Tallest Under Construction Buildings in the World - <AUTHOR> http://www.skyscrapercenter.com/buildings?list=tallest100-construction <comment><USER2> Here's diagrams of all of the tallest buildings by 2023 (including built ones) visually next to each other sorted by official height thanks to SkyscraperPage: [http://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?searchID=207](http://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?searchID=207)

The Skyscrapercenter doesn't include the Dubai Creek Tower which is also already under construction.

<comment><USER3> Is the Dubai Creek Tower freestanding? Or are those lines at the bottom cables for stability?

<comment><AUTHOR> The architect is Calatrava so those would be structural elements.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Do we know what lead to skyscrapers being built? Intuitively I'd think economic prosperity and density. However, Europe has a pretty good economy, is more densely populated than many other regions, yet hardly any skyscrapers to speak of. Do they maybe get built when you need lots of space in the same location quickly? Like when you have a extreme high growth company. Given most skyscrapers are used by several completely different business, that doesn't fit the bill either.

This is not meant as a criticism of skyscrapers. In have I LOVE skyscrapers, especially ones with nice bars on top. I just want to understand what circumstances lead to them being built.

<comment><USER5> I think it's a cultural thing. A lot of people in europe think skyscrapers destroy the skylines of cities. They really dislike any changes though. For example, in Stockholm, there was a fire recently in a rather ugly building (where they educate architects!!). Rather than tearing it down and building something better looking than that sh*thole eye sore of a building they are just repairing it.

This is the building I'm talking about: [https://email@example.com,18.0697072,3a,75y,309...](https://firstname.lastname@example.com,18.0697072,3a,75y,309.34h,100.34t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1spdEboDfgp6ZOGTfGtNNq0w!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en)

<comment><USER6> Architecture schools always seem to be ugly for some reason. The one at Berkeley[0] is hideous. Legend has it that it was build to look "inside-out" so the students could have a better understanding of how buildings are built.

[0] [https://ced.berkeley.edu/images/made/images/uploads/features...](https://ced.berkeley.edu/images/made/images/uploads/features/wam_400_300.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I live in Wuhan, where the second tallest building Wuhan Greenland Center (636m) is being built. I see it everyday, actually I also find this kind of thing weird, but anyway, it's a good name card for a city, and such construction can give many people jobs, moreover, it may attract more business to the city.

<comment><AUTHOR> It must be amazing to watch it being built. I would love to live in a part of the world where I could watch this sort of activity, it would be marvellous.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Also notably, 26 out of the top 52 tallest buildings already constructed are also in China.

</comment><comment><USER9> To be honest, I don't really understand if there are any practical motivations to race for the tallest building in record.

<comment><USER3> I suppose it's sort of like the practical motivations of formula 1 racing. The things learned while trying to push the limits to the extreme can lead to practical uses for everyday versions.

For example, if these tall towers figure out a smarter way to move people vertically (non-cabled elevators?), that can be applied to the many 50-story buildings being built for more normal purposes.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, but if you build, let say, 50 more stories higher each time, while technically challenging for engineers and architects, the new knowledge we gain from each project seems less relevant and useful. I understand that geography, soil and weather system influences each design...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The Burj is the same height AGL as a mountain I used to climb regularly. No matter which way I look at it, I can't shake the perception that the tower is much, much taller than the mountain. I get it that the tower is thin while the mountain is broad, but I still can't perceive them as the same height.

</comment><comment><USER11> One very tall skyscraper might be a contra-indicator for economic health, like Dubai. All the wealth is concentrated in a few hands. But lots of tall skyscrapers going up everywhere? Lots of people are accumulating lots of wealth. That's some form of progress

<comment><USER12> Lots of skyscrapers are also contraindicators, unless you think that there are only like 10 thousand people in society.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Tokyo "Sky Mile Tower" is missing on the "proposed" list

</comment><comment><USER14> Do we have someone here that could explain how this could affect the world if/when an economic crisis hits China? (only talking about the building construction)

<comment><USER15> Hard to say. There are entire ghost cities in china because people cannot afford to live there. If an economy crisis hits china it's possible that the entire world is in trouble (though not all countries). These things are hard to predict but china more or less uses local workers and materials. Only companies and people's investments tied to those companies would in theory be in trouble.

<comment><AUTHOR> This again. Name even one. Point us to even one "entire" ghost city. Honestly, people will parrot any old thing that sounds dramatic without ever bothering to find out for themselves if it's true.

<comment><USER16> I doubt Kangbashi is ever going to fill up given how unpopular coal is becoming in china. They might be able to move it to a few hundred K by moving a bunch of government jobs there, but even Donald Trump as president couldn't get to the few million they built for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> And 0 in Europe.

<comment><AUTHOR> As a European. _Ouch_. It's not like there's no economic activity in Europe so I wonder why that is? We don't like verticality?

<comment><USER18> Yes. We don't like verticality. That is actually true in much of Europe.

One reason for this comes from geography: Europe is further away from the equator than most other prosperous areas, e.g. US or China. This means that the sun shines diagonally and is particularly low in the winter. And if you build high towers, the neighbours will be deprived of direct sunlight.

Due to daylight norms, high buildings don't actually achieve any higher density.

<comment><USER19> When you look at Frankfurt they mostly achieve a lot of empty sterile space around them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> That's the related list of completed tallest building: [http://www.skyscrapercenter.com/buildings?list=tallest100-co...](http://www.skyscrapercenter.com/buildings?list=tallest100-completed)

At the moment Shanghai (China) is the cities with most sky scrappers in the world.

<comment><AUTHOR> @frik – many of your comments (including this one) are dead. Can't tell from your comment history why.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> >construnction

</comment><comment><USER22> Usually a good contra-indicator for economic health.

<comment><USER23> How so? Are there historical examples?

<comment><USER16> That's easy: Japan.

<comment><USER23> The statement was: " _Usually_ a good contra-indicator for economic health". It's a surprising and counter-intuitive claim. Requires more than a single example. It at least requires more examples than you can find to show the opposite of the claim.

<comment><USER16> Japan is the most apt example. Excess is usually an indicator that a crisis is on its way. The housing bubble pre 2008 in the USA, the roaring 20s before the Great Depression. This isn't a controversial observation that steep rises are typically followed by even steeper falls, which is why the balloon analogy is so apt. But ATM, china's situation most resembles Japan.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Dollar Shave Club Punches Gillette Where It Hurts. (In the Marketing Budget) - <AUTHOR> http://pandodaily.com/2012/03/06/dollar-shave-club-punches-gillette-where-it-hurts-in-the-marketing-budget/

<comment><USER2> > _At one point my husband screamed in frustration at the heavens, "ARE THEY > MAKING RAZOR BLADES OUT OF OIL!?"_

Actually, yes, they are. The plastic parts at least.</comment>


WordPress warns of critical flaw - <AUTHOR> http://www.thinq.co.uk/2010/12/30/wordpress-warns-critical-flaw/ <comment><USER2> I'm beginning to really question Wordpress. Every few weeks there seems to be a new security flaw. I can't imagine what hasn't been discovered yet.</comment>


A months-old AMD microcode bug destroyed my weekend - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/10/how-a-months-old-amd-microcode-bug-destroyed-my-weekend/ <comment><USER2> > When there's a bug in the CPU microcode, you're at the mercy of your > motherboard vendor to release a new system BIOS that will update it for you

That's just... not true. Is the article wrong, or was the rdrand issue actually bios-specific rather than in CPU microcode?

Edit: Whoever downvoted this - ucode update is supported by both Intel and AMD for quite a while. You certainly can just download it: [https://github.com/platomav/CPUMicrocodes/tree/master/AMD](https://github.com/platomav/CPUMicrocodes/tree/master/AMD)

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure why you're being downvoted, I had the same reaction. CPU microcode is updateable by the kernel at boot.

On Ubuntu, he'd want to use the amd64-microcode package: [https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/amd64-microcode](https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/amd64-microcode)

<comment><USER4> This assumes that you _can_ boot.

<comment><USER5> well, first thing on _my_ list if I can't boot; good 'ol USB live boot to read dmesg and syslog.

Which a live boot, you can install packages such as microcode updates.

<comment><USER6> This is a microcode bug which causes a kernel to hang. So simply booting from a different medium is not going to help you.

You'll need to compile a kernel which does not depend on the RDRAND instruction as a source of randomness.

<comment><USER7> It causes systemd to blow up, but you could try doing your microcode update from initrd. Or just get rid of systemd, run your microcode update, and make some Halloween jello shots to take to the no-systemd party (it's going to be even crazier, this year).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Readers also suggested that if the amd64-microcode package were installed, > it would fix the issue. This, too, is not the case; the amd64-microcode and > intel-microcode packages are both installed by default on all Ubuntu 19.10 > systems, including the one I'm experiencing the RDRAND failure on. I > contacted AMD and asked representatives to check the status of that package > and see if anything needs to (or can) be done about updating it.

Can anyone comment why the AMD microcode update doesn't seem to actually fix this bug? I've seen plenty of people commenting that you don't need a bios update and that it _should_ , however the author seems to have tried that.

<comment><USER9> It's CPU initialisation microcode, it has to be put in a bios update for your motherboard. Specifically it's called AEGSA [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGESA](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGESA)

<comment><USER10> Previously, AMD shipped out free processors to fix an issue with Ryzen boards having firmware too old to boot the CPU: [https://www.extremetech.com/computing/264097-amd-shipping- fr...](https://www.extremetech.com/computing/264097-amd-shipping-free- processors-customers-address-apu-firmware-update-issue)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Yup, this killed a weekend of mine as well. I'm surprised this isn't a footnote of every conversation about AMD here. Luckily for me the fix was available from my motherboard manufacturer about a week after I bought the chip.

Also, the Ryzen 3 seems to be picky in dealing with RAM chips. I couldn't boot my computer with all slots in my motherboard filled. I ended up having to dial down the speed of my RAM in the BIOS as well as manually set some other settings.

Also, certain motherboards require an updated BIOS before it can boot off a Ryzen 3. In my case, I had the store I bought the chip from install the chip into the mobo so that they could demonstrate that it would boot up and I wouldn't have to return anything. It took them hours to figure this out and I had to tell them how to fix the problem after arriving because I had previously run across mention of the problem. The fix was to install a Ryzen 2, enter the BIOS, install the upgrade and then go ahead with installing the Ryzen 3 chip.

What a PITA that was. It put me off building my own system. Next time, I think I'll get a Dell or something.

<comment><USER12> I was under the impression that it was widely known that X470 motherboards would only support the newer Ryzen CPUs with a BIOS update. This is very often the case for motherboard chipsets that are forward-compatible with newer CPUs. As far as memory goes, you do have to pay attention to what memory the CPU supports, it's not like any DDR4 modules will _just work_ with any motherboard/CPU combo. I just built a ryzen desktop, and everything was pretty much turn-key, as I selected the parts which with my limited amount of knowledge had the highest probability of working together nicely.

<comment><USER11> This was in the Philippines. I wasn't surprised they ran into issues and I knew right away what the issue was.

I understand you can't just get any memory. The memory I purchased was reasonably within the required specs and a solid brand. The memory wasn't on the "tested list" but on a relatively new chip that's a small list and in the Philippines, I had a limited choice. This is also a wide problem as I found loads of people who had the same issues. I was able to fix it though, and I have my original RAM installed. If there's a secret sauce to picking RAM other than being on this tested list, it's not widely known. Just finding a thread where someone could explain the problem and the fix was difficult.

I guess this is no different from any newly released thing. Better to wait until the quirks get worked out.

<comment><USER12> In your case, I think it might very well just be the fact that this is a completely new platform and all the kinks haven't been straightened out just yet. And yeah, being in a smaller market must suck due to the limited choice :/

Having said that, getting ahold of the 3900x in the UK made me feel like I was too participating in a very limited market, situated somewhere in the middle of the Pacific ocean.

<comment><USER11> I bet you have to pay a nice premium as well. Anything electronic here is anywhere from 30% to 100% more than I would pay Amazon in the US.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Excerpts:

"My CPU still thought 0xFFFFFFFF was the randomest number ever, always, no matter what."

"What if two years later, I was still vulnerable to stack-smashing that I shouldn't have been, due to ASLR that wasn't actually randomizing?"

An excellent point... IF ASLR is dependent on RDRAND, and IF RDRAND always returns 0xFFFFFFFF, THEN ASLR will not work, and addresses will be laid out in memory deterministically rather than randomly... which is a big no-no for security...

A future OS would check the RNG's it uses for any security feature, on startup, and upon failure would stop, log the problem, advise the user, and ask them how they want to proceed...

<comment><USER14> 99% of users would click "Ignore and don't ask me again." If that option is not available they would tell their friends how stupid their OS was and that it ruined their weekend.

The OS needs to paper over known defects, if consumers are to be kept sane.

<comment><USER13> DOS had abort, retry, fail ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abort,_Retry,_Fail%3F](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abort,_Retry,_Fail%3F)) when it encountered an issue; most BIOSes will stop if they can't detect the keyboard or if a memory test failed (it typically can be overriden), Windows has an Advanced Boot Options screen that automatically comes up (such that the user can select "Safe Mode") if/when the computer crashed previously...

I'm not saying you're wrong; I'm just saying, hey, there's "prior art" for this... <g>

<comment><USER14> The link you provide says that is a famous example of a bad user interface. I can't tell if you're agreeing with me.

<comment><USER15> Abort, retry, ignore(, fail) is perfect example of UI, that was good when it was designed, but very fast became nothing else than source of confusion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16>
      long getRandomNumber() {
          return 0xFFFFFFFF; // chosen by fair 4294967295 sided dice roll.
      }                      // guaranteed to be random.

<comment><USER17> it should say 4294967296 sided dice.

<comment><USER18> Dice aren't usually 0 indexed.

<comment><USER19> They also usually don't have four billion sides

<comment><USER20> Sure they do, we just call them marbles instead of dice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm surprised WireGuard asks RDRAND directly. Isn't there a facility inside the Linux to get random numbers ?

OpenBSD conveniently provides arc4random() in its libc for applications to use, and the same function is available for kernel components (obviously one needs to include different headers).

<comment><USER22> WireGuard uses the correct kernel function, get_random_u32(). WireGuard does not use RdRand directly. WireGuard instead uses the proper kernel function for asking for a unsigned 32-bit number. The kernel implements get_random_u32() under the hood using a variety of backends for it. One of them is RdRand.

Other facilities in the kernel, such as ASLR, also use get_random_u32().

Many things in the kernel use get_random_u32(). That's the proper function to use.

When presented with this bug, the upstream kernel maintainers chose not to fix get_random_u32(), due to the availability (?) of microcode updates for AMD chips. That's not my decision. WireGuard is just a mere consumer of get_random_u32(), like all other modules. This is an upstream kernel bug.

<comment><USER23> > _That 's not my decision._

So says a maintainer of WireGuard. HN is beautiful sometimes.

If RANDOM_TRUST_CPU is disabled, that will stop the kernel function from using RDRAND and avoid this issue for anyone using the 'get_random_u32()' function?

<comment><USER15> No. get_random_u32() simply returns result of RDRAND if RDRAND is available regardless of any runtime configuration. For me that is pretty significant issue, because it is documented as being based on separate kernel-only CSPRNG with somewhat specific security assumptions (complete with pretty large discussion in comments of random.c as to why would anybody want that weird thing)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Is there an upstream source for this article? There's no mention of the actual versions of the Linux kernel, linux-firmware, microcode (either bios or applied by the kernel), etc. Which makes it seem less thoroughly investigated since I could easily see Ubuntu having something outdated.

I just got my 3900x a couple week ago and I don't have this bug according to the test code provided in the article.

I'm running:

> Archlinux linux-5.3.7

> Linux-firmware: 20191022.2b016af-1

> Microcode: v2.2 (patch_level=0x08701013)

> MB: ASUS PRIME x570-P. bios=1201

<comment><USER25> It was patched for almost all systems almost immediately like he said. I suspect the reason he still had the bug was due to the Asrock Rack X470D4U motherboard being an older generation board, and also a micro atx server board of all things. They might have only sold a couple hundred of them total in a niche like that so it's not too surprising it would be a low priority on the bios update list.

I also find it kind of funny that he calls Asrock Asus every single time he mentions them in the article. If he was trying to install an Asus bios on his Asrock mobo then he's got bigger problems than this bug.

<comment><USER26> So if I was to build a Ryzen System today, would that bug not exist?

<comment><USER25> You would definitely be fine as long as you're using an updated motherboard with at least AGESA 1003ABB, which would be any x570 board and likely the vast majority of x470s by now.

<comment><USER27> Last time I checked, this was not fixed for my B450-TOMAHAWK-MAX

<comment><USER25> Hmm, I see 18.104.22.168abba was released for that board on 9-18-2019. That should include the fix, although I'm not an expert, maybe it isn't there for some reason?

<comment><USER27> Last time I checked it was only BETA - I will check again to see if anything has changed.

EDIT: looks like it's out of beta now - awesome! Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> >If an existing session has the same ID as the new number, WireGuard asks RDRAND for another "random" number, checks it for uniqueness, and so on. Since RDRAND on my system—and any non-microcode-updated Ryzen 3000 system—always returned 0xFFFFFFFF no matter what, that means infinite loop.

I'm pretty surprised that so much software seems to rely on external (be it from the CPU, or the OS) random number generation directly instead of simply using a software PRNG and seeding it with external sources (and maybe additional creative sources if desired). That seems like a way more predictable system to me, in the sense that at least you get guaranteed uniformly distributed numbers, even if the external seeds are not uniformly distributed at all.

<comment><USER29> Because your intuition about the ease of building random number generators is wrong, especially if they need to be cryptographically secure. I trust my OS' RNG functions[1] far more than I trust third party code to be right, and I trust it a million times more than I trust myself to get it right. Trusting a small core of validated code is far more likely to be correct in the long term.

Wireguard's mistake was not using what the OS gave them; I'm not sure why they didn't.

[1]: [https://man.openbsd.org/arc4random.3](https://man.openbsd.org/arc4random.3)

<comment><USER30> WireGuard is a kernel module, it already uses what the kernel gave it, which is get_random_u32(). Note that this is NOT used for anything crypto related, it's just used in the hashtable code.

<comment><USER29> Amazing. Apologies to the Wireguard folks: first for casting aspersions, second that they have to deal with such a trash heap of an API.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Wow that's quite the bug. I'm surprised systemd uses RDRAND since I remember a big scare related to unauditable RNGs and government backdoors around the time that RDRAND and RDSEED came into existence. The thing is, they're technically auditable. You just need an SEM and an astounding amount of time to reverse engineer a core to the point that you can identify and understand the RNG circuitry, beginning to end.

Edit: There's some interesting discussion in the Wikipedia article's talk page's criticism section.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:RdRand#Criticism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:RdRand#Criticism)

<comment><USER32> I always found that worry quite weird, these are processors that already have things like System Management Mode that takes control away from the kernel and runs some unknown code at an arbitrary point in the execution. Worrying about a subverted RNG and trusting the rest of the CPU will just create a load of busywork that does nothing to keep you more secure.

<comment><USER33> System Management Mode is the feature that does things like getting your fans to spin up when the processor runs hot. Pretty critical when you put it like that. Yes, that requires "tak[ing] control away from the kernel and running some unknown code at an arbitrary point in the execution". We could do away with such things entirely, but then our kernels would look like coreboot code, and a comparatively trivial kernel bug could permabrick your system. Not a very sensible tradeoff!

<comment><USER34> I think they're more worried about the untrusted/unauditable part of it. I suspect most people that dislike the ME would be perfectly fine with it if Intel released the code for it and allowed users to build and upload their own copy of the ME code.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> > _When there 's a bug in the CPU microcode, you're at the mercy of your > motherboard vendor to release a new system BIOS that will update it for > you—you can't just go to some download link at AMD and apply a fix > yourself._

I think this is the real kicker, and might represent one of the next major fronts in the security struggle. It's a little different from the debates happening right now about support periods, that at least has clear economic implications. It's one thing to argue about whether a product should still be supported at all. But it's quite another when something is being supported, and does in fact have a patch available, yet many owners still can not apply it anyway. That seems like an avoidable failure, and something worth considering legislation around. The industry could and should have more standardized methods and requirements to make sure that any patches that are created do make it out to product owners quickly and universally, there just hasn't been consistent motivation.

<comment><USER36> > _When there 's a bug in the CPU microcode, you're at the mercy of your > motherboard vendor to release a new system BIOS that will update it for > you—you can't just go to some download link at AMD and apply a fix > yourself._

At least on Linux, that's not true. Intel publishes microcode updates on Github [1] (and distros package it) and AMD has it upstreamed in linux- firmware [2], so you don't have to rely on motherboard vendors at all.

[1] [https://github.com/intel/Intel-Linux-Processor-Microcode- Dat...](https://github.com/intel/Intel-Linux-Processor-Microcode-Data-Files)

[2] [https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/lin...](https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux- firmware.git/tree/amd-ucode)

<comment><USER37> Microsoft also distributes microcode updates through Windows Update. Although, on a second look, it seems like all the microcode updates they've made available were only security-related (Spectre and co) Intel patches.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Why would anyone use rdrand directly? Seems like user space applications should use getrandom() or /dev/urandom and the kernel should use rdrand as a complementary random number source in its random number generator.

No user space program should need to use rdrand directly at all.

<comment><USER39> I believe Wireguard is implemented in the kernel. I'd argue there should be a kernel-wide wrapper function for this sort of thing, or if that already exists, Wireguard should probably use it.

That doesn't explain why systemd uses it, of course.

<comment><USER40> WireGuard does use the right wrapper -- get_random_u32(). The issue is that the implementation will just use whatever the architecture-provided randomness source provides if it's available[1]. That's the real bug.

[1]: [https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/v5.3.6/source/drivers/char/...](https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/v5.3.6/source/drivers/char/random.c#L2343)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Too bad that all the benefits of running an open source OS are lost because it's too arduous for regular people to recompile their OS and software. At least the BSDs make it trivial. When you give up freedom for "ease of use", you get what people give you, and you have no real options.

I'm sorry, but I really don't feel bad for this person.

Also, it's disingenuous to say that only "some" (the author uses that word) motherboards have updated microcode. "Most" would be more accurate, and "pretty much all, with few exceptions" is actually closer to the truth. Even my el cheapo A320 chipset motherboard already has AGESA 188.8.131.52 ABBA.

<comment><USER42> > When you give up freedom for "ease of use", you get what people give you, > and you have no real options.

> I'm sorry, but I really don't feel bad for this person.

And this is why Linux will never take off as a consumer OS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> For those interested in the origins of RDRAND, here is some background Intel stuff about it.

[https://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/hardware/behind- intels-n...](https://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/hardware/behind-intels-new- randomnumber-generator)

[https://www.hotchips.org/wp- content/uploads/hc_archives/hc23...](https://www.hotchips.org/wp- content/uploads/hc_archives/hc23/HC23.18.2-security/HC23.18.210-Random- Numbers-Cox-Intel-e.pdf)

NB: RDSEED was added at a later date, some people didn't like that Intel used AES for conditioning, they wanted the raw bits.

</comment><comment><USER44> The screenshot in the article include:

         sudo hexdump -C -n 64 /dev/urandom

sudo won't be required to read from /dev/urandom, although it probably is for /dev/hwrng.

</comment><comment><USER45> It sounds like this article was all about Asus not updating their motherboards. Than at the bottom we find out it's not an Asus motherboard but an older AsRock Micro ATX Server board.

</comment><comment><USER46> I don't have any insights to add here but I did just build a new PC this weekend with an Asus X570 MoBo a 3900x, and 32GB of 3600Mhz memory w/ Ubuntu 19.04 and everything worked as expected. I haven't even updated the BIOS yet. I did spend all day Sunday getting the Nvidia/CUDA drivers configured for Tensorflow, but that's a different story.

I just hope people don't think that every system build will deal with these problems.

</comment><comment><USER47> Tinfoil hat time: Maybe this was a canary if the system is designed to have an exploitable RNG that can be weakened on demand by back channels.

</comment><comment><USER48> My Lenovo E485 with Ryzen 2700U processor had the same issue - the BIOS update for that was provided in August, I believe, though I only installed it this past weekend.

It was a very frustrating thing to happen, since I was super excited to be back on AMD for my laptop.

</comment><comment><USER49> Could WireGuard use libjitterentropy ([https://github.com/smuellerDD/jitterentropy- library](https://github.com/smuellerDD/jitterentropy-library)) to avoid this?

<comment><USER22> WireGuard uses the correct kernel function, get_random_u32(). WireGuard does not use RdRand directly. WireGuard instead uses the proper kernel function for asking for a unsigned 32-bit number. The kernel implements get_random_u32() under the hood using a variety of backends for it. One of them is RdRand.

Other facilities in the kernel, such as ASLR, also use get_random_u32().

Many things in the kernel use get_random_u32(). That's the proper function to use.

When presented with this bug, the upstream kernel maintainers chose not to fix get_random_u32(), due to the availability (?) of microcode updates for AMD chips. That's not my decision. WireGuard is just a mere consumer of get_random_u32(), like all other modules. This is an upstream kernel bug.

<comment><USER50> I imagine, that ASLR uses get_random_u32(), because it is needed during earliest phases in boot, before random pool is initialized. It might not necessarily be the proper function for making kernel random numbers — rather such function might not exist in Linux yet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> It's interesting that it relies on thermal noise to generate random numbers. Would this mean, theoretically, that the more stable the thermals of the system are, the less entropy, and the less random the numbers generated?

<comment><USER31> Stable thermals are fine. Very low temperatures would be an issue. I wonder if LN2 affects the quality of the RNG values.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson–Nyquist_noise](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson–Nyquist_noise)

<comment><USER52> Computers are made from transistors... so there's a good chance that its probably shot-noise instead.

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

Johnson Nyquist noise is measured from resistors, and is therefore present in every circuit. Shot noise however, is more evident in transistors.

\</comment></comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>

I don't know if the AMD circuit is Shot-noise or Johnson Nyquist noise. But its important to remember that there are many sources of noise / randomness in normal circuits.

The funny thing about true-random number generators: noise sources are all over the place! A beginner who plays with transistors will almost immediately "discover" a form of noise, and be forced to minimize it.

With regard to "true random" circuits (of which there are many, many different kinds), they all isolate a particular noise, and then amplify it. You have to isolate a particular form of noise if you want to get a good entropy estimation.

EDIT: It seems both shot noise and Johnson-Nyquist noise are white-noise, so maybe it doesn't matter. White noise + white noise should result in white noise, but its been a long time since I've taken this circuit class...

</comment><comment><USER53> > When theRDRAND bug in Ryzen 3000 first surfaced back in June, Linux users > widely reported that their entire Ryzen 3000-powered systems wouldn't boot. > The failure to boot was due to systemd's use of RDRAND—and it wasn't > systemd's first clash with AMD and a buggy random-number generator, > unfortunately.

Then why are half the posts on Hacker News about how wonderful Ryzen is and how Intel is all but dead, etc.?

<comment><USER54> HN has a pretty vocal contingent that won't allow systemd on their systems, so they wouldn't have noticed?

Also, this issue was discussed here when it was noticed shortly after release. AMD acknowledged the issue and released a fix pretty quickly, subject to microcode updates don't necessarily make it out to all motherboards very rapidly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> >When there's a bug in the CPU microcode, you're at the mercy of your motherboard vendor to release a new system BIOS that will update it for you—you can't just go to some download link at AMD and apply a fix yourself.

Since when? On Linux anyway microcode can be installed just fine as a package, often bundled in kernel updates.

</comment><comment><USER56> I don't get it. Why is RdRand failing?

</comment><comment><USER57> Everything— _everything_ —about that was awful.

</comment><comment><USER58> Turns out the IEEE standard floating point number is ffffffff...

( see the alt text on [https://xkcd.com/221/](https://xkcd.com/221/) )

<comment><USER59> That's the problem with randomness... you can never be sure!

[https://dilbert.com/strip/2001-10-25](https://dilbert.com/strip/2001-10-25)

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Any machine that has a CCD image sensor has an excellent source of high- quality random noise, in the least-significant bit of each pixel.

Each pixel will have a bias, but x-oring lots of them together gets nice, unbiased random bits to stir into your pool.

If it doesn't have a CCD, maybe it has a microphone or ambient-light sensor. That yields fewer total bits, but usually enough.

Maybe it has two, or all three. The advantage of mixing randomness from multiple sources is that you don't need to trust them all. If one starts feeding you FFFF..., the output has just a little less entropy, not none.

My guess for why AMD produces FFFFF... is that a Spook Mode was activated by accident. If so, it was supposed to switch to that only on command from the "management engine", the wired-in exploit every big CPU has. Maybe somebody deep within AMD wanted to ensure that we would not trust our RDRAND instruction overmuch.</comment>


UK Government Selects OpenAPI v3 - <AUTHOR> https://technology.blog.gov.uk/2019/10/02/improve-csvs-and-api-descriptions-with-these-open-standards-board-recommendations/ <comment><USER2> This also covers CSV as well as APIs.

Links:

[https://openapi.tools/](https://openapi.tools/)

[https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4180](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4180)

While using the open API spec is good, I'd say the standardisation of CSV data will have more impact. More of the open data available is in the form of historic reports rather than real-time: [https://data.gov.uk/](https://data.gov.uk/) (e.g. [https://data.gov.uk/dataset/27dd8d7f-c58b-4de3-bf0d-81058465...](https://data.gov.uk/dataset/27dd8d7f-c58b-4de3-bf0d-810584651f05/uk- s-carbon-footprint-1990-to-2009))

<comment><USER3> I can't find any mention of CSV in the OpenAPI documentation or the first link you provided, can you elaborate a bit how this works?

<comment><USER4> I think he means that the UK govt has mandated a particular CSV standard for tabular data, at the same time. I think you're right that OpenAPI has nothing to do with CSV.

<comment><USER5> Yes. CSV with the obvious extra conditions "UTF-8" and "one header row" is fairly interoperable, but note: "when you're using Excel for Windows to load a file that is UTF-8 without a BOM, you can resolve the display of non-ASCII characters by using the 'import text' option". If a Windows user just clicks on the file then sometimes UTF-8 is interpreted as some 8-bit encoding and you get mojibake. Nevertheless, you shouldn't add a BOM because the standard doesn't permit that and it might cause all sorts of problems on other systems.

<comment> java-man Mojibake

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

love this word!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is great news.

As someone working on GOV.UK projects and regularly working with large, unwieldy CSVs I can't recommend CSVKit[0] highly enough. Being able to go from CSV to PostgreSQL in one or two simple steps is _priceless_ for me.

[0] [https://csvkit.readthedocs.io/en/latest/](https://csvkit.readthedocs.io/en/latest/)

<comment><USER7> I've had good success using Postgres' built-in CSV import/export command (COPY) in the past — depends on one's workflow, obviously!

[https://www.postgresql.org/docs/12/sql- copy.html](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/12/sql-copy.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Anyone know/recommend any API schemas/standards for REST APIs that allow machines to discover their resources?

For example I see OpenApi v3 mentioned here (which uses a yaml file to give context) and I am also familiar with NGSIv2[1] which will get standardized by ETSI supposedly (NGSI-LD[2]). NGSI seems to embed info in the json so that your application can know if this float is Celsius or Fahrenheit.

Any other open options?

[1]: [https://fiware.github.io/specifications/ngsiv2/stable/](https://fiware.github.io/specifications/ngsiv2/stable/) [2]: [https://fiware-datamodels.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ngsi- ld_f...](https://fiware-datamodels.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ngsi- ld_faq/index.html)

<comment><USER9> Take a look at JSON-LD and Hydra

[https://json-ld.org/](https://json-ld.org/)

[https://www.hydra-cg.com/](https://www.hydra-cg.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Coauthor of openapi.tools here. If y'all have suggestions about things we can do to make the project better, we are all ears!

<comment><USER11> This is really cool! The one feature I would have asked for is already in place: authorization - so that's super cool.

That said, hmm, what do you feel like OpenAPI learned (so as not to repeat) from the pitfalls of SOAP WSDLs?

<comment><USER10> That is a fascinating question. Mostly because I wasn't around for SOAP. I started my development career kind of with the rise of REST. I've only ever used REST personally, so I couldn't really tell you. Looking up WSDL, I can tell you one thing I've noticed with OpenAPI is that it is both incredibly descriptive, and yet not in the way. I can look at an OpenAPI file, figure out what is going really quickly and get working. With WSDL/XML you have to parse the whole XML schema to really understand what is going on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I wish tooling was available for the company I work for to use v3. So much of the ecosystem is stuck on v2 or worse.

<comment><USER4> What's the thing you miss most from v3 working in v2?

<comment><USER13> The oneOf keyword is really handy. I actually resorted to implementing the "sub-schema" validation using another tool when this wasn't available.

I think it's in JsonSchema validation and Open Api v3 but not v2.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> One of the criticisms of OpenAPI is the verbosity of the schema definition.

I've seen a couple of meta generator projects that generate OpenAPI specs from a meta description.

Is anything being done 'officially' to provide an abbreviated form for simpler use cases?

<comment><USER15> Why does it matter ? It's not supposed to be read by humans.

<comment><USER16> It is supposed to be read by humans: "The format is easy to learn and readable to both humans and machines."

Source [https://swagger.io/docs/specification/about](https://swagger.io/docs/specification/about)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The CSV standard looks very sensible and reasonable.</comment>


Google bows to EU privacy ruling - <AUTHOR> http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/b827b658-e708-11e3-88be-00144feabdc0.html <comment><USER2> Oh those poor search engines, making billions of dollars having to have the decency to let private individuals not have to have their lives opened up to casual searches on the internet 24/7\. What a tragedy!

I for one have NO DESIRE for my children to grow up in a world where they do not have control over information about themselves on the internet. I can only pray this sensible law makes it to North America.

For those downvoting - are you a shill for Google? Try reading the form itself to appreciate how exceedingly reasonable it is:

A recent ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union found that certain users can ask search engines to remove results for queries that include their name where those results are "inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant, or excessive in relation to the purposes for which they were processed." In implementing this decision, we will assess each individual request and attempt to balance the privacy rights of the individual with the public's right to know and distribute information. When evaluating your request, we will look at whether the results include outdated information about you, as well as whether there's a public interest in the information—for example, information about financial scams, professional malpractice, criminal convictions, or public conduct of government officials.

<comment><USER3> People aren't complaining about the idea of removing private information.

They are complaining that you are just removing it from _google_. The info is still there!

And not only that, it's only removed from google.co.{eu*} google.com will still have it.

Which makes it as stupid of a law as the one about cookies: Make it look like you are helping privacy while actually doing nothing of any value.

Anyone from the EU who wants the full scoop about someone will just use the US google site, making this a completely pointless exercise.

<comment><USER4> >it's only removed from google.co.{eu*} google.com will still have it

Where is this information from? Sounds a bit strange, but I guess it could be true. It's not the first time big companies say "f u" to these rulings.

<comment><USER5> Given the disaster this is likely to inflict on search results if scaled up, and the fact that it's not required in America, do you really think they'll make the whole global search engine work this way? Or do you think they'll do the same thing as done in every other case where some stupid country requires censorship: block based on domain name or IP address?

Historically, for Europe it's been done via domain name. Doing it via IP address would not be any more effective though: there'd immediately be dozens of proxy sites set up running in the US that simply forward the search to the US Google and return the results.

Short of building an equivalent to the Chinese Great Firewall and blocking all encrypted traffic, or forcing Google to apply European cenorship globally, there's no way to stop Europeans who want regular results pages from getting them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is the actual form "Search removal request under European Data Protection law": [https://support.google.com/legal/contact/lr_eudpa?product=we...](https://support.google.com/legal/contact/lr_eudpa?product=websearch)

</comment><comment><USER7> Larry's request at TED a few months back that we have more faith in corporations shows how much we have already lost to the hands of an increasingly commercial internet. When it is clear that there is no neutral party to trust any more (gov nor corp) balkanisation through enforcement of new laws is a needed and natural effect.

</comment><comment><USER8> I don't know why, but this creeps me out. This seems like such a hard balance to get right and also too much of a burden for search engines. Also, there is potential for abuse.

<comment><USER9> Sure, it is a hard balance to get right. But privacy is an important right and we should not throw it away because it creates some extra effort for a multi- billion dollar company.

I also find it weak that Page plays the 'think of the startups' card. In fact, I think that since the Snowden leaks, there are far more opportunities to create privacy-aware or privacy-protecting services. E.g., I am pretty sure that Duckduckgo, a startup in search, benefitted tremendously from the recent attention to privacy issues.

<comment><USER10> DuckDuckGo certainly has benefited from privacy becoming more salient, but this ruling is probably negative for them. Each of these removal requests needs manual review to keep people from requesting takedowns of other people's stuff. There are ~500M people eligible to request takedowns under the ruling, and if 1% of them ask for one link removed per year that's 14k requests per day. If each request takes 5min then you need 143 people working full time. Which high but doable for Google, but at ~20 employees this would be an enormous burden for DDG.

These numbers could be higher if someone puts out a campaign that goes viral and gets lots of people submitting requests, and there's nothing that stops people outside the EU from submitting (invalid) requests.

One thing in DDG's favor, however, is that that at first people are probably only going to send these requests to Google.

Disclaimer: I work for Google, on open source software.

<comment><USER9> _There are ~500M people eligible to request takedowns under the ruling, and if 1% of them ask for one link removed per year that 's 14k requests per day. If each request takes 5min then you need 143 people working full time. Which high but doable for Google, but at ~20 employees this would be an enormous burden for DDG._

You are making a mistake in your math here, since a sizeable portion of that 500M people use Google, but probably only a fraction of a percent uses DDG.

In other words, if DDG's usage is currently 1% that of Google (which would surprise me), that's 1.43 people. If you are a search company of 20 people, it seems reasonable to me to have at least a few people working on keeping your index clean.

<comment><USER10> For my privacy to be protected in this way it doesn't matter what search engine I use, it matters what search engine the people who are trying to look me up use. If I want a fact about me to not come up when people search for my name I would need to remove it from any search engine others might look in. This is a lower barrier than usage, but you're right that at least for now people probably won't bother submitting these to DDG.

Unless someone makes a single form for submitting a removal request to all/most search engines? Though I guess then the search engines could pool together and do some kind of centralized processing of these requests?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is great for google, they have the manpower to do it, creating barriers to entry for the potential future competition.

<comment><USER12> But.., but.., what about our rights??? /retard

</comment></comment><comment> k-mcgrady I actually have what I think is a valid reason to use this.

Years ago I created a friendfeed account. I used their Twitter signup button. Now years later I would like to close my friendfeed account to remove that information from the internet. There's nothing particularly bad about it but it's old, useless and I would rather it was deleted. The problem is I can't login into my account as I authorised through Twitter and I've since deleted my Twitter account. I also can't get in touch with anyone at friendfeed since they've shutdown but left their site up.

This ruling gives me a way to hide that friendfeed page from people. Unfortunately it will still be up but it's unlikely anyone will find it 'accidentally' if it isn't on Google.

<comment><USER13> I also agree that for reasons such as this (deleting an unwanted account) the ruling is useful. The real problem is demanding _Google_ or other services like theirs to delete data that appears from _other_ services, that Google has nothing to do with, other than indexing them. Of course you'd have to believe that once the data is gone from the parent host, it disappears from Google's cache, too, automatically.

But just asking Google to get rid of it doesn't make a lot of sense to me, and I think it unnecessarily punishes them, too. Think about the tens of millions of such requests they'd have to respond to every year in the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Will these take-downs at least make it to www.chillingeffects.org? I do hope so.

</comment><comment><USER15> why does the link go to ft.com, rather than google.com (the domain listed after the link)

<comment><USER16> When you search Google and copy a link from results page, thats what you get. Links are going through google.com and redirected to the site.

This is probably what author did. :/

<comment><USER17> It's a clever trick. Unfortunately, it breaks the referential integrity of the post. I don't think we can allow it as the submission url, for the same reason we don't allow link shorteners. People who are already posting links to Google searches in comments, though, might want to post these instead.

For those reading this later, the submitted url was [http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd...](http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCoQqQIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F2%2Fb827b658-e708-11e3-88be-00144feabdc0.html&ei=mSOIU6bcOITvoASx54LgCA&usg=AFQjCNHUMgpLy_trccfJHij- yjxxqAo52Q&bvm=bv.67720277,d.cGU)

<comment><USER18> The only problem is now when you click on the submission link you can't view the article because you need a FT subscription. If you clicked the link that sends you via Google you can view the article due to the FT allowing limited free views via search engines.

<comment><USER17> Yes—that's why the trick is clever. But this has been the situation for a long time, and much as we're all annoyed by the annoyance, it would clearly be inappropriate to have all paywalled links show up in HN as "google.com". If people want to post links like this in comments, that wouldn't be a big deviation from current practice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Google bows... Misleading title by Financial Times that doesn't bow under laws eh? Funny how the media can manipulate the wording and judge someone.

It's called LAW! You don't BOW to it, you OBEY.

What would FT do in Google case? form an army and go fight against the EU?... Sick of reading articles like that.

Its sad that the EU is voting those laws, but its not Google fault of trying to be a legal company...

</comment><comment><USER20> Only Europeans will have their data censored. Good for businesses hosting VPNs.</comment>


Free virtual tours of 2,500 museums around the world - <AUTHOR> https://artsandculture.google.com/partner?hl=en <comment><USER2> As an 18 year old high school student, I was able to snag a free seat on a field trip to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, just a little trip to Boston from my hometown of Claremont, NH. In 1998, my high school had just lost its accreditation, I had just flunked pre-calculus for the second year in a row, and I had absolutely no direction in my life. Three months later I would be kicked out of college for a 0.6 first-semester GPA, to begin the very long, awkward journey of finding myself. This takes many more years before the first success.

But that trip to this museum, one included on this website as a virtual tour, planted a seed, deep down in my mind that would take years to spout. The museum is a Venetian palace, and at the center, draped by shadows that lurch outwards from receding hallways, lies a majestic courtyard, adorned with crenulation and dentils that mesmerize and steal the time from day. A trashy townie punk stood there aghast that beauty could render so closely, and knew there for maybe the first time that a world beyond home awaited.

I never got a chance to thank the man that let me sneak aboard that bus, but many times already I have felt the spirit of sharing to an outsider that access, and evermore will I continue for it is only during these moments that we can so easily take stock of what we've been.

Support the arts.

<comment><USER3> That museum is amazing!

Also amazingly, today (!!) is the thirtieth anniversary of the unsolved theft of several masterpieces from its collection.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabella_Stewart_Gardner_Museu...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabella_Stewart_Gardner_Museum_theft)

It seems less likely every year, but I'm still hoping that those works will come home to the museum someday.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Walking tour new York city" "Walking tour paris" "Walking tour ..."

Pick the longer videos on YouTube or filter for them. I throw one on mute and just leave it on while I'm on my couch working. Nice to see people up and about while you're alone.

Also, you notice people coughing/sneezing way more now even if the video is years old.

</comment><comment><USER5> Is it strange that I would enjoy these far more if they were embedded in a walkable version of the museum running in a game engine? Like "virtually visit a museum" is a lot more appealing than "look at pictures of things that are in museums".

<comment><USER6> It is better than that. Use their app and then you can put van Gogh in your living room (AR)

[https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/self-portrait- with-g...](https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/self-portrait-with-grey- felt-hat-vincent-van-gogh/PgEJ1hPIzqsM2w)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Scan the World - 3D printable cultural artifacts: [https://www.myminifactory.com/scantheworld/](https://www.myminifactory.com/scantheworld/)

Collection of public domain cultural heritage 3D models on Sketchfab: [https://sketchfab.com/nebulousflynn/collections/cc0](https://sketchfab.com/nebulousflynn/collections/cc0)

<comment><USER8> There's a similiar site for german cultural sites/rooms (unfortunately only in german): [https://vr-dynamix.com/bayern3d-heimat-digital/](https://vr- dynamix.com/bayern3d-heimat-digital/)

Direct links to the vr-application: [https://www.vr- dynamix.com/bayern3d/dk/index.html](https://www.vr- dynamix.com/bayern3d/dk/index.html) [https://www.vr- dynamix.com/bayern3d/wbgarten/index.html](https://www.vr- dynamix.com/bayern3d/wbgarten/index.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> FWIW, I created a tool that automagically walks through a Google street view (originally done for road trips through cities). I've now added some of those museums. I leave it running and occasionally look where it has led me to --> [https://roadtraveller.herokuapp.com/](https://roadtraveller.herokuapp.com/)

</comment><comment><USER10> Since last Friday I've been making my Zoom virtual background a daily rotation of artwork. It's been a fun and educational experience for me (I'm no art expert, just a casual fan of museums) and I think my friends and co-workers have enjoyed it. When you're mostly stuck at home all day it's nice to have a daily "new" to look forward to.

I've been recording my choices and when this is over I'll have a little "Zoom Museum" as a kind of artistic memorial of the pandemic.

This link is a great source for new art, so thank you OP!

</comment><comment><USER11> Virtual tour? Since when is a virtual tour a collection of pictures in a random order? Walking in a museum is also about the sense of space and how everything is organized. Such abuse of words.

<comment><USER12> Perhaps it doesn't work for every museum, but for the one I tried (Van Gogh Museum) you can get a Street View-like view where you can actually move around the museum and look around, by clicking the yellow human street view icon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I have sent a suggestion to Google to combine this with Google Hangout Meet, so quarantined friends can see and talk to each other while watching the images. I also suggested to split virtual visitors into random tourist groups, so if you visit the virtual museum alone you can be joined by others if you want to... and they should add virtual tours if they don't have them yet, where a real museum guide joins the group and gives a tour.

I hope they read my suggestion and can implement these features.

<comment><USER14> Google Meet seems to be the only one currently not cracking under the increased load, while Zoom, Webex, and others are starting to fail. I guess there's little room to add features right now...

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Google puts the museum hours at the bottom of the museum landing pages. These hours are unlikely to be valid for the time being, with so many museums being closed. How often are the hours scraped and reposted? Or were these entered manually? It's a nitpick, of course, but much of good design is attention to details like this. I would have left this section out; it's unlikely this info would ever be maintained correctly.

</comment><comment><USER16> These are worth checking out as well:

[https://experiments.withgoogle.com/collection/arts- culture](https://experiments.withgoogle.com/collection/arts-culture)

</comment><comment><USER17> This is awesome, thanks for sharing. What are some other similar resources to be able to explore the world virtually?

<comment><USER18> [http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901/m.html](http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901/m.html)

How about the world of radio waves? Type in 198, AM. There's a good documentary of Apollo 13 on the Beeb currently, 7:43 PM PT, 0243 UTC :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Not quite a tour, but some really well put together content in my opinion

</comment><comment><USER20> This is where VR is needed

<comment><USER21> There is a Google Arts and Culture VR app available. It's nice because it also has commentaries on some of the pieces of artwork so it's almost like going on a real tour in a gallery.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I tried some of them. All of them have a horribly low UX and UI. That means they are 100% unusable. Please hire some Silicon Valley engineers and make SPEED a feature. As it's now', it is pretty much totally worthless. I'm sorry to say so. Take it as real feedback. I tried it once, horribly slow, I'll never go back.

This is a good way to "burn through" a huge audience, which will remember you as a "slow, hard, and unusable service", and never come back. It won't matter then how hard you try to push or market.

<comment><USER23> I'm a bit confused: the featured link here seems to be made by Google, and seems pretty performant in Firefox on a 6-year-old Macbook (albeit with a good Internet connection). Were you thinking of other links that had been shared before?</comment></comment>