Self-driving cars can be fooled by fake signals - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2015/09/05/self-driving-car-lidar-exploit/

<comment><USER2> Its also easy to put a fake cardboard obstacle on the road. People tend not to do it.

It is no different to shining a laser pointer into drivers eyes from a motorway bridge. The police will show up pretty fast.

<comment><USER3> It's very different. Much harder to detect and doesn't have the moral implication of damaging a human's eyes.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> As much as I want self driving cars I'm a bit skeptical about this tech. I'm sure many of you are as well. Technology is meant to be manipulated whether for good or bad. And it always seems that the bad outweighs the good.

How can manufacturers assure the masses that their cars won't get hacked or manipulated in a manner that leads to something tragic? I'm thinking they can't.</comment>


Samsung flew bloggers to Berlin, then threatened to leave them there - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/09/02/heres-samsung-flew-bloggers-halfway-around-world-threatened-leave/?utm_campaign=social%20media&awesm=tnw.to_a4CW&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=Spreadus <comment><USER3> The only winner out of this is Nokia who paid for the hotels and flights home of those bloggers. <http://twitter.com/clintonjeff/status/242358009249026049>

<comment><USER4> Wow, that is brilliant PR.

<comment><USER5> This is greatness.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is a human trafficking story.

Clearly this is not remotely as horrific as the usual connotations, but the structure of bait-and-switch coercion is very similar.

</comment><comment><USER7> I don't get this story. They were asked to wear a samsung t-shirt. That's not how shills typically work, isn't it typically, pretend you're independent, give good review, rather than, pretend you're part of our PR team?

Why would it benefit Samsung to have random Indians bloggers demoing devices in Berlin?

Something about this story doesn't make any sense.

<comment><USER8> I'm almost certain this must have been a communication issue within Samsung. Someone got it in their head that this group was hired to promote their product and told subordinates to deal with the group.

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

<comment><USER9> There's no way that threatening someone to leave them stranded in a foreign country is the result of "miscommunication". This behaviour on Samsung's part is simply despicable.

Even if the bloggers _had_ agreed to work for Samsung, and then changed their mind, holding return tickets ransom would not have been an acceptable course of action.

There is no way that this is explained by stupidity, this is malice in its purest form.

<comment><USER10> Mmmm, how about stupidity followed by malice? Pure malice doesn't make sense. What's so valuable about using foreign bloggers to stand around with phones instead locals?

I'd say Negitivefrags's guess is good. Something like that might have happened, and then when the bloggers didn't co-operate with the misinformed boss, the nasty stuff started.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This ain't new for Samsung, they did the same during the olympics.

Officially they were invited to live the games from the inside but in the end they worked as Samsung publicist for free.

[http://int13.net/france/blog/i-won-a-contest-to-go-to-the- lo...](http://int13.net/france/blog/i-won-a-contest-to-go-to-the-london- olympic-games/)

<comment><USER12> The author wrote it in English, too: [http://int13.net/france/blog/i-won-a- contest-to-go-to-the-lo...](http://int13.net/france/blog/i-won-a-contest-to- go-to-the-london-olympic-games/)

<comment><USER13> Interesting, from the comments:

> As a Cheil member, I want to express my deeply sorry to make you feel that > way. We'll try to do our best not to make any inconvenience around this > matter. And I promise that your comments will be reflected to upgrade and > elaborate our Moilers program. I hope you to keep in touch with us and show > your opinion at any time. Whatever it is, it will be welcomed

From Wikipedia:

>Cheil Worldwide Inc., is a global marketing and communications company headquartered in Seoul, South Korea.[1] It is South Korea's largest advertising agency and was ranked 16th in the world by Advertising Age in 2006... Internationally, Cheil has carried out communications campaigns for Samsung Electronics, including the "Imagine" branding campaign spanning 80 countries. It also provides marketing support for Samsung's role as a Worldwide Olympic Partner

Overaggressive third party marketing company? I wonder how Samsung will respond to this article and other feedback.

<comment><USER14> Funny how their name is even a homonym for "shill" :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Pretty sure that had they gone to the German authorities and explained how Samsung "trafficked" them into the country with an expectation of being provided a ticket home, Samsung Berlin would get a call from German immigration - and promptly pay for the tickets.

<comment><USER16> You have a lot of faith in the German authorities. The Indian embassy and the Indian consulate would be probably of more help.

<comment><USER17> The German authorities generally don't take kindly to companies trying to skirt around labor and immigration laws.

No guarantee that they would deal with the issue promptly, of course, but some kind of threat or formal inquiry to whoever was in charge at Samsung probably would have made them back down.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm part of the Samsung Mobilers program which is very similar to what they did.

I've never experienced as much pressure as described here, but i guess the Indian Samsung subsidiary is managed by different minded people.

It was clearly just a communication problem. Samsung expects you to do things at these events and you get your trip and stay for free in return, sometimes a little cash on top.

Noone wants to use the word work, for all the red tape this would create...

<comment><USER19> > Samsung expects you to do things at these events and you get your trip and > stay for free in return, sometimes a little cash on top. Noone wants to use > the word work, for all the red tape this would create...

Legal? - possibly. Ethical? - not to me. How is this _not_ evasion of labor laws? That this is par-for-the-course is pretty dismaying.

<comment><USER18> It's not as bad as it sounds. It's targeted toward students that are tech- savvy. You get a free trip to an international destination that you otherwise most likely wouldn't have a chance to travel to with people that share your passion.

It can be a lot of fun if you know what you're signing up for.

<comment><USER20> If it's anything like this woman's experience ([http://int13.net/france/blog/i-won-a-contest-to-go-to-the- lo...](http://int13.net/france/blog/i-won-a-contest-to-go-to-the-london- olympic-games/)), I don't think they would have had much fun. _Especially_ if they knew what they were signing up for.

<comment><USER18> I know her and have talked over FB to her personally. Her experience was terrible and can only be attributed to the pressure Samsung was putting on their PR people. Being one of the main sponsors of the olympics is expensive, so they were most likely throwing a lot of pressure around and people weren't able to think things through... too bad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> From the start, the offers that Samsung made seemed ethically questionable. Yes, they may be common, especially where review device access is limited, but they seem very much like bribes.

I like The Verge's ethics statement, which they post publicly, for this reason.

<http://www.theverge.com/ethics-statement>

"We do not allow trips or any portions of trips (including but not limited to airfare, hotel, or car rentals) to be paid for by third parties (these are known in the industry as 'junkets')."

They make expectations for readers _and_ device-makers crystal clear.

<comment><USER22> That's a nice sentiment if you're making serious money or are otherwise well funded. Maybe their writers ought to take a vow of celibacy too, just in case.

<comment><USER23> Or if you think it might be wrong to lie to strangers for money.

<comment><USER22> Is that reductio ad absurdum in action?

<comment><USER24> If it is, then it's a major fail because all it would take would be for the bloggers to state that Samsung paid for their travel and accomodation when they went to the event, but they are independent reviews. That should be sufficient for people to make up their mind.

<comment><USER23> >Samsung paid for their travel and accomodation when they went to the event, but they are independent reviews

Only if the word "independent" has decided to become a synonym for 'sassy' and leave behind the boring 'disentangled.'

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Another Indian blogger - Amit Bhawani, who was also there at the event has a different version of the story. <http://www.amitbhawani.com/blog/samsung- mobilers-ifa-2012/> According to him, Samsung had always billed CJ as a promoter and not as a reporter. This seems to be a case of miscommunication. However, even in that situation, what Samsung did was extremely immoral. If they believed CJ was not playing his part they should have flown him back to India, had a discussion, and ejected him from the program. Not leave him stranded in a foreign country.

<comment><USER14> Exactly. The miscommunication is not the issue here. It's obvious that there was one. The scandal is how Samsung handled it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> This is typical of Korean companies. I worked in Korea for years and some of my naïve colleagues would even have their passports held hostage for the duration of the employment contract. This was in the education industry, but these kinds of extortions are pretty standard in Korea.

I love Korea, but I avoid doing business in Korea because of this type of tomfoolery.

<comment><USER27> I keep hearing about this "passport kept hostage" problem. What keeps you from going to your embassy and reporting the passport missing or stolen? As the passport is not your property but is actually the property of the issuing country, a company or even another country's government cannot hold the passport without causing trouble.

That hostage-passport can only hold if there is something else going on, like working without a permit (when the workers know their status and fear the punishment if they go to the embassy).

<comment><USER26> You can't get punished by your embassy for working in another country illegally. As far as getting a replacement passport, that's no problem. The passport hostage taking will prevent you from staying in the country or being able to get another job in the country because while you can get a new passport, you can't easily get a new visa. It's actually against Korean labor law to withhold a passport however a foreigner has little chance of winning that fight because they delay the process effectively leaving you without a job and the ability to get a new work visa from another employer while the process drags along.

In the old days (a few years ago,) you couldn't even leave the country unless your employer released you from your visa. Trying to exit without a visa can get you detained an heavily fined. So keeping your passport has the practical effect of keeping you stranded because you can't get a replacement visa for the new passport without the employer's permission. Korean immigration is a mess.

<comment><USER28> You haven't explained why someone in this bizarre scenario where they have given their passport to their employer can't simply go to their embassy and have the matter straightened out in a day.

<comment><USER20> You obviously haven't traveled internationally very much or you are being deliberately obtuse (or both).

I'll explain anyway: Many countries have some sort of passport control both when you enter and when you leave the country. The reasons for this are varied, but a common one is to make sure you didn't overstay your visa. As a result, you need to have a valid visa attached to your passport to pass through passportcontrol to exit the country. It is almost never sufficient to have been issued a visa to pass through passport control. You almost always need the one physical piece of paper that is the physical manifestation of the visa.

If your employer has your passport, they also have the visa which was stapled to it. Your embassy can easily get you a replacement passport, but a replacement visa is up to the host country.

Your two options to leave are: 1) Ask your former employer for your passport and visa. 2) Go through some (or a lot, to judge from the other comments) bureaucracy to get a new visa.

<comment><USER29> While this is all true - stolen passports are a very real problem, and when I had mine stolen, and got a replacement, it clearly said on one of the first pages "This passport replaces passport #XXXXXXX reported stolen on DATE".

Yes, I lost all my visa/entry stamps.... and yes, that can be a problem - <USER2> the fact is, a nation is unlikely to hold you hostage and create a diplomatic incident because your passport has been stolen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> How could this scenario have gone well for Samsung? Did they think the bloggers would suddenly change their moral stance and do a complete 180 on what they had been insisting for weeks?

It seems it would be much easier to find people who are willing to be brand ambassadors and be up front about it if that's what you are looking for.

<comment><USER31> This story seems very strange to me. As you say, why would Samsung do this? In what universe do the events described in the article sound like the actions of a rational company?

The whole story is entirely one-sided and to be honest if it sounds too crazy to be true, I suspect it probably is too crazy to be true.

<comment><USER32> > In what universe do the events described in the article sound like the > actions of a rational company?

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

Having been forced to use this monstrosity to get files onto a Galaxy Tab, I don't see _where_ you get the idea that you're talking about a rational company.

<comment><USER33> You don't need Kies to transfer files to your tab, in fact you don't need Kies at all since they "leaked" ODIN (which has been independently re-implemented as "Heimdall", not to be confused with Heimdal).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Wow. Samsung really needs to clean up its act.

<comment><USER35> To be fair to Samsung, I do not think this is a Samsung specific issue. It raises larger concerns about well known companies also like TNW, TheVerge, Engagdget etc. FWIW these websites directly affect consumer choices.

<comment><USER36> Wait a sec, a blogger goes to great pains to state that he won't shill for a company that's paying for his trip to a trade show. He verifies that this is okay with the company several times, and states categorically that he will cover other products and be impartial about Samsung's, repeatedly.

How does this "raise larger concerns" about these blogs? It seems like the blogger here has gone out of his way to ensure that his impartiality isn't challenged.

This sort of behavior - from Samsung or otherwise - is despicable. They need to be held to full account for this sort of fraud.

<comment><USER35> A lot of people have grossly misunderstood my statement. Please take a moment to think that in this specific instance the blogger refused to dance to Samsung's tunes and hence, got reported. If the blogger would have sgreed all this may have been swept under the carpet. Therefore, it raises "larger concerns" about bloggers who give product reviews.

I am in no sane mind defending Samsung or any of it's actions. I just want to take this incident to pause & introspect over the ongoings in the technology review industry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> "Use your left/right keys to browse stories" - seriously? A single click of the left or right arrow moves to a completely different page?

<comment><USER38> It's the next innovation after Blogger's "touch your phone's screen to randomly flip to the next or previous story."

<comment><USER39> Blogsite owners probably think "well, if it works for pornsites and pirate movie streamers..."

Of course, I only know the behavior of aforementioned services from my 'friends'.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> This is the ugly side of "new media"--the big companies are able to push around the little people who lack the support of their own big companies.

</comment><comment><USER41> Samsung statement -

Samsung Mob!lers is a voluntary community of active Samsung mobile device users, who are offered the opportunity to participate in our marketing events across the world. At these events, all activities they undertake are on a voluntary basis. No activities are forced upon them.

We regret there was a misunderstanding between the Samsung Mob!lers coordinators and the relevant blogger, as we understand he was not sufficiently briefed on the nature of Samsung Mob!lers' activities at IFA 2012. We have been attempting to get in touch with him.

We respect the independence of bloggers to publish their own stories.

via - [http://asia.cnet.com/should-samsung-have-stranded-a- blogger-...](http://asia.cnet.com/should-samsung-have-stranded-a-blogger-at- ifa-update-62218570.htm)

<comment><USER14> Huh? If you threaten to strand them in a foreign country, how is that _not_ forcing them to undertake these activities?

That's not a "misunderstanding between the coordinator and the blogger", that is your coordinator fucking up.

I can't believe that a company still thinks that "we regret there was a misunderstanding" is any sort of apology when you should have said "we regret we made this mistake and apologize", trying to pin it on the blogger, damn...

<comment><USER42> Don't feed the underpaid troll.

<comment><USER14> Actually not sure if that was a troll? They were just quoting Samsung's statement (which is relevant info ITT), I'm not sure if they agreed with it or considered it a sufficient apology.

(actually, given that it's three days without a reply, that pretty much rules out "troll", by the definition that I've come to know and love)

<comment><USER42> In retrospect I think you could be right on both counts. First, I should have called the guy an astroturfer instead of a troll to use more correct terminology. Second, yes, the guy _may_ not be a Samsung forum shill after all, but I'm basing this possibility solely on the fact that he took the time to add some profile information about [himself | some real person]. The reason why I didn't believe this account is real still exists though: it was created and used solely for the purpose of commenting on the Samsung thread.

While this may or may not be a coincidence, my reaction is so negative by default because recently there have been a lot of single-purpose accounts that seem to exist only for one thread before they're being abandoned. They are usually employed to troll, to attack someone personally, to post or promote blog spam, or to shill for something. In fact, it has gotten so bad I can usually tell by the post's content and style whether this person is engaging in a quick hit-and-run or if they intent to stay around. I believe we're still putting too much weight on "green" accounts. Maybe their posts should be gray by default.

I might have come up with a false positive in this case, but there is no evidence to support that yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Samsung India seems to be full of morons. First they deny payment to ppk [http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2012/03/never_ever_d...](http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2012/03/never_ever_do_b.html) Now they are threatening bloggers.

</comment><comment><USER35> Raises quite a few issues about conflict of interests. Should there be a rule for such declarations by writers who are paid to promote brands ?

<comment><USER44> The FTC does have governance over endorsements and testimonials. Not sure that it applies completely here. The trouble comes when you start talking about people and companies outside of the US. International law for bloggers or journalists seems like a difficult situation to say the least.

<http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/10/endortest.shtm>

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Now check this - Samsung Mobilers IFA 2012 – Agenda & Facts / Emails Sent to Bloggers - <http://www.amitbhawani.com/blog/samsung-mobilers-ifa-2012/>

<comment><USER45> It sounds like the blogger is question had balked those requirements, asked for an exemption and (thought that they'd) gotten one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> It may come as a surprise, but based on the various anecdotes "Nokia India" is actually among the few that gets how to handle the new media.

</comment><comment><USER46> Samsung will travel in Nokia way in India.

</comment><comment><USER47> The extended quotes, and TNW's reputation, makes me think that this may be blogspam, but I can't find an original post.

</comment><comment><USER48> Being stranded in Berlin is certainly not the worst that could happen to you.

That said, this is exactly what happens when, as a journalist, you start to blur the lines. As a reader it's hard to feel any sympathy when reading paragraphs that try just a bit too hard to rationalize the behavior:

 _Again, a reminder – Behavior such as Samsung's is not uncommon in the world of tech coverage. It's perhaps considered more normal in some parts of the world_

<comment><USER49> Yes, blame the victim.

Not to mention your remark about being stranded in Berlin not being so bad.

<comment><USER48> I believe in incentives. In this case, more potential free all expenses covered trips are stacked against "I'm a professional, theres a way for me to do this and stay neutral".

I don't think that ever really worked out.

<comment><USER50> I have to agree with you. While it is possible to accept gift airfare and hotel worth thousands of dollars and remain neutral, it certainly looks dodgy. Especially if you're a broke blogger.

If the allegations are true, Samsung acted reprehensibly but these guys were naive.

<comment><USER51> There's a very big difference between:

on the one hand, being subtly 'encouraged' to write favorable blog posts or reviews via enjoyable junkets, and

on the other hand, being expected to act as a real part of the PR team, wear company-branded clothing, and film promotional videos.

One is normal practice in tech journalism. The other is something quite different, and more aggressive. It seems like the bloggers expected the former - not especially naively - and got the latter via pressure and bait-and- switch.

<comment><USER38> Well, the latter is far more honest.

<comment><USER24> How, exactly, is it more honest?

<comment><USER23> Because it makes it obvious that you're being paid to claim to like things, likely in proportion to how convincing you are.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Stallman's Facebook list - <AUTHOR> http://stallman.org/facebook.html

<comment><USER2> "I don't use it, and you shouldn't either"

That pretty much sums up a lot of things Stallman says. "Just do what I tell you because I'm important".

"A German regulator says Facebook's face recognition is illegal".

Well, if the German regulator said it then it must be true!

Come on guys, what is this? Are we just mass submitting Stallman's opinions on HN today? I'm willing to bet that we have 5 or more of his brain droppings hit the front page within the next hour above and beyond the most recent 3.

And as far as Facebook goes, it's a business. Do I even need to spell out what I'm getting at?

Facebook isn't going to cause the apocalypse, there are far bigger problems in the world. I know we all like a good discussion but must we overthink _everything_ to death? Facebook makes money off me and collects information about me. I know. If I cared I wouldn't use it.

<comment><USER3> Stallman is a god. He even has his own perfume, GNU.(ah, yeah I forgot it was an April's fool...).He has to be revered. I bet there's people that have his poster on their wall. Imagine, I heard there's a Stallman cult in Ohio.

<comment><USER2> I do my best not to outright make fun of Stallman but you can't even level criticism about him without all his fanatics writing you off as a crank or a troll. I really want to take your bait but I still would like to be taken seriously. Honestly, talking about Stallman inspires religious fervor in people. You must applaud him or be attacked yourself. It's like talking about Jesus. You have to be really careful about it. Even talking about Steve Jobs isn't as bad.

Oh well. Us Stallman critics should just shut up anyway. No one wants to hear it anyway which is understandable actually. We'll just have to stick to our own Stallman trashing circle jerk session just the same as the Stallman lovers in their Stallman worshipping circle jerk sessions.</comment></comment></comment>


Making OpenID really really easy - <AUTHOR> http://fourstarters.com/2007/07/12/making-openid-really-really-easy-a-use-case/ <comment><USER2> How many people would implement OpenID on their sites if it was really, really easy?

We're a YC startup working on exactly this problem. We felt that OpenID was a fantastic proposition but simply not easy to use and have made it literally dead-simple.

Who would isntall it on their site if they felt users would actually understand it?

Peter Nixey www.sitepass.com

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting point about email addresses being a disadvantage in OpenID. Is this a point against email addresses as usernames? I was squarely in the email-address-username corner, but this is making me reconsider.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think an apps login page should accept url, email, username or mobile phone number, but request the simplest possible mechanism in that context. Eg news.YC just asks for an username on sign up, no email.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I heard Simon Willison suggest this a while back. It's a great solution to get 'normal' users using openID now but it won't scale up. Perhaps the solution is to integrate openID with the browser?</comment>


A Polished and Not-at-All Half-Baked Take on Static vs. Dynamic Typing - <AUTHOR> https://buttondown.email/hillelwayne/archive/a-totally-polished-and-not-at-all-half-baked-take/ <comment><USER2> That was a good essay.

I just want to add the point about proofs. Different type systems in programming languages are partial proofs about some aspects of the program. There exists continuum in type systems were it proves more and more about the program without completely validating it.

If you do safety critical programs, the type system is never good enough. That's why the choice of programming language is not that important. C used in combination with static analyzer based on abstract interpretation and formal verification does more through analysis and can often prove that there are no run time errors.

Ideally you would like to have a language with tooling where you can use TLA+, SAT, SMT, abstract interpretation, dependent types to prove different aspects and get full verification that way.</comment>


Mozilla now banning people for grumpy bug reports - <AUTHOR> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=668655#c1 <comment><USER2> It's my opinion that when you call a Thunderbird developer "some simian" and when you tell them to "Die die die die" and "Seriously, screw you" and you say things like "You know, every time I see a comment from [a specific Thunderbird developer] I just want to reach out through the intertubes and cut off his damned fingers to prevent him ever writing any code..." and when you're warned in a very civil tone with a clear explanation of why your approach is hurting rather than helping <https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=579372#c3> and you still come back with more of that same approach, I think being banned from Bugzilla is a perfectly reasonable thing.

<comment><USER3> You're right, he is being a little abrasive there, but I'd take it in stride and enjoy; this sort of thing is normal on the Internet.

And besides, he's right. Why did they replace cmd-f like that?

<comment><USER4> Why should we accept unnecessarily abrasive behaviour as acceptable anywhere?

<comment><USER3> Because sometimes actually helpful bug reports come packaged with snarky people. I see little problem with that. There's guys like zedshaw who always flame and get flamed, yet still provide lots of value. Plus it livens things up a bit. Nothing wrong with a little sarcastic banter here and there. Some people have their panties in a tight knot sometimes over some silly things.

Not everything has to be so srs bznss all the time folks.

From this banning, Mozilla has just lost a useful bug reporter and one of the founding fathers of GNU.

<comment><USER2> Being a founding father of GNU does not give you the right to be a bully. Telling a developer that you want to cut off his hands so he can't program is not helpful and people who behave like that are not useful bug reporters. They are bullies and they are toxic to an open source project. No project should tolerate personal attacks like that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Richard Mlynarik is a hacker with a deservedly excellent reputation. And sometimes he has a sharp tongue which in context can be both enjoyable and terrifying.

But here's the important part for entrepreneurs: what percentage of users of mozilla products or any product bother to submit bug reports?

What Richard is doing here is investing his time into making Mozilla better. I am always amazed at the projects and companies that hold their users in contempt and get upset when bug reports or forum messages express a user's frustration. What they should be doing is sincerely expressing their thanks that the user would give them any message at all, and not just switch to a competitor, or just badmouth them to their friends.

I see nothing in this bug report that deserves banning, and it is certainly Mozilla's loss and their user's loss that they would ban Mlynarik instead of listening to him.

And to make matters worse, he's absolutely correct here too.

<comment><USER6> He was being a complete idiot in his bug report. The moderator stated that he has been warned many times before. He completely deserved to be banned after being warned that his actions will result in being banned.

Sure, he is submitting bug reports, but his childish behavior shouldn't have to be tolerated because of this.

<comment><USER7> If this report is representative, I don't think a thousand similar reports would deserve a ban. There's some exasperation, some sarcasm, some foot- stomping while expressing strong opinions. But there's no profanity or insults. The strongest negative word used is 'stupid', and it's applied to a question in the UI, not any person. The details and rationale for considering the software's behavior an interaction faux pas are strong.

It's hard to even see which part of 'Bugzilla Etiquette' this report violates:

<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=etiquette.html>

If other reports are worse, that's another matter. But if so, it seems odd this relatively mild report would be the final trigger that brings down the banhammer. (If there's a reliable pattern of abuse, just wait for the next non-mild incident.)

<comment><USER2> You missed the reports where he called developers simians, shouted "screw you" and said he'd like to cut off a specific developers hands so he couldn't code any more. (by the way, bugzilla is totally searchable, so if you want, you can see this stuff for yourself before you step up to defend a bully.)

<comment><USER7> Then why not announce the ban after those blatant transgressions, or the next blatant one if they arrive reliably, rather than after a mild one?

BTW, a simple Bugzilla search for [Richard Mlynarik] returns "Zarro Boogs found". Similarly, a Google search for [site:bugzilla.mozilla.org Mlynarik simian] returns nothing.

I'm sure I'll find the right kind of search eventually – I did find a Mlynarik 'screw you' comment via Google – but if the action is justified by examples with exact quotes, you might as well supply links rather than leave many people searching.

And why personalize this by accusing me of "stepping up to defend a bully"? I've addressed the exact action and manner of action taken in the above- referenced report, with the caveat that other examples would change the analysis. I've defended the precise comment in the 'compact dialog' report, not the person's history.

<comment><USER2> He was given a warning and a second chance after the awful behavior in other bugs. When he failed to heed that warning he was banned. If you had read the report, you'd have seen that he had been given a previous warning. That's key information. Weren't you curious about the previous warning? Didn't it occur to you that he might have already been treading on really thin ice and continued misbehavior, even minor might be enough to tip the balance? It doesn't seem to me that you were. It seemed to me you were stepping up to his defense without all the facts. That's a dangerous thing to do because you might find that you're defending someone that's you'd rather not be.

<comment><USER7> _"if you had read the report"_? _"weren't you curious"_?

It should have been clear from my conditionals ("If this report is representative…"; "If other reports are worse…") that I was curious about the alluded-to prior history, and my analysis was contingent upon the (at the time unlinked) specifics.

The concern I still have is that this latest comment was so mild and non- insulting that one possible interpretation is that the previous warning(s) were working. He depersonalized his criticisms into the zone where, if judged dispassionately, they could be more more helpful than hurtful.

Now, you've also been quoting other incidents ("simians", "die die die") that might be more recent and salient. I can't find the context for those. (Searches only turn up this thread.)

But I am only opining on the exact comments and actions referenced here. I'm not defending any particular person (who I don't know), but one most recent comment. And I'm not criticizing a general policy of exiling recidivist assholes, only the act of pulling the trigger after a comment that, standing alone, is innocuous.

If someone else over the years posted a thousand comments with the same level of sarcasm and exasperation, but also the same level of actual useful info (and no insults), as in Mlynarik's _most recent_ comment, would they get a ban? Or even a warning? I suspect not. They'd just be considered a cranky but useful bug reporter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Good. When filing bug reports you should try to work with the team and be as helpful as possible in solving the issue. Being a dick does not help anyone.

<comment><USER9> Expressing frustrations is not being a dick.

<comment><USER6> Expressing frustrations in a completely smart ass way is being a dick.

<comment><USER10> Regardless of whether he was being a dick or not, the issue is still there. A helpful dick is still valuable, and banning him is really only hurting the project as a whole.

<comment><USER6> Most people don't tend to respond well to these types of complaints.

I used to work as customer service for a website and would constantly get sarcastic help requests. It made me hate them and I certainly didn't want to help them. In fact, I either ignored the ticket or just responded slowly as I handled tickets with more reasonable people.

The people saying this is a "great" ticket and wish more reports were given this way are full of it. You will very quickly get tired of it because you realize you are doing everything you can to help them and they really don't care enough to give you enough respect to speak with you as a human being in a conversation. Instead choosing to be sarcastic and insult your efforts to help.

I see this the other way around. I am thankful a huge bunch of volunteers spend many hours of their day creating software I use daily without having to pay for it. They don't deserve to be treated like this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If someone writes that kind of bug report for code that I write, the first thing I would do is take my shoe and beat myself to death. The man being frustrated is your fault. High chances there are million others who feel the same, at least he is conveying it to you. You're shooting the messenger here.

If your critics give up on you and stop telling you how much you suck and how much they hate you, that's a very bad place to be in.

<comment><USER2> If your critic is a bully and he comes into your workplace saying he'd like to physically maim you so you can't work any more and calls you names and think it's OK because he was, (in his own words, while he's verbally abusing you) "the second person after Stallman to ever write any GNU code" then I think you'd call him a bully, treat his attempts at participation as toxic, and kick him out of your workplace. You might even call the cops. Actually, you would call the cops. And you'd be right to.

<comment><USER11> Sure I will.

But if he writes me a letter letting me know that I suck and that I should rather die than writing buggy code making millions of lives miserable everyday, I'd be fine.

He didn't throw stones at Mozilla labs, he filed and commented on a bug report. Its just text, not a man in their office. Virtual != Real.

Its a mind over matter issue. And as Twain would agree..if you don't mind, it doesn't matter.

<comment><USER12> If a frustrated user repeatedly sent me threats of physical violence packaged in a complaint letter, I'd turn it over to the police in a heartbeat. That's absolutely not a helpfully frustrated user, that's a real threat. This behavior is not just socially unacceptable, it's _so unacceptable_ that there are longstanding legal structures in place that make it illegal. There are no distinctions between virtual and physical here, it's a real person communicating a threat to another real person using a digital medium instead of a physical one. Filming yourself committing a crime in digital format vs. physical tape/film is basically the same idea. "It's just bits" doesn't hold water or we'd not have most of the internet child porn laws, or most of the copyright and patent law cases going on, none of the internet censorship laws, Wikileaks wouldn't feel threatened, etc.

People are routinely arrested and convicted for basically the same type of behavior directed at public officials spawned from aggravations and frustrations of similar sources..."bugs" in laws, perceived unfairness, disagreements on important decisions, racism, xenophobia, etc, etc, etc (I suspect enforcement is greater in this situation because public officials tend to know the law and exercise their rights against this behavior more often).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I don't understand why so many commenters on this thread consider verbal abuse a mark of sincerity. You can say everything you need to say without it. Mlynarik has pursued this style of interaction with people for decades, so it doesn't express any particular intensity of feeling; he just likes crapping on people. Maybe you don't mind reading it when it's not directed at you, but why should the recipient put up with it?

</comment><comment><USER14> Although Mozilla would be quite right to ban someone if this kind of behavior becomes repetitive, I do find these kind of bug reports _extremely_ useful, because they also convey the impact it has on the user. I can easily identify with his reaction to this "feature", and if my software annoys people like that, I would really want to know.

In fact, this kind of irritating software behavior is one of the reasons I ditched TB a long time ago. I'm sure that was considerable less useful than actually filing a mildly offensive bug report.

</comment><comment><USER15> I see this as the open source equivalent of firing your customer.

Just as there exists a certain kind of customer who increases the difficulty in running a business, so too there exists a certain kind of user who increases the difficulty in running an open source project. The project as a whole will be much healthier in the long run with the small percentage of users who generate the largest amount of grief removed from the equation.

Richard is deliberately making things difficult for Firefox. It doesn't matter that he's "taking the time to highlight a bug". It doesn't matter what his street cred is. He's behaving like a spoiled child throwing a tantrum. If he started stomping his feet and screaming at someone in my house for serving the potatoes too soft, I'd throw him out.

For reference (firing your customer): [http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2006/04/the_customer...](http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2006/04/the_customer_is.html)

</comment><comment><USER16> How on earth does that deserve a ban?

Mozilla would hate to have Linus Torvalds as a contributor.

<comment><USER17> > How on earth does that deserve a ban?

That does not deserve a ban in and of itself. Repeated instances of that following warnings of unacceptable behavior, on the other hand, does.

It would seem Richard here was in the second situation:

> You've been warned repeatedly about the Bugzilla Etiquette rules, and you're > still failing to respect them.

<comment><USER18> Linus has no qualms of telling someone he is full of BS:

<http://pardel.wordpress.com/2007/09/07/90/>

<comment><USER17> Which really is irrelevant to the subject at hand.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm another Thunderbird user, who assumed its bugs will never get fixed and will jump to a better alternative when I see it.

I fully sympathize with that Richard guy, and share his discontent at this serious issue happening in too many open source projects: the "community before quality" meme. Some people just don't understand that without quality the project will just die. Slowly but surely. Some other people seem to just want to see their name in the credits, even if they essentially screw the project in the process. Screw them, if that's what they think.

Did anybody notice that the bug had been clinging there for +15 months and it had 12 duplicates submitted by users and there were being ignored???

Also, as an experienced developer I can't figure a reasonable justification to the injection of such bug in the first place, specially when a beta-tester reported it in due time. Breaking the behavior of Ctrl-F is an awesomely visible and annoying bug!!!

Regarding the insults, well, when you know that nothing will be done to improve things and you are essentially wasting your time there, you don't f __*ing care about being banned.

</comment><comment><USER20> If those comments were made on HN, they'd be voted down, flagged, and by now the poster would have been banned.

</comment><comment><USER21> Reminds me of Eric Naggum on comp.lang.lisp in the late 1990s. Although I have no memories of Eric's ever threatening anyone with violence, he wrote hundreds of very long very angry harangues, most containing insults and ad-hominems -- and (unlike Richard Mlynarik) he seemed to believe deep down that his debating opponents wanted to _harm_ him.

As in the present case, people argued that for Eric to continue his abuse would harm Lisp by driving away contributors and adoptees. Difference is that it was very difficult to ban someone from a newsgroup, and Eric never was.

<comment><USER22> Yeah, they were really strong and aggresive, and I really would people not to be like this, but at least I do not recall him attacking anyone else first. When the issue at hand was purely technical, he was really civil and really to the point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Mozilla is trying to be like Google with Thunderbird and Firefox, but they are failing.

This guy who's getting / who got banned deserved it, but the changes they keep making aren't all that good.

Firefox is eating a lot of memory, Thunderbird does odd things at times.

A friend has 500 corporate workstations which are running Firefox 3.6.x and Thunderbird 3.1.x. Will he upgrade them to the newer versions, in which they keep pouring poorly tested code? No, he will switch to something else.

</comment><comment><USER24> I agree that he's impertinent and rude, but I wouldn't have banned him. The best way of dealing with certain people would be to patch bugzilla with the ability to block people for periods of time: a week, a couple of months, a year, forever.

<comment><USER2> Bugzilla has the ability to block a user from using his or her account. that's what "banning" is in this context. That block can be lifted at any time. I regularly disable accounts for abuse, have a long conversation with that person and end up re-instating their account because they've come to understand that what they were doing was counter-productive and agreed not to do it more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'd call this "how not to deal with customer feedbacks". If it were paying customers, they'd have none left with this attitude!

<comment><USER26> Sure you can take abuse when you are paid, except they are doing it for free and deserve better treatment.

<comment><USER27> Except that most companies don't. Abusive customers are bad for the whole company and the other customers. They lower morale, raise costs, and are generally not worth the money they bring in.

So if a company wouldn't do it for money, why would someone take that abuse for free?

They wouldn't. And they didn't.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Well, I hope the customer got his money back.

</comment><comment><USER29> Title is way off on this one...

It boils down to:

> _You've been warned repeatedly about the Bugzilla Etiquette rules, and > you're still failing to respect them._

</comment><comment><USER30> good.</comment>


The British Museum is full of stolen artifacts - <AUTHOR> https://youtu.be/hoTxiRWrvp8 <comment><USER2> Those Benin artefacts are impressive. If I could see them all in a fabulous museum in Africa, that would change my understanding and perceptions of African society. It would contribute to me aspiring to emigrate to live and work in Nigeria, instead of, say, Palo Alto, New York, Boston, or London.

Things are the way they are because possession is 9/10ths of the law, and there is no international police force. The only possibility for change is the court of public opinion in the countries that currently possess the artefacts. That court does change over time, so perhaps there is some hope.

</comment><comment><USER3> Uh...wouldn't British people just consider these items expats?

I mean ... it works for them when they are in other countries.

Disclosure: I am British</comment>


Ask HN: Have you noticed this peculiarity on vending machines? - <AUTHOR> [advance apologies for the trivial nature of this post. Hope it finds a fit on your Saturday =]
A vending machine at my workplace has a 10 item row with water bottles (all same brand and label) numbered in the range [51-60].
As is customary in current vending machines you select the item by entering a double digit number on a keypad.
When I'm buying water I always select item number 55 (because I find it more convenient to just press the same button twice without looking than typing any of the other options that have 2 different digits).
Surprise, surprise, item 55 is always the first one to sell out on that row. Which means most people also do the same convenience trick as me.
Have you noticed any similar "hidden" patterns like this one? <comment><USER2> In Brazil vote is not a right but "mandatory" -> Quotes mean..double speaking.

If you don't vote you have to pay fees, cannot work on the public sector or get a passport.

So it is very common for the candidates with number 12345 being elected[1].

Or the ones with 123,111 [2] [3]

Even Business companies try to make "easier" for you to remember their number.

[1] - [https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elei%C3%A7%C3%B5es_distritais_...](https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elei%C3%A7%C3%B5es_distritais_no_Distrito_Federal_em_2018)

[2] - [https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elei%C3%A7%C3%B5es_distritais_...](https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elei%C3%A7%C3%B5es_distritais_no_Distrito_Federal_em_2014)

[3] - [https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elei%C3%A7%C3%B5es_estaduais_n...](https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elei%C3%A7%C3%B5es_estaduais_no_Rio_Grande_do_Sul_em_2014)

<comment><USER3> I'm surprised the candidates are not randomised on the ballots?

<comment><USER4> There are many parties; each party has a double-digit number; candidate numbers start with their party number. You can even just enter the 2 digits to vote on the party's candidate list instead of on individual candidates.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> this pattern is mostly coincidental i think but you might be interested in benford's law

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benford%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benford%27s_law)

which is an observation about scale invariant quantities

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benford%27s_law#Scale_invarian...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benford%27s_law#Scale_invariance)

</comment><comment><USER6> Reminds me a little bit of the chapter "Candy Machine Interfaces" from Steve Maguire's book "Writing Solid Code"

</comment><comment><USER7> My University has the water bottles at the same number range and the first one to be sold out is always 55.

I usually pick 51, no idea why.

</comment><comment><USER8> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nudge_theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nudge_theory)

</comment><comment><USER9> Reminds me of: [https://www.xkcd.com/1103/](https://www.xkcd.com/1103/)</comment>


Flush+Reload: a High Resolution, Low Noise, L3 Cache Side-Channel Attack [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://eprint.iacr.org/2013/448.pdf

<comment><USER3> So, according to this paper, "GnuPG in its current form is not safe for a multi-user system or for any system that may run untrusted code."

The attack is against the RSA implementation specifically. Is there a gpg asymmetric encryption that _would_ be considered safe? If not, is there a reasonable gpg alternative?

<comment><USER4> With their same logic, your software based CSPRNG isn't safe, and your browser isn't safe, and your full disk encryption isn't safe and all it requires is the trivial feat of being able to run arbitrary code as arbitrary users on your system without your knowledge.

<comment><USER5> From the article:

"Furthermore, as virtual machine hypervisors transparently share memory pages between VMs [5,19], the attack is applicable across the isolation layer between VMs"

It's saying your VMs aren't safe - <USER2> Amazon/Linode/Rackspace/DigitalOcean/NineFold/Hertzner cloud instances _do_ have arbitrary users running arbitrary code on them – and the hypervisor can't protect you against what they do (in terms of manipulating the shared cache).

<comment><USER6> The only reason for these operators to do memory sharing would be if it allowed them to oversubscribe RAM--is there any reason to believe any of them are doing that? It seems like it would lead to extremely noticeable and severe performance or stability issues in edge cases unless the provider required you to run a specific image on your instance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> So, practical question

I am on Ubuntu LTS 12.04 with GnuPG 1.4.11 (Linux version 3.2.0-32-virtual (buildd@batsu) (gcc version 4.6.3 (Ubuntu/Linaro 4.6.3-1ubuntu5)).

Q1. Do I need to fix this potential attack?

Q2. Assuming this fix is not backported [now] - if I compile fresh gpg and swap the binary with the old gpg - will this fix it?

<comment><USER8> Q1: Yes, it is fixed in 1.4.14 only.

Q2: Cleanest would be to uninstall GnuPG and install latest from source. Make sure to backup relevant directories containing GnuPG related data (probably in your home - sorry I'm not familiar with Ubuntu)

<comment><USER9> BIG WARNING - THIS IS NOT THE BEST WAY TO INSTALL GNUPG! IT DOES NOT VERIFY ANY (REAL) SIGNATURES!!

FYI - Debian unstable (aka sid) has a pacakge, and there is a backport to Ubuntu Saucy. I'm not sure what the best/easiest way to _automatically_ pull down sources for a newer release than the release you're running in Ubuntu (there might be some apt-add magick for source mirrors?) -- but since it is up at launchpad[1], you can:

a) try the binaries b) build the debs yourself (aka manually "backport"):

        mkdir tmp/gnupg -p
        cd tmp/gnupg
        sudo apt-get build-dep gnupg
        sudo aptitude install dpkg-dev #This might get pulled
                                       #in by the line above
        wget https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/saucy/+source/gnupg/1.4.14-1ubuntu1/+files/gnupg_1.4.14.orig.tar.gz \
             https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/saucy/+source/gnupg/1.4.14-1ubuntu1/+files/gnupg_1.4.14-1ubuntu1.debian.tar.gz \
             https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/saucy/+source/gnupg/1.4.14-1ubuntu1/+files/gnupg_1.4.14-1ubuntu1.dsc

        tar xzf gnupg_1.4.14.orig.tar.gz
        cd gnupg-1.4.14
        tar xzf gnupg_1.4.14-1ubuntu1.debian.tar.gz
        cd debian
        dpkg-buildpackage
        cd ..
        sudo dpkg -i gpgv_1.4.14-1ubuntu1_amd64.deb \
                     gnupg_1.4.14-1ubuntu1_amd64.deb \
                     gnupg-curl_1.4.14-1ubuntu1_amd64.deb

Note: This might not be a good idea with a package that is as imprtant as gnupg (among other things apt package lists are signed with gnupg!). And as you can also see above, the packages are not signed (explicitly, even if they do come in via https...).

At least this built fine under wheezy -- but I haven't tried installing them (I'm not that worried that someone will snoop my workstation cache..).

So not really meant for advice on how to get an upstream _gnupg_ \-- but useful with a few other well-behaved programs. So big warning, practice safe hex and all that!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The key part is the first line in the abstract

"Flush+Reload is a cache side-channel attack that monitors access to data in shared pages"

The OS does not allow arbitary programs to share pages with gpg. If you share pages with gpg you can already read the key directly, no need for any side channels.

As far as I can tell the paper is completely pointless, a variant of this fallacy [http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2009/01/21/93533...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2009/01/21/9353310.aspx)

<comment><USER11> It does this with code pages, to trace the control flow. All modern OSes let you map code read-only (either static or shared libraries) into multiple processes while sharing the physical memory.

<comment><USER10> The paper describes flushing the data pages. I don't see anything about the code pages in their algorithm.

<comment><USER11> It's confusing, but the "data" is instructions. It's explained in the first 4 paragraphs of section 5.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Can someone knowledgeable about security tell me if there is anything about their claim (98% in one round) that is exaggerated or "best edge case only"?

I wonder how these attacks would fare against NaCl[1] or Sodium[2], who were designed to be secure against side-channel attacks.

[1]: [http://nacl.cr.yp.to](http://nacl.cr.yp.to)

[2]: [http://labs.umbrella.com/2013/03/06/announcing-sodium-a- new-...](http://labs.umbrella.com/2013/03/06/announcing-sodium-a-new- cryptographic-library)

<comment><USER8> They have quite some preconditions that need to be in place:

\- You must know the code locations of the instructions that you target exactly. I.e. you will need to get down to the exact cache line of the operation in the compiled binary of the attacked program. They solve this by using a binary with debug symbols, in practice this will be harder as the binary will likely be stripped from debug symbols.

\- You can bet that there will be differences in the attack depending on the model of processor, let alone the manufacturer that will make it very hard to generalize this attack, increasing its cost.

I think there are cheaper attacks for criminals/government agencies. Also, as mentioned below it is already mitigated by a GPG fix. But I found the paper quite interesting as I never considered such an attack before.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Gentoo bug @ [https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=478184](https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=478184)</comment>


Turn down the quantum volume - <AUTHOR> https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=4649 <comment><USER2> I think the function should be something like "number of stable QBits which can demonstrably add to an implementation of Shors algorithm"

So it excludes DWave, and the unstable QBits, and focusses on a specific known problem which (I believe) gets closer to e.g. breaking useful real-world unknown value RSA, rather than simply being "how big it is"

As long as a graphics card is just painting pixels its mainly about entertainment. When somebody says "this graphics card can now exhaustively search 20 letter password strings against a known hash string and find your passphrase in under 30 seconds" then its a real issue.

<comment> core-questions Why does any reasonable function need to exclude D-Wave by default? Aren't they the only company with an actual, publicly-accessible, realtime production system you can use?

I know it's not gate model, but it does compute using quantum effects, and so any reasonable model of performance has to include for this sort of system.

IIRC D-Wave doesn't like single digit performance indicators, so they're aligned with Aaronson on this for once.

<comment><USER3> There is no indication (not even from the theory side) that the D-Wave approach can achieve any speed-up over a classical computer. This is one of the reasons why Aaronson and many others in the field are not taking them seriously. Sure, they will gladly sell you a system, but the whole architecture will most likely never be useful for anything.

<comment><USER4> > There is no indication (not even from the theory side) that the D-Wave > approach can achieve any speed-up over a classical computer.

You're wrong about the theory side of things[1, 2], by the way. The discussion around adiabatic quantum computing is weirdly politicized. It's true that D-Wave's computer isn't a universal quantum annealer; but _in theory_ such a thing is equivalent to a gate-model computer.

[1] [https://arxiv.org/pdf/1611.04471.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1611.04471.pdf)

[2] [https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0256-307X/35/11/1...](https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0256-307X/35/11/110303)

<comment><USER5> An adiabatic quantum computer is equivalent to the gate model. D-Wave do not have an adiabatic quantum computer, so there is indeed no reason, even theoretical, to believe their hardware provides computational advantage. The word "quantum annealer" is just a confusing term used differently by everyone, occasionally meaning "adiabatic quantum computer" and occasionally meaning what D-Wave have.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Not trolling, but curious - do quantum computers do anything useful yet?

<comment><USER7> No. There have been some interesting quantum simulation papers but nobody has shown anything yet that is revolutionary.

This is promising work that may be interesting in the future: [https://arxiv.org/pdf/1902.10171.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1902.10171.pdf)

This also looks like it could be interesting: [http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR20/Session/W17.7](http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR20/Session/W17.7) (Gurobi is a CPU solver for integer and linear programming problems, which are some of the most useful to solve quickly.

There is also: [https://ai.googleblog.com/2016/07/towards-exact-quantum- desc...](https://ai.googleblog.com/2016/07/towards-exact-quantum-description- of.html)

<comment><USER8> can you give an example of a linear programming task that is not currently practical to solve on classical computers but could become so with a huge speed up?

<comment><USER9> Simulated annealing[1] versus Quantum annealing[2], though it's not there yet practically speaking as I understand it.

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

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_annealing?wprov=sfti1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_annealing?wprov=sfti1)

<comment><USER10> Simulated annealing is not a linear programming problem!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Why isn't it defined in terms of the solvable problems? This quantum computer can factor an n-bit composite number seems like a fairly objective test.

<comment><USER3> It's a marketing problem. Shor's algorithm seems to be extremely hard to run without cheating by "optimizing" the program on a classical computer that already knows the answer. Nobody wants to announce that they barely managed to factor 21 or something like that, while at the same time trying to convince the public that their system is somehow superior to classical computers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> What he advocates makes sense. Marketing for classical computers used to make hay about how fast the CPU was in Khz, Mhz, Ghz. This is done less now since people recognize that is just one of several factors when comparing devices. It's still mentioned, just alongside the architecture, ram, GPU, etc. It can be hard to compare if you're not up on all the differences.

<comment><USER13> People now buy CPUs and GPUs based on primarily one index: how many fps their favorite games can run at their desired resolution and quality. So manufacturers of QCs should do the same by specifying what problems at what sizes their hardware is best at solving.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Or in other words: fire your marketing department.</comment>


Amazon owns my Echo, I'm just feeding it - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/17/17020962/amazon-echo-alexa-trojan-horse-sad-dreams <comment><USER2> "Hey wiretap!", the editorial edition.

This is how I feel about Windows 10. You can install it on your computer, but it stops being your computer and becomes Microsoft's computer. It does what Microsoft wants when Microsoft wants it to.

I work in this industry. The morals of the people around me are disgusting. The only thing that matters is making money and getting famous, at almost any cost.</comment>


How to Improve Data Productivity by Avoiding Cell Line Contamination - <AUTHOR> https://www.creative-bioarray.com/Services/Short-Tandem-Repeat-Analysis.htm <comment><AUTHOR> How to Avoid Cell Line Contamination - Mycoplasma detection 1\. Mycoplasma culture, which is regarded as a standard method of detection. This is the most sensitive method, depending on the standard agar plate on the selective and highly enriched growth medium. The appereance will be unique 'Omelette', the positive results with this method can prove the mycoplasma contamination. However, this method can not detect all the speices, such as Mycoplasma hyorhinis, DNA and PCR analysis is needed to ensure there is no contamination happened! 2\. DNA Staining: DNA staining relies on the Hoechst 33258 stain, which causes DNA-rich nuclei and any mycoplasma in the cytoplasm to fluoresce. The use of this method may lead to false positive for the contamination due to cell apoptosis or debris, or false negatives as this is the least sensitive method. 3\. PCR: PCR-based mycoplasma detection can be very sensitive and can detect up to 20 copy copies of mycoplasma genomes in 2 μL of sample. Mycoplasma detection was achieved by amplifying the highly conserved 16S rRNA operon coding region of the mycoplasma genome. 4\. Cell-Line Authentication. ICLAC, which co-built by ECACC, representatives from other internation cell culture organisations and respectable scientist commit to support the importance of cell line authentication, creating a searchable database of cross-contaminated and misidentified cell lines. This can be used to detect cell line contaminations with the regularly updated database. 5\. Short Tandem Repeat Profiling. With ASN-0002-2011 standard method, which analyzed 13 specific sites of STR and several additional sites to determine the integrity of human cell lines authenticity.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> What will Cause Cell Line Contamination? Cell Line nature enemies include: Bacteria, viruses, mycoplasma, yeast and other eukaryotic cells. in the culture procedure, what we offered below will lead to cell line contamination: A. Confusion of the Mark, which refers to paste the wrong label in the the daily culture and the management of the cells. B. Cross Contamination of Cells, cell line is contaminated by other cells due to cell reagent utilities, reusable or simultaneous operation of a variety of cells and other reasons. If exogenous cells have a faster propagation rate than the original cell line, exogenous cells will gradually replace the original cell line. C. Cell culture enviroment change will lead to cell line contamination. Besides, bacteria, mycoplasma contamination or drug treatment may also change the type of cells.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> What is Cell Line Contamination? Scientists considers the cell line is contaminated while the cell line genotype is different from its original donor. So for determining whether the cell line is contaminated usually starting from the genotype. The contaminated cell lines can be classified into the false cell line (Eukaryotic cell contamination occurs in the early stage of the cell line, the original cells have ceased to exist, which has completely become another cell line), and the misidentified cell line ( Eukaryotic cell contamination occurs after the cell line is established, and the original cells and newly mixed cells are present in the cell line).

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Why it is important for avoind cell line contaminations Cell line contamination poses a serious threat to the integrity of biomedical research. Following best practices for cell culture validation, storage and processing can help address this ongoing challenge, thereby improving the reliability of experimental research data.</comment>


Completing 12 ridiculously hard challenges in 12 months - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@maxdeutsch/m2m-day-1-completing-12-ridiculously-hard-challenges-in-12-months-9843700c741f <comment><USER2> Impressive he accomplished some of these. (I have only read through some; did he successfully complete them all?)

So far the one that suck out to me was acquiring absolute pitch after one month of training. My gf is a phd student jointly advised by two auditory/music and perception scientists (VS Ramachandran and Diana Deutsch), so i am constantly hearing about perfect pitch research. From our conversations PP isnt something you just pick-up after a month of training. Most life-long musicians don't even have PP, and instead rely on relative pitch. I think he identified a very good strategy; that he had some musical background I think was most critical in identifying those strategies than anything else it could have contributed.</comment>


Ford to put $500M into electric vehicle startup Rivian - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-rivian-ford-motor/ford-motor-puts-500-million-into-electric-pickup-producer-rivian-idUSKCN1S01LD <comment><USER2> So, Ford will continue to work on a battery powered F150, and then they're going to use Rivian's platform to compete with the likes of the Honda Ridgeline and other unibody pickups? That actually seems like it would be a workable plan.

Edit: To clarify, my basis for this is something Mike Levine said (he is Ford NA Product Comm Manager):

"Ford's battery electric F-150 has been under development for some time and will continue as planned. Ford is using Rivian's skateboard platform as the basis for an all-new vehicle."

[https://twitter.com/mrlevine/status/1121027970917912577](https://twitter.com/mrlevine/status/1121027970917912577)

<comment><USER3> Or they're dumping money into Rivian so at some point in the future they can leverage Rivian's drive-train tech in whatever they want.

<comment><USER4> the message I take away is this, Ford is so far behind they have to buy into something and do it quickly and loudly to show their investors they really are paying attention.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I know this is subjective but: Is there a reason they needed to add those distinctive and overly-futuristic headlights that screams electric car?

One of the reasons I like Tesla vehicles is that while they look decent they don't try to overly differentiate themselves. They look like standard mid- market cars.

I would think that if Rivian is targeting the truck/full-size SUV crowd then they would lean on a more traditional look?

<comment><USER6> Forget the headlines, it's a pickup truck that doesn't list bed length in the marketing materials.

The pickup truck is the new SUV, but come on. At least let me pretend to consider if I can fit a sheet of drywall in there.

Also, I hate,hate,hate the trend of putting the spare under the bed floor, instead of under the frame. Clearly a design decision by someone that doesn't use their pickup bed for picking things up...

<comment> village-idiot > Clearly a design decision by someone that doesn't use their pickup bed for > picking things up...

To be fair, this is the vast majority of truck drivers. Exceedingly few trucks sold today will ever be asked to do something that requires a truck, most are commuter vehicles driver for social status reasons. A few occasionally might tow a boat.

<comment><USER7> All while our only planet is going to shit because of fossil fuel usage. American fuel is too cheap, making this kind of excessive fuel burning possible without paying the external cost.

<comment> village-idiot It's also an unwise business plan. Ford cancelled all of their sedans in the US except the mustang, which is clearly a cheap fuel bet. I personally call this plan "bonuses today, bankruptcy tomorrow".

In a sign that the universe has a sense of irony, the F-150 factory promptly caught on fire when they announced this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Rivian is valued at $7 billion, and has not shipped a product ever? Crazy.

<comment><USER9> That's insane. One-third of Tesla's market cap and they seem to be far behind in self-driving, battery tech, charging infrastructure and product development.

<comment><USER10> Pretty smart they aren't sinking any $$$ into self-driving moonshot tech. Keep lean, build a high-performance tight truck/suv with current driver-assist tech.

<comment><USER11> Self-driving is the future. Mankind will one day realize 1.25 million deaths a year from crashes is unacceptable. Tesla is on the forefront of that, it would be dumb not to be sinking money into it. If they don't now, they'll lose their lead, lose marketshare, and lose their training data.

<comment><USER12> You do realize that everybody still drives knowing the risk? The driving force behind self-driving cars is convenience, it will never be safety -- especially when the fist $x decades of mass-adopted self-driving cars will be more dangerous than human drivers. If safety was that important and the political capital existed to actually change things then we could make a huge dent with just the things we know right now.

<comment><USER13> Current self-driving cars are already orders of magnitude safer than human drivers. I agree convenience is likely the largest driving factor but safety is definitely emphasized.

<comment><USER14> Per what data? Human-driven cars cause 1.25 deaths per 100 million VMT in the US: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the_U...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the_United_States) Even Waymo is nowhere near 100M miles driven: [https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidsilver/2018/07/26/waymo- ha...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidsilver/2018/07/26/waymo-has-the-most- autonomous-miles-by-a-lot/#c0edf7ee53b8)

There's not nearly enough data to make a claim like that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is on top of Amazon's $700M in February:

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

<comment><USER16> Amazon didnt invest $700M but it did lead the round

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Is 'skateboard' another name for body-on-frame?

It seems like people are saying it's a big new idea, but it's how things used to be done before uni-bodies. Are uni-bodies not as suited to electric with their large low-slung power packs?

<comment><USER18> "Skateboard" is a term that's been thrown around since the 90s to describe how EV platforms can be fully modular. I remember reading Popular Mechanics magazines back in the day, touting how EVs would let us drive our sports car to the dealer, have them remove the roadster body, and replace it with an SUV body for that long family Thanksgiving trip to Grandma's house (for example).

It's a lot like body-on-frame, I suppose, but the idea is all of the powertrain is in a more-or-less flat device, and the seating area is completely disambiguated from the drivetrain.

<comment><USER19> I think I remember that same article, or a similar one from around the time frame. It also suggested some radical improvements. Once a car is based on a "skateboard" design, the front window can extend a lot further down allowing for some amazing views.

It didn't seem to think about the danger of removing a crumple zone, but it was definitely eye-catching.

<comment><USER18> Actually, our model 3 has an amazingly low dashboard, it's one of my favorite things about it. Side windows on modern cars, not so much. Crash standards have made our cars cocoons you can't see out of.

But owning the 3 has definitely made me think a lot of the skateboard model:

* Flat floor, no transmission/exhaust tunnel.

* User interface (screen) is indepenent from body control modules and drivetrain. You can reboot the tablet while you're driving. Your turn signals stop making noise, but still flash! You can walk up to the car and it unlocks even if the tablet isn't working.

IT's interesting ,you can really feel how discrete certain components are, how they can be rearranged and put into a different model. I'm sure there are more dependencies than I realize, though.

<comment><USER20> I think your second point is true for lots of (all?) vehicles today, which have an architecture of multiple modules communicating over a CAN (car-area network) bus. I did a firmware update on my Pacifica PHEV while I was driving it, and though I lost the ability to listen to the radio and change settings on safety and convenience features (rain-sensing wipers, blind spot detection, etc.), the car still ran fine (and all of the safety features still functioned).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Anyone know when these will hit the market? I'd love an electric SUV. As much as I would PREFER a self driving SUV (level 4+), I don't see that being truly amenable in the next 5 years.

<comment><USER22> They're supposed to go into production end of next year. Given that they haven't even built a working one, I'd say that's optimistic, but I do hope they succeed! We will see how much the extra investment they have is going to speed up the process.

<comment><USER23> > Given that they haven't even built a working one

Do you mean off their main production line? They've been testing the base platform for years, and their demo vehicles look to be complete.

<comment><USER24> Just this week at the LA Auto show Rivian's head designer confirmed the pickup on display is the only one they have ever built, and it was built by hand.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XA6P0snL3hE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XA6P0snL3hE)

<comment><USER25> The interview begins at yellow marker, ~4:00. Maybe it's just me, and I guess it's really just a personal 'pet peeve', but is it off-putting to anyone else how he _constantly_ saying "gives _ME_ ...", " _I_ have four motors", "so _I_ can...", etc...

Perhaps I've been driving people crazy all these years, but "we" usually sounds so much better (even if _it is_ just you) and a lot less ... lousy and self-centered. Maybe he really is _the guy_ \-- it just rubs me a little wrong, especially when I suspect it really is _we_ \-- as in, the team.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Rivian sounds to me like another Fisker Automotive ... all PR and hype but nothing substantive.

At least Tesla and VW ID are real and on the road doing real driving.

</comment><comment><USER16> Like that big auto companies taking electric seriously

<comment><USER27> First renewable energy and now electric cars have turned from something that was science fiction, always N-years off, an environmentalist's fantasy, laughable, to something that is mainstream reality in my lifetime.

I mean, in BTTF II/III, the DeLorean was upgraded with a Mr Fusion and made a flying car _but it still used an ICE to drive_. How weird is that?

Meanwhile, it's no longer a question that solar and wind are going to comprise a large fraction of our energy supply in the near future; it's only a question of how much, how quickly, whether it will cut CO2 emissions _enough_ , and what the waste/lifecycle costs will amount to. Electric cars are the way things are going; even if Tesla collapsed into its own hype-bubble, every other car manufacturer now produces electric cars, people are buying them, the charging infrastructure is getting built out. The only questions left are what (large) fraction of the market electric vehicles will eventually grow to, how quickly they'll reach it, and whether it will again help our CO2 emissions enough, fast enough, and what waste/lifecycle problems will EV introduce.

It's weird to me that between renewables and EV we have a real chance at Y2K'ing global warming.

<comment><USER28> > electric cars have turned from something that was science fiction, always > N-years off, an environmentalist's fantasy, laughable, to something that is > mainstream reality in my lifetime.

Electric cars are older than gas cars, and never really went away, though they spent a long time as niche vehicles.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I'm super curious how this will integrate with Argo. Kind of smart for Ford to invest in an electric vehicle while their other subsidiary develops the self driving car capability.

<comment><USER30> It's even smarter of Ford to (recently) recognize that self-driving cars aren't going anywhere anytime soon, and to double down on the electric car investments.

<comment><USER31> You can certainly see why they bailed from their existing car lines.

I can understand where all the car manufacturers have the same problem. They're afraid of building one too many generations of IC-powered designs (which are also following a Moore's Lawish rule of increasingly complex design) but aren't really sure what's next.

<comment><USER32> > _You can certainly see why they bailed from their existing car lines._

For clarity, I assume you are referring to the elimination of sedan models from their lineup. They are producing more crossovers and SUVs, pickups than ever.

They didn't really have a choice, sales on sedans have been dropping like a rock.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Rivian is manufacturing in my home town, so this is great news.

<comment><USER34> representing Peoria here - this is great news for that part of the country!

<comment><USER33> It really is - especially having an idle auto manufacturing plant here. There's not much else you can do with those, so seeing it put to use is great, rather than just collecting dust.

<comment><USER35> Isn't Peoria today more or less a Caterpillar company town? Seems like Rivian getting big would be amazing for the city

<comment><USER33> It was. except the new CEO of Cat moved the headquarters to Chicago.

But to be clear, this is about 40 minutes east of Peoria.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Their logo on the steering wheel looks like Renault's.

</comment><comment><USER37> First time hearing of Rivian. Cool concept, i imagine getting electric motors to move huge trucks around is a better/more mainstream application then a 0-60 in 2 second hyper car.

Looking at their product line up this is strictly for US markets right? This thing would be wildly out of place in any town/city I've lived in.

<comment><USER38> There are a lot of places that trucks and SUVs sell well - the US is the biggest right now, but Canada, China, India, and Russia all come to mind as consumers of vehicles like this.

Global sales of just one truck similar in size to the Rivian - the Ford F-150 - topped 1M units in 2018, making it the best selling vehicle globally, beating out the corolla and the civic by 140k and 250k units respectively.

<comment><USER37> That might explain it then, i'm not fantastically well traveled outside of Europe and the only place I've seen monsters like this is Florida and Maine...

<comment><USER39> You'll find big SUV's and pickup trucks in every state. No US state is purely urban. Even when it is mostly so, there are still people who drive obscenely large vehicles (ICE of course for now) like these electric ones.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Kickstarter's Hidden Wasteheap of Killed Projects - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/design/2012/09/kickstarter-takedowns/

<comment><USER2> Lightly discussed yesterday at <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4562028></comment>


A Response from Goldman Sachs - <AUTHOR> http://www.borowitzreport.com/2012/03/14/a-response-from-goldman-sachs/

<comment><USER2> I felt that linking this to HN was in poor taste, and does nothing to further the discussion about 'quality talent' in the Financial Services industry.

<comment><USER3> I've never looked into it, but apparently one needs a higher comment average than mine (or something) to downvote stories, so I flagged it instead.</comment></comment>


"Peter Thiel's 'Zero to One' Might Be the Best Business Book I've Read" - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/09/peter-thiel-zero-to-one-review/380738/ <comment><AUTHOR> I concur, for reasons discussed at length here: [http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2014/09/24/zero-to-one- peter-t...](http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2014/09/24/zero-to-one-peter-thiel- and-blake-masters)</comment>


Coding like it's 1999 - <AUTHOR> http://www.philipotoole.com/coding-like-its-1999/ <comment><USER2> I've used this before on small projects and it has proven to be a better 'learning' experience versus just googling for help.</comment>


Every website, 2015 - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/twotribes/status/635751764894072832 <comment><USER2> I keep telling myself it will go away. I hope the next trend is not a derivative of this though.</comment>


Google Correlate - <AUTHOR> http://correlate.googlelabs.com/

<comment><USER2> Methods section of their whitepaper:

In our Approximate Nearest Neighbor (ANN) system, we achieve a good balance of precision and speed by using a two-pass hash-based system. In the first pass, we compute an approximate distance from the target series to a hash of each series in our database. In the second pass, we compute the exact distance function on the top results returned from the first pass.

Each query is described as a series in a high-dimensional space. For instance, for us-weekly, we use normalized weekly counts from January 2003 to present to represent each query in a 400+ dimensional space. For us-states, each query is represented as a 51-dimensional vector (50 states and the District of Columbia). Since the number of queries in the database is in the tens of millions, computing the exact correlation between the target series and each database series is costly. To make search feasible at a large scale, we employ an ANN system that allows fast and efficient search in high-dimensional spaces.

Traditional tree-based nearest neighbors search methods are not appropriate for Google Correlate due to the high dimensionality of the data resulting in sparseness of the data. Most of these methods reduce to brute force linear search with such data. For Google Correlate, we used a novel asymmetric hashing technique which uses the concept of projected quantization [16] to reduce the search complexity. The core idea behind projected quantization is to exploit the clustered nature of the data, typically observed with various real-world applications. At the training time, the database query series are projected in to a set of lower dimensional spaces.

Each set of projections is further quantized using a clustering method such as K-means. K-means is appropriate when the distance between two series is given by Euclidean distance. Since Pearson correlation can be easily converted into Euclidean distance by normalizing each series to be a standard Gaussian (mean of zero, variance of one) followed by a simple scaling (for details, see appendix), K-means clustering gives good quantization performance with the Google Correlate data. Next, each series in the database is represented by the center of the corresponding cluster.

This gives a very compact representation of the query series. For instance, if 256 clusters are generated, each query series can be represented via a unique ID from 0 to 255. This requires only 8 bits to represent a vector. This process is repeated for each set of projections. In the above example, if there are m sets of projections, it yield an 8m bit representation for each vector.

During the online search, given the target series, the most correlated database series are retrieved by asymmetric matching. The key concept in asymmetric matching is that the target query is not quantized but kept as the original series. It is compared against the quantized version of each database series. For instance, in our example, each database series is represented as an 8m bit code. While matching, this code is expanded by replacing each of the 8 bits by the corresponding K-means center obtained at training time, and Euclidean distance is computed between the target series and the expanded database series. The sum of the Euclidean distances between the target series and the database series in m subspaces represents the approximate distance between the two. Approximate distance between target series and the database series is used to rank all the database series. Since the number of centers is usually small, matching of the target series against all the database series can be done very quickly.

To further improve the precision, we take the top one thousand series from the database returned by our approximate search system (the first pass) and reorder those by doing exact correlation computation (the second pass). By combining asymmetric hashes and reordering, the system is able to achieve more than 99% precision for the top result at about 100 requests per second on O(100) machines, which is orders of magnitude faster than exact search.

</comment><comment><USER3> Heh, time correlation of "exam schedule" tells a sad story.

Shifted 1 week: gpa calculator

Shifted 2 weeks: final grades

Shifted 3 weeks: academic suspension

Shifted 4 weeks: academic dismissal

[http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=exam+schedule&t...](http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=exam+schedule&t=weekly&shift=1)

[http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=exam+schedule&t...](http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=exam+schedule&t=weekly&shift=2)

[http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=exam+schedule&t...](http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=exam+schedule&t=weekly&shift=3)

[http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=exam+schedule&t...](http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=exam+schedule&t=weekly&shift=4)

</comment><comment><USER4> There's certainly the potential to extract interesting data here, but I haven't found it yet.

I do note with distress, however, that:

[http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=why+is+my+poop+gree...](http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=why+is+my+poop+green&t=weekly#)

searches for "Why is my poop green?" peaked in March 2010 before subsiding, and that it's correlated with "hiv symptoms in women" and "how to get a guy to ask you out".

Meanwhile, "why is my poop black?" is correlated with "How to say I love you in French"

<comment><USER5> If you upload stock market data, you could see if there are searches that strongly predict certain stocks.

<comment><USER6> Well, it works well with unemployment at least: [http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/05/25/mining-for- correlatio...](http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/05/25/mining-for-correlations- it-works/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> What many here seem to miss is that this looks at coincidences in the timing of searches. This is not "within-subject": it's not that people-who-search- for-x-also-search-for-y. Rather, it's WHEN-people-search-x-other-people-are- also-likely-to-search-y .

That being the case, can anyone come up with an explanation for this? [http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=accident&t=week...](http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=accident&t=weekly)

<comment><USER7> People drive more in the summer.

<comment><USER2> The pattern looks more interesting than simply that. Multiple semantically related terms are correlated with "accident". And, strangely, "fatal accident" is not correlated very much with any of those other semantically related terms. Further, there are bunches of other queries that you might imagine "summer-ness" could also drive (air conditioners, heat rash, e.g.), but which it doesn't.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Interestingly, migraine headaches ([http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=migraine+headaches&...](http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=migraine+headaches&t=weekly)) correlate with:

\- small business development

\- us copyright office

\- education grants

\- legal advice

</comment><comment><USER9> Search by drawing is really cool. <http://correlate.googlelabs.com/draw>

A bug report: I get 500 Internal Server Error when inputting non-ascii characters:

[http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=santa+f%C3%A9&t...](http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=santa+f%C3%A9&t=weekly)

</comment><comment><USER10> This is not robust to outliers. See for instance: [http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=payday&e=payday...](http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=payday&e=payday%20loan&t=weekly)

Maybe they could use a different (and probably more computationally intensive) correlation to fix this.

</comment><comment><USER11> Interesting to go to Winter example then shift the lag-time (lefthand side). If you shift it 2 months, you get summer internships. If you shift it 4 months, you get summer camps. Five months, you get baseball. Eight months, you get spiders fleas and fire ants.

<comment><USER12> Doing a popular movie name gets other things related to that movie with shift=0, and other popular movies (or other things that spike like them) with shifting. Movie names were just the first very "spiky" thing I thought of to use as a filter like that, there might be something else better (short of loading a spike time series, of course).

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Nice to see that the tradition of comic book product launches is still going strong.

<http://correlate.googlelabs.com/comic>

</comment><comment><USER14> Anyone play the real-estate market?

A great leading indicator of 'selling a home' seems to be 'european airfare' and 'florida apartments.' So here's what you do. Take out google adwords for these searches, offer 'great deals' in return for your zipcode and email address.

Then you can use these addresses to send inquiries about home sales and get in on sales before they hit the market!

There, go make money.

P.S. If this actually works, be nice enough to let me know :)

</comment><comment><USER15> This is cool, but I'd like to see it include the volume of the search term and provide a way to filter out terms above or below a specified volume threshold (i.e., show me the terms within the top 20% of all terms by volume that best correlate to this curve).

If that's too much to ask, it could at least provide a way of skipping the step of manually entering the returned search terms into Trends.

</comment><comment><USER16> Some of those are really obvious ("treatment for flu" had the highest correlation with flu activity), but "disney vacation package" correlating with a states average rainfall was a bit surprising (in that the highest correlation wasn't a search for umbrellas).

<comment><USER17> Does anybody really google for "umbrellas"?

<comment><USER12> According to the tool in play here, yes, but mostly "patio umbrellas", in the summer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Looking forward to version 2.0, Google Causality

</comment><comment><USER19> Now seems to be a good time to remember...

"correlation is not causation"

</comment><comment><USER20> Dear lord -- Clojure is the most pornographic programming language ever!

</comment><comment><USER21> [http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=hacker+news&t=w...](http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=hacker+news&t=weekly)

So many git commands...

</comment><comment><USER22> > Google Correlate is an experimental new tool on Google Labs which enables > you to find queries with a similar pattern to a target data series.

I don't understand what the correlation is here. Is this just matching queries by frequency of search?

So you could have completely random and unconnected search phrases/queries "correlating" because the quantity and time/date are matching?

<comment><USER6> They're using 'correlation' in its precise statistical sense: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation>

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> A bunch of Portuguese words seems to follow a pattern with a big rise on 2008 and a huge drop following. Looks like something was wrong with the data. [http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=suporte&t=weekl...](http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=suporte&t=weekly#)

I searched: suporte, cadeira, filho, barata, coelho, figueira, orkut.

</comment><comment><USER24> "War" gives an interesting and very regular yearly pattern, aside from the obvious spike in 2003. Part of it might be explained by the summer slowdowns in insurgent activity in Iraq, but the rest of it - especially the drop right at the beginning of the year - mystifies me.

Maybe people avoid searching for anything war-related around the holidays.

<comment><USER25> Lots of patterns are determined by the time in the school year when they are usually studied.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'd like to see a search feature that maximizes "happy accidents," kind of like how major scientific discoveries have been made inadvertently. Goes along with the notion that sometimes it's more important to create conditions in which success can occur rather than just "zero in" on something that you think (possibly inaccurately?) to be successful.

<comment><USER13> A sort of "I'm feeling serendipitous" button.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> The infamous "facebook login" search has some interesting correlations: [http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=facebook+login&...](http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=facebook+login&t=weekly)

Also, there seems to have been a huge drop-off in this search over the last few months.

</comment><comment><USER28> [http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=losing%20weight&...](http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=losing%20weight&e=rental%20homes&t=weekly#)

This is strange:

US Web Search activity for losing weight and rental homes (r=0.9418)

</comment><comment><USER29> I wonder how much (if at all) query autocompletion biases the results. I think they rank higher queries that are spiking right now, to give fresh suggestions, and this may create some feedback effect on spikes.

BTW, how does "google" correlate (0.98) with "kratom"???

</comment><comment><USER30> Are people getting more sick or are they just searching it more?

[http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=sore+throat&t=w...](http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=sore+throat&t=weekly)

</comment><comment><USER31> [http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=id:6n3Ji59CZ3S&...](http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=id:6n3Ji59CZ3S&t=weekly#)

Did hemorrhoids cause the GFC?

</comment><comment><USER32> Anyone care to explain why almost every computer related queries have declined since 2004?

Is it as simple as more "normal" people use the internet?

</comment><comment><USER33> Does anyone know how they can match these so fast?

<comment><USER34> They put it in Shazam...

Seriously though - DFT -> key -> build giant R-tree. You can probably munge the key to get the week offset. Seems like a straightforward mapreduce problem :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> A quick search of programming languages (C#, java, C++, Objective C) is ... disturbing ... :(

</comment><comment><USER2> ... ultra-cool would be rankings by mutual information ...

</comment><comment><USER36> google adwords correlates with

county detention center pain in ln nauseous sharp pain pain in back right side el paso tx constantly take

</comment><comment><USER37> What I see from this is that I could make a lot of correlations seem 95% certain to laymen with this tool that don't mean anything. Almost any term can get an unrelated term matching perfectly. Search "Eco fashion".</comment>


When Russia Won the Space Race: A Cold War History, in Pictures - <AUTHOR> https://undark.org/article/book-review-picturing-the-cosmos/ <comment><USER2> Classic propaganda. Russia lost, get over it.</comment>