ESPN subscriber losses raise questions about the TV ecosystem - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/12/07/one-of-disneys-most-popular-brands-has-investors-really-worried/ <comment><USER2> I need to work and sleep and spend time with friends. TV just isn't a priority because the vast majority of it is pure trash.

I can't even spend the attention required to watch TV most times. I find myself just leaving it on in the background and then realized that I've paused it because something was more interesting on my laptop. Sometimes it takes me hours just to get through one episode.

There is also piracy. I don't have cable but I still watched Walking Dead. Which I've also stopped watching. Live TV just seems so pointless. If a show is good I can just pick it up after like 3 seasons and binge it if I want.

Paying $80 a month for TV is just absurd. And paying for sports is even more ridiculous. I like the NBA, and occasionally the NFL during playoffs. But I'll never watch a game live which just spreads 35 minutes of content over 3 hours to maximize ad revenue.

TV had it's heyday, the idea that it isn't on a steady downward decline towards some new steady state is delusion. ESPN in its current form is done. The impact on athletes salaries should be interesting though.

<comment><USER3> >TV just isn't a priority because the vast majority of it is pure trash.

>TV had it's heyday

I can tell you don't watch much TV. It's never been better. We're in a golden age of TV, it's just not on ESPN. There have recently been a lot of extremely high quality, hour long dramas, which basically amount to a movie every week. Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Game of Thrones, The Wire, arguably Westworld, to name a few.

<comment><USER4> While I've been a huge fan of this 'golden age of TV', I can't help but wonder to which degree I'm fooling myself by spending hours on 'extremely high quality' television that ultimately still is primarily entertainment and doesn't 'improve' my life in any real way.

The Wire felt like it actually taught me something and made me think about society and my role in it. But to what extent are Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Game of Thrones, and Westworld basically same as daytime soap operas dressed up so they're palatable to 'discerning' consumers?

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, but I do find that many people, myself included, justify their TV habits by arguing that we're watching 'quality' TV instead of the usual daytime garbage.

(I've been reading Infinite Jest and recently read Wallace' "E Unibus Pluram"[1], so this has been on my mind.)

[1]: [https://jsomers.net/DFW_TV.pdf](https://jsomers.net/DFW_TV.pdf)

<comment><USER5> A long time ago I came to the conclusion :

One day I will be old and unoccupied, work will be behind me, my capacity to produce will be reduced, I will be more inclined to consume. If TV programmes and films of today are any good they will still be around. I shall watch them then.

<comment><USER6> You know, this is exactly what my Dad did. He's in his late 80's now, and retired back in '92\. He job kept him busy 24/7 for most of his career, and he never had the time to watch TV, when there were so many other, more important things to do.

Nowadays, he uses my Netflix account waaaay more than I do. And he's catching up on decades of shows, and quite enjoying himself. He just finished Season 3 of ST:TNG. It's been fun talking to him about episodes I watched back in the day, too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Business publications and their core audience only understand business culture and jargon. So business articles about ESPN focus on historical revenue numbers, and talk about corporate spin-off as a means of "unlocking value", etc.

Technical publications and forums like this are largely populated by young people and early adopters (i.e. the groups most likely to be cord-cutting anyway), and tend not to be sports fans. So these discussions marvel at the fact that there are still dinosaurs who haven't cord-cut yet, and suggest that the remedy is ESPN accelerating migration to a new technical platform.

As someone who actually is an avid sports fan, and socializes with other sports fans, I'm going to throw out a third factor for your consideration. The... product... SUCKS... now! It never gets mentioned, because the "business" audience and the "technical" audience doesn't directly experience it so much. However, applying Occam's Razor, I think changes to product quality are usually the largest factor in changes to product fortunes.

ESPN has been on a long, slow shift from "hard" sports coverage to "soft" entertainment filler for years. However, over the past two years this trend has jolted toward accelerating at a breathtaking pace. For the core audience of sports fans, ESPN is basically little more than TMZ now. It's more discussion of off-field "drama" than actual sport.

Sports fans get tired of fake "QB controversies", manufactured by ESPN talking heads. They get tired of endless analysis of whether African-American franchise athletes like RGIII and Russell Wilson are "black enough". Colin Kaepernick kneeling during the national anthem was a legit story for the first week or two, but after 14 straight weeks of talk ( _none_ of which touched the underlying substance that Kaepernick is trying to call attention to)... I think sports fans of all political persuasion are long past done hearing about it.

TL;DR - ESPN is a sports network. It has dramatically shifted away from serious sports coverage over the past two years. Their core audience is growing sour on them, and subscriptions are dropping. I believe that everything beyond this is just ancillary factors.

<comment><USER8> You're spot on. I'm old enough to remember Sports Center when it was Patrick and Olberman. It was smart and witty and done with subtlety and clever cultural references. Now ESPN is 90℅ loudmouth morons yelling at each other about the manufactured controversy of the week. Anything other than the live events is unwatchable.

<comment><USER9> I second this wholeheartedly. I used to watch SportsCenter at night before going to bed and in the morning when I was getting ready all the way back in high school (97-01).

I don't even watch it for more than 10 minutes a week now. I've gotten the EXACT highlight I wanted without waiting on a bunch of crap already online, and the rest of it is just the sports equivalent of political punditry. Just throwing around 'hot takes' for the sake of having something to say.

For every highlight package there's like 3 sob story human interest pieces that are so contrived (the swim team was only LOWER MIDDLE CLASS and they sold hay bales to make it to the state tournament!) that I just get pissed and turn it off.

Let's not even talk about how many commercials are in the middle of their sports broadcasts.

ESPN and SC in particular were where you went for the best of the day in a tight, smart package. You had just enough 'funnies' that something as inane as a Scott Stuart 'Booya!' stood out, and the human interest pieces were actually interesting tales of genuine grit and empathy.

I was barely a watcher anymore by the time all the Tim Tebow is Jesus stuff came out, but that probably pretty much soured me forever.

I don't read the articles, I don't watch the shows, but I do feel that (generally) their prime sports broadcasts are top notch and everything they do has a better quality level than FS1.

EDIT: A question, since I'd imagine the VAST MAJORITY of ESPN's subscribers come from cable package bundling, doesn't it stand to reason that as long as ESPNs decline isn't in stark contrasts to cable/satellite subscriptions that it's more of a condemnation of the entire ecosystem?

I, BTW, would absolutely cut the cord except for I love sports, pretty much all the major US sports. I have kids so going to the bar or a friend's place to watch the game doesn't always pan out, and sometimes if it's a game I'm hugely interested in I would rather be at MY house, on MY couch, watching MY TV and not being interrupted (any more than what 3 kids under 4 can do). Other times I want the game on in the background while I'm getting stuff done around the house.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I cut cable tv 5 years ago after being a heavy user my whole life. The strangest part was transitioning from watching what was on to choosing what to watch. At first I thought it would be obviously better but it was uncomfortable for a while. After a few months the benefits kicked in and now if I'm ever somewhere with other people watching tv there are a few things that stand out:

Commercials are incredibly intrusive. I am amazed at what I was willing to put up with for so long.

Sports commentary is offensively vapid. Actual comment from the Olympic coverage this last year: "This routine is so difficult it's been called incredibly difficult". Even allowing for getting a little tongue tied on live tv it was painfully bad.

Most other commentary is awful. Listening to explanations filtered through what a reporter is willing to take the time to understand just doesn't compare when are so many good sources from real experts in so many fields online.

Maybe I'm just to the point where I want to yell at kids to stay off my lawn but I don't see how the "TV ecosystem" survives much longer.

<comment><USER11> Def some physiology behind that. If some random movie is on TV it's like "oh cool this is on," if that same movie is available on demand to watch whenever I want it's "seen it, don't need to watch again."

That and I'm paranoid about everything I watch being tracked and used to profile me.

<comment><USER12> I definitely agree that I'm more willing to watch something that happens to be on, but might not watch the same thing on Netflix (same with the radio and Spotify). Is there any scientific research that proves these thoughts?

<comment><USER13> People value potential losses more than potential gains. Loosing $10 will affect you more intensely than finding it (or at least you judge it to be before the fact).

So when something is on, there is a "loss" in missing it. When it's on Netflix, there is only a "gain".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The problem with ESPN isn't that it's losing subscribers. The problem is that it's losing subscribers while it's tied into incredibly expensive exclusivity contracts with sports leagues, like Major League Baseball or the National Football League. These contracts form the vast majority of ESPN's expenses and give it the vast majority of its content. This means that, unlike other companies, or even other media companies, it's not clear how ESPN can easily and quickly cut costs to match its declining revenue.

<comment><USER15> I've never understood this argument. Contracts are a two-way street; why should the NFL demand ever-increasing fees for a product that's being watched by fewer and fewer people? Network rating have been down for years, it's only recently that ESPN has been following the same trend. At some point the sports leagues will have to realize that declining viewership means smaller contracts, it's just a question of whether ESPN can survive until that day.

<comment><USER14> >I've never understood this argument. Contracts are a two-way street; why should the NFL demand ever-increasing fees for a product that's being watched by fewer and fewer people?

Exactly. As bad as this is for ESPN, it's even worse for the NFL. Ticket prices cannot sustain the league. Merchandising cannot sustain the league. The only thing that can sustain a league as rich as the NFL is massive television royalties. I predict that the next few years are going to be very uncomfortable, as the NFL and TV networks have some very tense negotiations over how much the product (football games) is actually worth.

<comment><USER5> Those $100-330m college stadiums are going to look pretty stupid with 20k people in an 80k stadium too, if RL audiences shrink the same way.

[http://www.therichest.com/luxury/most-expensive/college- foot...](http://www.therichest.com/luxury/most-expensive/college-footballs- most-expensive-stadiums/)

<comment><USER16> Eh, attending a football game and watching one on TV are two different things. My wife would never watch NASCAR on TV, but she loves going to races. She'd never watch football on TV, but she loves tailgating and sitting in the stadium. She absolutely hates baseball, but we're season ticket holders for our local minor league team.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> On every comment thread about ESPN's subscriber losses, I see comments like these, which are attached to this Post story:

"I stopped watching both ESPN and the NFL because of their liberal politics."

"What a shock.ESPN pushes it's liberal agenda at every turn alienating half your audience and are suprised subscribers are canceling in droves."

"Way more than half. Most ESPN viewers are/were male. You'd expect common sense to prevail at some point and lead them to restrain themselves from committing ratings suicide, but leftists just can't seem to help it."

"ESPN has driven millions of viewers and subscribers away because of their incessant shoving of their leftist politics in our faces. Whenever I want to watch a game on ESPN, I'm instead subjected to lectures about gay "marriage," Castro, alleged "police brutality," and Bruce Jenner's constitutional right to shower with other people's teenage daughters. ESPN can now be easily mistaken for a rerun of the Democratic National Convention, why bother to watch it?"

"Amazing, not one single word about what is by far the biggest reason for ESPN's current demise. It has become PMSNBC. Every talking head, show host, etc. knows that if they do not toe the Liberal fascist party line, they will be Schillinged."

"ESPN has become a liberal voice in politics. I no longer listen but on watch sports. It has failed its mission."

The conservative half of our country is not happy with ESPN.

<comment><USER18> Is it just me, or does it feel like "conservatives" have finally discovered the internet? Over the last few months, it feels like friggin _everything_ has become Obama's fault, or suddenly "leftists" are responsible for _X_.

I'm not trying to be combative, or start a political argument. I have my own political leanings, sure, but I derive no joy from bitching about it on the internet. I just know that everything I read on a daily basis has veered to the right in the last few months.

Is this a cultural shift, or a demographic that was relatively unheard in this medium asserting itself for the first time? I'm not making a value judgement either way, just wondering.

(Don't get me wrong, shit like Conservapedia has been around for years now. But most of the stuff I read, for better or worse, has been pro-social justice, pro-multiculturalism, etc. until now. Do fewer people buy into that nowadays? Or is what I'm seeing the result of more people participating?)

<comment><USER19> Remember where conservatives tend to live. Getting anything better than a 28.8 kilobit/second modem isn't easy. Eh, for you city folk, that's a 0.0288 megabit connection. The decimal point is 3 or 4 places to the bad side of what you are used to getting.

As tolerable internet makes it's way out to rural America, you can expect to see a change in the average political view on the internet.

<comment><USER20> Your view is accurate. As of 10 years ago.

I think if you chose a random red state area, you would find that they have high speed Internet access there.

For instance Atlanta Georgia has a huge concentration of datacenters, went heavily for Trump, and there is high speed Internet all over the state.

<comment><USER21> Georgia went nominally Trump. Atlanta, Savannah, and smaller cities are still predominantly blue.

[0] [http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/georgia](http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/georgia)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> It's funny - my couch potato father just retired 3 weeks ago.

After 10 years of trying, I had totally given up teaching him to watch YouTube or Netflix.

When I called him a few nights back and asked him what he did that day, he told me he spent _all day_ watching YouTube.

Made me wonder how many other baby boomers might do this once retirement gives them more energy to try new things ...

<comment><USER23> I wonder if there's a case to introduce Boomers to The AV Club "Wiki Wormhole"[1] series to show the internet isn't all memes and cats and uh, things we don't want to show them they can find for themselves if they really want...

[1] [http://www.avclub.com/features/wiki- wormhole/](http://www.avclub.com/features/wiki-wormhole/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Macroeconomically, this is good. Between stadiums and college sports and the Super Bowl we, as Americans, place too much value on sports and direct too much economic (and political) power to its mechanisms. Do not underestimate the power of shifting cultural sands.

There was a great article a few years ago, in the _New Yorker_ [1]. It compared Michael Vick, the exploiter of dogs' eagerness-to-please for profit, with Michael Vick, the football player trying to break out of a low socioeconomic bracket by concussing himself for our enjoyment. It was substitled "how different are dogfighting and football?"

[1] [http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/10/19/offensive- play](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/10/19/offensive-play)

<comment> Trill-I-Am Why are you sure that this signifies a shifting of cultural capital to more civically and educationally worthwhile pursuits?

<comment><USER24> > _Why are you sure that this signifies a shifting of cultural capital to more > civically and educationally worthwhile pursuits?_

The logic behind a carbon tax is it dissuades destructive behaviour. Implicit is that investors will choose better options.

That is not because every carbon-tax redirected dollar will bear angels. It's just that burning coal is just so bad for us, almost anything else will be a step up. (Don't mean to make this partisan; feel free to substitute cigarette taxes or gun restrictions for a carbon tax.)

Concussing (mostly) poor teenagers hoping for a short shot at the big life followed by guarantees neurological degradation is gladiatoresque in its macabre.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> TV is where music was in the early 2000's. Technology, and streaming in particular, has advanced to such an extent that it's a no brainer. Like music executives were, TV producers are archaic and they've presided over its demise because they have had a monopoly which was so good for so long. They've accepted the way things are as the way they will always be without cognition of the change they were witnessing.

TV is dying because you have to pay more money to have no control over the schedule of things you watch, in comparison to streaming.

In the UK, for sports at least, it is even worse. Up to £90/$120 a month for the full TV package yet I can't even watch the soccer game I want to watch it's picked for me, it's absurd. Yet I can go online and watch an international stream of the same game for free.

Spotify emerged and changed the paradigm, the same will happen to TV but with one critical evolution; the extinction of garbage television.

Programming outside of live television is dead, it makes no sense to persist. The film and TV series market have been sewn up. The greed of sporting government/TV corporation has prevented this so far with Live TV but they'll fall or face the same problem the music industry did, which they already are.

The death of satellite Television is the first step to a better, economically efficient, world for consumers.

If you follow the natural path, advertisement on Satellite television may be the most wasteful form of advertisement imaginable. It's a small step to imagine a world where advertisements around a sporting event are tailored specifically to an individual, if you subscription is linked to your Facebook account or Google search history. It therefore must be assumed if more targeted advertisement could be achieved live events would be subsidised to reach the appropriate audience.

<comment><USER5> Would you rather have advertising that you might be interested in or for soap powder ?

I assume we'd both rather have zero advertising while trying to watch television. I do find a real difference between general broadcast TV adverts, which I just mute, and the advertising on Eurosport (I subscribe to it online though it is on cable/satellite) which is usually more tailored e.g. when I watch cycle racing, many of the ads are for cycling equipment, travel, & sporting goods i general. When I watch motorbike racing it's tyres, motorbikes & equipment etc.

It's like when buying a magazine. I actively look through the adverts in my interior design magazine because they are all interior design releated. Whereas the ads in the TV guide, to pick an example, are actively avoided.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> It speaks more about ESPN as a product. It's a terribly inefficient way to get info about your favorite sports teams. Most of the time its just 2 talking heads arguing and going on irrelevant tangents. Its especially bad with their radio station.

Other than live games, ESPN simply isn't competitive with the other ways sports fans follow their teams. You can watch highlights on youtube (without watching an hour long program), follow the good beat writers on their blogs, and get instant updates and breaking news from twitter.

</comment><comment><USER27> I finally cut the cord thanks to Kodi, Amazon Instant and a DTV receiver. I realized last earlier this year that $150/mo. for TV when everyone in my family was literally watching one channel a piece was a massive waste of money.

I love it. The only things I watch are things _I_ want to watch. I don't have my thoughts and opinions shaped by talking heads anymore. Most of all, I'm spending over $1000/year less. The money I'm saving is enough to pretty much cover the note on the brand new car I just bought. Can you believe that? I literally could buy a car with what I was paying to fill my head up with nonsense.

</comment><comment><USER28> This will likely be an unpopular opinion, but it is just my opinion.

In the Midwest, the Kappernick debacle, and the downstream protests from nba players, lends itself as a figurative rotten egg on network's reputation. Nobody here disagrees with his motives, but they see his methods as despicable. Furthermore if people speak out against him, they're accused as being racist, which they aren't (false dichotomy). All of this ends up poisoning the brand. Getting constantly accused for something you're not, and then having to be reminded about it when you just want to relax leads to viewers migrating elsewhere.

<comment><USER29> >the Kappernick debacle

Earlier this year, ESPN had 10 million fewer subscribers than they had in 2013; they lost 1.5 million of them between February and May of this year[1]. That was months before Colin Kaepernick's first anthem protest in late August.

[1][http://www.outkickthecoverage.com/espn-loses-1-5-million- sub...](http://www.outkickthecoverage.com/espn-loses-1-5-million-subscribers- as-cord-cutting-accelerates-052816)

<comment><USER30> There is an accelerating trend of cord cutters. Any event upsetting a specific subsection of the remaining subscribers triggers a small cutting avalanche. But focusing on the trigger of the month is missing the root causes. The reason people cut is that the bundle makes less sense than competing offerings. The bundle is also so expensive that some loss of content is now tolerated.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I'm actually one of the strange ones who's recently added cable tv, but I would jump at the chance to dump ESPN if I could. Garbage sports entertainment with the most annoying people imaginable discussing sports like they're debating federalism.

<comment><USER32> Do you just not like sports, or espn in particular?

<comment><USER31> Not as big of a sports fan as I used to be, but I dislike ESPN in particular.

<comment><USER23> I started enjoying some US sports broadcasts better in two ways: 1) Switch to SAP for Spanish, or 2) Put on 5.1 surround and turn down Center channel to Zero, which usually eliminates the Commentators and leaves the ambient crowd and on-field noise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Paywall-removed: [https://web.archive.org/web/20161210041940/https://www.washi...](https://web.archive.org/web/20161210041940/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- switch/wp/2016/12/07/one-of-disneys-most-popular-brands-has-investors-really- worried/)

(The "web" link method doesn't work when the title is changed.)

</comment><comment><USER34> Ultimately the whole concept of a "channel" like ESPN is an unnecessary path dependence legacy of a time when we only had limited TV bandwith on broadcast spectrum and analog cable systems. In the long run I expect sports fans to be purchasing streaming video access directly from teams or leagues, or perhaps via an aggregator like Apple iTunes / Google Play.

</comment><comment><USER35> It will be interesting to see what happens to the NFL if TV viewership continues to decline and networks can no longer pay huge amounts for TV rights, ESPN alone pays around $2B/year.

Can ESPN make up the loss of cable viewers by online subscription fees?

</comment><comment><USER36> "SPN, too, has a streaming app of its own - but it is limited in what cord- cutters can view there. The app reserves its best programming for traditional TV subscribers to prevent too many cable customers from migrating away"

This says a lot to me. They are holding on to the cable dinosaur ways and then crying when people move on to other services.

"Eventually, ESPN may conclude that its subscriber losses are so great that the only way to retain those customers is to begin offering cable content more widely on the app, said Jan Dawson, an analyst at the market research firm Jackdaw Research."

Ding ding ding.

</comment><comment><USER37> I just signed up for DirectvNow, so I'll see how I end up using it. I thought I would watch it more than I would but I've only seen about 2 episodes in 2 weeks.

</comment><comment><USER38> This is a more general problem.

Radio and television finally admit, in 2016, that they're competing with the whole vast Internet.

[https://rocknerd.co.uk/2016/09/29/radio-and-television- final...](https://rocknerd.co.uk/2016/09/29/radio-and-television-finally- admit-in-2016-that-theyre-competing-with-the-whole-vast-internet/)

I literally had no idea the Olympics had actually started until occasional posts about it showed up on Tumblr. Nor did I realise it was in Rio until then.

The media hegemony broke _absolutely the moment_ we could escape them.

</comment><comment><USER39> I remember taking pride in having cable tv and enjoying watching live sports on ESPN. Now I've noticed the amount of actual sports coverage has decreased and in its place is their original content. I used to watch tennis tournaments on ESPN2 now those matches have also decreased and moved to their online portal, WatchESPN which still requires a cable tv subscription to access.

If I really want to watch tennis, I need to pay more and subscribe to my cable tv's sports package that includes The Tennis Channel. Maybe I should take up Golf, that's already included in my basic cable subscription.

</comment><comment><USER40> Maybe the issue is that some guy using YouTube Live in his basement, is able to stream games at a higher quality and with less latency than WatchESPN...

</comment><comment><USER41> Local team blackouts on streaming services like MLB.tv are the only thing keeping most people (who don't understand proxies and VPNs) from cutting live TV.

</comment><comment><USER42> As a (almost) 50 year old dinosaur, the costs of ESPN and other sports related networks are what caused me to cut the cord - over 10 years ago.

</comment><comment><USER43> Is interesting to see how in countries like mine, where almost everyone buy everything digital pirated. Services like Netflix are booming.

</comment><comment><USER44> previous discussion of reports about the Nielsen estimate of ESPNs subscriber loss: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13076812](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13076812)

</comment><comment><USER45> Gee, supply and demand has a really good solution for this last time I checked.

It's called _LOWER YOUR PRICES_.

Funny how people don't like capitalism very much when it works against them.

<comment><USER46> There are a bunch of legal obligations that make that impossible, at least in the short run. As somebody noted above, ESPN itself is locked into very expensive exclusive-carriage contracts with various leagues. And the providers like Comcast and DirecTV are locked into contracts with ESPN and other content providers. There's just no price flexibility, and won't be until things get so bad companies start failing.

<comment><USER47> It's not unheard of for contracts to be renegotiated, especially when it is so obviously beneficial to all parties involved.

<comment><USER30> You are right but my reading of the situation is that there is a systemic imbalance and counter-parties in the business are also under pressure making them unwilling and worse unable to be flexible.

Renegotiation can work well if there are deep mutual dependencies e.g. manufacturing chains. If the cord cutting dynamic accelerates there will be little time to hammer out such deals. The quickest and fairest route may well be bankruptcy court.

Sports has been in financial bubble territory for some time. Huge escalating contracts. Rampant corruption. Often a collapsing phase follows.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> I thought the ESPN tank was specifically about players kneeling during the national anthem.

<comment><USER49> Perhaps, but ratings drops aren't necessarily directly correlated with subscriber drops.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> >>(Don't get me wrong, shit like Conservapedia has been around for years now. But most of the stuff I read, for better or worse, has been pro-social justice, pro-multiculturalism, etc. until now. Do fewer people buy into that nowadays? Or is what I'm seeing the result of more people participating?)

I am a liberal too and multiculturalism is good to some extent but I hope you don't want to bring Islamic sharia based barbaric culture (e.g. honor killing, stoning women, throwing gays off buildings) in the name of multiculturalism.

But what I have discovered is the left/liberal failure to address the rational fear of Islam (the barbaric, vicious ideology) that is grappling the minds of most sane people.

Liberals and leftists are failing to address these issues. Their response to this threat of Islam is utterly dishonest: they shun even legitimate criticism of the barbaric ideology of Islam under the phony reason of Islamophobia/racism. People have fed up with this.

I don't support Trump to a large extent. But I see that many people see only Trump making an attempt to address this issue in a meaningful manner. No surprise, he cashed on it.

Sam Harris has put it quite aptly: Liberals failure to talk honestly about Islam is responsible for the rise of Trump [1]

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YCWf0tHy7M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YCWf0tHy7M)

<comment><USER27> From tmptmp's profile:

>Am I against Muslims? No, I do have many Muslim friends...

"I have many [insert ethnic group here] friends" is always a red flag. I'm just trying to figure out how you managed to get 700+ karma on here?

There are most definitely better places to wage your Internet crusade. Please don't junk up HN with this copypasta drivel.

<comment><USER51> You make a very good point about the thread going off topic (though you're doing it a bit yourself upthread) and rightly bring it up. Please do so civilly, though. _Please don 't junk up HN with this copypasta drivel._ isn't constructive.

<comment><USER27> >though you're doing it a bit yourself upthread

I know, and I do feel a bit guilty lol. I suppose I should've just let his comment sit in the greys. You're right, there wasn't much point in being nasty.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


A Nobel Prize-Winning Physicist Just Cracked Time Travel–Here's How It's Possibl - <AUTHOR> https://differentimpulse.com/a-nobel-prize-winning-physicist-just-cracked-time-travel-heres-how-its-possible/ <comment><USER2> > By entering the wormhole here on Earth and traveling to the black hole, you > can essentially wait for a billion Earth-years to pass, then pass through > the wormhole again and emerge in the future.

> Alternatively, you can pass through the wormhole to the black hole and > emerge in the "past."

This is not time travel any more than I'm travelling into the future right now at the rate of 1s/s. For it to be time travel I'd have to come out the other end before I entered, not just traveling into the future faster/slower than the other end while passing time I don't get back whatever the ratio.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's possible until the end of the article, where they explain that it's not possible.

</comment><comment><USER4> Travel just one day into the past and you will die in the vacuum of space.</comment>


High school teacher tells graduating students: you're not special  - <AUTHOR> http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/high-school-teacher-tells-graduating-students-special-article-1.1092109

<comment><USER2> It sounds like this was a good speech. I expect few people here will disagree.

I'd like to remark, though, on the fact that the author called this "controversial advice," while going on to describe not a controversy, but instead "overwhelmingly positive" reaction.

Recently I've been trying to think about stories like these. Stories where someone speaks the truth that society doesn't want to hear, and people rally around the truth teller. I try to ask myself who's in this willfully deaf society if everyone I see supports the truth.

And in this case, I suspect we're still seeing some inertia from the self- esteem movement to which the speaker alludes. But is there a deep controversy? Is David McCullough a brave whistleblower speaking against a near-unanimous wrong? Or is the New York Daily News making a big deal out of someone saying what we all already know?

<comment><USER3> Self-esteem culture is like nuclear armament. Everybody complains about it but nobody wants to do anything about it individually; why would _you_ want to be the one to break the little kids' hearts by denying 'em a medal even though they _tried really hard_ and just happen to suck.

Alternatively, self-esteem culture is like "morons who can't drive". Everybody complains about it, but the people who actually cause the problem lack the self-awareness to see that they _are_ the problem even when they're complaining about it.

Probably a little bit of both.

<comment><USER4> Well and good, but let's not pretend it's new or the fault of the boomers. (Yes, like me.)

I find in a letter of Evelyn Waugh's dated 12 April 1949,

"My daughter Teresa (age 11) has come back from school with a glowing report by her French mistress 2nd in class with 82% marks. I asked her to name in French any six objects in the dining-room. After distressed thought she got five, four of them with wrong genders. I know of another girl who came back from another school with a special medal for swimming--a thing like the Garter with a great sash. Her parents put her in the pool and she sank like a stone."

<comment><USER5> Cliche boomer, blaming the generation before them. /joking

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wanted to add a perspective from someone who comes from a European country (Portugal) and have been living in the California for the past 4 and half years. Forgive me for the generalizations but one thing that I admire about Americans (at least Californians) is the strong positive "can-do" attitude to life. A fire that gets people to start their own businesses and think of new opportunities. It is obviously hard to pint-point the origin of any cultural trait but I believe that it also stems from the positive re-enforcement that this article is talking about. Along with most people of my generation that I know of, I was brought up with exactly the sort of message that this teacher is conveying ("you're not special"). I really think this contributes to the fact that Portuguese are one of the most risk averse people in the world. Even when we start our own businesses we pick very safe jobs ([http://mvalente.eu/2011/03/08/the-paradox-of-portuguese- entr...](http://mvalente.eu/2011/03/08/the-paradox-of-portuguese- entrepreneurship/))

I realize that it might be exaggerated positive re-enforcement in the US and that this can have very serious negative consequences. Learning to fail and balancing your future expectations is a requirement for good mental health. Just keep in mind that there are certainly good things about this attitude.

<comment><USER7> The positive encouragement model of raising/educating children is a relatively new thing in the US, so I don't think it has much to do with the "can-do" mentality. I'm in my mid-30s and we certainly didn't have it in school when I was growing up. I can remember my brother getting held back a grade.

If anything, I think its the current model that threatens the "can-do" attitude of the US, since I think a lot of the "can-do" attitude is really resilience. It an attitude that says "this won't be easy and I might fail, but I can always get up and try again".

If kids gets nothing but positive reinforcement, those initial failures are going to be particularly painful and discouraging. I think parents can teach their children so much by letting them fail (within boundaries) and giving them not self-confidence that they can do anything, but the self-confidence that they can handle any hardship. That's an important difference.

Before I start getting downvoted, I just want to say I haven't start yelling at kids to "get off my lawn!!" yet. :P

<comment><USER8> Americans had more positive encouragement at school 30 years ago than most other countries.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have a 6 year old son, who recently finished a language class (Hindi) and a chess class. In both of these, he got a medal. Why? Because everyone got a medal.

So, in end, he is happy, with a sense of achievement, but what achievement I don't know.

I believe that failure in life is important, at least was for me, otherwise I would never have tried harder. But if people are given something for nothing, how do you define/measure success.

<comment><USER10> A medal seems silly, but here in this part of the US it's common to see 5th grade and 8th grade graduation ceremonies, complete with parties, fancy dresses, and gifts, for the _near 100%_ of kids who met the minimum requirements of the lower levels of their compulsory age-based schooling.

It seems like it's even more common among people who have the least to celebrate: middle-to-upper-middle-class suburban White parents, where your kids practically can't fail school even if they try.

<comment><USER11> Do any students fail public school grades anymore? Do students get 'held back'?

Back in the 70s, I knew students who were 'held back' - repeated 4th grade again, etc. I don't think I've heard of that since then. Obviously I'm no longer a 4th grader :) but among people I know with kids, the concept of "held back" never comes up.

<comment><USER12> No.

Even if you deserve to be 'held back', you get what's called a 'social promotion'.

In 8th grade, there was this big project we (each student) had to do in order to 'pass' 8th grade. The teachers all told us that if we didn't do it, we'd fail 8th grade, but still go on to high school as a 'social promotion'.

I actually had several friends who decided to not do that project, because nothing bad would happen to them if they didn't do it.

<comment><USER13> Those social promotions are clearly screwed up, especially as old as eighth grade. As a counterpoint anecdote, however, my mother is a kindergarten teacher who holds back (on average) two students a year for failure to understand the material or social immaturity that would prevent them from learning anything in first grade. And this is in a state (Indiana) in which kindergarten is voluntary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Oh, HN, so grumpy.

What no one here has mentioned yet is that for most people, after you get out of school, you won't be winning first place and yet you _will_ be rewarded (with a paycheck) for just showing up and doing a fairly average job.

The other comments with walking a fine line with this are spot on. How quickly we forget another piece of favorite HN repostery: praise kids for effort, not for being smart (or some other supposedly intrinsic quality). Yes, the kid that shows up, sticks his finger up his nose and receives a participation prize has learned little, but the kid that showed up, worked really hard, and totally failed might still get something out of it.

<comment><USER15> I totally agree with you, although getting a "fairly average job" is easier said that done for those who aren't at least somewhat exceptional.

<comment><USER16> If it really is an average job then it can't only be taking exceptional people.

You either need to redefine what you think an average job is, or redefine what you think an exceptional person is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This especially hits home with me, since I've gotten trophies and awards for pretty much anything I've ever done (including in college). Until I hit the 'real world' and realized that even though I was talented and had a lot going for me, it didn't matter: there are a million people in the same boat.

My most recent realization, though, is that most people my age don't want to work too hard. We are used to getting the accolades with the default level of effort, so why bother?

I'm special though, I work hard. Seriously I'm special. TELL ME I'M SPECIAL.

<comment><USER18> > _My most recent realization, though, is that most people my age don't want > to work too hard._

You can probably leave out "my age" and it will still be fairly accurate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> man, where did you guys go to high school? it was, by far, the most difficult and unpleasant thing I've ever experienced. People were harder on me in high school than they ever have been in the what, 14 years after? I had to work far harder than ever after, and the rewards were nearly non-existent, compared to having a "real job"

I mean, I've heard about these stories, but really? high school is miserable. You get shat upon by nearly everyone, and nobody has any sympathy. Add to that the usual confusion of puberty and of trying to develop your own framework of morals and life philosophy, and it's rough.

But yeah... from what I remember? this idea that "you are not special" or, at least, "you are not special in the good way" was pounded into you, all day, every day.

I'm having a hard time believing things changed that dramatically in the last 14 years. I suspect the difference was that I went to one of the worst schools in the state, while many of these complaints are about good schools in good areas; the schools people fight to get their kids into.

<comment><USER20> I have a tendency to agree with you. But I'd go one step further and say that in college, at least from a classroom standpoint, teachers were the hardest on you, and the least likely to give a crap about you. It was up to you to go home and understand the material, no time for pampering or pats on the back there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Overall I think there is some truth in is message, but the answer to one extreme is not another extreme...it's no extremes. Everyone is unique and special, just not as unique as our egos like to make us think. We're also all very similar under a broad enough lens.

Honestly, it sounds like the teacher has some underlying issues with himself (and students) that expressed themselves in this speech. He couldn't have seriously thought a 10-minute speech would change a lifetime of behavior.

</comment><comment><USER22> Unrelated to the content itself, but isn't it annoying how the article is littered with links to other articles?

<comment><USER23> It reminds me of the Starship Troopers movie, actually, and it's incredibly annoying.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Chris Lasch wrote the book on this in 1976

[http://www.amazon.com/The-Culture-Narcissism-Diminishing- Exp...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Culture-Narcissism-Diminishing- Expectations/dp/0393307387)

</comment><comment><USER25> Full text of the speech: [http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/wellesley/2012/06/youre_...](http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/wellesley/2012/06/youre_not_special_teacher_tell.html?p1=Well_Local_YourTownlinks)

<comment><USER26> It's easier to read here:

[http://www.theswellesleyreport.com/2012/06/wellesley-high- gr...](http://www.theswellesleyreport.com/2012/06/wellesley-high-grads-told- youre-not-special/)

(All on one page, no interspersed ads, better formatting.)

<comment><USER27> The website's bandwidth has been maxed out. Google webcache here:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:wQU2TYM...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:wQU2TYMPxZkJ:www.theswellesleyreport.com/2012/06/wellesley- high-grads-told-youre-not-special/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Sorry for the off-topic remark, but I really couldn't believe that this website uses what amounts to ads to separate paragraphs. I was honestly too irritated and distracted to finish reading the article.

</comment><comment><USER29> Can I do better than 50% of my classroom mates? If yes then I am ok. Can i do better than 90% ? If yes then I am special.

<comment><USER30> Only if your classmates can do better than 90% of the rest of the developed and emerging world.

THAT is the real question. And, frankly, for the vast majority of Americans... an honest answer to that question sucks to think about.

<comment><USER31> That would put you in the 1%, right?

I posit that even being in the top 10% is probably fine. The problem is a global economic system that isn't growing with the population and funneling the money to the 1%, as opposed to the 10% (which now just get by), much less 50 or 100% of the humans on the planet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> jack-r-abbit _Even if you're one in a million, on a planet of 6.8 billion that means there are nearly 7,000 people just like you._

That right there is probably the best summary of all.

</comment><comment><USER32> You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everything else.

<comment><USER33> Well, at least high school graduates are not yet decaying since they have yet to reach their prime. After you reach your peak biologically, you are decaying organic matter.

<comment> jack-r-abbit In a way, you pretty much begin dying as soon as you are born. That is not meant to be something morbid. But everybody sheds dead skin everyday.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> This topic seems to get re-hashed every few weeks on HN. Sort of getting tired of hearing about it.

<comment><USER33> At least it's not the exact same story getting re-hashed ten times in a day, which happens fairly often on HN.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I kind of want there to be a fan club for this guy. He rocks.

</comment><comment><USER36> Everyone is different yet everyone is the same

</comment><comment><USER33> In a world that makes sense, this wouldn't be a big deal, because (most) graduating high school students really aren't special. We aren't all be a Jobs or a Gates or a Zuckerberg. But in today's society, this is making waves due to reasons the teacher cites in his commencement speech: because Americans have come to appreciate accolades more than genuine achievement.

<comment><USER37> Being 'special' as an adult doesn't mean you were special in a particular way as a child though does it?</comment></comment>


Paralyzed Woman Controls Robotic Arm With Her Mind - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/05/thoughts-control-robotic-arm/

<comment><USER2> Disclaimer: I work in a similar lab (my adviser was advised by the senior author on the paper, who runs the lab) on a brain-machine interface project funded by DARPA.

What makes this awesome from a scientific point of view:

1) 2-dimensional decoders, where an individual controls a mouse with their mind, have existed for a while. What makes this really cool is that there are actually quite a few degrees of freedom in a robot arm, but they're basically using the same hardware. So the influence of _software/algorithms_ in this case is pretty fundamental. There are a lot of papers on improved neural- decoding methods that at first glance appear really dry, boring, not the `sexy' kind of science with huge breakthroughs, but they end up being crucial to good performance as the complexity of the robot grows.

2) One participant was implanted with the electrode array 5 years before the study, and had the injury 10 years before that. Usually the signals don't last that long in monkey models. And we know that your cortex changes with disuse, so it's awesome that they were able to get usable signals so many years later.

What needs to get better are a couple things:

First, these decoders aren't perfect yet. What the Wired article didn't tell you is that the performance for the woman's implant was around 20-50% successful trials (still awesome from a comparison to no interaction)[1].

Second, incorporating sensory feedback is another challenge that is really hard to address, but also very important. Imagine building a robotic controller in which the only information you received about the robot's position was visual. That's the way this works. If we find a reasonable way to mimic sensors of muscle extension (a proxy for joint angle) then we can create more controllable devices.

[1] [http://www.nature.com/news/mind-controlled-robot-arms- show-p...](http://www.nature.com/news/mind-controlled-robot-arms-show- promise-1.10652)

<comment><USER3> No doubt this is amazing. But a question strikes me... why is a military organisation funding this research? By their very nature, are they not in the business of disabling enemies (a.k.a people)?

Just strikes me as odd but I can see the potential of weaponizing this technology.

<comment><USER4> Dismemberment and lost limbs is fairly rare among the civilian population. This is not the case with the military - it makes perfect sense they would be the ones funding this, as they are regularly sending home guys with fewer limbs than they went out with.

I think they should be funding this - they owe it to their disabled veterans.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is extremely impressive, what a beautiful piece of work.

The smile on that lady's face says more than any number of facebook 'likes' or google +1's could ever do for me, that's a real and measurable quality of life improvement for a single person, this really makes a difference.

The engineering on that arm is pretty heavy duty, I wonder what it weighs and how fast it could move and what kind of safeguards are built in to avoid the operator injuring themselves due to glitches in the system. If you look at the way the arm moves it is actually quite comparable to the arm of a baby that moves an object to its mouth the first couple of times.

With one big difference, a baby may get it wrong but it is not strong enough to do too much damage, even if it pokes itself in the eye every now and then it is usually with very little force. This arm however looks engineered to be strong enough and fast enough that it could do real damage to the operator or its environment. If that's servo driven there has to be a whole slew of safety systems in case a driver decides to hook a motor to V+ or V- because of a blown FET.

In any real-world machinery situation where the machinery is under software control and has the capability of doing real harm (for instance: machine shops with CNC gear) there are normally countless interlock systems that you'd have to bypass before you could get yourself in contact with a piece of it moving under control of the computer. In this case the operator is extremely exposed and I cringed when the arm sped up towards her face with the bottle. I also found myself sort of 'willing the bottle' in the right direction, they way some movies will have you react to something on the screen. Hard to describe.

This is not a soft hand moving either, it looks like it is made of pretty strong aluminum and fairly heavy.

<comment><USER6> They're using a Kuka DLR lightweight arm. It's a rather high-end piece of equipment. It's strong enough to do a pull-up, fast enough to catch a ball, and every joint incorporates a six-axis force-torque sensor. It's definitely strong enough to do damage. Of course, that just means that Kuka loaded it up with safety systems. The FT sensors let it know exactly how much force it's applying, and if they read too high a value the brakes slam on. I've never worked with those arms before, but I'd bet that there's a similar system completely in hardware. You'll also notice that the operator's left hand and the entire back half of the room are never seen; there are at least two emergency stop buttons there, probably more, and one of them is wired directly the arm's power supply.

Really, though, all that engineering is of secondary interest. That look on her face is exactly why I got into robotics. And we've only been at it for 15 years; imagine what we'll be able to do in another 15.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is an area where hackers can really make an impact.

We tend to forget how necessary movement and control is for our daily routines. There are people out there who even lack the ability to turn on|off the TV. A little hacking with an arduino, and some buttons will make it possible for them.

In hackaday.com, one consistently sees hacks that are for the disabled. Special game controllers for people missing an arm, or some other limb are popular and simple to re-create.

I do have a personal anecdote.

I was once buying some resistors on the local radio shack. While I looked in the mess of tiny plastic bags, another person started to browse for electronic bits. I started to talk to him, and found out he was a doctor. His work was in dealing with disabled people. He had learned how to work with embedded electronics and fiber composites in order to build prosthetic limbs for impoverished patients.

Just amazing.

<comment><USER8> > This is an area where hackers can really make an impact.

One of my friends has coauthored several papers with some of the BrainGate folks.

We spent a road trip a couple years ago discussing his research. One thing that jumped out is how similar many of the tools used in this field are to those in a startup. In particular, many big-data analysis tools and techniques that can be developed, optimized, and funded within the context of the web sphere are applied to the bioengineering problems. A few months ago an article floated around HN on how the current tech bubble, if it's such, lacks a "byproduct" that will benefit society when the scraps are cleaned up. You can make a pretty good argument that it's this.

<comment><USER7> Yes, good point.

Once the photo sharing app market dries up, people will have to look into other areas. I know that in the next ten years we will have startups (even 1-2 person teams) building much more than simple web apps. Innovation will slowly seep to other areas.

(And thus, Jeff, that is why people need to learn how to program)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I also work in a similar lab as a phd student. Kevinalexbrown's points are spot on. Currently, the main challenges for implementing this clinically are

1) stability of the electrode array over long timescales.

2) increasing the number of degrees of freedom of robust control that we can decode from the neural data. Activity in the motor cortex inherently lives in a (very) roughly 10 dimensional space, which is a bit of a mystery since we use thy activity to control hundreds of muscles independently. What this means, is that when you record from 96 electrodes simultaneously, many of the neurons picked up by the array are correlated, such that the resulting dimensionality is much lower than the number of neurons

3) An important step forward will be to develope optogenetic (or other) sensory write in, using pulses of light to activate neutrons in specific patterns that mimic priprioceptive signals from your limbs. This will increase the speed and robustness of movent via faster closed loop feedback.

4) Processing power. Currently it's typical to run decoders on real-time PC's. Creating an embedded processor capable of sufficiently low power operation with enough processing power to run the decode is non-trivial, especially if you want to implant this in the brain.

It is very unlikely, as suggested elsewhere, that current web tech will impact BMI research at all. The primary interesting tech is in the decode algorithm, which is a modified form of the Kalman filter. There is, however, a lot of room for hackers in research. I recently made the switch from working in defense, building robots and designing sensor fusion algorithms, to a phd in neuroscience. Probably won't pay as well long term, but it's far more rewarding and interesting! I'm surrounded by scientists that need better (software and hardware) tools and analysis methods. Also, an infusion of ideas and values aligned with open access publishing (or changing the scientific publishing model altogether), open source software, data and code sharing, etc. would generally benefit all and accelerate scientific research, but that's another topic worthy of more discussion elsewhere.

</comment><comment><USER10> If you're interested in helping out with the next stage of this research and you know someone with limited or no ability to use both hands who might also be interested, please visit <http://www.braingate2.org/clinicalTrials.asp> and let them know.

</comment><comment><USER11> I know I know, it's not good etiquette here to make short, emotional comments, but -

 _By thinking about moving her own paralyzed arm, one woman in the experiment used an artificial limb to serve herself coffee for the first time in 15 years._

Seeing her smile at the end of that video just made my otherwise terrible day rather special. And it's such great validation for the team that's working on this technology, I hope they continue to see much success in the future.

<comment><USER12> Its just so wonderful to see what could otherwise be a frustrating, debilitating experience become something incredibly _empowering_.

<comment><USER13> Finally, a decent use of the word "empowering". Shame I can only up vote you once :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The real deal is that this needn't be confined only to people with disabilities. We all can use an extra limb or too. But, I think it will take a little more time to become such a sci-fi toy, after the urgent needs of disabled people are met..., but the size of the market if we look at this as applicable for everyone is huge.

</comment><comment><USER15> Hehe, this is friggin' awesome. The only thing I could think of that who's the first one to go all Deus Ex about this!

</comment><comment><USER16> That woman is adorable.

</comment><comment><USER17> what is she thinks dirty?

<comment><USER5> The only person in this thread that thinks dirty is you. Really, someone is capable of some level of direct control over her environment for the first time in years and that's the only thing you can think of? Look at the video and watch that lady smile at the end and then ask yourself what your comment said about you instead of about her.

<comment><USER18> I think grantgrant has a point. I wonder what it's like to use an arm like that - she seems to be focusing hard on thinking "up" "down" "left" "twist" but as this stuff gets more powerful, how do you separate the signal from the noise? I have many thoughts bouncing around my head, but somehow my brain knows not to act on them.

<comment><USER9> The brain is a "parallel processor" in that distinct regions are responsible for different tasks. These arrays are recording from the primary motor area (M1) which directly controls output muscles. While this does require conscious control right now, it's not the case that irrelevant thoughts are likely to significantly alter the control signals sent to the arm.

<comment><USER19> Probably less, since you don't have to worry about, say, adrenaline dampening the negative feedback loops between brain and muscles.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Firefox 3.6.2 - Vulnerability fixed - <AUTHOR> http://blog.mozilla.com/security/2010/03/18/update-on-secunia-advisory-sa38608/

<comment><USER2> Though the linked blog post mentions 3.6.2 being due for release March 30, the subsequent post announces an earlier release, and it is available from 'check for updates' right now.

<comment><USER3> Well, my Firefox found the 3.6.2 update so it must be live already.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Bitcoin Spellbook, an opensource back end server for Bitcoin apps - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ValyrianTech/BitcoinSpellbook <comment><AUTHOR> Hi all, i'm the developer of the Bitcoin Spellbook. It's a platform that lets you easily create the back-end for bitcoin applications. The basic idea is that you configure triggers and actions. A trigger can be based on the balance of a bitcoin address, the blockheight, the number of confirmations of a transaction or one of many more triggers available. There is also the option of creating HTTP GET, POST or DELETe endpoints to interact with a front-end.

Once a trigger activates, it can run a python script or execute one or more actions like sending a bitcoin transaction, sending an email or running a command etc...

So by combining certain triggers and actions you can create whatever bitcoin application you want to make. The source code also includes example apps like a bitcoin splitter service, a lottery, a notary service, an app to send dividends to investors and even a payment processor.

Besides that there are also a few command line tools like a transaction listener that can run a command when a given address sends or receives a transaction.

</comment><comment><USER2> Good job. I liked it.</comment>


Hacker Dumps Up to 23,000 Government Emails on the Dark Web - <AUTHOR> http://motherboard.vice.com/read/hacker-dumps-up-to-23000-government-emails-on-the-dark-web

<comment><USER2> Beyond the "anyone who's data got dumped is blackmailable!" moral panic, this episode should (but probably won't) serve as a cautionary tale. That is, if you build a big enough treasure trove, lots of folks will try to loot that treasure.

"So what?" you say. "I'm not Smaug the Dragon!" Yes, but the USA's "intelligence community" has been building up the biggest treasure trove _ever_ , complete with information that would allow utter disgrace, ruination and blackmail of everyone in the world, not just US Government contractors and employees. Do you think that someone, Russians, Iranians, Romanian Hackers, Nigerian Princes, won't sooner or later get into the NSA/FBI's trove? Are you willing to bet on that?</comment>


Reverse Engineering the Comtech AHA363 PCIe Gzip Accelerator Board - <AUTHOR> https://tomverbeure.github.io/2020/06/14/AHA363-Reverse-Engineering.html <comment><USER2> So how do you get a web server to take advantage of a hardware gzip accelerator? Is there like a custom nginx plugin that points to a custom driver? Seems very cool and I've never heard of something like this.

<comment><USER3> According to their press release, it was an Apache plugin.

[https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20081008005207/en/Com...](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20081008005207/en/Comtech- AHA-Announces-Apache-GZIP-Compression-Module)

<comment><USER4> They mention APIs for Windows, Linux, OpenSolaris, a ZLIB, and the Apache module.

[http://www.aha.com/DrawProducts.aspx?Action=GetProductDetail...](http://www.aha.com/DrawProducts.aspx?Action=GetProductDetails&ProductID=14)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm curious to know how much faster than Gzip compression on a modern multicore CPU this is. The AHA webpage says "Compresses and decompresses at a throughput rate over 5.0 Gbits/sec" (that's 1.2 GB/s). How fast can you gzip compress on a 16-core Ryzen CPU, for example?

<comment><USER6> According to [https://rachaellappan.github.io/pigz/](https://rachaellappan.github.io/pigz/) pigz did about 360MB/s on a 96 cores machine, though that was 3 years ago.

<comment><USER7> I regularly get 80-200MB/s on my 8 core 7700HQ, though it is likely limited by disk speed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Wow. I know very little about FPGAs and hardware and this is pure magic to me. Debugging these things must be a royal pain.

<comment><USER9> Yes, it is :)

The normal development flow for FPGA software is similar to ASIC in that people focus on testing as many elements as possible in software simulation to a very high level of coverage before even downloading to the FPGA. Once in there, you're reliant on JTAG (high-speed serial bus) to read out values from the target device.

Tools like ChipScope can let you see what's going on and set ""breakpoints"". [http://web.mit.edu/6.111/www/labkit/chipscope.shtml](http://web.mit.edu/6.111/www/labkit/chipscope.shtml)

All of this is much harder when it's on a board you didn't design!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Nice development board for $20, even if it takes some work. Bought one!

<comment><USER3> It's too late now since you've already bought one, but right now, it's still a doorstop than can't be used for anything: I haven't even been able to get one of the LEDs blinking, and that's only the Hello World of the FPGA hobbyist.

<comment><USER10> No worries. As the saying goes "this isn't my first rodeo". I'll let you know what I discover.

<comment><USER3> Get in touch!

One thing that didn't make it in the blog post was that a strategically soldered wire shortened the JTAG chain to only include the 2 Intel chips and bypass the AHA chips.

The power to the AHA chips gets cut off at some point, breaking the JTAG chain, but the FPGAs stay active.

So by bypassing, you keep the chain alive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Are there any free drivers for it with the native hardware? There are ones on their site... but behind a registration-wall.

It might be pretty nifty to run swap through this...

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm super exicted what will come in this direction after PS5 announcement and Microsoft mentioning Direct Storage.

PS5 has a IO chip and extra architecture for decompressing textures (here the context with this gzip accelerator) and more features.

Mark Cerny said that they needed this chip because from a CPU ressource usage,it would use all CPU cores. So nvm now are so fast that a io co processor is feasable again.

<comment><USER13> PC SSD drives started out with buildin compression. This is why most test software has separate "incompressible data" graphs. Its usually something you actually dont want, akin to fake streamer tape capacities/speeds assuming 2x compression.

> IO chip and extra architecture for decompressing textures

you dont want uncompressed textures in your GPU memory, compressing DXT compressed textures is not idea to say the least, you can count on 30-50% compression ratio, not the marketing 2x peak number Sony was throwing around

>would use all CPU cores

is marketing exaggeration, LZ4 decompression can achieve ~3GB/s per core. How it is today: [https://www.jonolick.com/home/oodle-and-ue4-loading- time](https://www.jonolick.com/home/oodle-and-ue4-loading-time)

<comment><USER12> When i look at his data, its capped and the additional PC transfer speed of over 512mb/sec vs hitting the speed limit much sooner, does show that something is missing.

<comment><USER13> Diminishing returns. Cap is most likely caused by the graphic engine fixed costs, at some point you cant use more speed no matter what without rewrite (initialization, deserialization etc).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Why would they design it to require two ASICs AND an FPGA? Couldn't they just have built the FPGA program into the ASICs?

<comment><USER15> pure speculation:

the FPGA does the PCIe and all necessary data marshaling, which allows a lot of flexibility for updates and bug fixing on the most finicky parts of hardware

two ASICs because once you have one manufactured, most of the costs are sunk and per unit it's cheap to stick a second on the board

<comment><USER5> You're probably right. The FPGA is probably the most expensive part of this board by far, and maybe they figured the FPGA and the PCIE bus can handle enough traffic to keep two compression chips busy.

<comment><USER16> The FPGA is also potentially insurance for bugs on the ASIC that aren't economical to fix. Catch the bug and fix it on the way out of the card.</comment></comment></comment></comment>