Similarities Between the Lion Air and Ethiopian 737 Max Crashes - <AUTHOR> https://thepointsguy.com/news/similarities-lion-air-ethiopian-737-max-crashes <comment> tuna-piano Sympathies for all the victims and their families, incredibly sad.

Many of us have heard the phrase "If it ain't Boeing, I ain't going." In reference to Boeing's perceived safe planes. This phrase has lost any meaning to me, and in fact, I'm feeling the opposite way right now.

Boeing's response to the first 737-Max Lion Air crash was abhorrent, in my opinion. While they were taking the time to blame the Lion Air pilots reaction to the plane's issue, and stating how safe the 737-max was, they were also working on urgent patches to their software. The patch is still not yet deployed, but the planes continue to fly.

If initial info of this crash points to a related cause to the Lion Air crash, anything less than a full grounding of all 737-Max aircraft seems incredibly dangerous. I get the feeling that Boeing executives have checked their better moral judgement at the door and are thinking solely in terms of dollars.

I can't help but feel that Boeing and US regulators would have taken the issue identified after Lion Air much more seriously and been much more likely to take action and responsibility if it was a US flight. That thought leaves me with incredibly sour taste in my stomach.

For those who may come to Boeing's defense, take a look at how pilots of the 737 Max responded to the Lion air crash - often with anger.

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/03/world/asia/lion-air- plane...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/03/world/asia/lion-air-plane-crash- pilots.html)

[2] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/11/13/pilots- un...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/11/13/pilots-unions- criticize-boeing-withholding-safety-information/?utm_term=.6da8413fb849)

[3] [https://www.fullwsj.com/articles/regulators-push-for- clarity...](https://www.fullwsj.com/articles/regulators-push-for-clarity-on- boeing-737-safety-systems-after-lion-air-crash-1542854965)

[4] [https://www.fullwsj.com/articles/boeing-and-regulators- delay...](https://www.fullwsj.com/articles/boeing-and-regulators-delay- jetliner-fixes-prompted-by-lion-air-crash-11549821489)

<comment><USER2> We can't afford to wait for evidence proving beyond a reasonable doubt that this aircraft is dangerous.

Probable cause should be a sufficient standard.

Two crashes in similar circumstances is probable cause to take them all out of service until they figure out what the hell is going on.

For myself and my family, we won't wait for regulators and airlines to act. We will not fly the 737 Max.

<comment><USER3> It's interesting that you reach that conclusion.

I'll fly 737 max.

I won't fly Lion Air or Ethiopian Airlines.

Southwest: fleet size 754, founded 1967, total of seven accidents with 3 deaths.

Ethiopian Airlines: fleet size 107, 64 accidents with 459 deaths since 1965.

<comment><USER2> I don't have data on flight miles or flight segments by type of aircraft, so let's do a quick and dirty estimate.

Let's say there are 40,000 commercial aircraft worldwide and 350 of these are the Boeing 737 Max [0].

If all aircraft are equally likely to crash, then the probability of a given crash being a 737 Max is 350/40000 = 0.00875.

The probability that two crashes are both 737 Max is 0.00875 * 0.00875 = 0.0000766

It's extremely unlikely that an aircraft representing less than 1% of the global fleet would crash twice in a short period of time unless there is a serious defect with that aircraft.

That's well past probable cause at this point. This aircraft should be grounded until they figure this out.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Boeing_737_MAX_orders_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Boeing_737_MAX_orders_and_deliveries)

<comment><USER4> > The probability that two crashes are both 737 Max is 0.00875 * 0.00875 = > 0.0000766

You need to multiply this by every combination of two crashes in the observed time period with starting and endpoints not cherry picked to include 737 max crashes though.

<comment><USER2> Be my guest. You'll find that the probability of a rare aircraft crashing twice in a short period of time is infinitesimal, unless that aircraft contributed to the catastrophe.

<comment><USER4> It's hardly infinitesmal, that's my point.

With an average of 175 737's operating since launch, 4K total widebody commercial aircraft and over a dozen widebody crashes in that period, you get over 10%. Some estimates there but you still have the endpoint issue as well.

<comment><USER2> There have been a total of 5 commercial air disasters in 2018 and 2019 with fatalities that didn't involve hijacking, landing short of the runway or overshooting the runway [0].

And that includes the crash of a cargo flight with no passengers where the crew was killed.

The 737 Max 8 was involved in 2 of those 5 disasters.

There are between 25,000 and 39,000 commercial aircraft in service depending on who you ask [1].

With 350 737 Maxes delivered so far, that's at most 1.4% of the total today, probably less than half that this time last year. Let's call it 1% on average for 2018 and 2019 combined.

There are 10 ways you can have 2 Max crashes out of 5 total crashes. So the probability is 10 * 0.01^2 * 0.99^2 = 0.00098

Even accounting for n choose k and longer endpoints, it's still an infinitesimal probability that we'd see two catastrophes with the same rare aircraft -- unless that aircraft contributed to the catastrophe.

It should be grounded.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incident...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incidents_involving_commercial_aircraft#2018)

[1] [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travel-truths/how-many- pl...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travel-truths/how-many-planes-are- there-in-the-world/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> AFP is reporting that an eyewitness saw the aircraft on fire before the crash. If confirmed, that makes this quite difference circumstances to the Lion Air crash.

> _An eyewitness told AFP the plane came down in flames. "The plane was > already on fire when it crashed to the ground. The crash caused a big > explosion," Tegegn Dechasa recounted at the site. "I was near the river near > the crash site. Shortly after the crash police and a fire crew from a nearby > air force camp came and extinguished the plane's flames on the ground."

> He added: "The plane was in flames in its rear side shortly before the > crash. The plane was swerving erratically before the crash."_

Source: [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/10/ethiopian- airl...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/10/ethiopian-airlines- says-kenya-flight-with-157-onboard-has-crashed)

<comment><USER6> With all respect to the witnesses, early eyewitness reports are notoriously unreliable. I remember reading the exact same thing about the plane that crashed in NYC shortly after 9/11\. There were also many 'eyewitnesses' claiming to see the crash of the Malaysian airliner. This report may wind up to be substantiated, but I wouldn't put any weight on it until then.

<comment><USER7> Also TWA 800, where many eyewitnesses saw a missile that was never there.

<comment><USER8> not sure if citing that as an example is such a good idea, considering everything surrounding it. You do have to reject an awful lot of evidence to claim with certainty there was never a missile.

<comment><USER9> They spent 4 years and $40M on the investigation which including recovering most of the fuselage from the Atlantic and reassembling it in a warehouse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Pilot here. I predict that airlines are going to soft ground the Max while this gets sorted out. They might not take them out of service completely, but would not surprise me a bit if they rely on other equipment where possible until this gets sorted out. Better to take a hit on increased fuel costs that risk the loss of an aircraft and all on board.

<comment><USER11> Would you mind detailing the term "soft ground" for my own knowledge? Thanks

<comment><USER12> I think rpmcmurphy's middle sentence explained it: If you can, fly something else. If you're out of all flavors of "something else", then fly the 737 Max.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> There were 41k flights until May 2018 [1]. I was not able to find the current number but with 350 models delivered so far and 4 average flights per day that would sum up to ~500k flights in total at most (but more probably half of that due to ramping up the deliveries).

With 2 accidents the rate is now 4/million. That's at least an order of magnitude difference more than the average of the modern jetliners [2]

Of course, with two events it might be just bad luck but the similarities are concerning, as pretty much everyone observes here

[1] [https://randy.newairplane.com/2018/05/22/737-max-a-year- of-s...](https://randy.newairplane.com/2018/05/22/737-max-a-year-of-serving- the-globe/) [2] [http://www.airsafe.com/events/models/rate_mod.htm](http://www.airsafe.com/events/models/rate_mod.htm)

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm not paranoid, but if I can avoid flights operated with the 737 MAX, I will. Two accidents in 5 months is a dangerously high fatality rate for a new jet.

<comment><USER15> I'd be curious to hear how many successful flights have happened since the 737 Max has launched, for comparison.

<comment><USER16> IIRC someone on airliners.net (not an authoritative source, but enthusiasts) said it was something like 150K. That sounds plausible, given they have produced about 350 of them and the first one flew (commercially) in 2017.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This guy on reddit claims to be a software engineer at Boeing and talks about how the system was mostly worked on by people that didn't understood how it worked, as the core was fortan and they were writing their patches on top of it in other languages.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/azds6k/ethiopian_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/azds6k/ethiopian_airlines_737_plane_crashes_en_route_to/ei7k7m0)

</comment><comment><USER18> Relevant (about the first crash):

[https://www.21stcentech.com/bad-software-boeing-737-max- comm...](https://www.21stcentech.com/bad-software-boeing-737-max-commercial- jet/)

"Those 189 who died were victims of Boeing's redesign of its successful 737 aircraft, all about _putting a bigger engine on it and trying to come up with a solution to correct the airplane's changed aerodynamics_. Boeing realized the redesign could lead to potential stalls. MCAS was the answer"

" _Software combined with sensors would ensure the airplane would not tilt upward at an unsafe rate_. The combination of the two would keep the nose at the precise right angle during all aspects of flight to prevent a potential stall.

Was this, in the end, a good design decision? No based on what occurred to this nearly brand new aircraft"

"Pilots can manually override the MCAS but cannot switch it off without switching off the flight computer. This fact in and of itself proved fatal to Flight 610, its crew, and passengers."

"Since the crash Boeing has sent out _a safety warning with a procedure for cutting off MCAS in the event of an AOA sensor malfunction_. A description of what a pilot would experience should the MCAS receive false data has been included so that he or she would know when to disengage the flight computer and manually take over flying the plane."

Moreover, bad software effectively working against the pilots, again connected to the stalls, was also the cause of this famous accident some 10 years ago:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447)

"In an article in Vanity Fair, William Langewiesche noted that once the angle of attack was so extreme, the system rejected the data as invalid and temporarily stopped the stall warnings. However, "this led to a perverse reversal that lasted nearly to the impact: each time Bonin happened to lower the nose, rendering the angle of attack marginally less severe, the stall warning sounded again—a negative reinforcement that may have locked him into his pattern of pitching up", which increased the angle of attack and thus prevented the aircraft from getting out of its stall.[25]"

<comment><USER19> This is so important… most airlines are inherently stable by design but the 737 Max requires software to be stable

<comment><USER3> No, it doesn't. The 737 max has software to prevent stalls in situations outside of the profile of normal flight. As does e.g. the A320.

<comment><USER20> Yep Apparently the main problem seems to be the fact there is a single point of failure (a single AoA sensor) and it could be resolved by having multiple sensors. Not that some sort of new automation is occurring than before.

<comment><USER21> The 737 max has multiple AoA sensors.

Having multiple sensors doesn't always help, as failures are correlated. For example, there was an Airbus A321 that had 2 of its 3 sensors get stuck in the same position due to icing.[1] The computer thought that the one working sensor was malfunctioning and disregarded it. It then engaged stall protection, dipping the nose and causing the plane to dive at 4,000ft per minute.

> The captain continued to hold "more than 50%" rearward stick in stable > flight for a period, but with help from technicians on the ground, the crew > was able to reconfigure the automation into the aircraft's alternate control > law, rather than its normal "direct" law. The action removed the alpha- > protection checks and canceled the nose-down input. The aircraft then > continued to its destination.

These failure modes tend to happen more with Airbus planes because their flight control systems default to overriding human input if the computer deems it unsafe. Boeing's flight computers will give more resistance in the controls, but they mostly won't prevent the pilot from doing what they want to do. The exceptions (such as auto-trim and stall prevention) can be disabled with by flipping a couple of switches.

1\. [https://aviationweek.com/commercial-aviation/german- investig...](https://aviationweek.com/commercial-aviation/german- investigators-cast-wider-net-frozen-aoa-sensors-pamplona-dive-incident)

<comment><USER20> True but 2/3 failing instead of 1/1 is still the better option. I've read the Max only used one sensor for the MCAS system.

But I'm not an expert on the subject so I'll defer to the reports and more knowedgable people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> They should ground all 737 Max (350 have been built so far) until investigators understand fully what caused these two crashes and a fix is implemented (if it is proven that there was fault in the plane itself).

It's highly unusual for a plane that has been in operation for only 3 years to have two crashes shortly after takeoff.

I certainly won't be taking any flights in them until a thorough explanation emerges of what happened on these two flights.

And Boeing PR should stop saying that the planes are safe (they recently put out a statement affirming it's safety). At best, they should say "we don't yet know, and are investigating".

<comment><USER23> I understand and agree with the suggestion that the whole fleet be grounded, but isn't personally avoiding the planes an overreaction? While the chance of another fatal crash in the imminent future may be high, surely the chance that _you_ would be on it is still quite low.

<comment><USER15> Going on a 737 MAX plane: X% chance of dying

Going on a non-737 MAX plane: Y% chance of dying

Given these two accidents, X > Y

Why sign up for a higher chance of dying?

<comment><USER23> If both are very small, then why wouldn't some other factor like minor convenience wash out the minor safety concern? I don't know about you, but I pick my flights by airline, time, and price. I wouldn't degrade any of those for a very small increase in safety.

<comment><USER13> Right now the MAX version is at least an order of magnitude less safe than the previous generation (put some rough estimated in another comment)

<comment><USER23> Airliners are exceptionally safe as a general rule. Small GA planes are _TWO_ orders of magnitude less safe. Would you avoid a flight in a single engine prop plane? I wouldn't. While it's a _certainty_ that many people will die in small plane crashes this year, it's still unlikely that the particular plane I'm on will crash.

I think this is a classic case of people overreacting to dramatic but unlikely risk. And to be clear, I support grounding the fleet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Being aware of the general standard of software devs + teams, it is terrifying to think that my life is in their hands.

Thats not the case with structural or civic engineering say. The more I know about that the safer I feel.

<comment><USER25> There's also the misplaced emphasis on speed. Software safety and verification courses are considered "advanced" level. CS undergraduates are now led to believe that logic is a bore, and is old-fashioned computer science. Of course, with the advent of machine learning, "It Works!" is now considered as enough proof, so that's a whole new level of crazy.

<comment><USER12> Permit me to point out that "It works!" is _not_ considered enough proof for flight software.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> There is am interesting discussion here:

[https://www.airlinepilotforums.com/safety/120514-ethiopian-7...](https://www.airlinepilotforums.com/safety/120514-ethiopian-737-crash-2.html)

</comment><comment><USER27> How long does it take to ground an aircraft assuming the decision to ground is made?

<comment><USER28> For an airliner, decision could be implemented in under 24 hours if a country's civil aviation authority (FAA for the US) decides it's an emergency. More likely, they'd permit ferrying to maintenance bases, and very unlikely to emergency ground the aircraft absent a finding of same root cause, even if preliminary. I'd be surprised if they took a fleet wide emergency grounding action.

<comment><USER29> Is there any recent history for FAA to issue an emergency grounding for one type of aircraft?

The only example I know is DC-10.

<comment><USER7> Perhaps Concorde, although I don't know if the emergency grounding was mandated by the authority or voluntary.

<comment><USER30> As I recall one of the problems with the Concorde was that the existing fleet was getting quite old and spare parts were hard, if not impossible to come by.

The incident in Paris may have sped up the process of decomissioning the plane, but it would have happened anyway eventually.

All was not lost. A lot of the more visionary aspects of that plane, were implented into later Airbus models (i.e. the glass cockpit derives directly from the Concorde).

An outstanding (if slightly outdated) discussion about all things Concorde can be found here: [https://www.pprune.org/tech-log/423988-concorde- question.htm...](https://www.pprune.org/tech-log/423988-concorde- question.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> IIUC, preliminary investigation said Lion Air plane wasn't airworthy before its flight and basically blamed Lion Air for poor safety processes: [https://wkow.com/news/top-stories/2018/11/28/lion-air- crash-...](https://wkow.com/news/top-stories/2018/11/28/lion-air-crash- officials-release-findings-of-preliminary-investigation/), [https://www.indonesia-investments.com/news/todays- headlines/...](https://www.indonesia-investments.com/news/todays- headlines/preliminary-findings-fatal-lion-air-crash-reported-by- investigators/item9042)

OTOH, I've also seen independent analysis that suggests Boeing was to blame due to the poor disclosure of important changes in the system.

What can explain such a difference in the primary messages from investigators and from analysts?

<comment><USER32> Boeing failed to disclose important changes in the system. _And_ Lion Air's maintenance rendered the plane unsuitable for flight. They can both be contributing factors to the earlier crash.

If the EA flight was caused by the same sensor problem as the LA flight, then it would appear that Boeing's changes were the primary (and superseding) cause of the earlier crash, rendering Lion Air's non-maintenance moot from a legal point of view (in the US, for purposes of assigning damages).

<comment><USER31> Oh so it could imply that Boeing is responsible for two independent contributing factors: sensor malfunction and failure to disclose system changes, correct?

Wouldn't Lion Air processes still remain relevant as a third contributing factor, since fixing any of these factors could have reduced the probability of the accident?

<comment><USER16> Sensors fail, at some point that becomes the airline's responsibility to maintain and not something which can be blamed on the manufacturer. Lion Air had reason to believe the sensors were malfunctioning and they still flew the plane unfixed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Wonder if many airlines just made a habit of flying with broken AoA sensors, which until the 737 MAX was easy to get away with.

<comment><USER34> That would still fall on Boeing, it would be their responsibility to make it clear that what was acceptable in the past (broken AoA sensor) is not anymore.

<comment><USER35> I doubt any company would have supported that configuration officially in the past. That it happened to work is another matter entirely.

One of the engineering improvements that (as an armchair viewer) believe needs to be made is better communication of auto-pilot state to the crew. ANY deviation from designated human input needs to be clearly communicated to the pilots so they know what the hell is doing it and if necessary which system(s) to disable to regain full manual control.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I have read that the reason pilots were not informed of the software and procedure changes is that part of Boeings sales pitch for the 737 Max was that it would require minimal re-training of pilots who had already been flying earlier 737's.

<comment><USER20> Not quite. Boeing said they didn't want to deluge pilots with information when training them on the new plane and that existing manual procedures cover how to deal with the problem by disabling a system. Aka they didn't see changing training or the manual as an immediate solution.

But the final report of the first crash isn't even out yet. Which I find interesting considering all the finger pointing going around (even by arm chair "concerned citizens" in this thread).

Assuming we even know what happened I doubt the solution will end up being a training thing and most likely updates to the software, UX, and/or the addition of back up AoA sensors.

<comment><USER37> > But the final report of the first crash isn't even out yet. Which I find > interesting considering all the finger pointing going around (even by arm > chair "concerned citizens" in this thread).

If a supposedly-very-safe type of hardware kills a bunch of people _twice_ in similar-looking incidents, that is very worrying.

It's a rational reaction to look at these incidents and go "yeaah, I'm going to try and avoid those planes" regardless of whether official reports are out or not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> It's interesting to observe that, _if_ this is indeed caused by a failure in the stall prevention system (and I say "if" since it's certainly too soon to draw conclusions), the media and discussion around it seems to gravitate towards disabling the system or avoiding the aircraft entirely.

But when we think forward to the inevitable autonomous vehicle accidents that will occur, the conversation turns to how many lives they'll have saved, and how much safer they'll be.

Is there a known psychological phenomenon for "negative hindsight, positive foresight" that I can go learn more about?

<comment><USER39> > But when we think forward to the inevitable autonomous vehicle accidents > that will occur, the conversation turns to how many lives they'll have > saved, and how much safer they'll be.

Driving to the airport is orders of magnitude less safe than flying. If a malfunctioning automatic system is decreasing the reliability of flying, that's a huge problem. However, I'd wager that even an autonomous car that's only just able to pass a driver's exam would be significantly safer than a human driver because it would _follow the rules_ and _not be distracted_. Even if that system isn't perfect, it's probably still better than an experienced driver.

<comment><USER40> Except we test humans with tests designed to show that a human who is capable of generalizing knowledge can do a few things that prove they can do more things than that. If the AI isn't capable of that then just being able to pass the drivers test might create a very incapable AI

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> In a way similar to how the third leading cause of death is medical errors, in the future, one of the leading cause of death will be computer bugs.

</comment><comment><USER27> How long does it take for the plane to crash plane after an over-thrust induced stall condition? How long does it take to crash the plane after an errant MCAS induced nose-down event (which might not be overridden by pilot response)?

</comment><comment><USER42> If it ends up being due to faulty sensors they need to add a big disable all assistive software systems switch. It needs to be easy to access switch not something you have to go through 5 menus.

<comment><USER3> There already is a switch to disable auto trim. The pilots on the flight prior to 610 used it, as trained. The pilots on 610 did not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Many comments are debating where blame for the incident lies - some suggesting that Boeing is simply pushing blame onto the carrier and not admitting fault. This very well could be the case, but I do wonder why the crashes of this plane (to my knowledge) have all occurred with carriers that have less than stellar safety records. If this crash had been a European, American, or other airline with a top safety record I would have significantly greater suspicion of the plane model and Boeing specific problem and not just poor safety procedures and training with the airline.

<comment> shaki-dora Going from "Ethiopia" in the airline's name to an assumption (against factsv) of a bad safety record is textbook racism.

<comment><USER43> I think going from an entire continent that has a seriously bad safety record and would be EASY to assume (if you didn't know better, which I didn't) that a member country of said continent probably also has safety and process issues to "you're a racist" is a pretty big overreach. People are WAY too cavalier with that branding of people's intentions. You in no way know me, where im from, who I am... and yet you call me that? Tsk tsk... shame on you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> It is a little off topic, but I hate flying the 737. The way it is shaped makes it feel tiny on the inside even when compared to the much smaller Embrarer E175. It seems to be the only large airliner you will find on domestic flights in the U.S. and it makes me take the bus or drive if I had a choice.

If Boeing were to give the 737 the 787 treatment the benefit to the flying public, airlines, environment, etc. will be huge but as long as Boeing can sell the 737 without a real upgrade it is a cash cow for them and they'll never stop making it.

<comment><USER45> "If Boeing were to give the 737 the 787 treatment the benefit to the flying public, airlines, environment, etc. will be huge but as long as Boeing can sell the 737 without a real upgrade it is a cash cow for them and they'll never stop making it.'

The MAX 8 is very literally the 737 being given the 787 treatment. What are you asking for here? 10 abreast seating? Then it would just be a 787...

<comment><USER46> Yeah the 787 is a very different plane, and imo a lovely flying experience as a passenger. Less noise, lower cabin altitude, spacious cabin, modern passenger cabin tech...it's great! I hope it's safe, but frankly after whats happened recently, I have my doubts.

<comment><USER47> There's a fear that a carbon fiber body won't perform as well in an Asiana Airlines Flight 214-type crash because it's apt to shatter rather than just deform like aluminum.

<comment><USER46> Yeah reasonable, but i wonder if it's also less likely to have stress fractures that could result in unpredictable failure?

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloha_Airlines_Flight_243](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloha_Airlines_Flight_243)

<comment><USER47> In theory, but aircraft are rated for and maximum number of takeoff and landing cycles so that stress fractures aren't a problem while they're in service.

Carbon fiber could change some of the economics around that, but I'm not sure if the airframes wear out from stress before or after efficiency gains make new planes more desirable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> _"Both Aircraft Were Boeing 737 MAX 8 Aircraft"_

I don't see why that warrants mentioning, in the context of the article, where both planes are 737 MAX. Given that _"More than 320 of the 350 Boeing MAX aircraft delivered through January 31, 2019, are of the MAX 8 variety"_ , it would be more surprising if they weren't both a MAX 8 (probability of the latter is about 1:6, if we assume all variants are equally safe)

<comment><USER49> Incident relationship. Two incidents for the same aircraft type in 5 months is a unicorn in the wild situation for aviation. Except like an evil unicorn. That's why it warrants mention.

<comment><USER48> But, having established that both were 737 MAX ( _"However, Sunday's crash of an Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX is the second fatal incident involving the aircraft type in just five months"_ ) the observation that both were 737 MAX 8 is not surprising at all, given that >90% of 737 MAX's in service are of that type.

<comment><USER50> They should also not have mentioned that both planes were Boeings, since 100% of 737 MAX are Boeings.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What cities have gigabit fiber internet access? - <AUTHOR> Here is a question I haven't seen asked.
What cities on the planet have good gigabit fiber internet access?
1. The access should be generally available to anybody in the community, or within a large area of the community.
2. Speeds should be 1 gigabit or higher and symmetric.
3. It would be really good if consumers were allowed to run servers (web, irc, etc.)
4. Access should not be limited to regions. For example, if there are nation state firewalls, you should mention that.
5. Static IP addresses are not a requirement. Static IPv6 would be nice though.
6. Please mention price. <comment><USER2> London, hyperoptic, unlimited gigabit (1gn up and down)

There have been months when I've pulled terabytes (deep learning datasets in and out of London datacenter to home)

About £60ish a month

Static IP available for small amount

Not over entire city but expanding

Very happy with service (no affiliation)

No downtime

Not sure what their policy is on running servers, but I had to ask them to enable something their side before I could ssh home, so there might be restrictions

<comment><USER3> London, Community Fibre.

Very similar company and expanding all the time.

I tried their 1Gb service. It's very impressive. £50 a month.

No affiliation

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> You supposedly can get 10GB near Minneapolis,MN. I checked Chatanooga,TN (municipal broadband) years ago. You can get what you want. It'll cost you more for business service.

1\. Herndon/Oak Hill, VA (1st city to get Verizon FIOS) 1a. I get a Service Level Account (SLA) at my home

2\. FIOS is symmetric 2a. My sister, who lives a block away, says she gets residential FIOS at an advertised 1 gigabit 2b. I would get an SLA just to be sure. 2c. I was told I could get 2 or more lines

3\. I was told I could run a web server. Note that this was years ago.

4\. N/A

5\. I seem to remember you being able to get a static IP address. Naturally, it costs more. I just use DHCP and AWS. Zero to global reach in no time.

6\. I don't know if Verizon would be upset if I mention price. So I won't. I really, really like my Verizon FIOS & AWS service.

Hyderabad, India has 1gb now.

</comment><comment><USER5> York, UK currently has 1Gb coverage across about a 1/4 of the city, with the rest being connected in the next year I believe. Only £25 ($32) a month.

</comment><comment><USER6> Zurich, via init7: [https://www.init7.net/en](https://www.init7.net/en)

<comment><USER7> Nearly all "large" cities in Switzerland now have fibre.

Symmetrical 1GBit/s is pretty much standard, price is between 60 and 120 CHF (about 60-120 USD)

You can run anything on it as long as it's not commercial, there are no filters or blocks on it as far as I know.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've been able to get gigabit everywhere I've lived so far in Seattle (through either Wave-G or CenturyLink), but I only have a sample size of '3 addresses in 2 neighborhoods'.

Cost was around $80-100/month.

Symmetric

Dynamic ip address, but CenturyLink link did not support IPv6.

have had no issues hosting web services.

<comment><USER9> Wave and Atlas are effectively condo/apartment only, I don't think I see them servicing houses.

Centurylink does seem to serve houses.

Webpass also does gigabit now. Their local connectivity leaves quite a bit to be desired though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Most Verizon FIOS markets have gig access. They don't like cities, so you'd need to look at close suburbs.

</comment><comment><USER11> Seattle, Bellevue $80/month

</comment><comment><USER12> Huntsville, Alabama has google fiber for $70/month.

</comment><comment><USER13> I moved from Singapore (where i had 250mbps down /150mbps up) to Mumbai briefly and I've got 1gbps connection from local operator called Jio Fiber.

There is some local filter but it's on DNS level only. If you change DNS to something which is outside the country, you have everything available without any firewall.

It's free for a year or something afaik, i don't know what will be the future charges.

<comment><USER14> Jio is amazing. It really made me feel India won't be left too behind. In a tiny village which had no reception 5 years ago, I got 6gb for 100rs ($1.5) at 40Mbps on the phone via LTE. That's better than T-mobile and AT&T.

Really running circles around stagnant US companies.</comment></comment>


A new landmark in computer vision - <AUTHOR> http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/new-landmark-in-computer-vision.html <comment><USER2> "Our landmark recognition engine, in fact, can provide input data to these 3D reconstruction systems and enables them to be scalable to a large number of landmarks."

This might be revolutionary, as being one of the first automated systems to aggregate visual data into intelligent sets, making it scalable from local to global.

[http://www.google.com/googleblogs/pdfs/google_landmark_recog...](http://www.google.com/googleblogs/pdfs/google_landmark_recognition.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER3> How does this compare technically with Microsoft's Photosynth project? <http://photosynth.net/> ... looks like they're already doing what Google proposes to do.

<comment><USER4> Photosynth aggregates images already known to be of a particular scene and figures out how they fit together. This paper is about taking an image from an unknown place and identifying whether it is of a particular landmark.

Both probably make heavy use of unsupervised clustering techniques on images but are otherwise totally different use cases, if nothing else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Google: we brute-force stuff."

<comment><USER6> The fact that this is basically true makes it all the funnier!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I was super impressed in the street view - navigation updates where the circle changes on depth, and goes sideways on buildings. Really how long until they can upgrade the lasers to work good enough to scan a building front (barcode style).. 5 years? Until then this a great hack-ish way of doing it</comment>


Show HN: Popcorn GIF Search - <AUTHOR> https://popcorngifsearch.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> I built Popcorn GIF Search website as well as the Chrome, Firefox and Edge extensions few years ago with the primary goal of making it easier to put GIFs in Github comments/PRs (using the "copy markdown" feature). I've shared with co-workers people also use it to drag GIFs directly into emails. I've built it to be as fast as possible, a clean UX, and no ads.

I recently rewrote the entire project in React so I could publish the website version and make it easier to update/add features: popcorngifsearch.com but the extension is the best way to use it - it's way easier to drag from the popup into emails and it can be opened using Ctrl+G.

I'd love feedback, feature requests, and ideas on how to get more users.</comment>


Akon: $6B to build a cryptocurrency city in Senegal - <AUTHOR> https://www.complex.com/music/2020/06/akon-announces-six-billion-construction-contract-to-build-city-in-senegal <comment><USER2> This is ... weird.

Like they're just going to build:

"a Hamptons Hospital campus, Hamptons Mall, a police station, a waste facility, a school, and a power plant. Phase 2 will end in 2029 and will focus on integrating businesses to run on Akon's AKOIN cryptocurrency. There will also be parks, a stadium, universities, and an industrial complex in Akon City. "

Just because?</comment>


Cuil Goes Down for Good - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/17/cuil-goes-down-and-we-hear-its-down-for-good/ <comment><USER2> The only lasting legacy of Cuil may be its use in expressing orders of abstraction away from normalcy:

<http://cuiltheory.wikidot.com/what-is-cuil-theory>

<comment><USER3> Cuil theory reminds me of the pataphor: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pataphor#.27Pataphor>

<comment><USER4> Intriguing concept! This is a apt description of the illogic inherent in dreams. Come to think of it, perhaps 'Inception' missed out a golden opportunity to depict each level as a pataphor of the parent one...

(Apologies for the off-topic comment; new ideas are exciting!)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Strange how an unfunded startup with a single founder (DuckDuckGo) is getting better results than a $30million backed one comprised of a bunch of ex- Googlers.

<comment><USER6> That's because cuil was building a search engine from scratch rather than relying on bing's/yahoo's index to do the underlying scoring. Maybe they shouldn't have started from scratch, but they were certainly tackling a much harder problem (maybe not the right one.)

I've heard through the grapevine that they were able to index and serve 100 billion documents on 100 machines, which is a pretty impressive technical accomplishment if true. I'm surprised they weren't acquired for that. It's unfortunate that their search quality wasn't up to snuff yet.

<comment><USER7> "That's because cuil was building a search engine from scratch rather than relying on bing's/yahoo's index to do the underlying scoring."

I've heard this in other discussions of DuckDuckGo here, and I don't understand why bing/yahoo allow a potential competitor free access to data that is so important to their search businesses. What's in it for Yahoo/Microsoft? Or is DDG paying for the privilege?

<comment><USER8> At the moment DDG is effectively a customer, not a competitor. If DDG ever became large enough to show up on Bing's radar (Bing currently has 600x as much traffic), you can bet that the terms would change.

<comment><USER9> As far as I know, DDG isn't paying for access. But I might be wrong about that. Maybe they are they paying for Bing, but not Yahoo?

<comment><USER10> Yahoo have recently announced that they will soon be charging for Boss.

[http://developer.yahoo.net/blog/archives/2010/08/api_updates...](http://developer.yahoo.net/blog/archives/2010/08/api_updates_and_changes.html)

"We are exploring a potential fee-based structure as well as ad-revenue models that will enable BOSS developers to monetize their offerings. When we roll out these changes, BOSS will no longer be a free service to developers."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> $33m sounds like a lot to burn through to get to the gut wrenching point of being down to last pennies.

But for those saying "no one can take on Google" and "search isn't an interesting space any more", remember Google got told the same things about the incumbents and "the portals" when it started.

There is always a better way out there. Someone just hasn't found it yet. Chances are low that Google will still dominate search in 10 years, or that most people will search the way they do now.

<comment><USER12> Yes, people can, and should, take on Google.

At the same time, I happened to be on eBay today and noticed that I've been an eBay member for just over 10 years. Why is it that we haven't found a better way to run auctions online? Most people still list and participate in online auctions almost exactly the same way they did 10 years ago.

I do agree that the pace of innovation is increasing, so maybe 10 years starting from 2010 is the same as, say, 20 years starting from the year 2000.

But I think chances are high that Google will dominate search in 10 years. If someone discovered a better way (and there are many, they just haven't caught on yet) they would just buy 'em out, right? ;) Or maybe Bing will win. But then it's Microsoft winning, and Microsoft is older than me.

<comment><USER13> For the same reason that Craigslist is still king despite its tragic UI. Solving the chicken-and-egg problems of a large, active community and brand- name recognition is orders of magnitude harder than just making a new auction website.

<comment><USER14> There's certain cases, Amazon is another example, where a user interface violates what traditionally is considered 'good' design and is enhanced because of it.

<comment><USER15> Craigslist is minimal but reasonably well-designed. Amazon on the other hand I would go so far as to call awful. The #1 thing I'm looking for when I open a product page is the details about the product and it's _below the fold_. But still, they know far more than me about what sells, so I bow to their judgment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I have a feeling that Google is more worried about a new search paradigm — like social search for instance — than its current competitors in the "index+rank search model".

Hunch + Quora + Facebook questions could well be the biggest threat to Google's quasi-monopoly.

</comment><comment><USER17> Hard to overcome having your company name be synonymous for abstraction from reality.

</comment><comment><USER18> Does this leave Blekko as the last standing independent Google-killer? (DDG doesn't count to me because yegg isn't (yet) indexing the web himself.)

<comment><USER19> Yandex has its own index and shows good results in English (but no photo/video search). Exalead has its own index too but it lacks a good junk filter à la PageRank.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Sad, liked the fact that I could search and not have my search saved for data mining purposes. I think privacy is an important thing. I think giving one company Google all that power is a very dangerous thing. I hope people wake up and start supporting alternative search engines and use Google as a last resort.

</comment><comment><USER21> User acquisition strategy is as important for a search engine as it is for any other consumer web company. Many that read HN are ahead of the curve when it comes to new technologies such as DDG. 99% of America just uses what they have until it breaks. So Cuil's lack of high quality results may not have been their only reason leading to their demise, but with 33m in funding I hope a solid chunk was devoted to acquiring main street America. Yes, Google initially won by having higher quality results, but any new player with higher quality results will only be marginally better than Google.

</comment><comment><USER22> I hope Cuil is open sourced!!

Would love to learn from from Cuil 's cuil code :)

<comment><USER22> Wonder why this was downvoted.. Is it bad to hope that Cuil is open sourced??

<comment><USER23> What do you want to learn - how to make a not-very-good search indexer?

<comment><USER24> No. How to make a highly scaleable search engine. Examples of this sort of thing are not out there, other then nutch and that hasnt been proven as scaling out to the size of cuil.

Cuil's problem was with their ranking, which may be related to what they were indexing, but not to their ability to scale out.

<comment><USER23> It's highly scalable in which sense?

Their index was very large, but their traffic was not. I think I've run websites that handled as much traffic as Cuil did on a good day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I think I called that right:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1693053>

"Cuil is dead".

I don't think this comes as a surprise to anybody.

</comment><comment><USER26> I'm sorry to say it but they never stood a chance, i'm not sure if a company will ever be able to take on Google in search directly.

<comment><USER27> Anybody that filters out the content generators like ehow, ask.com, demandstudios, etc will get an immediate nod from me. Wait.. doesn't DDG Do this? (honestly, I don't know)

<comment><USER28> Forgot where I read it (here?) but he actively removes (dis)content mills.

<comment><USER29> yeah, there was a post about it here a bit ago: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1549690>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Am I the only one who's happy about that? They were a nuisance to website operators....

</comment><comment><USER31> I remember the days when so much hype was around it and now when I read the title I thought to myself, hmm, I remember that name, but who are they exactly?

It feels like they were one of those x factor winners or big brother winners who have a lot of media attention to start with and then become complacent and do not keep up of playing the game of keeping the attention of the public. Marketing is not just five minutes of fame.

I think also that what the above teaches is that there is a lot of hype in social media. Sure there are real serious and enlightening conversations, but much of it is hype and trends and discussions. Maybe it is best to retreat from mass communications like the internet and focus on your projects only. Better be an actor in my own show than a spectator in others.

</comment><comment><USER32> But ... but ... if it goes down, how will it ever kill Google? =:-o

<comment><USER32> That was totally worth the downvote.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I am certainly sure that If I was given 10% of cuil 33M I would have end up with something 10 times more useful and profitable

<comment><USER34> But would you be targeting an sector as attractive to the investors as Google? The investors weren't worrying about the making "just anything" useful or profitable. They wanted Google profits and Google uses.

<comment><USER33> do you wonder whether I claim to be able to set unrealistic targets and reach them, if so the answer is no.

Besides, sow do you know what where the investors willing? AFAIK, investors are normally willing to invest one hundred now and get one thousand several years later. In other words, investing 33M to get 330M 5 or 10 years later.

<comment><USER35> _AFAIK, investors are normally willing to invest one hundred now and get one thousand several years later._

Not quite. VC plans on 9 out of 10 deals not working out. So that remaining 1 in 10 has to make enough to pay for the rest. That means that a 10-fold return just breaks even. But it gets worse. For an investment with a 10 year horizon they need to beat alternate investments. If you peg those at 10%/year (compounding annually), then you now need a 25-fold potential return on investment for the fund to have a chance to meet its goals.

<comment><USER36> ... Why was this modded down?

Is the reasoning wrong, or is there some troll going on that I don't know about? It seems quite realistic to me.

<comment><USER33> I wonder the same, perhaps, this is the new HN.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Snap Launches Snap Shots - <AUTHOR> http://startupmeme.com/2007/04/17/snap-launches-snap-shots/ <comment><USER2> I hate Snap. They're worse than useless. Luckily, you can easily opt out (just click options).</comment>


Go Tutorial: Object Orientation and Go's Special Data Types - <AUTHOR> http://www.drdobbs.com/open-source/go-tutorial-object-orientation-and-gos-s/240005402 <comment><USER2> Just a note, this is adapted from the author's book Programming in Go.

[http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Go-Creating- Applications-D...](http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Go-Creating-Applications- Developers/dp/0321774639/)

This article is second in a series. Discussion of the previous article on HN: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4351992>

</comment><comment><USER3> I know you can use the empty interface but it hands off type checking to the runtime, which neglects the type system for a bit of generality and defeats the safety of having static typing in the first place.

<comment><USER4> You can also import the unsafe package and mess with pointers directly. Neither of these are problems.

Go strikes a nearly perfect balance between saving the programmer from accidentally shooting his foot off and getting the hell out of the way when the programmer is absolutely sure that the proper solution involves bending the rules a bit.

<comment><USER3> I never said these things were problems. I only brought them up because the article doesn't even mention them, or type safety at all.

It is one thing to have code for an example or for an introductory paragraph, but it should be mentioned that `interface{}` is not totally "safe" .

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Thanks for this - I've been through the golang wiki tutorial, but this (ab)use of an empty interface for storing "any"-type in a collection was a great idiom to be aware of.

<comment><USER6> Another way to look at it is that an interface wraps a type by adding a pointer to an extra data structure, which identifies the type and functions on the type that implement the interface. Since interface{} has no functions, all that it carries is the type; it's concretely represented as a pair of the value and its type. Which is more or less how any language implements an "any" type.

(Disclaimer: it still feels awkward to me, but I found understanding the implementation of it helped me understand the why better. See also <http://research.swtch.com/interfaces> .)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I actually quite like this language. I'm learning C right now and love it, but I gotta say, Go is really starting to catch my eye.</comment>


Data Scientist: 40% a vacuum, 40% a janitor, and 20% a fortune-teller - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/p/7f0c8215e845 <comment><USER2> Gathering and organizing data is what other kinds of scientists call "research".

<comment><USER3> Yeah, but researchers cost 40k a year and "data scientists" cost 150k a year

<comment><USER2> So..if you want to get stuff done, hire researchers, not data scientists</comment></comment></comment>


This year's Founders' Letter - <AUTHOR> https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2016/04/this-years-founders-letter.html <comment><USER2> This makes me nervous about Google's long-term prospects. There just aren't any new ideas here. Pichai has been very focused on mobile, and that's not a bad idea exactly, but it's just riding a wave created by Apple almost ten years ago. He's now starting to talk about virtual assistants, but that was kicked off by Siri's launch, almost five years ago. To have long-term success, Google will need to develop genuinely new ideas, ones that not everybody has already heard about. You can't be the biggest player in technology if you never take any risks.

(disclaimer: former Google employee here)

<comment><USER3> What is pichai's claim to fame? It's very hard to figure out what exactly he has done to suddenly rise up to the top. Just a very likable person? I am yet to see anything visionary from him.

<comment><USER4> I think Google Toolbar was his idea.

<comment><USER2> Per Wikipedia, Toolbar was launched in 2000 but Pichai joined in 2004.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This continues the impression I have that Larry and Sergey have lost interest in Google.

<comment><USER6> What are they interested in nowadays, then?

<comment><USER7> Larry seems to be of the megalomaniacal persuasion, his interviews focus on wanting to run cities, airports, etc. Somewhere on the side of "it would be making the world better if it wasn't a dystopian vision". There's the whole curing death thing too somewhere in there.

Sergey seems more interested in the Google X toys, as he always has.

<comment><USER8> There's this weird pattern that happens to geeky types when they become rich and powerful. They suddenly buy into the whole command-economy top-down philosophy when their success and wealth only exists because of the largely decentralized nature of technological markets and tech's low regulatory environment. All of sudden they think they can mastermind everything to perfection. The 20th century had a horrific experiment with centrally planned masterminding that cost humanity 94m lives. This should give every central planner some pause.

Pie in the sky rich guy stuff like immortality (Page, Kurzweil) and central- planning stuff like robot run cities, AI controlled airports, etc are just mindless futurism that either will never happen or will be too impractical or unethical to ever properly attempt. Heck, Page can't even deliver a thermostat that doesn't regularly fuck up in spectacular ways. He wants this cowboy engineering to run cities and fly planes? Meanwhile, Google has competely missed the boat on some real futurist stuff that is actually panning out like VR or private spaceflight.

The only person I can think of who didn't fall into this bizarre pattern is Gates, who just funds a foundation that hands out grants to various organizations, mostly non-profit and NGO, who might get things done. I think this is by far the wiser approach and the one that has the potential for the most change.

Live long enough to see yourself become the villain seems to be in effect here. Most super successful people don't have a second act. They peak and either disappear or just become weirdos who have spent too much time around yes men and in echo chambers.

<comment><USER9> How does your theory account for Elon Musk? Is he not rich enough yet to be "bad" in this way?

Everything I've read about the man makes me think if you gave him $100b he would invest all $100b in doing some awesome project which would only be successful through the superhuman efforts of himself and his team, but wouldn't require a command economy otherwise. Vertical integration inside, yes.

<comment><AUTHOR> isn't it true that all of Musk's companies benefiting from the governments' help in terms of federal subsidies and space contracts? Do you think without it he would have been this successful?

<comment><USER4> How are space contracts governments' help and not SpaceX helping government from the evil ULA?

<comment><USER10> The intent of the COTS contracts was to procure launches for much less than the usual price by providing up-front payments in exchange for a block buy of future launches. Seems to have worked great. Commercial companies sign contracts like that on occasion, when they don't like the prices from their current suppliers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> A pretty generic letter with nothing new that the HN crowd would not know.

</comment><comment><USER12> Even after the birth of Alphabet, Google still has a lot of seeming unrelated parts. Should it have been broken up further? Does it make sense to have YouTube, Google Cloud Platform, and android (but not Fiber or Google Capital) all in the same company? Is there anything other than "profitable" that determines who is in the google-core?

<comment><USER13> AFAICT, it really is "profitable". The Google/Alphabet split is really for investors' benefit; the only folks who care about corporate structure are Wall Street and the government, so the corporate structure is such that it pleases Wall Street, which lets the people actually working at Alphabet focus on their respective businesses.

<comment><USER14> As a small business owner of private businesses, I care about corporate structure! it affects financials and banking and employee organization, as well as private capital infusions. Just saying... I do agree re Alphabet/Google though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> While not directly stated, to me, the letter is a reminder that at some point in the near future AI will not be the next big thing.

Any (reasonable) thoughts on what's next for Google after AI - and how you believe Google will get there?

<comment><USER16> My guess is health and psychology, they get there by creating exceptionally good personal "life coach" bots. Basically like the movie Her minus the FOOM. I guess that is AI, but really it is more a UX problem, a truly engaging positive thinking bot doesn't have to be too complex to change people's lives. It simply needs to be so well designed that it becomes apart of people's lives. Design may be far from googles strength now but results are and if googles bot can improve my life that is all that maters.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> So, not much from the founders then.</comment>


Ask HN: An Online Incubator – What would be a good way to build one? - <AUTHOR>

What would be a good way to build an Online Incubator enabling startups to be incubated Remotely? <comment><USER2> Not to detract you from your idea, but running an online incubator is probably ten times as difficult as a localized one.

Evidence of this can be taken from YC shutting down NYC as their other incubator-area.

Running in 2 locations is hard, imagining trying to manage startups from Hawaii to Sri Lanka.

That being said, there are online incubators, but there isn't so much competition to get in as there is for incubators like YC (unless all those fraudulent applicant mails count).

</comment><comment><USER3> I would think the first thing to do would be to figure out what "unfair advantage" you'd have as an online incubator. One option would be to to find an affluent geographic area without a big tech community and then be "the only guy in town" for raising angel money.

You could own the "supply side" of money for the region and then advertise yourself as being someone who is able to fund people living in low cost places.</comment>


Putting the Wolfram Language (and Mathematica) on Every Raspberry Pi (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.wolfram.com/2013/11/21/putting-the-wolfram-language-and-mathematica-on-every-raspberry-pi/ <comment><USER2> Is it possible to run a Raspberry Pi in a VM on x86? It would be slow, since it's a different ISA, but probably fast enough. Has anyone tried this?

<comment><USER3> You know you can get the cloud implementation for free, right?

<comment><USER2> No, didn't know that -- thanks for mentioning it. Are you referring to this?

[https://www.wolframcloud.com/](https://www.wolframcloud.com/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't know about everyone else, but removing Wolfram is the first thing I do on a new Pi image.</comment>


How Obamacare Fuels the Obesity Epidemic - <AUTHOR> http://fmshooter.com/obamacare-fuels-obesity-epidemic/ <comment><USER2> It costs more to insure obese people. For example, performing surgeries on obese people is much more time consuming and risky. This doesn't seem like something that should be subsidized. Too bad obamacare was about politicians choosing the kind of insurance you can buy instead of actually providing care. Missed opportunity.</comment>


How do keys work? Explained in one Gif - <AUTHOR> http://theultralinx.com/2013/01/keys-work-explained-gif.html

<comment><USER2> How blogspam works. This is blogspam upon blogspam. I dare not say that this link

<http://delima.soup.io/post/295576131/how-keys-work>

is the original link, but it's at least two links closer to the original source than the link submitted here to HN.

AFTER EDIT: Many thanks to the HN reader who found the original source, which deserves traffic much more than blogspam. I flag blogspam relentlessly since another HN user asked about the issue.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4583307>

<comment><USER3> Yep, looks like it's originally from here (and in much higher quality): [http://www.lockpicking101.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=43120](http://www.lockpicking101.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=43120)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Locks are a relatively simple a fun mechanism to play with. Lock picking can be explained similarly. It's essentially simulating that key by popping the pins up to the shear line (the horizontal plane) and applying tension via your tension/torsion tool so the pin doesn't fall down. Then move onto the next one. If you get all pins to the shear line, the lock opens.

It's also a pretty cheap hobby to get into. Though the legality varies by country/state so do check into that first if interested.

<comment><USER5> A few years ago I went and bought myself the cheapest Yale type lock I could find in order to teach myself to pick it. After repeatedly failing I took it apart and discovered some of the pins had recesses that were designed to defeat this kind of attack (I think they're called "spool pins"). I never managed to put it back together again, and that was the end of my lock picking career.

<comment><USER6> Here's a video with more info about these anti-picking mechanisms and how to defeat them:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQVsI4qyl3g>

<comment><USER7> I got caught up with this guy's videos and watched all of them because they are so cool. Thanks for the share!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Old but still relevant. I learnt about locks here.

<http://www.lysator.liu.se/mit-guide/MITLockGuide.pdf>

<comment><USER9> > ...it is worth pointing out that lock picking is just one way to bypass a > lock

A sobering insight after a break-in and a conversation with a locksmith. A lock is only as good as the latch, and door that it's sitting in, and the hinges attaching the door, and the molding surrounding it, and the wall it's in.

<comment><USER10> ... and the person who is responsible for locking the door, and the person who is responsible for following up on reports of suspicious behavior near that door, and the person who is called out when someone finally discovers the lock must have been picked at some point in the past, and the legal system surrounding all of them, and the civil society that gives that legal system authority and legitimacy, and the broader cultural scope that gives the civil society a foundation and a sphere in which to act confidently, which depends on people believing that, if they do wrong in that society, someone will punish them.

So picking a lock in Compton might be perfectly safe assuming you don't get shot outright, unless Compton's been gentrified while I wasn't looking.

On the flip side, you won't even get close to Fort Knox with bad intent, largely because you _know_ you won't get close to Fort Knox with bad intent.

<comment><USER11> _"...you won't even get close to Fort Knox with bad intent..."_

Depends how powerful you are. Why did the gold audit that was supposed to take place been refused? Maybe because there's not anywhere as much gold in Fort Knox as what there's supposed to be. If this is true, people with bad intent managed to bypass the "locks": there's more than one way to defeat the purpose of locks ; )

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> As a kid, I learned how keyed locks work by playing the video game ZZT. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZZT> In "Town of ZZT", one of the built-in worlds, there is a board where you have to move what are effectively tumblers to clear a path through which a column can move freely.

Ah, here's a screenshot of the board! <http://tf2tags.com/dr_dos/img/zzt/town/zzt_036.png>

This board is show as a whole, but in the game the board was "dark" and so you could only see what was within about 5-6 blocks from your character.

</comment><comment><USER13> Seen a similar image a while back. Locks suddenly made a lot of sense then.

Perhaps make another one about how walker keys work with locks like these? If I remember correctly, they were keys with filed down teeth. You had to put the key all but one tooth into the lock and then nudge it all the way in while turning, which would knock the top half of the metal rods up, allowing the lock to open.

<comment><USER14> Same thing as a bump key? Basically you cut down all the notches to the lowest setting (ie the deepest cut for that model of key), and then exactly as you described you put the key in up to the penultimate notch, at which point you apply rotational pressure on the key and knock the key in with some force (aka "bump" it in). The force of the insert bumps _all_ the pins up, and the torque applied to the key catches the top half of the pin in the "open" position as the mechanism falls. If you catch all the top halves, the lock is breached.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I have been brought up picking since I was in secondary school (Both Father and older Brother are locksmiths). It's very interesting stuff and once you see the in's and out's of peoples daily "security" you realise it's just about a game of not being the lowest common denominator. If a thief wants in, they aren't going to spend there time picking (or even bumping) they go straight for the snapper, or simply put the window through.

Apologies on the video music, you might want to turn it down but this is the first Video I come across of snapping a euro cylinder on youtube: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVeij3jffCM>

</comment><comment><USER16> This design is a good visual for why lock bumping is fairly easy on most residential locks.

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

<comment><USER16> On residential locks the tolerances on each pin's traveling cylinder are loose enough to allow you to apply shearing force on the pin by holding the lock tight (as if trying to open it) and quickly bump each pin up so they land on the salient edge of the entire cylinder block and avoid dropping back into a locking position.

<comment><USER17> Wikipedia disagrees with you, albeit without a citation:

"High-quality locks may be more vulnerable to bumping unless they employ specific countermeasures. More precise manufacturing tolerances within the cylinder make bumping easier because the mechanical tolerances of the lock are smaller, which means there is less loss of force in other directions and mostly pins move more freely and smoothly. Locks made of hardened steel are more vulnerable because they are less prone to damage during the bumping process that might cause a cheaper lock to jam."

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'd like to see a version of the gif done with lock picks.

<comment><USER19> <http://i.imgur.com/kaOa0G3.gif>

Here's a version I found on reddit a while back.

<comment><USER20> what exactly is that little dirt stain that moves from cylinder to cylinder supposed to be? is it supposed to represent tension or something?

<comment><USER21> It's the currently binding cylinder. With the right amount of tension applied via the wrench, one pin binds at a time, which is what allows you to set the pins one at a time.

<comment><USER22> why does only one cylinder bind at a time?

It seems to me like the lock shouldn't be able to turn at all until all of the cylinders are pressed to the right height.

<comment><USER4> Due to imperfections in the lock. It only takes a tiny difference for that tension to not be applied evenly so you can focus on one pin at a time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> If I wanted more content like a single gif in a blog post I'd go to reddit. This is currently #1 on HN.

<comment><USER24> I don't see what is wrong with it. It appeals to hackers and explains it instantly. Would you be happy if it was 1000 word article instead?

<comment><USER23> Right. Because I'm dissatisfied with a single gif I want an essay. Sandwiches appeal to hackers. All I'm saying is that there are other places that this is more suited to and this isn't one of them in my opinion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Did anyone follow that blog post, back to Gizmodo, back to the source it originally came from? (Soup) What a weird site, showing all manner of strange things. The internet is a weird place sometimes.

</comment><comment><USER26> This page seems to have debug.phonegap.com script tag included, means anyone can see everyone else viewing the page (and execute javascript in their browser)... <http://debug.phonegap.com/client/#ultralinx>

</comment><comment><USER27> I recommend "Practical Lock Picking" by Deviant Ollam for those whose interest was piqued by this. Besides all the technical goodies, it contains some interesting moral views on locks and lock picking that apply to the digital world as well.

</comment><comment><USER28> That's a great way to explain it.

However, can anyone explain how lock picking works, that GIF makes it seem like it would be very difficult. On TV at least they do it in a matter of moments.

<comment><USER29> SquareWheel explained it very well.

As for the difficulty, you'd be surprised how easy it is. I started picking a few weeks ago for fun and I've been able to pick your basic store bought locks within a couple minutes with the hook tool (where you have to lock each pin individually).

There is another tool, called a 'rake', that tries to set several pins at once -- it basically has several jagged edges, much like a key. With rakes I can beat these locks in a matter of seconds, and I'm a newbie! I'm working on the lower end of locks, but even still, it has made me more wary of home security.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> This is how the most common lock works, but it doesn't cover side-bar locks, Medeco's, or other slightly more advanced setups. Still, good reference point for a basic understanding.

</comment><comment><USER31> It makes me wonder how strong the cylinders are. They look quite small, so it seems like with a tool shaped like a "T" with a wide top you'd be able to force a lock open.

<comment><USER32> Pretty sure they are stonger than any key you could make, so the key would snap before the cylinders do.

Plus, you need to be able to allow the entire mechanism to turn in order to disengage the lock, which the broken cylinders would interfere with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> One cut more to every drum and it would explain master keys

</comment><comment><USER34> I remember seeing this explained on Mr. Wizard as a kid :) He used a giant cardboard key and a poster with moveable tumblers attached to demonstrate it.

</comment><comment><USER35> Since I'm on HN, I was expecting and hoping this to be about public-key cryptography.

</comment><comment><USER36> It doesn't explain MacGyver at all.

</comment><comment><USER37> Very well done

</comment><comment><USER11> What about Mul-T-Lock double-sided keys? Is there any .gif or YouTube video showing how they work?

They seem to be much much harder to lockpick. My key-guy can lockpick garage doors and cars and whatnots but if I forget my Mult-T-Lock double-sided keys he needs to drill through the hole and destroy the entire system to be able to open the door, which then needs a new mechanism.

One of my neighbour got robbed and the thiefs did the same: they drilled through the Mult-T-Lock hole.

Can these be lockpicked? If they can, it seems to be way harder than regular keys or than typical double-sided keys.

</comment><comment><USER38> Welcome to the new Reddit

</comment><comment><USER39> Whoa, mind blown

</comment><comment><USER40> I wonder how did people come up with a structure like that...back in the days people were smarter.

<comment><USER41> This is super interesting as well!

<http://woodgears.ca/combolock/index.html>

Now you know why you had to go twice around when opening your school locker. ;-)</comment></comment>


Publisher Sues AdBlock Plus for Copyright Infringement - <AUTHOR> https://torrentfreak.com/publisher-sues-adblock-plus-for-copyright-infringement-190411/ <comment><USER2> I think what the plaintiff is trying to say is that the code sent to your browser is thier property, and "editing" the code is a use of protected property, to create a derivative product.

      I personally dont see this as actual,
     my impression is when using ad blockers the code pointing to ads is either ignored,
     or not allowed to load into the browser.

If we have a legal requirement to accept every line of code sent then, that makes blackhat and malware deployment, quite trivial. I actually would be concerned that there would be a big uptick in evil payloads on "weaponized" ads if ad blockers were gone.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Lmao this isn't going to go through. Browser plugins cannot modify anything on the servers on which websites are hosted.</comment>


The Prisoners' Paradox - <AUTHOR> http://www.futilitycloset.com/2009/07/03/the-prisoners-paradox/

<comment><USER2> Oh dear. So this is an implementation of the Monty Hall problem but now is crossing over into Metaphysics.

There are several different ways to consider the ontological reality of probabilities (i guess wikipedia only has two listed, Frequentists and Bayesians <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probability_interpretations> ).

The thought experiment in question probably should be answered with a Bayesian world view, and does not appear to be.

Prisoner A's chances of being executed is _not_ materially effected when he learns new information, because the decision as to who has been pardoned _has already been made_.

Finding out new information, does change a probability, but not the probability that he'll be executed. It only changes the likelihood of whether or not the assertion that he will be executed is true. The nature of the universe has not actually changed, merely the state of belief of Prisoner A.

The point being, he's got no cause to celebrate, upon merely discovering information, because learning more information does not actually change the state of the world, in this case.

<comment><USER3> But, did he discovered new information? What if the guard had said "Prisioner C is sure to die"?

<comment><USER4> He did discover new information. The probabilities of survival switched from: A: 1/3, B: 1/3, C:1/3 to A: 1/3, B:0, C: 2/3

He just didn't discover any information to change the probability of his own survival.

<comment><USER3> nice. I think this sums it all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A's chances has not changed.

But the chance of C being the pardoned has doubled to 2/3.

</comment><comment><USER6> As non-intuitive puzzles go I think the hat guessing game (<http://www.relisoft.com/science/hats.html>) takes the cake. I still remember a dailywtf thread where 19 pages worth of people claim that the correct solution is completely bogus (<http://thedailywtf.com/Comments/Riddle-Me-An- Interview.aspx>).

</comment><comment><USER7> Before he asks the question, there are 4 possibilities:

      1. A lives, A gets told B dies
      2. A lives, A gets told C dies
      3. B lives, A gets told C dies
      4. C lives, A gets told B dies

Since in fact A got told that B dies, we are either in situation 1 or 4. However, these did not start off at equal probability. Lets define P(x) as the probability that x is the actual situation. It is obvious that, before the question is asked:

      P(1 or 2) == P(3) == P(4) == 1/3

Thus P(1) < P(4). This remains true once situations 2 and 3 have been ruled out.

<comment><USER5> Interesting setup. So

      P(1) == P(2) == 1/6

When A is told that B dies, it's down to 1. or 4.

      P(1 or 4) == 1/6 + 1/3 == 1/2

So chance A lives is now

      P(1) of P(1 or 4) == 1/6 of 1/2 == 1/3

And the chance C lives is now

      P(4) of P(1 or 4) == 1/3 of 1/2 == 2/3

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem>

<comment><USER9> Yeah, except it's pretty obvious why there is a switch to 1/2 from 1/3 in Prisoner's Paradox and it's not obvious in MH.

What I understand happened in Prisoner's Paradox is that the very field of probabilistic distribution of pardons has shrinked from 3 to 2. It's like binary search. You cheated your way by knowing where _not to look_.

Another simple analogy: you can increase the value of rational number both by increasing the numerator and decreasing denominator. In this case you decreased denominator.

Monty Hall requires a slightly bigger leap of logic.

Actually, here's a more directly linked problem: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Prisoners_problem>

<comment><USER10> You mean it's pretty obvious why there is no switch to 1/2 from 1/3? As the Wikipedia article you linked points out: "The answer is he didn't gain information about his own fate, but he should switch with C if he can."

This isn't the same as Monty Hall. Monty Hall only increases the odds after switching doors. This actually seems like a trick meant to fool people who know about the Monty Hall problem but don't really understand it.

<comment><USER9> It's strange why my blatantly stupid post was upvoted.

I re-read all three problems after you replied and this is what I understood. Talking about Three Prisoners' problem since the article's wording doesn't include the very crucial ingredient for easier understanding: coin flip on warden's side.

For A, it doesn't really matter if B or C were executed. In fact, he knew that either B or C are going to be executed for sure. He knew that at least one person who is not him will be executed.

Warden just named the sure-to-be-executed-guy. Didn't change what he previously knew about his chances, since he still doesn't know for sure whether the-other-not-named-guy is going to be executed.

However, the distribution changed for C. Now A still knows that there 1/3 chance of him living but since we know for sure that the-guy-who-warden-named (B or C) will be killed the-guy-who-warden-didn't-name-and-who-isn't-A (C or B) will have 1 - 1/3 = 2/3 probability of living.

<comment><USER10> Correct.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The clearest explanation I've seen is this. Suppose there are 1,000 prisoners one of whom is to live. You ask the guard to tell you which 998 out of the 999 other prisoners will be killed. So there's one he didn't tell you about. Who do you think has a better chance of living - you or the prisoner in the other group whose fate the guard didn't reveal?

</comment><comment><USER11> Forgive me, but doesn't it seem odd that the problem defines Prisoner A from one perspective, and Prisoner B from another?

Prisoner B could just as well be Prisoner A since A was defined by the narrator, and Prisoner B by the guard. I know we're descending into the theoretical stuff, probabilities and so on, but might there not even be enough information to go down any path at all given this dilemma?

<comment><USER5> Prisoner A is the one that asks. That sets the one an only perspective for the guards answer.

<comment><USER11> Really? From whose perspective is Prisoner A described as asking the question? The narrator's. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but there is an implicit third person in my view.</comment></comment></comment>


Sell Your Web App: Lessons I Learned From Selling DropSend - <AUTHOR> http://www.thinkvitamin.com/features/webapps/sell-your-web-app-lessons-i-learned-from-selling-dropsend <comment><USER2> Great ... I'll file this under my "stuff to remember if my wildest dreams come true and someone buys my startup" folder.

</comment><comment><USER3> I a lot of interesting info that I haven't seen linked yet:

From 11/24/06, via Google cache: <http://is.gd/5cvU>

"How much profit does DropSend bring in each month?

        * Revenue: $9,041.81 per month (and growing by 8.6% per month)

        * Costs: $2,100 per month (Servers at 365main.com + maintenance)

        * Profit: $6,941.81 per month"

<comment><USER4> Interesting... 10X profit would make it an approximately 700K sale. I wouldn't be surprised if that was close to the actual number because Carson wanted around 1M, so after negotiations this seems likely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I guess the "Cash not stock" advice is more true right now, in retrospect, than in general?

I mean, since stock is riskier than cash, you can demand more of it? Of course it depends what stock is on offer - but as the market looks now, and if I'm able to sit on it for five years, I'd absolutely prefer 110 value-units of GOOG over 100 value-units of cash.

<comment><USER6> It definitely depends on the circumstances. Viaweb sold to Yahoo for stock before it went up in a huge way. They probably would have had a much lower price if it was straight cash.

<comment><USER7> In one of the Startup School talks, someone said the $50 mil in Yahoo stock turned into $750 mil. So getting stock worked out pretty well for Viawebbers.

<comment><USER8> there's a huge difference between public company stock and private company stock. public company stock isn't necessarily bad: you can decide to do what you want with it, since it's fairly liquid. if you hold on to it and the price drops, that's a risk you assumed.

private company stock, however, is completely illiquid, and has a very high probability of being worth $0, and that is usually what people mean when they talk about accepting stock vs cash. agreeing to a stock buyout of your company by another private company can be good, but you're essentially trading your risk for theirs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Expect staged payments The buyer will usually pay 50% on completion (signing) of the contracts and 50% on successful transfer of the domain name(s). Make sure to start the domain transfer process the moment the contract is signed."

This is not quite the normal way that it works. In the last 12 months I have been involved in two major UK web acquisitions and, actually, the way it works is that a couple of % of the transaction value is kept as a retention for a full financial year after completion. This is in case of something going wrong (whatever that might be), the buyers will have a pool of cash big enough to sort out whatever is likely to happen. If everything checks out ok, then that cash will be released.

</comment><comment><USER10> Good article.

Interesting about the merchant account/billing stuff. I would think an acquiring company would be willing to work things out over time–even after the sale. After all, all the money is still going to them.

<comment><USER11> Invoices have to be correct for filing your accounts. If they're issued by the wrong company you're making life unnecessarily hard for yourself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> How do you find buyers though?

<comment><USER13> Greatest quote I've heard on the subject: "Companies are bought, not sold."

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> If you're selling someone a company, surely you would just sell them the merchant account and company bank account as well, no? Did they sell the application but not the company?

<comment><USER15> Yes, they did.

Dropsend was the application, and Carson Systems is the company.

<comment><USER16> How common are the two scenarios? A lot of YC companies are created with one and only one thing, so I guess you can sell the whole company. Other kinds of companies might have more products, and sell the product off, rather than the company. Does it really matter much one way or the other?

<comment><USER15> That's a fair point. I think it would matter only when the company in question has decided to share common tasks (like a bank account, or even a user database) across all of their projects.

Quick decoupling or forced encapsulation of projects seems to be a consideration that should be built into a company with more than one product.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Good article.

Does anyone know about how much DropSend sold for?

<comment><USER18> Unfortunately the buyer wouldn't let me say. Needless to say, it was pretty nice :)

<comment><USER19> > [serious buyers] don't want [the price] available to competitors

Anyone know why?

<comment><USER20> This is normal business practice. If you know, then the companys competitors know too. From the price they can infer all kinds of things. If you paid above market price maybe it is a strategic asset, if you paid below market price maybe it isn't central to the core strategy but too good to pass over. Etc.

<comment><USER6> It's normal business practice but that doesn't mean it's logical. The real reason in most cases is just that most people and businesses consider anything to do with money to be private.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Best Resources for Learning UX/Product Design? - <AUTHOR> As a developer who used to work a lot on SPAs, I always considered myself pretty good at UI/UX (considering "the fold", minimizing clicks, etc.)
However, recently, I've come to realize that I actually don't know a whole lot about the theory or best practices, particularly when compared to the creators of the pieces on dribbble.com or behance.
Are there any books, blogs, or articles that people would recommend in this area? <comment><USER2> Well I can't claim they're the best but there are these 3:

[https://uxplanet.org/](https://uxplanet.org/)

[https://www.uxbooth.com/](https://www.uxbooth.com/)

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