Navy F/A-18 squadron commander's take on AI repeatedly beating real pilot - <AUTHOR> https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/35947/navy-f-a-18-squadron-commanders-take-on-ai-repeatedly-beating-real-pilot-in-dogfight <comment><USER3> Too funny, I went through flight school with Colin. Great guy and glad to see he picked up command but disagree with him on the benefits of BFM and the true value of manned fighter jets over the coming decades. The US military is caught between two wars. One, against opponents who can't really hit back where fighter jets are overkill. Better off with AC-130s and the like. The other against opponents who can hit back, where the battle will be won or lost in space, cyber, economically, and possibly through nuclear warfare. Even with regards to fighters, the amount of money spent on BFM is really a boondoggle. It's like spending billions training the infantry to knife fight. It's not Vietnam and the last gunfighter with regards to missiles and targeting. Is not the AIM-9X targeting AI itself?

A great book that rings more true than ever talks about the obsolescence of weapons systems. I believe it was Freedman[1] A key thesis is that as a predominant weapon system becomes more vulnerable, it becomes more expensive, as it's burdened with more defensive measures to survive from cheaper more expendable systems. In World War 2 the canonical example was the battle ship and the aircraft. Now it's the fighter jet and the missile (or drone) etc. Just look at the ridiculous state of the JSF.

Manned missile trucks are valuable for countering electronic attack, but not dogfighting. Still, practice dogfighting is one of the most fun things you can do, too bad it hasn't really been applicable since Vietnam. This post from the other day reminded me how fun it is and seems like a great fit for VR.[2] Onward last Samurais! Just try not to spend all the taxpayers money on the way out.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Future-War-History-Lawrence- Freedman-...](https://www.amazon.com/Future-War-History-Lawrence-Freedman- ebook/dp/B01JZ2QLFQ/) [2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24255191](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24255191)

<comment><USER4> I've been clocking in 10+ hours/wk dogfighting in VR with a decent HOTAS setup since quarantine. You're absolutely right about how fun it is. No other VR experience has been such a consistent draw for me. It's just an excellent place between a fast paced shooter and a strategy game. I love thinking about relative energy and the capabilities of the enemy plane and how they match up with mine in order to come up with an engagement strategy. I also love the tension as you identify a target and you're both trying to come into the engagement from a favorable position. It reminds me of match sprints in track cycling. Very much recommend it.

<comment><USER5> Do you do anything to deal with the motion sickness, or did you just never experience it?

I can play games where real-world motion matches in-game motion (Beat Saber, PokerStars VR, Superhot VR, Zombie Training Simulator, Space Pirate Trainer, etc.), but any sort of driving or flying makes me sick. Even games that make me use the controller to walk long distances make me dizzy and nauseous.

<comment><USER4> I love flying. For the first three weeks or so of consistently playing I would get pretty motion sick after about 30 minutes of playtime and near throwing up after 45. That's usually when I would stop and then I'd spend another half hour or so walking around the neighborhood to give me something to concentrate on other than the awful nausea.

Then one day I was flying, and then I was flying and then I was still flying 4 hours later with no sickness. It hasn't come back since.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Saw an interesting video on the military channel a couple of years back that pointed out something important about these super powerful, super fast, super expensive aircraft.

You'd be better off from a cost perspective running a swarm of hundreds of drone strapped with explosives, only one of them needs to get lucky to disable a multi-million dollar plane and the drones themselves can be pretty cheap.

<comment><USER7> By the same principle, a small and inexperienced navy can effectively harass and perhaps even the defeat the US navy with a swarm of small boats

[https://gcaptain.com/can-u-s-navy-defeat-swarm- attacks/](https://gcaptain.com/can-u-s-navy-defeat-swarm-attacks/)

<comment><USER8> I wouldn't be shocked if the Navy's eventual counter tactic to that is a bunch of drones on every ship.

<comment><USER9> In the limit, we get rid of navies and stick swarms of drones in 40-ft shipping containers, and then just sail container ships with 10K+ drones aboard around.

<comment><USER10> And where are the sensors?

<comment><USER9> Presumably on slow high-flying drones (think like a U-2) or on a balloon. For drones that go under 30 mph you can actually solar-power them, letting them stay aloft indefinitely.

I'd expect to see a shift toward more visual and IR sensors as well, to combat stealth technologies. Modern ultra-HD cameras + image recognition algorithms are a lot more sensitive than human eyes are, and you can field many more drones than AWACS aircraft with much less cost of a loss, letting you bring the relevant detection platforms in closer.

<comment><USER10> Visual and IR sensors don't work well in bad weather. Modern cameras have superior resolution to human eyes but dynamic range is still worse. Solar powered drones don't have the power or payload to handle useful radars. For that mission you need something like an RQ-4, which is roughly equivalent to a U-2 in performance and just as expensive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> >>the argument about the death of the dogfight, or that there is no need for within visual range engagements anymore is a tired one. There was a pretty popular movie in the '80s about that very argument, so I am not going to rehash it here.

Regardless of the actual merits of whether dogfights are a thing any more, I feel like "because Top Gun" is not exactly a sound argument.

<comment><USER12> What's interesting to me - I thought I was a pretty big fan of Top Gun, but now I'm not so sure.

I did not pick up there is an argument about whether or not dog fighting still was needed.

The only "argument" I recall was the recap of how pilot deaths increased after training stopped, and decreased after training started. But it was a one off history lesson as part of the Top Gun school intro.

But the rest or the movie seemed very clearly - yes, the US needs dog fighting to defend its interests across the globe. There seemed to be absolutely no challenging of that idea within Top Gun.

<comment><USER13> That was an 80s movie. An all out war with Russia was still a possibility then.

<comment><USER14> Over the past few years, I've been hoping to run into an 80s soviet movie with heavily armed evil american antagonists. The soviet ideological indoctrination and censorship game must've been strong, because so far everything I've seen either has pirates/hooligans/etc. as antagonists or fails to even have a "man vs. man" plot at all.

<comment><USER15> I grew up in post Soviet Ukraine, watching all the movies that were made in the USSR. I cannot recall a single "us vs them" movie with another country or nationality being the them, except movies about WWII. I don't know why that is, but when we started getting American movies in the early 1990s it was a huge contrast. In Soviet movies the good guys were often the police trying to combat recidivism after WWII (huge socioeconomic shift led to a huge socioeconomic problem that gave rise to a huge amount of crime). In the American movies the bad guys were often foreigners.

This isn't to say there wasn't propaganda, just that the propaganda was pointed in a different direction: for example a young idealistic police officer working with an veteran of the force to tenaciously investigate an elusive criminal gang for the glory of the Soviet Union. The focus was to make Soviet patriotism an attractive quality, regardless of being young or old. It was a lot more focused internally. In the meantime, a movie like Die Hard has none of that: German thieves that pretend to be terrorists are the bad guys, an all American hero is a good guy. American movies rarely have a true patriotic streak, as in "and this, son, is why we must work to better our union." In fact, the idea of glorifying labor was so prevalent in the Soviet movies and so absent in American ones that this might be the biggest contrast. It shows a different face of patriotism and could easily explain the divide: some think patriotism is exercising your rights while others see it as holding back on exercising your rights. "It's my right not to wear a mask" is a clear example of that.

<comment><USER16> >>>This isn't to say there wasn't propaganda, just that the propaganda was pointed in a different direction: for example a young idealistic police officer working with an veteran of the force to tenaciously investigate an elusive criminal gang for the glory of the Soviet Union.

Interesting, the closest Western execution of this Soviet theme, albeit much more cynically, might be "Child 44", which was banned in much of the FSU and bombed: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_44_(film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_44_\(film\))

Personally I enjoyed it.

>>>American movies rarely have a true patriotic streak, as in "and this, son, is why we must work to better our union."

"The Siege" might be one of the best for sticking to American values and trying to curb xenophobia. A big part of the plot is the importance of holding other Americans accountable for violations of our laws and our values, even when fighting against "foreign" enemies.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Drones can be, and have been jammed, or even captured [1]. You need now, and will continue to need for the foreseeable future pilots in planes. But teams of piloted fighters and drones? That will be the winning combination. And how can a single human command a flock of 20 aircraft? By giving short orders, and letting AI taking care of the rest. The ethics of killing will never be left to AI, but the technicalities of acquiring and prosecuting the target? You bet.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93U.S._RQ-170_incid...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93U.S._RQ-170_incident)

<comment><USER18> > The ethics of killing will never be left to AI,

Ha. I know of a device with a very simple AI program that can tell if an enemy is standing on it. If so, the enemy is killed. It's called a mine. They have been used in every land (and naval) war since they were invented.

<comment><USER19> I don't think mines quality as "AI", unless you stretch the definition to just mean anything under the sun.

<comment><USER20> I think they just meant that the military long left the "kill/don't kill" decision along the wayside despite the propaganda of saying we have someone in control of the kill vector.

<comment><USER19> The whole discussion was about AI as far as I can recall.

<comment><USER21> Mines are being compared as something that makes worse decisions but gets put in charge anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The US military already has drones that are flown remotely. It seems to be a small step to add a dogfighting AI to a plane and just have the remote pilot sic the AI at another plane. The remote pilot just has to reengage after the fighting is over. That's assuming that they can add the sensors and AI to track the other plane.

As the author mentioned, the dogfighting AI seems to counter the real pilot's moves effectively while maximizing the amount of energy maintained. It seems to have caused the real pilot to overshoot or undershoot while maintaining or gaining energy. The countering also included adjusting aim to hit the real pilot as the real pilot tried to maneuver away. It wasn't just perfect information or efficient flying.

<comment><USER23> Current drones are slow speed, slow maneuverability vehicles. I suppose you can make a drone fighter, but that does not exist yet.

<comment><USER22> The US air force had drone f-16s and used them to test missiles (they shot the missiles at them).

[https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/a29847417...](https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/a29847417/f-16-drone/)

[https://www.boeing.com/defense/support/qf-16/index.page](https://www.boeing.com/defense/support/qf-16/index.page)

<comment><USER23> > it was noted that with a little extra work the QF-16 could be turned into a > combat UAV for dangerous missions like SEAD (suppression of enemy defenses) > or attacking ground targets guarded by heavy air defenses.

[https://www.uasvision.com/2014/06/05/target-qf16-could- becom...](https://www.uasvision.com/2014/06/05/target-qf16-could-become- mq-16-lawn-dart/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Three huge issues with this test:

1\. The AI had "total situational awareness" (perfect position, direction, velocity of opponent). Even given 360 cameras, radar, etc there is still uncertainty, errors, etc.

2\. The human was an expert pilot, not a sim expert (see videos, he was going way too fast several times, not something he'd do in a real plane). A DCS master would likely have done better.

3\. The AI wasn't trying to avoid head-ons.

With this and the Starcraft2 blink micro "win" I'm just going to these from now on.

<comment><USER25> > 3\. The AI wasn't trying to avoid head-ons.

Why should it? Presumably the AI pilot is backed up / remote / not precious - while the human pilot has an inherent value - isn't reckless disregard one benefit of automated systems?

<comment><USER24> You don't risk an expensive plane with head-ons - that's what missiles are for.

This was testing the AI. If real-world AI was going to be deployed in warfare shooting down manned planes, you'd make custom hardware that is smaller, faster and 10-100x cheaper than a f-35.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I hope this impresses the military enough that they carve out several billion more for AI research. The US spends so much on the military.

For some reason, we can't justify more on civilian research but the military easily can, if it embraces it as part of its future.

<comment><USER27> Yes, nothing could possibly go wrong with having a military minded AI.

<comment><USER28> It's not minded, it's not any different in than alphago or alphastar or the OpenAI dota bots, it doesn't understand anything outside of the context of the game it's playing. It doesn't have a mind. On the "intelligence" spectrum it's much closer to the guidance system in a heat seeking missile to than say even a dog, yet alone anything that we would define as having cognition.

<comment><USER27> Well, OP was talking about billions of dollars of DARPA funding going towards military AI research. I presume they would be trying to get much closer to cognition.

<comment><USER28> Why would you want cognition? Besides the billions of edge cases it may create why would you want to make a tool you can or would have to reason with?

<comment><USER29> > _why would you want to make a tool you can or would have to reason with?_

Some might ask the same question in the context of human children.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The reason you're seeing this story is not because the Pentagon felt like you would enjoy some candor on a whiz-bang AI thing. No, they're way out in front of this issue. This is part of a prolonged PR campaign to prepare the public for reducing or eliminating human-in-the-loop limitations. A wet dream for systems guys since they were children reading sci-fi.

The Pentagon has been using robots to kill robots and other humans since before 9/11\. This story has a long arc. We meat bags are the major limitation for machines of war and that limitation will be engineered out.

</comment><comment><USER31> Is there value in having a pilot, just to increase the consequences of shooting down a plane? When Iran shot down a US drone, there was pretty much no real response by the US. If it was a manned plane, there would almost certainly be at least retaliatory strikes, so Iran (and other countries) are going to be much less likely to shoot down a manned F-18 than an unmanned one. So maybe having manned fighters is valuable just to increase the barrier to engagement.

And regardless, is there even value in having autonomous fighter jets when we already have advanced missiles? It doesn't matter how good the pilot/AI is if they are just firing missiles from miles away. We already have missiles that can loiter for hours before choosing a target and attacking it (ex. IAI Harpy) - to me that is much more valuable and dangerous than an AI fighter.

Army of None: Autonomous Weapons and the Future of War is a good book to read about it.

<comment><USER32> It would be more efficient to use drones but precommit to shooting a soldier back in the US whenever a drone gets shot down.

<comment><USER33> Morally not possible.

<comment><USER34> Maybe watch this: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Taste_of_Armageddon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Taste_of_Armageddon)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> > The fact that in the contest, the AI had perfect information at all times, > and rules of engagement were not a factor, are not inconsequential details. > I recognize that providing the amount of data and sensor fusion the AI would > require to perform at the same level in a real aerial engagement (one that > does not take place in cyberspace) is not a small undertaking and still a > bit in the future. The rules of engagement discussion could fill up the > syllabus for the entire semester of an ethics class, and will always be a > touchy subject with regards to AI's involvement in war.

This is probably the important bit, and the bit that most needs a human in the loop. Once the decision is made, engage the AI and let it do its thing.

Of course, if some regime out there didn't care at all about ROE or human life or killing the wrong people, they could build a bunch of killing machines to take out anything that moves. It would be more efficient.

<comment><USER35> I think this is how other species will eventually come upon our world... just a whole bunch of machines fighting each other with the humans long gone.

<comment><USER36> This book relevant to your interests: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invincible](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invincible)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> > Hell, I am only a voting member as far as the flight controls are concerned > in the Super Hornet anyways. If I put a control input in that is not > aerodynamically sound (i.e. could result in a departure from controlled > flight), the flight control system will not move the control surface or will > move a different surface to give me the movement I am requesting. Who is > flying who?

That's a good take on the matter. Computer systems are already a big part of the aircraft, in the near term this could result in some pretty wicked copilot software.

<comment><USER14> Now that AI assist is being openly discussed in the wider anglophone press, I wonder if we'll see a diminution in "unsafe unprofessional" air intercepts?

(I don't know what the search terms would be in chinese[1], but "искусственный интеллект су-35" gets plenty of older —at least by HN standards— hits.)

[1] [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia- china-28905504](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-28905504) suggests china has bought while they learn to build. Someone who knows more chinese than I might wish to try "人工智能 苏35".

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I'm assuming combat aircraft are capable of delivering more G's than a human body can handle, though pilots train to sustain brief bouts of high G for quick maneuvering - is this limit factored into to the "AI player" handling? Is it meant to simulate another human pilot or is it human versus the physical limits of a machine?

<comment><USER39> If I were building an AI commanded aircraft I would have it use every G the airframe could handle. No pilot means fewer maneuvering limitations and an increased chance of victory.

An intermediate step could be an AI-assisted aircraft. It might be better at setting up shots, and still work within the physical limitations of the human inside.

Something not mentioned is an AI powered plane's ability to more-rapidly change from positive to negative G's (not sure if this is technically called jerk or not). A human has a really tough time making that transition.

<comment><USER29> There was another discussion a couple months ago [0] which linked to an MIT lecture on Youtube about the F-22 and its design. At 40 minutes in [1], he describes a scenario with an F-15 where the pilot could rip the wings off of the plane. He contrasts that the F-22's software was designed to make the most use of control surfaces and limiters to prevent that.

[0]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23588760](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23588760)

[1]: [https://youtu.be/Evhrk5tY-Yo?t=2428](https://youtu.be/Evhrk5tY- Yo?t=2428)

<comment><USER40> But it's relatively easy to create an unmanned airframe that can maneuver at +/\- 20g's. The pilot has been the limiting factor for quite some time.

An unmanned aircraft could laughably outmaneuver an F-22. The AI is the tricky part.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I'm very curious of the gods eye factor of the video game environment vs the real world sensor processing.

</comment><comment><USER42> The setup of the game is simply unfair for a comparison between AI and human. If you want to keep the perfect data link between the simulator's outputs and the AI player computer, then at least let the human play by watching the (God's eye) display with the aircraft sprites sporting those kill-point spears and ditch the HUD. The objective would simply be to touch the enemy aircraft with that spear.

The HUD is cool and all. But how do I know where the enemy is if it is outside of the HUD's field? Think about how the AI knew. :) And while we are at this, maybe just invite a young gamer instead of a real pilot.

</comment><comment><USER43> Given how vastly different WWI and WII were from their predecessors, I don't see planning for WWIII being a very useful exercise. The game theory is so vastly open ended, and capabilities of belligerents so great it Bogles the mind.

(Oh, and I fail to see how China wouldn't win. Heh.)

That just leaves "counter-insurgency" empire building crap which is super inefficient at even the stated goals, and the stated goals are worthless.

Therefore I conclude the whole exercise is pointless and a waste of money.

</comment><comment><USER44> What is stopping from using existing remote pilot drone technology and using it for dog fights and other missions that fighter pilots do?

<comment><USER45> Latency.

<comment><USER46> Do you actually know that to be true? Speed-of-light delays would be important for pilots based in Montana flying in Iraq, but not if the remote pilot is in the theatre. And if it's not speed of light, it's a solvable problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Whats really incredible is the AI company behind these wargames(Heron Systems) only has 25 employees[1]. Which to me seems very small considering the engineering behind making this successful.

[1] - [https://www.sbir.gov/sbc/heron-systems- incorporated](https://www.sbir.gov/sbc/heron-systems-incorporated)

</comment><comment><USER48> To remove the need of pilot completely a lot of still have to be done - <USER2> the same AI capable of the full cycle - from taking off to engagement, from the engagement to landing. Combining all these in the same software is harder than making them work independently. Maybe it will be just a few separate AIs. Then the interconnect problem arises.

</comment><comment><USER49> My kind of AI drone~ [https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/a29847417...](https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/a29847417/f-16-drone/)

</comment><comment><USER50> Its so strange that people are not making the connection between this and killer robots.

<comment><USER51> I'm sure China and Russia are making that connection with gusto. Should we?

<comment><USER50> I mean to say that those systems are in fact killer robots already.

There is nothing special about China and Russia having similar systems.

The same military requirements apply everywhere.

And just because in the US it is not be popularized as "killer robots" does not mean that it is not already that.

Its kind of silly that some people think that the US military has some type of military moral high ground in this case or any. Or that by not explicitly saying "killer robots" that means it is not so.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> The classic dogfight can only persist in the hearts and minds of old pilots. A modern state of the art unpiloted fighter, with no human pilot or the burden of life support, and G limitations will be lighter with the same engines, capable of 30-50+ G maneuvers(for which is has been specially designed), with modern long range standoff weapons and suitable radars, will slaughter any human if faces. The high G ability will leave any standoff missiles fired against it in the dust by active evasion. It will be vulnerable to high grade stealthed missiles. as well as hard ballistic stealthed rounds shot from afar - unless it detects and evades. In fact, any modern robot craft will perform high G random jinks to make path prediction difficult. The soone the USA realizes this, the better. You can be sure Russia/China have learned this lesson.

<comment><USER53> I've said the exact same thing in other threads. You can do fakeouts a human can't possibly do like corkscrew at 500rpm and pull 50gs randomly and repeatedly when a radar is trying to predict your path.

If the engineers in charge of designing these crafts around an AI pilot think outside the box we could see some pretty wild tech.

<comment><USER54> 500 RPM corkscrews and 50Gs are firmly in "missile only" territory due to the limits of material sciences. The square cube law is a harsh mistress and engineering is a game of trade-offs. If you want to design a re-usable platform it's typically better to concentrate on other things like sensors, stealth, speed, networking, and payload which could allow you to get a shot off from outside of the enemy's range or before they are even aware of your presence. It would be interesting to see the inevitable version of this contest for BVR combat but I suspect that's going to end up being classified territory given that it's much more relevant to actual modern combat. AI systems will certainly play a huge role in future fighters but it will probably be more in terms of perfect coordination and execution of long range aerial combat rather than something like dogfighting.

<comment><USER55> > "missile only" territory

I wonder why we're even talking about planes any more. Missiles to kill the planes and missiles to attack the ground. No pilots, no problems. Right?

<comment><USER56> Because we need a human up there, flying around, controlling the missiles. Moving the human closer to the battlefield for a more up-to-date viewpoint is quite important.

<comment><USER55> I was thinking it's because Air Force leadership are all pilots.

> Because we need a human up there, flying around, controlling the missiles

Do we? Why is this important. I thought everything could be done remotely these days.

<comment><USER56> > I thought everything could be done remotely these days.

Jamming is an issue for one. Latency for another.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> The real question is whether you want a society without pilots.

<comment><USER58> Flight Attendants say: NO!

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> The US and NATO has inexpensive anti-drone technology.

[https://www.npr.org/2020/08/17/903152237/bald-eagle-in- michi...](https://www.npr.org/2020/08/17/903152237/bald-eagle-in-michigan- destroys-wildlife-mapping-drone)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAYVyj6vf3Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAYVyj6vf3Y)

<comment><USER60> Unmanned combat air vehicles tend to have net weights in the 30kg-2000kg range. The F/A-18 is closer to 15000kg. We'd need gryphons.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> For all we know this kind of AI is much more advanced than we think, even up to AGI. All that needs to be true is that the AI has brain implanted us to make it look like nothing is happening.

</comment><comment><USER62> They don't select fighter pilots for their writing or reasoning skills, and it shows in this article. There doesn't appear to be anything worth paying attention to here.

</comment><comment><USER63> Dogfights are a mostly extinct scenario.

</comment><comment><USER52> This shows how the old experienced people can fall into the trap of over- rating the 'hands-on' human experience. In fact a human will have no chance at all against an AI operated fighter designed as a high-G fighter. We saw how the video AI was able to win with the ability of the AI fighter limited to the human driven planes ability. What do you think will happen when the AI has 30-50 G turn capability. This is why modern missiles have guaranteed kill zones - they have 30-50G turn capability. Modern jamming is running out of room gradually as tech advances, so missiles can still be jammed for quite a while as that arms race evolves.

<comment><USER64> Which of your points do you feel the article writer was disagreeing with?

<comment><USER52> Well, this was set up as a fight with equal resources. The same plane, flown by AI/Human. In a real case you want to set up 'win'scenarios = sure kills. The AI was able to dominate. He seemed to think that a real human in a real plane against the same plane with AI, would draw upon human resources to feel G at 600 knots etc and exceed the ability of the AI to draw on those resources - being an unfeeling machine. In fact, once stripped down AI fighting platforms get made, they will dominate. It will take a design cycle to remove the human life support weight and to remove the cockpit etc,so it can be a 30-50G missile platform - that is what it will be. AI attacked versus AI ground defence missiles with similar AI counter fighters. One can postulate a similar AI blizzard of radar/radio/optical jamming by both sides that will see-saw back and forth as tech develops. We fancy ourselves and look down on Russia, in fact Russia has a capable educational system. It was killed as the USSR by bad economic policies = central planning = a dead horse nobody can ride to victory. Now they are dragged down by the Oligarch tax = oligarchs steal any good idea and company that another Russian creates take it over with a faked shareholders and board meeting = they fill all roles, and drain cash from it. There have been hundreds of these and they are slowly and wurely killing Russia. Look at Putin, poisoning other politicians. /politics off....;)

<comment><USER64> > He seemed to think that a real human in a real plane against the same plane > with AI, would draw upon human resources to feel G at 600 knots etc and > exceed the ability of the AI to draw on those resources - being an unfeeling > machine.

I don't think he's saying that at all. On the contrary, he's saying the opposite, explaining the advantages an AI has in these areas. For example,

> Even proficient aviators have to use a percentage of their concentration > (i.e. situation awareness) on not over-performing or under-performing the > aircraft. AI could easily track this task and would most likely never bleed > airspeed or altitude excessively, preserving vital potential and kinetic > energy while also fine-tuning lift vector placement on the other aircraft to > continue the fight if required.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Anthropology: Stack Overflow and The Art of Building a Successful Social Site - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/anthropology_the_art_of_building_a_successful_soci.php <comment><USER2> Not to discount the skills of Joel and Jeff, but one thing to keep in mind is it's much easier to build a social site for a bunch of hackers, than for example, a bunch of retirees.

The same thing goes for Hacker News. StackOverflow and HN are great, but when you look at their traffic figures, (1600 a day to start for HN, and 30k a day today) keep in mind that websites for computer programmers will just in general perform the best among any sort of website, in terms of market penetration.

What they don't perform very well in is having visitors who don't run adblock. Because of this quirk, you need to have a million-dollar revenue source like Spolsky has on his blog - a job board for programmers.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think they missed the fact that the two people who built it are insanely famous in their target market.

<comment><USER4> Actually, they didn't - one of the 9 "building blocks" they mention was critical mass - knowing they'd have a large initial audience because of their existing blogs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have a hard time swallowing this. It sounds like a classic case of confirmation bias. "We did these nine things and were successful, therefore these nine things made us successful."

There's no data which tells us which of the nine building blocks mattered, if any, and to what extent.

What's more likely is that they believed these nine things were important -- and some of them quite possibly were -- and their belief has been confirmed by their success. But that doesn't mean if you duplicate these 9 features you will be successful, or that you have to duplicate all 9 in order to be successful.

All-in-all not a very helpful article.

</comment><comment><USER6> I think they may be overestimating the value of a Microsoft stack. I think it's reasonable to get 16 million pageviews with no load on almost any popular open source stack if you are using 2 dedicated boxes each with 8-core Xeons.

If they were having almost no load on low-end virtualized hardware running a Microsoft stack, that would be noteworthy.

<comment><USER7> The article mentions their 8 core Xeon running SQL server only cost $5,000 in licensing... Either the article is wrong or they haven't appropriately licensed their SQL server. Microsoft is pretty explicit that for web-facing applications you must use per-processor licensing. Which would mean the licensing on that server should have cost $40,000 for SQL Server Standard edition.

<comment><USER7> Ugh, I shouldn't post before I've had my morning coffee.

Microsoft's licensing policy is per processor, not per core. Please disregard my statement above.

(I'm off to distribute some corrective lashings now.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> He means ethnography, not anthropology. To notice that a bunch of backpackers sit on the steps is ethnography. To study an entire culture's way of life is anthropology.

Moreover, the argument is crap. It's a true statement at face value, but what he says is not really what he means, and his supporting observations don't actually support the statement.

This is the same guy who wrote about how design is just decoration, and drew a comparison to the flowery bits on NYC brownstones to prove it -- the architect wouldn't bother with the flowery bits, he'd pay some menial laborer to just stick shit on there. (I don't even believe that assertion, but it's a very poor supportive argument.)

Sigh.

</comment><comment><USER9> I think having two incredibly popular cult-like blogs probably had much more to do with it than the "9 building blocks" or whatever that every other site on the internet now has.

<comment><USER4> Actually, that was one of the 9 building blocks.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, they should have just called it "marketing", but I can understand why they didn't, because their audience hates words that non-technical people like to use.</comment></comment></comment>


Detailed guide to mechanical keyboards (switch types, hysteresis graphs, etc) - <AUTHOR> http://www.overclock.net/computer-peripherals/491752-mechanical-keyboard-guide.html <comment><USER2> Don't skimp on your peripherals!

I see many fellow programmers buy and use the cheapest peripherals they find, and it bothers me. They are tools of our trade, and we will spend thousands of hours glued to our peripherals.

Getting a decent keyboard/mouse/headphones/monitor will make life a little more pleasant for a very small upfront investment.

<comment><USER3> I know a lot of people like this. I am a major keyboard geek; I started with a Model M, and moved to a HHKB professional. Then I bought a Realforce (same keyswitches as the HHKB, but different weighting depending on the strength of the finger that presses the key. great design.)

I showed my coworkers these, and they agreed that the keyboards were significantly nicer than any they had used. And at around $250 for either, they were pricey, but that could be gotten over.

The end result was that one coworker bought a Cherry Brown-based keyboard that was $120 cheaper. "I don't really like it very much. It's not as good as yours." Well, yeah. Another coworker decided, "I am definitely going to get a HHKB", and ended up with a $30 Sun type-7. Acceptable layout, $1 keyboard level "keyswitches". "I don't like it very much." Well, yeah, it's a $1 keyboard that you paid $30 for.

Topre keyboards cost $250 because they are worth $250. When you make that in a few hours of typing on one, it's silly to try and save a few bucks. My only regret is that I can't get the Realforce keys in a HHKB form factor :)

I also wish that people would learn where the keys are without looking, and how to press them with the correct finger. I did that, and it has improved my comfort greatly. (Actually, it made my left pinky hurt, since it is responsible for a metric fuckton of keys. Hence the Realforce.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Sadly, the best keyboards ever made by mankind were the MIT AI Lab (about the same as the Stanford AI Lab) keyboards, custom manufactured by the now-defunct Microswitch corporation. The second-generation versions (LLL and Sun/Symbolics keyboards) were not up to snuff, but were still pretty spectacular.

It's hard to describe the feel of the original AI Lab (Tom Knight) keyboards-- even though they had a fairly long throw, the action was so smooth and natural as to defy imagination.

I even bought into a custom run of the LLL keyboards (second or third generation), at $600 each, and jerry-rigged a little home-made 68K processor board to translate the up/down signals into standard ASCII serial keycodes using a UART.

Oh well...

</comment><comment><USER5> Hmm... I just ordered a Happy Hacking Lite 2 keyboard, which uses a membrane switch. The HH Professional uses a mechanical switch, but the ~$250 price scared me away. I also looked at the Das Keyboard and the Unicomp Customizer, which are both mechanical.

Has anyone used both versions of the Happy Hacking keyboard? Is there really a huge difference in the feel of the membrane version and the mechanical version?

</comment><comment><USER6> I switched from a Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard to a relatively basic Mechanical Keyboard with Blue Cherry keycaps. My typing experience has never been better, and I really recommend investing in a good mechanical keyboard for everyone.

If you're in India and need a good keyboard - I recommend the TVS Gold, an unlikely name which actually is somewhat comparable to a Das Keyboard.

<comment><USER7> I live in India and am a proud owner of a TVS Gold.

I got it for the equivalent of around $30 USD.

A mechanical switch keyboard is completely worth it, if you're like me, and want to feel pampered when typing. It also boosted my untrained typist- WPM by 10 instantly. Its that smooth.

I believe it uses 'Cherry Blue' switches, and the key surfaces have an concave curve that invites your fingers to caress them. For hacker folk, stuck using membranes for whatever reason: you don't know what you are missing; Seriously.

Get a good mechanical keyboard today! Don't pinch pennies and stress your bread-and-butter body-parts. Lots of folk smuggle these back to the States. Ask your mates with family in India to help you out.

Some TVS Gold Pr0n: [http://geekhack.org/showwiki.php?title=Island:7268&do=co...](http://geekhack.org/showwiki.php?title=Island:7268&do=comments) (warning: around 2MB of image content)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> +1 for a very detailed summary of various mechanical switches and boards. A pity they glossed over the Alps switches, but few people know anything about them in detail. You owe it to yourself to get a good keyboard! Not all mechanical switches are noisy, so it's possible to use one without annoying your cube mates.

</comment><comment><USER9> Does anyone know of a natural mechanical keyboard, something similar to the MS Natural 4000 perhaps? I have and like the 4000, but nothing replaces the mechanical "bounciness," if I may invent a word.

<comment><USER10> I use the Kinesis Advantage: <http://jseliger.com/2009/07/20/kinesis- advantage/> , which is probably as close as you're going to get to what you're looking for. The keys are Cherry Browns, per the picture in my review.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> A friend of mine struck gold and found a pile of Model M's in hard rubbish. Its pretty easy to tell who now has them when using skype/vent/etc.

Personally, I use an ultra flat logitech illuminated keyboard, mostly for the shape and feel and not the illuminated keys which is a bit redundant unless one is hunting and pecking. Really don't like the way the wrist has to arch up for the more conventional keyboards, and i'd rather not have a wrist rest when I can just have a keyboard with a similar profile to my desk.

</comment><comment><USER12> If you really want to obsess about this stuff, this is a good forum: <http://geekhack.org/>

</comment><comment><USER13> I have a collection of Model Ms and I love them. However, as my main home and work computers are Macs, and the Ms are missing one of the control keys, I'm out of luck.

I have a das keyboard at work, which is pretty good, but not as nice as the M. I always thought that it had the same mechanism as the M but this article says not.

Time to try a Unicomp.

<comment><USER14> _I'm out of luck._

I remapped the Keys:

      Caps lock -> Control
      Control   -> Option
      Alt       -> Command

<comment><USER15> I remap CapsLock -> Option and have gotten in the habit of doing that for all of my non-Model-M keyboards as well.</comment></comment></comment>


Super Normal – Innovation often starts with the ordinary. - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/startup-notes/c1d22838572a

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a refreshing reminder. People seemed to be obsessed with creating new customer experiences based on phantom demand. This maybe worked 5-10 years ago but the regular 'customer' is inundated with new products to make their lives easier. With this, some great products get lost in the mix of masses of products that provide little value. I think the general public are getting exhausted from the sheer quantity of new things.</comment>


Mono 2.8 has been released - <AUTHOR> http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2010/Oct-06.html <comment><USER2> Any mono users here also familiar with .net? how compatible are they? What works and what doesn't? What sort of applications is mono best suited for (server backend? desktop? mobile? web front end? systems programming?)

Would be nice to dish and get real insider info.

<comment><USER3> We are a predominantly Unix/Linux shop that has taken over a .NET project. We are doing builds with Hudson and Mono for a web application that gets deployed to IIS. Overall, everything works but there have been a few surprises.

One surprise was that debugging is hard because Mono uses a different format for debugging symbols. This means we get tracebacks with no line numbers.

The second surprise is that we have to munge resulting executables with corflags.exe to force them to run in 32-bit mode on 64-bit boxes where there are library dependencies that keep them from being 64-bit clean.

We are trying to develop using MonoDevelop but there are some weird incompatibilities with the SQL Server client library. These are not insurmountable, but it has been a hassle.

The other hassle is that MonoDevelop is terribly slow. It does not appear to be able to do incremental compiles so any change to the project results in a recompile of the entire project.

<comment><USER4> how is the performance of Mono/ASP.net vs stacks like RoR, PHP, etc. on Linux ?

<comment><USER5> Mono's ASP.NET or MVC or Manos are all running natively compiled code, so for equivalent tasks they should all be faster than interpreted languages.

Whether this matters or not will depend on the what your application is doing and how many users you have. For example, if your application is database bound or file system bound you wont likely notice much of a difference as the time you spend running CIL code or interpreted code is a small portion of your overall CPU consumption.

With Mono 2.8 we significantly improved Mono's web server scalability, but this will not matter if your application does not use or require more than a handful of CPUs. But is incredibly useful for people that are scaling servers under load.

<comment><USER6> Miguel,

How is your team keeping such a fast pace? Do you get a lot of assistance or documentation for Microsoft. Your rate of feature parity with the MS releases is impressive.

<comment><USER5> Well, we prioritize what developers need using our Moma tool (this tool does a static analysis of your executables and libraries and informs us what APIs are the most important to get).

In addition, a big help was the fact that Microsoft open sourced large swats of code in this release (DLR, MWF, OData, LINQ, and a bunch more).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Funny coincidence that Mono and LLVM both had 2.8 releases on the same day, and one of Mono 2.8's new features is a stable LLVM backend.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm glad to finally be able to use C# 4.0 and dynamic types in Mono. That's a huge improvement!

</comment><comment><USER9> Is there a packaged build of MoMa for 2.8 available? I couldn't get our code base working in 2.6 due to a few compatibility issues, but a quick once over the compatibility page looks like those issues may be resolved. Here's looking forward to testing a lot of cross platform code!</comment>


Trump signs 19.5B NASA bill, with human exploration of Mars as a goal - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-nasa-mars_us_58d14dc9e4b0be71dcf849e3 <comment><USER2> I wonder how much, if any, influence Elon Musk managed to have on this discussion and Trump's opinion of NASA.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not sure, but all American's now get to reap the benefits.</comment></comment>


Tips to be more productive with Kubernetes - <AUTHOR> https://www.learncloudnative.com/blog/2019-08-06-5_tips_to_be_more_proudctive_with_kubernetes/ <comment><USER2> > 5\. Quickly open Grafana/Jaeger/Kiali (or anything else)

With recent kubectl/kubernetes you can port-forward the services directly without specifying pods like:

kubectl -n istio-system port-forward svc/kiali 20001:20001

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, you're completely right, I have updated the article.

There is one more way to do it assuming you are using Istio and have istioctl (Istio) installed: `istioctl dashboard grafana`.</comment></comment>


Research Design Patterns - <AUTHOR> http://www.pgbovine.net/research-design-patterns.htm <comment><USER2> Fun and informative to read. Loved the old memes. Ds.js sounds like an useful tool but I couldn't find any links to the bookmarklet in the paper.

</comment><comment><USER3> Good article. I've used "INSIDE-OUT" pattern (without knowing about it) in one of my research.</comment>


UAV Helicopters Learn to Fly Themselves by Watching - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/5044128/stanfords-uav-helicopters-learn-to-fly-themselves-by-watching Very cool idea.  I wonder what kind of applications this could have. <comment><USER2> nice, neural nets i guess...</comment>


Gabe Newell: On Productivity, Economics, Political Inst & the Future of Corps - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Td_PGkfIdIQ

<comment><AUTHOR> "Management is a skill not a career path"

So much to say about this.

</comment><comment><USER2> This is a great talk.</comment>


Ask HN: More Minimalistic Text Based Games? - <AUTHOR>

Hey HN, my friends and I have been enjoying games like:
A Dark Room - http://adarkroom.doublespeakgames.com/ Candies - http://candies.aniwey.net/ Kittens - http://bloodrizer.ru/games/kittens/#
I was wondering if there are any more that I haven't stumbled upon yet.
Thanks! <comment><USER2> By the way, if you like these games - you might also like Interactive Fiction and text adventures, such as Zork for example.

They're old, but I've played them recently and it was extremely fun, you should check them out if you didn't already =)

</comment><comment><USER3> I used to spend a lot of time playing Phantasia 4

[http://www.phantasia4.net/](http://www.phantasia4.net/)

I haven't played in years, but it looks like it is still around.

</comment><comment><USER4> Tons of them: [http://www.reddit.com/r/idlegames](http://www.reddit.com/r/idlegames)</comment>


Great books for learning modern web application architectures? - <AUTHOR>

I'm learning about modern design patterns for web applications. I'd love to have a RESTful API and render it with JS. Any recommendations?<p>EDIT: I'd love to hear about any resources, not just books - online tutorials, open source projects, etc. would be great. <comment><USER2> If you want an example app that is a RESTful API with JS front end, please excuse me pimping my own project: <http://phreeze.com/> (the REST server is in PHP)

Here's a language-neutral book that goes into RESTful services: [http://www.amazon.com/RESTful-Web-Services-Cookbook- Scalabil...](http://www.amazon.com/RESTful-Web-Services-Cookbook- Scalability/dp/0596801688/)

</comment><comment><USER3> github.com. This should be your number one resource. Clone a Repo, read its source, break it, understand it, rebuild it, extend it, and then you know how it works. just type in RESTful in the search box i'd be willing to bet 100 bucks theres already a JS repo...

</comment><comment><USER4> Martin Fowler's Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture was a great read. It goes into a ton of patterns and theory. It's worth a read, even though it's branded for the enterprise.</comment>


Space Jam 2 - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-47330824 <comment><AUTHOR> So will there be a retro web site to accompany it?

[[https://twitter.com/SpaceJamCheck](https://twitter.com/SpaceJamCheck)]</comment>


In August, there were more requests to Wikipedia from iPhone than from Linux - <AUTHOR> http://stats.wikimedia.org/archive/squid_reports/2011-08/SquidReportOperatingSystems.htm

<comment><USER2> It is easy to miss the fact that the row for Linux in the first table includes Android and that (according to the second table) excluding Android more than halves Linux's share.

</comment><comment><USER3> Looking back it seems like iPhone & Linux were almost neck and neck for most of 2010, but iPhone pulled ahead in December 2010 and has stayed slightly more popular since.

As a keen desktop Linux user, this saddens me. But I'm also not particularly surprised, Wikipedia on smartphones is pretty useful.

<comment><USER3> Anyone want to open a pool on the day a 'mobile OS' becomes the outright most popular Wikipedia browser?

<comment><USER4> I'm not going to go in on the pool but I think that's an inevitability. The amount of mobile devices is growing be it on netbooks, tablets or mobile phones. It stands to reason that with more access on the go sites such as Wikipedia, search engines, maps or other information portals will get more hits from mobile devices.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm not surprised. Its the number one way to call bullshit when someone at the bar says something stupid. I've got two links at the very top of my first page of apps; one to wikipedia and one to snopes. I'm rarely let down.

</comment><comment><USER6> And it seems this includes Android, i.e. they don't have a separate entry for it. This means there are roughly as many iPad Wikipedia visits as desktop Linux ones…

</comment><comment><USER7> well... maybe linux users just learn from the stuff they read on wikipedia and iPhone users don't remember and visit over and over again? :)</comment>


Opinion: Microsoft must move fast to realize its online future - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080727-opinion-microsoft-must-move-fast-to-realize-its-online-future.html

<comment><USER2> How? Cut the bureaucracy. Build a medium-sized team away from the bureaucracy and levels of the company at large, to give it the agility of a startup, but still have it integrated into the Microsoft company structure.

Microsoft's problem is no doubt bureaucracy. Microsoft's Mac Business Unit (MBU) puts out decent software and works pretty well. The MBU apparently have more freedoms than the other divisions of Microsoft.

If they make their web force more like a startup within a business, in the sense that they build a department that more or less governs itself, they will move much faster within the web space.

Edit: a friend of mine just showed me this. [http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2008/06/3...](http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2008/06/30/microsoft_seeks_next_big_idea_in_cambridge/) "Microsoft Corp. is reinventing itself, and it's looking to One Memorial Drive for a dose of innovation. That will be the home of Microsoft's Boston Concept Development Center, a first-of-its-kind research unit that's assembling dozens of engineers and designers and sniffing out technologies with the aim of incubating new Internet businesses within the company."

Looks like they're going in the right direction.</comment>


Someone is spreading a nasty rumor about formspring.me - <AUTHOR> http://gregstoll.livejournal.com/307382.html

<comment><USER2> See also: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1187446></comment>


Simpson's Paradox and the Hot Hand in Basketball (1995) - <AUTHOR> http://fermatslibrary.com/s/simpsons-paradox-and-the-hot-hand-in-basketball#email-newsletter <comment><USER2> The hot hand "fallacy" has actually been under a bit of a revisionist assault lately. An example (from baseball): [https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/baseballs-hot-hand- is-r...](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/baseballs-hot-hand-is-real/) TLDR: there is a hot hand (in baseball pitching, anyway), but you have to be very, very good at statistics to see that, or else just a big baseball fan. If you have just pretty good statistics, and you don't have a baseball fanatic's intuition, you can (erroneously) conclude that there is no (pitcher's) hot hand (in baseball).

<comment><USER3> I've always suspected this fallacy in terms of sports was a bad example - since humans doing certain motor/coordination actions and getting feedback on that success seemed likely to stack.

I wonder if it holds in other contexts.

<comment><USER4> Another point of view is that this makes sports a great example: we believe the 'hot-hand' phenomenon intuitively, but the statistics tell a complicated and seemingly contradictory story.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Interesting paper, but as a former basketball but, I disagree with the premise that free throws have anything to do with a "hot hand."

To me a hot hand is only something that can exist in the flow of the game. It is not about making shots. It is about making contested shots and quick decisions. A player with a hot hand is one that is feeling especially focused and confident for a specific period of time. Ideally a player tries to hold onto their focus and confidence for the entire game, but unless they have a Buddha-like nature that is just not possible.

<comment><USER6> > A player with a hot hand is one that is feeling especially focused and > confident for a specific period of time

Yeah, like Kay Thompson dropping 37 points in 1 quarter and not missing any shoots. Even himself seems confused about what's going on.

<comment><USER7> Case further in point, MJ with "The Shrug Game"

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daP4JysFcUg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daP4JysFcUg)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> By the way, is there anywhere one can bet on the outcome of a game while the game is being played? It would be awesome to see the odds change in response to something that happened in the game that second, just like how a stock market reacts to news about the business.

<comment><USER9> Yeah. Any online sports betting site. Football for example, you can bet realtime on things like halftime score, final score, etc. as the game progresses. Even cooler is you can bet on the next play. Like "next play will result in a first down" or "next play they will run the ball".

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> [http://andrewgelman.com/2015/07/09/hey-guess-what-there- real...](http://andrewgelman.com/2015/07/09/hey-guess-what-there-really-is-a- hot-hand/)

It's a really interesting problem to analyse.

</comment><comment><USER11> The hot hand fallacy fallacy. The trials are not independant (there's a feedback loop) and the initial probabilities are not fixed from game to game.

<comment><USER11> (Or rather, the hot-hand fallacy misapplication.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Interesting related talk about this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fc6ZP1jtnoo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fc6ZP1jtnoo)</comment>


Why everyone should learn to drive - <AUTHOR> http://akhil.me/2013/why-everyone-should-learn-to-drive <comment><USER2> The logic of this seems to be that driving has certain properties, these properties are worthwhile to experience and hence everybody has to learn how to drive.

What a silly idea.

While it is certainly true that driving might have these properties – I can't really comment, as I don't own a license, much less a car – but assuming that the only way to experience 'accidents happen' is by driving a car is rather strange. This especially holds since the idea that 'accidents happen' is a good experience is only remotely sensible _because_ accidents not only happen in car traffic but basically everywhere else in life, too!

The same holds for the rest of the paragraphs: You have to plan irrespective of your mode of transportation (and of course outside of transportation, too), you have to replace the items in your possession after a certain time, be they socks, jeans, notebooks, washing machines or cars and of course you need safeguards outside a car, too.

To me, this article reads as if the author was unsatisfied with the original assessment that a car provides independence (which, of course, is not true: a car actually decreases your independence as you always have to return to it after a hike, for example) and tried to prop it up with equally unsatisfying extras.</comment>


Everything You Know About Fitness Is a Lie (2010) - <AUTHOR> http://www.mensjournal.com/magazine/everything-you-know-about-fitness-is-a-lie-20120504

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, it's been seen before. However it's worth seeing again -- fundamental truths are like that.

The straightforward lessons for personal fitness are important, but also the business insights:

 _Here 's the problem: If you're in the fitness-equipment business, free weights are a loser. The 2010 model looks too much like the 1950 model, and they both last forever. Far better to create gleaming $4,000 contraptions that can be reinvented every two years, and then hire a PR firm to promote some made-up training theory claiming that machines are the answer..._

 _Commercial health clubs need about 10 times as many members as their facilities can handle, so designing them for athletes, or even aspiring athletes, makes no sense...._

 _But the personal-training business model doesn 't include teaching (or even learning) the fundamentals anyway. Trainers make a living by keeping clients coming back; fundamentals liberate clients to train themselves. So the savvy trainer tells you that these days, it's all about "functional fitness," a complex integration of balance and stability and strength...._

 _Shaul gave me a great gift that day, cluing me in to a little secret: True sport-specific training, for literally everybody except elite athletes, isn 't sport-specific at all. It's about getting strong, durable, and relentless in simple, old-school ways that a man can train, test, and measure._

Previously:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7371478](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7371478)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5224634](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5224634)

Oh, and single-page link: [http://www.mensjournal.com/magazine/print- view/everything-yo...](http://www.mensjournal.com/magazine/print- view/everything-you-know-about-fitness-is-a-lie-20120504)</comment>


IIHS: Model S has higher collision claim frequencies than comparable luxury cars - <AUTHOR> http://www.iihs.org/iihs/sr/statusreport/article/52/4/4 <comment><USER2> This isn't great news for Tesla. This 30 second video also recently surfaced where someone reproduced the fatal accident involving autopilot from this week:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QCF8tVqM3I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QCF8tVqM3I)

This could also be bad for Tesla if this is what occurred. Interestingly in this video the chevron lines exist, something people have been claiming would have averted the accident, also interesting that no warning alarm sounded at any stage.

<comment><USER3> Note: This isn't at the same location as last week's accident. Last week's accident was in Mountain View, CA; while this one looks like it's in Lake Station, Indiana.

 _Edit: it 's in Chicago not Indiana, see replies_

<comment><USER4> No, it's the 90/94 split on the Dan Ryan in Chicago: [https://firstname.lastname@example.com,-87.6292446,3a,51.6y...](https://firstname.lastname@example.com,-87.6292446,3a,51.6y,148.26h,86.84t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sY2xCRS3ka-6fPKv9SGQJuw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656)

<comment><USER5> Those lane markins are awful. Ordinary paint, and worn out.

Compare some from the UK.

Bumpy paint, so the wheels vibrate and so they show up in the wet. Red reflectors, and barriers that would push the car back onto the road rather than into the bridge support.

[https://goo.gl/maps/TUf1xzLUN5N2](https://goo.gl/maps/TUf1xzLUN5N2)

This is normal, though they're aren't many roads like this within cities, so there's usually space for a long, grassy strip.

<comment><USER6> I have never in my entire life been more terrified than when I drove a car from Edinburgh to Elgin; there is nobody in the world who will ever convince me that UK roads are safer than those in the US. I don't understand how every driver in the UK isn't already dead.

<comment><USER5> The UK is the 4th, 5th or 3rd safest country in the world for road fatalities, depending which metric you prefer (per capita, per vehicle, by distance driven).

Maybe you aren't used to concentrating while driving? (I'm only half joking, an American friend one made a similar remark when he visited me.)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic- related_death_rate) (I ignored microstates when counting.)

<comment><USER6> I was definitely concentrating, and also in a semi-permanent state of yelling in terror. I don't understand why cars don't just fall off the sides of some of those roads and down into the steep ravines that appear to be the UK's (or at least Scotland's) answer to a shoulder.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The day that Musk decided to call his driver-assist system "Autopilot" he lost my respect as an engineer and my business as a consumer.

It's a great brand for a L4 - L5 system, not for Tesla's realistic capabilities as a L2 (1) - it sets a dangerous precedent in the consumer's mind.

Their tepid response to this incident outlining that the driver was not fully engaged so Tesla is not at fault, is EXACTLY how the system is used by the average consumer due to the way it's branded and marketed.

(1) [https://www.caranddriver.com/features/path-to-autonomy- self-...](https://www.caranddriver.com/features/path-to-autonomy-self-driving- car-levels-0-to-5-explained-feature)

<comment><USER8> I would say it's pretty accurate if you are familiar with how plane autopilots actually work.

<comment><USER9> How many car drivers do you think are familiar with the details of how plane autopilots really work?

If Tesla had called this something like "lane-assist adaptive cruise control" I think your average Joe would have had much more realistic expectations around how the technology actually functions.

<comment><USER10> > If Tesla had called this something like "lane-assist adaptive cruise > control" I think your average Joe would have had much more realistic > expectations around how the technology actually functions.

Which would be foolish on their part, since it would equate their system with that found on other cars. The systems found on other cars are garbage to the point of being unusable. The system that Tesla has is in a different class.

<comment><USER11> Is this true? I thought other luxury car brands are now shipping with self driving of similar capabilities to Tesla at this point.

Or maybe it's just the sensors being the same...

<comment><USER12> Luxury car brands ship with a limited feature set that reflects an appropriate conservatism. For example, they can detect cars in your blind spot and warn you, and they can put the brakes if someone short stops ahead of you. They have many of the required sensors but are waiting for the tech to mature

<comment><USER13> This is not true. BMW 5 and 7 series have adaptive cruise control and lane centering. I had a Tesla and now have a 5 series and the 5 series Lane centering is on par with Tesla's autopilot. The only thing it lacks in the US is auto lane change (but it works in other countries).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I can't say much about the accident rate but the loss can be attributed to the fact that anything more than a scratch on a Tesla is often counted as a total loss just look at the various Tesla salvage channels on YouTube and you'll see how silly it is.

This is what happens when no one can fix your car but Tesla and Tesla doesn't repair what most body shops would fix in a day.

<comment><USER15> but the non-tesla electric cars also had more severe (though fewer) claims. Part of that is probably that an electric car is just plain more expensive than it's ICE counterpart right now, and my experience is that repair cost of a vehicle scales with the capital cost of a vehicle.

<comment><USER16> Tesla refuses to allow third party repair or parts and has difficulty making things. So costs are crazy.

A colleague had to have his towed 300 miles and wait forever, for a rear end fender bender which necessitates a claim as the cost was a few thousand bucks. With a normal car, he'd probably just lay out of pocket to avoid the insurance bullshittery.

<comment><USER17> This doesn't sound true. I had an accident and paid out of pocket at a licensed body shop. Tesla performs ZERO body work for you.

<comment><USER18> > Tesla performs ZERO body work for you.

And as such, has a very limited number of "approved" body shops that can source the parts for repairs.

See: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18MItauAgKo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18MItauAgKo)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> "...and it accumulates more miles on average per day than other battery- powered vehicles, a new HLDI report shows."

Oh, no shit. A really fun to drive car, that can do ~300 miles per charge, is driven more than the Nissan Leaf @ ~150 MPC

</comment><comment><USER20> > The higher claim severity for the Tesla Model S may possibly be attributed > to the battery replacement cost of approximately $16,000.

This seems pretty important metric to me.

> Injury related coverages were also not included due to the small numbers of > claims associated with the electric vehicles.

I would like to see more of this with the comparison.

</comment><comment><USER21> Tesla is the epitome of Silicon Valley thinking applied to manufacturing. Tremendous achievements that no one thought possible, but tremendous ugliness under the hood.

<comment><USER22> From what I can see, their achievements are selling costly cars with manufacturing problems, bland interior to a dedicated fan base at a loss.

I can see why nobody thought it possible, but it isn't tremendous

<comment><USER21> Drive the car. It is tremendous.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Interesting in light of tesla's claim that autopilot improves safety

<comment><USER24> Tesla's PR department is obviously full of shit.

Edit: Which PR department isn't? Didn't Edward Bernays invent PR as a form of commercial propaganda for use in times of peace?

<comment><USER25> > Tesla's PR department is obviously full of shit.

Elon Musk; Is full of shit.

Little by little more and more people ll come to understand that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm not surprised. Tesla's Model S replaced Toyota's Prius as the eco- conscious high-tech status symbol vehicle to own. Owner surveys show a lot of people came over to Tesla from ordinary cars rather than from other luxury cars or muscle cars. Someone coming from a compact hybrid that does 0-60 in 11 seconds, to a huge sports car that does it in 2.5 seconds, is probably more likely than the average driver to get into an accident.

<comment><USER27> I've been to a talk by the Progressive guy with all of their data, and he says the only strong predictor of accidents is sharp braking. Not acceleration. Do you have any data points to offer?

<comment><USER28> I don't have actual statistics I can share, but work in the automotive industry and have talked fairly extensively with insurance companies about data sharing as part of usage based insurance. There are actually multiple predictors of accident-prone drivers. Sharp braking is one, but so are frequent lane changes, insufficient following distance, and abrupt speed increases.

Distracted driving is a bigger issue than all of these, but is very hard to actually detect as a first-order effect with current cabin sensors.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> So, I don't care about the claim severity, as a consumer (unless we're talking deaths versus scrapes). They're clearly talking about costs, which will drive premiums, but are certainly related to parts/labor costs and availability, which is solvable long-term.

Apparently I also don't care about claim FREQUENCY because the article notes that the frequency difference goes down (but does NOT go away) when controlling for miles travelled. What? How on earth does 'frequency' not have miles as a denominator? Okay, fine, they must consider it on a per-day or per- year basis, but as a consumer, again, I don't care.

As the consumer, I really care about whether passengers fare worse in the average collision, or are more likely to be in a collision.

Again, parts costs will come into line over the long term. This is a game the established manufacturers are already good at, Tesla will have to step up to catch up.

</comment><comment><USER30> > On average, Teslas travel three more miles per day than other large luxury > cars, HLDI found

Would like to know what is 3 miles in percentage terms. Could account for higher collision claim frequencies.

<comment><USER31> 3 x 365 = 1095 extra miles a year. A typical person drives 10,000-15,000 miles per year (USA).

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> What has changed since Tesla claimed their cars are so much safer that the insurance costs can be lowered below standard rates?

</comment><comment><USER33> All the comments in this thread seem to be implying that AutoPilot causes crashes, thus leading to higher insurance claims. I don't know if that's true, but that's not what this post says.

Correlation does not imply causation. It can be true that Teslas cost more to insure without Tesla being "at fault" for the discrepancy. When they compared electric vehicles with their ICE counterparts, they found that "the seven electric vehicles with exact conventional counterparts had lower claim frequencies and higher claim severities than their comparison vehicles". Electric vehicles had less claims, but when there was a claim they tended to be more severe. I assume this is because if there is damage to the battery pack replacing that part is extremely expensive. So it's not surprising that when Teslas crash they can be expensive to fix given that "crash severity" tends to be higher with electric cars, and that Tesla is a small luxury car maker.

The other thing you have to think about is selection bias. All the groups you're sampling are not equal. Because Tesla's are known for being extremely fast, they might tend to attract people who want to... drive their car fast. To make a scientific comparison you'd want to randomly assign people to a Tesla or Non-Tesla to get a comparable sample population.

The other thing they mention is that "Teslas also are on the road more than comparable large luxury cars. On average, Teslas travel three more miles per day than other large luxury cars, HLDI found." Obviously, if a car drives three times as much as another car it's going to be roughly three times as likely to crash given a consistent probability of collision per mile, right? Since Teslas don't need gas, the more miles you drive the more money you save -- and the more financial sense they make. Therefore it's not surprising that Tesla owners tend to drive their cars much more as the financial incentives would tend to favor people who drive more -- especially with free unlimited supercharging in early Model S and X. Even someone who might not have driven a lot before will be more likely to drive more if the price of doing so is reduced -- that's just the basic law of demand. Plus, if you had a Tesla wouldn't you want to drive it all the time? People are leaving their Bolt in the garage while they drive their Telas three times as much as comparable luxury cars, and yet what we take away from the data is "AutoPilot is causing crashes".

I know this won't make a difference in how the media and public perceive this, and this line of thinking will just be seen as a defense of Tesla, but I don't think that higher claim frequencies for Model S means Tesla has necessarily done anything wrong, just on a purely statistical basis.

<comment><USER34> I find it hard to believe that people who can afford a Tesla are _that_ concerned about the price of gas.

<comment><USER33> They're probably less concerned about the cost of driving on average, but knowing that something costs less does tend to make you do it more all other things being equal.

<comment><USER34> If that extra driving averages to only 3 miles a day it might as well be explained by people in SFBA (Tesla's major market as I understand) just not being able to afford to live within a reasonable commuting distance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I prefer battery-tested tech than something so shiny with such high risks. I hypothesize riding a horse is safer than driving a Telsa.

</comment><comment><USER36> > Under collision and property damage liability coverages, the seven electric > vehicles with exact conventional counterparts had lower claim frequencies > and higher claim severities than their comparison vehicles.

I bet the higher frequency of claims is either because people who buy electrics are worse drivers or simply more litigious. Probably both.

<comment><USER15> >I bet the higher frequency of claims is either because people who buy electrics are worse drivers or simply more litigious. Probably both.

I think you should re-read what you are quoting. My reading is that the electric cars that were not made by Tesla had fewer claims than their ICE counterparts.

<comment><USER36> Indeed. I misread it as "higher" on both. In that case it'd be the reverse, with electric drivers being statistical better drivers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> What's up with the hatchet job? Is that normal for IIHS?</comment>


Android's Dirty Secret - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/26/androids-dirty-secret-shipping-numbers-are-strong-but-returns-are-30-40

<comment><USER2> I don't know if the numbers are true but if they are the carriers and phone makers are doing it to themselves. I upgraded my wife's android phone a couple of weeks ago and she picked a Samsung (on verizon).

After she got it home and played with it we found it was locked to use Bing. We could not install the google search box and other google apps. It went back to the the store and I paid my $35 restocking fee and came back with an HTC.

I few days later I tried to upgrade to a Droid 3 for myself. I didn't like the 'skin' that Motorola had put on it but my original Droid is getting slow and I wanted a new phone. I couldn't buy it because Motorola added a special terms and conditions to the activation process but the T&C were on the internet. You can't get to the internet (even wifi) unless the phone is activated and I wouldn't activate the phone without reading the Moto T&C. Chicken and Egg.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't buy it. That's ridiculous. There's no way the numbers are that high. Is John Biggs going to report every "rumor" that someone will whisper in his ear? It could very well be a smear campaign like the one Facebook tried to do to Google.

Would _some_ Android phones have that high return rate? It's possible. But 40% return rate on _average_? That's beyond ridiculous.

</comment><comment><USER4> This article makes absolutely no reference to any sources to back up it's claim. Flagged.

<comment><USER5> Agreed. Even though I am no fan of Android, I call bullshit.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Writing platform with support for runnable literate programming? - <AUTHOR> Working on this thing and am wondering if there's any prior art here, except for Jupyter. <comment><USER2> There is Org Mode for Emacs in which you can do writing as well as literate programming. Here's my Emacs config (written in Org Mode) which doubles as documentation and includes lots of custom code: [https://github.com/munen/emacs.d](https://github.com/munen/emacs.d)</comment>


Conkeror - <AUTHOR> http://conkeror.org/

<comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8452310](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8452310)

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah, didn't see that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> That's not a confusing name at all...

Konqueror - KDE web browser / file manager that was forked to start webkit

Conkeror - Javascript based browser with Mozilla XUL wrappings.

Sheesh. Way to cause problems for your project for no reason.

<comment><USER4> There's an opening for Quonceror to complete the cycle. Then Quonkeror, Konceror, and Conqueror to complete the permutation group.

Immediately after writing down the 6 permutations, I tried to decide which were the most memorable. I decided on Conqueror (because spelling things right should be done more often) and Konqueror (kbecause keverything kin KDE khas kextra kays kat kthe kstart).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a petty thing to discuss, but there aren't that many browsers in the world, why give your new one a name that sounds identical to an existing browser? (Their FAQ even says the name should be read out as "conkeror with a c")

<comment><USER6> I read it as Conk-Error and it stuck.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I used Conkeror for a couple years as my main browser and really enjoyed the experience. Combined with a tiling window manager (Awesome WM in my case) it made for a really fun computing environment. I felt really cool being able to navigate through the web without touching my mouse.

Like all interfaces, it was better at some things and worse at others, when compared to a more traditional browser. Ultimately, I don't think I was more or less productive with it. Sometimes I do wish I was still using it regularly, especially after I've spent a few hours in emacs.

<comment><USER8> I use it with i3, and on a mac (shameless plug: [https://github.com/smazga/conkeror_mac_bundler](https://github.com/smazga/conkeror_mac_bundler)). You really do feel a little bit like a wizard when you can switch from your text editor, browse the internet, and then jump back without touching the mouse.

Unfortunately, many places on the web seem to be trending toward mouse (or touch)-centric design, which makes it harder to navigate from a keyboard.

Still, I really like it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I thought this was a fork for the Konqueror web browser. Yikes - what a terrible name.

</comment><comment><USER10> A screenshot would do wonders for the conversion rate on that homepage.

<comment><USER11> It pretty much looks like a browser. It's not the looks, but the works that make it interesting; you don't look at it and say, "That looks like it would intelligently employ keybindings similar to Emacs! Look at that extensibility!"

<comment><USER12> Any screenshot of the browser conveys very clearly that "That looks like it would intelligently employ keybindings similar to Emacs!". See the screenshot on wikipedia [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Conkeror_web_browser.png](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Conkeror_web_browser.png)

The lack of buttons and address bar tells you exactly what kind of browser it is and that you should expect it to share many features with things like uzbl and vimperator.

In addition a screenshot like [http://www.linuxjournal.com/files/linuxjournal.com/linuxjour...](http://www.linuxjournal.com/files/linuxjournal.com/linuxjournal/articles/103/10387/10387f2.jpg) shows you a lot about the navigation tools they have provided.

A browser is a visual tool and many of its distinguishing features are thus much more difficult to explain with words.

<comment><USER13> Same for text editors

[http://www.jesshamrick.com/images/emacs/emacs- welcome.png](http://www.jesshamrick.com/images/emacs/emacs-welcome.png)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Given the discussion of the Vivaldi browser,[1] I thought I'd put forward another that I'm aware of with a distinctly power-user interface, inspired by emacs.

I'm not all that much a fan -- my preferred editor's vi, I struggle with emacs commands, tend to use Chromium, have Iceweasel with Vimperator (both are the Debian versions of Chrome and Firefox respectively). And tend to fall back first on w3m as a console-mode browser with mutt-like keybindings as an alternate.

And yes, I've got the same gripe about the name -- I _also_ occasionally use the KDE Konqueror browser.

But for emacs + javascript extensibility, based on a Webkit render engine, conqueror does strike me as quite the poweruser / hacker's potential delight.

I didn't see the earlier discussion dang referenced, it's from about 5 months ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8452310](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8452310)

________________________________

Notes:

1\. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9157075](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9157075)

</comment><comment><USER14> For all intents and purposes, this project is dead. XULRunner is effectively unsupported upstream [0], and there is no traffic on the mailing list, p < 0.05. [1]

[0] [https://groups.google.com/d/topic/mozilla.dev.platform/o99wQ...](https://groups.google.com/d/topic/mozilla.dev.platform/o99wQZBjIJw/discussion)

[1] [http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.mozilla.conkeror](http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.mozilla.conkeror)

</comment><comment><USER15> Is there any reason in particular this browser from a few years ago is on the front page? Given the number of upvotes, I assume there's some context behind this.

<comment><USER16> My guess is because Vivaldi was mentioned a few days ago

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> [off topic - My experience with XUL] Time ago I had to work in a project to give maintenance to AtMail... And it had an interface made in XUL. It was one of worst experience I had in software. The error, of course is that XUL was made to build browser components, not website user interface specific to firefox. Just remembered it now...

</comment><comment><USER18> I used it for a few months as my main browser, but gave up. Would be so so much better as a Firefox or Chromium fork. Sometimes you want the traditional mouse stuff and it's just not there. Looking forward to breech.cc (not on my OS yet).

</comment><comment><USER19> Just found it today, and it's great, but written in javascript, which kills everything that I like in Emacs (I mean Lisp).

</comment><comment><USER20> I really like the emacs inspired interface. I would use conkeror for everything if it worked with noscript.

</comment><comment><USER13> cached version of recent changes page : [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:KZLv- gy...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:KZLv- gyy6boJ:conkeror.org/RecentChanges&hl=en&gl=fr&strip=1)

</comment><comment><USER21> Why wouldn't I use Vimperator and be done with it?

<comment><USER22> If your main text editor is vim, that's probably what you should do. It's hard or impossible to get a good feel from vimperator.</comment></comment>


Web apps with S3 + Rails.  Now your apps have 2x as many buzz words. - <AUTHOR> http://developer.amazonwebservices.com/connect/entry.jspa?entryID=608 <comment><USER2> Someone should make an S3 interface that does automatic file versioning. Basically a CVS for non-coders. It seems like that would be an intuitive feature for any online storage product.

Do any of the current online storage products do this already? I know some of the new ones use S3 (elephant drive and jungle disk, to name two), but I don't think either of them have a versioning feature built-in. It shouldn't be too hard to create...

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd be much more interested in an article about EC2 + Rails...

<comment><USER4> Here's one I ran across earlier today. It's the full monty -- he runs his startup completely on EC2.

http://niblets.wordpress.com/2007/02/16/how-i-set-up-my-ec2-instance-for- rails-litespeed/</comment></comment>