Samsung TV buyers furious after software update leaves sets unusable - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/aug/24/samsung-tv-buyers-furious-after-software-update-leaves-sets-unusable <comment><USER2> Am I the only one that would love to be able to buy a dumb TV? I have a Roku and a satellite provider, they can't provide me with anything I don't already have. I would even be fine with a tuner free TV with no software on it. Give me a handful of HDMI inputs and be done with it.

I want a nice screen of decent size and performance that I can turn on and off, that's it.

I don't want to pay extra for crappy software that erodes my privacy, provides horribly performing media applications that rot and eventually stop working but there's almost no option whatsoever on the market, even at (or especially at) the high end range.

<comment><USER3> What stops you from using your TV just like that - a dumb TV? Connect it to power and don't connect it to any network and all you have to do is to use your HDMI inputs, volume control and picture adjustment. Ignore everything else. I use it like that. Never had I had to update my TV's software.

<comment><USER4> That's what I do with my Samsung TV. It rewards me by making the sound gradually lose sync with the video. I have to turn the TV off and back on again about once an hour to resync.

I've often wondered what kind of brain dead software failure is responsible for this. The sound+video come from my Humax box via HDMI into the TV. The TV decodes both, shows the video and plays the audio out of the analogue jack on the back. I plug that into my sound bar (because the TV doesn't support Audio Return Channel, despite being quite new). Rebooting the Humax box and the soundbar doesn't help the sync.

My guess is that the thing decoding the HDMI signal feeds sound into the DAC buffer for the audio jack but never checks to see how full that DAC buffer gets. I suspect the DACs reference clock isn't synced to the HDMI data, so clock skew gradually builds. After 2 hours, there is about 1 seconds worth of audio buffered there.

It's the kind of thing that gets overlooked when the software team are forced to write a load of crap smart TV stuff when they should be focusing on the basics.

<comment><USER5> The people that write the HDMI and DAC firmwares aren't the same people that make the Android apps that the TV software basically is nowadays. Though investing in the latter might mean skimping on the former.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> While I watch TV, my Samsung keeps popping up messages ontop of my show... "The ESPN app will be deprecated on July 2nd 2020". I don't care. I don't use that app. I just use netflix. Its super annoying.

I think I'm going to disconnect it from the net after reading this article. I guess the one a few months ago bout the NSA turning it into a microphone didn't concern me as much as losing access to netflix.

<comment><USER7> I decided the same a year ago. Turns out, you can't disconnect it once it's connected -- it refuses to forget networks or previously set passwords if they worked. I had to just change my wifi password and update everything else.

<comment><USER8> Same experience with an LG short-throw projector. I regret it and now it always shows up on the cast menu but it doesn't work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Smart TVs are such a stupid idea. A TV should last 5-10 years. The software and chips shipped will become irrelevant in 1-2 years time. Just buy regular TV + crhomecast/firestick/raspbery-pi/etc.

</comment><comment><USER10> Really this is a widespread problem in electronics not limited to TVs. I have bought two different Android phones in the past 7 years on Amazon for a certain cell phone provider that have been rendered essentially unusable after OTA updates. It's a small sample size, but both have occurred about two years after the phones hit the market.

The first was a Galaxy S4 I bought in 2013. It had only a decent camera but it got the job done. An update was pushed in summer of 2015 that caused the phone to lock down every time I tried to open my wifi ''more settings'' option. Because I purchased it from Amazon, I could not get any technical support outside of the vendor (who wanted me to hard reset the phone...okay, great, until I get to the configuration screen on first new boot and it locks down because, guess what, it opens wifi more settings to let you select a network).

The second was an HTC One M9 that I bought shortly after that debacle. This phone was very snappy and had a stellar camera on board. It was also surprisingly rugged given that I dropped it at least 8 times on concrete with never more than a few scuffs on the meta. Early this summer I got an OTA update on the phone that broke GPS and MMS. Oh and did I mention one of the updates the prior year made it so you cannot stop the updates from installing --that the phone will restart 24 hours after first receiving the new update, regardless of what you do or who you're on the phone with?

So, I settled for a dumb phone. A $30 flip phone. And when I go on vacation I take a professional camera with me instead.

There is a systemic issue that we are serfs on the lands of tech giants (I think I read that great phrasing from Naval Ravikant). We pay up front for the pleasure of hardware, but are held hostage of usability of the device by the software that actually runs it--just as the land you buy upfront is still at the mercy of governmental bodies allowing you to keep it.

Family and friends look at me funny when I tell them I try to build whatever electronic I want when I am able to. I won't let my music player, fitness tracker, or smart home features be held hostage to 1) the longevity of these companies and 2) their mercy for not bricking my device. And unfortunately many consumers just don't care enough so it will be difficult for us to reach a critical mass of complaints.

<comment><USER11> My last phone was OTA updated to start showing full page ads.... Almost drove me crazy looking for the source because it looked like it was the launcher or some other app. Finally solved it by installing a firewall app, and will never buy that brand again (Kingzone) despite loving the hardware. It's the first phone where I've gone back and bought a second device of the same brand when I wanted to update because I loved my first one, and they've now burned that loyalty forever.

I wonder if the ads will make up for the lifetime loss of the people the piss off.

</comment></comment><comment> gm-conspiracy I was able to buy a used 55" Vizio that had become "bricked" after it lost power during an update for $50.

I replaced a $60 board and it was as good as new.

Also, got a 55" Sony for free, similar situation. All it needed was a firmware flash via USB (was very specific as to USB size/format), and it works fine.

None of these TVs are connected to any network, nor will they be ever again (as long as I own them).

Also, I see Amazon has a 43" Viewsonic "commercial" 1080p display for ~$450: [http://amzn.to/2iu2cCB](http://amzn.to/2iu2cCB). I know, they have a TCL 55" 4K w/ built-in Roku for $50 less.

</comment><comment><USER12> Them: " _Why isn 't your TV on the Wi-Fi and why aren't you using the built in apps?_"

Me months later when crap like this happens: " _To prevent situations like this._ "

More seriously, I wouldn't buy a TV if I didn't expect it to work, literally, out of the box. Hence I don't need to upgrade it either.

I don't want new features. I don't want to connect it to my Wi-Fi. I don't want to use any built-in UI for watching Netflix. I just want a dumb video output device that works regardless of what I plug into it.

</comment><comment><USER13> Most ( All ) of the problems with the current (Smart)TV are those who manufacture them aren't Software company. They may not necessarily make bad TV, after all we are only left with a few Display Panel manufacturer to choose from. But they simply give up OS update / software development after they are shipped, (this is also true to most IoT Devices.) And in the case they do ship and update, this is an example what we got from Samsung.

Luckily, there is finally leaks that Apple (0) may be making its own TV Set (1), instead of STB. And even Benedict Evans changes his tone on the subject. (2)

I never buy the argument that Apple should not enter the TV market because it is low margin, slow replacement cycle, and small unit volume. Because that would means Apple stop making its Magic Keyboard, Mouse, Router.

Xiaomi 60" 4K TV Set using LG Panel are sold for ~$750 USD in China. If we assume TV Sets in China, due to fierce competition are all selling at Zero net profits, there is no reason why Apple cant sell the "same" TV set with its tvOS for $1K. And it would still sell well.

[0]Apple may not be the best Software company, but software update for their Appliance, AirPod, AirPort etc has been very decent so far in their History.

[1][https://twitter.com/VenyaGeskin1/status/897741302573535232](https://twitter.com/VenyaGeskin1/status/897741302573535232)

[2][https://twitter.com/BenedictEvans/status/899715811278966784](https://twitter.com/BenedictEvans/status/899715811278966784)

[3][http://www.mi.com/mitv3/60/](http://www.mi.com/mitv3/60/)

</comment><comment><USER14> As we speak, Google's OTA Android updates are bricking thousands of $600 Nexus 6P as well and all the press cares about is hyping Pixel 2.

<comment><USER15> I owned a Nexus 6P since near launch. It was great when it worked but it went through 4 RMAs. After that the next time I had issues I asked for a refund from Google Play and they gave it to me. Paid for (some of) my new Galaxy S8+

<comment><USER14> Lucky that you live in a country with strong consumer protection culture and had to deal directly with google.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Smart TVs are dumb TVs waiting to happen. Really today all you need is a completely dumb TV which just takes HDMI inputs and displays video.

</comment><comment><USER17> I hate crowd funding with a passion, but even I would "back" a GOOD 4K Dumb TV that came in sizes larger than 50" at a reasonable price. I'll even pre-order the GoTY or whatever if it has 5 or more HDMI ports, and I'll keep my mouth shut about crowd funding for at least 12 months if it's user serviceable to some extent.

</comment><comment><USER18> I have always wondered how much extra cost would be to provide a very basic "it just works without any fancy stuff" failsafe boot option.

Since all these TV's are - more or less - Linux boxes, it should be no issue to have a kind of dual boot, or a "reset" button with a "basic firmware".

</comment><comment><USER19> I had 2 Vizo TVs that I loved. Got a new one and it was crap. The software required me to use a phone app to set it up! It went back to the store. It is pretty hard to find a TV without crapware. The key is to find one that you can setup with the remote and then disable the Wifi/Ethernet.

</comment><comment><USER20> This is why I still use a HTPC</comment>


The Latest On Intelligence - <AUTHOR> http://www.danielwillingham.com/1/post/2012/05/the-latest-on-intelligence.html <comment><USER2> "A great deal of time has been wasted in the effort of measuring the heritability of traits in the false expectation that somehow the genetic nature of psychological phenomena would be revealed."

There is a strong cultural bias among much of the research community to go out of their way to deny any genetic factors in intelligence. Perhaps this is well intentioned, but it is absurd.

I have come across very few squirrels that have mastered fire, or could be taught calculus, or even addition. I doubt that this is cultural or due to the squirrels upbringing, diet, social status, or how many books the squirrel has available to it, or the quality of it's teachers, or pathogens. Clearly then, it is possible for genetics to completely dominate other factors in determining intelligence. In the animal kingdom at large heredity/genetics account for basically all of the variation in intelligence.

The unanswered question is whether there is enough genetic diversity across the human species to cause intelligence to be significantly hereditable. The fear among scientists that try to keep the lid on this question is that the answer might be yes, and worse that such variations will correlate with geographic or national groupings. This would put a very nasty _perceived_ scientific stamp of approval on racism (even though this would be unjustified), and could over time lead to discrimination and 'scientific racism'.

Anyway, in the end science will uncover the truth here, and in the meantime it is probably very prudent to not make any potentially inflammatory statements and to be very cautious about any studies that could fuel hate. I just find it absurd that whenever this kind of question comes up people start denying that there is any hereditary component of intelligence, and that IQ is completely meaningless, etc.

<comment><USER3> You're not alone. I've always wondered, how come different dog breeds have different behavior and intelligence levels. Yet certain breeds are much smarter than others and capable of greater learning capacity. Any kind of comparison, even scientific, between human races would be seen as racist and thrown out immediately. It conjures up all sorts of negative emotions. Hitler, Nazis, Eugenics, Master Races, Holocausts.

I think deep down inside we are slaves to our genetics and many people know so and have significant evidence for it but are keeping quiet. And I don't blame them. The repercussions of telling the human race "Your success, happiness, intelligence, health, and entire life is limited by your genetics." would be horrific. Half the world would be on anti-depression medications if you told them that and proved it. No one wants to be told who they are before they're given a chance to discover themselves on their own. Also, genetics are not the end all of success. Just because someone doesn't have the genes that make them more likely to be successful doesn't mean they'll never be successful. There are other ways around. Aggression, luck, money, hard work, etc....

For instance, Ashkenazi Jews have the highest intelligence and very poor Spatial intelligence according to research. After them come north east Asians. Jews are disproportionately successful in numerous fields. 25% of Nobel prize winners are jewish and this is increasing. All of the major Hollywood studios were started by jews and are currently dominated by jews. The NYT's Joel Stein could only find 5 non-jewish executives in all of Hollywood. Most of the top writers are also jewish. Banking and finance is dominated by them as well. So is the fashion industry: Marc Jacobs, Ralph Lauren, Marc Echo, Calvin Klein, Estée Lauder, Kenneth Cole, and others are jewish. Levi's jeans as well. 2 of the internet's biggest companies, Google and Facebook were started by jews Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Mark Zuckerberg. People's refusal to acknowledge that genetics has anything to do with intelligence is exactly what has sprouted numerous conspiracy theories to try to explain why jews are so well achieved.

Also, look at men vs women. How many wars have women started compared to men? Nearly every war, genocide, and conflict has been caused entirely by men. Why is it that we never see the female versions of Hitler, Gangis Kahn, Napoleon, Stalin, etc... Because evolution has created extremely violent men (not all of us of course). Evolution wise, we're disposable. Women are not. The human race can easily be replenished with 99 women and 1 man. But not with 99 men and 1 women. And so women live much more "slow but steady" lifestyles while men are more likely to live "risky" lifestyles. Rewards are proportionate to risk. So men reap the rewards when it comes to inventions, companies, religions, nation building, etc...

<comment><USER4> > Evolution wise, we're disposable. Women are not. The human race can easily > be replenished with 99 women and 1 man. But not with 99 men and 1 women

This is not how evolution works. It runs on which genes outreproduce which other genes within a species, and cares nothing for "the good of the species" or "the survival of the species". If men are more violent, it was because individually more violent males outreproduced less violent males - not because "males are disposable". (Even this is still a simplification relative to inclusive genetic fitness, but it's definitely not because "males are disposable!")

<http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Group_selection>

<comment><USER3> That's exactly how evolution works. Because there is an element of human choice as to which genes go on. We are a part of evolution. We choose what goes on. And we have chosen through war and death that violent men go on, and peaceful men die off. We have chosen that men are disposable, we build our armies with men, we sacrifice the men, and keep the women at home because they are the creators of humanity and men the destroyers and conquerers. Primative but it's reality.

All throughout history, wars are fought almost exclusively by men. Men killing men is alright by nature, because back since tribal times, the testosterone induced violent winner got the women and reproduced. Thus passing on his genes. The violent genes outreproduced the peaceful ones. Look at nature all around us. The violent dominate the peaceful, the aggressive dominate the passive, the intelligent dominate the dumb. The animals at the top of any foodchain are more violent, aggressive, and/or intelligent than the others beneath it.

I have a feeling we're both talking about the same thing just from a different viewpoint.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is an interesting result noted from the paper: "Even when improvements in IQ produced by the most effective early childhood interventions fail to persist, there can be very marked effects on academic achievement and life outcomes."

As noted by the author, this suggests that IQ only captures a portion of early childhood intervention benefits. And goes counter to those who suggest that early intervention programs serve no purpose if IQ doesn't remain high (IOW, IQ is only a portion of what constitutes success in life).

</comment><comment><USER6> Kevin Mitchell has a very interesting take on intelligence here: [http://wiringthebrain.blogspot.com/2012/07/genetics-of- stupi...](http://wiringthebrain.blogspot.com/2012/07/genetics-of- stupidity.html)

Basically he suggests thinking about the formation of intelligence to be something like trying to run an obstacle course while holding an armful of things and trying to drop as little as possible. Essentially, he is arguing that there is some optimal or standard brain and since any mutation introduced into the brain is more likely to be harmful than beneficial, more intelligent individuals are not those that inherited some specific genes for intelligence but are most likely those who avoided the most damaging non-specific mutations.

 _That's [runaway selection of intelligence boosting genes] all nice, though admittedly speculative, but those mutations are the ones that we would expect to not vary in human populations – they would now be fixed. In particular, there is little reason to expect that there would exist new mutations in such genes, present in some but not all humans, which act to further increase intelligence._

To test this he suggests using symmetry as a proxy for robustness in the individual. This fits well with the fact that all attempts thus far to find a common genetic basis for intelligence have failed, the correlation between intelligence and immune function, ideas that intelligence was indirectly selected when optimizing for healthy mates and findings that Nootropic like substances tend to have the least effect on already intelligent minds. In the last case, it is interesting to note nootropics should then be viewed not cheating but more leveling of the playing field. Taking this further, genetics are not the only obstacle course - there is still variation in the womb environment and early childhood. The interplay of genes and the stability of process in the growing brain; affected by a lack of stimulation, poor nutrition and a stressful womb environ would likely have more impactful effects on intelligence than pure genetics.

</comment><comment><USER7> Am I the only one who reads these kinds reports and has that impression that today's psychology and biology is less than 0.1% of the way to provide a useful model for intelligence? The best measurement of intelligence that we have today (IQ tests) seem completely worthless for practical purpose compared to what we actually need to know to build solutions on. IQ tests are still too bad to measure actual "intelligence", as defined by our colloquial meaning and practical real-world potential. (as opposed to the official technical definition) Being able to measure people's intelligence would be extremely useful. IQ test results, not so much.

New findings about the impact of genetic vs environmental influences on IQ tests. Is about as useful finding new evidence about genetic vs environmental influences on people's ability to pass a "lick your elbow" test. Why should I care? It sure is interesting, and hey, anything "for science!". But, meh...

<comment><USER8> How do you explain the fact that when the law allows, companies all over the world give IQ tests to prospective employees? And that studies have shown that IQ is one of the best predictors of job performance?

<comment><USER9> Your first point would only elucidate a common misconception that IQ tests adequately measure intelligence. As to your second point, what studies are these? (I'd actually be interested)

<comment><USER10> This is a good intro: [http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/1997whygmatter...](http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/1997whygmatters.pdf)

<comment><USER11> I personally believe IQ is a fairly good predictor of intelligence the way people in (at least American) society think about it. This study attempts to prove that high IQ is good for most jobs. What it doesn't prove is the high end of the spectrum where someone of 120 IQ compares with someone of 140IQ in extremely high level jobs. My experience is that creativity trumps IQ in most cases where people are considered generally intelligent. The people that really are viewed as most successful typically have a high or very high IQ, but are always very creative.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "The extent to which genes matter to intelligence varies by social class (genetic inheritance matters more if you're wealthy, less if you're poor)."

It's always seemed obvious to me that this ought to be true - that is that environment will matter more if you have greater differences in environment. In the extreme case if you feed kid A and don't feed kid B, then kid A will end up with an infinitely greater IQ than kid B.

<comment><USER13> The point is actually more subtle than that though. What they're saying is that _holding social class constant_ , genetic difference is more important for the wealthy than the poor.

For example, kid A and kid B are both wealthy and have significant genetic differences related to factors affecting intelligence. In this case kid A and kid B are likely to have significantly different intelligence from each other.

Conversely, kids C and D are both poor and have similar genetic differences to A and B. They will show much less difference in intelligence from each other.

That fact is certainly not obvious, but it is fascinating.

<comment><USER5> Right. The implication, in my mind at least, is that fighting poverty should be one of the key goals of society. Being in poverty effectively hides gifts as poverty will dominate "natural" ability.

<comment><USER12> Or at least we should be pushing micro-nutrient supplements. And encouraging school lunch programs.

<comment><USER14> That's a pretty huge assumption, that micro-nutrients are a significant part of any difference.

You've assumed, first, that it's poverty that _causes_ the lowered IQ, rather than that both poverty and lower-IQ are both effects of a common cause.

Second, even if there really is a causal chain, why in the world would you assume that the difference is related to nutrition? Why not, for example, cultural differences in the way that poor parents interact with children compared with the way that non-poor parents do?

<comment><USER12> If poverty doesn't cause lowered IQ how would explain children adopted into non-improrished households having higher IQs? I don't have good evidence that nutrition is the primary factor here, but there is a lot of research saying that nutrition is important with respect to IQ.

<comment><USER14> _Post hoc ergo propter hoc_ is one of the classic logical fallacies[1]. You persist in the assumption that poverty _causes_ lower IQ, rather than the possibility that both poverty and lower IQ are correlated because they share a common cause.

[1] See <http://www.skepdic.com/posthoc.html>

<comment><USER12> The way you do a controlled experiment in science is that you have a number of subjects, you subject only some of them to some new condition, and then you look for statistically significant differences between the group subject to the condition and the one that wasn't.

That was what happened in the study I mentioned.

Now, you can say that this wasn't absolute proof and you'd be right, because science doesn't provide any absolute proof. But if you're going to throw out this evidence you're going to have to throw out the rest of modern medicine too.

<comment><USER15> The problem is that often there will be several factors linked together. Richer households will have better nutrition, but they'll also behave differently, have more books, associate more with other richer families, etc. It's really hard to unlink these factors, even when trying to control studies statistically.

Nutrition is a really low hanging fruit, and you have to be pretty poor for it to have any effect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This article is very hard to digest because of the writers switching of "intelligence" and "IQ". Intelligence =/= IQ. IQ is a score on a test, and intelligence is a vague set of mental skills and processes to solve problems of varying degrees and subjects. To say that they are equal is like saying that athleticism is equal to the number of pounds you can bench.

If the writer is talking about IQ, then these investigations aren't interesting, as IQ is a very small subset of intelligence (the ability to solve those types of problems on a test, which you can easily train for). If the writer is talking about general intelligence, then the writer really shouldn't be mentioning IQ at all, as it is notorious for being confused as actual intelligence.

<comment><USER17> Without a consistent, objective definition, "intelligence" makes no sense. If you would like to dissociate IQ and intelligence, go ahead, but IQ is a metric that has correlations with many other factors (test performance, income, a whole slew of things really).

<comment><USER16> Correlations mean almost nothing. Just going off your list:

-IQ:Test Performance - Of course. IQ is a grade off of a test. It correlates with itself. If you mean tests such as the SAT or tests in a school, then yes, IQ does help somewhat with that, as it was designed to (the first IQ test, created by Alfred Binet, was designed to find students who would not do well in a regular school environment). However, do high test scores mean high intelligence? Not necessarily, as most test scores can be improved drastically with a class focusing only on the test, showing different tricks that the test maker's use. Same with IQ tests.

-IQ:Income - Income (generally) means higher education level, and modern education teaches the general forms of questions asked on tests, such as the IQ tests. Education trains the mind to think along the lines of what the IQ test uses to grade performance. Also, spoken another way, if IQ (which is "intelligence") correlate with income, then one can say that income correlates with IQ ("intelligence"). If this correlation is weak, then it is meaningless. If it is strong, then that is a very strong evidence for eliminating the lower classes to raise the "intelligence" level of a nation.

Most other factors follow along these lines. The problem with correlation is that it is not, in any way, a suggestion or a proof of causation. There can be infinitely many other factors that can be influencing the two.

I do agree that without a consistent, objective definition, one cannot possibly study intelligence. However, IQ is not a good definition of intelligence. At best, it tests "academic" intelligence, and at worst, it tests test-taking ability.

Taking from Wikipedia:

>"Individuals differ from one another in their ability to understand complex ideas, to adapt effectively to the environment, to learn from experience, to engage in various forms of reasoning, to overcome obstacles by taking thought. Although these individual differences can be substantial, they are never entirely consistent: a given person's intellectual performance will vary on different occasions, in different domains, as judged by different criteria. Concepts of "intelligence" are attempts to clarify and organize this complex set of phenomena. Although considerable clarity has been achieved in some areas, no such conceptualization has yet answered all the important questions, and none commands universal assent. Indeed, when two dozen prominent theorists were recently asked to define intelligence, they gave two dozen, somewhat different, definitions." -APA report quoted in the article.

<comment><USER17> The examples you gave exactly match my intentions. I'm not sure where we are disagreeing, unless you are interpreting the phrases "intelligence" and "intelligence quotient" as more exclusive than most people. If that is the case, give me _your_ definition of "intelligence", and we'll see where we go from there.

<comment><USER16> I'm saying that interpreting IQ as intelligence is extremely narrow-minded and misleading to the general public. There is absolutely no evidence that IQ is a decent measure of intelligence. My point is that intelligence is a much broader subject than simple IQ, and using IQ as a measure of intelligence will produce both false positives (by training for the exam) and false negatives (by not targeting other areas of intelligence than the specific area used in some types of academia).

I am not saying that there is a specific definition of intelligence that is good. I am saying that IQ as intelligence is _not_ good. I wouldn't have a problem if people did use the terms "intelligence" and "IQ" so interchangeably. If the linked article talked only about IQ, then I would have no problem, but the article specifically talks about intelligence, and then uses studies on IQ to try to makes points about intelligence.

By the way, if you are looking for a better theory of intelligence (which is beside my point), then you should look at Cattell-Horn-Carroll Theory (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattell-Horn-Carroll_theory>) as an example.

<comment><USER15> > There is absolutely no evidence that IQ is a decent measure of intelligence.

Other than it correlates with all sorts of positive life factors, you mean? Like health, earning power and lack of a criminal record?

Nobody is saying that IQ is intelligence, including the author of the article. But it's a fairly large component of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Daniel Willingham knows a lot about this subject (I took into to cognition with him a couple of years ago). Of course in the linked article he is just paraphrasing other people's work, but he does a lot of similar stuff himself especially on developmental neuroscience in learning and reasoning. It is very interesting to be taught by someone who knows a ton about learning and how to learn from the neurological point of view.

</comment><comment><USER17> I didn't read the entire paper, but to someone who did, how much of a link is there between genetics and IQ? I know this isn't a popular subject, but if I remember correctly I believe that Ashkenazi Jews constitute 3% of the population yet have won 27% of the Nobel prizes in science.

I would think that much like how different types of people from different regions have differing athletic capabilities, there would also be differences in mental facilities as well -- some better at music, some better at math, etc. Thoughts?

<comment><USER19> Both scientific and athletic achievements have an alternative explanation: culture. If there was a good sample of adopted children from a group with such achievements, one could examine these hypotheses in more detail.

<comment><USER20> That's an incredible statistic. If the cause is cultural then it's a wonder there isn't a plethora of books advising on how to raise children the Ashkenazi way. Are there any such books?

<comment><USER21> Typical HN racism and misogyny aside, why not go to the top of the intellectual world and listen to Chomsky and Einstein? There's no end of opinions from them. Chomsky in particular answers emails quickly. So no need to ape some culture's forms, but rather ask their most successful members.

The problem is, their answers don't please many who'd ask such questions. Einstein claimed:

 _"This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career."_

Or take Chomsky:

 _"A lot of the educational system is designed for that, if you think about it, it's designed for obedience and passivity. From childhood, a lot of it is designed to prevent people from being independent and creative. If you're independent-minded in school, you're probably going to get into trouble very early on. That's not the trait that's being preferred or cultivated. When people live through all this stuff, plus corporate propaganda, plus television, plus the press and the whole mass, the deluge of ideological distortion that goes on, they ask questions that from another point of view are completely reasonable...."_

So let's turn the question around (because it's not about Jews being the Master Race or being culturally superior to say Africans): how do we triumph over dominant institutions which are out to turn us into idiots?

<comment><USER22> We don't want to know what Chomsky or Einstein thought about the educational system, that's irrelevant. What we really want to know is how their parents treated them. Actually, we want something more general -- commonalities in Jewish upbringing, especially of those who went on to be successful.

<comment> guard-of-terra But that's the cargo cult way. You end up replicating a lot of unrelated random things and may still lose the essense of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I would upvote this twice if I could. I have read the underlying paper

Nisbett, R. E., Aronson, J., Blair, C., Dickens, W., Flynn, J., Halpern, D. F., & Turkheimer, E. (2012, January 2). Intelligence: New Findings and Theoretical Developments. American Psychologist, 67, 130-159.

[http://psychology.msu.edu/pers_hambric3/PSY493%20Spring%2020...](http://psychology.msu.edu/pers_hambric3/PSY493%20Spring%202012/Week%206%20-%20Nisbett%20et%20al.%20\(2012\).pdf)

Daniel Willingham reviews in the submitted post, and the paper is a joint review article on the last decade and a half of research on human intelligence by an all-star group of researchers.

After edit: I see other comments are asking about what the research shows about genetic influences on IQ and environmental influences on IQ. Here is some FAQ information on that, originally part of another comment I posed here on HN:

The researchers in the Behavior Genetics Association are making increasingly cautious statements about genetic influence on human behavioral traits as more data are amassed. Here are some of the latest statements by some of the leading researchers.

Turkheimer, E. (2012). Genome wide association studies of behavior are social science. In K. S. Plaisance & T.A.C. Reydon (Eds.) Philosophy of Behavioral Biology (pp. 43-64). New York, NY: Springer.

[http://people.virginia.edu/~ent3c/papers2/Turkheimer%20GWAS%...](http://people.virginia.edu/~ent3c/papers2/Turkheimer%20GWAS%20EWAS%20Final.pdf)

"If the history of empirical psychology has taught researchers anything, it is that correlations between causally distant variables cannot be counted on to lead to coherent etiological models."

Johnson, W., Turkheimer, E., Gottesman, I. I., & Bouchard, T. J. (2009). Beyond heritability: Twin studies in behavioral research. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 18, 217-220. [I am personally acquainted with three of the four co-authors of this paper, one of whom regularly exchanges links with me by email.]

[http://people.virginia.edu/~ent3c/papers2/Articles%20for%20O...](http://people.virginia.edu/~ent3c/papers2/Articles%20for%20Online%20CV/Johnson%20\(2009\).pdf)

"Moreover, even highly heritable traits can be strongly manipulated by the environment, so heritability has little if anything to do with controllability. For example, height is on the order of 90% heritable, yet North and South Koreans, who come from the same genetic background, presently differ in average height by a full 6 inches (Pak, 2004; Schwekendiek, 2008)."

Turkheimer, E. (2008, Spring). A better way to use twins for developmental research. LIFE Newsletter, 2, 1-5.

[http://people.virginia.edu/~ent3c/papers2/Articles%20for%20O...](http://people.virginia.edu/~ent3c/papers2/Articles%20for%20Online%20CV/Turkheimer%20\(2008\).pdf)

"Unfortunately, that fundamental intuition is wrong. Heritability isn't an index of how genetic a trait is. A great deal of time has been wasted in the effort of measuring the heritability of traits in the false expectation that somehow the genetic nature of psychological phenomena would be revealed. There are many reasons for making this strong statement, but the most important of them harkens back to the description of heritability as an effect size."

<comment><USER24> My problem with upvoting is that I _have_ read the underlying paper, and I'm not impressed at all. This paper takes a hugely nurturist approach, and at parts verges on dishonesty.

I consider myself - if not an expert, at least very well informed - on the topic of dual n-back and I was flabbergasted when I read pg11 of the PDF. There is not a _single_ mention of the _many_ failures to replicate, methodological critiques, or skeptical meta-analyses about n-back. Some of that can be explained by the January 2012 date, but only a very some of it because a lot of that long predates 2012 or 2011, and it can't be explained by the people involved being ignorant because they thank Jaeggi, Duckworth, Jonides, and Sternberg - who certainly would know!

Someone reading this paper would come away with a very different understanding and expectation for dual n-back training than someone reading my <http://www.gwern.net/DNB%20FAQ> . So all I can think is, "if this is how Nisbett et al act on the one section where I know almost as much as them, how are they misleading me in all the _other_ sections?"

<comment><USER25> Labeling the paper with the epithet "hugely nurturist" tells nothing about the paper but everything about what you are doing. You are attempting the early dismissal of some viewpoint you disagree with on a more or less political grounds but this has not very much to do with science.

Most cognitive tasks used inside an MRI are about as meaningless as benchmarks. It seems gratuitous to turn this into evidence of intentionally dishonest malfeasance and frame the whole thing as some kind of pseudo- political debate. Just engage the data, please?

Setting aside the political tone you've taken here: the idea that nature and nurture are dichotomous (or can even be meaningfully separated) is not supportable.

It has been observed many times that because heritability includes a genes x environment interaction term, it does not mean that something is 'genetic' - and real-world examples have been provided in this thread.

You cannot build an adequate understanding of development on the caricature that there is a dichotomy between 'nature' and 'nurture'. DNA and RNA cannot do anything without a developmental environment. You do not have any organism without development, which necessarily occurs in an environment. There are strong adaptive reasons for learning in big primates and it is well known to occur. On the other hand, you do not have development or learning without machines to implement them; these are not built without genes but neither can genes build them in a vacuum. It is a perpetual interchange and the components are viciously complementary and embedded in the same feedback loops to a point where it is nearly meaningless even to argue about nature vs. nurture.

<comment><USER26> Surely you're aware that a tremendous amount of ink and (social-)scientist hours have been spent doing "science" with the presumption that there "are no genes for IQ" etc., so it makes sense to be on guard against biased writing (at least by publication/file-drawer bias) on the topic.

You have gwern wrong. He's an unbiased scientist on this topic.

<comment><USER25> At best this is "the other guy swung first." At worst it is just a straw man. What you claim the other guys do is irrelevant. Territory defense is irrelevant. Facts are relevant and fist-fights do not uncover them. Why can't the critique proceed on a higher level than "those Xists are deliberately lying again"?

If your way of judging a paper is to look at who wrote it, then conclude that the paper is bad based on some kind of guilt by association with the "wrong school" then you are not being honest with yourself.

The nobler objective is not to discredit and guard against "nurturists" but to do justice to reality. Cognitive science shouldn't be so much like a kung fu movie...

<comment><USER27> [To gwern, unprovoked] _You are attempting the early dismissal of some viewpoint you disagree with on a more or less political grounds but this has not very much to do with science._

[Next reply] _Why can't the critique proceed on a higher level than "those Xists are deliberately lying again"?_

You seem to be suffering from some cognitive dissonance here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Great quote from page 8 of the actual report:

"In particular, there is clear evidence that school affects intelligence."

<comment><USER29> Intelligence is traditionally measured through testing. School is the only place people generally practice test taking. Ergo, it makes sense that school affects the results of intelligence tests, but perhaps not in the way you might initially think.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Some people, and the referenced paper, are citing Jaeggi's dual n-back as evidence that interventions can positively affect g(F) (fluid intelligence).

I would like to mention that Jaeggi's results, and working memory training in general, have not been replicated.

The main issue with Jaeggi's experiment, is that proper controls were not used.

For a careful examination, and I would say thorough debunking of Jaeggi's results on dual n-back and g(F) improvement by training working memory, please read:

No Evidence of Intelligence Improvement After Working Memory Training: A Randomized, Placebo-Controlled Study. Redick, Thomas S.; Shipstead, Zach; Harrison, Tyler L.; Hicks, Kenny L.; Fried, David E.; Hambrick, David Z.; Kane, Michael J.; Engle, Randall W. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Jun 18 , 2012, No Pagination Specified. doi: 10.1037/a0029082

</comment><comment><USER31> The best investment a parent can make to improve the child's IQ is DHA, omega 3 fatty acid. It is a key ingredient of a brain, and a typical diet is very deficient in DHA.

[http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/healthy-pregnancy- does-...](http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/healthy-pregnancy-does- omega3-supplementation-during-pregnancy-prevent-postpartum-depression-improve- babys-brain-development.html)

Additionally, checkout the: <http://www.omega3.org/>

<comment><USER24> Most of the fish oil/IQ links I know tend to either be poor quality studies, show no effect, or show a fade-out... For example,

> Supplementation of a mother's diet during late pregnancy and 3 months > postpartum with long-chained fatty acids has also been demonstrated to > improve cognitive performance in human children (Helland et al. 2003). > <http://www.pediatricsdigest.mobi/content/111/1/e39.full>

But to follow up: Helland et al 2008 [http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/122/2/e472.sho...](http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/122/2/e472.short)

> CONCLUSION. This study suggests that maternal concentration of n-3 very- > long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids during pregnancy might be of > importance for later cognitive function, such as sequential processing, > although we observed no significant effect of n-3 fatty acid intervention on > global IQs. Neonatal fatty acid status had no influence on BMI at 7 years of > age.

(One may not be surprised inasmuch as most efforts to boost IQ in kids like the Abecedarian project show fadeout.)

<comment><USER31> I agree in regard of fish oil quality. That's why I use algae derived DHA supplements.

<comment><USER32> He meant that the studies are _of_ poor quality, not that the studies only used poor quality fish oil.

<comment><USER31> Yeah, you are right.

And the second link I've posted is wrong, I meant to post this one: <http://www.dhaomega3.org/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> This article should be titled, "The latest findings on IQ" because IQ score and "intelligence" in a general sense are very different things. Plenty has been published on the inherent cultural and gender biases in IQ testing.

Statements like "when babies from poor families are adopted into wealthy families, their IQ goes up" are almost devoid of information because the IQ test itself favors the type of "intelligence" valued by the educated, wealthy class.

</comment><comment><USER34> In my opinion the reason poorer people have less IQ then wealthier people, and also why adopted poor babys into middle class homes have higher IQ's comes down to what they spend their time thinking about. Poorer people spend their time worrying about food, money and basic needs. This occupys alot of their thought. Richer people don't need to worry about the basic needs and spend their time worrying about larger more complicated things.

</comment><comment><USER35> Nitpicking but this seems like a contradiction: "It is noteworthy, for example, that at a given level of IQ, Chinese have smaller frontal cortexes than Americans (Chee, Zheng, Goh, & Park, 2011), although Chinese brains as a whole may be larger than those of Americans (Rushton, 2010). Even with brain size equated between Chinese and Americans, the frontal cortex is larger in Americans (Chee et al., 2011)."

</comment><comment><USER36> The title is misleading. This is not about intelligence, this is about IQ, and that's hardly the same thing. IQ has never been a reliable measure for anything, and something you can improve on by training/repeated exposure is certainly not linked to intelligence.

</comment><comment><USER37> Studies have shown that the first 5 years of a child's life is when the brain develops the most. Proper nutrition and exposure to simple problem solving will significantly increase the chances of the child having a higher IQ.

</comment><comment><USER17> I thought it would be interesting to note that my karma score seems to be going up and down a lot on this topic in short periods of time. On other topics, it seems to increase slowly. I'm trying to think of what deeper conclusions could be drawn from this that people have what appear to be strong and varying opinions on something that should be rather scientific and objective.

<comment><USER38> It can't be scientific and objective, because it is not measuring something scientifically and objectively defined and most of the differences being discussed can be erased by manipulating the testing circumstances.

That doesn't mean it is never worth measuring, but it seems particularly silly to obsess over IQ when better data on actual outcomes exists for things like educational interventions. The best applications of IQ are in identifying areas of deficit in individuals (one definition of learning disability is an area of cognitive performance that varies significantly from all others.) The worst applications of IQ are to funnel more resources to already-advantaged children or to make demographic generalizations. Given that, it hardly seems unreasonable to mostly ignore the IQ-obsessed research and focus on specific, repeatably-defined cognitive tasks instead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> We cannot engage into this kind of discourse until every party agrees on the definition of "intelligence," and whether intelligence is biological.</comment>


The Catholic church is as big as any company in America - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/node/21560536

<comment><USER2> According to Wikipedia, there are 1.2 billion Catholics. So this is $143 per customer. Or putting less than $3 in the collection plate every Sunday.

Wow, that actually seems kinda low, even considering that a lot of Catholics live in places that aren't as prosperous as the US.

And it's really even less, because as the article notes, they have other sources of income like healthcare payments, investments, and tuition.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is silly. It's combining local churches, individual universities, hospitals and other healthcare organizations which are all unrelated entities. The Church is not a single "corporation" organizationally or financially. The authors might as well have included the payrolls of all companies who's owners happen to be Catholic if they're going to just lump all "Catholic" things together.

</comment><comment><USER4> A totally crap HN headline: the referenced article refers transitively to "The Catholic Church in America". More than a small difference. Even the Economist headline fails to identify the subject America — north, south, or both.

At least the The Economist has an article; Patheos has a less then a gloss. Check out the article in The Economist. Ignore the other feeble one.

Too bad I can't figure out how to diss this HN post. Reference the article directly, or at least offer a reference to a decent commentary thereon.

There's more than one "Catholic Church", kumarksi. Please try to discriminate somewhere below the planetary level in such matters.

You just wasted my time.

<comment><AUTHOR> fair enough. noted.</comment></comment>


An electric motorcycle - <AUTHOR> https://www.mission-motorcycles.com/r Quite expensive though and far away from being the Tesla for superbikes. <comment><USER2> The RS version has been getting rave reviews. Despite the weight, the nature of the power delivery and lack of gears to fiddle with apparently make it devastatingly fast: [http://rideapart.com/2013/08/rideapart- review-2014-mission-r...](http://rideapart.com/2013/08/rideapart- review-2014-mission-rs/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Okay, maybe I am blind, but where is the weight? Real world mileage is such a vague term and such a silly one when discussion "superbikes". Whats my track time? I really want to know, I am not going to ride it sedately, so whats my real world mileage when I can't keep from twisting the throttle so hard?

could I get from Atlanta to Deal's gap and back? Nope? Well I am not a fan of trailer queens.

Get me something that gets me to and from work like my K1300GT does and I might be interested. Frankly I see very little point in a superbike electric as they are natural opposites, electric implies efficiency but the riding behavior associated with superbikes is anything but

<comment><USER4> It's 540lbs which is way to heavy to be considered a superbike [1].

For reference -- unlike Mission who presumably are hiding the weight on purpose -- Suzuki lists their stock GSX1000R as 450lbs wet on its spec page[2].

[1] [http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-reviews/first- drives/2014-mi...](http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-reviews/first- drives/2014-mission-rs-electric-motorcycle-first-ride-review)

[2] [http://www.suzukicycles.com/Product%20Lines/Cycles/Products/...](http://www.suzukicycles.com/Product%20Lines/Cycles/Products/GSX-R1000/2013/GSXR1000.aspx#Specs)

<comment><USER4> As a counterpoint, an article[1] posted elsewhere in this thread makes it seem like the weight is not as big a deal as it seems due to how centralized it is. Interesting and I guess I will have to reserve judgement until I can ride one :)

[1] [http://rideapart.com/2013/08/rideapart- review-2014-mission-r...](http://rideapart.com/2013/08/rideapart- review-2014-mission-rs/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I saw another electric motorcycle on Thursday that blew my mind as it was the first time I'd seen one in the flesh and on the street, the Saietta: [http://www.agilitymotors.com/](http://www.agilitymotors.com/)

Loved the design of it, somewhere between Tron and Portal.

The only thing that gets me is the range... 120 miles. That seems to be similar to the Mission motorcycle too. Good for the city, but hard for long rides (and both the speed and performance encourage you to enjoy leaving the city).

<comment><USER6> Most performance bikes have a range around 120-150 miles. Triumph Daytona 675 for example is 125 miles. Enough for a long weekend ride, or a regular commute without too many refills a week.

If you want more... you get a tourer.

<comment><USER5> Sure, but I could top-up that Triumph and extend my range pretty much anywhere as gas/petrol stations are everywhere.

With an electric bike, the options start to become limited and a greater range is desired.

I couldn't see a re-charge time on the Mission site, but the Saietta cites a 3.5-8 hour full re-charge time dependant on the power supply available.

Depending on temperature/weather a ride from London to Birmingham would be risky. Unless you'd planned in advance and left at first light so you could ride back at dusk, you'd probably have to stay overnight even though the ride would have only taken a couple of hours (max). That may be great if you want a day out somewhere, but less great if you want a day out _riding_.

And this is being marketed as a "superbike". But it couldn't participate in existing race events (even if rules permitted an electric bike), as the distance of a race at Silverstone is 263 miles. Both the Mission and Saietta could not complete even half the distance of a race event, and even if you step down to track day events the electric bikes wouldn't last the event (7 x 20 minute sessions @ 80% speed is beyond the range of the bikes... you'd hope to go faster than 80% speed anyway).

So what is the real current usage of a bike with such range and re-charge time? Commuting.

Suddenly that's one hell of an expensive commuting bike.

<comment><USER6> You're not wrong. From riding myself I remember many times when a ride went a bit further, or a bit wider than expected and one of the group would need to top up, so there would need to be a lot to make this viable and relaxing.

For commutes, it's fine. It's almost like it should be a sporty tourer, but then that's no fun on a press release.

I think given the Formula E plan of having 2x cars per race, racing is actually more applicable. Racing will challenge how these bikes are recharged/replaced quickly.

The most often overlooked issue with press-release-bikes, is that many motorcycle owners will show terror at the thought of having a no-brand bike. The cost of parts, servicing, or replacement if it gets crashed (it will) is so high, that it really is only a toy for the naive or rich (or both).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Good looking design, but a superbike that doesn't make any noise? That's a dangerous game. The noise it's part of it's presence and dare I say it, safety.

<comment><USER8> Maybe _some_ noise, yes. But god aren't most bikes noisy; I almost feel my ear drums burst whenever one passes by. I think there should be a noise limit, in addition to the speed one, at least in the cities.

<comment><USER9> Bikes don't come out of the factory noisy, there are EPA limits in the US. They become noisy when some dork sticks an aftermarket pipe on it. There are also noise limits everywhere that I am aware of, those laws are just rarely enforced. Why that is, I have no idea. Seems like easy ticket money on a sunny day.

As for the parent, if you're relying on your bike's noise to keep you out of trouble, you're an accident waiting to happen. Loud pipes don't save lives, paying attention and not riding like an ass does.

<comment><USER7> Coming up a blind bend in poor visibility on a bike that makes absolutely no noise and someone decides to do a u-turn from a parked position... I'm not suggesting that the noise of the bike is going to get you out of trouble every single time, nor is it an excuse to ride like an idiot. However you're clinging on to an engine attached to two wheels and I want all the presence I can get because I can only account for my driving and not the driving of others.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> As a keen rider (S1000-RR) I would love this. I mostly commute on mine and in the hot Toronto summers the heat is what kills you. I'm pretty sure this thing would run way cooler.

</comment><comment><USER11> Range on the cheapest model is comparable to my Suzuki SV650, would be great for commuting eg you can charge every night. Plugging in at night would be much better than having to waste 15 mins at the service station every 3 days. Probably not going to ride it to the mountains and back on a long ride, though. Still - very cool! Can't wait for battery tech to get better/cheaper.

</comment><comment><USER12> I've been waiting for someone to step up and become the Tesla of motorcycles: ie, hell with the costs, we're just going to make the greatest bike possible. Very cool to see it.

That dash is both awesome and scary as hell. Stravassholes on bicycles are annoying; I can't imagine one on a motorcycle with 120 ft-lbs of torque.

<comment> __--__ What's funny is they came up with the design 3 years ago. Made a prototype, raced it, set a bunch of records then shelved it. At the time, a production version would have cost $60k and they didn't think that was viable. Now it's 30k and there are rumors about a 15k version in the next few years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This sounds really cool. But, personally, is it possible to design a "neat appearance" and more "future"? It seems no difference to other motorbikes in market. As a Superbike, it must be distinctive.

</comment><comment><USER14> Give me that dash on my Duc! - they also mention a HUD, scant on detail though. Pricey but they are using some of the best brakes, forks and suspension the market has to offer, best of luck to these guys.

<comment><USER15> The definition for 'HUD' must have taken a left turn somewhere. A display you look down to see, taking your eyes off the road, isn't a 'HUD' its a 'display'.

<comment><USER16> It says right on the page that the HUD would be a wireless piece that attaches to your helmet.

<comment><USER15> Sorry missed that. I just saw the 12 pictures on their main page, of a regular LCD navigation display which appears to be between the handlebars.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Just wondering whether there is any REGULAR electric bike (100cc-200cc engine) - that would be an instant HIT in the developing countries like India and China ....

<comment><USER18> Yamaha make the EC-03 [http://www.yamaha-motor.eu/uk/products/electric- vehicles/com...](http://www.yamaha-motor.eu/uk/products/electric- vehicles/commuters/ec-03.aspx)

No idea what it's like though

<comment><USER19> That's not a motorcycle, it's a moped...

<comment><USER18> In India and China, most people ride mopeds, so the Yamaha could well fit the bill.

I ride a Kawasaki Versys 650, so I am aware of the difference between motorcycle and moped :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> If you like that one, then you should have a look at this one too. The Lightning electric bike won the Pikes Peak race this year, including the gas powered bikes . 218 mph top speed. [http://www.lightningmotorcycle.com/](http://www.lightningmotorcycle.com/)

</comment><comment><USER21> I have a 3kW electric scooter, which can and does hit 45 mph / 75 kph on the flats.

I'm trying to picture having 40 times the torque, and just failing. What an incredible world.

<comment><USER16> What type of scoot do you have?

<comment><USER21> An Xtreme Scooter XM-3150, which is identical to (many? most? all?) Zapinos.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> good price, gas bikes usually start off at that price and end up a quarter of that price second hand within 3 years.

<comment><USER23> The pricing is a joke [http://www.motorcyclistonline.com/2013/suzuki/gsx_r/750/pric...](http://www.motorcyclistonline.com/2013/suzuki/gsx_r/750/prices/134133/05/)

<comment><USER14> Yes but your comparing a VW Golf with a Tesla Model S

<comment><USER7> Tempted to argue that the gixxer is anything but a VW Golf. It can take most sports cars from standstill and probably max speed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Live fast, die young, leave a nice planet.</comment>


Reason magazine's holocaust denial special issue - <AUTHOR> http://pando.com/2014/07/24/as-reasons-editor-defends-its-racist-history-heres-a-copy-of-its-holocaust-denial-special-issue/

<comment><USER2> I hope this way of using the word "denial" can someday be eradicated. It means that somebody else is not convinced by the evidence that you (and maybe a great many other people) find convincing, nothing more. It makes as much sense to talk about "Vim supremacy denialism", etc.

I apologize for getting meta and not responding to the content of this article specifically.</comment>


How the world will change as computers spread into everyday objects - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/leaders/2019/09/12/how-the-world-will-change-as-computers-spread-into-everyday-objects <comment><USER2> I've said this before, but the "Internet of Things" is a bad vision for the future. Dystopian, almost. I don't want every little thing to be a computer running software that is buggy, out of date, insecure, out of my control, and constantly pestering me for updates.

What I want is _one_ smart device: a robot that can operate all my non-smart devices. The robot can set the thermostat, unlock the door, flip the light switches, do the laundry and the dishes, monitor the house while I'm away, etc. That's the goal we should be working towards. IoT should be seen as, at best, a stopgap solution. It's not a desirable end state.

<comment><USER3> Here's the utopia I'd love: The thermostat / door lock / light would present a simple documented interface exposing all the functionality available from the physical device. I'd even be okay if it was delivered via Wi-Fi or ZigBee (though I'd really prefer RS-488, RS-232, or wired Ethernet w/ PoE).

No manufacturer will do this because it limits their ability to engineer-in planned obsolescence, vendor lock-in, and recurring revenue "cloud" business models.

There are commercial and industrial-grade devices that do what I want, but they're priced for their market segment and, infuriatingly, their protocols are needlessly baroque (MODBUS, BACNET, et. al.) or proprietary.

<comment><USER4> We need the Unix philosophy in the physical world.

Our multitude of small devices themselves can stay "dumb", but it'd be a huge missed opportunity to totally cut them off from the software world.

A robot turning knobs and pushing buttons as grandparent seems to suggest is a romantic vision that doesn't hold up well to the real world.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Such a world will bring many benefits. Consumers will get convenience, and products that can do things non-computerised versions cannot. Amazon's Ring smart doorbells, for instance, come equipped with motion sensors and video cameras. Working together, they can also form what is, in effect, a private CCTV network, allowing the firm to offer its customers a "digital neighbourhood-watch" scheme and pass any interesting video along to the police."

This is the best they could come up with as an example for the "many benefits"? Tilt your head only slightly privacy-leaning and this looks like a terrifying dystopia. Of course the Orwellian nightmare won't come to "law abiding" middle and upper-class citizens, who will most be tracked as unwitting lab rats by mega tech firms intent on understanding every aspect of human life in order to monetize it, usually through ads and Chinese-style digital karma, but the marginalized groups--ethnic minorities, political dissidents, and the "mentally unstable" will be persecuted and hounded endlessly by digital means. With mass shootings all over the US, it's only a matter of time until they weaponize the already-built surveillance network to red-flag people. As usual, our own fear of each other is way out ahead, on the leading edge of technology.

<comment><USER6> Oof private CCTV network, so they can sell the live video feeds. Imagine the possibilities with face recognition. Wanna follow your wife everywhere? Want to follow anyone you want to stalk? No problem for this fee you will have access to our video feed and face recognition software, which will enable you to track anyone and anywhere.

Want their DNA? No problem. Want their interests? Sleeping schedule? Work schedule? If you got the money we got the stuff.

Future is looking really interesting.

<comment><USER7> Think about the botnets you can build from cheap IoT with lousy security to basically control billions of devices in peoples homes.

<comment><USER8> Do you want a _hot_ shower after your long day? Touch here to transfer $1 to the malware that just hijacked your plumbing. Try to remove it, and it will do $5000 in damage. A professional home IT security fix will run $1000 and take 3 days, while you camp in your back yard or live out of a motel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Shockingly, this was published last week. I was expecting a mid-90's/early-00s article.

I don't understand why this is an article. Its basically saying "Imagine if the Internet of Things.... wait for it.... had more Things!" Of course you'll see an increase in efficiency, and the balance of power will shift toward larger corporations capable of harnessing said efficiency. This has been happening for 15 years. This is not news to anyone.

<comment><USER10> _Shockingly, this was published last week. I was expecting a mid-90 's/early-00s article._

That's the impression I had. Home automation hasn't gone very far, and seems to be more trouble than it's worth. Now you have to worry about your "cloud home animation provider" going out of business, or changing their business model, or just dropping support on your home devices. Someone faced with Google dropping support on something recently wrote "My house won't work any more". "Unauthorised Bread" by Cory Doctorow is close to reality now.

There's the Cameras Everywhere thing, with Ring and that crowd. That's the telescreen from 1984, privatized.

None of this stuff does any much. All sensing, no actuation. Power windows for houses, for example, are expensive and rare. Even HVAC systems for houses which have a controlled damper for outside air are rare. The robot vacuum cleaners still aren't good enough to just ignore and let them do their job.

Most of the ideas for the Internet of Things can be seen in the 1950s Whirlpool Kitchen of the Future. Today, you can really buy most of that stuff. Back then, though, Big Brother wasn't part of the package.

[1] [https://www.inverse.com/article/12064-we-ve-finally- arrived-...](https://www.inverse.com/article/12064-we-ve-finally-arrived-in- the-1950s-kitchen-of-the-future)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> [http://archive.is/PxJo9](http://archive.is/PxJo9)

</comment><comment><USER12> What I find missing is that the implication of this:

>The cheaper models in Tesla's line-up have parts of their batteries disabled by the car's software in order to limit their range. At the tap of a keyboard in Palo Alto, the firm was able to remove those restrictions and give drivers temporary access to the full power of their batteries.

has not been contemplated.

It plainly means that someone in Palo Alto can also _add_ restrictions (possibly even stopping the car altogether) and that since everything is remote actuated possibly _someone else_ might do the same (individually or per area, etc.).

</comment><comment><USER13> Less hand waving, more real examples please Economist.

<comment><USER14> Agreed, this article seems like it was written 5 years ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I think every day products will have increased use, life, and other benefits being able to have a IoT device that enhances our lives as the current products are just there in our lives.

</comment><comment><USER16> I don't want Elon Musk high on some substance, being able to control the car I drive. Or anyone, really. While it's arguably hard to make your own car, it's trivial to make an ebike, that nobody can control except you.

It's trivial to not rely on cloud providers for anything. I can store mp3s (or mkvs, etc.) on a NAS and play them from a computer or a Pi. I can certainly flip switches to turn lights on or off in my house.

In fact, most "home automation" sounds a little absurd. If you can program it yourself and you like it, good for you. But to rely on a remote provider that may or may not work when you most need it, or who may "discontinue" devices you rely on, is irrational.

It seems most people are willing to give away control for the smallest gain in convenience. We should resist more.

<comment><USER17> What an asinine way to begin a comment attempting to explain your position. I think it's safe to say that nobody wishes another human "high on some substance" has the ability to disrupt the control of their vehicle. Where did you even pull that from?

That being said, the people who "should resist more" are the ones don't find it "trivial" to not rely on cloud service providers. They grab IoT products like a Ring doorbell off the shelf and install it one and done.

<comment><USER16> Elon Musk is often high and even when not, says things that are completely unacceptable. Look them up. He's loved here on HN. But even if you do love him you shouldn't give him control over your life.

Why does anyone need a Ring doorbell? Can't you just stand up and answer the door? I don't understand any of this (I do understand I'm in the wrong forum for saying so).

<comment><USER17> We can agree to disagree over Elon Musk, but I can give you a good use case for Ring off the top of my head:

My parents bought a Ring (I am heavily against it for every reason you wrote, plus I can't stand the idea of a company owning my family's video footage, I asked them to let me set up some sort of CCTV system but they just want the easy way)and it provides them with a quick, cheap motion activated video feed of their home straight to their phones from anywhere in the world. This isn't even a doorbell function, the thing can be configured to detect motion over a selection of distances and send you a notification straight to a live video feed.

Sure that can be manually set up but for a lot of people who aren't too tech savvy, grabbing something like a Ring from bestbuy is quick and easy to get running. Maybe the issue could be helped if a someone sold something like an arduino based doorbell / cam, with easy to use software or an app like Ring that didn't call back home.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Prediction: Amazon's 400 new bookstores intended to be bases for drone delivery - <AUTHOR> http://www.cringely.com/2016/02/04/amazon-bookstores-its-all-about-the-drones-stupid/ <comment><USER2> I find the big idea of brick and mortar bookstores as logistical bases for local delivery very much plausible. However, I think ground traversing drone delivery is much more likely.

 _It 's a simple matter of weight - ratios ... A five-ounce bird could not hold a one pound coconut._

Longer run, it may also be a way for Amazon to locally broadcast in the radio spectrum with fewer dependencies on third parties in a way that recurses on it's strategy for controlling infrastructure expressed by AWS. High traffic retail space also could provide a base for selling services to nearby commercial interests.

In other words, Cringly's reading such a move by Amazon as primarily one into real-estate and driven by location is not as outrageous as the part about flying drones. Picking up your Amazon order at the local Amazon store or local third party delivery (or fourth party via Uber etc.), would decouple long distance hauling contracts from last mile contracts.</comment>


Any Half-Decent Hacker Could Break into Mar-A-Lago. We Tested It - <AUTHOR> https://gizmodo.com/any-half-decent-hacker-could-break-into-mar-a-lago-we-1795276155 <comment><USER3> While many might find this unsurprising considering the names involved, I think the larger theme of "Multiple Industries - such as Hospitality - <USER2> Cheap on InfoSec Basics, Taunt Disaster" is quite valid.</comment>


The Age of Asteroids - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/age-asteroids?int-cid=mod-latest

<comment><USER2> One statement that stood out to me was Chris Lewicki's dig at NASA's "twenty year old computer" running Curiosity, with Lewicki adding the usual jab about his iPhone having more processing power.

The RAD750 is based on a 1996-era PowerPC design, so the statement is technically true, but as far as I know it's basically the state-of-the-art in rad-hardened processors -- it's the same processor used in Boeing's 787 FMC, for example. (SST did just ship a rad-hard M0, which is kind of neat.)

Lewicki's not just talking off-the-cuff here -- he's one of a few people actually qualified to opine on spacecraft engineering -- but I wonder, what does he think should be used in place of the hugely-expensive, arguably- antiquated but undoubtedly robust systems currently in use?

<comment><USER3> NASA and other space agencies usually build a single satellite for a single task, and it will cost $1B+. Chris Lewicki and other "newspace" companies are suggesting making cheap satellites, but lots of them. If one fails, maybe you lose $1M but you certainly don't lose $1B.

This gap makes it possible to take risks and use newer hardware, specifically hardware that has not been radiation-hardened or even tested in orbit.

<comment><USER4> Sounds like that's a fundamental risk assessment that needs to be made ASAP. If you're talking $1 million satellites, and this denigrated state of the art most powerful rad hard CPU board goes for a reported $200K, then if the non- tested, non-rad hard (and don't forget temperature extremes), more powerful CPUs just don't work, or don't work for certain missions, you need to find that out.

<comment><USER5> These systems are not designed by idiots.

Normal CPU's don't last long enough in space to be all that useful for satellites. And even for profit telecom companies stick with radiation hardened CPU's so it's not like this is a case of 'military' over engineering.

<comment><USER4> As far as I could tell, the low budget amateur radio types also use rad hard CPUs in their satellites.

So, what's Mr. Lewicki's alternative?

<comment><USER4> Here is SpaceX's: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8746788](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8746788)

<comment><USER5> SpaceX does not need radiation hardening for rockets which are only briefly in space. That's hardly the equivalent of satellites which need to be in space for years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The most surprising single fact from this article, in my opinion, was to learn that Queen's Brian May is an astrophysicist! That fact alone distracted me slightly while reading the rest, which I also found to be interesting.</comment>