Value of a reminder before your meeting? Priceless. Value after? $0. - <AUTHOR>

Working on a slide deck and looking for other examples of the rapidly decaying value of information.<p>Any ideas? I'll buy contributors a beer at Ireland's Four Courts pub in Arlington, VA. <comment><USER2> How about stock market quotes? I've heard of hedge funds relocating their offices so that they can shave a few microseconds off the latency on their stock market trade data.

Road traffic data also comes to mind -- there's no point hearing about a traffic jam after you're already stuck in it, or hearing about an traffic accident after the offending vehicles have already been towed away.

And on a more catastrophic note, there are some systems which provide a few seconds of warning of earthquakes... obviously, having an alarm go off in time for you to climb underneath your desk is much better than having the alarm go off after the earthquake has started.

</comment><comment><USER3> _"... Working on a slide deck and looking for other examples of the rapidly decaying value of information ..."_

News from Bloomberg fits this description and the Bloomberg box ~ <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloomberg_Terminal> generated 90% revenue, 95% of Bloombergs profits (2001 fig.) ~ [http://archive.salon.com/tech/inside/2001/04/10/bloomberg/in...](http://archive.salon.com/tech/inside/2001/04/10/bloomberg/index.html)</comment>


Fungi Discovered In The Amazon Will Eat Your Plastic - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcoexist.com/1679201/fungi-discovered-in-the-amazon-will-eat-your-plastic <comment><USER2> Looks promising, but what does the fungi convert the polyurethane to and how quickly does it eat it?

<comment><USER3> Fungi consuming plastic sounds like a parallel process so even if it takes a long time it doesn't really matter as we can just throw a lot of fungi at the problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is a great find - perhaps it will save the earth for my children. I only have two concerns: will it eat other plastic that I have not thrown out? Also what about patents on this? I am glad some students found this and no BigPharma

</comment><comment><USER5> This is, for me, the biggest reason to save the rain forests. Evolution has resulted in lots of fantastic stuff that we would not have been able to make ourselves.</comment>


Looking for Feedback on Responsive Layout I'm Working on: Demo and GitHub Link - <AUTHOR> http://start.codable.org/

<comment><AUTHOR> Suggestions are also welcome on what would be good to add to the template: like for example extra components or pages..</comment>


House Prices Drop Again in San Francisco and Silicon Valley - <AUTHOR> https://wolfstreet.com/2019/08/15/housing-bubble-2-in-san-francisco-bay-area-silicon-valley-is-cooked/ <comment><USER2> SF Bay Area still has a fundamental problem with a decades long backlog in building new housing supply. Until the fundamentals are solved prices will continue to closely track the max capability of normal working class people to pay for existing supply.

This is unfortunate, since this is money better spend on innovations and people getting enough wealth to start their own thing in their garage.

<comment><USER3> Starting your own thing in your garage is one thing, but we have a much bigger problem, in that service industry workers simply can't afford to live within a reasonable distance of this area, so there's a shortage of that form of labor, despite paying well over minimum wage.

Local stores, bakeries and restaurants, are closing down at a fast rate. I've been living here for a long time, and I'm sad to see small businesses being displaced by upscale chains. Downtowns areas which used to be a mix of small businesses and restaurants, are turning into chains of upscale restaurants and shops that are out of my price range (mid range tech worker)

We're going to find out what an industry town looks like when all industries but one or two are priced out, and the initial indications aren't very nice.

<comment><USER4> I don't know why SF is so popular. It smells bad and is always cold.

Atlanta, for instance, has way more culture (rap, hip hop, country, hollywood) and diversity (of race, wealth, background, career, etc). The food scene is phenomenal - I follow people on Instagram to find out where the trendiest midnight pop-ups are. Music is everywhere. Art permeates. It's about as far from a monoculture as you can imagine.

I own a huge home in the city and pay less on my mortgage than people in SF pay for rent. It's a cool hipster place too - 1800s cotton mill with 20 foot ceilings. A couple of my coworkers have fairly large machine shops in their homes. Space is practically unlimited here.

Food is cheap, rent is cheap, but the experience and lifestyle exceeds expectation.

I work for a tech company and make the same wages y'all do.

The only thing that sucks here is transit, but I live on the Beltline and walk/bike everywhere, so it's not so much a problem for me.

I feel like tech needs an exodus from SF. A lot of the money for innovation is just being handed over to landlords.

<comment><USER5> SF is popular because the weather is incredible. The bay area has cultural diversity beyond what most cities aside from New York can offer.

If you can afford it, SF is a wonderful place but it does have problems big cities with large homeless populations have.

When you say "I work for a tech company and make same wages y'all do", I'd be interested in what that number is.

edit: To clarify on wages, I'm not trying to have a pissing contest. I'm curious what you consider wages that are same as SF. Frankly, I wouldn't stay here if I didn't make what I make but I also know you won't make the same in most tech companies. I'd leave if compensation was sub $200k.

<comment><USER6> > SF is popular because the weather is incredible

If you like cold summers and fog over much of the city... Otherwise you'd likely prefer the weather in the peninsula, which is sunny and warm almost every summer day. In fact Redwood City's slogan is "Climate Best by Government Test", heh. But SF gets surprisingly cold even in the middle of summer.

<comment><USER7> > If you like cold summers and fog over much of the city... Otherwise you'd > likely prefer the weather in the peninsula, which is sunny and warm almost > every summer day.

Why do people assume everyone wants nothing but sun sun sun? It's so boring. I like a bit of cold, fog, and rain.

<comment><USER8> Then Seattle is a much nicer city if that's what one is after

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Prices are definitely softer than they were a year ago, but they appear to have flattened. Note: Summer of 2018 was the highest. Prices reached euphoric levels as people overbid on homes. I'm not certain many of those buyers will recover those costs anytime soon.

Here's the median sale price from Trulia: [https://www.trulia.com/real_estate/San_Jose- California/marke...](https://www.trulia.com/real_estate/San_Jose- California/market-trends/)

We've also done some analysis on home prices in the popular cities. Compared to 6 months ago:

 _Fremont_ [https://agentsunlocked.com/trends/Fremont](https://agentsunlocked.com/trends/Fremont) Single family homes in the 1500-2000 sqft range are down by about 1%

 _San Jose_ [https://agentsunlocked.com/trends/San- Jose](https://agentsunlocked.com/trends/San-Jose) San Jose is up by about 2%

 _Palo Alto_ [https://agentsunlocked.com/trends/Palo- Alto](https://agentsunlocked.com/trends/Palo-Alto) Up by 4%. Inventory in PA is usually quite thin.

 _San Francisco_ [https://agentsunlocked.com/trends/San- Francisco](https://agentsunlocked.com/trends/San-Francisco) SF is flat.

<comment><USER10> A recession resulting in job losses in tech would probably drop house prices. Still at 1.5 million there's a long way to decline.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Based on the charts, this looks more like a cyclical bounce rather than a long-term trend. Even at "9.5% below the peak in May 2018", that's only a little over a year of downward pressure. The question is if an economic downturn combined with new housing starts can actually upset the long-term upward trend for more 18 months.

<comment><USER12> $100-200k of depreciation in a year is rather steep!

<comment><USER13> No, it is all relative. $100k of depreciation of a $200k house is huge, on a $5 million is peanuts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I don't know why the article title (and therefore this post's title, currently) says "House prices drop" as the article specifically says the opposite:

> In California overall, there is now a bifurcation: Condo prices are already > falling on a year-over-year basis, and house prices are still rising.

<comment><USER15> in sf bay area specifically it is dropping. as the title says.

in california (which i am sure you know is different from the sf bay area) house prices are slightly up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Note that the lockup for the recent spate of IPOs hasn't expired yet. It's possible that there will be a small recovery/bounce in the coming winter and spring. We'll see.

<comment><USER17> It's weird, but I wonder if people may be holding on to supply with this in mind. Or even waiting until next spring.

<comment><USER18> But decreased supply from buyers waiting to list should increase prices, not decrease them.

<comment><USER19> Indeed.

However, I wonder how median price is impacted by a shifting mix of the houses that change hands?

If buyers were moving towards the lower end of the market and away from the upper end, you could see the median price decrease when in fact any given house has actually gone up in price.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Over the years I've constantly heard about how expensive X city is. But you look 10 years later and it's even more expensive.

If the city has jobs and the weather is relatively nice versus the rest of the country then don't expect the home prices to drop for any long period of time.

What ends up happening is that a set of people that can't get the right paying jobs get priced out and those that have the right skills move in. We see it over and over again. You would think that technology would have disrupted the situation but it has not.

My thinking is that with the deliver anything in 2 hours apps. It will be easier for people to move into an area where they don't have all the restaurants and small shops people usually like in the neighborhood. They can just order it. Therefore, making it easier for prices to stay up as long as there's a way to pay.

Los Angeles is one of those cities that has long ago priced many people out of being able to buy a home. So what has happened is that people commute into the city from cities around LA. I don't expect that to change in most of our lifetimes.

<comment><USER21> "If the city has jobs and the weather is relatively nice versus the rest of the country then don't expect the home prices to drop for any long period of time."

people move there because of the companies and their HQs, and how the density drives the salary up, it has very little to do with the weather?

"My thinking is that with the deliver anything in 2 hours apps. It will be easier for people to move into an area where they don't have all the restaurants and small shops people usually like in the neighborhood. They can just order it. Therefore, making it easier for prices to stay up as long as there's a way to pay." Again, what does this have to do with the primary motivations to move?

<comment><USER22> I moved to LA for work, but I've stayed for the weather.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The title of the article is misleading. First, is not a serious drop and it is also heavily influenced by seasonality, so "drop again" is kind of pointless, it will drop every year in the low season.

<comment><USER23> The article is comparing year over year. July 2019 to July 2018.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Because the general quality of life here is miserable and it's a filthy area. For instance, in recent events the DA is fumbling the prosecution of a homeless attacker and the judge said jail wasn't always the solution... I saw a guy pull his penis out on the BART escalator and rub it on 3 women! I saw another guy with a huge knife walking around the BART platform. Anyone who took the Civic Center BART would remember the hallways of heroin addicts with needles in their arms. And then houses cost $1M for a house where cops won't do anything about people shitting on your property or camping on your property unless you have a restraining order... and then you a job you work 9-17 hour days at? It's just not worth it. I just wish I knew where I wanted to escape to. Seattle, Portland, Denver are all nearly as bad and getting worse. Where are the normal people fleeing to? Is there refuge somewhere? Austin is seemingly more appealing all the time, but the weather and politics of Texas are turn offs.

<comment><USER25> I'm also curious where people are going - one place is out on the BART extensions. Public schools 9's and 10's, reasonable police response to violent behavior etc (I saw guy spit on old women on BART, she was near tears, she'd asked him to move his feet (he had them out across the handicapped seats). No one even blinks - my guess is he could punch but not kill her without consequence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Not that I think much of technical analysis, but from eyeballing those charts it looks like we're right on the (upwards) trend that has held all decade, with the exception of people getting a bit over-excited in 2018.

I'm quietly hoping for it to flatten off or drop, but I don't see it in those charts.

<comment><USER27> Here's a site graphing in different ways 30+ years of SF and SF Bay Area market data: [https://www.marymacphersonsf.com/30-years-of-san- francisco-b...](https://www.marymacphersonsf.com/30-years-of-san-francisco- bay-area-real-estate-cycles/)

The pattern has been the same since the 1980s.

<comment><USER28> Stanford is not going anywhere. UCSF is not going anywhere. UC Berkeley is not going anywhere. VC not going to completely uproot anytime soon. Can't build much farther out in the suburbs due to water shortages, and not making more land. NIMBY prevents higher density housing projects.

Apart from fires and earthquakes, I don't see why the trend will change.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Seems to be really strong seasonality. How does that make sense? Wouldn't people put off their purchases until -it looks like- the end of the year?

<comment><USER30> Summer is generally the busiest time of year for real estate purchases and Christmas/New Years is generally the slowest.

<comment><USER31> Summer is the slow season for real estate in SF. The peaks are in Spring and Fall.

<comment><USER32> Maybe for SF. But for outlying areas, summer is still peak because parents don't want to move when kids are in school.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Yet from what I've seen rent prices continue to hold or rise. If I had to guess, more and more people may be opting away from home ownership so the charts on demand for purchasing homes may be trending downward as demand for renting trends upward. Would've been interesting of the article juxtaposed the two but it could help explain why prices for one has gone down as the other goes up.

<comment><USER34> >>> more and more people may be opting away from home ownership

I don't think people are _opting away_ from home ownership but rather forced away from home ownership due to high down payment requirement and lack of enough jobs that allow someone to save enough.

Who has $100,000 in cash to put down 10% downpayment?

It is a vicious cycle.

Less people are able to afford downpayment. So more people are crowding into rental market. But affordable rental supply is decreasing as more rental units are converted into condo/house AND more people are forced into rentals.

It is really a vicious, destructive downward spiral.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Having boots on the ground here, have to wonder if related to all the increased Austin emigration.

<comment><USER36> I'm seeing significant migration to basically any liberal city with a decent quality of life. I've lost friends to Boulder, Toronto, Boston, Raleigh/Durham, Seattle, and Sydney (Australia).

<comment><USER37> > Sydney (Australia)

Do you think people on HN don't know where Sydney is?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> What is the seasonality?

It looks like prices peak in the summer and bottom out in the winter. The difference in price isn't far off from what a Realtor would charge in commission (otherwise there would be arbitrage.)

Am I right about that?

</comment><comment><USER39> I think the most important principle here is that no reasonable and compassionate housing reform should be attempted until I, I mean, until people, until people have a chance to cash out at the peak.

</comment><comment><USER40> There aren't enough 1%ers being minted by things like Google and Facebook IPOs to drive purchases.

(Winter is coming)

</comment><comment><USER41> Left Bay Area in mid-2000s. Cannot go back. Not sure if I want to.

</comment><comment><USER42> SF median price is 1084$/sq ft. It still has a long long way to drop before it gets anywhere close to the 128$/sq ft nationwide average. At the rate of -6% per year, it would need to continue dropping at that rate for 35 years before we reach the national average. So, one way or another, we're going to be stuck with extremely high housing prices for a really long time.

<comment><USER43> Why would one ever expect the median price per square foot in San Francisco, a metropolis with high economic activity, to ever approach that of the US on average?!

If we're going to pick targets, then comparing it to other large metropolises in the US makes more sense (LA: $678, Seattle: $526, San Diego: $447)

<comment><USER42> Those are more examples of over-regulated over-zoned blue state cities that have done it wrong.

Take a look at a city that knows what they're doing with housing, like Chicago or Houston (population 2 million and over, and Houston growing x4.5 faster than SF!). Houston added 364K people in the last 8 years. How many did SF do, a pathetic 80K in a city that has sooo many tech companies and soo much money. SF and other blue cities have a lot to learn about how to grow, and how to create the type of policies that allow them to do so (some of the population is hellbent against that).

Know how much housing costs in a city twice as large as SF, growing x4.5 times faster, Houston is 143$/sq foot and puts the entire West coast and every other blue state/city to shame.

<comment><USER44> Better to regulate than to let developers build in a designed flood zone, as Houston did.

They're stilling tallying the damages from the recent flooding there and it's in the billions.

Also, Chicago is one of the bluest cities in the country. It's even bluer than Los Angeles or San Diego, both of which have sizable conservative populations.

<comment><USER45> That's one of the first things I check when I'm renting. I don't live in flood zones, even if they're levee'd.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Playing for Data: Ground Truth from Computer Games - <AUTHOR> http://download.visinf.tu-darmstadt.de/data/from_games/ <comment><USER2> Watching the video, I'm not sure what I'm looking at. On the left are a number of buttons with objects, on the right a cursor colors corresponding objects in the image. It looks very human in behavior but tells me nothing of what is happening here.

It also claimed they use communication to the GPU, but none of that is visible in the demo. It looks like a magic wand (like Gimp's) that selects pixels of similar color for videos, except much slower.

And finally the times mentioned: the first two images took an hour or more to label, the third seven minutes. I'm guessing that's their innovation but I'm wondering what object recognition program takes more than a few seconds to process a frame in the first place. They mention being 'pixel perfect' but any object recognition would be, given it can recognize each object in the image and thereby classify each part of the image.

<comment><AUTHOR> The first two images are from real-world datasets, where someone drove around a city, took pictures, and then labeled all pictures manually. That usually takes 60-90 minutes per image because you have no other information than the picture itself (depth data from lidar or stereo is much sparser and does not help much in fine-grained outlining of objects). If you had an algorithm that could do this perfectly, you would not need this kind of datasets. So the purpose of these datasets is being the training data for object detectors and the like. The problem here is that modern algorithms (e.g. CNNs) need tons of data to train (the more the better), but that training data is extremely costly if you need an hour per image.

Now they also create a dataset, but instead of recording and labeling the real world, they take images from GTA and use extracted mesh/texture/shader ids to automatically label all objects in an image.

However, the game does not provide any of these 'rendering resource to object class' associations by default (at least not at the level they are intercepting the game/gpu communication). So someone has to make this annotation in the first place. That is the 'magic wand' tool, where someone is still annotating, but the human effort is reduced by nearly 3 orders of magnitude (7 seconds per image) compared to the conventional way of creating those datasets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The language used on this page is surprisingly poorly written. Can someone explain what this paper is actually demonstrating? I assumed that phd holders knew the rules for writing paper abstracts, but this abstract doesn't follow any of those rules?

<comment><USER4> It's actually pretty simple/clever. Constructing labeled imagery costs a lot of time and effort. I assume the current approach is to have a bunch of humans (undergrads, most likely) sit through every image and label (color) them: these pixels are trees, these are cars. Probably it's relatively error prone as well.

The authors propose to just use <some open world game> to take a huge bunch of images. Since we're talking about a game, the computer has a perfect internal representation of entities and hence things that can be considered cars, trees, streets, etc. We can thus not only obtain an image per frame that looks close to the real-world, but immediately also one that is labelled.

Why is this helpful? To train computer vision models such as the ones used in self-driving cars. Of course, the assumption here is that the imagery obtained from a game is close enough to the real world, so that a trained model would continue to work in the real world. I haven't read the paper in full, but the authors experiments show that this is the case. They still use some original imagery though, so perhaps it's not possible to use game-imagery alone. I also don't think an experiment was performed to see if this method would still hold up when using games having older, worse looking engines (it would be interesting to see whether deep models could still generalize towards the real world from this).

Finally, the authors spend a lot of hacky efforts in forcing the game to outputting labelled images. As others have suggested here, they probably would have been better off contacting some mod authors (who could whip this up in a day, probably) or even the game developer itself (though I don't think Rockstar would be particularly interested to collaborate on this).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Seems like they should be writing some shaders / rendering mod that did all this in realtime... I thought that was what their solution was going to be, but they're still doing it semi-manually per image with that annotation tool.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, I found that very strange, too. And you'd think they would at least propagate object types from texture image bindings (assuming GTA V doesn't use virtual texturing, though that could be worked around as well).

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Seems like building a GTA style simulator in UE4 or Unity would be a better solution in the long run rather than hacking GPU resources like an aimbot developer.</comment>


Keyword arguments done right (in Clojure) - <AUTHOR> http://stuartsierra.com/2010/01/15/keyword-arguments-in-clojure

<comment><USER2> The article describes a reasonable approach, but requires passing keyword arguments into a function as a separate map. I wrote a macro, let-kw, which allows a more natural calling convention: (my-fun req1 req2 :kw1 kw1-val :kw2 kw2-val)

I opened a ticket so let-kw would be considered for clojure-contrib inclusion ([http://www.assembla.com/spaces/clojure- contrib/tickets/51-Ad...](http://www.assembla.com/spaces/clojure- contrib/tickets/51-Add-let-kw-to-c-c-macros)). The actual (final) macro source is posted on the Clojure mailing list (<http://groups.google.com/group/clojure/msg/3ee695696c5ea1ec>).

<comment><USER3> This highlights one of my biggest problems with lisp and macros. Every personal preference of every coder results in a macro that changes the basic symantics of the language. If I were to pick up code that used this macro, now I have to lean a new function call syntax. Just one macro to change the function call symantics, and just one DSL isn't a problem, but multiply that by every coder's interpretation of "natural calling convention" and every domain's DSL and next thing you know, you don't even recognize the language anymore. The original author usually thinks it make code "cleaner" and more readable, but I find that it rarely does.

<comment><USER2> 1\. As cemerick pointed out, let-kw operates inside the function definition. It does not change any semantics.

2\. Most keyword arguments for Clojure's built-in functions follow the calling convention which let-kw makes easy, whereas the pass-in-a-separate-map convention is not used in clojure.core anywhere (that I can think of).

3\. I've heard this type of anti-DSL argument before, but no one making it has ever linked to a (source-available) project where this caused a problem. Frankly, I've never heard of a dailywtf-type horror story about this, either. Do you actually have some evidence to support your view?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wonder how they combine rest args with keyword args. Here's how I do this in my arc macros:

      (paginate '/search' 10
          ;; optional keyword args
          nextcopy "Next →" prevcopy "← Prev"
        :do
          ;; body
          (preprocess docs)
          (each doc (cut docs start-index end-index)
            (render-doc doc)))

More details: <http://arclanguage.org/item?id=10692></comment>


Lilium - <AUTHOR> https://lilium.com/ <comment><USER2> Mission Statement: "Our mission is to enable a world where everybody can fly anywhere, anytime."</comment>


Kary Mullis, inventor of PCR, has died - <AUTHOR> https://mynewsla.com/education/2019/08/08/nobel-winner-kary-banks-mullis-who-revolutionized-dna-research-dies-in-o-c/ <comment><AUTHOR> Also, the PCR reaction was effectively described in an earlier 1971 paper from Gobind Khorana (see final paragraph): [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0022283671...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0022283671904694)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> More color on Kary Mullis: [https://classic.esquire.com/article/1994/7/1/is- kary-mullis-...](https://classic.esquire.com/article/1994/7/1/is-kary-mullis- god-or-just-the-big-kahuna)</comment>


US Senate bill allows White House to disconnect private computers from Internet - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10320096-38.html <comment><USER2> 0.

So, when you look at something like this, I think you have a choice to make: you can put on the tinfoil hat and concede any relevance you might have to the discussion, or you can recognize the real weaknesses of this bill and the process that is producing it and comment rationally on whether the government is capable of legislating improved security for its own systems when those systems are by necessity constructed from COTS pieces created by unregulated technology companies.

1.

The thing that everyone is going to talk about here is the definition of a "nongovernmental critical information system". The term is defined broadly in this bill: the President designates them. But I think the intent here is pretty clear: private industry operates the E911 system, the cellular phone network, all our financial exchanges, and a good chunk of the power grid.

Most of these systems are in some way connected to public networks: for instance, a generic Cisco VPN vulnerability could get you a telco, which would get you to private leased lines. Before you shrug that off, read up on "Operation Sun Devil", and the state of the art of teenage hacking in 1991.

I think it's hard to say that the NSC, given a secret update that, say, all Cisco IOS versions were vulnerable to a pre-auth generic TCP remote code execution vulnerability, should NOT have the capability to ensure that exposed power grid systems were locked down.

On the other hand, I agree that the wording is overbroad. I'm interested in what HN people think good wording would be for what would qualify as a nongovernmental critical information system.

2.

What sucks about this situation is this:

The broad intention of this bill, to improve "cybersecurity" across all of US industry and government systems, is going to fail. You can't legislate it.

But narrowly, this bill is going to define what it means to work with systems at DOD, law enforcement, and energy. And I don't care that much, except that the existing processes in these areas are arcane, arbitrary, and exclude a lot of talent and ideas. Relative to financial services, DOD does _not_ have excellent security.

But since everyone is going to get ratholed in the meaningless broad intention of the bill, nobody's going to get into the nitty-gritty of secure software accreditation, procurements, certification of personnel, funding for technology and technology grants, and so on. Those topics are boring, but they're more important than whether you can outlaw insecurity.

<comment><USER3> " ... created by unregulated technology companies."

As best I can tell there is not a single company in the US that is not regulated in some way. Whether the regulations are good, bad, sensible, inane, is a different matter, but regulation is as American as apple pie.

<comment><USER4> If may be a bias, but when I think of what characterizes the word _American_ , I think of something more like Unix than Multics.

(Even though _America_ itself certainly contains plenty of both models.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Rough summary:

"A bunch of American politicians have worked themselves into a right tizzy over something they don't even come close to understanding. In response, they are trying to pass a law saying that they run the Internet. When asked his position on the bill, a senior Senator emitted a series of 1990s-era buzzwords."

<comment><USER2> Politicians don't write bills. The law doesn't say they run the Internet. But you're right, when asked, 72-year-old sponsoring Senator John Rockefeller was unable to give a coherent summary of how information security works.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> What's dangerous is that people are letting the military, politicians and the cybersecurity industry raise the hype and fear about the online world. That will only feed their budgets and militarize the internet. Remember the hype around Conficker and "cyberwar" in Estonia. Neither, in hindsight, meant anything. Good network security practices for the government? Sure! A secretive government internet security program run by the NSA and DHS and a Pentagon botnet? No, no, no.

<comment><USER2> Which is why it's disappointing that even the people on these comment threads haven't managed to be more cynical about all the Conficker stories that have been posted over the past several months.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Key passage from the article:

"Probably the most controversial language begins in Section 201, which permits the president to "direct the national response to the cyber threat" if necessary for "the national defense and security." The White House is supposed to engage in "periodic mapping" of private networks deemed to be critical, and those companies "shall share" requested information with the federal government. ("Cyber" is defined as anything having to do with the Internet, telecommunications, computers, or computer networks.)"

"The language has changed but it doesn't contain any real additional limits," EFF's Tien says. "It simply switches the more direct and obvious language they had originally to the more ambiguous (version)...The designation of what is a critical infrastructure system or network as far as I can tell has no specific process. There's no provision for any administrative process or review. That's where the problems seem to start. And then you have the amorphous powers that go along with it."

<comment><USER2> That's Sec. 18 (5). It says:

 _(5) shall direct the periodic mapping of Federal Government and United States critical infrastructure information systems or networks, and shall develop metrics to measure the effectiveness of the mapping process;_

Which is to say, the government will have an inventory of its networked assets. Which, if the WaPo ran an expose about how the government _didn't_ have an inventory of their assets (they don't), we'd be writing comments making fun of them about.

The thing that's freaking people out is Sec 23 (3), which says:

 _(3) FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AND UNITED STATES CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE INFORMATION SYSTEMS AND NETWORKS- The term 'Federal Government and United States critical infrastructure information systems and networks' includes-- (A) Federal Government information systems and networks; and 3 (B) State, local, and nongovernmental information systems and networks in the United States designated by the President as critical infrastructure information systems and networks._

23 (3) (B) allows the president to designate a "nongovernmental information system" as critical. That's scary until you realize that:

* There clearly are nongovernmental information systems, such as SCADA and nuclear controls facilities, or E911, or GSM towers.

* Those nongovernmental systems are often scarier than the systems this bill is really going to impact, viz. secretary desktops at Interior.

* The other requirements of this bill w/r/t those designated critical systems are so onerous that it's unlikely too many systems will be so designated.

* Those nongovernmental systems are often already under intrusive regulation, for instance NERC/FERC, and this bill is just aiming to harmonize that.

I'm not saying I like the language here. I don't. But it's just a badly written bill. It's not a conspiracy.

<comment><USER8> I agree, the wording could be misinterpreted, but it's clearly not the intention.

<comment><USER9> > I agree, the wording could be misinterpreted, but it's clearly not the > intention.

How do you know the intent of the bill's authors and the folks who are likely to vote in favor? (I'm not doubting you, I'm asking about your sources.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> Here's the actual bill text:

<http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-s773/text>

<comment><USER10> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=792178>

<comment><USER2> I like the OpenCongress interface better, but thanks, interesting to compare the two.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm no expert. Can anyone think of a set of circumstances under which this power could be reasonably used?

Alternatively, can anyone think of a _likely_ misuse of this power? (I'm not talking black-helicopter stuff here, just standard-issue governmental overreaching).

<comment><USER12> Misuse: the shutdown switch or codes aren't properly secured and Foreign Enemy X shuts down your country's internet throwing it into chaos.

Introducing systemic weakness isn't the answer when you're trying to strengthen your network, strengthening your network is the answer.

<comment><USER13> Let's hope they don't try to automate this; CALEA was complex and expensive enough.

<comment><USER2> And CALEA narrowly impacted on the tiny minority of systems that directly worked with voice communications. The tinfoil hat interpretation of this capability would cost hundreds of billions of dollars.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> AFIK the President has always had these powers in wartime. The War Powers act allows the gov't to mandate complete control over any of the countries resources, oil, trains, airwaves, etc...

</comment><comment><USER15> Look for booming business in offshore hosting facilities.

<comment><USER16> I'd say, look for alternative physical transport layers. I don't know the timeframe until practical deployment on a significant scale, but I fully expect this.

<comment><USER17> Agree. Ultra-wide-band mesh wireless networking perhaps? I've heard UWB can exist over licensed spectrum without even affecting existing narrow-band reception.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is part of a pattern. The US state has been making a concentrated effort over the last decade to establish an infrastructure that will protect them from their own citizens (the establishment of Northcom being the foremost example). Why the sudden fear, unless they plan on imposing something they anticipate will be met with widespread resistance?

<comment><USER19> The government always tries to extend its power. That does not mean that it is engaging in some grand conspiracy, it's just the natural tendency of government to grow.

<comment><USER18> The natural tendency of government is to extend power and when the power extension efforts suddenly narrow their focus to a certain realm it indicates a trend. Given the resources and coordination needed to fuel a trend in development of a state's security apparatus there is likely a perceived threat behind it.

Cold War efforts, for example, were in anticipation of possible conflict with an external enemy. In this case, as the Pentagon's recent request for authorization to deploy 400,000 troops within the US indicates (<http://tr.im/xn5T>), the perceived threat is domestic. This begs the question why they are anticipating a domestic threat.

<comment><USER2> It's true, and the APCs stationed on every block of my neighborhood are damned annoying, as at the Lt. Col's constant requests to quarter soldiers in my house. I'd be fine with it, except they want they beds, and not just the couch. SIC SEMPER TYRANNUS!

<comment><USER18> Don't you bring the dinosaurs into this.

<comment><USER2> Oh crazy left-wing message board geek, I just can't stay mad at you.

<comment><USER18> Predictable ad-hominem is predictable... I'm still waiting for a reasonable justification for the US military deploying twice the force currently in Iraq domestically.

<comment><USER2> Yeah, that'd be an awesome conversation for HN, wouldn't it. And we'd all learn so much about cybersecurity, too!

<comment><USER18> Any _reasoned_ discussion about things that matter has the potential to be interesting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> What I realize about this is that, in the day and age of a global Internet, localized government is becoming rather irrelevant. Laws like this aim to keep the people under control and the government in power.

</comment><comment><USER21> Has the whole piracy episode taught us nothing? You cannot control the internet. The internet is about the efficient conveyance of information: it's basically a law of physics that nothing can stop information from spreading.</comment>


Mathematicians Bridge Finite-Infinite Divide - <AUTHOR> https://www.quantamagazine.org/20160524-mathematicians-bridge-finite-infinite-divide/ <comment><USER2> Here is a little anecdote: I met Ludovic Patey at the École normale supérieure that we both entered in 2009. Among our classmates, Ludovic was easily the best programmer and mastered a lot of different technologies (from advanced web stuff down to assembly languages), so we were all quite surprised when he chose to turn to pure mathematics… But then during his PhD he has been immensely successful (invited as keynote speaker to conferences, praised by peers, and an impressive list of journal publications). A few weeks ago, he has been ranked first in the CNRS 2016 recruitment competition, which is internationally competitive. When that competition started he hadn't even graduated from his PhD yet! Which means he (deservedly) bypassed the cumbersome post-doc phase by which virtually all young researchers must go through these days. This time, none of us were surprised :) !

</comment><comment><USER3> Great article, very well written and actually understandable without hunting down mathematical definitions.

I think it is quite cool that people are still hunting down the various different incarnations of infinity and are able to prove deep results like this.

On the other hand, I don't think that these questions are as essential as they are made out to be. How do we know that everything finite is on unshakable foundations? Doesn't even thinking about what that statement means involve reasoning about infinities? Let's just accept that nothing ever is really unshakable and let's use the tools that will get the job at hand done.

<comment><USER4> But we can be more sure of things that are less shakeable. Additionally, these techniques sometimes give us more effective proofs: for example, if we know that A is true, that is less useful than knowing that A is true _and that we can find a finite certificate of its truth_. We can make computers verify finite certificates, for instance.

A useful distinction to have in mind is: I know that the number 91 must have prime factors, because I can prove that all numbers have prime factors. But that's much less useful than knowing that its prime factors are 7 and 13. Similarly, if I could prove A using infinitistic methods, that's in some sense "a bit less useful" than a proof which uses finitistic and/or constructive methods.

<comment><USER3> My point is that if you prove that 91 has as its prime factors 7 and 13, I don't care if you did that proof using infinite methods or not.

In general, I am only proving theorems that are useful to me, so "a bit less useful" doesn't apply to these situations. If I needed that "bit more usefulness", I would go ahead and prove it (if I could).

Your reasoning mostly only applies if you prove theorems for their own sake, and not because you already know what you want them for.

<comment><USER4> It's only an analogy. The analogy is meant to be "prove that 91 has prime factors" using infinitistic methods, and "prove that 91's prime factors are 7 and 13" using finitistic ones.

<comment><USER3> I am aware of that. That's why analogies are usually not very useful.

<comment><USER4> I have no idea how you learn, but analogies are basically the only way I use of absorbing new concepts.

<comment><USER3> Interesting. I learn by playing around with the concept until I gain some intuition about it. No analogies required.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Related (a bit of Cantor and Hilbert, no direct relation to Ramsey's theorem):

"How To Count Past Infinity" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrU9YDoXE88](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrU9YDoXE88)

<comment><USER5> How do people produce videos like that? It must be very expensive: shooting, pictures, music, all these animations, montage. It can't be done a hobbyist?

<comment><USER6> Vsauce is a hobbyist. As he got more popular and ad revenue came in, he could afford better cameras, mics, and props. Hes actually the most successful of the VsauceX (X=1,2,3,4) channels but still keeps them as a network because they are all friends. Honestly, YouTubing like anything else, takes effort more than anything. Some of the most successful channels used a smartphone camera for well past a million subscribers. And part of the rub is that there are a ton of good channels with very little success. Good art and entertainment is borne out of desire to share, not desire to bear. At least in my opinion. Because there will always be garbage to cater to garbage.

I should mention, most of the editing can be easily done in After Effects with a couple weeks of training. Its really amazing how accessible having your own syndication is these days. I am not interesting enough or entertaining enough so I leave it to those who are. Sticking to HN threads so I can hide my ugly mug ;-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wrote a short note [1] to try and clear up some of the misconceptions in this thread. Feedback welcome; Hacker News thread for the short note at [2].

[1]: [https://www.patrickstevens.co.uk/finitistic- reducibility/](https://www.patrickstevens.co.uk/finitistic-reducibility/)

[2]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11769425](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11769425)

</comment><comment><USER7> >Whereas almost all theorems can be shown to be equivalent to one of a handful of major systems of logic — sets of starting assumptions that may or may not include infinity, and which span the finite-infinite divide — RT22 falls between these lines.

Could anyone explain this statement? I feel like it's key for understanding the rest! How exactly does RT22 fall between 'these lines'?

<comment><USER8> From later in the article:

> Almost all of the thousands of theorems studied by Simpson and his followers > over the past four decades have turned out (somewhat mysteriously) to be > reducible to one of five systems of logic spanning both sides of the finite- > infinite divide. For instance, Ramsey's theorem for triples (and all ordered > sets with more than three elements) was shown in 1972 to belong at the third > level up in the hierarchy, which is infinitistic.

> A breakthrough came in 1995, when the British logician David Seetapun, > working with Slaman at Berkeley, proved that RT^2_2 is logically weaker than > RT^3_2 and thus below the third level in the hierarchy.

> "Since then, many seminal papers regarding RT^2_2 have been published," said > Weiermann — most importantly, a 2012 result by Jiayi Liu (paired with a > result by Carl Jockusch from the 1960s) showed that RT^2_2 cannot prove, nor > be proved by, the logical system located at the second level in the > hierarchy, one rung below RT^3_2.

So: there are five nested axiomatic systems that have been in common use to classify how much a theorem relies on infinite concepts. RT^2_2 is weaker than the third of those, and hard-to-compare with the second of them. (The second system can't prove it, but it also can't prove the second system.)

The new result says that RT^2_2 is reducible to primitive recursive arithmetic, which should mean that PRA is capable of proving anything RT^2_2 can prove. The article mentions that Mysterious Classification Level 2 is also reducible to primitive recursive arithmetic, so, as far as I understand things, PRA was already a system that fell "between the lines" of the five Mysterious Classification Levels (since Mysterious Level 3 is infinitistic and PRA is not).

<comment><USER9> In case you're curious, the five systems in the article are mentioned by the original paper, and correspond to the ones described here: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_mathematics#The_big_fi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_mathematics#The_big_five_subsystems_of_second_order_arithmetic)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> As a noob, I'm having a hard time grasping why the Ramsey pairing is interesting: If you pair up every member of an infinite set with every member of that same infinite set, of course you'll get an infinite subset for almost every predicate about a pairing, just by virtue of starting from an infinite superset.

It seems like the theorem would be interesting if it said something about the "magnitude" of the subset, not just that it's infinite.

<comment><USER11> It's hard to know what you're finding uninteresting/confusing from your description. Perhaps it would help to note that _every possible_ pairing is given a colour, and in your infinite subset _every possible_ pairing within that subset has the same colour. To me this is quite counter-intuitive.

There is a somewhat enlightening comparison to be made between Ramsey on pairs and the result that every real sequence x_n has a monotonic subsequence. You get this result as a corollary by colouring a pair of natural numbers a<b red if x_a <= x_b and blue otherwise.

Interestingly, the Ramsey theorem can be extended to three, four or any number of colours. I believe you can use this to show that any real sequence has either a convex or concave subsequence, but I'll omit the details :p

There's also a delicate balance between the infinite and finite going on. Clearly, with an infinite number of colours you could get a colouring without a monochromatic subset. More surprisingly perhaps, if you colour the _infinite subsets_ of the natural numbers red or blue, then there exist colourings for which there is no monochromatic subset.

<comment><USER12> I have the same confusion as the GP, so let me try to ask a clarifying question:

Is the challenge to partition the pairs (of natural numbers) such that both partitions are infinite and monochromatic? Is that the hard thing that was proved here?

If so, how about "color red if a = b-1, blue otherwise"? Then the infinite subset (0, 1), (1, 2), (2, 3), ... is monochromatic.

What criterion did my partition there fail to satisfy?

<comment><USER13> The hard part is to show that for _any_ coloring, there's some infinite subset without relying on "well, we can just pick one for each of these infinitely many numbers".

I'm pretty sure that the challenge is to prove that you can for _any_ coloring construct a finitely defined rule for picking the members of the subset which is guaranteed to give you a monochromatic subset.

The question is more about if you can always find such a (finite) rule to partition the set, rather than if you can in a few easily constructed examples.

<comment><USER12> But it's not true for any coloring, e.g. "red if a and b < 20, blue otherwise".

<comment><USER13> Wouldn't the subset {(a, b) | a,b > 20} be monochromatic?

Ed:

Perhaps I phrased it poorly, but I think the point was to show that you can always construct a predicate, P over a and b, such that P(a, b) is finitely defined (such as "a > 20 and b > 20"), but {(a, b) | P(a, b) is true} is infinite and monochromatic.

Instead of having some cases of colorings where your only option is to construct things of the form "(a = 5 and b = 17) or (a = 3 and b = 47) or ..." where you just list out every pair that matches (in an infinite subset).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > The boundary does not pass between some huge finite number and the next, > infinitely large one. Rather, it separates two kinds of mathematical > statements: "finitistic" ones, which can be proved without invoking the > concept of infinity, and "infinitistic" ones, which rest on the assumption — > not evident in nature — that infinite objects exist.

Let Y = some ridiculously huge finite number. The notion that ∞ = Y + 1 has to be one of the most insidious defects in reasoning. Even to acknowledge the defect by dismissing it is almost like saying things could have turned out that way when they _never_ could.

Finite means limited or bounded or quantifiable. Infinite means unlimited or unbounded or unquantifiable. They are two wholly separate classes of things. Another way to say this is discrete versus continuous (in nature).

Imagine I said that I could bridge the coloured/non-coloured divide. What could I possibly mean by that. It would mean that I have found a way to talk about both coloured things and non-coloured things that applies to both class of things.

Put another way. Imagine I separate coloured things into green ones and not green ones. Both subclasses belong to the class of coloured things. What class then do the subclasses of finite things and non-finite things belong to? Negation constructs the distinction, negation _is_ the bridge in a way and all the could be said of both subclasses of things is that they are both things. (Which, to be clear, is not saying very much at all, is it?) If those things are numbers then all we are saying is that both things are numbers, if both things are procedures then all we are saying is that both things are procedures. And so on.

If I'm thinking about this properly then the paper is trying to more precisely define the term "countably". That's as most as it can do. To say otherwise is not just vastly overstating what the paper is about but outright misleading.

<comment><USER4> You're not thinking about this properly. There are some facts about finite objects which simply cannot be proved without reasoning about infinite objects - for example, the well-definedness of the TREE function. These facts are true if you have access to infinite objects, but not necessarily if you don't.

This paper shows that a certain class of statements about finite objects, which we knew were true by virtue of reasoning about a certain infinite object, in fact remain true if you're restricted only to reasoning about finite objects.

<comment><USER14> I tried to give my reasons by using only appeals to objects of our common understanding. You have countered my claim by appealing to "the well- definedness of the TREE function". Do you expect me (and everyone else) to know what that is? In order for us to be able to follow your argument you would need to spell that out in a bit more detail.

If I'm not thinking about this properly, which of the assertions I made was incorrect? Where is the error in my reasoning? Is there an error in how I am conceiving things?

> This paper shows that a certain class of statements about finite objects

From what I can gather, it's not that simple. For a start, the initial set is the set of natural numbers. This is not finite. The procedure for generating/enumerating them is. The paper deals with pairs of inequalities based on the natural numbers and sub-sequences to be found therein. This set of pairs is also non-finite (but I'm happy with the assertion that in some sense it is a different order of infinity from the natural numbers). We are now trying to reason about the nature of the sequencing of these sub- sequences.

Are you saying that sometimes the sub-sequences are finite? If so, their complement would be infinite. And it is the partitioning that makes this so.

<comment><USER4> Your understanding of the point of the theorem is very different to mine, and I'm moderately sure my understanding is pretty close to correct.

It is a fact of mathematics that there are some statements which are solely about finite objects, but to prove them requires reasoning about an infinite object. For a more accessible example than TREE, I think the Ackermann function falls into this category. The Ackermann function A(n+1, m+1) = A(n, A(n+1, m)) is well-defined for all n and m (we prove this by induction over NxN), but the proof relies on considering the lexicographic order on NxN which is inherently infinite. (I'm not totally certain that all proofs of Ackermann's well-definedness rely on an infinite object, but the only proof known to me does.) Ackermann's function itself is in some sense a "finite" object, but the proof of its well-definedness is in some sense "infinite". Whatever the status of my conjecture that "you can't prove that Ackermann's function is well-defined without considering an infinite object", it is certainly a fact that Ackermann is not primitive-recursive, and "primitive- recursive functions" corresponds to the lowest level of the five "mysterious levels" the article talks about.

So the analogy is as follows. Imagine that we knew of this "infinitary" proof that Ackermann is well-defined, but we hadn't proved that no "finitary" proof exists. (So finitists are not happy to use Ackermann, because it might not actually be well-defined according to them: any known proof requires dealing with an infinite object.) Now, this paper comes along and proves that actually a finitary proof exists. Suddenly the finitists are happy to use the Ackermann function.

The actual definition of TREE is a bit too long for me to explain here, but it is an example of a function like Ackermann, which is well-defined, but in fact if you're not allowed to consider infinite objects during the proof then it is provably impossible to prove that TREE is well-defined. So the statement "TREE is well-defined" is, in some sense, "less constructive" or "more infinitary" than R_2^2.

<comment><USER14> I really appreciate your reasonable and measured tone but I'll need some time to digest your comment. It's a brain-full :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The book Where Mathematics Comes From demonstrates that the concept of infinity itself is finitistically reducible via conceptual metaphor. This really isn't that surprising though, is it? Our experience is grounded in the interaction of concrete, finite objects.

</comment><comment><USER16> So if I get the gist of this correctly, this makes proofs that are applicable to finite sets/structures/objects easier to translate to a proof that's applicable to infinite sets?

</comment><comment><USER17> You may be interested in Wildberger's recent Math Foundations series lectures. 180 [* * _] may be a decent starting point.

[_ * *] [https://youtu.be/LJR24_Povzw](https://youtu.be/LJR24_Povzw)

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm having trouble imagining what finitism actually is, based on what I remember from set theory. Is it equivalent to Zermelo-Frankel set theory without the axiom of infinity?

<comment><USER19> I found this helpful:

"The main idea of finitistic mathematics is not accepting the existence of infinite objects such as infinite sets. While all natural numbers are accepted as existing, the set of all natural numbers is not considered to exist as a mathematical object. Therefore quantification over infinite domains is not considered meaningful."

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> does this 'heirarchy of logic' have any direct relationship to computational models, or do all (non-hyper) models fall under a single category?

</comment><comment><USER21> I love the fact there's a long popular article devoted to the proof "that RT^2_2 is Π^0_3 conservative over IΣ^0_1", as the abstract of the paper summarises it. Reverse mathematics is a fairly niche area even within mathematical logic. Kudos to Natalie Wolchover for taking it on.

<comment><USER22> It makes me curious how Quanta is funded. The journal is very high quality and in a niche market: pure science journalism. I can't imagine they make enough subscription revenue; maybe it's funded mostly through the Simons Foundation?

Either way, glad it exists!

<comment><USER23> I believe it's funded by James Simons

<comment><USER22> Ah, now I understand. For others:

Simons Foundations --> James Simons, who is a hedge fund mananger worth ~ $14billion.

Excellent interview with Numberphile here:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNznD9hMEh0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNznD9hMEh0)

<comment><USER24> In addition, James Simons was a mathematician prior to his work in the finance industry, hence his partiality toward funding a magazine that often writes about pure mathematics.

<comment><USER25> I believe he is now back at Stony Brook in the mathematics department. Not full time, he has a lot going on, but some kind of affiliation.

<comment><USER22> I bet being an academic is a lot better when you don't have to worry about being a post-doc searching for a faculty position :/

<comment><USER26> To be fair, he was a successful researcher who became professor and later chair of the Mathematics department at Stony Brook _before_ starting Renaissance, so he got past all that the normal way.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google in fresh WiFi access push - <AUTHOR> http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/dad3871c-f9d0-11dc-9b7c-000077b07658.html

<comment><USER2> man i'm tired of hearing 2.0 tacked onto stuff. anyone know what the approx. total bandwidth available in the "so-called white spaces" is?</comment>


Thoughts on the culture that gave birth to the personal computer (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://www.bricklin.com/cultureandpc.htm

<comment><USER2> Isaacson's sketch has been deleted from medium.com, but this appears to be a copy:

[http://kielarowski.net/2013/12/20/the-culture-that-gave- birt...](http://kielarowski.net/2013/12/20/the-culture-that-gave-birth-to-the- personal-computer/)

I hope Isaacson doesn't overlook J.C.R. Licklider's contributions. M. Mitchell Waldrop wrote an excellent book about that called _The Dream Machine_ ; here's a review:

[http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/9.10/streetcred.html?...](http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/9.10/streetcred.html?pg=2)

</comment><comment><USER3> Paul E. Ceruzzi's A History of Modern Computing does a good job of filling in the story, as Bricklin wishes here that someone would do. It is especially good on the 1950's, 60's, and 70's, and the origins and legacy of DEC (Digital) and other companies and people that loomed large at the time, and were influential in creating our present world, but are not so well remembered nowadays.

<comment><USER4> I just read it last week by chance and second the recommendation. It's not as good a book once the DEC era ends (I think Ceruzzi kind of loses interest in the modern era) but his coverage of mainframes and minicomputing era are really fantastic. I also highly recommend "DEC is dead! Long live DEC" as a good history of DEC's rise and fall.

<comment><AUTHOR> As to the "Long live DEC!" I know of a company here in Austria which still deploys VMS machines (albeit not any more on Alpha but Itanium/HP Hardware iirc). Thanks for the book recommendation!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> On a tangent - if you didn't like the Isaacson biography (it's pretty ... lacking ... isn't it?) and you haven't read the stuff on [http://www.folklore.org](http://www.folklore.org) or the book [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_in_The_Valley](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_in_The_Valley) \- go do it, it's intelligently written first hand anecdotes from the beginning of the 80s at Apple.

Let's read up on history - Dan Bricklin certainly has wet my appetite for a book on Digital (even as a Unix guy ;) as well as the origins of VisiCalc and "spreadsheet" programs respectively (IMHO the closest tools non-programmers have to achieve programmer like powers and problem solving satisfaction).

<comment><USER5> A few books on computer / computing / internet history:

1953, Faster Than Thought, B.V. Bowden (British 1940s & 50s) [https://archive.org/details/FasterThanThought](https://archive.org/details/FasterThanThought)

1984, The Home Computer Wars (Commodore, Atari, Apple) [https://archive.org/details/The_Home_Computer_Wars](https://archive.org/details/The_Home_Computer_Wars) [http://www.amazon.com/The-Home-Computer-Wars- Commodore/dp/09...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Home-Computer-Wars- Commodore/dp/0942386752)

1985, History of Computing Technology, Michael Williams (Abacus to IBM360) [http://www.amazon.com/History-Computing-Technology-2nd- Editi...](http://www.amazon.com/History-Computing-Technology-2nd- Edition/dp/0818677392)

1985, The Great Telecom Meltdown, Fred Goldstein (USA deregulation) [http://massis.lcs.mit.edu/telecom- archives/TELECOM_Digest_On...](http://massis.lcs.mit.edu/telecom- archives/TELECOM_Digest_Online2005-1/3458.html)

2001, The Universal History of Computing, Georges Ifrah (Egypt to 1970s) [http://www.amazon.com/The-Universal-History-Computing- Comput...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Universal-History-Computing- Computer/dp/0471441473)

2002, Electronic Brains (UK, US & Ukraine soon after WWII) [http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/electronicbrains.shtml](http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/electronicbrains.shtml) [http://www.amazon.com/Electronic-Brains-Stories-Dawn- Compute...](http://www.amazon.com/Electronic-Brains-Stories-Dawn- Computer/dp/0309096308)

2008, Geeks Bearing Gifts, Ted Nelson (rants & factoids) [http://www.amazon.com/Geeks-Bearing-Gifts-Ted- Nelson/dp/0578...](http://www.amazon.com/Geeks-Bearing-Gifts-Ted- Nelson/dp/0578004380/)

2010, Commodore, A Company on the Edge, Brian Bagnall (war stories from 6502 through C64, no Amiga) [http://retroasylum.com/commodore-a-company-on-the- edge-revie...](http://retroasylum.com/commodore-a-company-on-the-edge-review/) [http://www.amazon.com/Commodore-Company-Edge-Brian- Bagnall/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Commodore-Company-Edge-Brian- Bagnall/dp/0973864966)

2011, The Interface: IBM and the Transformation of Corporate Design, 1945–1976, John Harwood [http://www.west86th.bgc.bard.edu/book- reviews/interface-ibm....](http://www.west86th.bgc.bard.edu/book- reviews/interface-ibm.html)

<comment><USER6> _The Home Computer Wars_ is _excellent_ , great insight into Tramiel, his various experiences prior, and how he made Commodore so successful during that period.

At this level in this subtree, hoggle's recommendations of _Accidental Empires_ is strong endorsed, if for no other reason than the anecdote about how Intel, by then a very big company in revenues, possibly Fortune 500, was almost killed by a single well intentioned low level employee. Emphasizes how much more fragile tech companies are than old fashioned Fortune 500 companies.

 _The Cuckoo 's Egg_ is a fantastic story in and of itself, about how a starving astrophysics grad student given a temporary sysadmin job went from a less than $1 accounting discrepancy to nailing down a KGB plot. One of the more interesting things is how the always publicity oriented FBI (best known way back when for bank robberies and kidnappings, infamous but easy to solve crimes), under who's remit this sort of counterintelligence was/is, wouldn't give the author the time of day (it didn't meet their $100K lost threshold). His best government contact was a delightfully colorful CIA guy (you'll love his snail mail address), who could only supply advice and connections.</comment></comment></comment>


Anyone afraid? - <AUTHOR>

How often do you have the fear that someone will beat you to a working product?
After posting here the last time, I have decided to work on an idea I've had for a while. The project has been quite a handful already (but so much fun!!) and I'm doing it in the evenings after work. It will involve truly extensive work in the future (hardware, DSP, audio, iPad programming) - but I think it's a very cool (and much needed) product idea.
I have started to prototype the hardware (since I remember the fundamentals from before) and my hope is to bring in outside expertise to finesse each component to perfection as I have a working-ish prototype.
But for some reason, I have this terrifying feeling that 3 months into the project that a company will have the exact same product and that's 3 months of work down the drain.
Anyone else have this fear? Is this normal? What did you do to overcome it? Is the solution just to jump in and see how it goes? <comment><USER2> When I was much younger I had an idea for a frisbee-yo-yo. You could play frisbee by yourself! Thirty years later I have yet to see anyone release anything similar. In fact I couldn't get any of my prototypes to work how I wanted. Moral to the story: If other people aren't working on something at least similar to what you are doing it is very likely a dumb idea. Have a bigger fear that there won't be other companies trying to do what you are going to do.

<comment><USER3> "If other people aren't working on something at least similar to what you are doing it is very likely a dumb idea."

I am sorry, but that is the worst piece of advice ever. Why bother with science if we can just appeal to the idea that what other people think is most likely correct? Why don't we just give up the game now?

<comment><USER4> What he's saying has nothing to do with science. Most new ideas are absolutely, completely, useless.

Now, the fact that someone else has thought of the same thing you are, has put a lot of time into developing it, spent their hard earned money to market and sell it and just perhaps is making a profit from it, means that your idea is probably valid. You're more likely to make money by doing what someone else has profitably done before and adding your twist to it than coming up with something completely unique.

There are many car manufacturers, brands and types of candy, clothing, tools, computers etc. Pick just about any product and you can find a dozen people making different versions of it and they're all making money.

People are suspicious of the unfamiliar. Sell them something they've seen before.

<comment><USER5> That doesn't mean that all new ideas are useless. If everyone is afraid to come up with new ideas, simply copying the old ones because it is 'safe', no advance or paradigm shift will ever happen.

Luckily, there are people daring enough to try something new.

<comment><USER4> [shrug]

You gotta decide whether creating a paradigm shift is more important than making a profit. Just don't plan on both happening.

<comment><USER5> No, you don't have to decide on the one or the other. They can very well be combined. Profit isn't guaranteed either if you simply copy someone elses idea. And if you come up with a _good_ new idea you might make a big profit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _I have this terrifying feeling that 3 months into the project that a company will have the exact same product and that's 3 months of work down the drain._

Apple didn't have the first MP3 player. IBM didn't make the first personal computer. Being first to market might not mean quite what you think.

<comment><USER7> > _"IBM didn't make the first personal computer"_

Maybe not the best example. IBM's first PC came out in 1991. Ten years later they were posting billion dollar plus losses which almost killed it. Profitability returned as they began to withdraw from the PC market.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> BTW, on this note.. the book _In Search of Stupidity_ makes an interesting argument about marketing high-tech products... the idea being that the race goes to the entity that avoids making the stupid, crippling mistake. In other words, you don't have to be faster, smarter, stronger, etc. than the competition; you just have to be patient and avoid that one big f%!#-up that takes them down.

Ok, that's paraphrased slightly, but that's the gist of it. For more:

<http://www.insearchofstupidity.com/>

<comment><USER9> For anyone who grew up with 80's and 90's computers and software, there could hardly be a funnier recap of those wild-West early days than this book.

Besides the humor, and admonitions against arrogant stupidity (yah, redundant), _In Search of Stupidity_ made clear that competent technical leadership is vital. IIRC, Joel Spolsky's introduction in the book points out that only Microsoft stayed in the top 10 of software from the 80's through the end of the 90's, in large measure because billg understood the importance of e.g., personally advocating for OLE with his software team; while his competitors were busy with yachts and alienating their developer communities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> _How often do you have the fear that someone will beat you to a working product?_

Hah, it's a little late for that, here. Some of the ideas I was chewing on in 2006 or so, were a bit novel then, but probably only a bit. But I lolly-gagged around, didn't stay focused, and never delivered anything. Now there are a billion companies playing in the space I'm interested in (in a vague sense).

At this point, I'm not really focusing on having some ground-breaking new idea that revolutionizes anything, I just want to focus on some specific things and try to be better in a few areas, and maybe introduce one or two ideas / features that may still be a little bit novel.

Basically I go back to what Bob Parsons (of Godaddy fame) had to say (paraphrased slightly) "Don't be afraid of a crowded market, just be better than everybody else."

</comment><comment><USER10> Having just watched someone else give a chunk of "my demo", well... yeah. (And this is for a pure software project, which is rather less capital-intensive than deploying anything involving hardware these days.)

Here's the flip side: if no one else was interested in your area, it's probably not very interesting. Dropbox wasn't the first file-syncing service. Vimeo was started before YouTube. And there were plenty of social networks before Facebook, which was entering an area where there were large and well- funded incumbents when it was literally some kid's dormroom project.

It may be worth keeping in mind Fred Wilson's advice: once you're pretty sure you know what you want to do, put your head down and execute: [http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/11/your-worst-enemy-is- yourself...](http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/11/your-worst-enemy-is- yourself.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> I love this advice. Bookmarked.

There are competitors in the field. The problem that I'm trying to solve has been marginally solved (using sloppy shortcuts) but I want to solve it the real way. I think there's a market. It's a niche market, with 2 very established companies (100+ years old) but they don't have (i'm really really really hoping they don't) what I want to make.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> > But for some reason, I have this terrifying feeling that 3 months into the > project that a company will have the exact same product and that's 3 months > of work down the drain.

Most of my ideas are for things that already exist but I think all existing solutions suck.

So no, I'm not terrified. When facebook came out, there was myspace already. When tumblr came out, there was blogger already (not to mention wordpress). When posterous came out, there was tumblr already.

When Ubuntu came out, there was already debian and red hat and suse and tons of others.

I can't think off the top of my head of a single successful product whose success was solely based on it being the first to arrive to the market.

</comment><comment><USER12> "Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration...."

"Do, or do not. There is no 'try.'"

Sorry for the trite quotes, but there is truth here. Are pursuing this project because it's worth doing or because you hope to get paid? First to market doesn't assure success. If it's worth building, build it. The worst you can do is learn something new. Your time is never "wasted" if you are having fun, learning, and developing your chops.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a great attitude, I'm going to read your post a few times to let it sink it. It is worth building. I know I'd LOVE to have the product I'm thinking of. And I know it doesn't exist (yet). And yes, there is lots and lots of learning in this project. Thanks, stsmytherie.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Competition is good, it means that more people thinks that the market that your product is targeting is worth the effort/risk.

</comment><comment><USER8> How can anybody named _CobraKai_ talk about fear, anyway?!?? C'mon man, Cobra Kai never Dies! Fear, does not exist in this Dojo!!!

Your homework, is to go and watch this video:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8lUt0Ile00>

and write "Put him in a body bag" 100 times on the whiteboard.

</comment><comment><USER14> it just means you have to compete. Like pretty much everyone else who's trying to make a living.

</comment><comment><USER15> My awsome multi-billion idea, which I guarded like a paranoid praetorian, has been launched by other companies at least three times now. More if you count flattr.

What I've come to see is that the idea is not all there is. There's also execution (I suck) and timing and most of all luck.

</comment><comment><USER16> I have the opposite internal psycho-drama: I have bad dreams that I am getting there too soon, moving too fast, and all the bullshit delays in my life (going on for literally years and years) are necessary and valuable to let other people catch up so it has some hope of acceptance. :-/

Meanwhile, I feel like I am "doing nothing". :-/ :-/ :-/</comment>


Show HN: Dating turned upside down - Tomonotomo - <AUTHOR> http://www.tomonotomo.com <comment><USER2> The name is awful, sorry. Too hard to pronounce / understand and certainly not worth the trouble since it doesn't convey meaning.

The color scheme is ugly. I like the gradual change over the name on mouseover but purple to yellow through brown is not the most appealing... That being said the layout is good.

I'm not sure I understand the value. Friends of friends are the easiest people to meet / hookup with already. The purpose of online dating sites is to meet strangers you don't already have an in with. Is there really a problem there that needs solving?

The passive cute / not cute thing sounds interesting. Maybe make that the focus? That's something that isn't already built into Facebook and would definitely solve the problem of some awkwardness.

<comment><USER3> > The name is awful, sorry. Too hard to pronounce / understand and certainly > not worth the trouble since it doesn't convey meaning.

As someone who speaks Japanese and instantly understood what the name meant, I agree. This is an absurd name to use for an American/Western dating site. I can't see myself mentioning this site to my friends.

<comment><USER4> Out of interest, what does it mean / reference?

<comment><USER5> the about page says it: tomo no tomo short for tomodachi no tomodachi (friend of friend)

<comment><USER6> Reduce it to "tonomo" or "notomo" then.

Also beware of extreme reduction, as "tonto" means "stupid" in Spanish.

("notomo" means "Idon'tdrink" in Spanish, but that's less obvious)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Congrats on launching and having a user base. Here are some suggestions for the landing page, where first impressions are key to this kind of service:

1\. Get an editor to rework the copy and fix mistakes. There's a lot of phrases that are almost-but-not-quite correct, such as "safe friendly trust" (which is the first thing that people see)...You don't want people's mental spam-alerts to go off at first glance. A lot of the text is also awkward and slows down reading (avoid using the forward-slash...e.g. use "attractive" instead of "cute/handsome"

2\. I didn't want to give access to FB to use the site so I don't know how it works other than the landing page...but is the only way to express interest is through calling someone "cute" or "handsome"? Other sites have used "I'm interested" as a way to express...well, interest.

3\. Try to replace that stock photo with something unique when you can...and if you have to use a stock photo, don't use one of all white people, unless that's specifically the audience you're catering to.

4\. Also, don't describe your users as "boys and girls" unless that's specifically the audience you're catering to.

5\. Cut as many adjectives as you can out of the copy, it doesn't engender trust. Also, don't use the word "disciplined"...it doesn't have useful connotations in this context.

edit: After reading the About page, I have a couple more things to add:

6\. There are so many reasons why people have negative feelings about traditional dating sites and you can't possibly enumerate all of them...so minimize the amount of telling people those reasons, as you make too many assumptions as is.

7\. Related to that: there may be situations in which the phrase "call girls or prostitutes" is applicable, but the promotional copy for your positive online dating website is not one of them -- in _any_ context.

<comment><USER8> All good points, but #2 stuck out the biggest for me. It's not just the wording, but the fact that the only reason I'd be interested in dating someone is because they're physically attractive.

It makes this look like Facebook Stalking Pro.

Just changing this stance to, "someone you find interesting" or better, "someone you might want to get to know better"\-- leave the reason open-ended, because we all have different things we look for in people. As it stands, I'd never use the site because it sounds like your active userbase is full of people I wouldn't want to date.

<comment><USER9> I disagree. First, how do you think people usually decide to date other than by appearance? Most people in real life do not fill out a form to see if they are mutually compatible before they go out. "Hey, you're cute, I like you, let's go out."

Second, the wording is actually good as "cute/handsome". These are words that have a positive association with image without being sex-driven words, and aren't overly powerful towards seeming like a line.

Also keep in mind it's a mutual interest feature. Only once both people have listed each other as cute/handsome is a person notified, so it shouldn't result in negative behavior.

But you're right - there could be lots of reasons for interest other than attraction. Those can be individual features, like "There's someone who likes your taste in music" or "There's someone that wants to invite you to a FB event". The tool could probably be best served by allowing for a mix of these, so while Phil is attracted to Jackie's book smarts, Jackie is attracted to Phil's interest in social justice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Some suggestions on how to improve your site.

1\. Replace that stock photo with something less rigid and fake looking. Stocksy is a good resource.[1]

2\. Change the h1 and body fonts. It looks good on the company name but not elsewhere. Any good looking sans serif that isn't helvetica.

3\. Change "boys and girls" to "men and women". The former implies that they are under 18 or generally young which shouldn't be the case for a (legal) dating site AFAIK.

4\. On the third feature, "looks cute/handsome" doesn't really make sense, so change that. Perhaps "no risk".

5\. Change "safe friendly trust" on the pink image overlay. Make the third word an adjective or adverb to match the other words.

[1][http://www.stocksy.com/](http://www.stocksy.com/)

EDIT: danso's comment covers this better, read that

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback Sir. I appreciate that you took the time out for this.

All points well taken and implemented. Please have a look at it, and provide another round of feedback if possible.

I found this font attractive though. Is it just me? I am bored of the regular fonts anyways. Can you suggest a font to go well with the theme, please.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I love that you built something. But let me be brutally honest, because that's what I would want.

I don't see the value-add. Maybe it's 2x better than e-harmony, but it's not 10x better, like some of the new competitors are.

Take Tinder for example. Dead simple app. See a picture of the a potential date nearby. Vote yes/no. If you both vote yes, it opens up a chat thread much like sms.

Tinder incorporates friends-of-friends in the ranking already. I can see how many friends I have in common with a potential match, and I'm more likely to be shown potential matches with mutual friends.

But Tinder goes a step further. It integrates with Facebook, so that it can match on similar taste in books, movies, entertainment, religion, philosophy, based on likes in the profile. Finally, from a cultural perspective, as a smartphone app it's much more free of stigma.

So I don't see the improvement here. It's a good idea, with a growing userbase, but it seems slightly behind the wave, which is defintely going to be location aware mobile dating apps.

<comment><USER12> I'm a bit of a veteran of online dating, did it for 6 years, and after quite literally hundreds dates _eventually_ found the mother of my son. So, with that in mind -

What you describe (Tinder), and what Eharmony, Match, Guardian Soulmates or any other site does, does NOTHING to speed up the process of finding Mr. or Ms. Right.

All that a site can do is to appeal to specific character types (like to use your phone? Shy, and prefer an introduction? ...).

Facebook integration will appeal to some (you, for example) but not to others (me, for example).

If you're just looking to get laid you can game chicks on _any_ site. If you want to meet someone to love unconditionally, you just need to bite the bullet and settle in for a long haul.

NO web site can predict chemistry or love based on some funky new process and meta data. You need to spend time with someone to see if there's anything there. This means that dating sites are little more than databases of people that maybe, hopefully want what you want. Success is when they want it with you.

I learnt quickly that I had better odds by using as many dating sites as I had time for, because (apologies to the romantics) it's a numbers game.

<comment><USER11> I'm not interested in so much finding Mr./Mrs. right. I'm interested in the business problem.

The waves I see coming are: a shift from long term romantic involvement to a trend toward shorter term interactions among my generation, a cultural lack of social stigma in smartphone apps vs. websites for dating, and an opportunity to use data that wasn't explicitly entered by the user for the purposes of impressing a prospective date.

And while no program can predict love, it can reduce transaction costs, from e.g. distance, lack of social network, social anxiety upon meeting new people, etc. That friction is leading a lot of people to sit home alone when two apartments over there's a lovely person who would be thrilled to be out on a date with them. What type of commitment they make from there is beyond the purview of the technology.

All the best to you, your wife, and family. It's fascinating and wonderful to me there are little humans running around very may not have existed without the communication the internet enables :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> [I'm not sure how a website that on its face seems to perpetuate the culturally normalized obsession with appearance and thus supposed sexual compatibility and success as the highest determinant of evaluating potential and real relationships, provides a service that "turns dating upside down," but]

The idea of mutual trust is dubious at best. What prevents two parties from conspiring in advance so that a third is tricked into believing things that are not true? I will say this: the majority of rapes and sexual assaults are committed by those who are very close to the victim, not by strangers -- and the rapist believes what they are doing is "sex".

<comment><USER9> What prevents any two people from doing this at any time, anywhere?

<comment><USER5> This service would likely just make it easier, and it would happen more often, is my point

<comment><AUTHOR> Your point is valid Sir. But as P. Omidyar says - "People are basically good."

<comment><USER5> Maybe the people that he hangs around with..

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > _Trust and Privacy are two sides of the same coin and both are sub-optimal > in dating websites because the way they are seeded_

But the Terms page says:

> _We may get additional information from or about you in other ways not > specifically described here. We might sell or rent your personal information > to third parties for their marketing purposes without your explicit > consent._

<comment><AUTHOR> :) I am sure you understand the intent Sir. My intentions are clean and good. My approach is good. That is just meant for the lawyers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I wish you all the best, because online dating can always use improvement. However I warn you that it will be a great challenge to overcome what seems to be the insurmountable and persistent contours of the online dating market: that there are more men than women, and that everyone hits on the attractive people.

Also, your name strikes me as the sort of thing that you will be spelling on the phone forever. Consider changing it or at least buying typo variations.

<comment><USER15> I think there are more men that women in some parts of the world or in certain cultures only. In my ethnic group there are way more women than men, and due to the demands of our culture we tend to marry into our own quite a bit (but could still benefit from a site like this)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback Sir. I am sure I will improve both the website and myself with time. I have changed the representation of the name to make it more readable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I've created dating apps and I learned the market is totally won by a few big companies. I could never overcome the chicken & egg problem. Not knowing anything about your project, I would have to honestly say the 80k people on there is probably a frivolous claim. You may have scraped some other site and put that many bogus profiles on there.

I suppose any other dating sites that break through will be based on extremely simple ideas with elegant or new user interfaces. For example, How About We is an extremely simple idea. The concept of dating friends of friends was already tried several times. The last time I heard of it it was being done by circl.es. I would suggest trying something that is really unique that nobody has ever heard of which would help you break out. I hate to say it but one of the other stories in the last year that was a break out story was Ms. Travel. Try to package what you're doing in a really crazy way. I hacked together a crazy photosheet interface that I've never seen before and it just wouldn't catch. Trying to think of any other thing I could think of which nobody has done, I tried the idea of online dating via the unix command line. That _did_ get me some exposure but certainly not enough to get the wheels of traction turning.

For what it's worth, here's a story that came out on Jezebel.com about my project at the time (which I shut off after a couple of weeks after this article came out).

[http://jezebel.com/5934969/new-techy-online-dating-site- is-u...](http://jezebel.com/5934969/new-techy-online-dating-site-is- unsurprisingly-a-boys-club)

Good luck w your project!

<comment><AUTHOR> I did not mean to offend you. I am saying 80k users are in the network. That does not mean 80k people registered. Its a "friend of friend" website. So, your degree 2 is also reachable. So, with 200 registrations, my network is 80k users. I am sorry if I misled you.

Once you login, you will see that there are a lot of potential dates for you, if you have even 2 friends on tomonotomo. That's the beauty of the website, imho.

The intent was never to cheat you. Since apologies if I got you offended.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> We tried to launch pretty much the same concept a few years ago (dating through friends of friends on Facebook) but it didn't work out. It was called 'Trustcircle' and we still own the domain (www.trustcircle.com) in case you are interested in buying it! It might be a better option than tomonotomo! Just sayin' :)

</comment><comment><USER18> I was working at a Parisian dating startup about two or three years ago, we had that friends of friends kind of vibe (it was actually called that) and it didn't prevent us from failing.

More men than women on those websites, the few women you get don't engage anyone for some reason so you usually end up having to buy cheap leads on silly marketing platforms and fake all the figures (men/women ratio, number of users, etc). Good luck though.

</comment><comment><USER9> Feature requests: mutual references, ID checking. See couchsurfing.org for how they implement friends, references, and ID checks. Adds extra degrees of trust.

Another feature request: easy scheduling of events, so as a "first date" you could meet the person along with your mutual friends to help break the ice. I find the traditional 1-on-1 date puts a lot of pressure on people to perform well, vs getting to know each other in a relaxed social setting. I would keep these events private so they're only viewable by the immediate friend matrix, though.

(and definitely fix the boys & girls wordage)

</comment><comment><USER19> Like dating a co-worker, I would never date someone who is a friend of a friend or a relative. This and the fact need a Facebook account makes Tomonotomo useless for me.

Is it just me or does the site design look cheesy?

<comment><USER20> This whole thing is pointless because it doesn't do anything useful. There is literally no difference between using the website or simply asking your friends if they know anyone you might hit it off with, and in Facebook's case, there are plenty of superfluous "friends" people have who may actually be terrible people. They allege "social pressure" in these cases, but on the whole it's a stupid term that generally doesn't mean anything.

OkCupid is still the pinnacle of online dating and probably will be for a long time, because the whole point of dating is that you actually go out with someone and see if you hit it off. Just because someone is a friend of a friend doesn't mean they're any better or different than Random Person A, and if anything, you're greatly limiting your pool of options. And lastly, if you're having trouble meeting someone and don't live in the sticks, the problem is likely you.

P.S. -- The site name is exceedingly dumb.

<comment><USER21> I tried a few sites in my day and I'd have to agree that OKC is the best I've tried, even if I didn't have luck with it. It was the most pleasing to use and it seemed like the people were of quality.

I'd like to see a site where an algorithm is used to match interests only, if you match there, then photos can be viewed...or maybe not, but at least rely heavily on the interest metric. Maybe a site for intellectual-leaning people (or however one would want to word that) would also do well, or one that relies on Myers-Briggs (though I know that's not for everyone).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Good luck with the idea and I believe there's market for that. It will definitely help a certain category of people. But some other people will quickly say they don't like it because they don't want to date friends of their friends. It all depends on the particular person.

I love tomonotomo and actually I have a similar web site for job search/recruitment through connections discussed here, [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6327275](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6327275)

</comment><comment><USER23> Only facebook sign in? That was the end of the experience for me.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am sorry to disappoint you. Its a social dating website. It has to be built on facebook.

You do not share anything that is not required. We do not post anything on your wall. Facebook login is just to understand your network. I hope you will trust us, and become our user. Thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Interesting.

I'd actually hoped this was going to be more like Hire My Friend: [http://www.hiremyfriend.io/](http://www.hiremyfriend.io/)

That's a job recruitment app based on the notion that someone in a job can't publicly announce that they are seeking a new job, and so their network advertises their availability anonymously.

That trick though, of getting people who know, to be the one to recommend someone... would work perfectly well with dating.

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool. Interesting stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I for one think this is very clever. Most of my dating experience was eased whenever the person was a friend of a friend already.

</comment><comment><USER26> Sounds familiar. Is it by any chance created by the same guys with whom Paul Graham and Harj Taggar made public office hours at Startup School 2011: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9m9vPAlb_0](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9m9vPAlb_0) [the intended part starts at 25:05]?

</comment><comment><USER27> Congratulations on launching.

Despite the critical reviews here, you've built something that seems to be attracting users. How long has the site been online, and if that user-count on your homepage is legitimate - what methods have you used to attract your first 100,000 users?

</comment><comment><USER28> I think it would help a lot if the 'no' in Tomo _no_ tomo were accentuated with a different colour or so. Then it would be easier to see that it are in fact 3 (Japanese) words strung together. I think that would make it a lot better to remember.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. I addded spaces instead. Please let me know if that works better for you Sir. Thanks a ton.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> After 64 comments and great feedback, I have made all the changes and the website is up again. Thanks a ton everyone.

[http://www.tomonotomo.com/](http://www.tomonotomo.com/)

</comment><comment><USER29> This is practically the reason why I turned off to show my FB friends: Acquaintances going through my friend list, and writing random messages to good-looking ones.

</comment><comment><USER30> Dating with friends of friends, looks like [http://acquaintable.com/](http://acquaintable.com/)

</comment><comment><USER31> >0 friends are using it

>"Page Not Found! 404" immediately afterwards

>My Little Pony picture

>closing it, never planning on using it again

First impression is important.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback Sir. There was a minor bug. I would love to talk about it. It was too deep in the system.

I am sorry. I hope you will be forgiving and let us serve you. Thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> why the impossible name though?

honest question: is it that difficult to find a decent-2-word-combination.com?

<comment><USER33> "tomo no tomo" is roughly "friends of friends" in Japanese - so I guess thats what they were going for. It is a bit of a mouthful, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> this is just like hellol.com lol.</comment>