Microwave Towers Bring the Internet to Remote Alaska Villages - <AUTHOR> https://spectrum.ieee.org/telecom/wireless/109-microwave-towers-bring-the-internet-to-remote-alaska-villages <comment><USER2> We had to deploy 31 server solution across 31 islands in Nunavut.

Each one was connected via microwave with line connectivity to Ontario from a central location.

Each location had to be able to operate independently incase of connection failure, but would resync to the central system which is connected to the mainland.

The hardest part wasn't the connectivity, it was the the logistics and time needed to deliver people and equipment via floatplane to deploy.

Edit: it was definitely a logistics nightmare. We had to pack our skids with alot of height and weight requirements in mind to fit.

The floatplane ran very limited, and couldn't run throughout the year due to ice/weather(we had like 6 months most). It took us 2 years to deploy all locations.

<comment><USER3> Via floatplane, wow. Some technicians have it rough.

<comment><USER4> Speaking from my experience in Alaska, it's impressive how people have adapted the use of aircraft to accommodate the nonexistent or often unusable road infrastructure.

I remember traveling by rail and passing a long row of houses with small aircraft and bushplanes parked outside, with a cleared grassy strip to one side to act as a runway.

<comment><USER5> Difficulty aside, that sounds like it would be a cool way to live. How were they employed?

<comment><USER6> I can't speak for the guy you replied to, but I've had family and friends who live up there and there's a lot of seasonal outdoors stuff. For example, run a snowmobile business in the winter. Work as a mechanic on big rigs (aka get paid to sit around until something breaks).

In rural areas (at least around here) it's not uncommon to work 4 on, 4 off (or similar) shifts which makes stuff like that a lot easier. My cousins (one of whom lived in North Pole, AK) do something kinda similar: they have their houses in the "city" where their job is, but their "other" homes out on their 30+ acres of property in the woods > 1 hour outside of town. They don't fly in, but it's kinda the same concept.

I also know of at least one rancher in eastern Washington whose daughter flies her plane to school in the morning.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Microwave towers are a godsend for people like my folks. They live a 5 minute drive from a city of 40,000 but yet cannot get even DSL. Microwave towers have allowed them to get 10mbps conenction with no bandwidth cap, and they were happy to pay the $500 installation costs and $80 monthly fees for it.

</comment><comment><USER8> 6mbs as the max? That sounds awful... I was expecting more with dedicated microwave towers.

<comment><USER9> It nicely highlights why optimizing sites and web apps for size is still important. Speeds in excess of 20mpbs may be common in metropolitan areas, but there are parts of the US have to make due with much less.

I can't imagine how frustrating it must be for these people to have to deal with the better part of the popular web weighing 12mb+ per page load. Adblockers must be required for many sites to be of any use at all.

<comment><USER10> I recently moved from a 1Gbps pipe from BigCo to 5Mbps provided by a WISP [0].

It's been interesting. I definitely click back on more websites than I used to due to slow page load.

The bigger issue is with streaming video services. YouTube, YouTube TV, Netflix and HBO are all fine. Hulu and Sling are nearly unusable.

All in all, it's not as bad as I had feared.

[0] We're at 7k feet in altitude and there is a point to point WiFi network blasting down the majority of the canyon. All Ubiquiti gear. The ISP is owned and operated by a couple locals.

<comment><USER11> My brother is living with 512k, you adapt to the low speed at some point. We have a local Plex with ~10TB of video on it since all streaming websites are unusable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > US $300 million of investment and six years of construction

Seems to me like they spent 300 million dollars and took 6 years to install a system that was out of date 6 years ago. Sad.

<comment><USER13> Microwave has actually remained fairly static in terms of the technology capabilities lately, so they probably couldn't achieve much more if they started again today. Short distance microwave links can push a gigabit, but not by a lot, and only over (relatively) short distances. Running towers at close enough spacing to increase bandwidth, or even laying cable, would be a much larger investment and you ultimately have to play the cost vs bandwidth tradeoff here.

<comment><USER14> This is not true. Shannon capacity limit has remained the same of course but reduction in the cost of processing has meant that it is vastly cheaper to deploy higher coding rate modulation schemes and MIMO than it was only a few years ago. Gigabit speeds over long range (10's of km) are quite achievable.

The article actually talks about 6Mbits/s as the service speed per subscriber so obviously the backhaul is going to need to be much faster, especially since its ring topology means it has to serve many towns.

<comment><USER15> I'd figure they're probably working with a few hundred megs of connectivity at most. Thing is, as speeds increase (esp when you go above a few Mbps), usage actually stays pretty flat. Mostly, videos load faster leaving an emptier pipe for the next customer.

<comment><USER16> Usage increases over time though, as perceived speed increase leads to heavier stuff being deployed on the Internet. Over time, we started to stream music, then video, then HD video, then 60FPS Full-HD video, 360° video; I don't see this trend stopping with time.

(And then there's software bloat, which also increases with time.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Very cool engineering-wise, but it's not clear to me that subsidies to rural areas like this make sense in the long-term. Like just efficiency-wise, would it not make more sense to have rules that encourage people to live in places where it's easier to provide basic services?

</comment><comment><USER18> Tom Scott went to Greenland last year, where they also have microwave towers for internet access:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5G9BHrAgQz0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5G9BHrAgQz0)

</comment><comment><USER19> For $300 million usd you would get a lot of fiber cable. I wonder how well those micro towers operates in a snowstorm and covered with ice.</comment>


Sex, Pizza, or Self-Esteem? - <AUTHOR> http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/11/choosing-self-esteem-over-sex-or-pizza/

<comment><USER2> Is there any data behind the stated trend towards narcissism in recent generations or is it just a guess from some cranky old people? Any study performed on today's university students tells me nothing about the university students of 20 or 30 years ago - is it possible that university students have always been deprived of self-esteem? Is it further possible that humans naturally exhibit insecurity?</comment>


Use of illicit drugs becomes part of Silicon Valley's work culture - <AUTHOR> http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_26219187/use-illicit-drugs-becomes-part-silicon-valleys-work

<comment><USER2> _" Furthering the problem, many tech companies do little or no drug testing because, as Albrecht put it, 'they want the results, but they don't want to know how their employees got the results.'_

Or maybe these companies know that subjecting their employees to privacy- invading and degrading tests ("go piss in this cup now") will not help them recruit the best developers. I've never used any illegal drugs in my life, but if given any choice, I'd never work for any employer that forced its employees to undergo drug tests.

(I'll concede that some jobs, like piloting an airliner with 300 passengers on board, might reasonably require drug testing, but the vast majority of developers don't do stuff that can get people killed, and if their performance suffers due to drugs they can always be fired for not getting their work done rather than for using drugs.)

</comment><comment><USER3> Mercury News got ahold of my email and I spent years clicking unsubscribe links and delete their emails. Has nothing to do with the story, just saw the URL and had bad feelings. :)

</comment><comment><USER4> Total scare-bait. People do drugs?!?! People with money do drugs?!?! Nothing unique here, not even any real statistics to say that it's increasing with tech people

<comment><USER5> Nothing to see here. Just an idiot with more money than sense, like many of the top execs at Google.

Disclaimer: I work for the arrogant Google hypocrites.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I drink coffee every morning, and drink a moderate amount of alcohol. Why does no one have a problem with that?

This is not an issue. Moving on.</comment>


A Math Model Is Predicting the Ebola Outbreak - <AUTHOR> http://motherboard.vice.com/read/this-math-model-is-predicting-the-ebola-outbreak-with-incredible-accuracy <comment><USER2> I think these models are extremely suspect, with nil predictive value. Where you have sustained exponential growth dynamics, as here, the results are _fantastically_ sensitive to the parameters which go in the exponent, which in this case you can't predict with enough accuracy.

The simplest ODE is something like:

du/dt = k(t) * u(t)

Whose solution _locally_ looks like (for slow-varying k(t))

u(t) ∝ e^{ k(t) * t }

One possibility is k(t) > 0 sustained for 10 effective doubling times. One possibility is k(t) < 0\. In this epidemic, either is plausible (?): the difference is only a small difference in some infection control parameters. A small uncertainty that translates into a _factor of a thousand uncertainty_ in the outcome, because it gets blown up by a gigantic e^x.

And the estimates of k(t) seem to hover around the critical value of k(t) ~ 0. In the CDC model (their Excel spreadsheet is open source [0], and FYI won't import into LibreOffice), the shape of the epidemic is purely determined by the shape of their k(t) assumptions. Their defaults parameter exhibit, first, a fast growth phase, assuming k(t) > 0; then they assume a slight reduction to k(t) ~ 0, leading to slower growth; then slightly more reduction to k(t) < 0, causing the epidemic to halt. As far as I can tell k(t) is basically speculative, and completely determines the shape of u(t). So really you predict nothing.

[0] [http://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/24900](http://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/24900)

<comment><USER3> Well put.

A 'predictive model' should say 'if you do X then you will end up with Y' \- and the X cannot be adjusting some number. The X has to be stuff like 'building ETU's in West Africa', or 'canceling all flights',... A predictive model should be able to say 'don't bother canceling flights, it's no use - instead do this...'.

Note: I'm going to be teaching a course in Erlang programming next month where the homework assignment is epidemic modeling - 100K's of concurrent processes moving around, getting exposed to each other - that sort of stuff. Rather ambitious, but I feel it's a good use case for Erlang - a pandemic is a 'viral' chat application.

<comment><USER4> Is the course your teaching going be a MOOC or will the assignments be posted publicly? I'd love to try that assignment myself.

<comment><USER3> Course is classroom format. i will post the assignment on github.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is really, really weak sauce. They show right on the graph it following the trend line for reported cases, which looks to already be leveling off.

The problem is, as the WHO has made very, very clear: "Problems with data gathering in Liberia continue. It should be emphasized that the reported fall in the number of new cases in Liberia over the past three weeks is unlikely to be genuine. Rather, it reflects a deterioration in the ability of overwhelmed responders to record accurate epidemiological data. It is clear from field reports and first responders that EVD cases are being under-reported from several key locations, and laboratory data that have not yet been integrated into official estimates indicate an increase in the number of new cases in Liberia. There is no evidence that the EVD epidemic in West Africa is being brought under control ...

Evidence obtained from responders and laboratory staff in [Liberia] indicates beyond doubt that there is widespread under-reporting of new cases, and that the situation in Liberia, and in Monrovia in particular, continues to deteriorate from week to week. Approximately 200 new probable and suspected cases, but very few confirmed cases, have been reported in the capital Monrovia in each of the past three weeks. A substantial proportion of these suspected cases are most probably genuine cases of EVD, and the reported fall in confirmed cases over the past three weeks reflects delays in matching laboratory results with clinical surveillance data. Efforts continue to urgently address problems with data acquisition in what is an extremely challenging environment, and it is likely that the figures will be revised upwards in due course."

In other words, awesome job building a model that fits garbage data.

</comment><comment><USER6> _Incredible Accuracy_? You mean _retrospectively fitting a logistic model to something known to grow logistically_? I'm not impressed, especially not by retrospective modelling.

</comment><comment><USER7> Here's the link for the referenced paper. I find it mostly accessible to the average science graduate.

[http://www.plosone.org/article/fetchObject.action?uri=info%3...](http://www.plosone.org/article/fetchObject.action?uri=info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0083622&representation=PDF)

Perhaps someone can help discuss the merits of this particular model? In my humble opinion, I suspect a lack of empirically gathered results and support for it's justifications. On the other hand, what qualifies as a representational event if we're supposed to prevent human death?

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm voting this up. People should be aware that it's out there. But this story is worse than bad. It's the epidemiological equivalent of startups with nice spreadsheets and graphs -- there are so many hidden assumptions and unknowns, I'm not sure it's possible to make it into anything useful.

</comment><comment><USER9> one of the important factor seems to be missing is the negative feedback loop - the more devastating the outbreak the more resources will be thrown at it

<comment><USER10> That's a positive feedback loop. A negative feedback loop would cause people to throw more resources at the outbreak until the derivative of the number of cases approaches zero.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Wow, a mainstream news source covering mathematics. This is news.

</comment><comment><USER12> No offence, but a mathematical model can be made to "prove" anything, including the half-inch pink elephant that lives in my desk drawer.

</comment><comment><USER13> Hari Seldon, is that you?

<comment><USER13> Not sure on the downvotes but obviously someone didn't appreciate my reference to Asimov's Foundation trilogy and the mathematical predictions of social behaviour.

It all falls over when The Mule appears! (Sorry if this is a spoiler for you)</comment></comment>


French teenager hurt by shattering iPhone - <AUTHOR> http://tech.yahoo.com/news/afp/20090812/tc_afp/francebritaintechnologyapple <comment><USER2> Is this really possible? If possible, is it really likely that it would have happened twice, within three weeks, in two adjacent countries, after millions of iPhones have been in service without any "random explosion" incidents for well over a year now? Is it more likely than the competing "teenager does something stupid and lies about it" scenario?

<comment><USER3> If a certain batch of phones (or most likely, batteries) were defective, then you would expect failures to be clustered together.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _Apple allegedly offered a refund for the girl's iPod on condition that the family sign a confidentiality agreement._

Now I don't know all of the details of what happened, but this appears to be the wrong action by Apple. The replacement is without condition. The settlement is in return for confidentiality.</comment>


Wolfram Alpha and hubristic user interfaces - <AUTHOR> http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2009/07/wolfram-alpha-and-hubristic-user.html

<comment><USER3> Brilliant.

Really. This article expresses perfectly everything that is wrong with Wolfram Alpha (which still can't tell me how much an elephant weighs, no matter how many ways I ask it). There are so many stories of users doing ridiculous things because of such hubristic user interfaces. Hang out with non-hackers long enough and you will clearly see how "they create an incomplete model of the giant electronic brain in their own, non-giant, non-electronic brains."

Also, the phrase "non-solution to a non-problem" is the best thing I've read all week.

<comment><USER4> [http://www82.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=weight+of+an+indian+e...](http://www82.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=weight+of+an+indian+elephant)

"weight of a" always seems to trigger the weight query. The problem is that it doesn't have general data for "elephant" and doesn't know to link it to "indian elephant."

It would be a lot easier if you could just browse the data. They could really have just used a good online retailer "drill-down" style interface ala newegg to make this easier.

<comment><USER5> Seems to indicate the need for a search interface, which was hinted at by the article.

Maybe the tool selection could happen after the initial query? The results from the default tool guessed by WA, then choices of other possible matches. The key word "weight" could suggest the weight query, then key word match "elephant" to give choices like Indian elephant, African elephant, etc. and allow the user to click which one she had in mind. Maybe some keyword matches for elephant from other databases listed after that.

The problem, though, is they don't have the amount of data Google can use to help predict what a user most likely wants from a given query.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Absolutely correct.

I had great expectations when I heard from Wolfram Alpha. The things Mathematica is able to do backed by a giant structured data store seemed mind blowing. As the author said the visualization tools and the (still small) dataset _is_ impressive. I thought: We have all this data, all this visualization options and now we can create aggregate and munch all the facts of the world with an ad-hoc query language. But this simply does not work. There is hardly any functionality to really process data (aside from the predefined ways). And if you come to think about it: One cannot think of a way more complex transformations could be expressed with WA's natural language interface.

For me a better interface would look like this: The basic interface is some kind of full-featured expression language to navigate the data hierarchy (perhaps similar to SQL). You could then build some GUI to interactively navigate/parametrize data/transformations to build more complex expressions. To make the system more easily accessible you could then - and only then - <USER2> the natural language recognition system on top of this, which tries to guess some expressions from your input string and gives you some suggestions to start from.

</comment><comment><USER7> As an aside, I don't think I agree with the sentiment of "because it's hard we shouldn't even try". Sometimes you get dead end fields. Sometimes, other useful or interesting things spring out of dead ends.

That said, WA's interface leaves much to be desired. With Google (and its ilk), I can enter almost anything in, and get results. If they're not exactly what I want, I can refine it, little by little. It's like a gradient search in a sense.

With WA, I can't enter almost anything in, and get some sort of results where I can continuously refine my search. Instead, I get deadends where it has no idea what I'm talking about, and I don't know what else to do to help it understand.

In fact, it reminds me of playing the old text-based adventure games, where you have to guess what you can do in the "dingy old cabin with a door to the north." You go crazy asking the computer to "pick up mirror" and it replies, "thoust cannot pickth up the mirror" You really have no idea what you can do, and no hint out of the myriad of possibiliies. You end up playing a guessing game, instead of an adventure game.

I think google squared has the right idea. You can enter in some, and it'll spit back some sort of results, usually with columns you don't want. Then you can proceed to refine those results, by adding columns you want and deleting ones you don't.

<comment><USER8> 'As an aside, I don't think I agree with the sentiment of "because it's hard we shouldn't even try".'

I prefer to phrase it as "If thousands of smart people before you have tried something, you need to know _why_ they failed and have some reasonable reason to believe that your approach is better, or you will just be wasting your time."

I use this most often in the context of someone popping up and declaring that they wish to create a "totally visual" language. I don't want to stop that one-in-a-million guy who might make it work, but just blithely letting someone waste their time isn't very nice either. (That's where the whole "encouragement at all costs" ideology falls down; encouragement is not free and the costs are paid by the _encouragee_ , not the encourager; think before you encourage somebody.) Usually I just see someone spout the same ideas that have been tried tens or hundreds of times before; the excited person should take the time to examine those efforts before continuing on, because the easy stuff has been tried and quite a bit of the hard stuff has been too. This goes for many things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Good article (if a bit long). Wolfram Alpha has exactly the kind of interface that you would expect from a company founded by a person that wrote a book called "A New Kind of Science." Stephen Wolfram is a very intelligent person with a world-crushing, fire-breathing ego. This is unfortunate, because a more modest man could create a great tool like Alpha but then assume that he didn't know all of the ways that people would use it, and therefore not require interfacing with it through a broken natural language engine. Wolfram, on the other hand (like many bright people) assumes that only he knows the answers and doesn't bother to think that others might be able to do more with the tool than he could ever think of.

<comment><USER10> "This is unfortunate, because a more modest man could create a great tool like Alpha but then assume that he didn't know all of the ways that people would use it, and therefore not require interfacing with it through a broken natural language engine. Wolfram, on the other hand (like many bright people) assumes that only he knows the answers and doesn't bother to think that others might be able to do more with the tool than he could ever think of."

I promise I'm not trolling, but that sounds a lot like Steve Jobs.

<comment><USER11> Steve Jobs only succeeded because he could really pitch his ideas. He could make people want his product ("reality distortion field"). Wolfram doesn't have that kind of charisma.

<comment><USER5> Steve Jobs also was not responsible for the Newton, it should be noted, but the direct control iPhone interface came out on his watch. The Mac offered far more direct control than the IBM PC. So I would suggest Jobs also has better instincts for interface design than Wolfram.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Summary to looooooooong article. Author feels that Wolfram should have an alternative direct interface that does not required AI to interpret the meaning/goal of your natural language text query. Kind of like how Grafiti did for the Palm.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, it's _only_ 4000 words on a single subject -- his usual style is to write a series of ten 40,000 word posts using self-invented neologisms about how the media & bureaucrats really control our democracy and advocating for its replacement with Jacobite neo-cameralism.

<comment><USER13> Just to clarify, blasdel didn't make that up. That really is his usual style.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Very nicely written article.

Aside from the alpha discussion, an additional useful point is the concept of too-intelligent interfaces. This is related to two other observations. One is that for high-throughput data entry (also programming) a nice GUI is really not the thing you want. You want to be able to navigate entirely with the keyboard.

The other is wsywig document processors. Serious documentation (such as that for a fighter aircraft, which when printed out weighs more than the aircraft itself, of for documentation required by the FDA for new drugs) is not really done with wsywig editors, but markup editors of different kinds. If you document is 300,000 pages, you want the pagination to be done in batch.

</comment><comment><USER15> "Give it up for the standardization of the screw."

A memorable quote.

On a related note, there was an interesting C-SPAN BookTv program recently where the author talked about the revolutionary standardization of international freight shipping containers:

<http://tinyurl.com/mwmrwq> (booktv.org)

</comment><comment><USER5> It was interesting reading the article thinking "yeah, like the Newton" before the author mentioned the Newton and then "yeah, like the way Google routes to different applications based on the kind of query" before the author mentioned how Google routes to different applications based on the kind of query. Great minds, I guess. :)

</comment><comment><USER16> If I could double up-vote this article, I would. Surprisingly astute, and I think I learned something about tools and interfaces.

</comment><comment><USER17> I think Wolfram put up their crazy interface in order to avoid just giving away free online Mathematica. Also to allow Stephen's ego to further blossom.

 _If_ you could use WA as a Mathematica console BUT with access to great built-in (crawled!) data and visualization tools, _then_ it would be useful.

</comment><comment><USER18> Wordy article but I agree on his points. WA is trying to solve a non-existent problem for this particular use case. A person _wants_ to see a label rather than a graph.

</comment><comment><USER19> Spot on.

If only this were written the week before we were deluged with Wolfram Alpha articles and the attendant hype, here and everywhere else.

On to Chrome OS, then Mencius. We need another reality check on the latest planet-changer.

<comment><USER20> _We need another reality check on the latest planet-changer._

It's the same reality check as always: the majority of people don't understand it (and implications) well enough to really use it.

The computer revolution hasn't happened yet. It's underway, and it's going to take time to overcome cultural inertia.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Even when I'm trying to be really obvious:

[http://www01.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=calories+in+a+peanut+...](http://www01.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=calories+in+a+peanut+butter+and+jelly+sandwich)</comment>


Why startup pitches fail - <AUTHOR> http://venturehacks.com/articles/why-pitches-fail <comment><USER2> When he talked of a hierarchy I immediately expected a tree of some kind...</comment>


Improved protein structure prediction using potentials from deep learning - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1923-7 <comment><AUTHOR> Predicting protein structure based on a given DNA/RNA sequence has been a field of study that has existed for quite a while now. There have been two primary methodologies that have been explored, one of which has been to try and simulate the actual physical dynamics of a given system at a molecular/atomic level. At places like D.E. Shaw or with Folding@Home, you'll see approaches like these being taken and with relative success. Though generally with purely physics based solutions, you quickly run into exponentially growing simulation time scales as well as a lack of accuracy due to a currently insufficient understanding of molecular mechanics.

The other approach has been to take the problem and look at it purely as a translation problem, ignoring simulation of intermediary steps, to go directly from sequence to folded protein target.

With the advent of deep learning and a massive repository of data from an existing Protein Data Bank (PDB) et al., this approach has become increasingly popular, and for protein structure competitions like CASP, has quickly become state of the art within the field. DeepMind's recent breakthrough with AlphaFold in the paper above is just another solid step in the right direction.

<comment><USER2> PDB is not a massive repository. It's a very biased, tiny dataset (~20K structures) and an enormous amount of data cleaning has to be done to do anything related to big-data machine learning on it.

What's far more important is evolutionary data- for example, making alignments of many similar proteins, and computing correlated variations across them. Those variations are often the best structural clues-- better and cheaper to obtain than protein structures.

I wouldn't really call DM's work a "breakthrough", other groups were exploring similar ideas. DM executed well (they're a games company and understand the rules of the competition) and had a huge amount of compute resources which handles a lot of the challenges of optimizing a process like this.

<comment><AUTHOR> My summary is pretty generalized, aimed more towards a layman audience, and so I definitely am missing pieces. Co-evolutionary couplings between different protein sequences provide a very rich source of information, and are definitely very important!

For those of you that are curious as to what these couplings represent, the basic idea, is that intuitively you can sort of see how given proteins are a product of evolution, that they're might be a large amount of conserved structure between one protein to another. Co-evolutionary coupling is just an attempt at quantifying this relationship in a rigorous statistical manner.

<comment><USER2> I mainly don't want ML folks to suddenly think protein folding is easy because the PDB is a good training set. It's not.

<comment><AUTHOR> Why frame things in such a pessimistic manner? It seems like it would only be a net benefit to have more people become interested in protein folding as a field of study. Is there really a need for this type of gate keeping here?

<comment><USER2> yes, personally I think there is. I've spent a tremendous amount of my career watching computer scientists misunderstand how to work on protein folding and waste a lot of people's time. Because the concept of protein folding is so unbelievably complex, most CS and ML folks get the basic talk: "nearly all proteins fold reversibly to a global minimum energy structure which is completely defined by the sequence of the protein", which isn't remotely true (basically a weak form of Anfinsen's dogma and Levinthal's paradox). It's easy to explain, and CS and ML people get excited and go off to work on the problem. This led to a lot of publications that focused on rapidly finding heuristics that could sample enough space to find an approximation of the lowest energy structure. these methods typically failed to make good predictions although eventually methods like Rosetta did start making good predictions around 15-20 years ago (amusingly, the author of Rosetta told me: "the larger the PDB (training data set) gets, the worse the predictions we make".

But people who spend a long time getting a biological education know why this is true: most proteins don't fold to their energetic minimum, they fold to a collection of kinetically accessible states, rarely finding their true minimum (some small proteins do fold quickly, and we typically can predict their structure). And, many of the physical approximations that are used lead to inaccuracies (for example, some variables are constrained to specific values to save time, but making good predictions requires them to be unconstrained).

Some of my work made significant contributions to changing these beliefs, and I've very thankful for the CS and ML folks who contributed to that, but all of them spent a lot of time learning about proteins before they were useful contributors.

Myself I've had to "unlearn" a lot of the early things that were explained to me when I was a layperson, because when you're first learning something, if somebody gives you a simplified view, it can be really hard to move on to the more subtle and nuanced details in the field (for example, many people learn Mendelian genetics and then spend years struggling to understand why most traits don't follow mendelian statistics).

My goal here is to prevent wasted time on behalf of the experienced contributors in the field. I do appreciate good attempts at explaining the field to laypeople, but want to set the expectations on contributing accurately.

<comment><USER3> So what you're saying is: [https://xkcd.com/1831/](https://xkcd.com/1831/), except that CS/ML practitioners have a negative impact by trying to contribute without understanding the nuance. I think the next logical question is: how many years of education should you have in order to contribute? 10 years? We'll all be killed by a virus by then :)

<comment><USER2> Hah, I forgot that one. Part of the negative impact is the time spent _explaining_ stuff (like Brooks mythical man month). Another negative impact is that ML folks have gotten really good at hype- paper with slick web page, press release, etc, but the results don't stand up to the claims.

I generally recommend PhD-level study in biology (that's 7 years on top of undergrad) but I think a really smart person could learn most of what's required in 2-3 years if they are in a good lab.

No, we will not all be killed by a virus in the next 10 years; that's just media alarmism. Remember, even if coronavirus becomes a worldwide pandemic, some fraction of people will survive who will be genetically immune. We're much more at risk of wars, climate change, and driving cars.

<comment><USER4> So, is there a (collection of) book that would save everyone's time? Asking for a friend.

<comment><USER2> Personally, I prefer the classic textbook approach, so I recommend Principles of Biochemistry (Lehninger), Biological Sequence Analysis (Durbin, Eddy, Krogh, Mitchison) which is sadly pretty dated now, a general Biology (Campbell), and finally if you really want to dive down the rabbit hole of a complex biological problem with huge health applications, Biology of Cancer (Weinberg).

I've had this argument with folks before and some people seem fine learning in other ways, but I really prefer the textbook approach, especially textbooks which are basically just summaries of the current understanding of the field, with direct links to the detailed review articles.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Paywalled, can anyone with access to the text expand upon the ML algorithm? Specifically, is AlphaFold based on AlphaGo MCTS? Or is the name similarity incidental?

<comment><USER6> Literally no similarity, it's an IBM Watson like branding move</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Recommend in-depth, comparative, critical programming podcasts - <AUTHOR> I've had trouble finding non-academic podcasts covering languages, frameworks, hosted services, cloud providers, etc. that go beyond the introductory, conceptual, and overly credulous. I'd like to hear comparisons of competing offers/techniques/and technologies, and discussion of what the adoption of a given tool looks like at scale. <comment> a-saleh I kinda liked to listen to functional geekery [1], because I really like the space of kinda-fringe-but-mostly-practical space many of the guests occupy with regards to functional languages. Good mix of people working with languages professionally, on side-projects as well as in research. Nice range of languages, heard about clojure, clojure-script, functional-style js, elm, purescript, haskell, idris, F#, erlang, elixir, and even prolog?

I find them often go beyond the introductory, especially when the guest has been working with non-mainstream technology to solve some interesting problem. Your mileage may vary, though, large part of the episode can consist of "So, how did you get to learn $LANGUAGE"?

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

</comment><comment><USER2> Code Podcast [1] is an outstanding in-depth podcast for devs, without the usual blabla. IMO the best I have found so far.

[1] [https://codepodcast.com/](https://codepodcast.com/)

</comment><comment><USER3> You may have already tried it, but I find Software Engineering Radio[0] relatively technical and informative. Each episode features an interview with a single guest on a single topic for about an hour. There's definitely interesting discussions, especially in the archives - the episode / interview with Martin Thompson (of mechanical sympathy) comes to mind.

[0]: [http://www.se-radio.net/](http://www.se-radio.net/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Keep in mind that podcasts that go beyond _introductory_ levels usually have smaller audience. Plus, most tech podcasters rarely go beyond a year or two.

Check out this one: [https://testandcode.com/](https://testandcode.com/) and [http://testandcode.com/rss](http://testandcode.com/rss) \- a podcast about python testing (the SSL has expired apparently, which says one thing or two about the state of the website).

The "AWS podcast" features advanced functionality discussions when the episode focusses on one service alone. For example the recent episode around s3 is every interesting.

Regards

</comment><comment><USER5> [https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/](https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/)

Not as much discussion, but probably fits the bill for other parts.

</comment><comment><USER6> So maybe make them yourself? Sounds great. (I read some advice on writing books which was exactly that - write the book you wish existed but doesn't!)

</comment><comment><USER7> I'd be interested if such podcasts exist.</comment>


Eric Schmidt calls for "a complete lack of anonymity" - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnbc.com/id/38565740

<comment><USER2> Um. No. Schmidt demanded nothing. Quoting the article:

 _He says the only way to manage issues—like misuse of technology by people with bad intentions—is much greater transparency and a complete lack of anonymity. Schmidt says true anonymity on the Internet is dangerous._

So he makes an observation and an opinion. That is not a demand.

He might believe that, he might make the demand at some point. Or he might not. But he did not do so here.

Did you even read the article? Please tell me how you arrived at your conclusion and why you choose to share it?</comment>


ISP protester's problem solved by police called to remove him from store - <AUTHOR> http://www.smh.com.au/business/consumer-affairs/police-called-to-remove-man-from-telstra-store-instead-solve-his-internet-crisis-20171231-h0btca.html <comment><USER4> A case of a successful police negotiation with Telstraists? :)

NB for international readers - Telstra is our local Australian national carrier and the telco at the centre of the story.

Maybe I should call in the police to negotiate my case with them too - <USER2> office line redirection has been down for weeks, and no support agent can solve it while on the phone. They have 3x now given me a callback text with a web link to resume the call that never works. First thing in 2008 I am cancelling my Telstra phone service!

<comment><USER5> > First thing in 2008

Hello time traveller. While you're at it, buy/mine Bitcoin. It seems crazy, don't worry - it doesn't get any less so. Sell it Mid December 2017.

Also, if you're not getting anywhere and it's a business line service - <USER3> out who your account rep is, and call them up to fix this kind of rubbish.

Otherwise, yeah, go sit in a Telstra store until the cops turn up to fix the issue.

<comment><USER4> :D I can see now that my failing this year will be typing '2008' rather than the more common mistake of '2017' for the next few months!

Actually, we do have a Telstra business rep, and I have spoken to her twice now with no result either. Very disappointing.

But on to a more positive note - Another HN user who actually works for Telstra saw my post above and reached out to me via email to try and reach a resolution. I really appreciate that he did this on (a) a public holiday and (b) took some effort to find me email address to reach out to me on.

Fingers crossed that he can sort things out where others have not been able to.

<comment><USER5> >Another HN user who actually works for Telstra saw my post above and reached out to me via email to try and reach a resolution

Good to hear.

Checking your profile seems you're rural - The old Telstra Countrywide unit used to have a _lot_ of influence over the organisation, to the point where they basically ran their own show and told the rest of the organisation to GTFO on most of the corp processes.

Ended up with some interesting showdowns, but usually meant a better outcome for TCW customers (sometimes at the expense of Retail customers where there were boundary conflicts)

> I have spoken to her twice now with no result either.

If you don't get a good response, Escalate it - find out who their manager is and call that person.

One of the advantages for having a business service is that there's a defined SLA with penalties. It used to be 4 hour response, 8 hour restore minimum for all business services.

If it's been down this long you should be getting a decent rebate.

<comment><USER4> I thought about asking for a rebate, but honestly, I've been so disenchanted and discouraged by their lack of service that I just want my office number redirected to my mobile, and my VoIP and NBN Internet service with them terminated immediately. I can't terminate my mobile services yet as they are on plan until the end of 2018 and the penalties are too high.

I'll see what our helpful HN Telstra user can do for me, then I might consider applying for a rebate for the weeks upon weeks now that my customers have been getting a 'this number is not connected' message when they try to ring my business, resulting in many clients assuming I am not operating anymore.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Are Australian police trained and measured on their ability to resolve civil disputes on the spot?

<comment><USER7> Imagine if American police could be trained to use negotiation tactics, and de-escalation methods.

<comment><USER8> They are.

Remember: If it's in the news it's rare. This means that Police violence in America is rare, and Police negotiating with an ISP is rare.

<comment><USER9> How is 1188 rare? 100 people a month is absurdly common.

[http://killedbypolice.net/](http://killedbypolice.net/)

<comment><USER10> Out of a country with a population of 320+ million, with 750,000+ "sworn officers" (able to make arrests) [0], 1188 is not "absurdly common", especially as that count is an overestimate of the objectionable cases (by how much is difficult to determine).

The issue with police shooting deaths is not that there is a high likelihood of an individual dieing tomorrow (for reference, drunk driving deaths are 10x police shooting deaths [1]), but the injustice of innocent people being killed.

Accurately representing the problem, and avoiding the "all police are terrible" comments is vital to actually trying to fix this, as a solution necessitates actively working with police, the vast majority of which have not, and will never, shoot anyone.

[0]: [https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/nsleed.pdf](https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/nsleed.pdf)

[1]: [https://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/impaired_driving/impa...](https://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/impaired_driving/impaired- drv_factsheet.html)

<comment><USER11> It's a small number of deaths per capita, but quite large per police interaction. So it's possible that the knock-on effects are worse than the injustice. The police would be much less useful if no one ever called them, and why would I call them if there's a significant chance of them killing me or someone else?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> well the problem is that most problems can be helped with first level support where the personal isn't trained for deeply technical stuff, they just need to follow their checklist. most often if you are not somebody who has an easy problem your pretty much screwed. since telekoms have a very bad way of escalating stuff to their trained personal. (probably because it's not cheap).

</comment><comment><USER13> Good for the police. I don't live in Australia but after reading this story Telstra sounds like a terrible company. Are there no competitors?

<comment><USER14> They own all the actual cable in Australia. So are essentially our only tier 1 ISP. Everyone else just needs to buy services from them.

<comment><USER15> The copper pair and HFC lines in NBN areas are transferred into the ownership of NBN Co (though the ducts that they lie in remain Telstra assets).</comment></comment></comment>


Cisco's OpenH264 Now Part of Firefox - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.cisco.com/collaboration/ciscos-openh264-now-part-of-firefox/ <comment><USER2> TL;DR: Cisco's solution to binary plugins in Firefox is a "binary module" downloaded from Cisco.

Snippets from the text:

"One big barrier remains: users can't collaborate directly from their web browser without downloading cumbersome plugins" ... one of the major stumbling blocks in adoption of this technology is a common codec for real-time video ... Cisco ... providing ... a binary module that can be downloaded ... today's latest release of Firefox, which will automatically download and use Cisco's OpenH264 binary module ... The topic of a standardized codec will once again be addressed by the IETF in its November meeting. It is our hope that announcements like the one today will ... pave the way for a decision."

A decision that requires an open source web browser to download a binary module from a third party?

Another option would be to use the free and open source video codec that's already in every WebRTC-enabled browser, without any binary modules.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interoperability is critical for WebRTC to gain traction and the WebRTC spec does not define mandatory video codec. Firefox and Chrome support both VP8 and H.264. Microsoft and Apple only support H.264.

[http://webrtchacks.com/webrtc-video-codec- discussion](http://webrtchacks.com/webrtc-video-codec-discussion)</comment></comment>


Show HN: Usable RosettaCode: Code snippets for 2 languages side-by-side - <AUTHOR> http://rosetta.alhur.es/

<comment><USER2> It's interesting. I love the idea. Some of code snippets can look larger. Look at the [http://rosetta.alhur.es/compare/Java/Python/#Call_a_function](http://rosetta.alhur.es/compare/Java/Python/#Call_a_function) for example. Java code has missed function definition (definition of class and method inside it) in comparison to Python code. It's unfair a bit! Not because I'm Python nerd :) But because of it too.

Additionally I would suggest to redirect user from [http://rosetta.alhur.es/compare/](http://rosetta.alhur.es/compare/) to [http://rosetta.alhur.es/](http://rosetta.alhur.es/)

<comment><AUTHOR> The code snippets are from [http://rosettacode.org/](http://rosettacode.org/), I'm not responsible for the unfairness!

And thanks, I'm redirecting from [http://rosetta.alhur.es/compare/](http://rosetta.alhur.es/compare/) to [http://rosetta.alhur.es/](http://rosetta.alhur.es/) now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Nice!

I made something very similar last year[0] but never really found the time to polish it to my satisfaction.

[0] [http://www.rosettaclone.org/](http://www.rosettaclone.org/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow, yours is great. If I had seem it I probably wouldn't try to write my own.

One problem we are facing (me, you, rosettacode.org itself) is that is difficult to find the examples that will help you more at any given time (but definitely my solution -- show everything randomly -- is the worse).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> love the idea, though i'm getting 404ed when I try to compare haskell and coffeescript (osx / opera 26) [http://rosetta.alhur.es/compare/Coffeescript/Haskell/#](http://rosetta.alhur.es/compare/Coffeescript/Haskell/#)

<comment><AUTHOR> Right, I think part of this is due to the slash (/) in the names of the tasks, but there's a bigger issue somewhere.</comment></comment>


How 'Crazy' Kim Jong Il Outfoxed the World - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/12/against-all-odds-how-crazy-kim-jong-il-outfoxed-the-world/250209/

<comment><USER2> Totally misses the point.

Kim jong il was good at being an evil dicator. But that doesn't make him any less crazy. For example, once there was a German rabbit breeder who was able to breed rabbits the size of dogs. KJI heard about it and decided they were the answer to his countries hunger problems. The breeder tried in vane to convince the leader that it was a terrible idea because the rabbits ate way to much for this to be feasible.

Trying to use giant rabbits to solve a famine is insanity.

</comment><comment><USER3> Overly generous. You might be good at holding onto power and convincing your long-suffering people that they really have never had it better.

So he's good at holding other peaceful countries like Japan and South Korea to ransom because they don't want to get into a fight. So far, so dictator, but I don't really accept the hypothesis that this means he wasn't crazy.

Something I read in another report which I thought was hiliarious: "Official accounts attributed his demise to mental and physical exhaustion while riding on a train" - imagine how much exhaustion the Koreans pushing the train felt.

The guy was a nutcase, if measured on any normal scale. He was willing to let his people starve in order to live like a medieval king. If he's so well educated and read, then he knew what he was doing.

</comment><comment><USER4> Outfoxed? When one "outfoxes" another, there is a general implication of success. Kim Jon Il did not achieve success. The rebuttal to this is that he remained in power. However, to remain the captain of a ship that sinks to the bottom of the sea under your guidance is not a success, but a failure.</comment>


The reality of the Ouya console doesn't match the hype - <AUTHOR> http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/the-reality-of-the-ouya-console-doesnt-match-the-hype-why-you-should-be-ske <comment><USER2> I find Ouya a lot less questionable as a Kickstarter project than PA using it as a fundraising platform for operating expenses, which no other company could get away with as far as I can tell.

<comment><USER3> I couldn't have put this better into words than you. I think they are convinced they deserve equal treatment to Wikipedia, since they are planning to do this on a yearly basis. Disappointing.

<comment><USER2> I really don't understand why they chose kickstarter, when they could've just put up a paypal donate option. Well, except perhaps that anything remotely cool on kickstarter gets written up everywhere.

I'd like to add one more thing as well, but don't want to go back and edit: I find that Ouya, by having a -functional- hardware prototype that serves most of the core features it will promise as a piece of hardware, is already well advanced beyond the state of most kickstarter projects. The most frustrating thing for me about kickstarter is how many projects are -conceptual- at the kickstarter phase.

I refuse to give someone money because they're unwilling to take the risk to build the first version of something with their own sweat, blood, and tears before begging for cash. Why should I pay you just because you have an idea? Show me that you can fully implement it. Better yet, show me that you're done and you just need to raise the cash to make it happen. There seems to be something in the start-up world these days that just having the idea and the merest inkling of how to achieve it should be all that it takes to get people to throw money at you.

<comment><USER4> If you build it first, there is a risk that Kickstarter will reject your application as seeking funding for business operations, rather than funding for a specific project.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This article is completely stupid. The whole point of Kickstarter is to sell a dream. 9 months (not 8) is plenty of time to get the pieces in place. And you know what? It'll probably slip a few months. Big deal. The entire article is chock full of FUD. Why not give the company a few weeks or months to make some visible progress before trying to squash the enthusiasm. Donators are only in for $99 so it's not like anyone's going bankrupt over it.

<comment><USER6> You are glossing over the main point of the article; they don't have any games.

A gaming platform is only as good as its games.

<comment><USER7> The iPhone didn't have any games either until the actual iPhone SDK was released, which was much later then the iPhone itself was released.

<comment><USER8> The difference is that the iPhone is a phone, not a gaming platform.

<comment><USER9> Exactly. People who buy the iPhone do _not_ do so primarily for games. People who buy the Ouya do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This article basically hits the nail on the head.

Saying that you could just develop for Windows (or even desktop Linux will have a bigger install base) if you desire openness is a very valid point, but there is one caveat.

This thing ships with a controller, people who are used to playing action type console games prefer to use a controller for pretty much every game type including FPS. Sure you can plug a joypad into a PC but in my experience this is a shockingly rare thing to find people doing "in the wild".

I have a feeling us on HN are sceptical of this device precisely because we _want_ it to succeed _in principle_ but have been burned so many times in the past by "magic open tech" that fails to live upto our expectations.

They might be able to flog some units in the emerging markets, but they better make sure they are making a profit on the hardware because 99% of those customers are _not_ going to be buying legit games from your app store.

<comment><USER11> Rare as it may be, one of the best things I ever bought was the Microsoft adapter to use wireless XBOX360 controllers on my PC.

I thought the OUYA was a great idea after seeing the Kickstarter video, but I'm glad there are enough skeptics around to mention that pesky reality.

<comment><USER10> I have done the same, though for some strange reason my Xbox360 pad (an official one as far as I can tell) actually has a standard USB on the end and requires an adapter to plug into a 360.

The great thing is that pretty much every game on steam supports it and even recognises it as a 360 Pad so game tutorials will display the correct labels and colours for buttons. Works great under Linux too.

What surprises me though is the number of people to whom this ability is surprising "You're playing a PC game with a joypad? What? how?"

It's also surprising that even gaming specialist manufacturers like alienware don't offer joypads as an option when building a system.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Reminds me of The Phantom video game console from around a decade ago. That one also promised the universe, with PA declaring their skepticism back in 2003: <http://penny-arcade.com/2003/01/22> <http://www.penny- arcade.com/2003/08/20/> (the links to the product no longer reference that device -- it never appeared)

There's nothing wrong with civilly expressing skepticism about overly- ambitious claims. This article seems to do a good job of doing just that.

</comment><comment><USER13> It's tough to strike a balance between cheerleading and naysaying here. I've seen the word "scam" thrown around, as well as Roosevelt's bit about the man in the arena. Since Ouya is asking for _your_ money, just take this as due diligence before pledging (or not).

The gaming community _really_ likes jumping on hate bandwagons. I don't think it's productive to drive this brand into the ground before it has its chance.

<comment><USER14> _The gaming community really likes jumping on hate bandwagons._

Big swaths of the tech world are like this as well. As a programmer of over 3 decades, I'm wondering if there's something about computer related tech fields that tends to promote unkind, amoral, and short-sighted outlooks on the world. Alternatively, there could be an attraction for the segment of the populace with unkind, amoral, and short-sighted outlooks on the world. Not everyone in tech is like that, of course, or I'd leave. (This is not to say the PA guys are like that.)

<comment><USER15> I wouldn't jump to say "unkind" and "amoral" but computer related tech fields do attract very analytical thinkers, who are often more critical than less analytical types.

<comment><USER14> Some of those analytical lack enough humility to avoid the appearance of thinking themselves infallible.

Then there is a segment of those in tech who think that whatever they can get away with, they should get away with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> For $99, I sort of see this as my dream emulator platform. Any indie games that I can get on top of that seems like icing on the cake.

</comment><comment><USER17> What it really comes down to, is if you think (or hope) that Ouya will succeed, then give them some money on Kickstarter if you can afford it. If you do not want Ouya to succeed then don't. If you aren't sure, then wait until it hits production.

In the mean time, get back to work on your own projects and stop worrying so much about what other people are doing.

<comment><USER18> best comment on here

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> That has to be the clearest analysis yet for the prospects of the Ouya.

<comment><USER20> Oh but that can't possibly be, surely all the people who are actual gamers decrying how silly all this hype is have to be _haters_!

<comment><USER21> What a nice wet blanket you have.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I was mostly concerned about the controller and how hard it is to get right. Why not just build it with compatibility with other console controllers, including the older 8 and 16 bit systems? This way they dont have to worry about the tricky (and costly) business of designing a controller from scratch-- its very easy to get it wrong, and I'd think video gamers are most comfortable with controllers they are used to.

<comment><USER10> You really need to have a standard controller for a console so that developers know what the hell they are developing for. If I design a game that relies on an analogue trigger and 6 buttons how do I deal with someone plugging a PS2 controller in, or a NES controller?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Don't most high-end Android phones these days allow you to connect to a TV via MHL adapter?

It seems like they would be better served (i.e., able to actually deliver a product at the price point they're pushing) by building a really awesome controller to play games on the phone you already own, and making an SDK to extend games to take advantage of it.

<comment><USER24> Have you ever seen anyone gather around a mobile phone connected to a TV for playing? The first step preventing that already is that people don't want to connect/disconnect hardware constantly.

I acknowledge some points in the article. It will probably be hard/impossible to make a living making games for this console alone. And I was also already wondering if they have any chance finishing the software in time when they are only starting now. But if they manage to release it in time for that price I wouldn't care much - for 99$ a console that's rootable - that alone sounds good enough for buying to me. Also I think his worries about porting the input of games for a controller are overblown, that's not exactly the hardest part when writing a game.

<comment><USER10> It depends on the game, but controls are a huge part of the game experience and many types of games are just fundamentally horrible to play on a particular set of controls. Bad controls will simply ruin a game. I remember the pain of playing Mortal Kombat on a keyboard for example, also bear in mind how long it took for consoles to make FPS games tolerable on a controller. This is worse than that, you might have some luck in porting a touchscreen game over to mouse control or vice versa, but touch control to gamepad?

How on earth would one play "cut the rope" on a controller?

I agree though that it might well be worth the $99 just for use as a media box and to play old arcade ROMs on but the question is whether that is a viable business model for them?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I don't get why Ouya is such a hot story right now, but Open Pandora is not?

<http://openpandora.org/>

The Pandora can do all of the things Ouya dreams about (already has done it), has a working software eco-system, has an app-store in place, and heck .. the Pandora even has its own development tools onboard. All you need to develop for Pandora is available: on the Pandora.

So I think this Ouya thing is one thing altogether (Hype circle), but the Pandora .. its not getting the love it deserves. Honestly, I couldn't be more excited for a next-generation gaming platform architecture than I am for the Pandora ..

<comment><USER26> That thing is atrocious. I don't mind this whole "open" movement, but that hardware is just not desirable. Is it a joke of some sort? The linux screenshot is just...weird.

<comment><USER25> Its a lot lovelier once you've got it in your hands and realize its actually very, very comfortable to hold for hours on end - unlike iPads/iPhones/most other mobile devices.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'm really surprised by the amount of criticism this project is getting, especially compared to the dozens of other Kickstarter 'hits' that I felt were more deserving of said critique.

The real question to me is this - can this team pull it off? If yes, then I don't care about the state of the project, only that the team is invested in it. If the team cannot, then yes, that's a real problem. However, I don't see anyone talking about the team at all.

<comment><AUTHOR> My biggest critique with this KickStarter is they are promising hardware in eight months where only a single prototype exists currently. Like the article says, these guys are not Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, etc so I don't have very much faith in them actually hitting their target date.

I could easily see this shipping on time but with tons of bugs in the hardware or shipping 10 months late because they didn't realize how complicated it was.

Even the Elevation Dock KickStarter, which was the first KickStarer golden goose, has had serious delays and they are building a simple iPhone dock.

<comment><USER27> Sure, but that's becoming par for the course. You could easily blame the backers as much as you could the creators. I've backed many projects that were much simpler and still had huge delays...Pogo's Tibet remix as an example.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Ouya is going to kill the Kickstarter brand. These guys have no clue how to manufacture any hardware and are seriously underestimating the difficulty of turning a prototype into an assembly line. There will be many delays and broken promises on the way to a very late and very disappointing final product, and the whole well-publicized ordeal is going to poison Kickstarter in people's minds.

<comment><USER29> "We break things. Julie Uhrman has been in games for a long time, at Vivendi Universal, IGN, GameFly, and other places. Yves Behar is the award-winning designer of Jambox, One Laptop per Child, and many others. There are plenty of other people involved, but some of them would get fired if we tell you who they are."

Sounds like they have hardware experience

<comment><USER28> Concept design and manufacturing are completely different things. I'm talking about manufacturing experience, and they have none. Zero. You can be sure they'd have mentioned it if they did. Let me address their only revealed experience: "Vivendi Universal, IGN, GameFly," those are all 100% software. "[They] would get fired if we tell you who they are", really? They're asking for millions of our dollars and they aren't confident enough to even minimally risk their current jobs by publicly supporting their own project? That's a huge red flag.

The console industry is littered with spectacular failures of this type, and I'm before I believe this one is worth investing actual money in I'm going to need more than Yves Behar, Julie Uhrman who's "been in the game industry for years" (exclusively on the software side), and several mysterious people who refuse to even be named.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> There is one thing the Ouya has that no other niche console/handheld has ever had... an existing base of software already written and ready to run on it.

Seriously, if you are an android dev you'll need to retool your controls, not port the entire game from one language/platform to anther. That is one of the easier problems to solve as far as making this product a hit.

Really, I wouldn't be surprised if at some point Gamestop buys the Ouya so that they can get in on the digital revenue before their whole business model shuts down. Why do you think Amazon has their own android app store?

Software sales are obviously going, going, gone digital, so Best Buy, Amazon, Gamestop are going to have to become digital stores to sell software/games or they become irrelevant like record stores did a decade ago.

It might be too late, but don't be surprised if BestBuy/Gamestop buy or build something just like the Ouya.

<comment><USER10> Are you suggesting that the porting is the difficult part, or redesigning the controls is the difficult part. If the former I will refer you to my previous post: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4231971>

<comment><USER31> There are a lot of games that would be better played using an actual joystick, heck, lots of them have virtual joysticks or virtual buttons. There are very few games that were really designed based on touch controls.

<comment><USER10> Not sure that is the case, pretty much every game I have installed on my android phone is designed specifically for touch controls, some of them would work OK on a mouse. Very few would be playable on a controller.

Regards joysticks, the only games that I can think of that would be better on a joystick would be flight simulators which probably partly explains the lack of "serious" flight sims available on consoles.

<comment><USER31> I meant controller when I said joystick, it is the common name where I live. The majority of games I have on my android have virtual buttons and virtual sticks, some are ports of older console games, like Max Payne, GTA 3 and sonic CD, some are those gameloft action games and some others are action games from EA and madfinger. I even use my PS3 controller and my device plugged on the tv to play better some of those games.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I know it's very possible for it to be made because $99 Android TV devices already exist including the new Google TVs and the tiny Android Mini PC. (I'm also a huge proponent of Android becoming the OS for everything: device, desktop, TV, cars, & appliances.)

Ouya is the 2nd $99 Android "TV device" I've seen pop up on Kickstarter. The first project was essentially a Mini PC re-branded for Americans (so I passed on it).

Ouya has two hurdles:

1) repackaging it in a new container and tossing in a controller all for the same price. Possible? Sure.

2) Android is such a fast moving platform that their device could be outdated/outclassed by the time they finish shipping. If Google had a clue, they'd repackage the Google TV as a gaming station before Xmas.

</comment><comment><USER10> There is of course an alternative explanation for all of this which is that they don't give a shit about this being a "success" in any commercial or "market share" sense and simply wanted to hack together a cool piece of hardware that they wanted themselves and thought they could make that a reality if enough likeminded people wanted it too.

That could explain why they asked for $1M on kickstarter rather than taking a chunk of investment the usual way.

</comment><comment><USER33> Ouya ships March 2013... which will probably be 3 months after Apple and Google have gaming stores for your TV.

</comment><comment><USER34> Welp, I officially wish this article came out before I pledged on Kickstarter for an OUYA system. I guess we (people who have pledged) can just hope with over $4,000,000 from Kickstarter, they can make some of the systems "dreams" come true! Haha

<comment><USER35> You can revoke a pledge. Go to "Manage Pledge" on the Kickstarter page, and scroll all the way to the end. There's a link, "Cancel Pledge".

<comment><USER34> Oh, awesome, great to know! Thanks for the FYI!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> As I've already mentioned in another thread, OUYA isn't made to replace the Xboxes, Wiis, and PS's of the world. OUYA is not for the mainstream masses. OUYA is a cool and cheap experiment for hackers and developers who like gaming akin to the venerable GP32 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GP32>

<comment><USER10> In that case they better make sure they are turning a profit on the hardware.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I suggest the Penny Arcade guys (who, umm, write a webcomic, what do they know about anything technical?) have a read of _The Future Was Here_ , the story of the Commodore Amiga, for a glimpse at how good engineers with a belief in their mission can go from breadboard to world-beating product almost before you can blink...

<comment><USER38> The author of the article is not one of the comic guys, he was the games journalist of Ars Technica for something like 10 years. Now, that's of course not a technical merit. But it does perhaps suggest some familiarity with the games industry...

Perhaps you could come up with some talking points that address the misgivings presented in the article, rather than attacking the author? Possibly something a bit more substantial than just comparing this project to one done by incredibly talented engineers, and backed by the company that had already made world's best selling computer.</comment></comment>


Race in Silicon Valley - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/3037940/a-different-kind-of-valley-life?utm_source=mailchimp&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=fast-company-daily-manual-newsletter&position=erin&partner=newsletter&campaign_date=12102014 <comment><USER2> I don't mean to diminish the point they're making in the article at all, but there are some parts that jump out...

"And imagine that the worst happens, that your startup fails. You're still good, right? You can just go back to whatever school that you decided to take a leave of absence from . . . or just draw from your trust fund. But when you start a company and you're a black entrepreneur, in some cases there is no alternative. It's a much different experience."

The vast majority of people don't have trust funds and family that can write $50,000 checks on a whim. Obviously in some communities that percent is 99.99% vs 99%, but we're still comparing economic class rather than race.

<comment><USER3> "Trust fund" is perhaps a bit spun. But if you look at it as a social class issue (yes, the quote says "black", but it sounds like a point about poverty to me), the truth is that an awful lot of young "software entrepreneurs" spend their time living _at home_ : They walk about in their middle class neighborhoods with quality internet access, solid development hardware available on their parents' dime, quiet private bedrooms with nice furniture, and easy access to a private car when needed.

Think of starting the next Facebook in an urban apartment where multiple siblings have to share the bedrooms and laptop and maybe the point will be clearer.

<comment><USER4> > Think of starting the next Facebook in an urban apartment where multiple > siblings have to share the bedrooms and laptop and maybe the point will be > clearer.

Or from a rural trailer park. Racial demographics aside, rural areas are consistently the poorest areas:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_poverty#Case_study:_Unite...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_poverty#Case_study:_United_States)

...and especially poignant here, poor kids in rural areas have dial-up internet at best and no city libraries or internet cafes to walk to. And the smart and driven ones have no access to STEM magnet schools.

<comment><USER5> Tangential, but I once heard sci-fi writer Bruce Sterling say that he was more interested in writing about what happened with technology in the hands of someone sitting in a mobile home eating cheetos than with some guy in a suit in an office tower.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As a black Nigerian (it's another level) that spent time this year in the valley, I have a different perspective I hope to elaborate more on in future.

Empathy is going to be important in helping improve things and I believe successful minorities, in my case black (Nigerian) people have a better chance than a white person (without my circumstance) and should step up more.

With my cold emails, it was easier for me to meet white people in tech than black people in tech when I spent 4 months there.

There is a reason Indians no longer have this minority problem.

I hope to write more elaborately about it soon.

BTW, here is the main article. It's a great read [http://www.fastcompany.com/3037933/the-visible- man](http://www.fastcompany.com/3037933/the-visible-man)

</comment><comment><USER7> Some choice quotes:

"So even for a mid-level or lower-level engineer, they'll tell us, "I only want someone who went to Stanford," or someone who has started a company before."

"And most companies in Silicon Valley say, "We hire from these five schools, period," right?"

"If you go to those five schools, the percentage of minorities and the percentage of women is X and Y. Let's say it's 3% and 10%. If those companies hire only 10% of the people they interview, then the number [of minority hires] you get is zero. Right? It's zero."

Absolutely revolting.

<comment><USER8> What? Can anybody comment if it is true that many SV companies only hire from a handful of elite schools?

<comment><USER9> Well, I can tell you that not only did I not graduate from an elite school, I didn't even graduate from college. I've never had a problem finding work at startups. Very rarely does anyone care -- it's always about whether or not you have the necessary skills.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > Let me tell you a story. We only had five Fellows in our first class at > Code2040, but they were amazing. We had one Fellow who had a 4.7 out of a > 5.0 GPA, was copresident of his school, varsity athlete at MIT. They went > through the program and excelled. But when they interviewed at larger > companies, they had to do these "whiteboard" interviews, where you're given > a coding challenge and you go to the whiteboard and attack it. And our guys > didn't get hired, right? They had never done a whiteboard interview. So, in > that case, is there something wrong with the fellow, or is there something > wrong with the interview process? Folks need to really understand what > implicit biases they have. Until they do, the numbers aren't gonna change.

Is he implying that the interview was biased because the coding camp didn't teach people about whiteboard interviews?

<comment><USER4> I think he's fairly explicitly stating that whiteboard reviews are probably bogus. I don't think that's too controversial of a position to hold these days.

I think he's also saying that whiteboard interviews probably disadvantage people from atypical backgrounds. I think that's probable. I've seen people with good resumes struggle in whiteboard interviews due to what I guess are communication and confidence issues.

<comment><USER10> > I think he's fairly explicitly stating that whiteboard reviews are probably > bogus. I don't think that's too controversial of a position to hold these > days.

There has been a lot of criticism of whiteboard interviews, but they're still used because nobody has come up with a good alternative. Larger "take-home" programming assignments are vulnerable to cheating, and "Work with us for a week" only works for people who either freelance or are unemployed.

I also wouldn't say that they're "bogus". Flawed, certainly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "Right, and I want black people to be massively, undeniably successful..."

Contextually, the sentiment of wanting black leadership to pave the way and inspire black youth that success is possible is a noble cause. However, this sentiment exists everywhere regardless of race, religion, sex. People are proud to identify with successful group identities.

The elephant in the room to be tackled in the face of "diversity initiatives" is in the unspoken, unwritten, virtually-non-litigable personal biases. The interviewee touches on it with how individuals can get a culture pass (e.g. sharing a love for the same band). The reality is that ethnic diversity is not a priority and a real risk factor in the beginning of a startup. It is the last thing people are thinking about. The focus is on building a great, productive team with relationships that work. Unfortunately, black and white culture has typically not worked in concert with each other to build social synergies, thus not having the culture pass becomes the unspoken tipping weight.

Of course, this cyclical cycle does not make for very virtuous feedback loops. Up till now, we end up with having predominantly black companies(FUBU,BET,Sean Jean) and predominantly white companies or predominantly black/hispanic/etc groups operating within white companies.

Many examples of successful non-white minorities who have overcome the typical challenges of their respective races appear to have assimilated to being white as well.

The real conversation to have as a society is to ask how can we blend the elements of black and white culture together such that being black or being white allows for a mixed team to be comfortable in their skin with each other?

Getting more successful black engineers, black executives, black CEOs, etc sounds great in an interview, but in the presence of real biases, all we can hope for is many wildly successful black companies where the white kids goto Stanford then Google and the black kids goto the black Stanford and goto the black Google with a small sprinkling of whites and blacks in the respective institutions.

<comment><USER12> The other elephant in the room is the growing number of developers coming from working class families failing to enter the workforce because they don't meet the standard of someone who can afford to relocate every time their business doesn't do well. Many of my friends have failed to get programming jobs even with qualifications because they were almost always beat by someone who either went to a fancy school or had connections to money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> > It's frustrating. People are "big upping" each other because they look like > each other. People are big upping each other because they are white. And if > I big up somebody because they're black it's a problem somehow. [...] We > have a similar skin tone, and in fact, I do want to support somebody who > looks like me. I think that's a good thing. Let's encourage that. I don't > see why that is frowned upon. I don't see why that's reverse racism.

I'm really sorry but if you're 'big upping' anyone in any job because their skin tone matches yours, it is a big problem no matter the RGB of that tone. I'd be embarrassed every morning when I see my face in the mirror if I treated/hired some of my peers better just because they 'look like me'.

Great article overall, but I cannot say I agree with this 'we take care of our people, you take care of your people' attitude. Whether in a minority (hint: I am) or in a privileged position, I believe you should treat everyone equally, reflect on how you've been doing so and try hard to overcome your biases. I'd love to hear other people's comments on this.

</comment><comment><USER14> No mention of Hispanics or Asians on a topic about race?

</comment><comment><USER15> There are many valid points they raise, but this one is pure malarkey:

        But when they interviewed at larger companies, they had to do
        these "whiteboard" interviews, where you're given a coding
        challenge and you go to the whiteboard and attack it. And our
        guys didn't get hired, right? They had never done a whiteboard
        interview. So, in that case, is there something wrong with the
        fellow, or is there something wrong with the interview process?

I hate whiteboard interviews as much as the next person, but it's not like it's a secret that whiteboard interviews are standard practice, and pretty much everyone I know that is good at them became good at them the same way; they studied.

It's pretty common advice everywhere on the internet that when you need to prepare for such interviews that you go grab yourself a copy of the well- regarded "Cracking the Code Interview" by Gayle McDowell or one of the other code interview prep books.

Failing at a whiteboard code interview is not a race or gender thing. It's a failure to do some basic research on what to expect in the interview or a failure to spend the time preparing for what you're going to encounter in the interview process.

</comment><comment><USER16> > _Most students decide at a very young age whether or not they 're good in > math and science._

Do they decide or are they told so on exams? Isn't being "good at math" just a function of how many math-knowledgeable adults surround you whom you could ask for help? Could educational technology (think books---not iPads) make "math help" more accessible and ultimately boost the percentage of "good in math" people to 100%?

<comment><USER17> "Isn't being "good at math" just a function of how many math-knowledgeable adults surround you whom you could ask for help?"

That point is debatable, just like many different form of talents, different people do have different inherent interest and capability at learning certain set of skills, math is no different.

Getting support and easy help can be crucial, but it's not the only bottleneck.

<comment><USER16> I agree with you that everyone has a different "innate ability" for math, but I think the variations are much smaller compared to the average. In other words, there is a bell curve, but it isn't where you think it is: [http://sigeneration.ca/images/Diagram2.png](http://sigeneration.ca/images/Diagram2.png) via [http://www.sigeneration.ca/home/resources/jump- math/](http://www.sigeneration.ca/home/resources/jump-math/)

> _different inherent interest_

That's very true, and this is why it never made sense to me how all kids are pushed through a standardized progression of grades. What would be cool is if you can "focus" your studies on one area during one or two years of school, and then "catch up" on the subjects you left to the wayside.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm slightly distraught by the idea that some companies in SV are choosing their candidates by the schools they went to. They are actively working against meritocracy.

<comment><USER15> Not necessarily if we assume that the schools themselves admitted candidates based on merit, which is a pretty safe assumption. The only attendance criteria that creates a bias against merit is affordability, but my understanding is that at the very top schools there is ample scholarship funding available for the underprivileged, such that finances should never be the reason for not attending if you are accepted.

<comment><USER18> merit is assessed on continuous basis, not one time when you were young. You have merit because you are good at taking test when you're under 18, and then you'll have it easy for life, doesn't sound like the american dream to me. Moreover those schools are balancing the number of full scholarships and the number of full tuitions for economical reasons, some people are there for their parent's money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15>
        If you go to those five schools, the percentage of
        minorities and the percentage of women is X and Y.
        Let's say it's 3% and 10%. If those companies hire
        only 10% of the people they interview, then the
        number [of minority hires] you get is zero. Right?
        It's zero. And to the extent that they are unwilling
        to go outside of those five schools, it's going to
        stay zero.

No, it's not zero, it should be a number that corresponds to 3% and 10%, respectively. Yes, those numbers suck, but it helps to get the math right.

If the number is only 3% and 10% from those schools, then the problem starts at the funnel that feeds those schools [1]. More minorities and women need to apply to those schools, so that the percentage goes up.

Should companies look beyond those five schools? Yes, but...

I'm not going to speak for any other curriculums, but the truth is that most computer science curriculums in the US are absolute garbage. Many CS programs are just java schools [0]. What these companies have done is identified the schools whose programs have a reputation for not being java schools. Historically, you could figure out which programs are not java schools by looking for those that use books like SICP, K&R, CLRS, TaoCP, PAIP, AIMA, EOPL, the dragon book, etc. as the basis for their CS curriculum. If there are schools out there with a much greater percentage of minorities and women that use such books for foundational courses, then you should suggest those schools as places to recruit from.

Simply put, the criteria for spending time, effort and money to recruit from other schools needs to be based primarily on the rigor of the curriculum, with demographics of the student body being a secondary goal.

That all being said, a lot of the best software developers I've met that didn't go to those top schools didn't graduate with a degree in computer science at all. Pretty much all the others are auto-didacts. Assuming this is generalizable, the only actionable you can extract from it is not to recruit based on school at all.

[0] [http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/ThePerilsofJavaSchool...](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/ThePerilsofJavaSchools.html)

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8593277](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8593277)

[2] FWIW, I didn't graduate from a top school (NCSU) and double majored in textile technology and apparel mgmt and psychology, so I'm not even advocating a position I myself gain from.

</comment><comment><USER19> It becomes clearer and clearer when reading an article like this why black people have so many problems. This group of black "tech leaders" are full of bigotry and have severe victim mentality. Much of what they believe as fact isn't even the truth. Things will never improve in the black community as long as these attitudes prevail. Most blacks blame everyone but themselves. They don't take personal responsibility. This is really the issue. Sad how obvious it is, yet this PC country won't just stand up and say ENOUGH. No more handouts, work or starve. A pass is given to blacks on so many levels because of some non expiring slavery guilt card they incessantly use. Even blacks whose ancestors never even were slaves use the race card. Lower expectations of blacks combined with their willingness to accept such a thing is another reason they cannot succeed.

Black immigrant comes to America today with nothing to his name. He sees a successful person and asks "how did that person get to where he is" after being told, he works hard and becomes successful himself.

Black kids born in America today asks the same question and his (usually single) mom tells him. "Son, you have to be white to get there (your never going to amount to nothin)...

or

Mom says, "You have to study every day in school, get good grades, go to a university and study every day there, graduate, get an entry level job, and work, work, work your way up (pay your dues). Kid thinks for a second and says... Naw, ill just be a pro athlete if that doesn't work out I will make it big selling drugs or pimping, that sounds a lot less boring.

These two scenarios are what I have heard directly in 25 years as a career counselor working with thousands of blacks. Blacks continue to embrace a culture and attitude of failure in this country. Black culture in America is just that. Why not leave that behind?

</comment><comment><USER7> "I have a slightly different view. In the report that Google published, they said they've spent roughly $40 million on diversity efforts over the past 10 years.

They've spent, I'll guess, several hundreds of millions of dollars in the past two years on self-driving cars. If companies like Google truly wanted to solve this problem, they'd spend more than $40 million over 10 years and make a much more significant effort.

So my conclusion is that right now we actually don't want to solve it."

Stunningly frank observation, dumping money into a project that will never see the light of day. Ah, Google.

<comment><USER20> These priorities seem sane to me. Vehicles kill over a million people every year. Self-driving cars can drastically reduce that number.

<comment><USER7> Ones that get to market, like those from Mercedes, VW, Tesla.

Google's car tech, and software, will never be adopted by an auto manufacturer. And Google will never sell cars.

<comment><USER21> I am wondering why you think that Google technologies will never be adopted. From what I have seen of the industry there is a good chance they will be adopted.

Google also does not have to sell cars to consumers, it could modify cars to sell a service.

<comment><USER22> That seems like the more appropriate market approach, right?

Cars are these large depreciating assets that spend 22 hours a day doing nothing, save for that one long road trip vacation you take.

Factor out driver salaries and driver insurance, you should save money with an on-demand fleet vs. making payments on your own vehicle.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How many of you have been to a psychiatrist? Did it help? - <AUTHOR>

How many of you have been to a psychiatrist? Did it help? <comment><USER2> Throwaway account for same reasons.

My experience with a psychiatrist did not help much. My main problem being with dealing with people, I really hated having to talk to one more person. I dealt with whatever problems I had on my own and I think I'm fine now. Still, I really wish there was a good AI I could talk to...

What ever happened to Dr. Sbaitso?

</comment><comment><USER3> throwaway account; my normal username is my real name.

My GF of three years is clinically diagnosed with OCD and in the past has suffered from depression (history of emotional and physical abuse). One of her psychiatrists was helpful, the other(s) were not so much.

I went with her at her request on a visit to the helpful one. He basically told her that someone who came to therapy with her obviously cared about her very deeply, and if she had such caring individuals in her life then she had no reason to engage in self-destructive behavior.

Since that time she's been quite stable. Your mileage may vary.</comment>


The Silver Thief: a smart burglar who perfected his craft - <AUTHOR> http://stephenjdubner.com/journalism/silverthief.html

<comment><USER2> Summary: Guy from unfortunate family background becomes a highly successful silver thief, stealing millions in antique silverware from high-end homes in the Northeast. He evades capture for years, as he is meticulous, patient and leaves no trace behind. Eventually he is caught through a series of small breaks. People close to the thief speculate that his motivation was more for the thrill of stealing than for the money itself.

<comment><USER3> My key takeaway: he did a careful analysis of what he should go after, using good insight and careful risk/benefit analysis.

This guy concluded that silverware was the sweet spot. It was quite valuable, easily transportable, unlikely to be hidden, and likely to be located in obvious places downstairs, where there was less risk of waking up the residents.

We should not steal. But we should note the benefits of good cost/benefit analysis.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm not sure what in the world this has to do with HN, but I will tell you that it was one of the better stories I have read.

I want to meet this guy.

<comment><AUTHOR> He found an easily movable good (silver stemware), located in an reasonably accessible part of most every house (downstairs, usually in the dining room), using a crime whose punishment has lessened in severity b/c of its decline in perpetrators (cat burglary) & that he had mastered (stayed in great shape, was meticulous, taunted cops, etc).

Kind of hacked the system if you ask me. Of course he still got caught...

<comment><USER5> Stemware?

<comment><USER6> Candlesticks, goblets and the like.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Great story. A real life 'To Catch a Thief'. To relate it to HN, I think it shows the power of dominating a niche by obsessive attention to not just planning but execution.

"He leaned back and sighed. I began to think that perhaps it wasn't the stealing that was the thrill for Nordahl so much as the escaping. He said, "If you were being chased by a bear, your adrenaline's going to be pumping, you know what I mean? Later, you might not really say, 'Gee, that was fun.' But, at the same time, if nothing else really was going on, it might have added flavor to the day. As long as you got away from the bear. But, of course, if you got caught by the bear, you know, it's another story."

</comment><comment><USER8> He even merits a brief wikipedia article, which indicates he was sentenced to 8 years in 2004. Maybe he's already out?

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blane_Nordahl>

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh nice, that led me to find this Masterminds episode "The Silver Bandit":

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6-TF2e0IHo>

<comment><USER9> Thanks, that looks like a pretty interesting series.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > _"We'll say, 'We know he's fencing here, and when we arrest him he's facing > a life term and he'll turn on you.' Within a week, we'll find Blane in a > drum in the East River, because that's how these guys play."_

It surprises me that i'm not entirely opposed to that idea, but I really have to wonder if it's legal.

<comment><USER11> It wouldn't be too hard to phrase it in such a way that it seems completely legitimate. For example, pull one of the Russian Mafia guys in and offer him a deal to inform, but tell him it's a limited time offer "because we'll have this guy soon and he'll squeal".

(Also even if there are hints of illegality juries are generally unlikely to convict cops).

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> A fascinating story about thievery but so very long and so difficult to read due to the layout, colors and styling.

<comment><USER13> Check out <http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/>

This is the first article that I've actually used Readability on, and it worked wonderfully.

<comment><USER14> Wow, you just saved me the headache of just stripping out the offending White on Black css using a devtool.

Thanks much!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This reasserts that one cannot be perfect from the get-go.

</comment><comment><USER16> Amazing story. No doubt this will be a movie for sure!

</comment><comment><USER17> wow, a long but pleasant read. thanks for sharing.</comment>


Scribblenauts:  taking emergent gaming to the extreme - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjHmtcnQAAs

<comment><USER2> If you don't want to sit through the whole thing, check out the segment 1:20 to 1:50.

When a gamer can do something that surprises the designer, that's pretty damn cool.

Interestingly the Ars Technica review said that this is a game you want to play with kids, because adults often are too linear in how they try to solve the problem.</comment>


Apple rejects Down Dog's latest update for refusing auto-charge after trial ends - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/downdogapp/status/1278048862746234883 <comment><USER2> In other words, Apple is forcing developers to fool customers, to get their subscription sales %. Mafia 2.0</comment>