Peter Thiel, Comic Book Hero - <AUTHOR> https://stratechery.com/2016/peter-thiel-comic-book-hero/ <comment><USER2> Gawker broke the law.

And, their whole business model seems to have been predicated upon the ability to victimise people who have no recourse. Not even Hulk Hogan had the money to fight back against them.

Given this, the argument that Thiel's ability to endanger Gawker because of his money is a dangerous precedent is completely hypocritical. Gawker is the precedent for money allowing you to ruin other people's lives.

They acted the way they did because they thought they were untouchable. Their millions made them untouchable. This is why Gawker was able to ruin people's lives with legal impunity.

That is also why Thiel's billions will be able to destroy them.

Whoever wrote this seems to care now that Gawker is legally defenceless, but doesn't seem to recognise that this is exactly the state that their victims were originally in.

It's shameful.

<comment><USER3> While I agree with your points you're kind of missing the bigger one. Lots of media outlets break the law. The problem here is that one company who broke the law got punished by a billionaire because they were kinda mean to him. To me this is very bizarre.

<comment><USER4> It seems good to me. Peter Thiel did a public service. Lawbreakers were punished without tax payer dollars because they did the wrong thing. It's how the system is supposed to work and an impartial judge found in favor.

<comment><USER3> Right, but my point is that there are a lot of lawbreakers who will not be punished at all because they were not "not nice" to a billionaire.

I guess I'm in favor of "all companies breaking the law should be punished" versus "billionaires should selectively bankroll cases against companies that broke the law if that company isnt nice to them". I think people aren't seeing the bigger picture here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> At its core, this is a slippery-slope argument. The world will go on without Gawker. Even they, like nearly every other media entity, were already _really_ deferential to billionaires. Gawker just had this particular idiosyncratic and nasty exception to that overall deference, and now they're seeing the results of that exception. Real criticism of the billionaires was never going to come from this quarter.

<comment><USER6> I happen to merely be a hundred-aire, so take this FWIW, but I don't understand what Thiel being a billionaire matters. It seems natural for someone to want to use the power within their means to right a wrong (in their view). Not that I could relate, but I can imagine being outed would make me pretty spiteful as well - unsure what his wealth has to do with that.

<comment><USER7> It matters mainly because we have come to the point where you need to be very rich to pursue justice. If Gawker wronged you, as a hundredaire, you're just SOL.

I think much of the anger at Thiel is really misplaced anger at a justice system seemingly built with the goal of enriching lawyers. Government's one job is to provide justice: why should people have to rely on private funding for it?

<comment><USER6> Agree with the first part. I was mainly referring to why is it ok to out him because he's a billionaire - doesn't seem to be in the public's best interest, regardless of one's status.

Similar to the argument Gawker made about the tape - I don't want (or need) to see a HH sex tape any more than one of my neighbor.

<comment><USER5> Nothing I wrote indicated that it was, "ok to out him because he's a billionaire". TFA doesn't explicitly advance that proposition, but that's the subtext. Meanwhile, reasonable people would like to see _some_ media entity that is not deferential to billionaires, with respect to _important_ topics. So long as its only focus is the sexuality of semi-famous dudes, Gawker is not that entity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The problem here isn't Peter Thiel destroying Gawker, because this was a case where Gawker did do wrong and was found liable for damages. In effect, Thiel paid for Hogan's lawyer the way the government pays for criminal defendants' lawyers.

The problem is when a different billionaire uses the same tactics to bankroll much less meriotorious lawsuits against media that hold them accountable, not media that publish sex tapes. This isn't theoretical, it happened to Mother Jones.

It's a problem with the property of the legal system that it can be weaponized against someone who has done nothing wrong, as well as the ability to bankroll this weaponization secretly.

<comment><USER2> Would you say that Peter Thiel was "a blueprint" for what happened to Mother Jones? It seems like the system has worked like this for a long time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> So I don't really agree with Thiel here.

But fundamentally, the issue here isn't Thiel. It's the laws he is exploiting to muzzle truthful speech by Gawker [1]. We've had a variety of laws created to protect Jennifer Lawrence and other sympathetic females. Those laws would also have protected Carlos Danger, had they been in force when he was tweeting dick pics. Those laws are a danger to our society.

Me on the topic, a few years ago: [https://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2013/defending_hunter_moo...](https://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2013/defending_hunter_moore.html)

That said, this is a very interesting article. It's definitely bringing up an interesting issue, that centralized manipulation of public opinion (and hence democracy) is becoming easier - definitely one of the many flaws with democracy, I'd say. The willingness of the public to participate in cathedral- instigated lynch mobs of this sort is also troubling.

I wish I could think of a good way forward.

[1] I never thought I'd be the one defending Gawker. I want them to die. But I'm more afraid of laws stifling free speech than Gawker, although watching Gawker in action has made me become more afraid of free speech than I was before.

<comment><USER4> This isn't a new law. There are no new laws being made here. This is a good application of a law.

If there is a bad application of a law then protest the law. Pragmatism is the only short term solution and Thiel acted pragmatically.

I am glad that a precedent has been affirmed that leaking video of my private actions and spending ad dollars to share it would be punishable by law.

<comment><USER9> This is an application of anti-revenge porn laws which were made around the time I wrote my blog post. I should have been clearer.

I'm generally very suspicious of pragmatism - it's very often a cheap excuse to do whatever makes us feel good or seems convenient at the time. I totally understand that instinct, particularly in this case. I think Thiel is awesome (I generally want Thiel to be our reigning monarch) and I absolutely detest Gawker and think organizations like it (together with their public enablers) are one of the most dangerous social forces in our society.

It's just that on principle, I'm really unable to convince myself that this is the right thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm not sure why Gawker wants to pick a fight in public against a chess master with a Stanford JD with huge cache of ammunition in the form of cash.

Gawker did it in the name of free speech by digging up privacy and slandering? Unfortunately being a digital gossip site does not mean it will be exempt from being sued like traditional gossip media such as national enquirer.

And both ancient and modern law codes are on the side of privacy against slandering, rather than on the side of abusing media power in the name of free speech, dated all the way back to the Code of Hammurabi. And suing Gawker is like an high ROI of no-brainer and an act of public service as there are so many precedents of like Hulk Hogan's case.

</comment><comment><USER11> If Thiel actually felt that he was acting in a just and above board way to address a wrong, it's hard to understand why he has been skulking about secretly funding this take down.

It is implausible at best to believe that anyone with an actual principled commitment privacy to would have backed Palantir and Facebook.

<comment><USER12> If Thiel hadn't kept it a secret, it could have affected the trial. I think that alone is a perfectly good reason for keeping the involvement secret.

<comment><USER13> I'd have taken it to my grave. I would have done it by arranging for an innocuous face (Milo, one of the usual suspects so they wouldn't suspect a thing) to organize a collection drive to help Hogan, and of course Terry would have obtained a marvelous anonymous contribution. If you do get found out then the 'democratic' nature of a fundraiser will defuse some of the blowback.

I understand that he wanted to provide a deterrent against further Gawkers but their people have a tendency to play dirty e.g. serious blackmail and more importantly their fellow travelers in the media establishment will back Gawker as a member of their tribe by sabotaging you later. They'll do nothing for a while and then all pile on at once to generate a big fuss. I'd make a plan to have full video/audio recordings of everywhere I go. There's also a risk they will go after people you know or try to damage you by association (my guess would be on this route).

Thiel is probably deft enough to avoid being ensnared by them but this kind of thing is distracting when you could be doing something useful intend of fending off social justice crazies all the time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > In this case, no matter how badly Thiel was personally hurt by Gawker, or > how morally wrong their actions were, he is the one with far greater power, > and the appropriate approach is not to leverage said power in an act of > vigilantism, but to exercise the responsibility of defending the conditions > that made his power possible to emerge, conditions that I believe are to the > long-term benefit of everyone.

One could argue that is exactly what he is doing. He is fighting for civility.

</comment><comment><USER15> Gawker is gossip trash and cultural garbage. it needs to go. Kudos to Their regardless of his reason to take it down.

<comment><USER16> Funny how everyone thinks that if Gawker the company goes bankrupt, it means Gawker the profitable website is going away.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Gawker is postmodern culture garbage, it needs to go. they've created several media controversies for just clickbait fun and this type of journalism is dangerous, I don't care about the reason for Theil's motives but he's only doing the world a favor

</comment><comment><USER17> I like Wired's take on it better:

[http://www.wired.com/2016/05/three-cheers-for-peter- thiel/](http://www.wired.com/2016/05/three-cheers-for-peter-thiel/)

<comment><USER4> Are you joking? This piece is childish. Gawker released a private sex tape and has a history of spreading rumors that do nothing to advance the knowledge of the citizenry. Peter Thiel helped pay to ensure their actions were aired in an impartial court.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> In that situation I hold position that will not be liked by the two main camps:

1\. Mr Thiel is right. The US has adversarial system, and taking donations for defense funds has been common. He is doing the same for reasons of his own. On a larger scale.

2\. The party that publishes true information that they are under no obligation to keep secret should not be held responsible. Find the original leaker of the info and sue him. Yeah it will empower the scum of the earth. But it will also empower all kinds of activists and people that fight the elite in that new gilded age we live in.

</comment><comment><USER19> What irks me is that most of the news articles are highlighting the "sex tape" aspect of this story.

Hulk Hogan had consensual sex with a woman. She was married, but her husband also consented to this. Gawker released the video. This embarrassed Hulk Hogan, but ultimately doesn't damage his credibility as a pro wrestler. People probably already assumed that Hulk Hogan has sex.

So, the video did cost him his job, but that had nothing to do with the sex. Instead, he was fired for his racist tirade in that very same video.

So, by claiming that this whole thing is about a "sex tape" clearly paints a picture of Hulk Hogan as a victim. But, the realization that what really damaged him was his racist rant, then suddenly it does seem like Gawker was reporting something newsworthy.

<comment><USER2> > But, the realization that what really damaged him was his racist rant, then > suddenly it does seem like Gawker was reporting something newsworthy.

Gawker didn't report the racist tirade. The tape that had the racist tirade on it was not published by Gawker.

You can hardly say that they were reporting something newsworthy about his racism when the evidence proves this wasn't the case.

However, there is certainly some truth in saying that Hogan was fearful of the other tape being released by Gawker, and therefore much more willing to sue in relation to the illegal release of his sex tape.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> "What makes you qualified to be a reporter?"

"I'm willing to violate anyone's privacy for my personal gain, then claim with a straight face that 'the public has a right to know.'"

</comment><comment><USER21> [http://i.imgur.com/J8DisIr.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/J8DisIr.jpg)

<comment><USER22> These remind me of the tabloids I see in the supermarket aisle - There might be some shred of truth there ("W" Bush meeting with aliens might explain a lot) but mostly its the same hyped up headlines and empty content as we see with these "10 things ..." publishers.

<comment><USER23> They have to monetize somehow, I suppose, though it happens to be very scummy. As deplorable as Gawker is, and I do not in any way condone their actions (personally, I think their reporting is tabloid tier garbage), it is vital that we have a functioning free press that can publish unpopular viewpoints. Even if what's being published is distasteful, racist, or alarming.

<comment><USER24> As far as I am aware, no state or federal authorities are involved here, so freedom of the press is still intact. Freedom of the press doesn't mean you get to say whatever you want.

Additionally, at what point does "very scummy" become a civil offense? Why not ask a judge (and/or jury) and let them decide.

<comment><USER23> > Additionally, at what point does "very scummy" become a civil offense? Why > not ask a judge (and/or jury) and let them decide.

Because the criteria for that changes arbitrarily based on the zeitgeist of a particular era. For example, pornography was considered by many to be "very scummy" at the turn of the century. Many religious groups tried to stop its publishing and sale, yet here we are today.

Thiel is well within his rights to file a civil suit, but it could lead to a dangerous precedent that restricts the First Amendment as the founding fathers envisioned it.

A better counterargument would be to bring up Citizens United, and how it has abused the safeguards of the First Amendment to do scummy things that are several orders of magnitude more than publishing some celebrity's sex tape.

<comment><USER25> The First Amendment says the cops won't bust down your door for saying something. It has exactly zero bearing on whether or not that same speech results in you being unemployed or unemployable, having your romantic partner leave you, or being shunned by greater society.

As for Citizens United, you do realize that before the decision affirmed it that corporations were understood to have 1A rights? What has people upset is that the "wrong" kind of corporations have those rights. It was okay when it was friendly media companies, unions, or non-profits with the correct ideology. But let some chunk of people with extreme Clinton Derangement Syndrome band together and "whoah Nellie!"?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> this is a great piece on the subject.

[http://fusion.net/story/306927/peter-thiel-gawker- dangerous-...](http://fusion.net/story/306927/peter-thiel-gawker-dangerous- blueprint/#)

<comment><USER4> No it's not.

They paint Thiel as a supervillain for helping prosecute a company who did the wrong thing and cost someone their job.

The precedent that media companies can share and promote negative private data that doesn't contribute to the public good is a worse precedent than that a person can fund a lawsuit against a company to air those grievances in court.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I disagree with the notion that tech is "the most powerful industry" or more powerful than the press. The press is the most powerful industry, by far.

With a single front-page story they can make a $9 billion company worthless (e.g. Theranos — not saying this is a bad thing!). They can get popular products banned (e.g. Four Loko). They can set off moral panics (e.g. Satanism) that end up with people being imprisoned under false pretenses for decades. No other industry besides government has such power.

</comment><comment><USER28> Peter Thiel is a theft. His paypal stolen hundreds of dollars from me.

</comment><comment><USER29> The "freedom of press" argument is total bull. This is 2016. Free press has already won, 1000 kids could write the same things in 1000 social networks and blogs. The information is there. But gawker makes money off this. Thats what makes them immorral and they should pay the damages for hurting people. It's not like their copywriters cannot post the same shit on their twitters.

<comment><USER30> I'd have a hard time constructing or more ignorant or ass-backwards argument than what you did there.

You do not have freedom of speech on Twitter. You are only allowed to say there whatever Twitter allows you to say.

The only place on the internet you might have freedom of speech is on your own site that you control. And even then you need to run the server, data center and you need to be sure of your uplink provider.

<comment><USER29> thanks. Agree about twitter, it was a figure of speech. You only need enough bandwidth to be found by google or the twittercrowd or the 4chan (yes i know, all of them have their biases, yet there has never been a single cover up in the internet age). Having an uplink to pay does not justify being an asshole.</comment></comment></comment>


IPhones have 76% market share in this country. And, it is not the US. - <AUTHOR> http://news.yahoo.com/iphone-5s-5c-lion-share-japan-smartphone-sales-003000350.html

<comment><USER2> Misleading title. You meant "iPhone got 76% of smartphone sales in October in this country...."</comment>


Taptitude - a Windows Phone Success Story - <AUTHOR> http://fourbrosstudio.com/taptitude/post/2012/04/17/Taptitude-a-Windows-Phone-Success-Story.aspx

<comment><USER2> There's probably a decent amount of money to be made on Windows Phone apps. A smaller market, but far less competition- and lord knows the current batch of apps aren't up to much.

<comment><USER3> One problem for indie game developers on WP7 is that Microsoft pushes Xbox Live titles in front of everything else in the 'games' tab of the Marketplace app (the equivalent of the iOS 'App Store' app). I'm no expert but it appears that getting XBL status isn't trivial or guaranteed.

The situation is made worse, in my opinion, because of the Metro design aesthetic; after all that whitespace there is room for only 3 app icons in the 'games' tab on my Lumia 710. If you drill down via games->genres, there is room for 5.5 app icons. And the first two tabs in games->genres are 'Xbox live' (all XBL titles) and 'top' (again, all XBL titles).

<comment><USER4> [Taptitude Developer Here] Yes, I agree with what you're saying. We too feel like XBL titles get pushed far too heavily, which turns away indies.

That being said, I don't believe its possible for a small indie studio like ours to compete with Zynga types on iOS either due to the delta in marketing budgets.

Our reason for disclosing our data is to show indie studios that they may be missing an opporunity on windows phone.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the disclosure! It looks like you guys have put in a lot of effort too with the 60+ minigames. What I'm wondering is whether the same effort on iOS might not have fetched greater returns given the same marketing budget.

Anyway, congratulations!

<comment><USER5> [Taptitude Dev Here] I'll second what Brandf said. Despite the Xbox Live games being front and center, we think being one of the highest rated free games helped Taptitude get noticed. If we released the same game (same effort put into both programming and marketing) on iOS, I don't think it would have gotten as much attention.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> >We've asked our users why they don't update to Mango, considering it's free, and most of the responses were because they didn't have a computer to update their phone with. Unfortunately this can't be done over the air.

Wow, this is very interesting. I was always under the impression that the smartphone crowd always synced their phone to their computer first. Maybe the way apple does it has ruined my perspective.

<comment><USER7> Until I started listening to Podcasts regularly (before Mango you could only download podcasts with Zune through your computer) I would routinely just charge my phone with the wall adapter.

I sync with my computer every night now, but isn't a big stretch to imagine lots of people doing what I used to do.

<comment><USER8> I only plug my phone into my computer when it needs an update that can't be done OTA. With Zune Pass and Skydrive, my music gets to the phone wirelessly and my videos and pictures get to my computer wirelessly. I think the phone has only been plugged into my computer twice, once to do a backup before I installed the SD card and once for Mango.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is the app story that all my Windows Phone friends talk about as "a success story". It's really "the success story", as it's the top downloaded free game (except for XBox Live Extras).

I wonder what the revenue numbers for the top free iPhone and Android games are? Tapitude looks like it's doing about $3,000 a week / $400-500 a day. (Am I reading their chart right?) Didn't we hear plenty of stories about how Draw Something was doing $100,000 a day (now that's probably combining ad revenue and in-app purchases from the free version plus the sales of the paid version).

I'm not saying that there isn't money to be made on Windows Phone, but if the top free game is only doing $400 / day, it's orders of magnitude less than on iOS. Is it worth it to have your app in the "smaller pond" of a less-crowded app store? Maybe.

I suspect their huge spike over the past 2-3 weeks is due to the Lumia 900 - everyone trying out some new apps on their new phone. Time will tell if this is the phone that really sells the public on Windows Phone, but it's clearly their best success yet (top selling phone on Amazon).

<comment><USER4> [Taptitude Developer Here]

Hi ja27, thanks for your questions. We are currently doing $1,400/day and our data indicates we're still growing. As a part time hobby project, we consider this a success.

Yes, the top iOS games make much more, but that's not the point. Our game would never succeed on iOS because the market is too crowded. We feel there are great opportunities on windows phone that small indies may be overlooking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is it just me, or is a 1$ eCPM average unusually high?

<comment><USER11> Its not really. We're still figuring things out, nowhere near their traffic, but similar eCPM. (Android/AdMob)

<http://imgur.com/9pT9V>

Comparatively we get $5-10 eCPMs from AdSense on websites.

<comment><USER12> How did you get such a high eCPM? Care to share any more info on the matter? :)

<comment><USER11> For AdSense? (assuming, I'm surprised how high it is too)

Honestly AdSense eCPM is through the roof since they started doing retargeting. Its now much more about your demographics than your content.

For example, back in the day, a forum for a Warcraft Guild would have triggered "Buy Gold Now" ads which paid pennies per click. Now ads are targeted to the user and know the user's search history, so the ads can be much more relevant. Given that Warcraft players are often rich techies, suddenly the ads being shown have a much higher CPC.

In short: sites that 3 years ago would have paid pennies per click are paying dollars per click on AdSense. Its kind of insane. If you wrote them off before I'd consider taking another look.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> As a Windows Phone user and developer, I've noticed frequent updates help promote app usage tremendously, which is confirmed by the analysis. With so many apps installed on my phone, I tend to forget about 70% of them until there's an update notification and then I'd want to check out what's new. So this is a perfect model as long as there's no shortage of content ideas. This is reminiscent of one of the most successful PC games today, League of Legends, which has had new content released every two weeks since launch couple years ago.

Devs, have you considered microtransaction for Taptitude? You did mention "coins to purchase game updates." Maybe some users prefer to pay for those updates instead? Congratulations on the success!

<comment><USER14> Frequent updates _with fresh content_ promote app usage. Frequent updates for tiny bug fixes promote app removal, at least for me.</comment></comment>


Oscar Pistorius: Detectives Race To Apple HQ to Crack iPhone Passcode - <AUTHOR> http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/oscar-pistorius-detectives-race-apple-hq-crack-iphone-passcode-1438300

<comment><USER2> Is this technically possible for Apple to do?</comment>


Building A.I. That Can Build A.I - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/05/technology/machine-learning-artificial-intelligence-ai.html <comment><USER2> dupe of [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15633528](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15633528)</comment>


Lead Back End Engineer - <AUTHOR> https://www.instnt.org/careers?gh_jid=4417135002 <comment><USER2> HN is not a job board, please see the FAQ for the one post that this is appropriate for</comment>


The truth about physical keyboards. - <AUTHOR> http://technologizer.com/2009/06/07/the-truth-about-physical-keyboards/

<comment><USER2> Missing point: physical keyboards will have I/O buffers. So you can queue up your key-presses when the machine's slowing down. My iPhone (irritatingly) slows down all the time, and they keyboard is unresponsive. I have to wait for it, like a small child having a tantrum, until I can type again.

<comment><USER3> Strange, when my iPhone slows down, I can still hammer away at the keys and it'll keep typing after I've finished, it must have some kind of buffer to do that... Usually after I've finished the task at hand, I reboot and normal speed resumes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Anyone building their smartphone around a hardware keyboard is essentially admitting Apple has won.

Apple have been very vocal about not having a physical keyboard, clearly they feel the benefits outweigh the costs. Everyone else is fighting over the scraps that are left behind.

I'm not saying that's a bad business decision, it's just not some noble adventure in customer satisfaction when you're a) playing by someone else's rules and b) doing the _obvious_ , _easy_ and _safe_ thing because they've already spent years staking out the innovative ground.

<comment><USER5> What a strange assertion you make there. I have used both the IPhone and the G1 and in my opinion the physical keyboard is clearly superior for writing anything longer than "omg lol!".

I doubt I'm alone with this preference.</comment></comment>


How the Reagan Revolution and Third Way Politics Led America to Ruin - <AUTHOR> http://www.salon.com/2016/03/23/america_has_abandoned_the_90_percent_partner/ <comment><USER2> Paragraph analysis --

# unflattering to Rs = 4 # unflattering to Ds = 8 Neutral / Ambivalent = 3</comment>


Supporting non-nullable types in Dart - <AUTHOR> https://code.google.com/p/dart/issues/detail?id=22

<comment><AUTHOR> Very interesting discussion, although there already are solutions to some of these problems in other type systems.

Erlang also has optional type annotations via the dialyzer tool and all types are by default non-nullable.

Generally I think that the dart language implementors should try harder not to copy language design fails from Java / C++, like null-pointers or half-baked enumeration types.</comment>


Review my mvp: Myide.as quickly share and store your ideas - <AUTHOR>

An ideas log where you store and share your last idea online. I've humbly create this app to response to my needs ... and learn rails.  I consider myself an idea guy.... yeah I know... so I decided to learn coding and stop wasting time...  Myide.as is my first rails app.
http://myide.as
http://myide.as/ideas/2
Last week I saw http://captainobvio.us/ which is kind of a digg for ideas to get feedback from the web.  Contrary to this last app, myide.as is meant to be a simple idea log where you can get feedback from your inner circle.
Hope you can find it useful. Comments?, specially on usability are welcome! Tks a lot for your time. <comment><USER2> Congrats on your first rails app! I like some of the design (less is more). My suggestion would be to make it clear how to get back to your list of ideas. Coming back to the page forces you to the publish page instead of the list all view. Keep building!

<comment><AUTHOR> Tks. Actually only people posting there ideas with facebook can keep a list of there idea. No public index, I was inspire by pen.io (wich have already evolve since launch).

<comment><USER2> Right. I mean for me (while I am posting through Facebook) I didnt see a clear way back to that list.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Post Anon cta looks inactive from the grey, try a different color and measure performance. Show a single or list of sample ideas under the main entry field...

</comment><comment><USER4> I gotta ask, why 333 characters?

<comment><USER5> I also would love to know the answer to this. If it were 255 or 512, I'd instantly 'get it', but 333 seems to be based on something, and I'm extremely curious to know what.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Please show a list of ideas.

</comment><comment><USER2> Clickable: <http://myide.as></comment>


How 6 people were rescued from an elevator at the Hancock - <AUTHOR> https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-hancock-building-elevator-rescue-20181116-story.html <comment><USER2> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18508693](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18508693)

</comment><comment><USER3> The Chicago Tribune is blocked in the EU.</comment>


In Thirty Days, Payments Innovation Will Stop In Silicon Valley - <AUTHOR> http://www.quora.com/Aaron-Greenspan/In-Thirty-Days-Payments-Innovation-Will-Stop-In-Silicon-Valley

<comment><USER2> If you still want to do business, move to another state and allow as many of your current employees to work remotely as possible.

<comment><AUTHOR> That wouldn't help. It doesn't matter where you're based as long as you do business in California.</comment></comment>


Equality - <AUTHOR> http://www.strikemag.org/equality/

<comment><USER2> When you're trying to argue that strict and unconditional equality is good for people, and your only supporting argument includes the Medici family as a positive example, you're doing it wrong.</comment>


Germany closes its last hard-coal mine - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-30/germany-closes-last-coal-mine-despite-decades-of-supplies-needed <comment><USER2> German coal has been _heavily_ subsidized for more than half a century. No one really knows how much money exactly went in there, but it's assumed something like 200-350 billion euros ([http://www.foes.de/pdf/Kohlesubventionen_1950_2008.pdf](http://www.foes.de/pdf/Kohlesubventionen_1950_2008.pdf)).

<comment><USER3> From the article: "Wind, solar and other renewable sources, which account for 55 percent of German electricity capacity, are even more subsidized than coal mining, adding about 25 billion euros to power bills last year."

<comment><USER4> How much did they save the health service compared to coal though? Air pollution kills.

<comment><USER5> > How much did they save the health service compared to coal though? Air > pollution kills.

Killing people can be a net savings for health services. The dead consume no services.

<comment><USER6> But unhealthy and dying people DO consume a lot of health services. Not to mention the fact that unhealthy levels of pollution can lower the quality of life for a great many citizens, something most people think that governments should care about.

<comment><USER5> > But unhealthy and dying people DO consume a lot of health services.

Yeah, sure, and I'm not saying something that kills people early always saves health system money. Just that it can (a lot of analysis of cigarette smoking have showed that reducing smoking in many countries has a net public cost, considering the aggregate of health and public pension payments, and I think in some cases that was true of health costs alone.

> Not to mention the fact that unhealthy levels of pollution can lower the > quality of life for a great many citizens, something most people think that > governments should care about.

Sure, quality of life is another important concern aside from health costs. I'm definitely not saying deadly pollution is a net good, even if it might save public health costs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> From what I've read, the German green energy policy has caused: * Really expensive per-KW/h power * Shutting down nuclear and natural gas (some) * Reliance on coal due to peaking/load/etc. issues with renewable * Importing coal (high cost to transport, including energy cost) * Dependence on Russia

It's good that they pushed solar and wind tech forward, but Germany just doesn't seem like a good place to deploy solar. Natural gas power is the cleanest fossil fuel and probably the best short term option (although without LNG it's still exposed to Russia), with renewables and Europe-wide grid ties in the longer term. Natural gas also has a 20-40 year lifespan for plants, so replacing coal with gas now and then replacing gas with even better renewables down the line seems like a good strategy.

</comment><comment><USER8> Last hard-coal mine. As far as I know, they're still mining lignite/brown coal in vast open-cast mines swallowing up the German countryside.

<comment><USER9> I was curious about this so I opened google earth, panned over to Germany and zoomed in on a random brown patch on the satellite imagery. The environmental devastation is absolutely awe inspiring. They have mines around the country but particularly south of Berlin, the earth is scarred with dozens of massive active and refilled mines. That group of mines also continues into Czechia and a number of refilled mines can be seen on the Polish border as well.

<comment><USER10> Link?

<comment><USER11> This is Germany: [https://firstname.lastname@example.com,8.7342041,743343m/da...](https://firstname.lastname@example.com,8.7342041,743343m/data=!3m1!1e3)

Disable labels and look at the beige patches on right center (south of Berlin). The vast majority seem to be open mines, presumably coal.

<comment><USER12> Reminds me of looking at West Virginia and Kentucky. [https://maps.app.goo.gl/GPy6u](https://maps.app.goo.gl/GPy6u)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The article doesn't mention it, but Germany still heavily relies on brown coal and opens up a new open pit coal mine.

</comment><comment><USER14> That's a strangely editorializing headline. Kinda like "Apple to no longer mine Lithium". Germany will (and has been) buy coal on the market. It's easily transported by ship (unlike LNG, and, to some extend, oil), and there are lots of producers in many countries, making dependency a non-issue.

Also: this isn't really about environmental concerns. Those just weren't part of the story when this was decided in the 90s, at least not in terms of global warming. Acid rain, and the local trouble with large cities built on top of the mines grappling with more and more geological disturbances were a concern, but the real reasons were simply economics: German coal had become too expensive (around two decades ago). Shutting down it's heavily-subsidized mining is also consistent with the stated goals of reducing CO_2, because buying on the world market will (slightly) raise prices.

There's also the minor inaccuracy that Germany will continue mining lignite for a few years, although I guess that's an acceptable simplification within the constraints of a headline.

The winding down of the coal industry is actually somewhat of a model for such processes. This used to be a hugely influential industry, both in economic powers, as well as cultural. Growing up in the 90s, I remember strikes, protests, and other events around the mining industry and its original boom towns featuring in the news about every second day.

To find compromises that did not satisfy any stakeholders, but succeeded in keeping the peace and, at long last, lead to an environmentally responsible energy strategy was quite a feat.

<comment><USER15> > this isn't really about environmental concerns. Those just weren't part of > the story when this was decided in the 90s, at least not in terms of global > warming.

Civilization, released in 1991, features global warming whenever the amount of pollution in the world exceeds a threshold. (There's no distinction between one kind of pollution and another, so a common way to produce that much pollution would be detonating nuclear weapons, but coal is definitely implicated too.)

The 90s are when people worried about global warming. According to Google Books Ngram Search, "climate change" overtook "global warming" in 1994, crippling its steep upward trend.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's fascinating how (at least in the US) support for coal mining has become a conservative position: you now have people who claim to be staunchly against welfare payments demanding taxpayer money to prop up increasingly unnecessary jobs.

It's the Protestant work ethic, I guess: work is inherently virtuous and deserving of reward even if it serves no purpose, and not working deserves punishment even if there's nothing useful for you to do.

<comment><USER17> Eh, it's more of a central Pennsylvania and West Virginia thing than a conservative thing. Those regions are peppered with towns that were propped up by coal mining, then had the rug pulled out from under them when the industry changed. It's similar to Detroit and the auto industry, or Pittsburgh and the steel industry. If you could bring everything back and revitalize your town, wouldn't you want to make that choice?

<comment><USER16> Absolutely, and I would actually like to see more of my tax dollars spent to assist struggling people and communities in general.

What confuses me is that many of the people calling for the government to help unemployed coal miners are the same people who sneer and spit if you say the government should help unemployed people in general.

<comment><USER18> They're actually different people in most cases. It's just that you probably lump everyone together that is far from you on the political spectrum. Don't worry, most people do the same as you, and in the process nuance is lost and stupid decisions are made.

<comment><USER16> What I posted is literally the position of the President of the United States and a good portion of the Republican Congress. Maybe those people don't actually represent their constituents' views (which is a different problem) but they are absolutely a force in modern American politics.

What you describe does happen, and I won't pretend that I don't do it too, despite my best efforts. But don't imagine that there aren't powerful legislators working from the position of "coal good, welfare bad".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This does not mean that they closed all coal mines, only a part of it, the good ones, hard coal. Still active are the dirty ones, the huge lignite (brown coal) surface mines at Garzweiler (NRW) and the Lausitz (near the polish border) Nochten, Reichwalde, Welzow-Süd and Jänschwalde.

</comment><comment><USER20> I wonder if they also shut down the huge strip mine in situated in Jülich. I watched 20m tall excavators work the place for years.

<comment><USER21> That's a lignite ('browncoal') mine. There are more of those still active in Germany.

<comment><USER22> Which is a shame IMHO

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> As with many seemingly 'redundant' things in Germany this coal mine was mainly used to support mining equipment developers.

</comment><comment><USER24> > the government pulled the plug on 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) in annual > subsidies

I know the politics of countries outside the US are quite different, but I'm a huge fan of things like this statement. I truly think the best place for that money is to never leave the taxpayer's pocket.

<comment><USER25> Hayek would agree. It's better to let resources be used efficiently than to create artificial demand via subsidies.

<comment><USER26> Having worked in the odd megacorp (and those tend to run the show), "efficient use of resources" isn't the first thing that comes to my mind when it comes to the private sector.

<comment><USER27> Let say you're correct, then it's all the more reason __not__ to over- subsidize something. It's one thing for a gov to toss some money at something to encourage R&D, the growth of a technology and/or market, etc. That makes at least some sense in some cases.

The problem is these "temporary" gov programs never end. And then eventually they live long past their prime.

Furthermore, as the become the new normal they tend to create unintended consequence. For example, farm subsidies for corn drove down the price of high fructose corn syrup. That made the sweetener ubiquitous.

Similar can be said for home loans and student loans. Once these programs take on a life of their own, the market becomes distorted and eventually bad - unforeseen - things happen.

<comment><USER28> In my state (Utah). The government is attempting to roll back solar subsidies because "that industry should stand on it's own two feet". Conveniently neglecting to mention the massive tax breaks to fossil fuels.

I wish everyone competed in a free market (for the most part), but the energy market is not that.

<comment><USER29> This comment is conveniently forgetting that Utah taxes gas. In fact, one of the ballot items was the increase this tax.

<comment><USER30> And your comment conveniently omits that ballot item was a non-binding opinion question on using a gas tax increase to fund education and public roads. And that it was defeated. And that a tax != a subsidy.

<comment><USER27> A tax != a aubsidy. But tax can be, and oftwn is, a means to make taxed- thing-X less appealing.

For example, you can make electric cars more appealing by increaing the tax on gas.

Where things get ugly is when the incentives are in conflict. Again, oil is subsidized and then taxed. Big Oil wins. Gov wins. Consumers - who pay the subsidy and the tax - lose.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> So Germany removes 1.1 billion in subsidies, and out of the woodwork containing all the libertarian anti-government spending hawks comes the pro- coal job loss lamentation.

Can the political right please choose: either dump govt handouts across the board for energy or dump the exclusive love of fossil fuel jobs? Meanwhile, renewable energy makes 5-10X more employment opportunities and we hear no complaints about these jobs being affected by government cutbacks by anyone on the right.

<comment><USER32> Can you decide if you want subsidies or not first?

From the article: "Wind, solar and other renewable sources, which account for 55 percent of German electricity capacity, are even more subsidized than coal mining, adding about 25 billion euros to power bills last year."

<comment><USER33> Crazy thought here: You can like subsidies for certain industries (e.g. renewable energy subsidies that are supposed to aid a restructuring of the power supply market towards reducing emissions, are time-limited, and decentralized) while disliking subsidies for other industries (e.g. coal mining: a legacy, toxic industry with few people still employed in it)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> The article completely disregards an important benefit of keeping mines open: national security. Germany has basically said it will forfeit its coal technology and rely instead on the US and Russia.

In the US I want to see these industries kept alive even with skeleton crews. A few billion in subsidies (tax breaks) is a pittance compared to allowing a local fuel source to atrophy.

<comment><USER35> The military needs steel needs coal. This does appear to be a signal that Germany is letting down its guard.

<comment><USER36> I think most machinery in the military runs on gas nowadays.

<comment><USER35> Coal is an input to steel production.

<comment><USER36> Coal _can_ be used for steel production. There are also electric arc furnaces, being used for around 25% of steel produced globally [1]. Also, only 12% of coal production is used to make steel [2].

[1] [https://www.worldcoal.org/coal/uses-coal/how-steel- produced](https://www.worldcoal.org/coal/uses-coal/how-steel-produced)

[2] [https://coalaction.org.nz/carbon-emissions/can-we-make- steel...](https://coalaction.org.nz/carbon-emissions/can-we-make-steel- without-coal)

<comment><USER34> It's not about heating the furnaces. Coking coal is an _ingredient_ in steel production with iron.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Good step. Now reduce the size of the civil service by 50%.

<comment><USER14> I don't think such superficial cynicism is ever helpful.

<comment><USER38> Especially with the upcoming birthday honors, Sir Arnold.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Never mind, plenty of cheap ex-Soviet nuclear power is still available from their neighbors... and Russian natural gas... and Middle Eastern oil... they surely don't need energy independence! /s</comment>


Code-Dependent: Pros and Cons of the Algorithm Age - <AUTHOR> http://www.pewinternet.org/2017/02/08/code-dependent-pros-and-cons-of-the-algorithm-age/ <comment><AUTHOR> Complete report in .PDF :

[http://assets.pewresearch.org/wp- content/uploads/sites/14/20...](http://assets.pewresearch.org/wp- content/uploads/sites/14/2017/02/08181534/PI_2017.02.08_Algorithms_FINAL.pdf)</comment>


An unknown force is pulling the Milky Way towards it at 14M mph - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/space/nightsky/11492654/night-sky-in-april-2015-great-attractor.html

<comment><USER2> Just to make it more meaningful, that's 6.258e6 m/s (Earth escape velocity at the surface is 11.2 m/s, Earth runs around the Sun at about 30 m/s, Sun runs around the Milky Way at about 200e3 m/s).

It's not because B moves toward A at speed V, that B is attracted by A. Attraction should be expressed as force (given in N), or, given the mass of the attracted object, as an acceleration (given in m/s²). The speed of the attracted object is irrelevant. In general in the universe, attractions are approximately perpendicular to the speed of the attracted object! (orbits).

Right now, Earth is moving toward Sagitarius at the speed of 30 m/s. Does it mean that Earth is attracted by a big unknown force pulling it toward Sagitarius at 30 m/s? No! This is bullshit. Earth is attracted by the Sun with a force of 3.5e+22 N, which gives an acceleration of 0.006 m/s², both of which are perpendicular to the speed of the Earth with respect to the Sun!

Adrian Berry didn't report any observation that the galaxies are accelerated in the same direction they're moving to.

</comment><comment><USER3> The "Great Attractor", it's called, is quite interesting. Though this article doesn't delve much into it, there's more information about it on wikipedia. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Attractor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Attractor)

</comment><comment><USER4> Advice: Note the date before starting a mathematical discussion on whether this is possible :-)</comment>


Accenture left a huge trove of highly sensitive data on exposed servers - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/article/accenture-left-a-huge-trove-of-client-passwords-on-exposed-servers/ <comment><USER2> > No actual breach seems to of occurred: We asked if anyone else had accessed > the servers, the spokesperson said its logs showed access "by only a single > non-authorized IP address which we traced back to a data security consultant > who contacted us about about two weeks ago," referring to Vickery.

Suspicious wording, if indeed "The four servers were quietly secured the next day.". Normally the PR response would have emphasised that e.g. "we took action immeiately and resolved the problem within 24 hours".

And as for "non-authorized IP address" \- really? Is IP address whitelisting used to secure this stuff? And if so, then how on earth did an unauthorized IP address get through?

And then "the company downplayed the exposure, saying the data was less than half a percent of its cloud service" \- but according to TFA that 0.5% included the _master keys_!?!

At the least, their public responses are feeble and imprecise.

Which leads to the suspicion that something darker happened.

<comment><USER3> AFAIK, if the S3 bucket is public, anyone can access it. All IP addresses are authorized.

<comment><USER4> Access and authorization are separate concepts. You can't trespass on someone's property just because there is no gate.

This is why companies put authorized use only login banners on servers and network gear.

<comment><USER5> No. If it is public, everyone is authorized.

<comment><USER4> Sorry, not the case at all. If you start poking around on a server that the DoD forgets to lock down, you're going to jail. You're not authorized to use it just because you can access it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> >As we continue our forensic review we may learn more but, the email and password information in the database is more than two and a half years old and for Accenture users of a decommissioned system," the spokesperson said.

I don't know if they understand that password re-use is a thing. So it doesn't matter if the passwords are too old or not.

Still the response is nothing but a long line of excuses: the data was not client related, no PII data was leaked, passwords are old etc.

</comment><comment><USER7> Boy, it sure does sound like Accenture wants to keep this one quiet.

I think I'll take a break from HN to send an e-mail to some friends whose employers are Accenture customers and see if they've heard from 'em about this.

<comment><USER8> I asked a friend whether it was a story that was blowing up in Accenture. They haven't heard a word about it. It seems like Accenture is trying to bury it and do nothing about it.

<comment><USER9> It's making its rounds. Accenture is incredibly unorganized though, for example I have no idea which teams use this AWS service. I didn't even know Accenture had AWS services as they tend to push Azure more. My own project uses it's own datacenter which is the case for most clients - Accenture wants to leave them least responsible in these kinds of events.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is potentially much worse than Equifax. I'm not sure why it's not being covered more heavily.

There are many major companies in Accenture's client portfolio that this would expose, including health-care companies.

<comment><USER10> It's not covered more heavily for 2 reasons:

1) The story only just broke.

2) No actual breach seems to of occurred: _We asked if anyone else had accessed the servers, the spokesperson said its logs showed access "by only a single non-authorized IP address which we traced back to a data security consultant who contacted us about about two weeks ago," referring to Vickery._

<comment><USER8> > _No actual breach seems to of occurred_

I might be wrong about this, but my understanding is that a decent black-hat hacker wouldn't have left many (if any) breadcrumbs because he had "the keys to the kingdom". It would be easy to erase change logs on the way out.

<comment><USER11> The logs in question would be AWS's S3 access logs. Having Accenture's credentials wouldn't let you delete those.

<comment><USER12> Unless the bucket contained these as well? (ok, that was arguing for the sake of argument... :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > ...passwords -- some of which were stored in plaintext.

Maybe don't do that?

Also, the greater-than sign in their logo is amusing. I amused myself by looking at the picture while mentally inserting nouns. eg dog poop > Accenture

I am easily amused.

<comment><USER14> It's an "accen"t pointing to the fu"ture".

source: unfortunately I used to work there when they came up with the name.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The discoverer's article is quite informative: [https://www.upguard.com/breaches/cloud-leak- accenture](https://www.upguard.com/breaches/cloud-leak-accenture)

</comment><comment><USER10> Chris Vickery (who discovered this problem) has quite a record of discovering unsecured S3 buckets.

How does he do it?

<comment><USER16> S3 buckets have a single unified namespace, so presumably he's got bots running 24/7 scanning every legal bucket name. Filter it down using english words, likely ops jargon, and company names. I'm guessing Accenture has lots of buckets named "accenture-prod-uploads" or other promising combinations.

<comment><USER17> ... and this is why I generally prefix all bucket names with a UUID. Mildly user hostile, but bucket names go in config files, so who cares?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Generally companies apply the excuse of a "sophisticated attack". This time it seems they aren't able call it that way.

</comment><comment><USER19> The mix of cloud creds plus TLS certs makes me think this was something like Terraform remote state stored on S3.

</comment><comment><USER20> Something feels fitting that Accenture is a spin-off of Arthur Andersen

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

</comment><comment><USER21> Paint me surprised, not.</comment>


An Astronaut's Guide to Mental Models - <AUTHOR> https://fs.blog/2020/02/mental-models-in-space/ <comment><USER2> I'm conflicted about the whole "Mental Model" thing that has sprung up in the last couple years. In principle, naming and sharing useful patterns of thought is useful. In practice, every time I see them like this they make my skin crawl. Mental models are supposed to just be models, but, like, in your mind. People are building a pyramid on a mole hill instead of just noticing the hill...

Ah, just realized the applicable Mental Model according to TFA. They're blurring the distinction between the map (mental models) and territory (actual thinking).

Ed: first paragraph was largely superfluous.

Ed2: "building a pyramid on a mole hill" describes so many things. Did I just invent a Mental Model? I think I did.

<comment><USER3> It'd be nice if we could move the conversation about Mental Models into "how to evaluate such a model for quality" as soon as possible.

Otherwise the novelty of the most recent proliferation of the term is pushing critics to decide "good or bad" regarding _mental models in general_, which is, to be frank, pretty dumb. Certainly such a dichotomy is much worse by itself than a broad field in which some poor models, applied poorly, are mixed in with a lot of really great examples.

And I guess this doesn't even get into the value proposition of a task like cataloging mental models and/or quantifying them via simple lists...mental models are a core aspect of human psychology and there's really an impressive amount of depth to the topic. Ramming a bunch of them together for quantity seems like a good way to make readers feel either over-confident or overwhelmed.

<comment><USER4> Questions answered from different mental models will get you different answers. Just as important as having these different "mental models" or "perspectives" (if you will) is discerning which is correct. AKA thinking for yourself. In my mind, a mental model is only useful for generating ideas from which you can gain another insight. No model has the right answer for every question.

<comment><USER5> Would be nice though to map which models are most relevant for specific questions.

<comment><USER3> Validity, accuracy, reliability...science has helped us go a long way toward sorting it out.

We've come so far in our measurement that there has begun a stringent internal critique of our time-tested models for measurement of those criteria.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The astronaut angle is just stupid clickbait.

If you want to learn habits from people who make on-the-fly life-or-death decisions, there are much bigger pools of people who do that, who have experience much more relevant to what ever it is you're doing, than people who managed to survive in a space-can[1].

More applicably, the most common life-or-death decision made by people reading this is how much attention they pay while driving. Modeling that in a way that makes you better at it would likely provide substantially more, er, lack of bang for your buck than worrying how Armstrong made particular choices.

[1] I don't mean to belittle astronauts - they're clearly exceptional in their own way. I'm questioning how relevant their unique experience is to others' lives, and what other relevant experience they far have that bigger pools of other people don't.

<comment><USER7> > The astronaut angle is just stupid clickbait.

It's not an "angle" and it's definitely not clickbait -- they're excerpts from a book written by an astronaut.

> the most common life-or-death decision made by people reading this is how > much attention they pay while driving.

Yes, sure, they should pay attention while driving, but why can't they also learn lessons from astronauts?

> managed to survive in a space-can[1] > [1] I don't mean to belittle > astronauts

Sorry, it feels like you are. There's a lot of interesting and useful lessons in the article and the book, and you're kinda dismissing it just because it's from an astronaut.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I saw a BBC documentary where they interviewed every astronaut who had walked on the moon who would speak to them about life. Most were total and utter cranks! Strangest thing I've ever seen. You can understand why once you've seen it. Peaking at a young age, the incredible stress of being a test pilot and watching so many colleagues die through no fault of their own. The adulation for surviving, which really wasn't up to you. Etc. I have huge sympathy for all the Astronuats - not that they'd want it and good for them.

But I'm not taking an astronauts advice on literally anything because they are or were an astronaut. Doing that ends up in the realms of spoon bending. If an astronaut has an idea it stands or falls on the merit of the idea. If you want a heuristic, most astronaut's ideas aren't worth your time. It's a sad conclusion to come to and I'm sure it's unpopular because we love having glamorous heroes but there it is.

<comment><USER9> I agree with your criticism of hero worship, and the personal issues with the early pilots / astronauts, but modern space flight is nothing like that.

It's still dangerous, but our success rate with rockets is far, far better than it was in the 1960's. Complex systems, as Hadfield notes, succeed because of diligence and cooperation, not luck and cowboyism. Most astronauts in the 21st century don't have 1-in-4 of their colleagues killed on the job.

<comment><USER8> Astronauts are still the monkeys in a can. The success or failure now as it always was is in the engineering team, not the warm body who (to paraphrase Carl Sagan) is /still/ really only present for PR purposes rather than to optimise the advancement of technology and science.

Head of space flight engineering or whatever at NASA - yeah? Heuristic would be listen to them, they might know something. Monkey in the can on top of the fire-cracker? If they do know something it's more coincidence with their usefulness in PR than anything else. Sad but true. If NASA abandoned human flight tomorrow they'd probably get a lot more bang for buck - other than in PR because we love us a person to fuel our imagination and I am no different there. How flippin' cool is it ride the fireball into space?!?

<comment><USER10> You are wildly uninformed when it comes to astronaut roles. Could the ISS be automated? Perhaps, but at astronomical costs. And most tasks would still require remote operation. Also many experiments are done precisely on humans themselves.

In general modern astronauts have many roles -- flight managers, technicians (doing and evaluating repairs), scientists, experimental subjects, and finally yes communicators to an extent (frankly great to inspire people). Obvious Hadfield isn't a perfect human being and I'm sure he doesn't like adulation, but his vast set of skills, including communication effectiveness is quite impressive (and music ability -- check out his space video clip!). I assure you he's no crank (perhaps you're biased by early space program people that were test pilots). I recommend checking out his and other ISS youtube videos to get an idea: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Hj3GnPRsJ4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Hj3GnPRsJ4)

<comment><USER8> Compare the costs of automation development vs the cost of life support systems development, launch and maitenance and it's not even close.

Yeah I know it sucks when someone poo-poos on your (and my) heroes. I know. "For a successful technology... " etc. Feynman wasn't perfect either. Astronauts continue to be selected according to an ideal of how they will come accross to the public, from Alan Shephard on. And there was something very impressive about all of them that played well in the media. It took 30 years to find out so many of them are also pretty weird and not people you'd take scientific advice from.

Experiments on humans in space are mostly interesting in research for space life-support. You do different, arguably vastly more bang for buck experiments if you're not using humans to do them.

The space race was literally cold war propaganda (and wonderful, beautiful stuff at that - vastly better than most propaganda). NASA continues to put PR front and centre. You can disagree, that's fine, decide to what extent the PR is influencing you and if you're sure it's minimal I can't ask for much more, right?

The ideal would be if NASA had basic science front and centre rather than the incredible waste frittering away vast wealth on the pretence of children's astronaut dreams. And I want a flying car too but reality should win out.

<comment><USER10> Oh here we go -- this is a vast subject (and I understand some of your questioning), I wish I had time for a more thorough analysis, but here are some key points.

\- Humans are actually fantastic space exploration hardware.

We already have robotic vehicles exploring other planets. They are not autonomous, and have glorified Arduinos in them. Not for lack of money or development, but because it is extremely difficult to do autonomous exploration, and the hardware is essentially currently impossible because there's nothing good enough, and not even remotely close to good enough that can survive radiation and space environment. Exploration currently is extremely slow, done through remote control, with up to 24 minute delays (Mars).

\- Humans can self-reproduce with low-tech inputs

We are perhaps from >50 to >>100s years away from machine compact self- reproduction, then imagine self-reproduction with human-like intelligence. Only humans can make colonies for the near future.

\- AGI (or just good enough scientist AI, explorer AI, etc) is uncertainly distant

It could be 20, or it could be 100 years or more away (if our civilization even survives that long before wars/climate change/etc), economically viable AGI is uncertain, economically viable compact radiation-resistant AGI is vastly uncertain.

\- It is worthwhile to bet on long term space exploration and habitation

This is the most difficult case. I think it's worthwhile to devote resources on long term space exploration and habitation. In particular research since it is so expensive right now and we still experiencing rapid technological change. We want to eventually live on other planets (and even other star systems). The other aspects are complementary, like inspiring people to work in engineering and science; the main thing is giving hope for the future, even if it's a future you won't live.

Most of the research anyways finds applications in terrestrial systems (remember that we still do pure Mathematics, whose research value tends to crop decades later or more).

\---

It is expensive, yes (ISS costs about $3 billion per year for NASA apparently), but overall I think it's a tiny investment for great returns (at varying levels of risk).

\---

Finally, to expand on hope: hope is great things many things, but one of them is simply the way people act on expectations of the future. If they don't expect to live long, or a long term future worth living for other generations, you expect we will act more selfishly and greedily, a self-fulfilling prophetical aspect. Thus it's extremely important not to neglect sustainability and somewhat distant dreams.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've just discovered "Mental Models". It's really weird putting a name to the mechanisms I've used to explain and reason for as long as I can remember.

<comment><USER12> Smell BS ? It is a new Buzz word. Just wait, it will pass.

<comment><USER13> The term was coined in the 1940s so it is not likely a buzz word.

<comment><USER2> The recent usage of "mental model" is. The fact that the term had a more useful meaning before makes its buzzwordification all the more irritating. Before a mental model was just a way you thought of something. Now they're Named Things to be shoehorned all over the place. Imagine if "design pattern" had been a casually but widely used term before _Design Patterns_ came out (maybe it was, I wasn't around then).

<comment><USER14> So... What would you call them instead?

<comment><USER2> I would probably try to find a more specific term for the specific idea I'm talking about rather than try to use one term for all of them. That said, "heuristic" is a good term for a lot of them. "Framework" is another one that came up in this thread.

<comment><USER14> The entire reason to call them "Mental Models" is to aid in their communication and discovery.

There are many hueristics that are not mental models. There are many things that are frameworks that are not mental models.

Labelling something a "mental model" as used in this context serves the purpose to communicate "here is an abstraction with unusually good power-to- weight ratio that you can leverage to aide your thinking/reasoning about situations that meet a given set of criteria".

It's actually a very specific thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The "mental models" stuff just seems like gobbledygook. Hadfield is giving regular kind of advice you read everywhere from Sun Tzu to John Wooden:

        - Don't be selfish
        - Learn from your mistakes
        - Expect the unexpected
        - Etc.

Doesn't really seem like Earth-shattering stuff.

<comment><USER16> It's not so much earth shattering stuff so much as confirmation. These are not easy lessons for many people due to various psychological factors and history. It helps push people in the right direction when the message is given by someone that they respect.

An interesting part of leadership can be repetition, so this feels reasonable.

<comment><USER17> Is this confirmation useful? Or stated another way, would you feel less confident about aphorisms like "don't be selfish" and "learn from your mistakes" if a famous astronaut said they were bad ideas?

<comment><USER16> It all depends on the person, who they look up to, their history, their biases. A selfish person that values space travel may ignore all other sources of information, but the astronaut saying it may cause a moment of reflection.

Now, is this ideal? No, we are a strange-strange species.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I did some work with a Design Anthropologist a while ago, in that field a Mental Model was used to describe how particular people think, and that was used to help solve their problems. That seems like a good use of the term.

The way the term is used in the article, I would rather call a thinking style, or simply a way to think.

I think there is value in them, but often they are pretty bloody obvious and not in anyway new.

Circle of Competence is just playing to your strengths.

Second Order Thinking is just imagining consequences.

Generally they can be boiled down to a few question we can ask about a situation.

What about this problem am I uncertain about? What assumptions am I making? How might I increase confidence in my solution?

Anyway...they are here for a while.

</comment><comment><USER19> When I hear mental model I am thinking more.of the lines of perception. The value of a mental model is understanding it. To the extent of replicating or teaching it. It is a model. A model is defining a set of relatable understanding to another. Finding a commen sense set of abstractions.</comment>


Optical lens can transfer digital information without loss - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2017-07-optical-lens-digital-loss.html <comment><USER2> Yes, 36 bits or even more I would think.

It seems like they are suggesting that it's feasible to make fiber optics which transmit a picture with extremely low distortion. So a single fiber could carry an optical image instead of a serial bit stream while maintaining nearly perfect clarity.

So you could potentially encode a lot of data (I would think a lot more than 36 bits) into a 2D pattern (like a QR code, essentially) which would enable the transfer of large blocks of data in each frame of visual information.

Of course encoding & decoding the data would incur some overhead...

<comment> orbital-decay > It seems like they are suggesting that it's feasible to make fiber optics > which transmit a picture with extremely low distortion. So a single fiber > could carry an optical image instead of a serial bit stream while > maintaining nearly perfect clarity.

If this is the case, it could be useful in many fiber array imaging applications, not just data transmission. Endoscopy, special cameras like Huygens' DISR etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The title is confusing. Of course an optical lens can transfer digital information without loss. The lenses in my glasses do this all the time.

</comment><comment><USER4> Keep in mind that multiple wavelengths are already used in parallel in optical signaling -- "Modern systems can handle 160 signals and can thus expand a basic 100 Gbit/s system over a single fiber pair to over 16 Tbit/s." \- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wavelength- division_multiplexi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wavelength- division_multiplexing)

<comment><USER5> Also keep in mind that running multi-mode communication brings a new set of problems and challenges (dispersion, non-linear effects, ...) and thus the "expansion" usually comes with some sort of trade-off for a successful implementation (frequency of repeaters etc).

<comment><USER6> The systems the parent cites are single-mode. You can run 160 wavelengths through a single-mode fiber. This is done in optical transport systems for "long haul". The wavelengths are close together just far enough apart to accommodate the bandwidth needed for each channel.

Multimode fiber is used for short distances after demultiplexing the wavelengths, typically in data centers.

Although I would not say that 100 Gb/s on a single wavelentgh is "basic" at this point in time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Can anyone describe the difference between this and standard optical connections?

Is it saying that it would give a 36 bit bandwidth over that of today's optics?

</comment><comment><USER8> So theoretically, 36 bits at a time vs 1 bit for today's serial optical? Or is that overly simplistic?

</comment><comment><USER9> So is there a picture of the lens somewhere? I don't see what shape it is.</comment>


Facebook audit: Trump held to different standard, impeding civil rights - <AUTHOR> https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/7/9/21318896/facebook-civil-rights-audit-hate-speech-failed-zuckerberg-white-nationalism-sheryl-sandberg <comment><AUTHOR> The audit report:

[https://about.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Civil- Rights...](https://about.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Civil-Rights-Audit- Final-Report.pdf)

From the audit's About section:

> This investigation into Facebook's policies and practices began in 2018 at > the behest and encouragement of the civil rights community and some members > of Congress, proceeded with Facebook's cooperation, and is intended to help > the company identify, prioritize, and implement sustained and comprehensive > improvements to the way it impacts civil rights.

> The Audit was led by Laura W. Murphy, a civil rights and civil liberties > leader, along with a team from civil rights law firm Relman Colfax, led by > firm partner Megan Cacace.

> During the first six months of the audit, Laura W. Murphy interviewed and > gathered the concerns of over 100 civil rights organizations. Over the > course of the Audit's two year engagement, that number exceeded 100 > organizations, hundreds of advocates and several members of Congress. The > focus areas for the audit, which were informed by those interviews, were > described in the first preliminary audit report, released in December 2018. > That was followed by a second update in July 2019, which identified areas of > increasing concern for the Auditors. This third report will be the Auditors' > final analysis.

> The Civil Rights Audit is not an audit of Facebook's performance as compared > to its tech industry peers. In some areas it may outperform peers with > respect to civil rights, and in other areas, it may not. The Auditors are > not privy to how other companies operate and therefore do not draw > comparisons in this report. The scope of the work on the Audit was focused > only on the US and the core Facebook app (rather than Instagram, WhatsApp, > or other Facebook, Inc. products).

Original title was vague. It was, including lede:

Why Facebook failed its civil rights audit

The new, deeply critical report highlights the tension between free expression and hate speech on the social network.</comment>