Fossjobs.net: jobs that improve and involve FOSS or open hardware projects - <AUTHOR> https://www.fossjobs.net/ <comment><USER2> There's been a substantial shift recently, in cloud deployment anyway, where the work entails stitching together many FOSS tools. I think this started as a concept around 2000 with the idea of LAMP stacks and kept going My last several jobs, and everyone around me, have amounted to duct tape.

In this kind of situation, there's plenty of room--sometimes company sanctioned even--to spend time improving the tools and contributing the changes back. Win-win-win for everyone.

So not explicitly FOSS jobs, but it's everywhere already.

<comment><USER3> _it 's everywhere already_

If _only_ everyone using the FOSS tools actually contributed back their local modifications. That's definitely not happening "everywhere".

<comment><USER4> What are people doing? Maintaining extensive long-term private forks of basic infrastructure tools outside of their business line and core competency? Why would anyone choose to do that?

<comment><USER5> I've tried to upstream changes or bug reports to open software. Sometimes something that is a bug to you is a feature to someone else.

<comment><USER3> It's also not uncommon that a 10-line local hack that took an hour or two total to figure out and implement mutates into a 200-line pull request that eventually gets merged after 3 months of near-daily babysitting and 7 rounds of review with 10-deep email threads because the initial approach wasn't _quite_ up to standard and the project maintainers have _meant_ to redo the code in this area for a while now anyway, so _could you just…_

Or, you know, somewhere along that path, you give up, for reasons which can be anywhere between frivolous/laziness and entirely reasonable. If you're lucky, your change is sufficiently googlable that one of the next people who need it comes along and cleans it up and goes through with the full merge dance before upstream has diverged too far from your abandoned patch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A lot of jobs listed here are remote. Does anybody know any other job boards for remote jobs.

<comment><USER7> Check out [https://www.amursoftware.com/blog/what-are-the-biggest- distr...](https://www.amursoftware.com/blog/what-are-the-biggest-distributed- remote-first-companies)</comment></comment>


Early Supporters of Oculus VR Denounce Facebook Buyout - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/26/early-supporters-of-oculus-vr-unnerved-upset-by-facebook-purchase/

<comment><USER2> Apparently I am in the minority thinking most of the reactions are shortsighted and reactionary. Facebook's market cap is over 150 billion; Mark isn't going to make a huge acquisition like this without good reason.

The idea he would do it to curry favor is silly. It is surprising to see some knee-jerk reaction from people who should know better. Instagram and many other acquisitions by Facebook have not been hurt or otherwise negatively impacted.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's because all of the universe of things that people thought you might get to do with an OR, all the fun 3d modeling apps, games, virtual worlds, garage developed MMOs, space ship simulators etc....all of cosmos of possibilities, and yes, "social" was but _one_ of them, just shrunk down to just "social" and probably free to play garbage with a credit card slot right on the headset. A dynamic, explosive vision for the world is not something that's in Facebook's DNA. Convenient public and private messaging services are.

FB can't even ship a decent Android app that provides access to their main product-line.

More importantly, they have piss poor developer relations, and unless FB is planning on building the entire thing themselves, very few people are going to strap themselves in so they can check their facebook feed.

The acquisition turned the endless possibilities of a virtual multiverse into an advertisement laden idiocracy.

[http://i.imgur.com/NPLjenz.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/NPLjenz.jpg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I don't understand why customers from Kickstarter think they have any say in what the business does. I generally think the Kickstarter pitch is misleading. "Backing" a Kickstarter doesn't mean your investing in the company, it means you're pre-purchasing the product. I never saw this as a good deal for Kickstarter customers, who take the risk of investment but don't get any of the rewards.

<comment><USER4> Kickstarter has never been about pre-ordering a product. It's about supporting a business; the gifts are simply incentives to invest certain amounts. That some companies treat them as pre-orders has no impact of the actual goal of kickstarter campaigns - getting money to fund an activity.

There is no guarantee that even if a kickstarter campaign is successful you'll get "what you paid for". A company following through with its kickstarter incentives is a bonus, not the end goal.

Relevant to this particular discussion, do you think that Marcus Pearson really gave $10,000 just to receive a dev kit?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It does sort of position Kickstarter is a seed round without a loss of equity.

So Oculus Rift (OR) raises 2.4M$ on Kickstarter.[1] Lets say this was a seed party round (with 9,522 angel investors) and that got the Angels 15% of the company, now OR go on to raise $90M, so assuming that $90M stays under 50% in the cap table, maybe the 15% dilutes down to 5%.

And Facebook comes along and buys the thing for $2B. That 5% pays back the initial investors $10,500 each. (which would be huge for people who put in $10, and still "ok" for people who put in $5,000 (7 people). The bulk would have turned $350 into $10,500 which is a nice return.

Ok so given the JOBS act loosening up the requirements on early investors, who thinks that a future KickStarter might off '1 preferred share' as part of the rewards?

[1] [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1523379957/oculus- rift-...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1523379957/oculus-rift-step- into-the-game)

</comment><comment><USER6> FTA: "What was the point of the Kickstarter campaign, "if you sell out to a giant company like Facebook?" " I don't get this. the point of the kickstarter campaign was to support the company, get it started, and get your award. If there wasn't a kickstarter, to well kick start the company, it probably wouldn't have lasted long enough to sell out.

</comment><comment><USER7> This headline could be auto-generated:

"Early Supports of <startup|product> Denounce <big company> Buyout"

then do a sentiment analysis on Twitter to support the headline.</comment>


Experts Condemn Keto. Will People Finally Stop? - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/z3bv94/keto-diet-experts-rank-best <comment><USER2> _additional experts warned against the long-term effects (like increased risk of cardiovascular disease) keto might have on the body._

This is why (well, among other reasons) I'm categorizing this article in the "bullshit" category. Everything I've read on this subject (which is a fair amount), and everything I've heard from medical professionals (including my GP, my cardiologist, and a doctor who specializes in keto) suggests that keto is _better_ from a cardiovascular health standpoint, as people on the keto diet routinely see an improved lipid profile, including more "healthy" cholesterol, and lower triglycerides.

</comment><comment><USER3> > Eating so few carbs even sends many new keto-ers into something called the > "keto flu," a sure sign your body is extremely pissed off at what you're > doing to it.

If you make any drastic dietary change (e.g., going from 300g carbs/day to < 20g), your body will be temporarily upset with you. That doesn't mean the dietary change is bad.

This piece really lacks in substance. First off, there's a huge variety of carbs out there: fiber, sugar, and complex carbohydrates for one, and they're all metabolically different. Second, there's tons of options between Keto and 300g/carbs per day: a low-carb diet.

What's missing from this discussion is the fact that many people eat low- quality carbs: high in sugars, low in fiber, and Keto is a simple method for removing the least nutritionally valuable items from ones diet: soda, chips, anything in a snack food aisle, etc. A more nuanced opinion would be: people need to a eat a different type of carbs: quinoa, or carbs from whole fruits and vegetables, for example. Criticism that keto takes this too far is fair, but the author fails to give a serious alternative to people looking to manage their diets. But it's farfetched to say Keto will kill you.

<comment><USER4> Agreed. Keto is effective because it's an exclusionary diet, and while it does exclude some healthy foods, it also excludes the majority of junk food that makes modern diets so poor.

The adaptability of humans makes me think the "perfect diet" doesn't exist. But I imagine the closest we can get is being grounded in common sense moderation.

This coming from someone who has been on keto over two years, lost 80 lbs and kept it off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Keto + regular gym works better than anything else to get a man into shape quickly.

If you care about that a lot for some reason, then you should do keto and let the "experts" talk to the hand.

It might be bad for your heart/kidneys/whatever in the long term, but almost everything that's good or fun is harmful in some way and life is a terminal condition.

Also, nothing works for sustained weight loss.</comment>


Gentoo Linux 2008.0 released - <AUTHOR> http://www.gentoo.org/news/20080706-release-2008.0.xml

<comment><USER2> Crap and I just wasted all day yesterday trying to get the 2007.0 release installed on VirtualBox.</comment>


Show HN: Review my site: Moviemail, get emailed the day a movie is released - <AUTHOR> Link: http://moviemail.info
Type a movie title > enter your email address > click Submit = You'll get an email on the movie's release date.
There is no registration. No sign-up. No beta. It's just a simple tool.
I built this because I was tired of adding movie release dates to my Google Calendar (or forgetting to do so after seeing a cool trailer). Do any of you have this pain point too? If not, I'm fine with just chalking this up as a tool for my own personal purposes.
If so, then I know a lot more can still be added, but I'm not sure what I want to add because none of the yet-to-be-added features are heavy pain points of mine. For example, I was thinking of building a "Remind me" button -- similar to Twitter's "Share" button -- which could be embedded on movie blogs like FirstShowing and ScreenRant, and possibly sites like Rotten Tomatoes. At scale this could be a valuable complement to pre-release ticket purchases in gauging movie demand.
Any and all thoughts are welcome, I only ask you keep them constructive. Fire away.
Thanks
PS - Moviemail is built using Rotten Tomatoes' API. <comment><USER2> Also see WhenItDrops[1] which helps you keep track of weekly upcoming releases in movies but also music, DVD, game and book releases.

[1]: <http://whenitdrops.com>

<comment><AUTHOR> Forgot that existed. That is a smart way to get people coming back each week, but doesn't solve the same problem as granularly as Moviemail. Whenitdrops : Moviemail :: Coolhunting : Set-and-forget. (You can set-and-forget with Whenitdrops with their weekly email but that inherently provides more noise than signal. Moviemail is all signal.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I predict you would get many more users if you could get an email reminder (with link) when new high-quality movie torrents hit piratebay

<comment><AUTHOR> Probably, but most halfway decent private tracker sites already solve that internally.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Clickable: <http://moviemail.info></comment>


A New Front Door for Immigrant Entrepreneurs - <AUTHOR> http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/11/29/new-front-door-immigrant-entrepreneurs

<comment><AUTHOR> The administration is really focusing on improving the immigration process by bringing folks from the private sector to work on the practical issue of immigration and this is one of the steps as we move forward toward passing Startup Visa. Welcome any direct feedback on the website and other things the team could address.

Disclosure: I work with the Obama Administration on ways to make the government cater to startups, not on the USCIS team, but I'm helping collect feedback for them.</comment>


Ask HN: Are "Rate my Start-up" posts OK on HN? - <AUTHOR>

I saw quite few "Ask HN: Rate my Startup XY" posts here lately. Are they considered somewhat spammy by HN crowds or is it a valid form of getting feedback here by general opinion? <comment><USER2> Don't know what the official word is, but personally I find them an appealing point of difference for HackerNews. We are, after all, meant to be a crowd more interestd in the cutting edge of technology and I quite enjoy being able to provide feedback to developers in various stages of production.

Plus I've discovered some seriously awesome sites through them that otherwise would have passed me by.

</comment><comment><USER3> In a way I believe that was part of the entire point of HN in the beginning!

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool. Because I work mostly alone I highly value external feedback. It helps me broaden/clear my view on what I'm working on.

HN seems very calm/knowledgeable community so it's very good to know that I can also ask for feedback here. I asked because for the same reason I also wouldn't want to be spamming this comm. in any way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> absolutely. it's great for a few reasons:

a) you get constructive feedback. it may be tough to swallow, but it's usually not trollish at all.

b) you get to see new products and learn just by reading the threads. seriously, someone should put together a domain or something like it, listing all these type of posts.

c) unless you're launching something appealing to hackers/startups, they won't be long term users. the cool thing is, a lot of interesting people may contact you or become a connection through this.

</comment><comment><USER5> Absolutely. In fact, I think they are possibly some of the most educational posts on here.

Even if you don't want to review the site or provide feedback, you can learn a lot just from reading the comments.

</comment><comment><USER6> You're good to go. The neat thing about this community is strikes a good balance between give and take. My startup journey is well documented on this site. At different times I did my announcements and requests for feedback (take) but I also try to chime in on conversations like this one (give). It seems this behavior is well rewarded here.

</comment><comment><USER7> I think they're great, personally. Occasionally there is some astroturfing, but I think that's a rarity.

I like seeing what people are working on; and it makes me want to keep focusing on the stuff I'm working on as well.

</comment><comment><USER8> yes

<comment><USER9> Is that - yes they're considered spammy, or yes it's a valid form of getting feedback? Or both?

<comment><USER10> I believe the question in the title should be the one answered. So in this instance "yes" refers to yes, rate my startup posts are ok.

It was one of the first things that was done on HN. It provides valuable feedback for startups and also provides a bit of motivation to launch for people struggling with their own startups.</comment></comment></comment>


The Doll That Helped the Soviets Beat the U.S. To Space - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/03/the-doll-that-helped-the-soviets-beat-the-us-to-space/274400/?single_page=true

<comment><USER2> The Wikipedia article about Russian space dogs [0] mentioned in this post would almost deserve a HN submission by itself.

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

<comment><USER3> Indeed, there was a dog called Zvezdochka on the March 25 flight. Funny how it doesn't get mentioned in the article.

I basically don't trust this article. I don't believe the passage about the peasants opening the visor and being bewildered actually happened. It doesn't match what I've read before, and it's just the kind of tall story an over- eager, uncritical journalist loves to write.

<comment><USER4> From the article: "(This was in addition to the canine companions that flew with Ivan, in the proud tradition of the Soviet space program: Chernushka ("Blackie") for his first flight, and Zvezdochka ("Little Star") for his second.)"

<comment><USER3> My mistake, sorry! Too late to edit.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


America is turning against facial-recognition software - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/united-states/2019/05/25/america-is-turning-against-facial-recognition-software <comment><USER2> > Earlier this year the Washington Post reported that many small police > departments were abandoning body-worn-camera programmes because of the cost.

> Although the cameras are cheap, officers can generate 15 gigabytes of video > per shift; storage costs mount. Police unions often oppose body-worn > cameras, fearing they imperil their members by giving superior officers > licence to search them for punishable behaviour.

>Other officers complain about the amount of time required to review and redact footage in response to public-information requests.

Sure, the Police themselves don't like the cameras turned on them. Suddenly it is "too expensive".

Then they will turn around and argue for ubiquitous CCTV camera installations.

<comment><USER3> would you want a body camera at your work? You wouldn't I'm sure. Don't blame them for looking for their interest. It's someone else's job to (politicians) to legislate the use of it.

<comment><USER4> What a poor analogy. My job doesn't have anything to do with being the sole arbiter of violence and defusing dangerous situations at the trust and expense of taxpayers and local citizens.

If they don't want accountability as police officers, they can go find another job.

> Don't blame them for looking for their interest.

I can, I will and I will argue that it is my moral obligation to ensure that the public servants are acting in the best interest of the public as a citizen. But thanks for your concern.

<comment><USER5> "giving superior officers licence to search them for punishable behaviour" seems like a legitimate concern. You seem to be assuming that the "superior officers" will have "the best interests of the public" as their sole motivation. In my experience that is rarely true of ladder climbers. By not dealing with this concern you could easily end up making things worse.

<comment><USER6> If "punishable behaviour" is appropiately limited to things like assault and evidence planting, then this is irrelevant, and superior officers should even be _required_ to preform such searches.

If "punishable behaviour" includes things like slacking off to stop by dunkin donuts, the problem is with what qualifies as punishable behaviour, not the ability to search for it.

<comment><USER5> You might be missing the point. Assuming that all the good guys are supervisors and all the bad guys are the supervised is an unwise assumption to make. The bad guys can simply become supervisors and weed out the good guys. Entire police departments have been corrupted in this fashion. If you over simplify the problem the solution is unlikely yield the desired result.

<comment><USER6> No, I'm saying that even if all the supervisors are bad, the ability to search for punishable behaviour only helps them if there exists punishable behaviour for them to find.

I agree that this is a unreasonably high standard to hold people whose job doesn't have anything to do with being the sole arbiter of violence and defusing dangerous situations at the trust and expense of taxpayers and local citizens to.

If they don't want accountability as police officers, they can go find another job.

Edit: unless you meant not supervisors but the policymakers who define "punishable behaviour", in which case getting rid of body cams is about as helpful as rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

<comment><USER5> No good person wants criminal police officers to not be held to account but simply passing laws is unlikely to have the desired effect. Many police departments in the united states are already highly corrupted at the highest levels. Its not as bad as it is in Mexico where the drug lords have actually taken over, but its getting close.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Good. This kind of software is a mirror to the data fed into it. People on the edges of society (that the people making the mirror might either intentionally or accidentally ignore) will get fucked over tremendously by this technology. We should put a complete ban on it. Even if it means gimping my photo organization programs.

<comment><USER8> Just so I have good arguments when talking to someone about this specific point, can you or someone else please go into more detail on why this will happen?

<comment><USER9> There have been numerous issues where corpora of peoples faces have been insufficiently stocked with a particular racial group, in such cases people's faces might not register as faces and therefore be shut out of whatever the facial recognition is supposed to implement.

For example facial recognition at a high priced building, suddenly non-white people can't get in because you did not show a real face at the scanner. Sorry, it's a bug not a feature.

The same problem would of course apply to anyone with facial deformities etc.

The problem would be essentially of two forms - Automatic exclusion from a group by facial feature, or automatic inclusion in a group by facial feature.

Think of the automatic inclusion as advanced phrenology or other sort of woo, in this scenario company X sells the idea that they will have facial recognition of 'criminal types' based on whatever research they can pull out that criminals often correspond in appearance. Then they fill that corpus up with criminals which then is a nice self-selecting system of find the black/hispanic person and deny them the job, loan etc. because of likelihood for crime past the threshold set.

the reason why this would happen is the same reason why banks used to deny loans to people in certain zip codes, because by doing so they could be racially profiling and excluding but pretend not to do so.

<comment><USER10> >"corpora of peoples faces have been insufficiently stocked with a particular racial group, in such cases people's faces might not register as faces.."

I'm not sure this is s good argument against the technology because there is a solution to this objection: they'll improve it and ensure every face type is comparably recognized. It should be rejected on more basic principles.

<comment><USER11> It's not as simple as "just make sure it works on everyone". Even if it were physically possible to capture the face of all 7 billion people on Earth, you'd start running into issues of false positives/negatives, overfitting, etc., and furthermore it would basically require every person to be periodically scanned from birth until death to ensure that the algorithm can recognize new faces.

<comment><USER10> This is a different objection than the original objection. (effective accuracy vs specific bias).

With a pervasive system, unless people are hermits, they'll get scanned periodically, and with other bits of information the changed face can be correlated with the same person (I go into a salon looking one way, come out different, go into a boxing match, come out different, but I'm following my routine and go to the same subway stop and convenience store and use the same payment method, etc.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> There is a lot of sensationalism (see title of article) and high, anxious emotions around facial recognition right now, which really is to be expected at this point. But it is muddying the rational conversations we should be having about it. Can Amazon lessen Rekognition's bias towards white people (ie. bright pixels)? Yes. Get over that. This article completely whiffed on an important point regarding police use of facial recognition (or maybe I missed it) and that is _police_ bias. We are talking about one of the most culturally and racially biased concentrations of power in the country. It's important to note that they will NOT be training the models or writing the algorithms that drive their tools. We have a chance to let some brilliant engineers create deliberately unbiased tools that can only improve the situation in America's police force. PLEASE do not let your fears win. It will be used for evil and it will be used for good. That is not something that should be banned. Sorry I started getting a little emotional.

<comment><USER13> The problem I have with your statement is that it seems to put 'brilliant engineers' on some kind of magical pedestal.

Engineers, much like police, are humans. Therefore they hold biases, they can be short-sighted, and they may not understand many of the long-term ramifications of their jobs.

All this does is move the power and bias up the chain from police to engineers while simultaneously making some very, very powerful decisions about what privacy is and what your rights are in society with 0 oversight from the actual society. In fact, police are (in theory) beholden to politicians and the voting public right now. If piss-poor decisions are made based on faulty software from software conglomerate A, who do we hold accountable?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This has been debated extensively on HN (and is still being debated actively), but all I hope is that people realise sooner or later that the level of safety you can acquire in a society is inversely related to the level of privacy individuals can have.

What I _personally_ hope for is that people achieve a balance between safety and privacy.

<comment><USER15> How does this differ from "If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to worry about."?

Surely it's not difficult for you to imagine fairly common scenarios where your equation is patently untrue. A battered spouse of LEO or a non gender- conforming individual in a theocratic society are only two really easy examples that come to mind.

If we assume that individuals who control or have access to surveillance mechanisms are universally magnanimous and actually capable of neutralizing threats to safety, then your negative relationship between safety and privacy might hold up to scrutiny. I have more than a bit of trouble seeing how that assumption is anything other than utopian.

<comment><USER14> I don't mean to defend surveillance as a gateway to safety by any means, in fact I believe in the exact opposite. Unfortunately, it's going to be integrated into our society whether we like it or not, and after that point it's only a matter of time before we come to accept losing our privacy; having ignored all the exceptional "casualties" and enjoying the add scrutiny it yields to law enforcement.

<comment><USER15> I suspect the integration and matter of time exist in recent history. The question I struggle with is, what ought a neutral-good aligned individual do about it?

<comment><USER14> I think neutral good as an alignment inherently comes with a disadvantage in making impact. You have to take certain levels of risks at certain extremes to be able to influence _anything_.

<comment><USER15> I'd like to be neutral good, but recognize that one may need to dip into chaos depending on the landscape they find themselves in. :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I can't read the article without an Economist account, but I think the headline is a bit too broad. There are a lot of people who happily use facial recognition to unlock their iPhones every day, and I haven't seen much of a backlash against that.

Why not? Because it's isolated on the device, and can be turned off whenever you want. I think the real concern is the _combination_ of facial recognition with vast centralized databases. Those big centralized databases are just begging to be exploited and abused, whether for commercial, authoritarian, criminal, or even creepy "LOVE-INT" stalking by the people running the databases.

I think facial recognition (and other forms of recognition) can have a bright future in society, but only if they conform to our expectations of privacy. Those expectations have been created over thousands of years based on how we interact with people. The closer that computer interaction can hew to existing social conventions, the smoother path it will have to adoption.

I don't mind if the waiter in a local restaurant recognizes me when I come in; in fact I like it! But I don't think I would like it very much if I knew he was calling 15 different data brokers to report on me every time he sees me.

<comment><USER17> >I can't read the article without an Economist account

try [https://outline.com/BhW2BL](https://outline.com/BhW2BL)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> >Jack Marks, who manages Panasonic's public-safety products, called it "short- sighted and reactive". The technology exists, he said; "the best thing you can do is help shape it."

Not using it IS "shaping" it. Just not into a shape profitable for this dishonest huckster.

</comment><comment><USER19> It's like nuclear power, technology is what we make of it.

Do we want to use it for criminal purposes only, effectively to almost make it impossible for someone to commit a violent crime and get away with it and make a much safer society?

I'm all for it, there are some nasty people out there, serial killers, pedophilians, drug cartels. This technology deployed at scale would make these crimes much harder to get away with.

As long as it's another way to ensure democratic laws are respected, I don't think that completely forbidding it makes sense.

I'm all for regulation, we don't want this technology to be abused.

<comment><USER20> Ski mask. You might catch/convict a guy with it, but soon after a lot of people are just going to wear them all the time.

<comment><USER21> Yup. About half the US needs them for 3 or more months per year. And then there's the rise of surgical masks to prevent the spread of viruses.

I also foresee a surge in wide-brimmed hats.

<comment><USER13> I remember stories from 5 years ago or so about artists who were making facial recognition blocking scarves. The scarves made you look like a lightbulb on camera, so they couldn't see your face.

I chuckled, because it was ridiculous, and now I'm wondering if they make them in professional colors. . .

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> America is turning against facial recognition, until it's not. Total surveillance looks like it's inevitable.

Surveillance will come slowly, then suddenly

</comment><comment><USER23> America isn't turning against anything. There was no shortage of people that bought the new iPhone with face scan technology.

I believe we live in a society where it's already possible to track the vast majority of people to a general area 100% of the time. Technology is progressing, soon it will be real-time tracking of targeted individuals 100% of the time. That will slowly expand to all individuals. Between cell phone tracking, license plate scanners, and facial recognition cameras, the system knows where you are.

</comment><comment><USER24> Actually there's a proliferation of private facial recognition software being deployed across almost all large buildings in the united states. it's just behind the scenes and not being used by law enforcement. This is the standard for america, law enforcement gets barred from high tech, but private industry is free to use it. Eventually they sell it back to law enforcement.

</comment><comment><USER25> This backlash is the silver lining to China's shortsighted implementations of this technology to their world renowned police state.

<comment><USER26> This may be an unpopular opinion here but on the flip side have you been to China lately?

Street crime (including petty thievery) has dropped immensely.

Any city in China is much safer than Oakland.

<comment><USER27> I don't think safety is the only thing that matters to people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Facial recognition is coming no matter what. There is no way people will sacrifice the conveniences that come along with it. Sure people will be against it when their only concept of its applications is to "catch bad guys", but when it begins to cut time out of their day they will have a change of heart.

</comment><comment><USER29> I'm ready to sacrifice my extremely convenient way to unlock iPhone just to know this technology is banned worldwide.

This technology opens wide doors for surveillance, for finding, identifying and pursuing political opponents - not just their leaders, but every person who was brave enough to protest on the streets.

It opens wide doors also for cyber bullying, and this issue is a problem for every country, not only for dictatorships.

<comment><USER30> What would you expect to be achieved by banning it? Intelligence services will continue with it, which is my major concern over its current use.

<comment><USER31> I think the concern is more widespread use by LEO and corporates who have far less oversight - and will effect several orders of magnitude more people.

<comment><USER32> You have vastly overestimated the oversight on intelligence agencies.

<comment><USER31> And how much legal oversight do the FANGS have? Let alone some local US police force run by individuals such as Sherriff Joe

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Yes, but the thing is that facial recognition IS just video compression.

You take a video stream and compress it down into a timestamped stream of IDs. It's really lossy, but it's the same as OCR or Speech-to-Text -- it is a tool that allows us to better handle large streams of data.

As always, the tool isn't the problem. It's the use of the tool.

(But I think we all know that.)

</comment><comment><USER34> Police are only one group who might use facial-recognition software. Body- worn-cameras can be used and not collect face data or use facial recognition technology, or their legal uses can be severely restricted and clearly defined (or outright banned, lots of options). Why conflate all these things. They overlap sometimes, not all the time.

</comment><comment><USER35> Too late

Photos are everywhere, the software will only get to be more accessible. You can't put this back in the box.

</comment><comment><USER36> Getting discouraging to see facial recognition and machine learning getting conflated in every article's comments.</comment>


[pdf] India'S New Monetary Policy Framework – Aims to Lower Inflation to 4% - <AUTHOR> http://static.financialexpress.com/frontend/fe/pdf/Inflation%20target.pdf

<comment><AUTHOR> [http://www.wsj.com/articles/india-releases-new-monetary- poli...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/india-releases-new-monetary-policy- framework-1425295558)</comment>


Experimenting with low cost 3D printing - <AUTHOR> https://www.iansmith.is/blog/experimenting-with-low-cost-3D-printing <comment><USER2> I got into 3D printing a few years ago with a Select Mini. Unlike a build-it- yourself delta I had bought a few years earlier for around 5 times as much, this thing actually worked! However, whether you buy a DIY or a complete printer, you'd better anticipate repairs, maybe as often as once every few kilograms of plastic. Inappropriate provisions for flexing wires are the worst problems in my experience, particularly because you will find you need some odd and hard to obtain wiring harness to replace it, and then it'll fail in the same way next time.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm hoping this is a common enough printer that parts shouldn't be too hard to find in the future. From what I can tell everything is fairly accessible for fixing. Thanks for the heads up though!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Thank you Ian. I just purchased one after reading your article.

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome! Hope you enjoy it, so far mine has been a lot of fun!</comment></comment>


'Making a Murderer' Left Out Crucial Facts, Prosecutor Says - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/05/arts/television/ken-kratz-making-a-murderer.html?module=WatchingPortal&region=c-column-middle-span-region&pgType=Homepage&action=click&mediaId=wide&state=standard&contentPlacement=1&version=internal&contentCollection=www.nytimes.com&contentId=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2016%2F01%2F05%2Farts%2Ftelevision%2Fken-kratz-making-a-murderer.html&eventName=Watching-article-click&_r=0 <comment><USER2> I just finished watching this series last night, shortly after I noticed this (potential spoiler) had appeared on twitter. It certainly adds credence to their documentary if it is infact honest.

[https://twitter.com/TODAYshow/status/684373410038718464](https://twitter.com/TODAYshow/status/684373410038718464)

(In the video attached to the tweet, one of the creators of the documentary claims they have since been contacted by one of the jurors from Steven Avery's trial, who stated they felt he was innocent however voted guilty as they feared for their personal safety.)

<comment><USER3> _(In the video attached to the tweet, one of the creators of the documentary claims they have since been contacted by one of the jurors from Steven Avery 's trial, who stated they felt he was innocent however voted guilty as they feared for their personal safety.)_

Wow, that's not a statement to take lightly. Arguably, if a juror comes forward with something like that, it's time to empanel a Federal grand jury to investigate the judge and prosecutor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What happened to Brenden Dassey was so egregious that I feel comfortable describing anyone who helped put him in jail as either hopelessly corrupt or stupid. (Or both.) Ken Kratz included.

So I'm disinclined to believe Mr. Kratz when it comes to the Avery case...

<comment><USER5> They are only human. Check out "Mistakes were made (but not by me)" \-- great book about the impact of cognitive dissonance! They likely got a feeling and stopped being completely rational. They wanted to prove themselves right and avoid the psychological injury of admitting a mistake--for some people, their entire identities are tied to them being great at their job, so that particular psychological injury is existentially scary.

<comment><USER6> That is definitely a potential _reason_ for people in positions of authority to act illogically and unfairly, but we never should allow that to be used as an _excuse_. We hold civil servants to a higher bar because they wield so much power yet are expected to be restrained in how they use it.

I do tend to agree perhaps that there are more likely explanations for their actions than stupidity or corruption (as the GP suggested), but we should be wary when it comes to looking for signs of the latter, as a skilled corrupt civil servant / politician will always hide their malfeasance under the guise of slowness, stupidity, miscommunication, etc.

<comment><USER5> Agreed. I hate the system and how badly it seems to be functioning for so many disadvantaged people. I just wanted to share that lovely book. It kind of humanizes the people who are "terrible" by giving color to why they kind of turn to the dark side. Most/all think they're correct and holy (just like most/all of the dark side does)...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "The gun was confiscated when officers searched his trailer on Nov. 5, 2005, and the bullet was found in the garage in March 2006, Mr. Kratz said. 'If they planted it, how did they get a bullet that was shot from Avery's gun before Nov. 5?' he said."

To me the fact that the police had the gun for more than 5 months before the bullet was found only reinforces the theory that the bullet may have been discharged and planted by the police.

This is reinforced by lack of a bullet hole, or blood splatter in the garage where the prosecution claims he shot her.

</comment><comment><USER8> 2 points from the defense that had a "checkmate" feel to them when first presented in the show, but were then _never brought up again._ Anyone have a pointer to details/followup/refutation on these? (Spoiler alert, obviously)

\- Colburn calling in the plates/make/model/year for the victim's car 2 days before it was found

\- Victim's voice mail was checked at 8am the day after she was supposedly killed

<comment><USER9> "Colburn calling in the plates/make/model/year for the victim's car 2 days before it was found". Should be usual when someone disappears.

"Victim's voice mail was checked at 8am the day after she was supposedly killed". By who? The family? The murder?

The series did not show the past of Avery before this affaire. Specially when he burns alive a cat while laughing. Maybe there would be less watchers to believe in his innocence! I am currently writing on this affaire and read of lot of documents, and I have no doubt he is guilty. For the other idiot, Dassey, it is less sure.

<comment><USER10> I think that he was a teenager when he burned a cat alive. Usually teenagers make stupid things. I know people that make things like that and worse in their youth and they aren't murderers.

It's strange that they don't considered the possibility of Bobby Dassey and Scott Tadych being the murderers or the "German" man: [http://www.convolutedbrian.com/an- alternative.html](http://www.convolutedbrian.com/an-alternative.html)

<comment><USER9> He is not a teenager when he bought a pair of handcuffs and iron legs. "This was to try something new with my wife" he said, laughting. His wife is jailed at the time. What a good surprise for her, when she is released. Not to mention the project of a torture room he described to his inmates.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I have a simple question: according to the prosecution, where was Teresa murdered? In the garage by being shot or on the bed after a violent rape ? In Stevens case it seems to be the former, in Brendan's case the latter. There's virtually no evidence for either hypothesis.

<comment><USER12> _> There's virtually no evidence for either hypothesis._

Indeed, there's even evidence _against_ them. Why on earth was so much of her blood in the back of her vehicle if it wasn't used at all during the crime?

The show was so frustrating to watch.

<comment><USER11> exactly - the options are - shot in the garage with a miracle cleanup (with only blood on the bullet, but no splatters in garage) - killed on the bed with no blood evidence at all. In both cases supposedly dragged to the car (why?), to be then dragged out of the same car back to a burning pit, where only bones from part of her body are found.

the case as presented truly defies any credibility or logical sense.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> All the reports along these lines seem to stem from what this prosecutor has said. It would be more credible if other officials or trial participants weighed in.

The omitted evidence he raised seem to me to fall under 2 categories:

1\. Evidence that was very ambiguous (eg. the accused calling the victim's cellphone... suspicious until you remember he was doing business with her)

2\. Physical evidence closely related to physical evidence that was included. My problem here is that if you think some of the physical evidence was tampered with or planted, then there's no reason to believe the other evidence is authentic. And if you don't believe it was planted, then you don't need any other evidence.

<comment><USER14> This article obviously comes directly from Kratz with little to no challenge, and that's why it fails to remember readers _why_ Kratz resigned in 2010.

"I am the prize"... Yeah, some prize, right.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Spoilers; be warned.

It strikes me as relevant, but it is rarely mentioned that Steven Avery's civil case for his first wrongful prosecution against the police and town was denied coverage by the insurance companies. This means the individuals involved in his first wrongful conviction (and who were implicated by the documentary for wrongdoing in the second conviction) could have been found personally financially liable. That would be a powerful incentive for most people.

<comment><USER10> Yes, and it is shocking that supposedly the Manitowoc County Police wasn't allowed to be part of the investigation and they were everywhere during the searches and so on...

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I wanted to try this out but I haven't yet forgiven Serial for completely wasting my time on a similar sounding premise. Is this better? Before I watch it does it actually dig up new evidence or just rehash a cold case?

<comment><USER17> You get to see a 16 year old person with low IQ (about 70, so borderline learning disabled) get interrogated several times, by different people, without a lawyer or parent present.

Some of that interrogation is clearly designed to get him to confess to a crime, and doesn't seem to care whether the confession is true or false.

Some of that interrogation appears to be better designed, and seems to want to get truth rather than a confession, but after several hours they get frustrated that they're not getting a confession so they change tactics. (And I think their frustration is because he'd confessed the day before, so why isn't he confessing now, and the thought that maybe he's innocent doesn't seem to occur to them.)

When there's a miscarriage of justice people often say "but why did he confess?"

This documentary is now my example of why people confess to crimes they did not commit.

There are some frustrating bits about it. The other person was wrongly convicted of a violent crime, was cleared by very good, solid, DNA evidence. We hear a few times from law enforcement who doubt the exoneration and the DNA evidence, and there's a lack of challenge of those attitudes. It's a bit like watching a slow motion train wreck - "what the fuck is that lawyer doing?!?" (the lawyer for the young person makes a comment to the media that pretty much torpedoes his client's case). There's some stuff around plea bargains that isn't explored as much as it could be. A bunch of people accept plea bargains not because they're guilty but because they don't want the extra penalties from a risky court case. And it's a bit long - 10 programmes could have been edited down to 5 without losing any information.

Worth watching though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is there any legal possibility to Steven and Brendan have a new trial, specially outside of Wisconsin state?

<comment><USER18> Normally not really as US law mandates that the the defendant should be judged in the state and district where they crime has been committed.

The US/State attorney might step in if there is enough proof for misconduct especially if the DA cannot be trusted to handle the case impartially.

Other than that the normal appeal process is still accessible they can appeal to Courts of Appeals which is split to 12 regional circuits so this would technically allow you to get judged "out of state" not sure how far it is, or if you can appeal to be judged in another circuit.

Normally there isn't a way for people to be judged out of state mostly because they are judged according to state and local laws which can't be upheld by a different court unless the case is federal and then they go through the federal court system. And there isn't really another way for this process to work the defendant can't be expected to be able to choose where they'll be tried because it basically allows them to choose how they will be sentenced or even if they have committed a crime in the first place.

<comment><USER10> Thanks for the clarification. So if it happens a "miracle" and they go to trial again probably it will be again in Wisconsin

<comment><USER18> I'm not sure if this will go to another "trial" if there will be clear evidence of prosecutorial misconduct they might hold another one, but they did deny an appeal in 2008.

That said apparently the DA did act appropriately as there was a clear case of conflict of interest they've delegated the case to the adjacent district which handled the prosecution and most of the investigation. From what I've read about the case this isn't just a clear cut case the documentary did present quite a bit of evidence but it was very cherry picked I'm not entirely sold what actually happened.

My biggest grief with this documentary isn't that it drives and agenda is that it does it on an "active case" this is a sad story indeed but this should've been done on a different case perhaps I would assume that there are plenty of miscarriage of justice cases that are over which could've been used. I hope there will be an investigation in this manner but even the most biased news coverage of any criminal case doesn't formulate and opinion of the matter as much as this docu did, and this can poison any potential future investigation or trial for better or for worse.

<comment><USER10> But the prosecutors also manipulated the public opinion with that public conferences about that what Brendan and Steven supposedly made to the victim, only based in a doubtful and manipulated confession of Brendan.

<comment><USER18> Again not claiming that this was handled even remotely appropriately but 2 wrongs do not make it right. I wouldn't want the media being used to institute an opinion within the general public regardless if they are doing it for the prosecution or the defense.

If anything should be taken from this and from many other public cases is that we really need much more stricter ethical guidelines about how criminal and civil cases are handled by the media. When the media can be used as a tool to affect public opinion it can be used to affect potential outcome of trials and that's very bad place to be.

Heck even pre-trial coverage can change the outcome of many cases then the media reports that they caught a guy and builds a case that they are guilty people would put less effort into doing due diligence the police might not chase up on additional leads, people who might have had details are not less likely to come forward because they caught the guy so why should they bother and some of the witnesses that already came forward will start rehashing what they've seen on the news even if only unconsciously.

Heck at this point you might be able to actually get out of guilty verdict by getting some PR company to spam as much misinformation about the incident as possible poisoning all the witnesses it only takes a handful of inaccuracies between the initial statement and the trail deposition for the defense to rip the witnesses apart.

<comment><USER10> That's totally true

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> [https://www.reddit.com/r/MakingaMurderer/comments/3ypbns/doc...](https://www.reddit.com/r/MakingaMurderer/comments/3ypbns/documents_in_the_avery_and_dassey_cases/)

</comment><comment><USER20> My reaction was probably one that is a lot more relevant to the Hacker News community: between that and the incessant news about shootings (either by the Police on African American, or by toddlers), the alarming ratio of car accidents that cannot be prevented by driving safely (namely, the amount or rear-ending at red-lights that the Google Car is victim of), there is no way I'd like to work in the US. Seeing how bigoted so many jurors appear to be, how indefensible are some of the lawyers… that makes it all too likely that you go from commuting to a great job to a hell hole with no recourse. Any private option (say, for health-related issues) is too likely to be tied to employment, and getting fired after the incident and left in the cold sounds also too likely.

Investors should really start considering the consequence those events have on their companies' ability to attract talent.

<comment><USER4> You're cherry-picking some of the worst the US has to offer and painting the entire country with that brush. Which is an intellectually dishonest thing to do. Or, at least, intellectually lazy.

<comment><USER20> I actually mostly followed the US news, check the New York Times: Trump daily dose of blatant racist, Obama apparently the only one who wants to curb gun violence, some cop murdered a African-American women and gets away with a slap on the wrist, a story about systemic rape from a football team at a major US university…

<comment><USER4> This is what I mean by "cherry-picking."

<comment><USER20> Then, please go and insult the editor-in-chief of the New York Times — not me.

What _I_ cherry-picked was how my brother left the US after an arrest in the nearby house involved law-enforcement firing 12,000 rounds at a single crouching suspect, and they had to leave because his wife and two kids couldn't sleep after that; how the CEO of the start-up I was working for was mugged; how my closest friend was victim of an extreme-rendition at the border _after_ he showed a hand-written letter by the Dean of Harvard inviting him to teach; how my manager had his passport confiscated… I know work with a team that is partially in Chicago: do I need to say more?

The twelve people the closest to me who went to the US all had beyond traumatic experiences. Imagining anything involving a prosecutor like the one portrayed there just sends shivers through my spine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I never cease to be amazed at how ready people are to believe a single narrative, and once it's set in their mind, disregard all conflicting information. Good old confirmation bias.

Free hat!

</comment><comment><USER22> It seems to me that the Ockham's Razor approach to this whole mess is to conclude that Steven Avery killed her and then ditched her car and maybe her remains somewhere else, and then the cops were worried he'd get away with it so they planted it all back on his property.

But what do I know.

</comment><comment><USER23> It is very tough to resist making an ad hominem attack on Ken Kratz.

<comment><USER24> Ad hominem doesn't invalidate an argument, it speaks to credibility.

<comment><USER25> and credibility seeks proof through authority, i.e not a proof at all.

ad hominems have no place in rational debate.

<comment><USER26> Credibility has direct relevance to testimony, amongst other things.

I know this may shock you, but there's a world beyond high school debating.

<comment><USER27> > _I know this may shock you, but there 's a world beyond high school > debating_

Please don't make acerbic swipes in HN comments. Your comment would be a fine one without that second sentence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Why are we pretending binge-watching entertainment is the same as the judicial process?

<comment><USER20> My understanding is that this is a documentary on the _failings_ of judicial process in Wisconsin. I mean: it is not very entertaining, far less so than fictions on Netflix.

If you take away the main case (admittedly murkier), there is nothing more cringe-inducing that the details about the nephew's case. It is just painful to listen to; everything about it talks about how a mentally handicapped relative, who had nothing to do with the case, was (on camera) abused by authority figures, and then wronged at every step of the judicial process. This is the least entertaining thing that I have seen all week (and I watched videos on how to set-up Docker), by far. It seems to me that this part is a highly relevant documentary on key failings of the process for younger or uneducated people. That kind of description cannot be satisfied by fiction. That kind of description is necessary to set up and improve the judicial process.</comment></comment>


Galactic Algorithm - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_algorithm <comment><USER2> Ah. I still remember my computational geometry professor telling us about an algorithm to do triangulation (composing a polygon into triangles) in linear time: "It's very complex. I don't think anyone has actually implemented it".

It shocked me at the time that there were algorithms like this.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygon_triangulation#Computat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygon_triangulation#Computational_complexity)

<comment><USER3> They mention O(n log* n) being quasi linear time, I had to look up log * n because I never saw this before.

<comment><USER4> And then there's O(n alpha(n)), where alpha(n) is an inverse the Ackermann function, and which grows even more slowly than log* n. The famous union-find algorithm has this complexity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In addition to galactic algorithms, there are also galactically _proven_ algorithms. One example is the algorithm for matching with mismatches which I presented in the first chapter of my doctoral thesis; I proved that it was faster than other algorithms for inputs of at least ~10^30 bytes.

In practice, it wins starting at around 10^4 bytes.

<comment><USER6> How do you prove that something is faster than everything else? Was it already running in linear-time?

There aren't many non-trivial lower bounds out there, and I think they all use one of three ideas (diagonalization, crossing sequences or oracle reconstruction)!

<comment><USER5> Sorry, I was unclear. I proved that my algorithm was faster than other known algorithms; I didn't prove that it was faster than all other _possible_ algorithms.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've never understood the "number of the atoms in the universe" argument. The number of states the universe can be in doesn't seem to be equal to the number of atoms. For example, just two atoms could encode lots of numbers simply by using their distance. Quantum physics would affect it, but I mean in principle: we are not switching atoms on and off to encode state.

<comment><USER8> _It's 2^1729 digits, (vastly) more digits than there are atoms in the universe._

The vastly bit is kind of an understatement.

Each stable isotope is indistinguishable from every other carbon isotope. So, you can probably encode a few bits per atom assuming you can somehow read this data. However they are talking vastly larger numbers of digits here. Where there are only ~10^80 digits worth of atoms in the visible universe, but hey bump that to 10^90 it does not help.

Sure you might encode 10^6 or hell I will give you 10^100 bits of data per atom or something but that's not even close to helpful. It's still on the order of K atoms in the universe and you want to encode 10^400+ * K bits of data. So each atom needs to encode 10^400+ bits and remember each stable isotope is indistinguishable from every other atom of that stable isotope.

<comment><USER9> You forgot about ordering.

8 binary bits _in order_ can encode 256 states, as if every bit was capable of encoding 32 states.

<comment><USER8> Yea, that specific number fits into 2 kilobytes of memory, but it's so large it's hard to compare it to anything.

Which is why I suggest comparing it to the number of bits required to encode the universe. If all you wanted was to store a single arbitrary number and could read write the universe you could do anything out to 2^(10^(80 * k)) where k is larger than 1 but I suspect below 100.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Can't wait to be told to implement some of these for my next whiteboard interview

<comment><USER11> Perfect candidate for primality testing! [https://www.mersenne.org/various/math.php#lucas- lehmer](https://www.mersenne.org/various/math.php#lucas-lehmer)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> > _1729_

Why is this hyperlinked? I was hoping the link would help explain why 1729 and not some other number, but it's just trivia...

> _One immediate practical effect would be to earn the discoverer a million > dollar prize from the Clay Mathematics Institute._

I mean, I can't argue with the practicality of that.

<comment><USER13> I also wonder why that number. But as others said, it's a pretty famous number all by itself so it makes sense for there to be _some_ notice paid to that- if there were no hyperlink I would've thought it's weird and maybe someone made a mistake.

<comment><USER14> 1729 has no special meaning for the multiplication algorithm. In the paper Harvey writes:

> In Section 5 we establish (1.3) with the explicit constant K= 1728, and in > Section 5.4 we list some optimisations that improve it to K= 8.

> In Section 5, we will simply take d:= 1729 (any constant larger than K would > do)

<comment><USER15> So 1729 is the 42 of 4-digit numbers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> [https://rjlipton.wordpress.com/2010/10/23/galactic- algorithm...](https://rjlipton.wordpress.com/2010/10/23/galactic-algorithms/)

<comment><AUTHOR> "The famous quantum factoring algorithm of Peter Shor may or may not be a galactic algorithm. It is of course one of the great results in theory, ever. It has sparked funding for research centers on quantum computation that have promoted many other advances.

If and when practical quantum computers are built Peter's algorithm will be one of the first algorithms run on them. Right now it is a galactic algorithm. But, perhaps it is the best example of the importance of galactic algorithms."

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> is Graham's Number a galactic number?

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham's_number](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham's_number)

<comment><USER18> You could say so:

> As with these, it is so large that the observable universe is far too small > to contain an ordinary digital representation of Graham's number, assuming > that each digit occupies one Planck volume, possibly the smallest measurable > space. But even the number of digits in this digital representation of > Graham's number would itself be a number so large that its digital > representation cannot be represented in the observable universe. Nor even > can the number of digits of that number—and so forth, for a number of times > far exceeding the total number of Planck volumes in the observable universe.

<comment><USER19> > _for a number of times far exceeding the total number of Planck volumes in > the observable universe._

Just so I'm clear. They're saying that not only can I not fit Graham's Number in all the Planck volumes of the universe; and I can't even count the digits of GN and write _that_ in the Planck volume of the universe (and so on), but the _number_ of "indirections" is itself so large as to not fit in the universe?

Like:

        1. GN (can't fit).
        2. Number of digits in GN (can't fit).
        3. Number of digits in #2 (can't fit).
        4. Number of digits in #3 (can't fit).
        ...
        N. <-- The numbered list item itself won't fit.

Am I understanding that right?

<comment><USER20> Yes. log(log(log... GN))) applied X times (where X is the number of planck volumes in the universe) is still greater than X.

Where log = base 10 logarithm.

Hofstadter talks a bit about this abstraction in his article 'On Number Numbness'

> If, perchance, you were to start dealing with numbers having millions or > billions of digits, the numerals themselves (the colossal strings of digits) > would cease to be visualizable, and your perceptual reality would be forced > to take another leap upward in abstraction-to the number that counts the > digits in the number that counts the digits in the number that counts the > objects concerned.

<comment><USER21> And despite that, Graham's Number is still in the countable set. :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Related discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21151646](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21151646)

</comment><comment><USER23> Just yesterday, I read the comments on the Physical Polynomial-Time complexity class on Complexity Zoo: [https://complexityzoo.uwaterloo.ca/Complexity_Zoo:P#php](https://complexityzoo.uwaterloo.ca/Complexity_Zoo:P#php)

</comment><comment><USER4> This sort of thing highlights the difference between theoretical and practical algorithms.

In practical algorithms, one does not ignore constants, one takes into account actual hardware (particularly cache effects), and one does not ignore real world distributions of inputs.

</comment><comment><USER24> This reminds me of the spaghetti sort algorithm: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghetti_sort](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghetti_sort)

<comment><USER25> Same thing, but a little more practical for computing in case your computer doesn't have a hand and a table: [https://rosettacode.org/wiki/Sorting_algorithms/Sleep_sort](https://rosettacode.org/wiki/Sorting_algorithms/Sleep_sort)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The godfather of a galatic algorithm is the known (!) algorithm that solves SAT in polytime.

However, its runtime is only guaranteed to be in polytime, if someone guarantees that P = NP.

<comment><USER6> Before an unbeliever comments (as I would do myself if I wouldn't know the algorithm): This algorithm involves enumerating f(M, t) where M is the Gödel number of a turing machine T, t an integer and f the output of T after t steps on the original input. This output is interpreted as variable assignment. If it satisfies the formula, the SAT instance is satisfiable. Otherwise the enumeration continues.

If P=NP there is a turing machine that always outputs a satisfying assignment if one exists with t being polynomial bounded by the input size. As this turing machine is constant, the algorithm runs in poly-time.

<comment> GuB-42 So, in simpler terms (for me):

\- start with a file size (let's say 4kb), and a duration (let's say 1 hour).

\- generate all possible files of the given size (there are 2^32768 of them), mark them as executable and run them. If they don't finish after the given duration, kill them.

\- check the output of each program that didn't crash. If one matches the solution, OK. If it doesn't, try again with a longer duration and larger size.

It doesn't just solve SAT. At galactic scales, it will either be the optimal solution to any problem, or be as fast as checking the answer, whatever is slower. If all that code generation thing doesn't depend on the input size, it is constant time. That the constant is many times the age of the universe doesn't change the complexity class.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, you got the point ;) This however only works for problems where you can validate a solution in polynomial time. There is still the problem what happens when a solution does not exist. Even in this case, the algorithm must terminate in polynomial time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> If all that is required is a super large constant (as in some cases), why not assume the large constant, do the calculation, then factor out the large constant?

<comment><USER27> Because the "faster" algorithm is faster than the "slow" algorithm in the range where this constant is added... but not faster than just applying the "slow" algorithm directly. So the only thing you would achieve is to slow down the calculation overall.</comment></comment>


Small surprises while grading programming languages exams - <AUTHOR> http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2008-12.html#e2008-12-28T21_34_06.htm

<comment><AUTHOR> Bound and free variables: when I was taking a programming languages course, these concepts popped out at me as being incredibly important. But I had been programming for years without understanding that there was a distinction. Are they important for programming, or just for understanding how programming languages are implemented?

Regarding bound and free variables, I was reverse engineering Python's scoping semantics and discovered this little gem:

      def a(x):
        def b():
          print x
          x = 5

        b()

      a(3)

What do you expect? Prints 3, right? Nope. UnboundLocalError, because 'x' is referenced before it was assigned. It turns out that variable bindings in Python are all lifted to the enclosing 'scope' (usually a function block). So x is not a free variable in the 'print x' line... even though the interpreter claims it's not bound, either.

(This behavior is a royal pain to implement in an interpreter. You can't just recursively execute expressions; you have to scan the scope you're about to execute for free variables which are later bound in that scope.)

<comment><USER2> Python 3k adds a new keyword, _nonlocal_ , which actually lets you print out x that way (you'd declare _nonlocal x_ before printing). Check out PEP 3104: <http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-3104/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> > "I can't do much to ensure that students will care enough to hit the books > to overcome their disappointments, but I can change what I do."

> "there were far more 0s in the final grid of grades. I even had a couple of > 0s on quizzes, where students simply failed to show up."

If this was happening to my class (I am not a teacher!) I would feel it was reflecting badly on me, not the students. Poor grades are one thing but I would feel that zero results (due to increasing numbers of students not showing up) says I need to change my teaching style. A bunch not showing up means they have no faith in your ability to help them fill the gaps in their knowledge to the point they might be able to scrape through with a pass.

<comment><USER4> I skipped a lot (okay, most) classes during my time in college. It didn't really have much to do with the teacher -- I was just lazy and would rather sleep / write code. It's not necessarily a lack of faith as much as it is a lack of ambition, in some (many?) cases. Sometimes I would take courses where they were teaching topics where there effectively were no gaps in my knowledge. That didn't make them poor professors, either, it just meant I shouldn't have been made to take the course.

If anything, I would think consistently low grades would be worse. This means that people are attending the class, but not "getting it". I think it's trickier with programming; I met many people in my programming courses who just flat out couldn't understand the basic concepts, despite paying attention, taking copious notes, and spending hours studying.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> What's wrong with accumulators? They are useful for transforming head- recursive code into tail-recursive code.

Granted, accumulators can't really improve code that traverses trees. But for code that traverses lists, like zip... accumulators can be useful. Also, the added complexity isn't too bad.

<comment><USER6> In Okasaki's _Purely Functional Data Structures_, he adds an accumulator variable to the binary (and RB, etc.) tree membership test as an optimization, because it turns the test from up to 2*depth time to constant depth+1 time. (It's exercise 2.2.)

I suspect what the post meant was that while accumulators certainly have their benefits, reflexively using them everywhere is probably a sign that you don't really understand them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is an awesome blog - read some of the other posts.</comment>


How Airline Workers Learn to Deal with Passengers - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/22/your-money/how-airline-workers-learn-to-deal-with-you.html <comment><USER2> I've spent a bunch of years teaching college students and suspect that part of the problem is simple: 95% of people are fine, but that last 5% can occupy a lot of time and mental energy. So there's a temptation to become somewhat armored against that last 5%, which impacts one's interactions with the vast majority of people, who are normal and reasonable.

A lot of public-facing professions seem to have this problem, including emergency medicine doctors, cops, retail workers, and public school teachers. Because that bottom 5% is so noisy and time-consuming, a kind of misanthropy can set in, as one begins to think the bottom represents the whole, even if intellectually one knows it does not.

EDIT: I wrote more about related issues here: [https://jakeseliger.com/2014/12/22/how-do-you-know-when- your...](https://jakeseliger.com/2014/12/22/how-do-you-know-when-youre-being- insensitive-how-do-you-know-when-youre-funny)

<comment><USER3> What infuriates me is how much our society coddles and encourages that 5%. I used to work in customer support (call centers), and I couldn't tell you how many times I saw the following scenario play out:

* Customer calls in angry about a legitimate problem they're having, but their anger is 2-3 orders of magnitude larger than the actual severity of the problem.

* Customer attacks and berates the CSR, often to the point of tears, before demanding a supervisor.

* Supervisor takes over the call, apologizes profusely for the "incompetent" employee, showers the customer with account credits and so on, and maybe (but often not) fixes the actual problem

I'm not necessarily blaming the supervisor. If they pretended to have a backbone and the customer managed to escalate beyond them, then they'd be the one thrown under the bus while their manager verbally fellates the customer. It's very clear at basically all levels: the employee is 100% expendable, while _any_ risk of the losing the customer's business is unacceptable.

<comment><USER4> What if the front-line CSR were empowered to solve the problem in the first place? Then no one would have to be "thrown under the bus."

<comment><USER5> "solve the problems" varies wildly from call to call, one could be that they haven't paid their bill and got cut off (but it's your fault obviously), it could be a physical fault with something that requires a return or engineer site visit, or any one of a million things.

99% of the time the person answering the call is there as a buffer, cheap fodder infront of the more expensive people who can do things. You either have a very expensive resource manning the phones and working inefficiently with long wait times or you have the meat shield filtering for you.

I've been on both sides of this (meat shield and technical fixer) it's driven by about 30 layers of management so it's always a mess, the alternative is the Google/Valve model where there is zero support.

(Yes i know support is good on paid Google products. It's not on the free ones)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Like many I had my fair share of bad experiences with airlines staff, most often with British airways, who I find tend to behave more like closet prison wards than other companies.

It reminds me that day when I was sitting in an emergency exit row, and the seat next to mine was empty. The stewardess got upset that I left my jumper on that empty seat, arguing that it was blocking the exit (I didn't see how it could) and that it had to be placed in the overhead bin. Instead I slipped the jumper on, which she perceived as a challenge to her authority and threatened to take me off the plane...

<comment><USER7> My worst united experience was when they wouldn't let me take on my carry on, which had an iPad in it because I had planned to take it out on the flight. They checked it and I watched from the plane as the flight crew picked the thing up and slam it down. The attendants at the gate were totally unsympathetic when I showed them my destroyed iPad, at first denying that it was possible that the flight crew would abuse luggage that way, and then blaming me for not properly packing it. I wasn't even looking for money, just some kind of apology would have been nice.

<comment><USER8> You might watch "United Breaks Guitars" as a consolation which is an internet- famous song that describes a similar experience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Slightly OT, but I've become convinced that the real purpose of airport security checkpoints is to put travellers in a compliant frame of mind.

Everything about the checkpoint screams "WE CONTROL YOU", from the forced removal of clothing (shoes, hats, jackets) to the submission pose in the scanner (hands up over the head).

I have mixed feelings about this: one the one hand it is quite humiliating, but on the other, if it makes a potentially difficult traveller more humble and easier to deal with it's probably worth it.

<comment><USER10> You can opt for the pat down and get a free ball fondling instead if you're more of a dom

<comment><USER11> I actually get it every time, twice per return flight. Maybe I should shave better before flying, or not wear high-quality cotton jeans with metal buttons.

One day I might stop flying altogether.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I find that this article, even that it is interesting, it tries to shift blame again.

United wanted four seats for their airline staff who had to cover an unstaffed flight at another location. And then decided to remove some of their customers, that had paid for the fly.

To add Dr. David Dao case to the others is a misclassification of the situation, and it assumes as true the narrative of the company that "they didn't have any other option than to remove this passenger".

The article is interesting anyway, and worth the read.

> Not everyone wants a free drink for the trouble, however, and airlines have > typically had little else to offer angry people in the moment.

Sometimes United Airlines is not even able to act after the flight: [http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2016/08/what_...](http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2016/08/what_happens_when_sexual_assault_happens_on_a_long_haul_flight.html)

<comment><USER11> The issue was basically management deciding that "getting the crew to their destination cheaply" was more important than "honouring their contract with their customers".

I hope they go belly-up, as a company that is.

Edit: actually, I don't know how much worse they are compared to their competitors. I don't really care, I strongly dislike flying because of the authoritarian border checks anyway.

<comment><USER13> Not only border checks. I have to fly about once per month. Just a German domestic flight. It is bad enough.

But on the other hand - I really love to surprise the airport staff with exceptional friendliness and respectfulness. The look on their faces when encountering a friendly human being cannot be described.

<comment><USER11> Ah, I'm Dutch so flying within the country isn't really a thing. The longest train ride possible is about 3,5 hours and goes every hour.

I think that suprises most people :)

Hard to do on a Ryanair/Easyjet flight though, where your legs slowly merge with the chair in front of you...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Today's tight seating densities have pushed up passenger annoyance levels.

Flying used to be far less complicated. In the 1970s, you could park next to the terminal at SJC, and pay about $15 in cash to fly to LA. The cash register receipt was your boarding pass. There was a plane every hour. No reservations. Every hour, a 727 would roll up outside the waiting area, the built-in rear staircase would lower, and people would get off and on.

Also, here's the PSA stewardess class graduation picture of June 1974.[1]

[1] [http://www.jetpsa.com/stewgrad/stewgrad/7406.jpg](http://www.jetpsa.com/stewgrad/stewgrad/7406.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER15> "I asked several airlines to enroll me in any deescalation classes they had. None responded, so I signed up for a course in middle English literature at my local community college. Here is what I learned about being a flight attendant from Chaucer."

<comment><USER16> Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Expierience treacherous. Judgement difficult.

Get out!

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> not sure what is up with the opening picture - a guy with a service dog and supposedly allergic to dogs woman next to him. This is exactly the job of the flight attendant is to arrange another seat for either of them to put a distance between the dog and the allergic woman. Yet it seems that flight attendants aren't doing their job. One can see how such a situation has the potential to develop on its own in the direction when the flight attendants would have to use their "dealing with you" skills.

It is very noticeable trend everywhere - instead of learning the mindset of how to help people they serve, private and public organizations' employees are trained to "deal with" the subjects of their authority.

</comment><comment><USER16> The author admits "No airline would sign me up" for the class... So it not really what the airlines teach directly.

Anyway, what I don't understand is why dont the airlines simply inform an unruly passenger that (we) Will prevent you from flying our airlines for xxx months, starting after this flight. It is a safety issue. If you comply with our direction then you can continue to fly with us.

So the lady that brought her own drink will be denied future boarding or purchasing.

I work in a craft which I am the final and only decider of my safety. And if some jerk screws with me I refuse service.

<comment><USER18> _So the lady that brought her own drink will be denied future boarding or purchasing._

They probably don't want to lose her business, nor should they: she's not likely to be a safety problem or cost the airline money in the future. The rule against her drinking her own wine is fairly arbitrary, and imposed by the FAA, not the airline.

Airlines do ban passengers who are disruptive enough, or who create a safety hazard.

<comment><USER16> True. That was an example (not a good one) from the article. But the threat would work. Just ban a few, get the word out and people will comply.

Just like drunk driving. Before you lost your license 1st offence, people were not as careful. Now, one drink can suspend your license with potentially dire consequences (not being able to drive to work, e.g.)

Flying is a privilege not a right.

<comment><USER18> Airlines already do ban people, and have them dragged off planes by police when they behave badly enough (and sometimes when they want to stay in the seat they paid for). You seem to be suggesting that bad behavior on planes is prevalent enough to warrant a crackdown.

I fly several times a year, and that does not match my experience. If I've stated your position correctly, why do you believe a crackdown is a good idea?

<comment><USER16> No. I was referring to a verbal strategy that might work.

Deny future service.

Instead of arguing or physical action, one path that imo would be effective is denial of service.

It isn't the act of denying the person it is the threat (real) to do so that is one a verbal arsenal.

Not necessarily only for airlines but other situations in general.

The goal is to change a person's action or behavior AT THAT MOMENT. By stating flat out their future service with your company is in jeopardy and it won't be tolerated IN THE FUTURE.

Use the pregnant pause after stating the consequences. Then ask a few minutes later.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Authority should be handled carefully so that it is still respected when it really matters.

On planes, there _are_ times when a flight attendant's commands are critical to follow. It is _extremely stupid_ for airlines to use blunt authority for every little thing, because passengers will start to see every request as another abuse of power instead of something with a good reason behind it.

And frankly, we're already there. How many stupid little rules are there? Which rules really matter, and which ones were just dreamed up to exert more authority? What about rules that can't really be rooted in safety because they would rely on perfect enforcement that doesn't exist today?

There should be just a handful of "real rules". The language should be cleaned up, too (no long-winded sentences full of unnecessarily-complex words that probably confuse foreign speakers the most; use Grade 8 language, get to the point). Abolish pretty much every TSA rule and about half of the "safety lecture" (we understand seat belts, thanks). This just isn't hard.

</comment><comment><USER20> Remember the saying, "Hell is other people".

</comment><comment><USER21> Americans and maybe most of the world are very angry. Nickel and dimed and overworked. How about government guaranteed vacations! You see it on the roads, the supermarket, the shops, and in the skies. It's me, me, me, and at some level why not me. We seem to have lost our optimism.

</comment><comment><USER22> The perspective of customers at the airline executive level is skewed. They see customers as a danger, not as a valuable part of the ecosystem. Whether you treat people kindly or you treat them like cattle, there will still be the same set of problems and problem customers.

Disney has it right. Their property is considered a stage, and their customer's experience is part of the value they deliver. It works.

Flying once was an incredible experience. As a child, you could expect special treatment, a coloring book, a visit to the cabin, and a special smile from the flight attendants. As an adult, you could ask for a pillow or a blanket and get it with a smile - anything to make you comfortable. All the while, you got to experience the magical world of flying above and in the clouds. Pilots would announce sights as you flew by them.

Now, you get treated with suspicion before you arrive. Cameras and security guards abound. Anybody who needs any sort of special treatment - be it a need for a reprinted ticket, a schedule change, or heaven forbid you have more luggage than you expected - is subjected to long lines, additional fees, and interaction with people who are unwilling to offer more assistance than is required to provide you with a 15 second verbal response. You are expected to provide the airline with 1-2 hours of your time ahead of flight so you can get through their lines while smiling and being friendly lest you be cordoned off, frisked, and reviewed for having a dangerous attitude. You are expected to submit to x-ray scans, remove your shoes, unpack your electronics, have the contents of your travel belongings reviewed, and explain anything and everything abnormal.

Why? Because 15 years ago the Vice President did a fantastic job of making every little old lady from clearwater to phoenix afraid that her fellow passengers were carrying bombs in their underwear, and this charade of a security check would stop them.

We went from the friendly skies, to a strained relationship, to fearful flying, to what we have today, which is bat-shit crazy.

What happened to bringing the kids to the airport to watch Daddy's plane take off and land? The kids are a security risk, so they are sectioned off before the security checkpoint where they can buy a $12 coffee for refreshment and that's about it.

How can FedEx tell me where my package is taking it from depot to depot all around the world, but the airline can't? They tag and scan everything, but still manage to completely lose things more regularly than an Alzheimer's patient. If you've been lucky enough to experience it, you know that there's a number for you to call that may or may not be manned during it's limited hours, their is one to two people working it, and they never have any idea about anything. No idea how you submit an insurance claim. No idea where your luggage was last seen. No idea when they will learn anything. No idea who you can call to complain. But if you show up at the terminal, you can meet the guy and look through his office and find your own damn luggage that was less than 10 feet away from him the whole time.

The airlines train their employees to make you compliant with their rules. They need to train their employees to help their customers get from point a to point b as quickly and as comfortably as possible. Help people through the system. Don't make it harder for them.

People today travel in spite of the airlines. It's a necessary part of their vacation experience. They are losing money because of this perception, and so are many other people.

<comment><USER23> You may want to consider always flying the same airline, getting that airlines credit card and using it for everything, and purchasing a lounge membership to that airline.

If you do this and fly enough your experience will be much better. You can arrive to the airport later because you can use the elite/first class line at security. If you need to check bags there will be a priority line and finally if you need to change something you will have access to a priority phone line that is answered in a timely manner and the customer service agents in the lounges will help you quickly and effectively. Also, many change fees will be eliminated and you will occasionally be upgraded to first class.

Edit: they will also put special tags on your luggage that will cause it to come out first and get lost less.

Edit2: They will also treat you better on the plane. They have a list of where everyone with status is sitting and they make an effort to be nice. It helps if you are also nice to them.

<comment><USER22> While it's true that you can buy your way to decent customer service, I'm of the opinion that airlines should treat all customers as if they will one day have a $50k travel budget.</comment></comment></comment>


PGAdmin 4 3.4 is finally usable - <AUTHOR> https://www.pgadmin.org/download/ <comment><AUTHOR> PGAdmin 4 1.x, 2.x was really bad. [1]

Well, I just downloaded PGAdmin 4 3.4 and it has improved quite a bit. Those who missed PGAdmin 3 should give it another shot. Thanks to the maintainer, Dave Page [2] for improving it.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14884713](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14884713) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15411690](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15411690)

[2] [https://www.enterprisedb.com/de/user/254789/published_articl...](https://www.enterprisedb.com/de/user/254789/published_articles)</comment>


Ask HN: Remote workers and freelancers – how do you deal with loneliness? - <AUTHOR> I've been working remotely for about two years now, first with a distributed company and currently as a self-employed designer and developer. I've definitely experienced a big reduction in my already limited social interactions after switching away from a local job. I'd say it generally helps me to work alone as it's much less distracting, however the loneliness of it has been more or less a constant issue.
Recently a friend and I have started working alongside each other since he has his own one-person business. This has helped massively in reducing the feeling of loneliness, and it's nice to have someone to bounce ideas off of.
I've been mulling over this issue for the last few weeks and I decided to try building something simple to try to share this experience. The idea is to connect fellow remote workers in the same area so that they can keep each other company during work. I'd really appreciate your feedback on it. You can find it at https://www.remotyo.com/
For those of you who work remotely, what's the experience been like? How do you feel about your level of social engagement as a remote worker? Have you experienced similar feelings of loneliness? How do you cope? <comment><USER2> I've been remote for a couple of years now. My situation is a bit different tho: I'm at a large company and a manager so I do interact with other folks more often than, say, a developer probably would.

\- I get on IRC & Slack to get relief from the "is anyone out there" loneliness during the day.

\- I tend to shut down at a specific time of day and make a point of doing something more social (work out, go to networking events, plan something with family/friends). I find that many of my work from home folks have a really tough time 'turning off' to allow for some health downtime.

\- I get out of the house for a few hours a couple of times a week and work someplace where there are people. Even if it's just someplace like Starbucks, it's good to not be staring at the same 4 walls all the time. When possible, I'll meet another remote worker.

\- If your company has an office convenient, try to go there periodically even if it's not part of your job. My company has a subsidiary with an office in town, and I have an arrangement where I come in and work there for a day every week or two.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm remote living in Saigon. For me having social hobbies like going bouldering and training muay thai help the curb the compounded loneliness of working as developer and being an expat. Outside of that I take quite a few vacations around SE Asia and have a WeWork membership.

<comment><USER4> Hey, I'm remote based out of Ho Chi Minh as well. Would be great to meet up and chat some time... derick { @ } dericksozo.com.

Hope you're enjoying over here in Vietnam as well.

Cheers, Derick

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I used to work remotely and could not deal with the loneliness and social isolation; now I'm not sure I would consider a full on remote role. I consider myself introverted and the social interaction at work is all the interaction I have, really

</comment><comment><USER6> I believe thats the reason why many of them become digital nomads.

me, I took the extra time to do unrelated part time job.

Its a problem we need to solve. Our current cities and lifestyles are a bad fit for remote workers.

What you describe is part of the reason why i started a remote worker social network

</comment><comment><USER7> I agree, it's tough. I've also been working remote for the past 2 years. In the past, most of the friends I had made were through work. I think you really have to make an effort to do things after work - workout classes, sports...whatever interests you. I try to also go to a co-working shop 1x a week .

</comment><comment><USER8> I see threads like this one with similar sentiments every now and then. I personally have opposite opinions: I don't feel lacking at all in social interactions.

\- The current (remote) company I work at has been a remote company from the start and has been running for 2-3 years as such before I joined. The remote work culture is established and we have regular video meetings (basically every day; not the same ones / same group of people each day of the week though). In this way, I don't feel it to be any different than working in an office really, as far as interactions with coworkers go. (And indeed, Slack is on for the entire work day as well)

\- On the personal side, my wife is full time taking care of our baby at home, so I actually have even more family social interaction than before I started working remote. For example, I get to have lunch with her and our baby multiple days of the week (and dinner every day), which would not have been possible working at an office. Also, I don't have the "shut down" problem because of this -- the demands of a baby force me to simply stop work at 5pm (when the nanny leaves) and I simply do not have a chance to do work or even think about it, until the baby sleeps at 9pm.

\- If I wanted to see strangers or be around other people, a couple times a week I work at a coffee shop for a few hours in the afternoon. It's not like I talk to anyone there though, so it's purely for "being around other people".

\---

I feel like most of the issues other remote workers have with social interactions come down to probably two things:

1\. Self-employed and having basically no coworkers.

2\. Not living with anyone.

On 1, you can solve this by being at a shared office (like Wework but perhaps you could pick a cheaper one to save on cost?). On 2, either having a family or having roommates to live can be a solution.

I'm a bit surprised to see how many people seem to suggest that because they don't have coworkers they see on a daily basis, they don't have people to hang out with for fun on the weekends. My question for them is, who were their friends before they started working at an office? College or high school friends? Personally, friends that I hang out regularly with pretty much have never been my coworkers at any company, but friends I made either from college or friends I met through other friends. Maybe I'm an outlier, but I've never really been super close friends with anyone I have ever worked with. We have great working relationships while we work in the same company, and there are indeed a lot of folks I keep in touch with fairly regularly online even after I left those companies; but the actual people I meet up with on the weekends? Always personal friends instead of coworkers or ex-coworkers.</comment>