compensated for it.

<comment><USER12> Somewhat. There's the very distorting fact that Sherpa-ing is multiple times more lucrative than any other job they could possibly get in the area.

<comment><USER11> Yes, yes, yes, but you're picking apart a metaphor here. This distinction does not damage the comparison.

Cannonball participants are taking large risks, and are imposing those risks on many, many people who have no real way to avoid them. This is unkind and immoral.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Their AMG doing 120 mph in Nebraska on I-80 on Sunday is probably a lot safer than the Governor's Chevy Suburban doing 91 on the Garden State Parkway.

"Corzine's car was doing 91 mph before crash" \- [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-corzine/corzines-car- was-...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-corzine/corzines-car-was- doing-91-mph-before-crash-idUSN1720648420070418)

>Corzine was not wearing a seat belt, the statement said, confirming earlier statements by Corzine's officials.

</comment><comment><USER14> VinWIKI (its founder is the former record holder) did an excellent video where they interviewed the team [0].

I guess it's congratulations to the team, but I would never endorse such record attempts. It's just to dangerous to do.

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6s9o6uIWZw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6s9o6uIWZw)

<comment><USER6> > At first glance, the AMG looked more like a mid-2000s Honda Accord from the > rear, not like a car that would be cruising at 160 mph or faster.

When the police on the radio don't know the make and model because they removed all the Mercedes Benz badges and covered the carbon fiber is great. "A silver passenger car..."

<comment><USER14> If you look at the pictures, you'll see they blocked off a portion of the rear lights with a plastic wrap that matches the car's color. This makes it pretty hard to recognize the make/model from behind.

The typical MB front (the grill) would still make it easily recognizable, but at the speeds they are driving I doubt many people had time to take a look at the front.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Going 120mph with other traffic just going about their day is dangerous and anti-social. Nothing commendable about it. It's all fun and games until someone gets killed.

I hope they have good long think about why they chose to endanger everyone they passed for some silly record.

<comment><USER16> Well it's been 100 years and no one's gotten hurt.

I wouldn't (couldn't?) do it, but there are people who are amazing drivers. The difference between most drivers and someone who just cares about driving as a skill is huge. These guys are the cream of the crop.

Plus they had taken precautions that are insane to avoid collisions. Heat detecting cameras to avoid deer? Do you know how hard it is to stop in time after spotting a deer?

These guys are far less likely to crash then someone on their cellphones.

<comment><USER17> >Well it's been 100 years and no one's gotten hurt.

I'm curious if this is true. If there was a high speed crash anywhere along that path, the best move for the driver is to _definitely not mention they were doing the Cannonball Run_. Participating in the Cannonball Run is a guaranteed way to get 0 sympathy from a jury for a civil claim, and get the max sentence from a judge for whatever criminal charges you'll be facing.

I think it's entirely possible people have been hurt/killed without much fuss getting linked to the race.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This was fascinating from a logistics, tech, information warfare, planning, etc. perspective.

It's too bad the comments here are almost all the same pearl clutching, even if someone else has already said it, and the article starts and ends with discussions of whether it is dangerous or condoned that is more in depth already anyway.

</comment><comment> fredrik-j Is it possible for the states they traveled through to revoke their drivers licenses? I mean they've presented ample evidence that they've intentionally exceeded speed limits on average over the entire route.

<comment><USER19> I think they can also be brought up on criminal charges in most states they passed through. Their radar detectors and, especially, their jammers are strictly illegal in many, if not most states in the US and yet they just gave the authorities pictures of their illegal setup with their names and faces and testimony that they used said illegal setup to enact willful and flagrant violations of the law. I really do hope the authorities come knocking holding a warrant with this article as the justification for issuing it.

<comment><USER20> It looks like radar detectors are legal in most US states and territories. Virginia and the District of Columbia are the two exceptions and the NYC->LA route wouldn't pass through either.

[https://drivinglaws.aaa.com/tag/radar- detectors/](https://drivinglaws.aaa.com/tag/radar-detectors/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> These people are assholes endangering others in the public roads.

</comment><comment><USER22> > _To date, no one has been killed or seriously injured doing a Cannonball or > setting a cross-country record in the U.S_

...but four people died in a (legal!) Cannonball event in Australia in 1994. Two were contestants, two were race officials.

[http://www.cannonball.info/other-events/cannonball- run-1994](http://www.cannonball.info/other-events/cannonball-run-1994)

</comment><comment><USER23> "... L.A.'s spiderweb of interstates for a total of 2825 miles—Toman and Tabbutt were able to maintain an overall average speed of 103 mph..."

I've driven cross country a few times and I was always happy if I could average more than 50mph over any long amount of time driving. I can't understand how they averaged 103, that really seems impossible without getting incredibly lucky!

<comment><USER24> Yeah, I've made several 20-22 hour trips from Chicago to a fishing cabin 8 hours north of Winnipeg, and it's HARD to keep your average speed north of 50. If you make a stop for gas or food, you can literally watch your overall average drop by a few MPH.

<comment><USER25> There's two big things they did:

First, they minimized their stops to four fuel stops.

Second, when they were moving, they were moving FAST whenever possible. Well north of 100 mph.

<comment><USER24> Third, don't drive a F150 loaded with enough food and beer for four fat guys for 10 days while towing a boat. :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> If these guys had balls they would go on a race track and see what they really can do. This is just a competition of recklessness, not skill. They are just a bunch of idiots who mainly endanger other people.

At a minimum they should deactivate their airbags and safety belts to make sure they themselves get hurt when something happens.

</comment><comment><USER27> The fuel cell remark confused me, being followed later by mention of turbos. What is the fuel cell for?

<comment><USER25> "Fuel cell" in this context, is another name for "fuel tank." They added an auxiliary fuel tank in the trunk (boot) of the car.

<comment><USER28> I would love to understand their reasoning for not making the tank as large as absolutely possible though.

Maybe not worth the extra cost of all the work required to absolutely fill the trunk with fuel? 22 minutes spent refueling is incredibly low either way.

<comment><USER29> There is a weight trade off. Liquids like fuel are dense. If they filled the entire trunk with fuel it would have added another 500+ lbs to the car, possibly requiring additional suspension changes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I guess law enforcement and we as a society should now be scratching our heads wondering how this is possible in 2019. If speeding laws were truly enforced they wouldn't have gotten out of NY/NJ without getting pulled over :)

</comment><comment><USER31> That's awesome. It seems like one could up their chances as well by having a caravan ahead of you as sacraficial police lambs.

<comment><USER32> They did have spotters along the way:

> In all, they managed to rustle up 18 lookouts along the run. These were > people who drove hundreds of miles in many cases just to scout the road > ahead of the fast-moving AMG for a stretch and let the team know of any > police activity or other hazards ahead.

And, of course, they were familiar with that idea from the classic movie "Smokey and the Bandit" as referenced in the article, so they probably had a good reason for not doing it that way. I'd guess that hiring a caravan of people willing to get jail time, lose their licenses, and having their expensive, fast cars seized would be really, really expensive and would only keep a few officers busy for a few minutes. Plus, in hindsight, they were successful without it.

However, I find the downvotes on your comment interesting having read the "Help me ask 'Why you didn't just'" article posted yesterday: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21675717](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21675717)

You met several of the criteria for reducing the insult factor: Your comment is impersonal, forward-looking, and not condescending, without being passive- agressive. But you were still downvoted.

<comment><USER16> Yeah, but he also said that what they accomplished is awesome. The HN crown mostly (not all of us) frowns on this type of thing, even while still finding the news interesting.

<comment><USER31> What is the issue with saying it's awesome? Is it the lack of objectivity? Or the lack of professionalism?

<comment><USER16> Neither. A lot of vocal people in HN really don't like motor vehicles and that people can have with them.

Motor-bikes, -cars, -boats, -whatever. A large part of the HN crowd doesn't like them. HN also has healthy minority who are motor-heads, so it balances out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I find it hilarious the author claims the car was superbly prepared and then talks about them having engine issues at altitude.

Almost guaranteed this thing had a hacked up EFI modification done by some tuner... those guys never really know what they're doing, AMG/Mercedes almost certainly won't share how that computer works since modifying it on a street car almost certainly is illegal and will cause the car to fail inspection.

In general it is always interesting most of these guys seem to be from NYC and born into privilege in a car dealership family. Alex Roy fit that model. It seems like you need to be born into that privilege to end up being a professional race car driver but you also have to have more talent and hard work. The cannonball stuff seems like some kind of 2nd tier automotive fame seeking. When I was into racing & stuff I'd meet tons of guys who all thought skill was more important than following the law.. but none of them were that successful in competition and all of them had plenty of accidents.

Even if you don't find any of this interesting Alex Roy's book is a great read.

Having once rode a motorcycle 1000 miles in well under 24 hours I get the appeal of this but not the super illegal speeds.

The increasing use of electronics and internet to escape detection is pretty interesting.

<comment><USER34> The engine issues were result of the low octane fuel. Performance engines require high octane fuel to avoid "knocking" (or pre-detonation of fuel). The 92/93 octane recommended for stock performance engines is not available everywhere, let alone Ethanol blends and 95+ octane required for tuned engines.

> Almost guaranteed this thing had a hacked up EFI modification done by some > tuner... those guys never really know what they're doing, AMG/Mercedes > almost certainly won't share how that computer works since modifying it on a > street car almost certainly is illegal and will cause the car to fail > inspection.

You sure as hell don't know what you're talking about either, because most of the tunes don't touch the software as much as they change "maps" or the data tables that the ECU uses for fueling/AFR, ignition timing, cam profile (VANOS/VVT/VVL etc.).

The tunes themselves don't result in a failed inspection (I own a tuned BMW N54 motor myself, that passes inspection without any hacks) but if you're generating enough boost, it may be necessary to remove the catalytic converters in the downpipes after turbos for a smoother flow which results in a failed inspection. Most modern inspections rely on the ECU to report a failed/missing catalytic converter so getting around the inspection is an easy task for someone inclined to remove downpipe cats.

<comment><USER4> 90% of modern cars have encrypted ECUs now, which means most data modification involves either fooling the stock system with a piggyback or waiting until the type breed of people who crack to videogame DRM get around to your specific car model. That being said I do think they did a shit job at tuning since it seems the only engine tuning they did was a turbo and piping package with no mention of the engine electronics or fuel system at all.

<comment><USER35> The vehicle had an huge fuel cell installed, it's likely they had much larger fuel pumps added to account for increased consumption caused by having a higher intake pressure.

As for electronics, what sort of upgrades are you imagining? A handbuilt AMG engine already has all the trick things you'd want for engine management any way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> the authorities should set a bounty of $1,000 for information leading to the arrest of a "Cannonballer"(?) en route. Each year the person who has let to the most captures would get a $3,000 bonus. That would make things interesting.

<comment><AUTHOR> ... after that escalation we can have more "red flag" laws too. Perhaps arrest people who are thinking about doing such things. Take me for example. My 700HP daily driver can do 200mph, honestly. I've thought about driving that fast. Best so far is 81mph. 81mph over the posted speed limit. No other cars in sight. Straight road. Uphill. Another couple of seconds would have given me a bigger thrill, a higher number. Turn me in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Isn't that article enough proof so they could be convicted for speeding? After all they publicly admit of having broken the law.

<comment><USER19> The radar-jammers and tail-light kill-switches are very obviously illegal, even if you cannot prove they were used.

Don't commit massive crimes then brag about it on the internet.

<comment><USER29> LIDAR jamming is not illegal, which is likely what they have. Light switches are also not illegal but could be used in an illegal way.</comment></comment></comment>


World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen Is Now World Fantasy Premier League #1 - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/MagnusCarlsen/status/1205862206946074624 <comment><USER2> People may not understand how big an achievement this is. Yes you need a lot of good fortune, but there are 7m players of FPL. For most, getting into the top 100k is seen as a good result for the end of the season.

Magus is clearly a massive football fan though - he talks about it a lot on his livestreams etc.

<comment><USER3> Wouldn't this also infer that Magnus has understood the mechanics of the game more than almost anyone else?

By which I mean to say couldn't this translate indirectly to an edge (I realize FPL and predicting individual match outcomes are very different) in sports betting?

I'm ordinarily utterly skeptical of any such suggestion, but Magnus thinks at a level beyond my understanding so what do I know?

<comment><USER4> Imply, not infer.

But yes, the people who know a knowledge-based game better are better at playing it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wow, that really obliterates two major assumptions I had about chess (1) that you can't win without 100% dedication to chess (2) that the skills are highly domain specific and not transferable.

<comment><USER6> It's impressive.

I suppose you could say there are some skills from chess that are very transferable to something like managing a fantasy sports team; the ability to predict or prepare for certain outcomes and the ability to manage and minimize risk being two that come to mind.

It also helps that Carlsen is a football fan and has domain knowledge there that assist him in employing these skills.

<comment><USER7> A previous article on this mentioned his superb memory, which is probably also an asset to both games.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is his account (not updated yet) [https://fantasy.premierleague.com/entry/1908330/event/17](https://fantasy.premierleague.com/entry/1908330/event/17)

He was climbing really well [https://fantasy.premierleague.com/entry/1908330/history](https://fantasy.premierleague.com/entry/1908330/history)

<comment><USER9> Salah in midfield? Say what?

<comment><USER10> Although he plays in a wide forward/winger like position for Liverpool they classify wingers generally as midfielders. Think of this in terms of the classic 4-2-3-1 position(not something LIV uses a lot). Firmino generally becomes the No 9 and he would be classified as forward. Even Son is classified as Mid.

Though in the 4-2-3-1 Liverpool played today Salah was the most forward player.

<comment><USER9> It's a ridiculous decision, even the stats disagree.[0]

"Salah was the furthest forward in 8 of Liverpool's last 10 Premier League games from last season."

I imagine it's done for marketing reasons so more people can fit him into their team; same with Son.

[0] [https://www.fantasyfootballpundit.com/mohamed-salah- forward-...](https://www.fantasyfootballpundit.com/mohamed-salah-forward- fantasy-premier-league/)

<comment><USER10> Yeah, ideally they should be classified as forwards. Though I guess Salah being the furthest forward is more because of Firmino being a False 9 rather than a proper No 9, which makes his case for being considered as a FWD even more valid.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Interesting that he mentions a stats-based approach, calling out provider Opta by name:

[https://twitter.com/MagnusCarlsen/status/1204105872668016642](https://twitter.com/MagnusCarlsen/status/1204105872668016642)

<comment><USER11> Sounds like a clever marketing scheme from Opta.

<comment><USER10> I doubt it is. Opta is probably what most publications and broadcasters use as well. I don't think there is anyone else who collects stats that deep across so many leagues.

Sometimes even I am surprised the details of those stats, like passes by an individual player, distance covered etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's actually a pretty crowded market at this point (I work at a competitor but have worked professionally with their data). The distance-covered sort of stats come from tracking data (usually derived optically from multiple cameras, giving locations of every player and the ball at 20hz or so), which Opta didn't offer directly until their merger with STATS.

<comment><USER10> Wow, I did not know this. They have special cameras in the grounds or this is just them having access to raw feed from all regular broadcasting cameras.

I would love to read up on how this is recorded, processed and kept if you have any source.

<comment><AUTHOR> Most of the big providers require special cameras in the stadium (some up to 16). Some can do this from video feeds (even broadcast quality, which obviously misses some info). You can read about one of the leading providers here:

[https://chyronhego.com/products/sports-tracking/tracab- optic...](https://chyronhego.com/products/sports-tracking/tracab-optical- tracking/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Can someone explain what this is and the significance of Carlsen's achievement to someone completely and utterly clueless about football?

<comment><USER13> It's a very luck based game, or so it seems. With 7 million players. But last year the world chess champion was top-100 and now he's (at this particular moment) first.

<comment><USER14> Being good at managing uncertain outcomes is not luck though, although the difference between that and luck is nuanced and this often gets lost in discussion.

<comment><USER15> This is very true, which is (for example) where the skill in high level poker comes from.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Fantasy sports for money is a huge business here in the states - FanDuel and DraftKings probably do north of $200 million of revenue each in the vertical alone - and almost all of the top players have some kind of data science or math background.

It's not a coincidence.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Updated the title from 'Fantasy Football' to 'Fantasy Premier League' to stave off continued tedious arguments about international sporting nomenclature.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'd love to see him take on Magic: the Gathering, especially formats like vintage or legacy.

<comment><USER18> The top MTG players have mostly gone on to poker, where the prizes are much more lucrative.

<comment><AUTHOR> Of course a lot of those players have in turn gone on to gambling and hedge funds.

<comment><USER19> I often wonder about this in the context of musicians and actors. You would have to be a fool to pick such careers, as the prospects are so dim. Yet because of this dimness the selection pressure is very high on the pool of contenders. So our best actors and musicians are fool/geniuses.

Which implies the most innately talented potential musicians and actors are working at a hedge fund or Google DeepMind. And perhaps the odd personalities of musicians and actors is more to do with the bottlenecked selection than some relationship between talent and impulsivity: Only the egotistical and impulsive would step into such fray.

And so we are left not with the best but with the best of a bad lot!

<comment><USER20> That assumes everyone picks their job as a rational economic actor. This is clearly not the case. Even if it were, if you believe you have a decent change then you might as well give it one shot, and if it doesn't work then you can fall back on something else while you're young.

Note that this is the same rational for starting a startup. Would you argue that all successful startup founders are the best of a bad lot?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Hah... just noticed he's in a "Grandmaster League": [https://fantasy.premierleague.com/leagues/35182/standings/c](https://fantasy.premierleague.com/leagues/35182/standings/c)

Sergej Movsesian (FIDE world #136)

Yúlia Movsesjan (Slovakian female #1)

Radosław Wojtaszek (World #27)

Jon Ludvig Hammer (second to Carlsen in WCC 2013)

etc.

<comment><USER22> For comparison, these are the ranks of the other grandmasters in the group:

      rank       rank / 7,182,778 players:
      ____________________________________
      1 </comment></comment><comment>-- 0.0000139%
      23,365 --- 0.3252920%
      238,352 -- 3.3183818%
      391,870 -- 5.4556886%
      448,139 -- 6.2390763%
      510,354 -- 7.1052454%
      602,723 -- 8.3912241%
      726,511 -- 10.1146242%
      728,141 -- 10.1373173%
      2,011,481  28.0042207%
      2,258,848  31.4481110%
      3,993,041  55.5918755%
      5,015,777  69.8306004%

<comment><AUTHOR> Towering football geniuses, the lot of them:

[https://en.chessbase.com/post/three-million-view-chess- playe...](https://en.chessbase.com/post/three-million-view-chess-players- playing-soccer)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I wonder how Messi would do on Fantasy Chess League.

<comment><USER24> Is there even such a thing as a Fantasy Chess league?

<comment><USER25> Yes, basically every sport now has someone running a fantasy version.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> People who are competitive at one game sometimes jump to another based on market trends, and although the transition can be rough, enough make it through that it becomes a visible thing.

This is a mild argument for generality of competence.

</comment><comment><USER27> Is there some skill that links chess to this? Seems to improbable for a coincidence

<comment><USER28> Carlsen isn't a chess genius. He's a genius who plays chess. The guy can recall chess positions from games he played as a teenager.

(I played a few games of chess today morning and I can barely remember the openings I played!)

<comment><AUTHOR> To be honest, that's a really common ability for most elite chess players, who by the time they are teenagers are already grandmasters and have been playing for the best part of 10 years. Not to deny Magnus is a genius, though.

<comment><USER29> It seems fairly pointless and meaningless to argue whether someone "is a genius" or not.

Check out this recent short video of Magnus being shown and recognizing positions from Vishy Anand games.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acVvkz4MsKc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acVvkz4MsKc)

Common might be recognizing the opponent and next move (I, patzer, got half right, also that the move against Lautier was h6!), but Magnus also remembers the year, tournament, most of the game etc. He has a remarkable memory, and studies a lot of games, past and present – because he loves doing it.

Bobby Fischer was similar, from what I hear. I've read quite a few stories of people from around the world meeting him and he'd say "I liked your game against X 10 years ago but you should have played move Y" and they were amazed he'd even heard of them, let alone studied their obscure games. (This was pre- internet and pre-computer-analysis)

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you have a video of other 2700+ players failing to do this? I've watched plenty of live tournament coverage, and it doesn't seem a rare skill. Not claiming they do it as well as the best player in the world, and arguably of all time, but this honestly just seems like table stakes at this level of the game. It's literally their job, every day, to study games and understand and recall new theory.

<comment><USER30> I thought they actively study and memorise their own games, games of players they currently play against, and games of past notable players. Part of that study and memorising is practising playing the game through from start to finish.

It's not like they accidentally memorised them after they see the game once.

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed. I'm willing to believe Magnus is one of the best at this (posted this link because I'm a huge fan!), but it's his job and has been since he was a boy, it's not really magic. And it's just demonstrably not the case that he goes into every game knowing every topical line, not does he really need to.

<comment><USER30> I'm a big Carlsen fan, he's currently the best chess player in the world, but not all grandmasters think Carlsen or the other top 10 are the best in history.

I can't make an informed opinion myself, but I can retell the arguments I've heard used.

In the past, players like Bobby Fischer dominated their peers, winning tournaments by 5 games or more. Today, super grandmasters play 20 moves of prep from memory and agree to a draw. When they get out of prep they don't play as skillfully as players of the past, pre chess engine era. Today super grandmasters put all their attention into opening theory. (I'm retelling the arguments I've heard, these aren't my own opinions)

I will say I much prefer to watch a super grandmaster blitz or rapid game over a classical game. Not that I watch them live, but I see the occasional video of a grandmaster analysing them in a 10-30 minute video.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think it's true that studies show players play less skilfully. At the very least papers like this exist:

[https://content.iospress.com/articles/icga- journal/icg0012](https://content.iospress.com/articles/icga-journal/icg0012)

But I also think that in a metagame with less equality out of the opening and more blunders, skill was more rewarded in the past - so just look at Magnus's blitz rating to compare. Either way, the fact is this year Magnus _did_ regularly dominate his peers, despite them all having big teams with thousands of CPU/GPU hours of prep behind them. I know Ben Finegold is never going to be convinced but whatever.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> In Argentina, where I come from, a couple of GMs, unable to make ends meet with their chess earnings, switched to poker, backgammon and/or bridge, games in which there is a lot of gambling going on, and they made quite a lot of money.

I understand that these games are much more similar to chess than a fantasy football game, but it seems that some chess calculation skills are indeed transferable.

<comment><USER13> I think that the chess skills themselves are not, but the training skills probably are.

Like identifying various aspects of the game, figuring out how they can be trained, and then spending 10+ hours a day on them for months.

Or getting a database of games played by opponents and analyzing them for weaknesses in their play, and knowing how to exploit such weaknesses, that can probably also be done with poker.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Imagine if he starts picking stocks?

Checkmate.

</comment><comment><USER32> Would his skill translate to discovering player talent or negotiating player contracts?

</comment><comment><USER33> He must watch a lot of games to really know who to pick. As someone that dabbled in DFS for the NFL, the #1 team each week always seem like either pure luck or just someone that submits tons of optimal entries.

Now, EPL is definitely different than the NFL but still amazing regardless.

<comment><USER34> He's not #1 this week (not even close), he's currently #1 over a 16+ weeks period[0]. Each week's #1 is usually one of many random teams, picked for that purpose.

I have no idea how many games he watches, but watching the games isn't correlated to fantasy football success.

Looking at his team, all the players are in a very hot run of form, or likely to be picked just by studying e.g. Understat.com, or both.[1] Most of them are also likeable, and could be suggested by a football fan unaware of fantasy football specifics.

[0] 17th "gameweek" isn't over yet.

[1] Except for goalkeepers. His goalkeeping choices have been awful.

<comment><USER7> A previous article on this said he watches a huge amount of football.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Dumb question here, does he get paid for this or earn prize money?

<comment><USER8> There are some prizes [https://fantasy.premierleague.com/prizes](https://fantasy.premierleague.com/prizes)

But it's a long season, there are 38 rounds and today was the 17th

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Umm.... can we get back to the football/soccer article?

</comment><comment> ur-whale Is this american football or regular football?

<comment><USER37> I'm confused about what sort of person (a) refers to soccer as "real football" but (b) doesn't know what Premier League means.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> This guy's mind is amazing

</comment><comment><USER39> Just to clarify, as I myself was confused, this Fantasy Football is _not_ American Football, but ... _actual_ football which Americans refer to as soccer.

<comment><USER40> 5.7 billion people refer to it as football, 300 million refer to it as soccer. Any time you see the word football and any non American person, it's probably talking about association football.

<comment><USER41> But that doesn't correctly represent the proportions of hacker new readers that would call it soccer. Since this web site was started in the u.s. and is almost entirely English speaking that heavily selects users from English speaking countries, both north America, and in particular the u.s., and especially silicon valley.

<comment><USER42> I would't be surprised if majority of HN views are from outside North America as of now. There are likely more English speakers in Bangalore than in Silicon Valley.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> So does this mean Deep Blue can beat Magnus Carlsen in fantasy football?

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm a bit confused.

Either chess is harder than fantasy and the top 100K players should all be bots, or fantasy is harder than chess and so why is Carlsen and others wasting time on professional chess?

</comment><comment><USER44> Fantasy Soccer.

<comment><USER45> It's known as fantasy football to anyone outside of North America.

<comment><USER46> Regardless, the parent comment was useful to me and I assume others. Perhaps I should have assumed association football was meant, since Magnus is European, but for whatever reason I didn't.

Fantasy _American_ football is extremely popular in the US, so I think a lot of people would automatically assume that's what was meant.

And yes, we're aware that people in different countries use different words for things.

(And no, actually, it's not called "football" everywhere outside North America. See: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_for_association_football](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_for_association_football))

<comment><USER45> Fantastic, if you're aware that people in different countries use different words for things, then you can also recognize that GP condescendingly correcting to "fantasy soccer" is unnecessary.

<comment><USER46> It didn't read to me like a correction; rather, pointing out what the article was about to people who might not have immediately realized.

I have absolutely no problem with people calling it football, soccer, calcio, or anything else.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


A symbiosis of permanent magnets and bifilar coils - <AUTHOR> https://infinitysav.com/magneticgenerator/ <comment><USER2> Um... Perpetual motion? Free lunch? Sign me up!</comment>


Declarative Programming with Python - <AUTHOR> https://nullp0tr.com/pages/declarative_apis.html <comment> V-2 Super tiny font, and immune to zooming (in Chrome and Firefox at least) - I'll pass.

<comment><USER2> Weird, on my screen it's super big. Anyway, it's not about declarative programming in any reasonable sense of the word. It's about how to use Python descriptors to override get and set operations on object fields to do smart stuff.</comment></comment>


A troll turned on #haskell - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/quchen/5280339 <comment><USER2> >Iceland_jack . o O ( feels like Haskellers would invite Jehova's witnesses in for tea just to proselatize Haskell to them )

Heh... had a good laugh at that.

<comment><USER3>
      *proselytize

This has annoyed me for a while now

<comment><USER2> _looks at name_

Well, well, well.... we meet at last... I was going to fix the typo but decided to keep the quote authentic.

Thank you for the humor.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> TIL ghcjs is a thing; I tried using fay some years back and it had a lot of issues not properly compiling on my machine.</comment>


Deposit of rare-earth minerals off Japan could supply world for centuries (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://www.sciencealert.com/japan-discovered-a-rare-earth-mineral-deposit-that-can-supply-the-world-for-centuries <comment><USER2> Ever since I learned of Jevon's Paradox[0], headlines like this make me a bit anxious. Between the lines I tend to read _" don't worry, we can pretend that we don't have to actually own up to our wastefulness for a little while longer, and make the problem even worse in the process!"_

I'm fully aware that that is just how I interpret things, and maybe I'm being too cynical, but it does feel like we are focusing on the wrong long-term solution if we just keep looking for new ways to _extract_ resources, if you know what I mean.

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

<comment><USER3> I wouldn't worry about resources being finite. There's a nice negative feedback loop. The less we have of them left, the higher the price and more incentive to develop alternative solutions.

I have no idea about environmental impact of mining these.

<comment><USER2> While an elegant theory, that approach to economics is about as realistic and practical as spherical cows in a vacuum[0] are to biology. In real life markets are a lot more complicated and irrational (because they involve humans).

That Jevon's Paradox wikipedia article I linked to in the first comment is one example of such a complication.

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

<comment><USER4> [https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/12/31/258687278/a-be...](https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/12/31/258687278/a-bet- five-metals-and-the-future-of-the-planet)

> Simon didn't see the growing population as a catastrophic problem. He > explained that we are not like any other species. We have an economy and > markets. So, according to Simon, if the world demands more oil, the price of > oil will go up, and there will be an incentive to find more, or find an > alternative.

> Simon proposed that they bet on what would happen to the price of five > metals — copper, chromium, nickel, tin and tungsten — over a decade.

> And the logic was that these metals were essential for all kinds of stuff — > electronics, cars, buildings. So, if Ehrlich was right, more people on the > planet would mean we would start running out of stuff, and the price of > these things should go up.

> Those next 10 years, from 1980 to 1990, crept by. The world population grew > by 800 million people. Then it was 1990. And they tallied it up. Simon, the > economist, decisively won. Prices for the five metals went down by an > average of 50 percent.

> One of the reasons the prices dropped was just what Simon said. The > catastrophe Ehrlich was predicting just did not happen. People invented > substitutes, like companies switching from aluminum to plastic for > packaging.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The article is 6 months old and the study it's based on is more than 1 year old. How is the project?

There are rare earth minerals everywhere. Even when they are economically viable to extract, most countries are unwilling to, because of the environmental costs associated with mining and refining. As well as the human health costs for workers. I'm not sure Japan will be willing to pay that price.

<comment><USER6> The nice thing about this specific resource is that it is under water, negating many of the problems you mention.

<comment><USER7> If it is in the ocean that would be a disaster.

<comment><USER8> Doesn't most pollution end up in the oceans, anyway? If mining pollutes rivers, those rivers spill into the ocean eventually.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The rare earth oxides are in mud on the seafloor in 18,700 feet of water. The concentration is only 0.66%, which is a lot lower than other known ore bodies on land. Mountain Pass in California is about 8.9% rare earth oxides. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minami-Tori-shima#Minami- Tori-...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minami-Tori-shima#Minami-Tori- Shima_area_rare_earth_deposits) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Pass_rare_earth_mine#...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Pass_rare_earth_mine#Geology)

<comment><USER10> Those numbers are from sources in 2013/4, this latest report was done in 2018.

<comment><USER9> To quote from the 2018 Nature article: "During these cruises, Rare Earth Yttrium-rich mud having a maximum of almost 8,000 ppm of total REY content (ΣREY) was confrmed."

8000 ppm would be 0.8% concentration. Most of the samples are poorer than that.

[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-23948-5.pdf](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-23948-5.pdf)

<comment><USER10> Thanks for finding the new numbers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Similiar deposits have been found for decades. All these "news" pop up because the China trade war

<comment><USER12> Thanks for adding that context. But without this post, I would have missed that bit of information, like I missed this news the previous times it came around.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The reason why China is the source of all of our rare-earth metals is because they are aggressively mining & processing it. There are a variety of reasons why China is doing the mining and processing, including factors like proximity to supply chains, China's strategic goals, different environmental & labor laws, land use laws, etc.

As soon as it gets more expensive to source rare-earth metals from China, other sources will come online. Other countries could ramp up mining & processing, perhaps as a "matter of national security", but for whatever reason that hasn't happened yet. This is done in other areas, there are a fair number of industries that only exist in the US because the military-industrial complex is interested in keeping supply chains independent of influence by foreign powers.

<comment><USER14> Problem is China artificially deflating the price of their metals when other facilities do come online, forcing those newly opened operations to shut down.

<comment><USER13> I understand that this is a problem for the operators, but this not a problem for consumers. Those other facilities will just come online when the price goes back up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This was found years ago.

This "finding keeps popping up as a new finding...

My understanding is that its huge, but underwater and dredging/vacuuming it up would be _massively damaging_ to the ocean environment not to mention so expensive it's not really cost effective. Yet.

It depends on what China does with their huge reserves...

</comment><comment><USER16> Original story, which dates from April 2018: [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-23948-5.pdf](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-23948-5.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER17> My understanding is that the challenge is in the refining & processing, not the existence of mineral deposits.

<comment><USER18> That's essentially it.

China made it a strategic goal to become globally dominant in rare earths. It was a position the US held previously. China's share of the market eventually climbed into the high 90% range. It's now back down to closer to 70% to 75% depending on the source. Between their state subsidies for the sector, meant to maintain their position, and their willingness to ignore the environmental disaster that the rare earth metals industry often is, they can simply do it cheaper than everyone else.

Japan's moves after China used rare earths against them a decade ago, were extremely successful. They were largely responsible for the drop in China's market share.

The US has been very irresponsible about this. It's pretty wild that the military industrial complex has not been forcing the issue extremely aggressively. It would not be difficult for the US to be entirely self- sufficient on rare earths.

If the US were not so circus-like on matters of strategic importance (too many clowns focused on everything that isn't actually important), it would immediately put $10-$20 billion to work with the Army Corp of Engineers and whatever US mining companies were necessary (the US has several of the world's largest miners), and it'd nationalize the Mountain Pass mine as an issue of extreme national security. There would be no niceness, no pleasantries. All environmental reviews would be ignored as a matter of national security, it would be a violent rush to production no matter the initial cost. It would then ramp up production enough to deflate China's position down toward 50% globally (through a combination of domestic production and working with foreign partners eg in Australia and elsewhere to boost their production further asap), and ensure the US has a lever it can always use if China tries to pull this again. It's simply taking the club out of China's hands on this issue. And as far as stupid spending goes, this would not be all that expensive.

The US would further use the nationalized mine (ideally do this with multiple mines) - in a modestly subsidized fashion over time - to build up an enormous stockpile of rare earths, exactly like and for the same reason as the strategic petroleum reserve. The US has a small version of this now, it should increase that drastically.

<comment><USER19> > There would be no niceness, no pleasantries. All environmental reviews would > be ignored as a matter of national security, it would be a violent rush to > production no matter the initial cost

This is how you get things like [http://nmindepth.com/2014/07/07/remembering- the-largest-radi...](http://nmindepth.com/2014/07/07/remembering-the-largest- radioactive-spill-in-u-s-history/)

How many people would you poison to, essentially, make a point against China? Besides, the whole project of demonstrating how the US is a superior place to China by, er, nationalising a mine at gunpoint, poisoning the surroundings, and disallowing people legal redress for complaints?

<comment><USER20> > the whole project of demonstrating how the US is a superior place

Or just avoiding war. The "point" dissuades china warring against the US.

<comment><USER19> The nuclear weapons and the carrier battle groups do that, surely?

Messing around with the flow of trade goods to disrupt the economy of other countries that you're nontheless inextricable from is a form of conflict, but not a warlike one.

<comment><USER20> Petrol is stockpiled because the military needs it, not just the economy. REs are needed for many military machines too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> One of the things I worry about is how much of raw materials we have left for various compounds. As a civilization we are consuming enormous amount of stuff and dumping them in sea or underground every year. Things like iron, silicon, aluminium are abundent and we easily have supply for _probably_ few 10s of thousands of years (at current rate of consumption) however what about everything else like gold, iridium, rhodium, platinum etc which are required to make many many things we treasure dearly. When might this party end?

<comment><USER22> W can mine asteroids: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining)

<comment><USER23> But saying "mine asteroids" is like walking up to a stone age man and saying "why are you walking, just build a Bugatti Veyron and drive there dummy".

Even if we do develop technology to mine asteroids (note that several of the companies that were attempting this in recent years have gone out of business or been acquired extremely cheaply) it's still a relatively short term solution. The asteroid belt only contains material equal to (roughly) 4% of the mass of the Moon.

That 4% mass of the Moon is spread out over mind boggling distances that doesn't even start untill roughly beyond the orbit of Mars. At those distances, PV power is going to be worthless, even at Mars the maximum solar irradiance is only about 59% of that on Earth so you're going to need to either build massive solar arrays and use wireless transmission to get the power down to the mining craft/drones (which will have to have considerable batteries in the event they get out of line of sight) or power them with some sort of nuclear solution.

Now, you'll be pulling a good deal of material off that you use purely for reaction mass. You'll also be pulling off a lot of stuff that won't really be worth sending back to Earth in any appreciable quantity like nickel and iron (although could be useful for construction in space and possibly worth sending to Mars) so when you do actually get to rare earths/precious metals you'll likely be able to mine more in a decade (if not a year) than earth has ever of say gold or platinum metal groups, but by even assuming you develop all the technology you need to do this, by the time you safely land it back on Earth it'll still be fantastically expensive to get to point of first delivery and a very very time consuming process purely due to the distances and practical limit on reaction mass for accelerating and decelerating.

Then you're still only talking 4% the mass of the Moon, if you were making a decent effort at mining the asteroids you might pull worthwhile material out for a century or two before you've exhausted the bulk of it and then it is "well, I hope we've developed FTL travel or generation ships!"

<comment><USER24> To access an equivalent amount of mass from the moon you would need to strip mine it to a depth of about 23.5km. On earth it would be about 1km. Your point about losing a lot of it as reaction mass still stands, but 4% of the moon is actually quite a lot.

<comment><USER23> > but 4% of the moon is actually quite a lot.

Yes, and it is spread out over a huge amount of space. The asteroid belt occupies 1AU of space that starts 2.2 AU out and and ends 3.2 AU out.

Sure, roughly half of the belt's mass is contained in just four asteroids - Ceres, Vesta, Pallas, and Hygiea.

Ceres alone is the 33rd largest known object in our solar system and simply mining it might be realistic but its orbit is 2.5-3 AU out but from what we've observed it is estimated to be 20% carbon by mass in its near surface, that is a LOT of material that you have to remove just to get at other stuff. With a (believed) rocky core, you have 70-190km of ice that likely varies considerably in composition and concentration.

Even if you can get out there, even if you can mine it at -36F in direct sunlight, you're going to have a world of trouble doing it and may not even find a worthwhile concentration of materials you actually want, you may be processing ice and dust attempting to skim the rare earths and precious metals out of the dust.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Thought there are two tactic resources that threatening USA - rare earth which china news agent starting to voice about. But that may slowdown economy but unlike chip probably can really be stored.

The second one is antibiotics. Not sure about that one. It can kill as it is now t easy to replace in short term and demand is inelastic to a certain extent. Wonder more about that more.

</comment><comment><USER26> I'm sure this is wildly naive, but I'm a little surprised we haven't figured out how to synthesize these minerals. Maybe it's just not economically worthwhile.

<comment><USER17> Indeed. Rare earths are specific elements in the periodic table. The only way we could "synthesize" these elements is atomically -- by bombarding other elements with nucleons and hope they stick or split. "Not economically worthwhile" is a massive understatement. :)

A similar process is required to turn lead into gold!

<comment><USER27> We're doing it already, in every nuclear power plant. We might as well harvest the results. Many won't be radioactive, with the problematic isotopes disappearing quickly, and anyway we know how to separate isotopes.

Particularly common: yttrium, lanthanum, cerium, neodymium, and samarium.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fission_products_(by_element)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fission_products_\(by_element\))

For political reasons, the USA is one of the few nuclear countries that does not reprocess fuel. Besides missing out on rare earths, we're discarding about 95% of the uranium as waste. (discarding about 90% of the energy, with overhead taking a bit) Russia, China, France, India, and Pakistan all have reprocessing plants.

<comment><USER17> Is this actually a significant source of rare earth elements? My understanding is that they're rare compared with things like carbon, nitrogen, etc. Cerium, one of the rare earths, is apparently more common than copper, even.

Seems like extracting them from spent nuclear fuel would be much less economic than just grinding them out of rocks, but IANANE.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> 30 December 2018

<comment><USER29> Still within the centuries time window. :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> 2018?

</comment><comment><USER31> Bullshit

[https://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2018/05/rare-earth- depl...](https://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2018/05/rare-earth-depletion- non-solution-for.html)</comment>


The Butler Lampson interview from Programmers at Work - <AUTHOR> http://programmersatwork.wordpress.com/butler-lampson-1986/

<comment><USER2> _"Nobody knows how to build really complicated hardware systems, so designing hardware tends to be simpler. Software is much more complicated."_

For those of you who, like me, have wondered how processors and other complex hardware are so reliable, while software is disgraceful, he's probably got the answer.

 _"Sometimes I think that the goals people are trying to reach are just too much to ask for. Programmers often lose sight of the fact that the problems in building software systems arise because what they are trying to do is just too hard. They believe the computer is a universal engine that can do anything. It's very easy to be seduced into the proposition that a group of one or five or ten or fifty or a thousand programmers can make the computer do anything. That's clearly not right."_

Interesting...</comment>


Redis server built in Erlang - <AUTHOR> http://github.com/inaka/edis

<comment><USER2> Interesting effort, I think the Redis API can be implemented with different trade offs, so it is resonable to test this idea in practice. Welcome Edis :)

<comment><AUTHOR> hey thanks... it's slower, for (obvious) starters. i'm hoping to give a talk at erlang factory in march on the tradeoffs we've made. currently it's using levelDB as the backend (taken from Basho's Erlang leveldb driver)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The headline should probably mention that this has a LevelDB backend. It's not just an exercise in reinventing something that already works; it's a different approach to persistence, with an API very similar to that of Redis.

<comment><USER4> Instead of reinventing wheels, why not patch Redis ?

<comment><USER3> This is _not_ a minor patch. Modifying Redis to support a LevelDB backend would be difficult, and would probably not find its way into the main version of Redis.

<comment><USER4> I believe it will still be less work than recreating the whole thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You should see the official site: <http://inaka.github.com/edis/></comment>