Amazon launches Halo: tracks activity, body fat, emotions - <AUTHOR> https://press.aboutamazon.com/news-releases/news-release-details/introducing-amazon-halo-and-amazon-halo-band-new-service-helps/ <comment><USER2> > from the comfort and privacy of home

There is no privacy in home, and that's exactly what you want, to track our every tap, thought and utterance when using Alexa or any of your spyware.

> Health data is encrypted in transit and in the cloud

I feel PR pieces like this have given up even trying, and they only add that entire section reluctantly. I'd respect technologists more if they just openly admitted that this data is tracked, collected, processed and used for ads or other metrics and possibly collected by law enforcement or other purposes.

I mean, there was huge backlash against Ring cameras for working with the police, so absolutely nobody can trust anything that even remotely connects to the internet.

What they should say:

Truly private and encrypted: All data is stored locally, on device, and will never be transmitted via the internet. Using a free, open source application, you can transfer all the data to your own, secure offline storage. No data will be transmitted to Amazon, the cloud, or any other third party. Not even us can access your data.

But, as we know, that is never going to happen as far as Amazon is concerned, they want to track every second of your life in billions of datapoints; how often you blink, how many steps you take, your every interaction within the world.

They won't be happy until as much of our lives is being recorded by them as possible.

Fuck Amazon.

<comment><USER3> The only sane choice is to simply not use the technology that tracks us.

<comment><USER4> Have you ever tried not to use a smartphone?

I don't mean to be rude; I just don't think that "simply not use" is going to work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In a hilarious naming clash, Halo is the name of a medical bracelet in the SciFi show Continuum created by one of the main characters, who is the CEO of a very Amazon like company. The bracelet uses ai to monitor, track, and treat your health. Since the show is of course science fiction, the bracelet is quickly misused. See the commercial for the device from the show:

[https://youtu.be/xfqaZ8_Z5aA](https://youtu.be/xfqaZ8_Z5aA)

<comment><USER6> Perhaps not unintentional?

<comment><USER5> IIRC the device is used to control people in the show, so that would be a little bit dark for a namesake?

<comment><USER7> Very dark for sure, but I can guess the folks making 6 and 7 figure salaries developing this stuff and foisting it on a largely unknowing society probably enjoy this type of humor

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> FAQ on Tone component: [https://blog.aboutamazon.com/devices/a-new-tool-to- help-you-...](https://blog.aboutamazon.com/devices/a-new-tool-to-help-you- understand-and-improve-your-social-wellbeing)

 _" Once you've opted-in by creating your voice profile, Tone will run passively and intermittently in the background so you don't have to think about it. Throughout the day, it will take short samples of your speech and analyze the acoustic characteristics that represent how you sound to the people you interact with. This gives you a simple way to reflect on your interaction and communication throughout the day."_

Aka "Look, Amazon found a reason it needs to record your voice all the time. For science."

Facebook must be fuming.

<comment><USER9> Holy crap. They are openly saying they will now be recording and listening to (and transcribing presumably) your speech at any time.

BTW, pretty sure Facebook and Google are already listening to speech and serving ads off it, just not admitting to it.

<comment><USER10> Where does it say transcribing? To me it sounds like it is processing voice on device into emotion markers and only the emotion markers are send to amazon. So the actual voice information would never leave the device. I do think anything else would not be possible legally because you'd need to have consent from every stranger you have a discussion with, moreso what about trade secret meetings. I can't fathom Amazon would go that way.

<comment><USER9> It doesn't. However for the last nine or more years (since work on Echo began), transcription has been far and away the #1 way Amazon processes speech - not "emotion markers" or whatever else you are dreaming up. I don't see "emotion markers" mentioned or described, and "it sounds like they are doing something else" is not really a strong argument if you're trying to guarantee that they _aren 't_ transcribing it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> We see you're feeling down citizen, here's some targeted advertising so you can spend your money with us citizen. It's for your good, citizen.

The question is, how much is Amazon paying me for my data? Oh, nothing? Yeah, nope.

<comment><USER12> I am trying to remember the name of that short movie where you talked to the mirror and pills were dispensed.

I feel sad. Let Amazon make it all better(orders gin).

Frankly, I am horrified and I only began to process this information.

<comment><USER13> > I only began to process this information.

Might we interest you in augmenting your information-processing capacity with one of our many EC2 instance types? There's one for every workload!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > _Tone: The globally accepted definition of health includes not just physical > but also social and emotional well-being. The innovative Tone feature uses > machine learning to analyze energy and positivity in a customer's voice so > they can better understand how they may sound to others, helping improve > their communication and relationships. For example, Tone results may reveal > that a difficult work call leads to less positivity in communication with a > customer's family, an indication of the impact of stress on emotional well- > being._

Reminds me of Radiohead's "fitter, happier, more productive self".

~Mindset tracking is pretty sensitive data, and to pay for the privilege to give something so personal away feels less than optimal. I would feel better about it I guess if there were a guarantee that no one would ever receive my data, ever, after Amazon, but even then...

<comment><USER15> A few giant elephants aside, I wonder how they train it at all and how it works across cultures, as coincidentally I just saw someone tweeting that multi-lingual person basically has independent thought processes and split personalities for each languages, and someone else following up they notice their facial expressions and gestures switch.

<comment><USER12> Assuming it becomes widely accepted, the cases will be fascinating. Domestic abuse where voice data will be used to establish that individuals were lucid and not emotional.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The fat measurement bit seems interesting. It seems entirely dependent on CV.[1] It does acknowledge that people gain fat differently but I am very apprehensive of this feature. Definition of muscles unless you go sub 10% BF looks very different among people. Also, clicking full body pictures and uploading it in a third party service even though this is Amazon feels very violating for some reason.

I think traditional home/gym scales use electrical impedance to measure this like this Inbody one. [2] They also claim to have been validated by studies. I would rather want these devices to become more portable and affordable.

[1] [https://blog.aboutamazon.com/devices/a-better-measure-of- hea...](https://blog.aboutamazon.com/devices/a-better-measure-of-health)

[2] [https://inbodyusa.com/products/inbody770/](https://inbodyusa.com/products/inbody770/)

<comment><USER17> Electrical impedance has been shown to be absolutely trash in accurately predicting bf%. I've used both Garmin's and Fitbit's smart scales, which are supposed to be top-of-the-line, and compared to DXA... the numbers aren't even close. Most people report similar experiences.

<comment><USER16> That's not something you can have at your home though, no? The DEXA/DXA scans machine I know of are something you can't keep at the comfort of your home.

In my personal experience I have found impedance ones to be fairly accurate(~10%, BF range 10-16) and for most people the accuracy of full body ones is good to have a general idea about their body. Probably when you reach sub 10 levels, accuracy matters more.

Btw, here is the link to studies they give: [https://inbodyusa.com/studies/](https://inbodyusa.com/studies/)

<comment><USER17> I've also found about a 10-point discrepancy. There's a huge difference between 15% and 25% bf.. one is approaching athletic while the other is obese.

DXA is definitely less convenient, but there's no real reason to test your bf% daily (just like weighing yourself daily isn't productive, you need to look at average changes over time). Considering the amount of time it takes to significantly change your bf%, twice a year testing would be plenty.. and would probably cost you the same amount as this subscription service.

<comment><USER18> Maybe weighing daily IS productive, but looking at the result daily is not :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> As usual for things like this one: on one side there will be great benefits from tracking people's health using several metrics, something not possible even just a few years ago.

On the other side, how these giant companies will handle our data, and how this data will be used by, for example, health insurance companies, is the sinister aspect of any innovation in this direction.

It's a good example of "free market" trending to dystopian societies with huge disparities, whereas a good, simple, targeted government intervention (in terms of regulation, etc) could go a long way.

<comment><USER19> The downside in capitalism: Some company has your data if you are dumb enough to buy the thing.

The downside in not-capitalism: You're forced to wear it. It doesn't work. Your family is brought in for questioning when you try to take it off.

<comment><USER4> The point is not capitalism vs communism: the point is how you interpret, how you regulate capitalism.

<comment><USER19> There were capitalism vs. communism _undertones_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I am no more willing to provide my biometric sleep, voice, and body data to Amazon than I would to eBay or Netflix. However, if you'd like to help Amazon train their human being analysis models and get no payment in return, this is your chance.

What benefit does Amazon derive from having such comprehensive biometric data about Amazon consumers? They're offering this device at a significant loss vs. the investment that goes into it.

> _The innovative Tone feature uses machine learning to analyze energy and > positivity in a customer's voice_

Will they start charging people more for a product category when Alexa overhears that they're talking about it _excitedly_? Will they 'invite' you to install a Nielsen ratings integration that lets them listen for content and measure how you feel about it? If your pulse rate jumps during a Clorox bleach ad, will you start seeing ads for the Amazon Basics product that competes with it?

> _Body scan images are automatically deleted from the cloud after processing, > so only the customer sees them._

> _Speech samples are always analyzed locally on the customer's phone and > automatically deleted after processing_

"Processing" permits them to train models and transmit training outcomes that are derived your body data, as they only commit to deleting the raw data, not the training outcomes that result from it. They can claim correctly that the raw data cannot be extracted _from_ the processed results.

</comment><comment><USER21> I wouldn't trust Amazon or any other tech giant with data about my emotions, that information is more personal to me than the contents of my day to day conversations or any other biometrics they might be scraping. What an unimaginable panopticon we are entering into.

But in a dream world, I would love a device that could help me map out my emotional state over time. My emotional health is a huge component to my well being. I currently manually keep an offline journal of my mood daily and use it to better understand myself, offloading that to a passive monitor would be great.

<comment><USER22> There may still be a way to reap benefits from this device without sharing any data with Amazon.

If I were to use this, I would use an older phone that would:

1\. Only download the app necessary for using this device

2\. Only provide Bluetooth connectivity. I would not use a SIM or connect to any wifi networks

<comment><USER23> It requires a subscription. You can't keep it offline forever. Some features send data to Amazon for processing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Surprised (or maybe not?) by the negativity of the comments here. This is a direct competitor to Whoop[1]. Athletes and friends of mine rave about it.

Knowing physical strain, recovery levels, etc. helps you know when to train harder, when to take a day off, when to specifically rest up.

For somebody aiming for elite performance (physically and mentally), the data is invaluable.

[1]: [https://www.whoop.com](https://www.whoop.com)

<comment><USER25> Whoop does not have body fat percentage measurement. And, the monthly price of $30 is too high for me to get started with them.

<comment><USER26> They're also not amazon, where a huge part of their business is data.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I fear that people will actually use it. Once you ignore privacy implications ( and in US privacy is something companies pay lip service to and only weird people like me worry about ), I can absolutely see the appeal to an individual. Who would not want to track their progress?

And I am saying this having now been in several's people houses with Alexa running lights. Not young people, or tech enthusiasts either. Old people who should know better.

</comment><comment><USER27> Very creepy to know people are voluntarily going to purchase a device that tracks your emotions and have that be used to inform Amazon's ad or product recommendation targeting.

<comment><USER28> Lol, these self monitor systems can't even produce useful data in regards to heart arrhythmias, I would be surprised if they are any better at mood recognition given how complex mood is by comparison to heart function.

<comment><USER27> Are you talking about Apple Watch...?

Does it matter if the V1 is totally accurate or not? Safe to assume it will get better over time. The point still stands.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I would love a device like this that I could load with my own software. Any suggestions? Other than building one myself? P:

<comment><USER18> I believe you can achieve something similar with cheap tracker from xiaomi (like mi band) connected via "Notify and Fitness for Mi Band" (I use paid PRO version) or Gadgetbridge [0] (I didn't use it).

Gadgetbridge looks better in terms of privacy, but for some reason I'd chosen Notify and Fitness for my mi band 4 and some xiaomi body scales. Probably because it had more features than gadgetbridge.

[0]: [https://gadgetbridge.org/](https://gadgetbridge.org/)

<comment><USER30> What features are you missing in Gadgetbridge? The upcoming release brings another round of goodies: events forwarding ( act on detected sleep, wake up...) and sports activities ( swimming, yoga ;), but also running, walking, biking...), including computer statistics for these. That besides many other small and large under the hood improvements...

<comment><USER18> Unfortunately, I do not remember. I've bought my miband and set everything up last fall.

I will definitely try Gadgedbrige again when there are less active covid cases in my city so I can continue working out outside.

My main sport activites are free weight lifting and longboarding (long distance, 10+ km, no trick like on skateboard).

In my current app I really like trend charts, especially weight trend (and recommendations on how to lose more weight based on my activity). Do not remember if they were present in Gadgetbridge when I last checked. But I don't like that the app I use now is slow on my old android (looks like unoptimized react native app).

<comment><USER30> We do not track weight (at this point), but do have charts (not trend charts) but these are all good ideas, i will mark them. Still, give Gadgetbridge a shot, you might like it. Check out our wiki, many things of the MiBand are similar with the Bip: [https://codeberg.org/Freeyourgadget/Gadgetbridge/wiki/Amazfi...](https://codeberg.org/Freeyourgadget/Gadgetbridge/wiki/Amazfit- Bip) , which i think has most comprehensive article from the whole Huami (MiBand/Amazfit) family.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Amazon already more or less tracks these things, I think. About 3 years ago, I needed new jeans, so ordered some on Amazon. They were a little tight, and didn't loosen up, so I purchased the next size up (a couple months later). I immediately started seeing belt extenders and pants waistline extenders as suggested items. I assume their algorithm assumed I had gained weight. There is a ton of things they can do with that information.

<comment><USER26> Goes back to that story of Targets algorithm figuring out a woman was pregnant before she even knew.

I get it, it's smart and maybe useful? But creepy as hell.

<comment><USER32> Actually that was Target knew a teen girl was pregnant before she'd told her dad.

They mailed her a sales circular filled with baby related items based on she'd already bought a bunch of expectant mom related products (e.g. vitamins, scent free lotion).

But imagine the fun ads you'll get once they have your bio-data.

Here's a coupon for a discount on all your heart transplant meds!

"But I don't take... oh sh*t!"

<comment><USER26> Oh yeah that's right! Found the article: [https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how- targ...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target- figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> The body fat tracking is based on 4 smartphone selfies that you take, and neural nets. Maybe they got good looking accuracy numbers on their in house test set, but I am extremely skeptical that this will be at all accurate in practice.

Also, they had a hardware device designed to take pictures of your body called the "Echo Look" which they canceled not too long ago. Seems strange to introduce new body scanning features soon after that failure.

</comment><comment><USER34> There was a post here on HN a few days ago about the loads of information that the Kindle tracks. Then there's Alexa which is _supposed_ to "wake up" only when the wake word is used which we all know isn't true. And now there's Halo. Amazon wants to _own you_ in a way no other company has been able to just yet.

The most important question is, are you willing to trust amazon with all the data? I sure af don't

</comment><comment><USER35> Pity it doesn't include blood oxygen monitoring. That would be a hot seller right now.

On a side note, the first smartwatch to include blood glucose monitoring is going to make an incredible amount of money.

I'm aware there are largely dedicated glucose monitoring devices in the watch form factor, but they aren't good smartwatches for other uses, super-thick, lacking heartrate monitoring and phone notifications, etc.

</comment><comment><USER36> I would like a comparison between this device and a DEXA scan regarding body fat measurement. EX: What is the approximate error margin?

<comment><USER37> They don't go into details; but they claim it's "as accurate as methods a doctor would use" and that they tested accuracy against DXA.

[https://blog.aboutamazon.com/devices/a-better-measure-of- hea...](https://blog.aboutamazon.com/devices/a-better-measure-of-health)

<comment><USER36> Interesting. I'll wait for some unbiased results before buying one, but it's promising!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> It's really funny and scary at the same time how companies these day choose (and convince most of us) privacy to only mean physical privacy, as if as long you are indoors at your house then your privacy is preserved, nothing to worry about. The more "ethereal" aspect of your privacy, on the other hand...

</comment><comment><USER39> I want these sort of devices in my life but I don't want them connected to some unknowable blackbox.

I remember growing up and reading all of these breathless futuristic magazine articles, books or interviews that featured what technology might be like in the future (the future is now). Those dreamed of devices do a lot of what today's actual devices do. The difference is that the hypothetical devices were built and sold to service the consumer and not act as a vehicle to gather data for whatever unknown purposes the manufacture is really interested in.

I think about the movie "Her" where the AI is purchased and installed onto an owned device and seemingly works only on behalf of the person that installed it and not who built it. Until we get to that sort of mind set (if ever) i will sadly have to opt-out of using these cool inventions.

</comment><comment><USER40> So it's the Oura ring plus body fat detection and analyzing your voice. Are these two extra things worth paying a monthly subscription? I will probably get it anyway, at least for the first six months, just to play with it and see how much extra value it gives me on top of the Oura.

</comment><comment><USER41> One more stone's throw in a very long game ...

To acclimate passive surveillance in service of omnichannel sales and marketing.

To quantify and analyze everything.

The only countermeasure is to create tools to directly thwart these efforts, and provide self-contained systems to allow users to reap the benefits of these technologies (monitoring one's own health is certainly an objective good) while preventing those would profit on it from doing so.

I'm envisioning an application set to an encrypted algorithm who injects enough noise into this system, imperceptibly different from human behavior, that by private key the user is able to (privately, securely, and offline) remove the noise for their own analysis.

</comment><comment><USER17> I find the body fat measurement tech interesting: [https://blog.aboutamazon.com/devices/a-better-measure-of- hea...](https://blog.aboutamazon.com/devices/a-better-measure-of-health)

Basically you take some pictures of yourself and they build a 3D model, then use a neural network to analyze and predict bf%.

They claim "is as accurate as methods a doctor would use" and "we tested accuracy using Dual-energy X-ray Absorptiometry (DXA)" but they're not saying exactly how accurate it is compared to DXA, so I suspect the number isn't great.

</comment><comment><USER42> Any word on if it's possible to use it for the sleep function only and have that data not sent to the cloud? Sounds like wishful thinking. For $65, a device that can collect good sleep data _and_ has a temperature monitor seems really nice. The closest thing I've found is the Oura ring which you're lucky if you can get a used one for $200.

Perhaps we'll have to wait for Apple to announce their (hopefully) inevitable "health app" offering. I'm hopeful that they'll be smart about making something privacy-centric.

</comment><comment><USER43> Interesting that this device requires a monthly subscription fee. I'm very curious to see what level of success this achieves. Being able to track body fat percentage more accurately than smart scales seems like an amazing feature. Does any other wearable do this? My guess is the monthly subscription will be a massive barrier for most people, but kudos to Amazon for trying something different.

</comment><comment><USER44> I didn't buy any of the competitor's products .. and I'm not going to buy this.

While I buy stuff from Amazon I don't want them inside my house.

</comment><comment><USER45> "Privacy is foundational to Amazon Halo, and multiple layers of privacy and security are built into the service to keep data safe and in customers' control. Health data is encrypted in transit and in the cloud, and customers can download or delete their data at any time directly from the app. Body scan images are automatically deleted from the cloud after processing, so only the customer sees them. Tone is enabled by creating a personal voice profile, after which it begins capturing short samples of speech and providing insights and daily recaps. Speech samples are always analyzed locally on the customer's phone and automatically deleted after processing—nobody, not even the customer, ever hears them. Learn more about Amazon Halo privacy features."

Playing devils advocate, but it doesn't sound like they retain any data unless you opt into a third party program. Also the emotional part sounds really creepy.

"For example, Tone results may reveal that a difficult work call leads to less positivity in communication with a customer's family, an indication of the impact of stress on emotional well-being."

Yeah, no thanks. I don't need a machine to help me regulate my emotions. Coming to a dystopian future near you, a call center using Tone. "It appears you didn't sound positive enough in your last call! Please try harder or you will get written up."

I'm surprised they called it Halo. First thing I thought of was the video game from Bungie.

<comment><USER9> Couple things, since surveillance organizations like tech companies and government intelligence bureaus have been known for weasel words:

>Speech samples are always analyzed locally on the customer's phone

OK, and are they ONLY analyzed there? Are they also uploaded anywhere? Are they also analyzed anywhere else?

>automatically deleted after processing

Deleted from where? The local storage? See above, what if it's also uploaded somewhere else?

>nobody, not even the customer, ever hears them.

No human? Are transcriptions created that could be reviewed by a human?

<comment><USER45> I'm not disagreeing with you. I don't trust Amazon. I think the questions you mentioned above are what people should be asking.

I just interpreted what I read on the site.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> One thing I would like to know though, is if I pay for this, do I get access to the raw data to download and analyze myself? That's one of the things I really like about the Oura, I can download the data into a python notebook and do all sorts of analysis on it. It would be cool to combine both data streams and see what insight I can get from it.

</comment><comment><USER46> What's the over/under on how long before this yields a discount in Amazon's joint healthcare venture? One year? Two years? I figure it's only a matter of time. Employers can't make this mandatory without losing some face, but they can effectively make it mandatory by tying it to a few hundred dollar a month discount.

<comment><USER47> Getting discounts for habits that reduce healthcare costs is not unusual, gym membership or health coaching sessions are already incentivized and you get some money reimbursed. These are one-size-fits-all, the amount of discount is not personalized.

I'm not an insurance expert, but I think services like this, that generate personal data over time, pose the risk of calculating the individual insurance risk much better if the insurance underwriter can evaluate this data on an ongoing basis. It has the potential to skew the risk distribution for all other insurance members in the pool including premium adjustments for people who are not handing over their data.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Okay, I like the direction they went with their device. As in, health tracking devices that feed another device to me are far more interesting that devices with screens and other functionality that always seems to eat battery.

Privacy of course is a concern but they seem to have addressed this but the test will be of course how it really plays out over time.

</comment><comment><USER49> Requires monthly fee

Amazon level of privacy (expect none)

Requires pictures of you to provide body readings

This may be good for some buy this is a serious no go for me.

</comment><comment><USER50> Cue promos with smiling Amazon warehouse workers attesting to Halo's success and helpfulness.

On deeper inspection one of them is determined to have a near undetectable facial tic that could be seen to signal SOS in Morse code. She fails to appear in later promos.

The dystopia deepens.

</comment><comment><USER51> I like the thermometer idea, might help w COVID monitoring, no blood oxygen sensor though...

My Fitbit heart rate monitor is pretty inaccurate, compared to my treadmill's chest monitor. Fitbit's walking calorie estimates are off by +1.5x. Maybe Halo is better

</comment><comment><USER52> Was really hoping to get periodic pulse oximetry on this. Otherwise, only the Tone feature seems interesting. I think I'll pass on this. Monthly subscription doesn't seem worth it for that.

</comment><comment><USER53> I don't know what the privacy and anti-Amazon sentiment in these commens is all about. I'm not a fan of Amazon for privacy, but has anyone even checked out their prviacy policy for Halo?

They literally have a cartoon video explaining privacy, such as how you can turn off the microphones, how all health data is anonimized, etc.

Making a cartoon video explaining privacy policy is genius (so long as its not deceitful, which I doubt it is).

Would others agree that anonimizing health data is potentially super useful for society? I also know that Amazon is one of the premier security infrastructure providers, so the data would probably be quite safe, yes?

</comment><comment><USER25> With their 3d modeling feature, they can kill ShapeScale before its launch.

[https://shapescale.com/](https://shapescale.com/)

</comment><comment><USER54> The monthly fee pisses me off. The only apparent differentiator on launch day is mood analysis and fancy BMI which I get from a WiFi scale. Not worth $4/mo.

<comment><USER43> To me the main differentiator is the body fat percentage measurement that claims to be more accurate than smart scales.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Why.... Why would you give this information to Amazon?

</comment><comment><USER56> Just the body fat calculation using the app is a great standalone feature.

</comment><comment><USER57> If it does everything it claims to do with a very acceptable degree of accuracy (not expecting 100%), I wouldn't mind something like this, even with the monthly fee.

As far as privacy, I'm more trusting of Amazon than a small startup personally.

<comment><USER58> They did already lie to congress about using sales data to screw other brands and favor their own ones. And they will use your data how ever they can, legal or illegal, for whatever they feel like gives them the edge over someone else. So how does their size quarantines honesty? Quite the opposite apparently.

<comment><USER59> Most small startups I've encountered don't even have the _principle_ of privacy; they happily vacuum up any data that's technologically feasible for them to collect in the name of helping them make data-driven decisions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> @dang this really got flagged off the first page, huh? :/

</comment><comment> awinter-py crossing fingers that when amzn rolls out their social credit product, activity, body fat + emotions are the main inputs

</comment><comment><USER60> I pay Amazon for them to take a deep analysis of my entire existence?

How about _no_.

</comment><comment><USER61> I feel like choosing a name so close to "hell no" was a slight marketing failure.</comment>


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Celebrate Heroes, not CEOs - <AUTHOR> http://moronwatch.net/2011/10/celebrate-heroes-not-ceos.html

<comment><USER2> Heroes are supposed to be philanthropists but America admires success. Problem is, most people would be shocked to find out the shady dealings that are necessary to build and run a successful business/government/etc. CEOs have to make decisions that would curl your hair if you saw it, but all anyone sees is the resulting success. Its' much easier to imagine the philanthropy than it is to find a successful philanthropist.</comment>


Startup burnout - <AUTHOR> https://mattermark.com/startup-burnout/

<comment><USER2> There isn't a product you can buy to fix this.

[https://www.usenix.org/conference/lisa14/conference- program/...](https://www.usenix.org/conference/lisa14/conference- program/presentation/lehtonen)

<comment><USER3> "Down, not Across".

[http://www.ctrl-c.liu.se/~ingvar/asr/overview.html](http://www.ctrl-c.liu.se/~ingvar/asr/overview.html)

[https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/alt.sysadmin.recover...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/alt.sysadmin.recovery)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> How-to-beat-burnout posts often have different answers. I think that's because what causes burnout (how to de-stress) is a very personal thing, something that differs person to person. So hard to generalize.

</comment><comment><USER5> These aren't unique to just start ups. Burnout is an issue all over the industry.</comment>


Coronavirus: How a misleading map went global - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-51504512 <comment><USER2> The worrying thing is at the people from the Princess cruise ship got released, after being confined to tight quarters on that boat.

And everyday for 2 weeks, the confirmed infected count went higher and higher. And then, they released the people into the general public. Now, these people are spread out all over the world.

The Western governments blew it on this one. They should've evacuated the passengers immediately, and quarantined each one of them, separately, for 2 weeks, to confirm that they weren't infected.

But, they can still save the situation, by forcing these people released to be quarantined for another 2 weeks.

<comment><USER3> I was under the assumption that the passengers were quarantined in their private quarters onboard.

<comment><USER2> Yes, but recent evidence indicates that the cruise ships are not safe for quarantine. It's like they were all in the same cesspool, just waiting to get infected.

<comment><USER4> In theory, cruise ships should be pretty well suited for such purposes; industry experience with outbreaks (mostly norovirus I believe), private restroom in every cabin, probably top-notch central filtration on the AC, no more than two people in most cabins ... I wonder how the virus managed to spread so widely in such a short time under such conditions.

<comment><USER5> staff not quaranteed. Food carried down corridors without any covering from the air. Only ht food was covered with aluminium foil.

<comment><USER6> Even worse than that: [https://thehill.com/changing-america/well- being/prevention-c...](https://thehill.com/changing-america/well- being/prevention-cures/483630-japanese-doctor-calls-cruise-ship-quarantine)

An excerpt:

 _Iwata said he saw people eating lunch with their medical gloves on, and handling their smartphones while wearing protective suits, "so it was completely chaotic. "_

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Missed pun opportunity at _went viral_?

<comment><USER8> The BBC isn't likely to make puns about something so serious.

<comment><USER9> But The Times does, sorta. Though this is a lot less serious in topic than the BBC article [https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/coronavirus-james- bo...](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/coronavirus-james-bond-cancels- beijing-tour-because-this-is-no-time-to-die-69cwqrvr8)</comment></comment></comment>


Per Vices (YC W12) Sets Out To Disrupt Wireless Communications - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/30/per-vices/

<comment><USER2> If anyone is interested, I built a vaguely similar thing a few years ago [1]. The major difference is that it's restricted to the 2.4GHz bands, though the transceivers are modular and can be swapped out for broadband units. It's also MIMO capable, accepting up to 6 transceivers on a single PCI card. Being a little dated, the interface is PCI and size/speed of the FPGA is limited. Software is rudimentary, my ambition being to one day port GNUradio onto it. I've always intended to continue the development, but, so far, other things have intervened.

Full design details are released under the GPL and contained in the downloadable thesis [2].

[1] <http://home.exetel.com.au/dalton/testbed/>

[2] [http://home.exetel.com.au/dalton/thesis_jd_toplevel_2009_11_...](http://home.exetel.com.au/dalton/thesis_jd_toplevel_2009_11_11_archival_copy.pdf)

<comment><USER3> I wouldn't be surprised if they offer you a job. You sound like the ideal first engineering hire.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Software Defined Radio for $11

<http://www.reddit.com/r/RTLSDR>

[http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/12/03/31/1914217/software...](http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/12/03/31/1914217/software- defined-radio-for-11)

"DVB-T sticks based on the Realtek RTL2832U can be used as a cheap SDR, since the chip allows transferring the raw I/Q samples to the host, which is officially used for DAB/DAB+/FM demodulation. The possibility of this has been discovered by the V4L/DVB kernel developer Antti Palosaari."

</comment><comment><USER5> Their site is a little optimistic for my taste. Awesome company name, though.

"Phi can capture over the air waves, so with the right app, you can watch cable for free."

Cable != over the air.

"Phi will be able to act as a base station to let you make free calls using your cell phone."

AFAIK this is illegal in the US and even if it was legal the carriers would try pretty hard to block it. I'm up for a good disruption as much as the next HNer, but this sounds more like a long-term aspiration than a product feature.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, I was under the impression that it would be illegal also, but apparently the FCC hasn't concluded whether it should be allowed.

MagicJack was planning to offer similar functionality in the past:

"YMAX [makers of MagicJack] says it doesn't need permission to use the carriers' operating frequencies in the home and that it's protected under Part 15 of FCC regulation. This stipulation allows a device to operate without a license if it uses very low power, and doesn't cause interference."

"In 2007, the CTIA requested the FCC regulate in-home wireless network signal boosters. The CTIA believes it should be illegal to boost any signal without the consent of the spectrum licensee. This contentious issue is still being debated, and YMAX is likely watching very closely for any signs of a decision."

[http://www.audioholics.com/news/industry-news/magicjack- cell...](http://www.audioholics.com/news/industry-news/magicjack-cell-phones)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm wondering if you have any tips for people who want to apply to YC with a non-software idea? Or some info as to what they can expect once they get there? It's got to be a different experience.

<comment><USER8> That's an interesting question. Certainly, a lot of the advice is aimed at software companies - and it's sometimes hard to figure out where to draw the line...

For example, the idea of a minimum viable product doesn't really work too well with Hardware. Neither does shipping fast and iterating - hardware recalls are expensive.

For us, the best value in YC was the partners. Having smart people to go to when you're facing problems is probably the most valuable part of YC. A lot of times, your problems have very little to do with your technology or industry.

<comment><USER9> "For example, the idea of a minimum viable product doesn't really work too well with Hardware."

Actually, it does, if you make your MVP a little more minimal. Put up a sales page for the product, attract traffic with Google AdWords, and see who clicks "buy".

You know those infomercial products that required 6-8 weeks for delivery? That was the time it took to actually get the products manufactured, which didn't happen until a sufficient quantity of orders had been reached. Tim Ferris has a bunch of similar examples in 4HWW.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Congrats Guys. Per Vices has all the signs of a product that, like Apple, starts out as a hobbyist project for hackers and ends up disrupting the world. The Internet has disrupted TV channels and movie studios, and now the wireless monopoly is the last bastion that these guys will take down.

</comment><comment><USER11> 1\. Can the PCI card transmit in any frequency (up to 4GHz)? Is this allowed by the FCC?

2\. Wireless protocols are timing sensitive. Can the card load up a program to process signals? Similar to a kernel in a GPU?

<comment><USER12> Disclaimer: I have no more knowledge than what's up on their page, a lot of this is professional guesswork.

1\. It most likely can. They are probably hoping to not bother the FCC by treating it as "test equipment" (that's what Ettus Research does), leaving the responsibility of compliance with the end-user.

1b. I doubt they're getting as much as a Watt out of that board (personal estimate would be a peak of 10-50mW, [10-17 dBm]) so in ideal conditions, significantly less power than a cell phone or wifi signal. Still enough to be trouble in some bands, and it doesn't change the regulatory situation.

2\. There is an FPGA, so there is a physical possibility. It's not a trivial thing though, and working with FPGAs is even more remote from what most programmers are used to than working with GPUs. If I had to guess, the plan would be to capture/transmit bursts, with processing in between, instead of real-time signal/protocol shifting.

<comment><USER11> Does it look like Per Vices' product is similar to Ettus'? Maybe cost being the significant difference?

I am not familiar with the specifics of wifi protocols. Is the wifi protocol fit into the rx/tx burst+processing or RT signal/protocol?

<comment><USER8> Biggest differences between our product, Phi, and the USRP (ettus) are cost and bus. We use a x4 PCIe, providing much higher transfer bandwidth (8Gbps vs 1Gbps). Additionally, the RF front ends are fully integrated (lowers cost).

We're aiming to have the user manual up by the end of the week, which should provide much more information.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Disruptions: No More Innovation for the Fun of It - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/04/disruptions-no-more-innovation-for-the-fun-of-it/

<comment><USER2> Fun tends to be best enjoyed in small groups.

The auto industry is far from a joyless place, engineers at AMG or BMW design products with the aim of fun, great design for the sake of it over economy is the only reason they exist.

I'd wager that the person administering databases at Citibank tends to have less fun during the day than somebody making a living developing apps for their own company, in much the same way that designing transmissions for a formula one team is more fun than designing transmissions at GM.

That the bigger an organisation gets the less fun it is, is the most important force driving start-up creation and there is still a far greater untapped frontier available to us than any other industry to date.

The future is so fun its blinding ;)</comment>


The British Loony Party - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703322204575225864160523470.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsForth

<comment><USER2> "Despite its satirical nature, some of the things that have featured in Loony manifestos have become law, such as being able to vote at 18, "passports for pets", and all-day pub openings."

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_Monster_Raving_Loony_P...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_Monster_Raving_Loony_Party#Policies_and_electoral_strategy)

</comment><comment><USER3> Monty Python Election Night: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31FFTx6AKmU>

I would vote for Tarquin Fin-tim-lin-bin-whin-bim-lim-bus-stop-F'tang-F'tang- Olé-Biscuitbarrel.

</comment><comment><USER4> To add confusion, where I grew up in Scotland "boy" == "loon", "small boy" == loonie", "girls" == "quines" ...

<comment><USER5> \- "girls" == "quines" ...

Are they self-reproducing? <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quine_%28computing%29>

<comment><USER6> Yes. C.f. Mother-in-law.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Australia has its fair share too. I remember the Party Party Party Party...

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party!_Party!_Party>!

<comment><AUTHOR> In the US, we have the equally loony Republicans, who started off on a reasonable platform but went insane around 1980.

The problem is, they're one of our two major parties.

<comment><USER8> The trend seems to go the other way in Britain - I notice several former Loony's now represent the Conservative party.

Funnily enough, when Thatcher was Prie Minister, she tried to pass a law banning joke candidacies, but failed. Besides challenges from Screaming Lord Sutch and various campaigners for lighter drinking laws, she also faced challenges from the dread-but-obscure Darth Vader lookalike, Lord Buckethead (Gremloids).

<comment><AUTHOR> I remember when a nonexistent person won student body president in college.

<comment><USER9> I remember when I could vote for "RON" in college.

It meant "Re-Open Nominations", or "I don't want to vote for any of you so let's call this a failed vote and we'll redo it in future. And we'll keep doing that until there are people or policies we positively want, instead of choosing the least worst option".

I miss that in 'real' politics. Imagine if everyone's default vote was 'nobody' and we had 'no government' until someone makes a party which is so good people really want to vote for it.

Would parties be any different then?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It is a fine British tradition to make serious points by taking absurd positions and making fun of "evil" people.</comment>


Perzo – Free Secure Communications - <AUTHOR> https://www.perzo.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> Just submitted this because I think it's yet another of these fake secure services that ride on the back of snowden's revelations. This one seem to be culprit of centralized access with unverifiable and unvested security.\

EDIT: In other news, [https://jitsi.org/](https://jitsi.org/) is great for chat/audio/video with OTR support</comment>


Ask HN: Good tech conferences in Europe for 2014 - <AUTHOR>

We are doing budget planning for 2014 to attend a tech conference. We are in new england, but I would like to find something in Europe to get the feeling on how is the dev env over there. We use spring, java on a daily basis. I am also interested on machine learning  may be something to apply ML in business.<p>This is the best I have found so far in the US.(2013) https://springone2gx.com/conference/santa_clara/2013/09/springone/event_schedule <comment><USER2> Velocity is a really great conference (I've attended the Santa Clara edition twice now) and they are about to have their second European edition: [http://velocityconf.com/velocityeu2013](http://velocityconf.com/velocityeu2013)

Velocity's sessions are separated into four distinctive tracks, namely web performance, mobile performance, operations and (Velocity) culture and are aimed at various skill-levels, ranging from intermediate to guru (or ninja, if you prefer IT-marketing terms).

I find that, though a novice will definitely gain value out of the conference, most presentations requires more than a basic understanding of the technology, process or ideology being discussed.

Nonetheless, Velocity is very open in its structure, lacking the exclusionary- ness and elitism of other conferences, thereby creating an environment that is highly conducive to learning from others.

[EDIT] turns out it is the second edition, not the first</comment>


Watch the Rosetta rendezvous - <AUTHOR> http://rosetta.esa.int/ <comment><USER2> This is Europe's current "moonshot" class mission. It may not look crazy interesting yet, but it will be. They'll send a lander down to rest on the surface of the comet. Then the orbiter and the lander will survey and study the comet while it gets closer and closer to the sun, transitioning from more or less a dead rock to a fully active comet with gas jets and a cometary tail. With any luck they'll find out several new things nobody has even speculated about comets and collect a couple astoundingly awesome photos in the process.

</comment><comment><USER3> Make sure you watch "where is Rosetta" animation. Amazing.

[http://sci.esa.int/where_is_rosetta/](http://sci.esa.int/where_is_rosetta/)

Tip: Use your mouse to change the view.

<comment><USER4> How does one go about finding such a complex trajectory that finally perfectly aligns with the trajectory of the comet? Trial and error?

<comment><USER5> There have even been trajectory optimization competitions. [http://sophia.estec.esa.int/gtoc_portal/](http://sophia.estec.esa.int/gtoc_portal/)

Also, there was a crowd-sourcing space game with a nifty javascript interface for trajectory design where they looked at how people came up with good trajectories. [http://sophia.estec.esa.int/thespacegame/game/](http://sophia.estec.esa.int/thespacegame/game/)

It's a fascinating field!

<comment><USER6> Is there anywhere to read up on the theory behind all this stuff? It's always fascinated me!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> About a decade ago, there was a meme where people opened up livejournal blogs for various space objects. The most popular were the Spirit (spiritrover.livejournal.com) and Opportunity (opportunitygrrl.livejournal.com) rovers, but there were several other fun ones such as the GOES weather satellites (goes-sat.livejournal.com) and Mars 3 (mars3.livejournal.com).

I had a couple of friends who were running some, and they convinced me to open one up myself. I went digging deep for something a little out of the way and found Rosetta. I made a few fun posts for it (her) before setting the blog aside as more mundane priorities took my attention. The posts were a mixture of information about her background and such as well as long forward thinking to the day ten years hence when she'd be ready to do her job. And now, here she is, about to go to it!

It is interesting looking back on some of the spacer journals still archived out there. Fun times.

</comment><comment><USER8> [https://twitter.com/esaoperations](https://twitter.com/esaoperations) and [https://twitter.com/ESA_Rosetta](https://twitter.com/ESA_Rosetta) seem quite up to date.

</comment><comment><USER9> This page has a meta title tag error: "Rosetta | rendevous..."

R/rendezvous*

Will be tuning in - 1PM PST/Berkeley, CA.

<comment><USER10> 1AM, I believe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> peaking too early.. :P

</comment><comment><USER12> typo: rendezvous _

<comment><AUTHOR> Fixed here, although it's incorrect on the actual page, so the mods may change it back to match the page title.

<comment><USER13> Anyone who watches HN as closely as you do ought to know that we routinely fix typos and solecisms.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes and no. I've seen many, many changes that are clearly "right" in some sense and from some point of view. I've also seen quite a few changes that I've thought were odd to say the least, and a few that I thought were down- right perverse.

In short, I freely agree that most of the changes are good. However, there are some that are, to my thinking, genuinely bad, and I find that I really can't predict when either will happen.

This engenders a sense of frustration and helplessness, and occasionally that boils over. My apologies for the tone - please accept it as an indication that while there are many things that have improved, there is still an underlying sense that some things are still wrong.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


NYT fluffs Dennis Crowley and his wife - <AUTHOR> For the record, they're active in entrepreneurship which is great, and while behind the scenes content is something I seek out, I can't decipher the point of this article besides the writer wanting dinner party invites...
A passage:
"I do my makeup in the bedroom, while he's laying in bed, reading," Ms. Crowley said.
Mr. Crowley shook his head. "I go through my emails," he said. "I'm working."
"He's reading his book," Ms. Crowley said.
"No, I'm not," he said, and paused. "Maybe a little bit."
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/04/fashion/dennis-chelsa-crowley-power-couple-silicon-alley.html?curator=TechREDEF&_r=0 <comment><USER2> The purpose of articles like that isn't to fluff their subjects. It's to the fluff _you_ , the reader. To make you feel like you know these important, interesting people.

</comment><comment><USER3> How is this hard to understand?

Pay publicist > get flowery article > receive IRL reputation points > profit</comment>


Deadly Poke: LiPo battery can explode by POKING - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxlBvKrgVNw An Amazing video by ITRI Taiwan showing how a cloned iphone (HiPhone) explodes when it is simply pierced through with a metal nail. <comment><AUTHOR> In the World's Safest Battery video, we built a cage in which we place a moter-powered metal nail to pierce through into the battery underneath. The horror is recorded in the video. We put a variety of batteries including a cloned iPhone (HiPhone). As soon as the nail broke the membrane, white smoke went out. Flame and sparks were observed and the temperature inside the lab immediately rose to 578 degrees Celsius. We certainly do not want this to happen to a phone in our pocket. Unfortunately, this type of explosion can happen to an innocent battery when nothing is attached.</comment>


How StackOverflow Scales with SQL Server - <AUTHOR> http://www.brentozar.com/archive/2011/11/how-stackoverflow-scales-sql-server-video/

<comment><USER2> This wasn't so much about fine tuning SQL Server itself, but breaking traditional thinking. The 5 rules he presents originally are all replaced in the end.

      - Everybody's the DBA
      - Do what it takes to get what you want
      - Tune later, cache & separate now
      - NewEgg your way out of problems
      - Share for great good

For each point, he argues why the old rule no longer applies and what the new solution is.

I felt a lot of the presentation was about tuning SQL Server without tuning SQL Server: caching, leave full-text searching to Apache Lucene (because it's not querying), and using SSDs to speed up performance without having to touch any code.

<comment><USER3> Yep, absolutely, you nailed it. There's a gazillion presentations out there about tuning databases, but that only takes you so far. I wanted to show that you need to take a step back before you go into query tuning details.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I had no idea StackOverflow was using Microsoft SQL Server. I guess its just a learned response but i've always come to expect some large networking site to always be using a non-MS based solution.

I havent had a chance to watch the video, but i hope to later on. What is interesting, even with just the link is that for a website like StackOverflow that MS SQL is a viable solution.

We have been using SQL Server in our own company for our projects and i was really starting to get annoyed with it. I found it to be heavy on resources, slow to respond and lets not forget cost. I just completed a project that i have been working on for the last 4 months, and the majority of the work was within SQL server. One thing i learned was that its actually quite a powerful beast.

When used correctly and in the right way SQL is a very capable SQL solution. I'm glad that we decided to stick to SQL Server. There is a lot i learned about SQL Server in the last 4 months that i had no idea it was capable of.

<comment><USER5> Big networks (banks, insurance companies) basically use one of two options most of the time. Oracle or SQL Server.

It only seems like it isn't when you read sites like Hacker News, where most of the posters are not working in big environments. Facebook is a large scale solution that doesn't use either, but their data management and caching is so bad nobody should be considering them as a best practice.

<comment><USER6> Google, Craigslist, Twitter, Wikipedia, Youtube and Netflix are just a few example which don't use Oracle or MS SQL Server either.

It's not about being big, banks and insurance companies simply have different requirements on how to access and store their data compared to most websites/services.

<comment><USER7> Google appears to use Oracle Hyperion and Oracle Essbase - obviously not for their main product offerings - but they do use Oracle products:

[http://www.google.com/intl/en/jobs/uslocations/mountain- view...](http://www.google.com/intl/en/jobs/uslocations/mountain- view/engops/opsit/hyperion-developer-financial-management-essbase-planning- mountain-view/index.html)

<comment><USER8> They use it for their internal finance systems, not to run any external facing systems.

Google _does_ use MySQL for their AdSense/AdWords transactional system (ie, buying AdWords).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I can't watch the video right now, but the idea that "Everybody's the DBA" is risky in general. I'm hugely in favor of developers writing and optimizing their own SQL, being able to create normalized schema (and know when it's worth the tradeoff to denormalize), how to read a query plan, and generally be as competent as a DBA. But... it's good to have one person who has the global view of the database for things like tuning extent sizes, selecting the optimal types of storage for various partions, doing reviews on the schema, capacity planning, etc, etc.

The right setup (IMO) of having a DBA in an operational role with developers that are highly proficient/self-sufficient is hard to get right and expensive enough that it probably isn't right for an early stage company. And a bad DBA can be a nightmare. So there are tradeoffs on both sides.

<comment><USER10> I think that with a modern database like SQL Server, the old-school "high priest" DBA is obsolete.

But... if you don't have someone dedicated to thinking about database issues, you need to treat database changes just like your code. It needs to be in a repository, it needs to be reviewed, and you need a change management regime.

From a anecdotal POV, I've noticed that many folks have a good process (or at least a consensus approach) to managing their code... but the database is often a red-headed stepchild that doesn't get the attention it deserves.

<comment><USER11> _but the database is often a red-headed stepchild that doesn't get the attention it deserves_

On my last three major projects, I have committed to devoting the proper level of attention to the database, with automatically building databases in some environments, scripted scheme changes and seed data loading as part of the mainline code base, etc. and I have found the difference to be immense in practical terms. I can move more quickly, more safely, and have a better quality of life as a developer.

One of the best returns on (effort) invested I have ever seen.

<comment><USER12> I definitely agree. We have been using fluent migrator (<https://github.com/schambers/fluentmigrator>) for our .net based projects at work for database migrations and versioning

<comment><USER11> Thanks. Fluent Migrator looks pretty cool. I've been rolling my own stuff as- needed. As a result, it has evolved into something pretty useful for the problems I've encountered so far, but does nothing outside of what I've already thought of. I can see using the migrator as a good jumping off point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I love that these guys are so consistently open on their scaling strategies. Does anyone have any similar resources for Rails stacks?

<comment><USER14> [http://www.readwriteweb.com/cloud/2011/04/twitter-drops- ruby...](http://www.readwriteweb.com/cloud/2011/04/twitter-drops-ruby-for- java.php)

<comment><USER15> You should be so lucky as to have to take something to Twitter-scale.

I worry that if they went hand-rolled assembly, everyone would be jumping in that bandwagon.

<comment><USER16> Twitter is actually not that high-volume. They peak at 6000 messages/sec and average much lower (<http://blog.twitter.com/2011/03/numbers.html>). Meanwhile Tibco will sell you a device doing 100,000 messages/sec sustained ([http://www.tibco.com/products/soa/messaging/messaging- applia...](http://www.tibco.com/products/soa/messaging/messaging- appliance/default.jsp)). There are plenty of people working on systems more scaley than Twitter.

<comment><USER17> That's not really a fair comparison however. There's an non-negligible difference between just crunching messages, and then distributing said 6k messages/sec into a directed graph of users. Those 6k messages/sec is just the input, the output is far greater.

<comment><USER16> That is what RV does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I love it when companies offer insight into their practices like this.

</comment><comment><USER19> It comes down to two things: economics and computer science, in that order.

For most companies, diving deep into your data persistence layer is probably not worth it in the beginning. Your devs need to work on features. (MS SQL does pretty well untuned.) This is the economics part.

The computer science part comes in when you are doing enough traffic that 200 hours of dev time toward a 10% performance improvement becomes good economics. Then you dig into the data layer (and every other layer) and start counting milliseconds.

Which is what we did at Stack O by using Dapper and renting Brent Ozar. :)

<comment><USER3> RENTING, hahaha, I never thought of myself that way. I like it. I'm going to use a "For Rent" sign around my neck in an upcoming blog post!

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The other part of this is throwing out the ORM in places where performance matters and replacing it with a simple utility, Dapper, that maps SQL to objects: [http://samsaffron.com/archive/2011/03/30/How+I+learned+to+st...](http://samsaffron.com/archive/2011/03/30/How+I+learned+to+stop+worrying+and+write+my+own+ORM)

</comment><comment><USER21> "Don't worry the cloud takes care of all of this!"

This is horrifying. Are there really people that think this way?

<comment><USER3> Sadly, yes - obviously it's not this site's target audience, but a lot of PHBs out there are buying into it hook, line, and sinker.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Very good stuff.</comment>


Google applies for patent on region specific content display - <AUTHOR> http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=7,664,751.PN.&OS=PN/7,664,751&RS=PN/7,664,751

<comment><AUTHOR> The key focus of the patent appears to be complying with international copyright restrictions.

I'm not sure how it passes the non-obvious test though.</comment>


F8 Developer Conference - <AUTHOR> https://fbf8.com/ <comment><USER2> What the fuck, 115% CPU usage? [https://www.dropbox.com/s/iyt8wxqxp6nvfgh/Screenshot%202014-...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/iyt8wxqxp6nvfgh/Screenshot%202014-03-08%2014.57.18.png)

Can we stop making useless HTML5 animations that cause computer fans to turn on?

<comment><USER3> Hey hey. Sorry about that. This is Ashley from Parse and we're working on it. If you notice any more issues or anything shoot me an email at ams at fb.com.

<comment><USER4> Oh I thought you were trying to show that HTML is a graveyard and native is the way forward.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wow - this is the first time in three years since the last event.

Also, the geometric backgrounds on this site are beautiful. Would love to know how they implemented those!

<comment><USER6> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delaunay_triangulation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delaunay_triangulation)

It appears they are using [https://github.com/GianlucaGuarini/site-under- construction/b...](https://github.com/GianlucaGuarini/site-under- construction/blob/master/assets/js/delaunay.js)

[http://gianlucaguarini.com/](http://gianlucaguarini.com/)

[http://codepen.io/GianlucaGuarini/pen/sJgnh](http://codepen.io/GianlucaGuarini/pen/sJgnh)

And at least some of the animation (maybe all) with TweenMax [http://www.greensock.com/tweenmax/](http://www.greensock.com/tweenmax/)

Full JS from F8 [https://friendpaste.com/57YBk1KFHY16AsClrqQDZL](https://friendpaste.com/57YBk1KFHY16AsClrqQDZL)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The announcements that came out at F8 three years ago were pretty big. I thought they didn't do another one because they had nothing else to promote to developers. Wondering what's cooking this time.

</comment><comment><USER8> Six weeks lead-time is not a lot for a presumably major conference like that. If you have a tight travel budget and have to scramble, having that short a lead time may exclude you.

<comment><USER3> Ashley here from Parse. We are live streaming all 4 tracks + keynotes in an effort to include as many people as possible from all over the world. Register here - [https://www.fbf8.com/portal/postForm.ww](https://www.fbf8.com/portal/postForm.ww)</comment></comment>


Cofactor Explained: Clearing Elliptic Curves' dirty little secret - loup-vaillant http://loup-vaillant.fr/tutorials/cofactor <comment><AUTHOR> It's sad that efficient complete formulas for Weierstrass curves were found only after Curve25519 was well established. Now we are stuck with all these cofactor issues. Ristretto is nice but so terribly complex: [https://ristretto.group/details/isogenies.html](https://ristretto.group/details/isogenies.html)

<comment><USER2> > _efficient complete formulas for Weierstrass curves were found only after > Curve25519 was well established_

Assuming you are talking about the Renes–Costello–Batina formulas, they're complete, but not necessarily efficient. According to [1], optimized short Weierstrass with the complete formulas is still 1.5 to 3 times slower than Curve25519. I imagine the numbers won't be much better for Edwards25519, either. There's definitely a ton of potential for a better complete addition formula on Weierstrass still left.

> _Ristretto is nice but so terribly complex_

Ristretto is nice, terribly complex, and you don't actually need to care about the _conceptual_ complexity. As an implementer, your _only_ job is to execute the explicit formulas in section 5 of the Ristretto website. You do not have to be able to follow the hard math (just how you do not have to be able to follow the hard math involved in making the explicit formulas). Plus the entire thing can be trivially constant-time given a constant-time selection primitive and constant-time field arithmetic. It's not that much more difficult than doing regular point compression on your own.

[1] Peter Schwabe, Daan Sprenkels. The complete cost of cofactor h=1 (published in INDOCRYPT19), [https://eprint.iacr.org/2019/1166.pdf](https://eprint.iacr.org/2019/1166.pdf)

<comment><USER3> >Ristretto is nice, terribly complex, and you don't actually need to care about the conceptual complexity. As an implementer, your only job is to execute the explicit formulas in section 5 of the Ristretto website. You do not have to be able to follow the hard math (just how you do not have to be able to follow the hard math involved in making the explicit formulas).

I don't think one should blindly follow an instruction without understanding why in any fields, let alone in crypto where a small, subtle difference can make or break it. Also, understanding crypto requires less math than inventing (and attacking) crypto, so it takes some effort, but it's doable even for hobbyists. If the math makes one uncomfortable, maybe one shouldn't try to roll their own crypto for production use in the first place.

Case in point: the author of this article that we're commenting on made a deadly mistake because they did not understand the math behind point conversion between Ed25519 and Curve25519 [1].

Below I also point out a mistake in their claim about malleability in EdDSA.

[1] [https://www.reddit.com/r/crypto/comments/8toywt/critical_vul...](https://www.reddit.com/r/crypto/comments/8toywt/critical_vulnerability_in_monocypher_full/)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a good example of how a "SafeCurve" caused a vulnerability that wouldn't exist in Weierstrass curve.

But many smart people made many such mistakes in the past. If we gatekeep it to much then we won't have anyone left to implement crypto.

<comment><USER2> Maybe we _should_ gatekeep it so much though. As long as there exist at least two people capable of implementation _per programming language_ (one to implement, another to audit), there will only ever be one, single, canonical implementation and there's no way around it. It is not and should not be an inherent right to be allowed to implement cryptography (that is put into production or made publicly available). The gatekeeping is there for a reason and it's important that we uphold it. Fewer implementations means that more people will be focused on having to write and check less code overall. Patents could be used to help with this by only permitting one upstream implementation to exist, but that's now how they end up being used in practice, and that's ignoring the fact that patent expiry is impractically short (compared to copyright expiry especially so).

<comment><AUTHOR> That simply does not work in the real world. Also, why does this only applies to crypto? A RCE vuln can have a much larger impact than mishandling cofactors. Should we have canonical implementations of every piece of software imaginable?

<comment><USER4> we should leave the task of left-padding a string to a popular, no doubt well- tested library

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Could you please describe the steps to generate key pairs with random public part using ristretto?

</comment><comment><USER6> Er, TFA's description of EdDSA is incorrect. There are no nonces in EdDSA.

<comment><USER2> It's a _simplified_ description of EdDSA (and as much is said in the article), taking out the deterministic part for a random nonce, effectively presenting key-prefixed Schnorr signatures instead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Shouldn't it be

> 1 = 12 + 33 = 4.3 + 11.3

instead of

> 1 = 12 + 33 = 1.3 + 11.3

Neat read :) learned a bit!

<comment> loup-vaillant Oops, my bad. Correcting now, thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> tl;dr: the conclusion of the EdDSA part of the article is wrong. EdDSA has its problems, but malleability is not one of them, if one is following RFC 8032.

>There are several ways to sign a document with EdDSA, and produce a valid signature. The three sources of malleability are:

>We can add a multiple of L (the order of the prime subgroup) to s. Recall that B has order L as well, so it will absorb any cofactor. Basically everything happens modulo L, so adding L won't change a thing.

This is prevented in RFC 8032 by checking that 0 <= s < L. Tink [1] does this check, and therefore is malleability free.

>We can sign the same message with a different nonce r. This requires knowledge of the secret key a.

This proves that the signature of a message is not unique -- that is the signer can product multiple signatures -- but I haven't seen anyone calling this a malleability issue. Malleability is about taking a triple (public key, signature message) and tweaking bits to produce another valid triple.

>We can add a low order point to A, and subtract it from R. That way we produce a valid signature, but from a public key nobody vouches for. If the verifier checks the weaker equation, we can add a low order point to just R, and produce a "valid" signature with the same public key.

This is the second time I saw this claim. When I first saw it [2], I thought, wait, this test is missing in Wycheproof [3], but Bleichenbacher does NOT miss anything. That's when I knew it's wrong.

Modifying A or R instantly makes the signature invalid. Using the article's notation, the signature is validated by checking that

B.s.8 == R.8 + A.h.8, where h = SHA-512(R, A, M) and M is the message

Multiplying the cofactor or not doesn't matter, doesn't introduce any weakness, as implied by the article. If R or A is changed, h will change.

[1] [https://github.com/google/tink](https://github.com/google/tink)

[2] [https://github.com/dalek- cryptography/ed25519-dalek/issues/2...](https://github.com/dalek- cryptography/ed25519-dalek/issues/20)

[3] [https://github.com/google/wycheproof](https://github.com/google/wycheproof). Wycheproof has tests for EdDSA malleability, but it only tests if s is not properly range checked.

<comment><AUTHOR> > malleability is not one of them, if one is following RFC 8032

This is like claiming Weierstrass curves don't have any problems if you follow the NIST/SECG standards. The whole point of the "SafeCurves" it to be easier to get them right, but you can still get them wrong.

<comment><USER3> If one implements EdDSA, but does not follow RFC 8032, one is doing it wrong on multiple levels.

<comment> loup-vaillant Daniel J. Bernstein et al's original paper (High-Speed High-Security Signatures), didn't feel the need to take as many precautions as RFC 8032. For instance, they didn't care about malleability.

You seem to think they should have. May I ask why?

<comment><USER8> I'm interested in Thai's response to this question too, as I would be in any comment anyone managed to solicit from him about this topic, but an easy point to make here is that Bernstein was himself involved in RFC 8032, at least as a reviewer and contributor to the process, as you can quickly learn by reading the CFRG mailing list.

<comment> loup-vaillant Oh, so DJB changed his mind then? Makes sense considering the application of EdDSA beyond signatures (I've heard malleability is a problem with zero- knowledge proofs, but I haven't studied that subject).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


A/B Testing: How Much Data Do You Need?: Blog: Fuel Interactive - <AUTHOR> http://www.fuelinteractive.com/blog/2008/10/ab-testing-how-much-data-do-yo.cfm <comment><USER2> If you're interested in this post, the real deal to knowing how much data you need to determine if a test is a valid winner is best measured by standard deviation.

Detailed explanation of this in these posts below:

[http://www.conversionvoodoo.com/blog/what-is-ab-and- multivar...](http://www.conversionvoodoo.com/blog/what-is-ab-and- multivariable-testing/)

[http://blog.joshbaker.com/2009/01/21/standard-deviation- and-...](http://blog.joshbaker.com/2009/01/21/standard-deviation-and- marketing-how-why/)

[http://snaphawk.blogspot.com/2009/07/how-does-google- website...](http://snaphawk.blogspot.com/2009/07/how-does-google-website- optimizer.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> Not much content in the article, and they don't even answer the question (which involves math).

How much data do you need? This depends on two things: the expected effect size, and your confidence interval.

With enough data you will ALWAYS get statistical significance. The tighter your confidence interval the more data you need, and the smaller your expected effect size the more data you need.

For example, these are two different questions: 1\. What is the likelihood that the observed difference between the test and control candidates is real? 2\. What is the likelihood that the test candidate is at least a 20% improvement over the control candidate?

If you're swinging for the fences and need 10-50% improvements in your metrics, you can shut down tests early that prove unlikely to generate those kinds of returns.

The "usual" way of doing things is to let the A/B test run until you reach statistical significance, regardless of effect size. But unless you're Google or Facebook, spending 100,000 impressions to get your 1% improvement is probably not worth it.</comment>


Love LINQ, hate loops (C#) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/bert2/love-linq-hate-loops <comment><USER2> Eh.. LINQ statements are fine when you're trying to do fairly straightforward types of aggregations, but for more customized stuff, I find it more of a pain to figure out all the syntax than to just use a simple for loop. Newer isn't always better.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's exactly the kind of thinking I'm trying to address. I made a couple arguments against your position in the summary. Might I ask what specifically you found to be unconvincing?

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is a workshop I prepared for my co-workers to encourage the use of LINQ over conventional loops in C#.

Any feedback is much appreciated!

<comment><USER3> I would suggest mentioning techniques for debugging LINQ, including breakpointing.

(Personally, I avoid LINQ/Java streams outside of trivial cases precisely because conventional loops make inserting breakpoints and debugging statements trivial.)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a good point, thank you! I will add a new section for this later today.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > The only acceptable for loop is the one that has only one statement in it's > body and does not need curly braces.

What?!

<comment><AUTHOR> Well that statement is a bit absolute. Read it as "the ideal for loop is...". I think I went overboard when trying to go beyond the usual clean code rules. I will tone down the wording a bit throughout the whole text.</comment></comment>


What would a modern-day evil genius have to do in order to take over the world? - Link- http://www.quora.com/Hypothetical-Questions/What-would-a-modern-day-evil-genius-have-to-do-in-order-to-take-over-the-world

<comment><AUTHOR> Self replicating 3d printer, knowledge of both C and Haskell and huge amounts of basic materials to feed his ever expandable army of terminators.</comment>


Epic 2014: the future from 2006 with the wrong names but the right concepts - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I think you meant to link to this. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bt3TmUW90B8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bt3TmUW90B8)</comment>


JPMorgan develops robot to execute high-speed trades - <AUTHOR> https://www.ft.com/content/16b8ffb6-7161-11e7-aca6-c6bd07df1a3c <comment><AUTHOR> We've reached peak-hype. This article, from an otherwise reputable publication is complete rubbish -- "robots" have been used to execute trades for decades. Same for "AI" \-- we've been using linear regression, bayesian models, as well as deep models for years. Dont these publications have any decent technical editors?</comment>


Why we're building Loom - <AUTHOR> http://blog.loom.com/why-were-building-loom/ <comment><USER2> I hate to be a jerk, but why so many first-world problem startups?

Is keeping a handle on your cat pictures and food shots really that big a deal, something that keeps Joe Sixpack up at night?

Here's an idea: instead of helping hipsters heap hi-res headshots of healthy hobos into the cloud, do something that matters.

For example, go after the giant clusterfuck that is medical image sharing. Again, it's cloud data storage of images, it's sharing on all kinds of devices, and it's technically challenging (privacy concerns, etc.)--and it actually helps people.

Why don't you take this tech and use it to help patients move their medical images between practitioners?

<comment><USER3> a) Photos are a fundamental form of data, and better infrastructure for managing them helps everyone.

b) We did fund a startup for managing medical images: Clariso, in the last batch. You don't hear as much about b2b startups as consumer ones, because unless you're e.g. a radiologist, they're not trying to reach you. Which means if you try to estimate the number of consumer focused startups based on which ones you happen to hear about, you'll overestimate.

<comment><USER2> Fair enough.

My comment was more rooted in seeing a rough area of application for what I presume their tech and backend must be capable of, and then thinking about where else it could be put to use outside of the consumer market.

How'd the Clariso folks end up? Still around, I hope?

How much interest do you gauge for these sorts of things (better tech in medical, which is admittedly a whole can of worms)?

<comment><USER4> Yes, Clariso is still very much around. In fact, I introduced their product to an organization that is used by large hospital chains to outsource radiology reports to, these guys have tens of full-time, in-house radiologists looking at hundreds of reports all day, every day. Their immediate reaction after checking out the product? Blown away! The best alternative costs them over $100k/year and it feels like Windows95. Their CTO could not believe such a solution was even possible. The CEO (a radiologist with >25 years of report- reading experience) said to me that this could be "revolutionary".

<comment><USER5> It "only" works in Chrome. That's a problem.

//

Limited in ie, firefox and mobile.

<comment><USER6> If it saved your company > $100k a year, you'd probably rollout Chrome or at least ChromeFrame

<comment><USER7> While this trivializes the issue substantially, it is true that if you depend on chrome there are ways to roll out nice site-specific chromium apps that keep everyone happy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've been using Loom's beta version for about two months now. I have to be honest. At first I didn't completely get it and I didn't use it too much. I thought it was just a photo centric version of Dropbox. And it took me a few more weeks and a few "I wish I could show you this right now" moments until I did get it and started appreciating a few of it's features.

I've been traveling a lot over the years and it is such an uplifting feeling to meet somebody again after some time, to share some "good old times" pictures and reconnect. One of the things about Loom is that it stores a low res. version of your pictures on your phone and allows you to stream full res. in no time, so I have pretty much all my pictures of the last 10 years on my phone. I've also found some really interesting use cases at work lately...

</comment><comment><USER9> Does anyone else remember Lucas Art's Loom?

<http://store.steampowered.com/app/32340/>

<comment><USER10> I do! It was a great game and I thought this was going to be some sort of remake. I was a little disappointed.

Do you remember the Pirate in Monkey Island I in the Scumm Bar, whom you could ask about LOOM?

<comment><USER9> Ha, good one!

The only one I still remember was the button in Space Quest I escape pod that when pressed ejected you through the time-space warp into Kings Quest I and then killed you on impact :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've been lucky to be in the beta for the last two months or so... my wife and I use it to group the photos we individually take on our iPhones and then share them with our family back home. It just works, unlike our old setup

<comment><USER12> Could you try explaining what this actually does? I can't figure it out from the link.

<comment><USER13> My 'what is does' for Loom is; it stores your images / videos in the cloud and syncs smartly and selectively between all your devices (mac, ipad, iphone, web).

E.g. I have ~180G of photos on Loom, but I can still access them all on my SSD MacBook, even though it's only got a few G free. Selective sync FTW.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Looked at loom.com, don't get what this site does.

Looked at loom.com/about and read wall of text, still not sure.

I'd suggest finding a more efficient way to communicate what this site is to newcomers.

<comment><USER15> I followed your steps and after reading:

"We're making it fast for you to access and manage your entire photo and video library on every device without taking up local storage space. "

I came to the conclusion this is a Dropbox with extended managing tools for pictures- it wasn't that hard.

<comment><USER16> Dropbox uses local storage space... How hard?

<comment><USER15> When I said hard, I wasn't talking about the implementation I was talking about figuring out what it does...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Ignore the hate -- this is a huge problem for millions that still hasn't been solved very well. I take tons of photos on my phone, and iPhoto is a terrible, clunky piece of software to manage all of them.

The end result is that, aside from the one-off shares to Instagram or Facebook, I don't do anything with my hundreds of photos at all. But I really want to. If Loom helps me do that, it's a very valuable service indeed.

</comment><comment><USER18> I thought this was about the classic adventure game and was briefly excited...

<comment><USER19> As did I -- especially considering the shutdown of Lucasarts, I had hoped this was an article about the license being given to some other company

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Loom: Hire me to write your blog posts/press releases because that one is simply not engaging.

<comment><USER21> You should have made your comment more engaging.

<comment><USER20> You read it and replied. Textbook definition of engagement.

<comment><USER22> By that definition, Loom's post was engaging to you...sorry, I had to take the bait. :)

<comment><USER20> You do have a valid point. Though there are different types of engagements. The one we have here is a _negative_ engagement to the message/media. What they want is to get a positive engagement from the marketplace to get them to use their app. Anyhow, Paypal me $99 and I'll show you how to do this correctly (did I just close on you? (: ). /Joke.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I've switched to using DropBox for my image storage and haven't looked back. It just works on all my devices, no problem. It works with videos too. How is Loom better than that?

<comment><USER24> Or Google instant upload. If all you've ever used was Photostream, this sounds great. But not everything (anything?) is as broken as the disaster that is Photostream.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I agree with the premise of the startup that dealing with photos on the iPhone is broken and an issue. Having used a Windows Phone for the past 6 months, I can say that I while I hate lots of things about the OS and phones, the syncing to Skydrive is truly awesome and has taken me out of the world that is described in the Loom positioning. My understanding that the Android space already has this figured out as well. I love not having to worry about syncing/downloading/etc - it has felt very freeing.

Which is to say, I think this is an interesting company, but very likely to face a serious challenge if/when Apple comes out with an update to iCloud that does the same things. Competing against stuff built into an OS is very, very hard - not impossible (see: Chrome, Firefox), but definitely hard.

</comment><comment><USER5> >Photo management is still broken – we want to change that.

Are you sure? Really really sure? There are countless photo management web, desktop and mobile apps.

<comment><USER26> But very few of them really solve the problem well. And as photos are quite universal form of expression, there is need for multiple solutions: a professional magazine photographer have different needs than a serious hobbyist who again has different needs than a mom photographing her kids and sharing photos to grandparents, and the mom differs from a teen who wants to express him/herself to find a new friends and get laid.

After searching for a couple of years for solution my needs, I finally found Everpix, which is really really good, but it still doesn't handle sharing as well as I'd like to.

There is a lot of room for innovation or just plain good execution left in the photo space.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> So, uh, dropbox?

To be a bit more specific: please be more specific! How is this any different than dropbox? Are you building 'Adobe Lightroom for the cloud'?

</comment><comment><USER28> "Ideally, you wouldn't have to take time to think about personal content management anymore."

Sigh. Everytime someone makes things "easier" for me by removing my ability to manage my content, it ends up being way more frustrating than if I could just get the files with a file manager.

<comment><USER29> sorry I'm a bit late to the party, but I'd be curious to have a discussion about this. maybe we can help :)

what's your favourite way of interacting with your photos? organising them in a folder hierarchy on disk and having them mirrored/rsynced to some remote location? would you prefer a no-nonsense poweruser interface? we'll in all likelyhood open up our api soon so there could be a flurry of clients for all wants.

or shoot me an email on daniel loom com

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Ask me about Loom...

</comment><comment><USER31> Is it a bit like Spotify for your photos? e.g., originals in the cloud, and streamed/cached in a smaller format to your local device? That I could get behind.

</comment><comment><USER32> <http://images.wikia.com/monkeyisland/images/c/c9/Cobb.jpg>

</comment><comment><USER33> I wonder how much that domain cost.

Good name for a mobile / cloud app though.

<comment><USER34> Almost as much as color.com?

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Cool, some competition for Everpix: www.everpix.com</comment>


MIT 6.S191: Introduction to Deep Learning - <AUTHOR> http://introtodeeplearning.com/ <comment><USER2> There are a few years of this course. I list them here:

[https://github.com/melling/MathAndScienceNotes/blob/master/m...](https://github.com/melling/MathAndScienceNotes/blob/master/machine_learning.md)

Direct link to 2018-2019: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5v1JnYv_yWs&list=PLtBw6njQRU-...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5v1JnYv_yWs&list=PLtBw6njQRU- rwp5__7C0oIVt26ZgjG9NI)

2017: [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkkuNyzb8LmxFutYuPA7B...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkkuNyzb8LmxFutYuPA7B4oiMn6cjD6Rs)

</comment><comment><USER3> This may be slightly OT, but my layperson perspective is for a pre-eminent STEM university, that MIT always seems to lag behind its rivals in deep learning and the latest ml advances were spearheaded at Stanford/Silicon Valley outfits, the Montreal/Toronto academic communities, Caltech and to some extent in the UK. Whereas its background should have made it one of the leaders in the field. Am I overlooking something, or just gross misinformed? Did MIT culturally stay married for a while to the Minsky school of deterministic AI vs. the Big Data statistical approach?

<comment><USER4> Publications at NeurIPS/ICML is a reasonable proxy for contribution to the field. [https://medium.com/@chuvpilo/ai-research- rankings-2019-insig...](https://medium.com/@chuvpilo/ai-research- rankings-2019-insights-from-neurips-and-icml-leading-ai-conferences- ee6953152c1a)

In 2019, the top 5 institutions were:

      1. Google (USA) — 167.3
      2. Stanford University (USA) — 82.3
      3. MIT (USA) — 69.8
      4. Carnegie Mellon University (USA) — 67.7
      5. UC Berkeley (USA) — 54.0

<comment><USER5> Citations tend to be a better indicator of impact. There are some interesting analysis here [1]. MIT has the most citations, and they've also published the most papers by far. If considering citations per paper, MIT falls in the middle of the pack. Toronto is an outlier with a very high number of citations per paper.

NeurIPs is a big conference covering lots of topics, though. All of this says relatively little about MIT's true impact on deep learning in the last eight years.

[1] [https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/research/project/academic/ar...](https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/research/project/academic/articles/neurips-conference-analytics/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Looks neat. Personally bummed that it goes with Tensorflow, though I guess that may be related to the course being sponsored in part by Google. Pretty much all the latest research is being published in Pytorch and even OpenAI switched to Pytorch recently.

<comment><USER7> any courses like this that teach pytorch? I am thinking of taking up this course and would like to give pytorch a shot too

<comment><USER6> CS231n from Stanford uses Pytorch

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Sorry for the layman's questions but what's the difference between this course and Lex Fridman's ?

</comment><comment><USER9> Any idea on how this compares with the other deep learning intro courses available?

</comment><comment><USER10> Great! Will check that out.</comment>