Nutrition: Vitamins on trial  - <AUTHOR> http://www.nature.com/news/nutrition-vitamins-on-trial-1.15459 <comment><USER2> Aside: I found the following visualisation fun and somewhat interesting (on supplements and the ailments they might be good for). It's changed a lot over the years and it links off to the underlying spreadsheet.

[http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/snake-o...](http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/snake- oil-supplements/)

<comment><USER3> This is a nice graph (but does the X axis have a meaning?)

But the important thing there is that they're measuring their role as a supplement, however, most of them are needed (and present in a healthy diet), while some aren't

Potassium is a needed element of a diet, and as the article mentioned, there seems to be a lot of deficiency, but maybe a better understanding of deficiency/needed dose is needed.

<comment><USER2> Scroll down the page and you'll see a description.

 _" This image is a "balloon race". The higher a bubble, the greater the evidence for its effectiveness. But the supplements are only effective for the conditions listed inside the bubble.

You might also see multiple bubbles for certain supps. These is because some supps affect a range of conditions, but the evidence quality varies from condition to condition. For example, there's strong evidence that Green Tea is good for cholesterol levels. But evidence for its anti-cancer effects is conflicting. In these cases, we give a supp another bubble."_

edit: Apologies, I misread your comment. The X-axis can be modified on the interactive version to sort by: alphabetically, popularity or scientific interest. The static version is alphabetical. Beyond that, it's just to help spread things out to be readable.

<comment><USER3> I'm asking about the position of the bubble on the X axis (maybe it doesn't mean anything), I know about size and Y axis position.

<comment> hyperion- Alphabetic order.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, looks like it

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This article is a good example of the arrogance around nutrition. A third possibility is that we don't know enough to be able to manufacture vitamins in a factory.

When one eats un-manufactured food

* for a given nutrient there are many different forms of it

* there are many inter-related nutrients that effect each other (nutrient synergy)

Take a look at how many forms of Vitamin A there are on the Wikipedia entry. The idea that we can pick one and load up on it may not be correct. This is true of many minerals also because they need to be bound with something else (magnesium malate, etc).

The odd thing about nutrient synergy is that it is very well established scientific phenomenon. But it just doesn't fit well with our reductionist approach to science.

</comment><comment><USER5> I work for the FMCG (Fast moving consumer goods) and can tell you vitamins do one thing very well: help sell stuff. (Vitamin c is easily added to just about anything to make it 'more healthy' looking. I think vitamin c is probably the most abused added vitamine...

<comment><USER6> There's a bunch of Cosmetic companies using Vitamin E in their products too. With slightly more evidence that it does something... if I remember correctly.

<comment><USER7> Not counting what vitamin E may do to skin (it supposedly helps it), it keeps other oils from going rancid. So, it's a kind of a preservation measure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Our current causal models of how nutrients behave in our bodies are woefully incomplete. Many of the substances referred to under the term "Vitamin X" come in many forms that do different things. It is unsurprising that an isolated compound doesn't help much. MealSquares address exactly this issue. We know we're supposed to eat a variety of whole foods but we don't. So we put a whole bunch of nutrient dense foods in a convenient package. Bioavailability is much much better than supplements.

<comment><USER9> There's also the fact that the absorbtion of a nutrient can depend on what other nutrients are being digested at the same time. For example, adding iron to breakfast cereals is _completely_ ridiculous.

First of all, it's added as pure iron. _You don 't absorb iron in its mineral form_, it needs to be in some organic form to be digested. So that already makes it totally pointless.

But let's ignore that for a moment and pretend we could digest mineral iron. Turns out that if your food contains iron and calcium, the calcium will take precedence and effectively block the absorption of iron. And what do we pour on our breakfast cereals? Oh, right. Milk.

It also can work the other way around: vitamin C helps with the absorption of iron.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> It shouldn't matter whether something is a drug, vitamin, or dietary supplement. What matters is whether there is scientific proof of efficacy for what you are trying to accomplish.

I have long struggled with social anxiety, and under stressful situations severe panic attacks. I found out via examine.com (fantastic website for getting scientific info on supplements) that inositol (vitamin b8) is potentially more potent than SSRIs in treating anxiety disorders. I bought a tub of the stuff and sure enough there has been a dramatic dose-dependent reduction in symptoms.

Unfortunately, because it's "just a vitamin" there is limited data available, so I have no idea how safe it is or whether it has any long-term effects.

</comment><comment><USER11> I wish there were small supplements that contained maybe 10-20% of the recommended amounts of things. I eat reasonably well. Most of the time. So I probably get enough of most of the vitamins and minerals. But I'm sure some I get more than others so a _small_ boost might help overall.

But I don't want to take one of the multivitimins that has 100% of everything in, that just ensures that I have way too much of some things.

<comment><USER2> > _"... that just ensures that I have way too much of some things."_

That only matters if the body cannot quickly flush or discard the things it doesn't need. It's probably different for each type of supplement. As a supporting example, it would be quite difficult to drink too much water as there's an easy mechanism to deal with it [1].

[1] Before anyone leaps on that statement, yes, I'm aware that it _is_ possible to overdose on water. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication)

<comment><USER12> Vitamin A and D are more problematic because they are fat-soluble and the excess can't be flushed away in pee. Other vitamins, like vitamin C, are water-soluble so a little excess is not so bad, but IANAMD. [http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=10...](http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=10736)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> My thinking on vitamins is governed by several principles:

The data is inconclusive

As a recreational and occasionally-competitive athlete in powerlifting, my vitamin requirements are likely abnormal, especially during intensive training

Medical studies usually focus on mortality, whereas I'm also interested in athletic potential and quality of life

I take a multivitamin and sometimes macro-dose on C and E.

<comment><USER14> And no D?

<comment><USER13> I take D in the wintertime.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm not sure I completely understand the criticism of the negative results. All of the supposed biases seem to apply equally to the control group (more healthy to start with, different baseline intake, not completing the course of pills) and to other studies in different areas.

</comment><comment><USER16> The supplements industry is basically snake-oil so far as I can tell. Unless you have a known deficiency, or a horrifically unbalanced diet, as far as anyone can tell they're a waste of time and money.

<comment><USER9> So basically... vitamin D and probably not much else.

<comment><USER16> If you have a known deficiency, sure, but a quick web search will show you that it's arguable what level is deficient, and that it's arguable that supplementation has a good effect on anyone that's not suffering from a few specific conditions.

So I'll repeat - unless you have a known deficiency or a restricted diet, they're a waste of time and money, and the industry is snake-oil.

<comment><USER17> While I agree, at least for Vit. D, the issue is what is considered 'deficiency' is quite low by doctors/blood tests. I don't remember the values, but even doctors that a few years ago laughed (yes, laughed) on my wife and mine face because we we concerned about it and the effects of low Vit. D in her pregnancy are now recommending to their patients some supplementation even for known normal levels. (One doctor told us the only concern for low Vit. D levels were for the +65 year olds for example)

<comment><USER18> It is also dependent on your profession and location. If you are a collegiate or professional athlete living in the Northern US where sunlight exposure is generally bad for 6 months out of the year, then while your Vit D levels may just be below-average (but nothing major for a normal human), this could be a real issue regarding athletic performance.

Supplementation and testing must always be taken in context. The average sedentary human does not have the same caloric needs as the aspiring professional athlete, nor do they have similar supplementation needs either.

<comment><USER17> I fully agree. Athletes, pregnancy, high-stress jobs, depression, etc. Each have different concerns and specific nutrition focusing on them can be quite efficient at mitigating symptoms/improving results. Also location as you mentioned and genetics as well can influence the requirements of certain nutrients.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> years ago, probably also in nature, I read that the only certain thing that the studies found about vitamins was that it made for expensive urine.

<comment><USER5> It's even worse: For decennia it was thought too much vitamin C would exit your body easily by urinating. Instead it's rather harmful: [http://www.nytimes.com/1998/04/09/us/taking-too-much- vitamin...](http://www.nytimes.com/1998/04/09/us/taking-too-much-vitamin-c- can-be-dangerous-study-finds.html)</comment></comment>


Is your product an Ice Cream Glove or a Snuggie? - <AUTHOR> http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/09/is-your-product-an-ice-cream-g.html <comment><USER4> I don't really understand the scorn that people pour on the snuggie. Every time I've bundled under a blanket in the winter I have to either expose my arms (which means exposing my shoulders and half my chest in practice) or not do anything with my hands at all. It sucks, and sleeves are the one thing that makes blankets usable.

My working theory as of now is that the mockers probably live in warm West Coast cities where there's no need for a blanket at all, ever, so they've never personally encountered the problem.

<comment><USER5> I scorn the Snuggie because those who own one are poor consumers. The Slanket is the better buy.

"Get the Slanket if you're serious about staying warm while lying on your couch... Nobody anywhere should buy the Snuggie." (From Gizmodo: [http://gizmodo.com/5190557/ultimate-battle-the-snuggie-vs- sl...](http://gizmodo.com/5190557/ultimate-battle-the-snuggie-vs-slanket-vs- freedom-blanket-vs-blankoat))

<comment><USER6> "Slanket" sounds like a victorian insult, doesn't it?

<comment><USER4> You know, if you just developed one product and rolled it out in different markets with different names, you could do pretty effective A/B testing on which name is more appealing.

<comment><USER7> No you couldn't, suppose your A does better in the first market and your B worse (accounting for size) in the second. You choose A. Which does even worse in second market. B was doing the best job for the second market, it is just that market is less open to your product, B would have totally pwned in the first market.

You have to do the A/B within the same market to get useful results.

<comment><USER4> Use a good enough mix of similar markets and you'll get not-entirely bogus results. The problem you're talking about had occurred to me too, actually, since markets vary widely in climate. Market it in Alaska and people never, not even in the summer, get used to light clothing for long enough to prefer blankets over heavy clothes when on the couch anyway. Market it in Florida and it never gets cold enough to use a blanket. You'd have to control for climate and culture, which across the US would be challenging (to say nothing of the world).

There are ways to do this in the same market though. Something like Vibram FiveFingers is viral enough that you could probably seed like five Vibram wearers in a single market and have each of them refer to the product under a different name. Then track your incoming search queries or orders and match them by market. If more people order "FiveFingers" than "Toe Shoes" than "Foot Gloves" you have yourself a product name.

Well, until someone clever on the internet exposes you. Then you get free publicity as that company that sells the weird shoes and can't decide what to call them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Excellent comparison. I too thought the snuggie was a joke, but a clever part of their strategy was that they launched in late summer/fall...people laughed about it, but by the time it got cold, (and the product became useful) they were already aware of it.

It's also a good lesson in the importance of branding - it has a good name instead of a descriptor, and not a web-2.0-meaningless-name either. Surprisingly, these kind of products been on the market for _10 years_. But 'slanket' sounds like some kind of endangered fish that nobody cares about (edit: as below, it may be a better product, but I still say that a bad name = bad sales) <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleeved_blanket>

Every time I get the urge to mock the snuggie, I just think about the fact they've sold >4 million of them.

</comment><comment><USER6> Ice cream glove - a product that fixes a minor problem that very few people have very rarely.

Snuggie (or the Slanket for the upper crust) - a product that fixes a problem that cold people have while watching television. Probably advertised to them while they're watching television too.

Really can't tell the difference?

<comment><USER9> You only know the Snuggie is for watching TV in hindsight - because customers told us. I think it's a tough call when both products are still the idea phase.

<comment><USER10> Well said. I think part of the reason entrepreneurship is so hard is that we are really good at after-the-fact rationalization.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> One thing that the article misses is that there _is_ a way to tell the difference: do _you_ find your product useful?

Clearly there are major limitations to this heuristic; you might be strange or exceptional in some way that makes the inference fail, and a sample size of one (or even two, three, four etc.) will not give you the same certainty as a large userbase. It is, however, better than nothing.

Note that this is not an "exercise at the whiteboard"—you have to actually build the thing. Given this caveat, their claim holds, but there's a clearly identifiable step (actually, there are several, but this distinction is not necessary for the argument at hand) between scribbling on a whiteboard and releasing a product for public use.

</comment><comment><USER12> > So how can you tell the difference between an Ice Cream Glove and a Snuggie? > You can't.

Steve Jobs can. :-)

I'm only half joking. I know of no name for whatever ethereal quality Jobs possesses, but it is often the difference between a successful entrepreneur and an unsuccessful one.

Building every single product idea to the point that you can get it into customers hands just requires too many resources. You have to narrow down the playing field before you start prototyping, even. It's impossible to let your customers make _all_ the decisions.

Some people just have the innate crystal ball which tells them what customers want and what they don't.

<comment><USER13> I think read an interview with Jobs where said something akin to every product he produced, he produced because he and his team found it super-cool and really wanted to have it - and that they did very little other market research.

IF you can create things like that, that have the wow factor, THEN you're there. But this not the Snuggie OR the Ice Cream Glove, this is the hover board, _once_ you have a real, working copy.

\-- There you have a third point the article leaves out. It's not hard to think of Hover Boards, it's very hard to make them. I suspect that Jobs was in the right place at the right time to rise to the level where he could demand that every product be a Hover Board and get that demand often met. That's not always where entrepreneur wind-up and plenty of folks, more folks, make money with Snuggies than with Hover Boards BUT the conditions for Hover Board Success should not be overlooked.

<comment><USER10> For an alternate POV, see:

[http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com/2009/08/steve- jobs...](http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com/2009/08/steve-jobs- method.html)

In particular, Jobs is quoted as saying "It's not about pop culture, and it's not about fooling people, and it's not about convincing people that they want something they don't. We figure out what we want. And I think we're pretty good at having the right discipline to think through whether a lot of other people are going to want it, too. That's what we get paid to do."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> _So how can you tell the difference between an Ice Cream Glove and a Snuggie? You can't. Only your customers can. There is literally no exercise at the whiteboard you can use to find this out ahead of time. A lot of startups - <USER2> a lot of technologists - make this mistake._

I know I have. We're so used to attacking problems on the whiteboard, we often forget about the one of the biggest problems of all: when to turn off the computer and shut down the whiteboard. Can lead to very expensive mistakes.

</comment><comment><USER15> I love Snuggie. Their video makes me want to buy one because of it's "emotional" marketing. All of the circumstances they're showing - getting up to grab drink, chilling on the couch while watching tv etc..I can see myself doing.

</comment><comment><USER16> I didn't watch the Ali G video, but I could actually see myself buying an ice cream glove if it was presented(read marketed) well.. I like ice cream and I hate using up napkins after eating ice cream.

</comment><comment><USER17> The Snuggie is actually a great product if you often laptop in a cold house. It keeps you warm but still lets you use your arms. Although I much prefer the slightly more expensive Slanket. This review of all the products on the market probably started as a joke (they include a review of a robe warn backward), but the info turns out to be good: [http://community.cbs47.tv/blogs/techtracker/archive/2009/03/...](http://community.cbs47.tv/blogs/techtracker/archive/2009/03/31/3796903.aspx)

</comment><comment><USER18> Please oreilly, do some research. The Snuggie wasn't untested; they ripped off the already somewhat successful Slanket and did a muc

</comment><comment><USER19> Same as this one in different language, interesting that people keep rediscovering this.

[http://dondodge.typepad.com/the_next_big_thing/2006/03/is_yo...](http://dondodge.typepad.com/the_next_big_thing/2006/03/is_your_product.html)

</comment><comment><USER20> Couldn't I just put my dressing gown on backwards?

<comment><USER21> Indeed, you could just put it on forwards. Seems like it would be warmer as it wraps around properly. The main difference is it won't cover your feet - <USER3> of course this allows you to walk. And there are these newfangled things called "slippers" that could help. I'm off to make an infomercial about how those snuggies are OK, but a pain every time I need to get up and walk somewhere...

<comment><USER7> I don't think their market moves that much, slippers might be OTT.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> why don't people wear sweaters and sweat pants over their clothes? and a hat. so much heat is lost through the head! if i did have a snuggie the first thing i'd do is sew on a hood.

when i go pond swimming in the fall and spring (in NewEngland), i didn't buy a wetsuit. i just wear the clothes i already have into the water. and sturdy hat. man, the hat makes all the difference.

</comment><comment><USER23> Hm. Now I wish Brahms handed out gloves with their cones. Especially kid-sized ones.

*edited for poor grammer

</comment><comment><USER24> It's like they took the design for Obi-Wan's jedi robe and made it blue.

</comment><comment><USER25> "So how can you tell the difference between an Ice Cream Glove and a Snuggie?"

Personally? Marketing.

<comment><USER13> Not entirely...

The ice glove is something people in the USA just wouldn't use because no body wears gloves of any sort and the "use-value" of wearing something all the time to protect yourself from something you do only occasionally is negative.

The Snuggie is useful and more importantly, it's use is immediately obvious, in the sense that you use it like a blank but with some added benefits (some of which you can get from a bathrobe, especially wool bathrobes went out of style a while back). The Snuggie is still mostly marketing, since it doesn't just there among the zillions of clothing types out there.

The lesson is that if you have something that offers little originality and value, it's best to offer in a warm, feel-good package that people can understand. Indeed, I suspect the package and the understanding where the originality of the product _starts_ and the rest of it is just ... filler. (note the review that mentions how the Snuggie is simply an incredibly poor- quality effort at meeting the need it highlights).

If the ice-clean glove was really cheap and dispossible, you might be able to sell it to ... ice clean vendors. That might actually be a product, not necessarily good but hey.

<comment><USER25> Er, I'm not quite sure you read the article, which basically propped up a kinda-lame joke intended to poke fun at VCs, then missed the point of the joke entirely while explaining its punchline.

I say marketing because the Ice Cream Glove is a joke, whereas the Snuggie has marketing.

I'm fairly sure that if you marketed the Ice Cream Glove with shouty ads in Australia, it'd sell like hotcakes.

Example: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7ZAGE0AIcE></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is hardware optimised Linux possible? - <AUTHOR> I always read about macOS running harmoniously with Apple's hardware because they are "optimised" for each other. I am not gonna lie, I don't understand how that works, but I can vouch for it. I do find that a low-end MacBook Air feels much faster than a similarly-specced machine running Windows.
Snappiness and speed, however, are not a problem with Linux. My issue with Linux is battery management. Running Linux on a laptop sucks for me.
I have tried multiple distributions on multiple devices, and the only ugly thing about these experiences was the battery life getting hit drastically. I am speaking 50% battery life here.
I want to jump on the Linux train, but I am too addicted to the battery life a MacBook offers me. I don't want to run multiple operating systems that change with context. I want to have one consistent experience regardless of the work I am doing.
Is it possible to create the same harmony that Apple makes for its hardware and software to work well together with Linux? Is it difficult in the sense that it would require a huge amount of research and development in completely new hardware? Has it been done by anyone before? Are my questions valid at all, and not just naive babbles? <comment><USER2> Just as about everything: you take care of it. See e.g. [https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Power_management](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Power_management)

<comment><USER3> You might optimize the hardware with arch but security is another game all together. I've never heard of anyone running production webfacing services on an arch Linux server

<comment><USER2> Security is not a goal in and of itself, true. Though minimal patches ensure that most issues are caused by upstream, not Arch itself.

[https://security.archlinux.org/](https://security.archlinux.org/)

[https://bugs.archlinux.org/index.php?string=&project=1&type%...](https://bugs.archlinux.org/index.php?string=&project=1&type%5B%5D=&sev%5B%5D=&pri%5B%5D=&due%5B%5D=&reported%5B%5D=&cat%5B%5D=13&status%5B%5D=open&percent%5B%5D=&opened=&dev=&closed=&duedatefrom=&duedateto=&changedfrom=&changedto=&openedfrom=&openedto=&closedfrom=&closedto=&do=index)</comment></comment></comment>


In the UK? Don't secure your wifi - <AUTHOR> http://revk.www.me.uk/2010/04/dont-secure-your-wifi.html

<comment><USER3> This sounds ridiculous but in fact a link in the article clarifies: <http://aaisp.net.uk/legal-cp.html>

"If you are a subscriber then the Digital Economy Act means we will have to pass on copyright infringement reports we get about your IP addresses; count those reports; and maybe take measures to block or restrict your internet service. If you are a communications provider or service provider we do not have to do any of those things as they only apply to subscribers."

Although it's worth noting this ISP doesn't require you to have unsecured wifi to be a communications provider: "A communications provider is anyone that is providing a communications service to anyone else, whether other people in their house or office, visitors wanting to check their email"

Sounds like just about anyone qualifies as long as they have a wifi network and go to the effort of telling their ISP they're a "communications provider".

<comment><USER4> And how many ISPs go along with that? It's definitely against my ToS to resale my bandwidth

<comment><USER5> ISPs may change their ToSes to allow it as it's less hassle for them than enforcement of the DEB.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This one of those legal logic puzzles that geeks love to do, but that lawyers roll their eyes at.

He uses a series of statutes to show that if you have public wifi you exist in a legal gray are between subscriber and service provider, and therefore you can't be monitored by your ISP or held accountable for copyright infringement. Good luck with that.

<comment><USER7> I didn't read this as an exercise as avoiding accountability for copyright infringement, I read it as a thought exercise that picks apart the Digital Economy Bill for the joke that it is.

I would like to fill the House of Commons with all those who voted for the bill and have someone read out said thought exercise to see how many of them remotely understand it.

<comment><USER8> Do you read the Hansard? Read the comments by Lord Whitty as per the digital economy bill. Ministers/Lords are making the points we want discussed, however in a lot of cases they are ignored due to the power of the whip.

<comment><USER9> The minister that promoted the bill typo'd that IP in IP address referred to 'intellectual property'

Freudian, or just cretinous? let's hope the Lib Dems get their way and repeal the bloody thing. [http://www.boingboing.net/2010/04/08/minister-for- digital.ht...](http://www.boingboing.net/2010/04/08/minister-for-digital.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Along with following those excellent instructions, you can make it even more rock solid:

If you have rights to register your address as a business then you can easily do this through your own limited company. Make yourself the company secretary and give yourself 1 share of stock. If you are on BT (or similar with a business internet plan), you can easily switch to a business account - <USER2> is usually the same price. With BT they automatically enable your new business hub as open on the BT Openzone (Disable it, and unsecure your wifi). Register with companies house with your SIC code as 64200 (Telecommunications). You should be good to go.

</comment><comment><USER11> In the UK? Don't unsecure your wifi, but have a word with your MP.

Some background on who voted for it: [http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/apr/08/digital- eco...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/apr/08/digital-economy-bill- passes-third-reading)

<comment><AUTHOR> I think the point of the article was to point out the ignorance of those who drafted the bill, not as a practical suggestion.

I'm sure that if you tried this, our friendly authorities would find something else to accuse you of.

<comment><USER11> I take your point, and as a voter, it's really informing my decision. That's a practical suggestion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This sounds a bit like the idea that you don't have to pay income tax in the US... You might think you're safe, but the courts will probably disagree.

<comment><USER13> I followed the TPB trial,and I have read some things about Irwin Schiff, and what I've seen is exactly what you are saying. Even though some people find loopholes that should allow them to do X, the courts simply dismiss the loopholes as if they weren't there. Ultimately, those who are closest to the enforcement of the laws, make the laws, it's not the the politicians, it's the police. Do not misunderstand me, politicians do make the laws, but what I am trying to say is that it's not the politicians who will interpre them or enforce them, the ultimate responsability to enforce a law falls on the police, if they fail to enforce a certain law, it might aswell not exist. Law is force.

<comment><USER14> Richard Elmore wrote in 1980: "The emergence of implementation as a subject for policy analysis coincides closely with the discovery by policy analysts that decisions are not self-executing. Analysis of the policy choices matters very little if the mechanisms for implementing those choices is poorly understood. In answering the question, 'What percentage of the work of achieving a desired governmental action is done when the preferred analytic alternative has been identified?' Allison estimated that, in the normal case, it was about 10 percent, leaving the remaining 90 percent in the realm of implementation."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm not 100% sure of my own status. I use bethere.co.uk (now part of O2), but I'm a Be Pro customer, which means I can provide access to anyone merely located at my endpoint, rather than residing at my endpoint (which is the case for non-Pro customers). Similarly, as a Pro customer I could be running a business (not just a sole trader) and using this connection as the means for employees to access the web. Doesn't that mean that I'm technically more in the line of provider than subscriber?

FWIW, I run two APs, one with WPA2 and one open. The open one is routed through another machine (DNS / DHCP / etc. server) which keeps track of mappings between IP leases and MAC addresses, but doesn't do any accounting or snooping other than that.

</comment><comment><USER16> Even if this is legally correct, I expect that they will close down this loophole within a few years. The effects of the Digital Economy Bill have yet to be felt, but one thing that seems certain is that potentially a lot of erroneous allegations or disconnections could take place. Perhaps a more proactive way to deal with this is to build up a legal defence fund for people wrongly accused of copyright violation and to vigorously contest such cases.

In the longer term, and assuming that current trends continue, aggressive enforcement of copyrights will be very good for creative commons media and free/open source software.

</comment><comment><USER17> It seems unlikely that anyone will be able to buy service as a communications provider in the same fine-grained quantities in which a subscriber can buy it. I don't know how pricing is generally structured for ISPs, but I would guess that if you're buying service as a communications provider you are assumed to have at least x number of customers, and will be charged accordingly.

Cute idea, though.

<comment><USER18> "It seems unlikely that anyone will be able to buy service as a communications provider in the same fine-grained quantities in which a subscriber can buy it"

It is simple. Assuming the Ts&Cs don't define you as a subscriber, you simply write an official letter to your ISP stating that you are purchasing their service as a communications provider and not a subscriber and that upon receipt of the letter they acknowledge their notification of this.

Pop it in the post with registered mail (so you have proof they received it) and you are done.

Whether it stands up in court, though, is another thing...</comment></comment>


One month with React Native - <AUTHOR> https://www.whitesmith.co/blog/one-month-with-react-native/ <comment><USER2> Coming from a background of WebViews hybrid development (Cordova/Ionic), React Native simply blew my mind. How I see it is you get the UI advantages of doing native development, with the advantages of using React for the front-end just like I would for the web and going the native way whenever you need to.

I don't think all projects should be done with it as native development still has its place for certain kind of apps, but for a typical thin-client app wrapping a web service, it's really great.

<comment><USER3> Even for thicker client apps react native is a decent option as you can always drop down to native code if you need to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm going through a similar experience. I have some experience with Objective C and iOS, almost nothing with Android and I have good experience with (non- mobile) Java. Basically I have a week to build Android app which should be quickly ported to iOS. So far my experience is mixed. React Native feels like very powerful tech. But standard library is very minimal, tooling looks very fragile (it works, but I'm very afraid of the moment when those thousand node- gradle scripts will break), things like navigation look very complicated (I investigated react-navigation, had quick glance over other solutions and finally decided to roll my own tiny navigation and animated menu). Modern JavaScript is OK, I guess, though it's so far from proper typed language with proper tooling like Java.

What I wish to exist is something like Kotlin with react-native like library, with single good cross-platform library of components and good solid tooling.

Facebook developers are awesome, but they are paid for Facebook apps, not for making good library, IMO, good library is just a by-product which they kindly shared and it feels everywhere.

Overall I think React Native is the best cross-platform solution out there. It doesn't carry overhead of bundled HTML webview, its view is advanced enough for complex GUI, it provides smooth animations and React is something very interesting actually. Also you can push updates without app-store approvals, if I got that right (I'm not sure about Apple). For apps built in haste with multiple bug-fixes every hours it's important.

<comment><USER5> Navigation is indeed a hairy beast right now. We're working hard to get React- navigation in shape for 1.0. I think the solutions from Wix and Airbnb are fantastic -- but the community deserves a really polished, JS-only solution that's ready for production. I hope you take another look at React-Nav when we release 1.0!

Disclaimer: I work on React Native, react-navigation, etc @ Expo (expo.io)

<comment><USER6> > Kotlin

isn't Reason supposed to fill this role?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> >But all of this doesn't come without a price for someone that, like me, is a heavy user of the ctrl+space code completion features of both Xcode and Android Studio.

What about using Visual Studio Code with the compiler set on 'checkJs'? I've just started using TypeScript and I don't think I can ever go back to raw JS.

<comment><USER8> Same. I evangelize TypeScript whenever I can. I don't think I'll ever be as efficient in JavaScript as I am in TypeScript, now that I've tried it. Granted, it has its quirks, but (especially when writing React) it's invaluable to me.

<comment><USER9> How does typescript compare to flow? I'd love to see a comparison with pros n cons. I haven't tried either yet and I'm curious if you have any recommendations re resources to read.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > Next, plan your Redux store ahead. I feel like I made the mistake of > overusing it. Almost every property of my app is managed by Redux and this > results in large reducers and many many actions to control all that. It's > very important to figure if some prop will be needed outside a certain > component or not and, if not, keep that inside that component.

How can you possibly know _in advance_ if a prop will be needed outside a certain component (you haven't written yet) or not? This seems to imply a suggestion to completely architect the entire app (what components exist, how they relate) before you write much code. And then somehow being correct, even as you develop the app and add new features etc.

I haven't done anything with React Native, and am only a beginner at web React, but this kind of data management architecture has definitely been one of my biggest challenges. I find it hard to change things once they're there, but hard to know what should be there up front.

<comment><USER11> >>> How can you possibly know _in advance_ if a prop will be needed outside a certain component (you haven't written yet) or not? This seems to imply a suggestion to completely architect the entire app (what components exist, how they relate) before you write much code. And then somehow being correct, even as you develop the app and add new features etc.

In engineering, that's what we call the design phase.

<comment><USER12> That's cool, is there a "user story" for that?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Well regarding IDE's i'd say try WebStorm (by JetBrains).

It has the best React support ever since React existed, and every IDE feature imaginable. And also, its basically the same IDE as Android Studio, so a very small step for a App programmer.

</comment><comment><USER14> Great post. We have been building our native apps on React Native for about half a year now and it has been awesome. Completely agree with this whole article.

Related: I would highly recommend trying out/using Expo.io if you are new to React Native and just want to get something working incredibly fast/easy to "hack" around with. It's a fantastic wrapper around React Native to jumpstart the whole dev experience.

</comment><comment><USER15> I have been working on a large React Native project for several months now. It's great for quick prototyping but once we started doing heavy database stuff it got really slow, especially on Android. Of course we could have ported that part to native code, but that kind of defeats the purpose, doesn't it?

<comment><USER16> Assuming you don't do heavy work in the UI-loop: I find react-native's bridge memory-management on Android rather questionable: [0]

They make heavy use of structures in native memory for argument-passing between JavaScript and Java. Once again someone thought they could outperform the JVM with their C-skills. My critique was dismissed :-/

Even though I showed that giving up RN's native memory and just sending serialised Json-Strings on the Heap over the bridge is 50-100% faster (and doesn't interfere with GC, so it should have less lags as well): [1]

The image library they use, Fresco, does the same. There are many year-old bug-reports open regarding OutOfMemory-errors and crashes, and RN apps tend to get unstable with more images. My bug-report [2] was dismissed as well without proper explanation.

But: At least some guy or girl didn't have to give their custom code up for to the better JVM. _scnr_

I use Strings for arguments in production and it's faster, so maybe try that out. :)

[0] [https://github.com/facebook/react- native/issues/8780](https://github.com/facebook/react-native/issues/8780)

[1] [https://github.com/facebook/react- native/issues/10504](https://github.com/facebook/react-native/issues/10504)

[2] [https://github.com/facebook/fresco/issues/1363](https://github.com/facebook/fresco/issues/1363)

<comment><USER17> While there is a vm of sorts on Android, there's no jvm. Is your comment about Android or the (traditional) jvm?

<comment><USER16> I did all the benchmarks on Android ART. It's not the JVM, but blocking GC is an inherent design problem of finalizers that can't be fixed on any VM.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Has anyone had experience with NativeScript? Currently trying to compare that to React Native for our next project.

<comment><USER19> I'd like to see the feedback on this as well. It seems very promising but I wonder what the real-world performance and dev/build/release experience is like.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Why trust this framework when it can't even get a simple iOS navigation bar right. At one point you need to at least write a "bridge" in Swift or Java because RN did not cover even over 50% of the SDK.

</comment><comment><USER21> React Native vs Xamarin?

<comment><USER22> Very different approaches. Personally, I'm most intrigued by what Google will show of Flutter at I/O this year.

<comment><USER23> Also very different approach. Flutter renders all graphics much closer to the metal instead of binding to platform's UI APIs so you're effectively shipping the UI toolkit that will be the same on jelly bean and iOS 10 (or different if you want)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> So far it looks like the consensus is that React Native is good for quick prototypes or one-offs that aren't expected to have a long lifecycle.

</comment><comment><USER25> Can someone point me towards some more in-depth explorations or books on this topic?

<comment><USER9> I just gave a talk on this at uikonf. Is their anything in particular you would like to know?

<comment><USER25> Not in particular. I appreciate the suggestion of the official documentation. I do need to rtfm, however after that I will be looking for further examples and explanation. Oh, but if there is any useful tooling I should be aware of that would be quite helpful.

<comment><USER9> Everything by tal kol from wix re performance optimization is a must read. I also recommend checking out infinite reds GitHub.

The Facebook React Native group is also a great resource.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Still happy with Jquery-mobile , is Easy ,OOP and Better. React.js is a lost of time as many other framework that try to copy the javaBean concept. When browser support completly ES6 all this framework will be forgotten

<comment><USER27> But by then everyone currently using es6 will be writing es7 which will be compiled to webassembly with an optimising compiler...</comment></comment>


Data alignment: Straighten up and fly right (2005) - <AUTHOR> https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/pa-dalign/ <comment><USER2> Oh, the 68K, PPC and Altivec. Brings back memories.

However, it really is just memories. Nowadays, total memory consumption _usually_ trumps alignment, so it tends to be better to pack your data as tightly as possible and let the CPU extract the bits it needs, which particularly x86 is very good at. Packing is particularly effective if manage to get everything onto a cache line.

Reason being the gulf between CPU and memory performance. If you save just one memory access you can pay for that with a lot of internal CPU operations.

Conversely, if you have a structure shared between different threads/cores, you probably want to make sure they do not share a cache line.

And yes, atomics should definitely be aligned.

<comment><USER3> ARM still requires aligned access, I believe. And splitting a single variable across word or cache boundaries is still a bad idea.

More interesting is the question of whether to do traditional C struct style "row first" data layout, or whether to do "column first" data layout which may be better for use with SIMD.

<comment><USER4> > ARM still requires aligned access, I believe.

ARMv7 supports unaligned access but not on all operations (e.g. LDM or STM don't support it). And the operation will simply be split into multiple aligned accesses, which are not necessarily atomic.

ARM64 further expands this, according to ARM

> Except for exclusive and ordered accesses, all loads and stores support the > use of unaligned addresses when accessing normal memory.

On ARMv5, some operations could be given unaligned addresses but would round them down, and possibly rotate the result.

ARMv6 is/was switchable between ARMv7 and ARMv5 behaviour.

Also ARMv7+ can be configured to fault on all unaligned access.

<comment><USER5> [https://blog.einval.com/2019/01/07#rebuilding_on_arm64](https://blog.einval.com/2019/01/07#rebuilding_on_arm64) says the Linux kernel sends SIGBUS on unaligned accesses on arm64.

<comment><USER6> That is for arm32 userspace binaries being run under an arm64 kernel, and applies only to the handful of instructions which in Armv8 still generate alignment faults. With an arm32 kernel you could configure the kernel to fix those up as well; with an arm64 kernel you cannot.

This only really matters for broken programs which do unaligned accesses without telling the compiler about it (which can also trip you up, though more rarely, under x86, if the compiler decides to use a simd instruction). As Steve says, it only affects a really tiny set of programs, which can have their bugs fixed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Data alignment is not just for memory: it is still very important on storage - especially SSDs.

Even in 2019, finding out the erase size is still a problem.

Personally, I run a benchmark script whenever I provision a server. It explore a small set of values to find the ideal filesystem parameters.

It is not as complete as doing several iteration of random 4k iops with fio on the full partition, but a good enough rule of thumb to avoid misconfigurations.

<comment><USER8> Would you mind sharing your benchmark script?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> get it</comment>


Finland is in trouble, and it blames Apple for everything - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/280137/finland-is-in-trouble-and-it-blames-apple-for-everything/

<comment><USER2> Yea, Apple, and not the corporate board of Nokia that hired Stephen Elop and gave him contract that basically guaranteed a huge windfall if Nokia gets sold.</comment>


Ask HN: Where do you host your non-static sites? - <AUTHOR> I was triggered by the similar static site post currently on the front page: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13021722
Often clients insist on Wordpress or some other stack which means we cannot use static sites which we would normally prefer to do these days.
Sometimes we'll go as far as a full WPEngine install if the client doesn't mind paying. If the budget is tricky we'll run on a small DO box.
Curious to learn who everyone else is going to for non-static sites. <comment><USER2> I've had good luck with RamNode and Digital Ocean of late. Depends on traffic, requirements, etc. millions of factors

<comment><AUTHOR> Hadn't heard of RamNode, thanks.

How's the network on DO? We've found it can be fairly slow.

Also, what sort of stack are you typically running?

<comment><USER2> I find DOs servers a bit slower than RamNode though I haven't done anything more than older informal tests. I still prefer DOs excellent admin panel.

For quick hacks that are a mix of static and dynamic content, like publishing, I still think PHP has the biggest bang for the buck. It's almost always preinstalled and it's so open ended you can custom build a framework tuned specifically for your task. Plus it sucks so openly that you're not gonna spend 40 hours pre-engineering (most products flop anyway).

Anything to release or collab on would be Node. So much momentum there. But for simple web stuff I don't see much advantage.

For stuff that isn't online and is more number focused I like Q. After the tremendous learning curve and mind melting, it's a much better (and simpler!) conceptual model of data manipulation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Been using Linode for ages. Excellent performance and support. Typically Python (Django, Twisted, aiohttp).</comment>


Fred Wilson: Why I Don't Like Stock Buybacks  - <AUTHOR> http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/06/why-i-dont-like-stock-buybacks.html

<comment><USER2> It's not that he doesn't like buybacks as opposed to dividends. It's that he doesn't like growth companies returning capital to investors through any means.

All of his criticisms would apply equally to dividends, with the extra criticism that dividends are a gift to Uncle Sam because they are taxed higher in most tax brackets.

<comment><USER3> At least under current law (may not be extended), dividends from most stock held for at least two months count as "qualified dividends", which are taxed at long-term capital gains rates.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> dupe:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1460512></comment>


Keeping Mars Earth-free - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/06/science/mars-catharine-conley-nasa-planetary-protection-officer.html <comment><USER2> We are only about 4.4 billion years too late. Mars has be bombarded by Earth rocks (ejecta from large meteor events) for billions of years. Some of these rocks were ejected under conditions where bacterial spores inside them can survive the trip to Mars. I fully expect we will find life on Mars that looks just like Earth life.

There is actually a good case to be made that life originated on Mars given that it had liquid water on the surface earlier than the Earth.

<comment><USER3> > Some of these rocks were ejected under conditions where bacterial spores > inside them can survive the trip to Mars. I fully expect we will find life > on Mars that looks just like Earth life.

I hope that, if we do find life on Mars, we are able to discern whether it came from Earth at some point or originated on Mars.

<comment><USER2> This is actually my biggest worry with the search for life on Mars - if we find life and it is related to life on Earth is it native or is it Earth-life contamination that came with the spaceship? There will be no easy way to tell.

<comment><USER4> Genomics. Organisms from current Earth and early Earth should have vastly different genome.

It would be more tricky to determine if life originates from Earth or Mars if we make an assumption that early life went through many iterations.

<comment><USER2> If only it were so simple. The problem is we are not sure of all the genetic diversity of the life we have on Earth, especially the extremophile bacteria and archea [1] that are the most likely to survive the trip to Mars as contaminants.

My best guess is we will find organisms related to microbes on Earth. The really interesting thing is we might find organisms that are more distantly related than the our current last common ancestor. This would be amazing as we would then know that life originated on Mars and came to Earth later.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> cam- We didn't keep continents Europe/Asia free when we populated them. Horses, sheep, wheat, etc to the Americas and Australia were important advances.

I bet when we start populating other worlds, they will become Terran for the simple reason that the ecosystem around us is great for supporting us.

<comment><USER5> > the ecosystem around us is great for supporting us.

Except we suck at supporting it. The idea of humanity terraforming another planet are hilarious, we can't run one that was handed to us running and self- sufficient.

<comment><USER6> Introducing a dominant civilization to a planet would more likely cause a sort of regression towards the mean in ecosystem diversity, at least over the short- to medium-term. In a highly complex and delicately-balanced ecosystem (i.e. Earth) it tends to reduce diversity as species and ecosystems are pushed aside, whereas in a non-existent ecosystem (i.e. Mars) it would cause something to exist in the first place, even if the system isn't as complex as what evolved on Earth over billions of years.

There would certainly be more life on Mars after it was colonized, not less - even if that at first only consists of a few dozen species used to support humans.

<comment> guard-of-terra You should not overstate how Earth ecosystem is "delicately balanced". Large deserts where vegetation used to be. Ice ages (and inter-ice periods) really messed up northern fauna: all megafauna went extinct, wooly rhinos, mammoths, sabertooth tigers, etc. Without them the ecosystem is incomplete and disbalanced.

<comment><USER7> Compared to what? What parameters are you 'balancing?'

<comment> guard-of-terra In my opinion, balanced ecosystem is one that a) diverse, b) produces as much as life as possible for a given landscape.

Why diverse? Diverse ecosystems are more resilient against shocks, changes and diseases.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> To cut to the chase we should ignore these concerns and begin plans for terraforming Mars. If you really want to go through the ins and outs of why this is the end-game, please read Red/Green/Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson.

<comment><USER9> Sometimes I think we should just let the Russians or Chinese take over planetary exploration.

I'm not sure what it is about Europeans and Americans where we want to preserve things. If we're going to colonize Mars, contamination will happen, no question. Maybe we'll eradicate everything unique to the planet, but it's inevitable.

If we are going to survive as a species, we'll need peoples who are willing to push forth without pussyfooting.

Sure, it's nice of you want to study pristine environments but I don't think you can maintain the environment pristine once you have humans there in any way.

<comment><USER10> My take: the Grand Tour ending into Italy, the Roman ruins and the resulting cult of ancient stuff as time delivered them to us. That's why it's anathema in the western world to even think about restoring the Colosseum to its original form (I'd love to hear its architect about it) or painting the Greek statues with their original colors [http://io9.com/5616498/ultraviolet-light- reveals-how-ancient...](http://io9.com/5616498/ultraviolet-light-reveals-how- ancient-greek-statues-really-looked)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The planet has lost a profound majority of it's water and consequently it is ostensibly dead or dying a slow death. Whatever microbes are alive there one must suspect that is probably less diverse than it once was when Mars had an ocean. Perhaps adding more bio diversity to that planet might even help it. Of course we should add this diversity once we find out what life is there if any so as to make responsible choices.

<comment><USER12> That's on the surface, at least. We keep learning how life on our own planet exists places far below sea level, and not just in the ocean. The same could be true for any number of celestial bodies in the known universe.

<comment><USER2> Actually most life is found below the surface of the earth - you can find bacteria (and archea) a few km down in the earth.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> So what happens if people get to Mars, are they in control of the planet? Or does the country that ships them out there maintain them as constituents?

<comment><USER14> That's basically what happened with the discovery of the new world - maintaining control with slow communication and inability to project power over the seperating distance doesn't really work

<comment><USER15> North America had considerable natural resources which allowed the colonies to be self-sufficient in short order. An equivalent transition to sovereignty could still happen on Mars but it would probably look much different and last much longer.</comment></comment></comment>


Math For Programmers - <AUTHOR> http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2006/03/math-for-programmers.html? <comment><USER2> "Raise your hand if you can do long division on paper, right now. Hands? Anyone? I didn't think so."

Is he serious? I knew how to do that in 3rd grade and a different version of it in 4th grade and on, and have never forgotten. How can somebody not know how to do long division? Please tell me I'm not the only one?

<comment><USER3> I can barely remember. But I just did a simple problem on paper (123 / 4) and I've still got it! :P it's 30r3 or 30.75...I hope.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'd recommend reading Knuth's TAOCP.

Example: Knuth introduces the Grey code permutation of the natural numbers in The Art of Computer Programming, Volume 4 Fascicle 2, Generating All Tuples and Permutations (2005). Knuth gives the following equations defining Grey code sequences of length 2^n

G_0 = () [the empty list]

G_{n+1} = 0G_n 1G_n^R

where 0G_n means prepend 0 to everything in the list G_n, and G_n^R means reverse the list G_n, and juxtaposition is concatenation of sequences. Successive elements of the list differ in precisely one bit position: this is obvious inductively, since if G_n does, so do 0G_n and 1G_n^R, and since the last element of G_n is the first element of G_n^R, the last element of 0G_n differs from the first element of 1G_n^R in the first digit. So this is a Grey code.

We get

G_0 = ()

G_1 = (0 1)

G_2 = (00 01 11 10)

G_3 = (000 001 011 010 110 111 101 100)

...

The sequence of G_n's induces a map g:N-->N recursively by

g(0) = 0

g(k) = 2^n + g(2^n -1 - r)

for k = 2^n + r with 0≤r<2^n,

Here's an algorithm in Lisp for the function g.

The function MSB below kills off everything but the high-order bit of the binary representation of a non-negative integer.

(DEFUN MSB (n) (LET (( x (LOGAND (- n 1 ) n))) (COND ((EQUAL x 0) n) (T (MSB x)))))

The MSB can be used to compute the Grey permutation GREY:N-->N

(DEFUN GREY (n) (COND ((= n 0) 0) ((= n 1) 1) (T (LET ((x (MSB n))) (+ x (GREY (- (- x 1) (- n x))))))))

Restricting the domain and range of the GREY map to [0, 2^n -1] is a (well- defined) permutation; for example:

CL-USER> (MAPCAR #'GREY '(0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15))

(0 1 3 2 6 7 5 4 12 13 15 14 10 11 9 8)

And for fun, in my CMU common lisp system (under SLIME, the Superior Lisp Interpretation Mode for Emacs):

CL-USER> (GREY 192873918237981273981279381729837127365712653712301098 102938891278389123112340983748920192834783201982374839201293874839201 982374893029872839409281729304983729102983748937291802357893465475648 576478658379128347635847658376485736451056105616516506105874568365836 503856836487134783748374817302893017308238713702873028730817387283462 864875387568475683756837458476583765847658376583746583764857364857638 4756387465837465917594857)

286196834290309414650371370191599291822213999612489335464107566352602 435648412184492184118063912008181215334900454318743739932993272952760 387272995403870156929179002537545706221256001587464111519239740005353 408236614872495338180309330035229762434762038407959020204331793558334 836843659189298641925497207483471043513624920173604726882678415424392 178475727939609277383096934996157278859779639219997432292981867624407 5270836893

Much larger numbers can be handled.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm pissed that I'm forgetting discrete math. I loved it, but lost my textbook at some point.

I can still do long division but dividing 2651300296 by 46532 by hand is not on the list of Things I Want To Spend Any More Of My Life Doing.

Anyway Steve Yegge is my hero. He rips into Java and C++ better than anyone. I think my favorite is when he cited "Dr. Gary Larson's" definitive paper on static type systems.

<http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2006/10/egomania-itself.html>

</comment><comment><USER6> While I think he makes some good recommendations, his listing of "Advanced algebra" under "High school" makes me think he might not have gone that deep down the math rabbit hole.</comment>


Power of Machine Learning in Excel: Predict Olympics Results - <AUTHOR> https://invrea.com/blog/olympics_predictions.php <comment><AUTHOR> Check out the way state-of-the-art machine learning modeling is possible now in Excel for any spreadsheet. See the example of predicting Rio 2016 gold medal counts.

<comment><USER2> How are you making those predictions in Excel?

<comment><AUTHOR> Each spreadsheet is a probabilistic generative model, and we allow you to express uncertainty in some cells using functions like GAUSSIAN, NEAR, CHOICE, and also incorporate already known data using function ACTUAL.

Then, the plugin generates valid scenarios given all assumptions and actuals. You can explore scenarios, see averages (expected values), enhance the model, and repeat it until you are satisfied with the prediction quality.</comment></comment></comment>


Banks Add Card Controls to Their Mobile Banking Apps - <AUTHOR> http://www.americanbanker.com/issues/178_66/banks-add-card-controls-to-mobile-banking-apps-1058113-1.html

<comment><USER2> Simple has allowed this since its inception. Nice to see other banks following.</comment>


The Future of Computing Is Analog - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/s/story/the-future-of-computing-is-analog-e758471fbfe1 <comment><USER2> With respect, I think most comments here are missing Dyson's point (perhaps because it was somewhat poorly made).

I don't think his point is about whether the integrator and analog electronics will be resurgent in the next century, and analog hardware will be common.

I think Dyson is talking about the complex network of the modern world, where humans interact with computing machine, and with each other - humans influence computers, and computers come back around and influence humans. I think his "future of computing" is a future where human society and culture is decided based on the interplay between humans and our machines, and this decision is an "analog computation" made by a massive scale hybrid computer that no one has intentionally designed or understands.

You can see examples of this already, with youtube recommendation engines influencing the belief systems of millions (billions?) of people across all kinds of subjects, and with our thoughts frequently dominated by whatever happens to show up on our phones.

<comment><USER3> Oh absolutely you're correct here.

> In analog computing, complexity resides in network topology, not in code. > Information is processed as continuous functions of values, such as voltage > and relative pulse frequency, rather than by logical operations on discrete > strings of bits.

...

> Individually deterministic finite-state processors, running finite codes, > are forming large-scale, nondeterministic, non-finite-state metazoan > organisms running wild in the real world. The resulting hybrid > analog/digital systems treat streams of bits collectively, the way the flow > of electrons is treated in a vacuum tube, rather than individually, as bits > are treated by the discrete-state devices generating the flow. Bits are the > new electrons. Analog is back, and its nature is to assume control.

> Say, for example, you build a system to map highway traffic in real time > simply by giving cars access to the map in exchange for reporting their own > speed and location at the time. The result is a fully decentralized control > system. Nowhere is there any controlling model of the system except the > system itself.

...

> Even in the age of all things digital, this cannot be defined in any > strictly logical sense, because meaning, among humans, isn't fundamentally > logical. The best you can do, once you have collected all possible answers, > is to invite well-defined questions and compile a pulse-frequency weighted > map of how everything connects. Before you know it, your system will not > only be observing and mapping the meaning of things, it will start > constructing meaning as well. In time, it will control meaning, in the same > way the traffic map starts to control the flow of traffic even though no one > seems to be in control.

In these passages, "The Computer" that's running is the network, a meta- computer, made up of the individual "computing elements" if you will that are the physical pieces of hardware that most anyone would point to and call "a computer". And as you've recognized, that's Dyson's point: No matter what those little elements are made of, the overall picture is analog. If we want to understand how "Algorithms" are influencing the world, we can't think of them as "discrete computing algorithms". And finally, the emergent behaviour out of this can lead to large-scale control effected on our society without being designed in, and _even if_ nobody is thinking to effect control.

<comment><USER4> That's no different to conventional history and culture. It just has computers in it.

Dyson seems to have only just worked out that evolution, culture, and politics are emergent.

Which is why the argument makes no sense. Either digital systems add something new and unique to the mix, or they don't.

If they don't, then what's the point of the piece?

If they do, blather about analog metazoans is irrelevant. The problem becomes one of understanding emergence without obfuscation and hand-waving.

In fact so-called emergent behaviour is not the problem. Not even slightly.

The biggest digital systems we have now have been consciously and deliberately designed to monitor and manipulate human behaviour.

There's nothing emergent, surprising, obscure, or quasi-mystical about either the outline goals or the specific techniques used to achieve them.

Instead of resorting to obscurantism, it would be far more useful to invent a new kind of "digital democracy" where the goals of large software corporations were open to democratic oversight.

Of course that's not going to happen while free market excuses and rhetoric are used to keep democratic oversight well away from these corporations.

<comment><USER5> There is this concept of emergent control called a "metasystem transition" [1] which is what Dyson is really talking about. Conventional history and culture has never before been shaped by the - ever shortening, ever accelerating - techonomic feedback loops that we see today. Cybernetics has been summoned like Yog Sothoth in "The case of Charles Dexter Ward".

[1] [http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/MST.html](http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/MST.html)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_of_Charles_Dexter_War...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_of_Charles_Dexter_Ward)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Too bad the author didn't substantiate his claims that analog computing will make a comeback.

I found this article [0] with a real world application, but no performance comparison to a digital computer. I also take issue with the claim that a transistor has infinite possible states, and that we're ignoring most of them. This doesn't take into account real world limitations of components' precision and noise.

[0] [https://news.mit.edu/2016/analog-computing-organs- organisms-...](https://news.mit.edu/2016/analog-computing-organs- organisms-0620)

<comment><USER7> > I found this article [0] with a real world application, but no performance > comparison to a digital computer.

This is impossible right now, no one is really making analog computers to make this comparison.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The article seems a bit abstract.

I think the question that comes to mind is whether it's possible to take GPU- styles architecture and give it 100x more power or more by replacing bits with approximate voltage levels that are "fuzzy" but statistical guarantees to their performance, along with gates that allow the values to be filtered back to zeros and ones.

The thing is the "neural architectures" seem to have been more or less failure through requiring the user to accept one particular neural net structure while the standard GPU seems to have succeeded through being generic-enough to use for a variety of tasks. So some sort of analogy-GPU should also have a similar generic model - but of course it seems likely that the creator of this stuff will want to impose their special model.

Edit: More or less like the D-wave "quantum computer" except not milking quantum hype and being reconciled to being understood as "massively analogue"

<comment><USER9> The "fuzzy but statistical guarantees" is basically "error correction". Which is (handwavily) the difference between digital and analog computing. What you are describing is the engineer's definition of a digital computer. Admittedly, there might be interesting performance gains if we use less stringent statistical guarantees... which happens to be what is happening each time we make the transistors smaller and more susceptible to noise.

C.f. the paper that introduced the distinction between analog and "statistically guaranteed" digital in the case of classical computers (before it people were arguing that you can not build a scallable classical digital computer because of noise): by von Neumann [http://www.sns.ias.edu/pitp2/2012files/Probabilistic_Logics....](http://www.sns.ias.edu/pitp2/2012files/Probabilistic_Logics.pdf)

The paper that did the same for quantum computers 50 years later: by Shor [http://www-math.mit.edu/~shor/papers/good-codes.pdf](http://www- math.mit.edu/~shor/papers/good-codes.pdf)

P.S. FYI DWave is not a scallable quantum computer. They have another "quantumy" word for what they do, so that they can keep the hype without angering people that are trying to build an actual quantum computer.

<comment><USER10> Yes. Concentrating on error correction reveals the difference between digital and analog computing.

Digital computers have error correction. Analog computers don't.

Some small number of problems might be solved efficiently using analog computers, but they will never take over the role of general purpose computers because of error correction issues.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Digital computation has been able to rise to this level of complexity because we can precisely predict/repeat outcomes because of exact numbers and boolean logic. I could not fathom anything like what we have using analog. I was reading the article, waiting for some type of plan for how to tackle analog computing, but it never came. A thought provoking article, but I'm not holding my breath for analog.

</comment><comment><USER12> Just a few thoughts I've been mulling for a while about this topic:

Machine learning is something that I believe can take advantage of analog computing. A machine learning algorithm does not need highly precise or accurate representations. Most current implementations of such processing units use fewer bits (usually 8).

However, even if we use fewer bits, the engineering effort (design, layout, lithography, etc.) that goes into making the processing unit still assumes that those few bits are error free. The manufacturing process treats it like any other digital circuit. It assumes data processing part should be fault free (e.g. treat MSB and LSB the same). Digital circuits also demand higher power compared to analog versions.

If an analog circuit can be designed for such algorithms, not only could it be much faster, it will probably consume far less power. With a super high bandwidth consuming little power, an analog processing chip may give us a much better playground to try advanced algorithms. The materials can then be optimized and we might end up with something like a brain.

Brains (all animals) process far more information for the power they consume.

Digital circuits give us low level reliability and so they are really good for simple control. Analog/biology don't give us that. But they can give us a high level reliability while delegating the low level reliability to digital counterparts.

<comment><USER13> I think you're wrong about the ML precision. You need highly precise for most recursive machine learning tasks because you're compounding errors otherwise.

Typically you can't even use floating point representation: not accurate enough.

<comment><USER14> Disagree. [https://arxiv.org/abs/1805.08691](https://arxiv.org/abs/1805.08691) demonstrates 8-bit architecture for a pre-trained CNN provides more than acceptable results with lower latency and higher throughput than a higher precision version.

<comment><USER13> Sure but we were talking about precision rather than throughput ; tbh the result is hardly surprising .

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I guess I see the point being made, but it was all a bit long on rhetoric and analogy, and short on concrete examples.

<comment><USER16> Yes. This is the same argument that audio nuts make for analog recording. It's known to be bogus. (Yes, 16-bit CD audio has resolution problems for soft passages, and early filters for the sampling rate were not too good. We're past that.)

One of the few concrete examples of a complex analog computer system still used in recent decades was the F-16 flight control system. It's a four channel fly by wire stabilization and control system, all analog. It was, at the time, the most advanced flight control system, and it's still well thought of. That's from the 1970s, and modernized F-16s use a digital replacement.

For several decades, full authority digital flight control systems were disfavored in aerospace because there were no analysis techniques to be sure they were bug free. There are ways to analyze an analog computer system to be sure that the test case set is sufficient, and that behavior will be smooth continuous between the test case points. Eventually that problem was solved for digital flight control systems, and now everybody goes digital.

<comment><USER17> Analog computers still crop up in all sorts of places these days but have become very niche and are typically a small part of an otherwise larger system. It's rare to see a general purpose analog computer outside of a very small number of research labs and FPAAs exist but are expensive novelties. As digital processors continue to get better and we develop better ways to work with them, there just isn't the need for the cost and effort required to make analog computers.

Some common places where you might see one is in audio driver amplifiers where it is common to implement a bit of trans-linear logic at the output stage to reduce distortion. Same in some high quality power supplies.

Sometimes very high performance sensor systems will have an analog pre- processor to perform some calculation on the incoming signal before handing it off to the digitizers and DSP. Think multi-microphone arrays.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> A couple of interesting examples in this (loose) subject area:

[https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/07/neural-network- imple...](https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/07/neural-network-implemented- with-light-instead-of-electrons/)

[https://pruned.blogspot.com/2012/01/gardens-as-crypto- water-...](https://pruned.blogspot.com/2012/01/gardens-as-crypto-water- computers.html)

</comment><comment><USER17> Perhaps I missed it, but the point of the article seems to be that eventually a complex "neuro" computer will be to complicated to understand and produce unaccountable results. The Author makes a few poor assumptions about analog vs digital computing and seems to ramble a lot, but ultimately, his main point doesn't have much to do with either.

</comment><comment><USER19> Perhaps I'm missing the more grandiose point, but I think his message is simple: digital computing is a handy abstraction for humans who like to count, but computing is essentially analog.

This layman likes to refer to something about genetic algorithms and magnetic flux for reference on this.

I mean this: [http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.50....](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.50.9691&rep=rep1&type=pdf)

</comment><comment><USER20> There is no such thing as "analog". Everything in this Universe is digitized, down to elemental particles inside atoms. What you experience as "analog" is just digitization with a very fine grain, or if you like it, with better sampling. So no, the future of computing is not analog at all, it will still be digital, just with better sampling, aka quantum computing.

</comment><comment><USER21> Quantum, Analog, and Fuzzy Logic - are different terms that I believe some bright person in the future will prove as describing _exactly_ the same underlying phenomenon.

(Also, if this could be accomplished, the next step in human evolution might be proving that the entire universe is a giant Analog computer, but that's Sci-Fi at this point in time...)

</comment><comment><USER22> > It is entirely possible to build something without understanding it. [...] > Our relationship with true A.I. will always be a matter of faith, not proof

WTF. I have no problem with building something without understanding how or why it works, but I do have problem of using something without at least some sort of guarantee on its behavior.

<comment><USER23> You may, but the vast majority of the population is already way past that with an iPhone and search bubbles, apps . . ..

And honestly, even if you're in tech, this feild is so broad and so many people are doing so many cool things that there's almost no way to keep up with it unless you're a ludite. If the case we are talking about involves building a single giant computer that no one knows how to use, you won't have much say in that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I suspect that the 'excess' precision of digital computers could be able to be retargeted towards some other use, negating any benefit that a analog computer had.

</comment><comment><USER25> not really related, there is a interesting use of analog effects in fpga's: [http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.50....](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.50.9691&rep=rep1&type=pdf)

old paper. 1996. Fragile.

</comment><comment> reading-at-work > even though vacuum tubes are commercially extinct

Sounds like someone's never shopped for guitar amps before.

<comment><USER26> In art, sometimes you want "happy accidents", even if they are not always reproducible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Can anyone recommend any good books or resources to learn more about analog computing?

<comment><USER28> The Heathkit EC-1 operations manual seems like a good start for electronic analog computers and has some examples of problem circuits: [http://www.ccapitalia.net/descarga/docs/1959-ec-1-heathkit.p...](http://www.ccapitalia.net/descarga/docs/1959-ec-1-heathkit.pdf)

I also like to share an instruction video on mechanical computers on every suitable occasion: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1i-dnAH9Y4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1i-dnAH9Y4)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Does anyone know how to contact the author?

</comment><comment><USER29> Everytime I see large digital systems, the deterministic nature fades and it starts looking probabilistic, noisy .. continuous

</comment><comment><USER7> I've been saying this for a while.

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=adamnemecek%20analog%20quantum...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=adamnemecek%20analog%20quantum&type=comment&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all)

The main problem with old school analog computers is that they were based on electricity which ended up causing rift (imprecision that gets worse over time).

A photonic, analog, quantum computer (also called continuous variable quantum computer) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous- variable_quantum_in...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous- variable_quantum_information) is possible and would run circles around discrete quantum computers (those with qubits).

<comment><USER9> The claim about relative performance of continuous variable models versus circuit models is completely unsubstantiated. Especially given that most uses of the continuous variable systems is to encode discrete qubits on top of them with GKP/cat/binomial codes. Is there any Complexity Theory work published about continuous variable models?

And photonic systems do not magically fix the noise issue. Noise grows in a fast non-linear fashion with the size of the system, so the "constant factor" noise suppression you gain from switching to photonic systems is quickly washed away.

<comment><USER7> > Especially given that most uses of the continuous variable systems is to > encode discrete qubits

Current uses, maybe.

> Is there any Complexity Theory work published about continuous variable > models?

"Complexity and Real Computation".

> And photonic systems do not magically fix the noise issue. Noise grows in a > fast non-linear fashion with the size of the system, so the "constant > factor" noise suppression you gain from switching to photonic systems is > quickly washed away.

Is there anything published on the fact that this cannot be overcome?

<comment><USER9> Just looking at the wiki pages for Real Computation is enough to see it is not a physically realizable model. For more detailed discussion of the problem you can see the essay "NP-complete Problems and Physical Reality". To quote from it "The problem, of course, is that unlimited-precision real numbers would violate the holographic entropy bound".

At every level of physics there is a bound on precision, from boring things like classical macroscopic thermodynamics and noise, to quantum noise, to bounds that emerge in speculative theoretical physics. Basically, anything capable of encoding an infinitely precise real number in a finite amount of space will collapse and form a black hole.

In case this is not convincing enough, to your question about how this noise can not be overcome: if there was a method that can overcome the noise asymptotically in photonic systems, then that method would work in electric systems too. And there is actually such a method: turning the computer into a digital computer thanks to error correction codes.

The claim that Real Computation can be realized in our universe is comparable to the claim one can construct a perpetual motion machine or some other generator of free energy. They are both preposterous given our understanding of physics. And yes, I would celebrate if either of one turns out to actually be possible, but incredible claims require incredible evidence.

<comment><USER7> > Just looking at the wiki pages for Real Computation is enough to see it is > not a physically realizable model.

This computer is literally at the physical limit reality can take. This number is actually quite high, although not unlimited. If you could make a computer faster by 10^30, ok I might not need unlimited. What if this number could be 10^300?

Furthermore, and this is important, this computer allows for a fundamentally different type of computation.

> At every level of physics there is a bound on precision, from boring things > like classical macroscopic thermodynamics and noise, to quantum noise, to > bounds that emerge in speculative theoretical physics.

Correct, this can be accounted for. Don't press on details, you won't be satisfied with the answers. Can we talk about would be possible if this computer were possible and work backwards? As a mental exercise.

Also what if I'm fundamentally more interested in probabilistic computation and this error can actually be a foundation of my computation.

> then that method would work in electric systems too.

Electricity is fundamentally more "unstable". This error compounds. This of the difference in attenuation rate in electric vs optical media. Where does this attenuation come from?

> And there is actually such a method: turning the computer into a digital > computer thanks to error correction codes.

Nope. Think of it as averaging unstable signals. The result is very much continuous.

You are getting too hung-up on the infinity aspect. Let's talk more about what sort of programming model this would allow for.

A Turing machine technically has a tape of infinite length, while current computers don't. Does that mean that no Turing machine has ever been constructed? Does the answer to this question matter?

Also, and this is important, compared with a normal computer, this computer would not heat up. Current CPU's can't get much larger because they can't dissipate heat fast enough. What if you could have a CPU of the size of a cube of the volume of one cubic meter?

<comment><USER9> > Can we talk about would be possible if this computer were possible and work > backwards? As a mental exercise.

Certainly! This type of thought experiments is how much of physics progresses. But their results should be contemplated seriously. Assuming it is possible to prepare a system that works like your computer, it will immediately collapse into a black hole, because it breaks the holographic principle (and plenty of other bounds).

Similarly we can imagine what happens if FTL was possible: time paradoxes. Or if we could measure both position and momentum: UV catastrophe.

> You are getting too hung-up on the infinity aspect.

The infinity aspect is what makes Real Computation more powerful than other types of computation. It is also what makes it impossible in our universe. It has absolutely nothing to do with the type of (countable) infinity that is the length of a Turing machine tape. You can make asymptotic statements that are useful about Turing machines or logic circuits. The only useful thing you get out of Real Computation is __strictly after __you take the limit to infinity. Otherwise you have old boring less-powerful analog computers (which are nonetheless marvels of engineering and their creators deserve praise).

> Electricity is fundamentally more "unstable".

This is just nonsense.

By the way, the majority of continuous variable hardware is actually in the microwave regime, which is closer to the fields of electrical and radio engineering, than to the fields of lasers or THz systems.

Lastly, yes, I completely agree that such hardware might be interesting in many cases. But claiming that Real Computation is possible (as oppossed to just admitting that __small __analog computers are occasionally useful) is far fetched. Claiming that such hardware can be built when it flies in the face of everything we know about physics is like claiming you can build a perpetual motion generator. As I said, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Please believe me, it is extremely rewarding to learn the details of these arguments, much more rewarding than the existence of Real Computation. In comparison with the real world, "Real Computation" is a boring cop-out. The last strip here describes the idea well: [http://calamitiesofnature.com/](http://calamitiesofnature.com/)

<comment><USER7> > Certainly! This type of thought experiments is how much of physics > progresses. But their results should be contemplated seriously. Assuming it > is possible to prepare a system that works like your computer, it will > immediately collapse into a black hole, because it breaks the holographic > principle (and plenty of other bounds).

You are condescending.

> Similarly we can imagine what happens if FTL was possible: time paradoxes. > Or if we could measure both position and momentum: UV catastrophe.

This has been done extensively and not much new can be brought to the table. Not many people talk about photonic analog computation, so indulge me.

There are people who research this field extensively (continuous variable quantum computation). Your whole argument just relies on a section from a Scott Aaronson paper. Can I ask what other research do you use as a foundation of your worldview? Are you familiar with work of say Alessio Serafini?

You read too much theory of complexity, it doesn't have all the answers. Can I ask about your stance on say Lie theory as it relates to quantum physics and why exactly is it that Lie theory provides a good foundation reasoning about quantum phenomena?

Can we talk about anticommutavity? And infinitesimals?

> The infinity aspect is what makes Real Computation more powerful than other > types of computation.

10^300 is infinity. 10^3000 is infinity. 10^300000000 is infinity. It's that you can make each atom do a lot more computation and much more valuable computation. I'm not interested in your arguments about infinity. I legit don't care, stop trying, I find the premise of the question flawed.

And last but not least it is "Real" computation. It's the limit of computation you can "fit into reality". Are you legitimately saying that current architectures are at the physical limit that reality can take? There's nothing realer than reality.

Who has actually attempted to build this computer? Like we haven't really given this a good shot. Things are impossible until they are not.

<comment><USER9> > You are condescending.

I certainly did not mean to, and I would blame the limits of this medium for that false impression. I was serious in my comments about thought experiments.

> Can I ask what other research do you use as a foundation of your worldview?

Aaronson is good at explaining things, so I use him as a reference, but look at any quantum computing textbook and the same argument will be present there. I am not familiar with Alessio Serafini, but there is plenty of other work in the field, from Xanadu Inc. to GKP's to encodings used at the institute where I work.

> it doesn't have all the answers.

This is always true, but you have given fewer answers.

> Can I ask about your stance on say Lie theory as it relates to quantum > physics and why exactly is it that Lie theory provides a good foundation > reasoning about quantum phenomena? Can we talk about anticommutavity? And > infinitesimals?

Sure? If you are doing a litmus tests of my knowledge, yes, I do understand those topics and would be happy to discuss them. You can find my email on my profile page. I am sincerely always interested to talk about this with curious people.

> 10^300 is infinity. 10^3000 is infinity. 10^300000000 is infinity.

This is really missing the point. When things grow exponentially (like compounding errors) the numbers you are quoting are small.

> I'm not interested in your arguments about infinity. I legit don't care, > stop trying, I find the premise of the question flawed.

This is simply intellectually dishonest. How do you expect a discussion to reach the truth if you disregard arguments you dislike?

> Are you legitimately saying that current architectures are at the physical > limit that reality can take?

No, I am just saying that any technique that might be used to improve practical analog computers would be already of use in digital computers. I am also saying that making a better real world analog computer has nothing to do with the theoretical model of Real Computing which is unphysical. It is not a continuous change - the gulf is discrete and qualitative.

> Who has actually attempted to build this computer?

Analog computers in various media, including light, have been built for a century (more recently with light). Xanadu seems to be trying to commercialize them in the case of quantum continuous variables, and they will probably produce some interesting hardware, but claiming that their (potential) hardware is more powerful than the usual model of quantum computing (also only potential for now) is unscientific. My employer (Yale Quantum Institute) is also employing continuous variable systems in other contexts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I agree that analog computing is probably more efficient, or can be more efficient if predictability is sacrificed.

However, there are _societal implications_ to this. We prefer the processing steps be traceable and dissactable for accountability and managing the distribution of tasks/parts in terms of accountability. We may not accept a higher degree of "rogue machines" to gain average efficiency.

However, I suppose a given country or group could accept the tradeoff to gain a military advantage, which could spell chaos. They may accept a higher degree of rogue battle bots in order to win via average efficiency, or at least be willing to take the gamble that the theory is true. The chance of a high- stakes or borderline suicidal leader/dictator _eventually_ coming on the scene is historically high, leading inadvertently to run-away human-flattening bots. Maybe that's the answer to the Fermi Paradox.

<comment><USER26> Okay, people, why the "-2". Fess up.</comment></comment>


Building Lisp - <AUTHOR> http://www.lwh.jp/lisp/

<comment><USER2> Anybody know when this was written? (I'm wondering why I haven't seen it before.)

</comment><comment><USER3> I like this DIY lisp you laid out. Thank you</comment>