Lessons learned after 300 books in 4 years - <AUTHOR> http://www.jovicailic.org/2016/11/lessons-learned-300-books-4-years/ <comment><USER3> This person is either reading the lightest self-help type of books, or not really "reading" these books. I'm an academic, and my only job is to read books (and articles, etc), and I do my job at least 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, and I don't even read this many books.

My advice for getting genuinely intelligent about a topic: read hard books, intensively, and leave the buffet-stats-counter stuff to those who just want to impress.

<comment><AUTHOR> After reading ~10 different authors on self-help, you realize they're all saying the same thing. So no, your assumption is not true.

Yes, I did read a lot of light self-help books in the beginning, but their number in total is less than ~40.

It's totally not important how many books you read, but their quality, we agree about that :) That's why I mentioned it's better to read more times the same book, than more books on the same topic once.

<comment><USER4> So over 10% is self-help books.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I decided to read a book a day this year. So far I'm ahead at 336 and here are my counter opinions.

"* It's much better to read the best book on the topic 5 times, than to read 5 different books on the topic once."

Flat out no. Unless you're a freaking machine. Reading different books covering the same topic keeps me interested more. I don't mind the repetition then because I get the warm "I know that" feeling.

"* Eyes that pay read better than eyes that don't. Eyes that pay more read better than eyes that pay less. In other words, when you pay for a book or a course, you'll dedicate more to it, so you'll get more value from it."

Total nonsense. I'm not paying my friends or the library to borrow their books. Next you'll be telling me hardback books transfer ideas better. Well, my e-reader has a hard case. And I paid 300 quid for it.

"* If you read ~1h (almost) every day, you'll be able to read 60-80 books per year."

If you use all your idle time you can read a book a day. Cooking? You mean reading and cooking. Commuting? Reading. Sitting on the toilet? You get the idea. Waiting for the kettle? Seconds add up!

I agree with the rest.

<comment><USER6> That sounds impossible to me. How can you possibly read one book every day, unless they're extremely short? I could imagine this being true if you dedicate something like 8-12 hours per day, but how do you have time for that?

<comment><USER5> That's what I thought too but no, it's totally doable (I am doing it after all) and the average page count according to goodreads is 357. I have no family, I work a 9-5 at a multinational and my only other hobby is bouldering. I use every spare moment to read. If you added up all your spare time every day you'd be surprised (clearly). It's not evenly distributed - I usually catch up over the weekend when I have loads of free time (2 days). Also it doesn't take 8 hours to read a book (at least not every one, fiction is pretty quick). Not even an audiobook (which are slower even when you speed them up x2.5)!

Even if it took 8 hours on average (which might be right, I never actually tried to measure this) you could still read 9 books a week with 72 hours:

( (24 * 7) week

\- 40 work

\- (8 * 7) sleep )

/ 8 hr/book

= 9 books

<comment><USER7> How about cooking, laundry, daily hygiene etc. It would be really hard reading all the time while doing that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'd like to see some research on how much redundant and unnecessary information is in typical books. I have the feeling that the essence of most books can be simplified to the size of, say, an average blog post.

Can't we make reading a lot more efficient than it is right now?

<comment><AUTHOR> I love your thought, and I tend to agree. There's way too much redundant and unnecessary information in typical books.

That's why I think is better to read the best books on the topic more times, than few other average books repeating the same stuff in different words.

<comment><USER9> Fortunately - and this is something I see many smart people around me not realizing - we live in the day and age where it's trivial to identify and get _the very best_ books humanity has produced about any given topic. That is, as long as you can read English.

<comment><USER5> How, please tell me. I'll pay you for that list. Do I have to sacrifice my firstborn for this?

<comment><USER10> For most technical, scientific, and mathematic topics, it's usually very easy to find the next best book to read with a google search or two. Starting on or strengthening long-forgotten Calculus? Probably get Spivak. _Et c._ This might get tougher as you approach a field's state-of-the-art, but by then "what to read next" will often come from a journal, not a book.

Literature and verse? Harold Bloom's western canon list, whatever its faults, is pretty damn good and could keep one busy for a lifetime. If you want to mix in more works by _e.g._ women or more asian works or whatever, there are very good lists for that, too:

[http://www.interleaves.org/~rteeter/whatbooks.html](http://www.interleaves.org/~rteeter/whatbooks.html)

(above includes Bloom's list)

Want to learn science and math from classics? The list from How to Read a Book should help, and St. John's College's reading list is public: [https://www.sjc.edu](https://www.sjc.edu)

For a given topic, there's often a subreddit with a decent reading list in the FAQ.

Which topic(s) are you having trouble with?

<comment><USER5> Not any topic in particular. Things in my own field I can judge myself and I don't really get to chose anyway but I'm talking about general reading.

Most lists just tell you which books are popular. I'd be reading nothing but Harry Potters if I followed those lists. I'm talking about choosing a book _I_ will like. Not you, not the critic, not the public. Following these kinds of static lists doesn't really fair better than looking at the cover.

There needs to be some algorithm that can be applied to my books which is what I was hoping goodreads would do for me but their recommendations are a joke - they just recommend whatever goodreads author they're currently promoting regardless of what you like.

<comment><USER9> I didn't realize you're talking fiction. The "algorithm" I applied works best for nonfiction, because those you choose by objective criteria.

As for recommendation engines for fiction, I don't know any that don't have this conflict of interests you described with Goodreads. Personally, I tend to pick up books that are recommended by friends, writers I like reading and people on HN. There's _way_ too much fiction to read all of it, but I try to aim for one (or both) of two separate types: insightful and genre-popular. Insightful, because I love to read new ideas, and genre-popular, because culture is pretty much defined by your ability to talk about it with other people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It sounds to me like the author of this post is going for quantity over quality. In the realm of book-reading, that's almost always a losing proposition.

Here's an approach that has worked better for me: pick a complex question and try to answer it. For example, "Why did the Great Depression happen?" It turns out there isn't actually a simple answer (that everyone can agree on).

<comment><USER9> Quantity can actually help you here - for complex questions, you want to get a feel of the answer-space first, instead of picking a single point on it and exploring it thoroughly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> > It's much better to read the best book on the topic 5 times, than to read 5 > different books on the topic once.

Rather than being an obvious truth, for me it is a grave mistake.

I rarely read a book a few times (but also: I am very slow (careful!) reader), and go back if I want to quote something verbatim, or lookup a number/reference. In book reading I prefer quality than quantity.

But what is crucial, rarely there is a single, obvious "best book". At the same time, reading only a single book leaves false impression that everything is known, there are no controversies, no different looks or approaches, etc.

<comment><USER13> For me, for a new field, I never know which is the "best" book. And whichever it is - it's not complete; there are additional nuggets to be found, maybe in the corner of a minor chapter, in many/most of them. I will read ~100 to just get a feel for the lay of the land. This is because I don't know what I don't know and certainly don't know enough to pick the best! And then go back and re-read (with more directedness) 10~20 of them, and then settle in and make 1~5 of them my touch stones for re-re-reading over time. This last bit is because I have a leaky brain, and I need to refresh it from time-to-time.

<comment><USER9> > _For me, for a new field, I never know which is the "best" book._

Solution for that is pretty simple for very many fields:

Google:

\- best books on <field X>

\- best books on <field X> reddit

Read a few lists from sites, especially those frequented by people in that field. See which books tend to appear often in those lists. There, you have quite probably just identified the very best books for the <field X> the human race has to offer.

<comment><USER13> Well, sure. Those are the conclusions of people who have already formed their own mental structures. Somehow. That part is not shared. Or maybe they haven't read the books available themselves; there's a shocking number of humans willing to publish their conclusions based on ... sometimes nothing. ("You'll love this book! It's the best! Trust me!") I find that (for me) that the process of forming my own mental structures from the fire-hose to be useful. Partly because what a beginner needs and what an expert recommends often don't line up. Experts have forgotten what it's like to be a beginner.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14>
      We ought to only read the kind of books that wound and stab us. If
      the book we are reading doesn't wake us up with a blow on the head,
      what are we reading it for? We need the books that affect us like a
      disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved
      more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from
      everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea
      inside us. That is my belief.

                Franz Kafka

</comment><comment><USER15> "A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one."

\- George R.R. Martin quotes

<comment><USER16> G.R.R.M. writes well, and I'm a long-time paying customer, but that phrase is advertising bullshit.

The reader doesn't 'live' squat, he reads about someone else's life. Watching cooking shows doesn't feed anyone.

<comment><USER17> Does it have to be "advertising bullshit"? Maybe GRRM sees reading differently than you do? For someone who has devoted their life to writing, that is a sensible perspective.

<comment><USER9> There's an interesting thread in Dark Forest by Cixin Liu (second book of the Three Body Problem trilogy (yes, I know I'm being boring constantly recommending them here but these are _really good books_ )). I actually wonder whether it's a real thing.

A short (minor) spoiler follows.

One of the protagonists is married to a writer. He follows her advice about writing, and in the process of developing a character he manages to, well, instantiate a pretty much living version of that character in his own mind - <USER2> version that grows and thinks independently of its creator. He eventually gets emotionally involved with his imaginary creation, and later learns that it's something that happens to good writers, and that his wife has such a character "living" with her too.

What I wonder is whether it's really the case that good writers actually develop their characters to the point of them turning pretty much into tulpas? A kind of background thread in their brains, with separate micro- consciousness.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> 300 books in 4 years, basically it's one book per week if my math is correct. But still it seems like some kind of consumerism, where the main goal is to scrape together as much information as possible, hoping that you can use some of it in the future.

</comment><comment><USER19> I'm actually trying to read less and do more. So instead of reading about compilers I'm building some. It feels like a slower way of learning sometimes, but it's exposed lots of places where I thought I knew how things work but I actually didn't. It has also taught me more than reading alone would.

The downside is that I find it harder to get time for building. It's easy enough to read at night in bed, but harder to concentrate on writing code.

</comment><comment><USER20> If you aren't worried about the quantity of books you're getting through, and want a challenge, read The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe.

The closest approximation might be Jorge Luis Borges with Tolkien with a dash of Neal Stephenson and Murakami.

At first I thought: I know what this is.

Then I thought. Wait... something's wrong here.

Then I thought. There is no way that is in the text. Can't be.

This was just the point where the rollercoaster is beginning the climb.

If you like complex and strange things, then this is for you.

</comment><comment><USER21> May I ask how you get the time and how you are able to read a book under a day?

<comment><USER22> When I was student in french "classes preparatoires" (between 19 and 20yo), my binom was fond of books. He read between 2 and 3 books per day when most pupils had difficulties to cope with workload.

<comment><USER23> What does "binom" mean? Is that a typo? I tried looking it up online, but don't see anything.

<comment><USER24> See also this: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binomial_(polynomial)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binomial_\(polynomial\))

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I would add that it's important to put what you read into action. Also, summarizing what you read makes you think about what you read. Your less likely to forget. I learnt this after many forgotten books.

</comment><comment><USER26> Interesting. The first point resonates with the famous quote made by Bruce Lee. "I fear not the man who has practiced 10000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10000 times."

<comment><USER27> That works for the kicks but not the book on a single topic though IMO, not only would reading the same book more than a couple times be boring but you wouldn't learn a whole lot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> The recommendation to take notes is helpful. I prefer to make my notes directly in the book. This has the added bonus of making a book's value much clearer to me when it comes time to cull.

</comment><comment><USER29> It would be interesting to see the list of actual books read.

<comment><USER5> If you go to goodreads you can find thousands of people reading ~80 books a year with their lists publicly available. If you want to see what software engineers read just click on a popular software book and keep clicking on profiles that have read it until you find one with enough books.

</comment></comment><comment> koga-ninja 300 books in 4 years is pretty good. My reading speed is 60 pages an hour with comprehension, though I can Zoom through with less.

Nothing like a NASA astronaut though.

</comment><comment><USER30> For me personally how do you get list of best books. We have just too much books but finding out good ones is difficult process.

</comment><comment><USER31> imho usually the best books, are those complex ones, which I read for 4 months. Because after every page, 15 new questions arise, where settling them takes time, and then internalization of that wisdom takes time as well. And I don't even mention, that best books get better after re-reading.

In this light, 300 books in 4 years, seems quite a lot...

<comment><AUTHOR> This is very true for some types of books. For example, I am not able to read Dostoyevsky or Carlyle fast. For some sort of books, I even feel like I need a nap after 30 mins of reading, as I feel that my brain gets tired :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Great. You learn a lot after reading books good work.

</comment><comment><USER33> I've read around 250 books in 4 years.

I agree with a lot of the author's takeaways. I'll try to add some of the lessons I've gotten out of it, that don't appear on his list.

In addition, I post my book reviews at [http://juvoni.com/books](http://juvoni.com/books)

\- Understand what a book is going to attempt to communicate before you read it, either by checking the table of contents, going through a summary, reading reviews or reading the back or inner cover of a book. [http://juvoni.com/book/how-to-read-a-book](http://juvoni.com/book/how-to- read-a-book)

\- You can read multiple books at a time and not get the narrative scrambled by doing context specific reading by time or location. For example only reading book A while in transit, reading book B before bedtime and only reading book C on weekends. The context specific memory will be attached to when and where you habitually read that specific book. [http://juvoni.com/reading-multiple-books](http://juvoni.com/reading-multiple- books)

\- Not all book recommendations are made equal, even from friends. I use a concept called 'Book Purgatory', where book recommendations go to await judgment on whether they are worthy of your time and attention to read. I do not commit to reading any recommendation. It is only after I give it a review based on what I want or need from a book and the quality of it's reviews do I consider getting it. [http://juvoni.com/book- purgatory](http://juvoni.com/book-purgatory)

\- Reading a lot of books when you have a full lifestyle is difficult, it's in you're best interest to stay organized and have a pre-defined list of books you want to read, and intend to read after you are finished and actively track the books you are currently reading. [http://juvoni.com/trello-book-reading- management](http://juvoni.com/trello-book-reading-management)

\- Identify your learning styles and device preferences and find books that are a good balance of right medium and comfortable preference. For example, I have a hard time reading history books but find them easier over audible, I also prefer to read books with diagrams as physical rather than e-books. [http://juvoni.com/print-ebook-audiobook](http://juvoni.com/print-ebook- audiobook)

\- Understand why you read. [http://juvoni.com/discovering-love-reading-read- read-smarter](http://juvoni.com/discovering-love-reading-read-read-smarter)</comment>


How an Algorithm Helped Arrange the Names on the 9/11 Memorial - <AUTHOR> http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=september-11-memorial

<comment><USER2> Is anyone else mildly curious as to the actual code that was used? Even though I imagine it nothing more than a graph with specific weights it still must have been pretty complex.

<comment><USER3> The artist, Jer Thorp, has a blog post describing the algorithm. He started with a clustering algorithm then wrote a tool in Processing to review the adjacencies by hand.

<http://blog.blprnt.com/blog/blprnt/all-the-names></comment></comment>


US Mail (USPS) launches virtual box simulator - <AUTHOR> https://www.prioritymail.com/simulator.asp

<comment><USER2> This is the most useful use of Augmented Reality I've seen to date.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a great idea. But I wonder why USPS uses a different domain for this. Seems like a legitimate domain because there's a link to prioritymail.com from usps.com also. But having two separate domains could be confusing to customers, I would think.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't know. But I suspect that priority mail is the most profitable part of the service - maybe they are trying to raise its profile?</comment></comment>


New record label (EMI) digital exec: I don't buy music. - <AUTHOR> http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/6/new_emi_digital_exec_i_don_t_buy_music

<comment><USER2> He sounds a lot like me. I am a musician and I don't buy music. It doesn't make any sense where there are so many things to listen to for free online, everywhere.

If NPR publicly tracked all the music snippets used by show/date/time, I'd be buying a lot more music. Or if my stereo could display what I was listening to at the time I was listening to it (like XM, but in all its detailed glory), same thing.</comment>


WooMe: TechCrunch40 Finalist, $20 Million In Funding – And One Huge Scam - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/02/woome-techcrunch40-finalist-20-million-in-funding-and-one-huge-scam/ <comment><USER3> There is a huge industry going on on these kinds of sites - not necessarily done by the site owners...

Generally there are two monitizations for a third party; first of all being an affiliate and sending traffic can be big bucks (I paid for my wedding as a referrer for SexSearch and AdultFriendFinder - I'm not ashamed because I didn't use necessarily shady practices to accomplished this). With big bucks, I mean an easy $45 (at the time) per signup, more if it were a female registering. Having a day making $2k wasn't unheard of.

The second, shadier method, is that there will be "service providers" posing or automating profiles on these sites. The "service providers" (escorts, phone sex, porn sites, rival "dating" sites or plain our scammers) attempt to get the people to use their service by enticing the end-user and making them believe they are a real person. This is generally overlooked because for these new unpaid accounts, their curiosity gets the best of them when they can't read these private messages they are getting, and they end up paying for an account. (It was even beneficial to me, even though I wasn't luring anyone in to paying for an account, these service providers would convert them for me).

The thing that backfires is that so many of these service providers will hurt the quality of a site by making users instantly see that something is wrong - just like in the parent article. It's in WooMe's interest (if they are indeed not doing it themselves) to take control over this kind of misuse, and not let it get out of control - they will just lose real users, and in the end money.

<comment><USER4> I'm not really understanding the second method. I don't see how a rival "dating" site would have any incentive to get a customer to pay for a rival service. Are you saying that once affiliates drove a user sign-up, they would engage the user via messages to get them to sign up for a paid plan so they would get a greater payout? If so, how did they find the specific users that signed up via their affiliate links?

Just trying to understand who other than WooMe would have an incentive to spam on their site.

<comment><USER3> It wouldn't be rival dating sites; it would be affiliates to rival sites. I guess the best way to see it is; once you have identified a sucker, take them for all they are worth.

Possible scenario:

1) User signs up for free on WooMe

2) User is enticed by fake account to signup because the picture alone suckered them in, and the unknown of their message just made it too much.

3) Fake account tells user to check out their profile on fake account's website

4) Fake accounts website is a redirect with affiliate code to rival site

5) User signs up for rival site, thus giving the commission to the fake account's holder.

It sounds like a lot of work, but it's all automated and easy to pull off.

 _Edited for formatting_

<comment><USER4> So the user signs up for paid accounts on two different sites? Sounds lucrative and very shady.

<comment><USER3> If the user is gullible enough - or at least that is the hopes of some of these fake accounts. It pays off even if you convert 10 people a day - <USER2> most likely that is a very easy target number to hit.

Keep in mind this is all playing on human emotions; sex or the desire to be wanted being a huge one; and for some lonely souls out there, it makes them easier prey. My history with doing affiliate programs with that industry has proven that if marketed correctly, it can be a very rewarding business, and even with some seriously scary a/b tests (let's just throw the term farm sex out there) you can still get good conversions. People's desires and curiosity gets to them - and in to their wallet.

<comment><USER4> I'm not judging you, but an activity where you view your "customers" as prey seems really depressing. I certainly couldn't sleep at night knowing I was taking advantage of people yearning for some happiness in their lives.

<comment><USER3> Oh, I never took part in these practices, sorry if I lead you to believe this. I did work as an affiliate for these type of sites, however it was via a blog that would review the sites. I will admit, I was deceptive in the fact that I never really used the sites - I was working an angle to make money, but I never tricked users in to thinking I was someone else, or lured them in to a situation where they were forced to register. My reviews simply talked about the features of the site, then provided a link with my affiliate code.

The actual luring tactics do seem predatory and that's why I worded it like that - simply because I have witnessed how others were going about things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> TC / Crunchbase might want to change their WooMe's company profile on their pages as well, in light of this article.

Kind of funny that the article calls it "bait-and-switch, from the horrible kind" while linking to an internal-ish overview that says "best of all it's free".

<http://www.crunchbase.com/company/woome>

<comment><USER6> 150k+ records in Crunchbase so it is difficult to keep it up-to-date. The good news is that anybody can edit any record.

<comment><USER7> I just edited the company bio - how long do I have to wait to see the update ?

<comment><USER6> The mods usually go through the moderation queue once a day. If you create an account, after a few edits are approved you get permission to insta-edit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I launched an online dating site FlowMingle.com in 2008 (since closed down). When we were building the site on '07 and looking for investment, over and over we heard 'Your site isn't viral/social enough. Look at WooMe, look at Zoosk, etc. They will eat your lunch!' and with regards to OKCupid "It's at best a niche site for geeks and freaks, it's growing too slowly, it's not viral enough."

Although this TC article is hardly news for anyone who has examined the WooMes of the world for even 15sec., I find the fact that WooMe is outed as a scam and that OKCupid is acquired by Match.com to be hugely vindicating.

By providing users an honest, transparent service that legitimately helps them achieve their aims, you CAN and eventually WILL profit and grow. The damage in investors betting on companies like WooMe is that 1) they scam bunches of online daters and turn them off from the whole industry, they disappoint and lie to people 2) other entrepreneurs see big investment and media coverage for a company like WooMe and think they should chase after that model and mold their businesses to what investors want rather than what users want. 3) ultimately, investing in WooMe doesn't create any long term value and is a waste of time/money and starves other legitimate businesses of opportunity.

Just because a company is getting investment $$, press, meteoric growth, etc does NOT mean it is actually delivering anything of value and/or helping its users achieve their goals. There is always opportunity to win against ANY competitor by doing those simple things.

</comment><comment><USER9> It's this kind of stuff that always gets me fired up about one of my previous employers and the cadre of clones that they run.

What WooMe is doing is nothing different than any other adult "dating" website in that they send messages to users with the hopes of getting them to sign up with a recurring charge (that the company hopes they forget about) and then immediately cut off almost all of this instant contact that the paid user just received. Then about a week later they'll send out a mass mailer to a set of demographics with more fake messages just to string that person and get them to continue forgetting about that recurring $24.99 charge.

Don't even get me started on upselling.

</comment><comment><USER10> It's really unfortunate that this is the norm and not an exception. That said, users of these kind of sites are probably most susceptible to this kind of trick as love, lust and infatuation are probably the strongest emotions.

I know of a few people who scrape profiles off of dating site A, create new profiles using that data on dating site B then message users on site B asking them out. A requirement for going out on a date with them (they're obviously posing as an attractive female and messaging males) is signing up to a service that does a background check to verify that they're not dangerous. Affiliate network payout per conversion on background check = $20+ USD

Doing that at scale = you are making $2,000+ USD/day

<comment><USER11> You want to call them out here? Maybe with an anonymous handle if they know you?

<comment><USER10> They're all way outside US jurisdiction (where all these sites operate), so there's really no point. These aren't people I know personally, merely acquaintances from various black hat communities. Honour among thieves, and all that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Here's a suggestion for WooMe, if it wants to cling to some credibility or at least plausible deniability: upgrade the journo's account for free, so that he can contact the senders of those messages. If the messages are offering dates, and insisting on upgraded levels of membership - case closed. If the messages are promoting some unrelated service - the site has a raging spam problem.

And if the messages are real, I'll be a monkey's uncle.

<comment><USER13> Really, this is too easy to game to worry the cynics - the site owners could log in and continue a few conversations for a bit to make the bad publicity go away.

If I was running this kind of operation I'd probably ensure some conversations continued for a couple of messages after users paid up, just to make sure they didn't cancel or file chargebacks. If I assume men preferred their hot women to pass the Turing test I could probably outsource the flirting to someone in the Philippines at $5 per hundred messages.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Wow. That is a horrible. Can't believe any VC would invest money in such a misleading, annoying startup.

Are these messages coming from WooMe internally or are they SPAM submitted from "Russian bride scams"? Either way, I'm staying away and warning others!

<comment><USER15> WooMe probably didn't start out this way. Desperation can do bad things to good intentions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> That's like the oldest scam that pretty much every single dating site uses. I'm surprised how TC is shocked...shocked to find that on a dating site.

Reddit did the same thing starting out...the only difference is that they didn't try to trick you into paying.

<comment><USER11> The value reddit users get is from viewing new and interesting content and comments.

The value a user of a dating site gets is the PROSPECT of going on a face to face meeting with another person.

If reddit engineers were good enough to make an AI to post great new great content everyday along with insightful comments and analysis, I'd still go. Hell, that might make me want to go even more often.

If I found out a dating site users were doing the same with messaging, that completely precludes me from getting the value I really want from the site, thus its useless.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> When WooMe launched they got a lot of attention. They thought they were going to take the world by storm. Unfortunately their product is a novelty.

They took $17.4 million dollars of VC with no real hope of showing a return to their investors. They got desperate and this is the result.

</comment><comment><USER18> This is particularly poignant and frustrating given OKCupids recent acquisition. I'm happy for those guys- but I am sad that the one good dating site will probably be discontinued. It's tough when you know the shady tactics of practically all the others.

<comment><USER19> Match.com would have to be utter idiots to close down OkCupid. If they keep it running, it's a serious asset, for a bunch of reasons, and one hopes that they'd be mature enough not to care if one brand they own is cannibalising another.

If they close it down, yes, their main brand will be protected, but _so will everyone else's_. There's no competitive advantage whatsoever in doing it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The only thing more frustrating than an ethically challenged business is the investment that came its way instead of going to legitimate start-ups that may die on the vine for lack of capital.

<comment><USER21> Who is to say that ethically challenged businesses cannot be legitimate targets for investors? I hate these sites, but my bet is that they pay off for investors as well as your average YC company...Investors are in the business of making money, not making judgements about ethics. Legal challenges are the ones that matter to a business, not ethical ones.

<comment><USER22> Maybe we should change that.

<comment><USER21> The question is: how?

The sentiment (in the US, at least) still seems to be towards less regulation at the moment. Enforcing ethics as well as laws would seem to require even more regulation, unless you have a magic potion that will convince all business directors to self-regulate all at once!

<comment><USER23> Regulations are only as ethical as the regulator -- just ask Bernie Madoff's victims how well that worked. Indeed, more regulation leads to a false sense of security, and certainly stifles innovation.

Better to have the market, and market players like TechCrunch, sort out this type of low-level malfeasance.

<comment><USER22> But then you'd have to have a financial reward system in place that rewards ethical firms.

I don't know how you would do that.

<comment><USER24> It's called refusing to do business with people who are ethically challenged.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'm not sure what the law is in the US, but I'm pretty sure that would be illegal in the UK both under sales legislation and under anti-fraud laws.

</comment><comment><USER26> Hey don't knock the horse face. I did fine at Burning Man wearing a Horse Head mask. Maybe there are a lot of playa princesses on WooMe.

<comment><USER27> Wow. It's 2011 and I still haven't gone to Burning Man. Been meaning to go since 1995.

 _looks at blizzard outside_

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I realize I'll probably spend some karma here, but after reading TC and checking out the site (and the blog post by the site), I see what's happening. And there is a LOT of misunderstanding in the TC article and in the comments of HN.

One of the services WooMe offers is to automatically introduce people they think will get along. They do NOT make it clear its the system doing the introduction, nor that its automated. But what is clear is these are all real people on the site, no fake accounts.

So yes, no person sent a hello to a horse in the middle of the night. But that doesn't make the whole thing fake. It mimics a scam, but is not.

Imagine if after signing up for Facebook for the first time, FB sent you 10 friend requests within minutes of people they thought you knew - one step further than what they already do with suggested friends. Is that a scam? Or is that a ham-fisted attempt at helping you get started using the site?

It's clearly not a scam. It's just really really borderline on the ethical side. I've never used a dating site of any kind, so I have no idea what is normal in that industry.

<comment><USER29> Except that the screenshots clearly say "(so and so) has sent you a message", which is plainly false. I'm not sure how you could see it any other way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Here is what the site does (or at least did two-three months ago, when I tried it).

After you pay for your account, it immediately asks you "do you want the site to introduce you to people who may be of interest" or something like that. A little later, I looked at my Sent folder and saw that I had said "hi" or "what's up" to dozens of people, many who are not local or I otherwise would not be interested in.

</comment><comment><USER31> This site may be dishonest, but its certainly nothing new. Most dating sites you go to employ some of the same tactics. They will try to lure you in and then put up a paywall. I guess the thing that is bad here is that they lie about having automated messages when they obviously do. That is really kind of slimy, they might as well admit to the obvious at this point.

</comment><comment><USER32> I'm kinda disappointed, I just signed up (with what I thought was a engaging picture: [http://www.illusionking.com/wp- content/uploads/2008/09/horse...](http://www.illusionking.com/wp- content/uploads/2008/09/horse_head.jpg)) and I've only got three messages from VIP members. Thank you Anita, Yanisa and Shawna !

</comment><comment><USER33> I don't understand, how does he know it is actually WooMe behind the bots? Couldn't it be some scammer who has nothing to do with WooMe?

</comment><comment><USER34> No one remembers how you got that--just that you got there.

</comment><comment><USER35> where is the analogous website for scamming women with pics of hot boys? "pay 50% OFF to chat with Ivan!"

what a chauvinism!..

</comment><comment><USER36> for the record, robin wauters didn't approach us to verify anything in the story and the accusations are untrue and misleading.

we focus very hard on getting people to talk to each other and interact and we have a number of features on the site, driven by users, that make that happen.

Ironically, the user featured in the pic is one of the longest standing and most active on WooMe.

<comment><USER37> You, sir, sound like a snake oil salesman of the worst kind. Either that or you have no clue how your site operates.

 _edit_ but apparently 'Jen' does. Screencast here -> <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOtBmqqKVcc>

(Thanks to my Appsumo purchase of Screenflow which saved me 50%!)

<comment><USER36> right. I'm the CTO. I'm not sure what I can do to combat the perception that I sell snake oil. I don't sell snake oil. I help people meet each other.

If you really WANT snake oil I guess I could find some and get it to you.

<comment><USER37> You're right, that was totally unprofessional of me to lay such an ad hominem attack and run away...so let me expand upon my thought some more.

Your site either uses fake accounts to trick legitimate users into paying to view messages from these supposed hot women looking for dates with horses and guys who have just signed up yet haven't provided any personal details...or you have a very serious spam problem where bots are running rampant across your site with hordes of fake accounts trolling for new profiles to scam (or a combination therein).

As evidence, I just logged in to my woome account, which I haven't logged into in maybe 3 years, and immediately I got a request for a video chat from <http://www.woome.com/sallyl3462/> . Who wants to get laid tonight? Sally does!

<comment><USER36> I can't say there aren't spammers using our site. that problem waxes and wanes and we try to deal with it as best we can. The user quoted is most definitely a spammer and I'll look into why we haven't caught that.

I don't think that's what robin is trying to say tho.

We are simply trying to make introductions happen as much as possible because that's what people use woome for. To meet new people.

It seems to work, to my knowledge our users are generally happy we have good time on site, repeat vistits and viping.

<comment><USER38> They appear to be spamming for the express purpose of converting free woome users to paid ones. Come on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> The evidence does not seem overwhelming to me. It is well known that girls _love_ horses, so it doesn't seem that surprising that he is flooded with messages if he uses a horse avatar.

</comment><comment><USER40> The Complete Idiot's Guide To Frauds, Scams, and Cons [http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0028644158/thepolitic...](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0028644158/thepoliticalg-20)

</comment><comment><USER41> How is this an article so thoroughly under-researched? Why not go a little bit further and investigate if actual people are posting?

Hi $name, thank you for messaging me. I'm new to this site, so can you please tell me the process on how you send me that message, where did you have to click, etc? I am still trying to figure this out, so if you could tell me what buttons you had to press to send the message to me, I'd appreciate it, it would help me get started. Thank you ahead of time, $name. P.S. Have you read any good books lately?

And then, to be even more sure, create a couple more accounts through proxies and see what kind of messages they get. Do deactivate them after.

See, while it does look like some sort of bait-and-switch, at least try to verify it. Maybe at the very least they've got a very persuasive feature where new members do get popped up, and there's a user initiated "Poke" like feature (that appears as a message on your end), so that would put them somewhere in grey-hat tactics out of the black-hat area.

<comment><USER12> Oh come on, COME ON, I'm all for research too, but 15 messages from women in the middle of the night who want to date a horse is not something that requires going deep undercover before you decide that it's fake. And he said that it would cost him $60 just to contact anyone or do anything on that site.

<comment><USER42> i agree that its most likely fake, but it seems like TC would be able to comp him for the $30 for a membership it would take to lend weight to the story.

are the messages fake? again, yeah, probably. but its also concievable that one or two are "lol a horse" type of messages. kind of depends on how the site itself works.

<comment><USER43> It's not just the messages from users, it's the whole concept of showing nothing unless you hand over your credit details, pretending hot women are dying to contact you even though you're obviously not date material (unless they're into horses), the unsolicited emails, the corny live chat box and pop- up message when you try to close it, and so on.

<comment><USER42> > it's the whole concept of showing nothing unless you hand over your credit > details

this is how a lot of dating sites work. no contact unless you pay, no receiving messages unless you pay. its also how classmates.com works, not just dating sites. and one of the reasons they were sued recently is due to business practices similar to this.

> pretending hot women are dying to contact you even though you're obviously > not date material (unless they're into horses), the unsolicited emails

again, this is probably true, but there's no _proof_ of it unless the dude signed up and found out for sure. more data required.

> the corny live chat box and pop-up message when you try to close it

shady indeed, but they're not the only place who makes use of this.

<comment><USER43> There seems to be a notion that I shouldn't call out WooMe because other sites are doing it too. I don't know where that is coming from.

<comment><USER41> My notion is that you should call out WooMe. Go for it. However, as an author it is your responsibility to try to research as much as possible. It does seem, from the surface level that you described, that those messages are spam/automatically generated. However one could come up with a semi-plausible bordering on the edge of legitimacy rationale why you had received those messages. Maybe WooMe discovered a novel way of nudging users towards communication with each other, maybe they get Achievement Points for sending messages to new users? Likely? Not really, However, chatting with a very cleverly disguised CTA does not constitute thorough research.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google I/O'18: Keynote Livestream [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogfYd705cRs <comment><USER2> The call with Chinese restaurant was simply jaw dropping. Sundar says that it was real and I have no grounds not to believe him.

This is as close of a demo of technology passing the Turing test as I have ever seen. Sure, it's not a fully free form conversation on any subject, but incredibly impressive nevertheless.

Oh yes, and the voice synthesis is just simply amazing. I don't think I'd be able to tell that I was talking to a bot either.

So far, it's been the most impressive Google I/O keynote that I've ever seen and it's not over yet.

<comment><USER3> I missed that. Can someone link to that moment?

<comment><USER4> [https://youtu.be/ogfYd705cRs?t=1h57m57s](https://youtu.be/ogfYd705cRs?t=1h57m57s)

<comment><USER5> I'm really trying not to be another "dystopian" commentor, but I can't help but feel sad for the restaurant. The call was awkward. Restaurants are busy. The AI would pause too long and leave her guessing, and respond with the wrong type of emotion (e.g. a dejected sounding "oh, gotcha... thanks..." after she had answered his question with the positive "you can come for four people, ok?". I can't help but think this sort of "corporate lying" (yes it is a lie to robo-call and pretend to be a live human voice) has an external cost of frustration and emotional drainage to be borne by society's ordinary people.

<comment><USER6> Maybe I'm a robot but i feel like I would have answered similarly to Duplex. I expected to be able to make a reservation but got told I have to walk-in instead.

I'm actually quite surprised it asked for the wait time afterwards, I'm not sure I'd remember do such a thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There is some dystopian crud in here in just the few minutes I've watched.

\- Google will write your emails for you so you don't have to. Is this Gmail user writing me an email or is Google? I no longer know.

\- Google Assistant can now impose Google's parenting values on your kids by making them say please. Combine with the mandatory Chromebooks in my school district for full-on indoctrination from childhood.

I am so uncomfortable with this. All the people cheering for it is even worse.

EDIT: HOLY CRUD, they're unleashing their AI to call and harass people on the phone.

<comment><USER8> I'm not sure I agree 100% with what you said, but I get the sentiment. If someone is worried about a dystopian crud, why would they purchase a Google Home or use the Google Assistant? Also, the parenting values I thought was nice, and optional to turn it on.

<comment><USER7> I can't escape it when Google's implementing their AI to call and message other people. They just demonstrated Google's AI calling and trying to converse with unsuspecting users who aren't even notified they're talking to Google.

<comment><USER8> What's the issue/reason you see with Google Assistant calling to make a reservation for a business? Why do you need to avoid it?

<comment><USER9> It's creepy because it's pretending to be people. Phone trees suck, and now a phone tree is calling you and we don't expect phone trees to call us. Now you have to wonder when you get a call wether you are talking to a person or a robot. At the minimum they should announce themselves.

<comment><USER10> If you can't tell, does it matter?

The reason people don't like phone trees is not because they are robots. Rather, because they often make it difficult to get the help you need or reach the right department. If a live human read the script of a phone tree to you it would be equally (more?) infuriating.

If I called a companies number and got a conversational bot masquerading as a person instead of a phone tree, that would be a dramatic improvement.

<comment><USER11> Yes. Because if I'm having a bad day and I'm rude to the caller (not knowing it's a machine), I will feel guilt afterwards. The guilt will be unnecessary, because no human was offended.

That may be a trivial case, but more generally our social contract is that we owe a duty of politeness and consideration to fellow humans. When you're interacting with another human, a big part of your brain is actively engaged in following social norms. By masquerading as human, machines co-opt this part of your brain and extract a duty that they don't deserve.

I think every machine caller should be required to identify itself as such. Restaurants will still be happy to take reservations from them. If one calls me to sell me something, I can tell it where to go without any guilt.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Serious question here - legally, what's the difference between a google-bot calling my place of business and a robocall, which is illegal in the US and California?

<comment><USER13> The google-bot calling your place of business is tantamount to someone's butler calling your place of business. Often time, people prefer talking to professional appointment-bookers.

Sometimes, not. When HR departments are recruiting, they avoid talking to agencies, with language like "principals only".

<comment><USER5> Ah, so I suppose there are two dimensions: 1) The caller has a business-reason for initiating the call; if the receiver doesn't want that sort of call, it's a problem (spam calls). 2) The caller is a robot, and the receiver might not want to accept calls from robots, and now they might not even know it's a robot with which to have an informed opinion.

I wonder which one the robo-call laws are trying to cover, if not both. Google's certainly doing both, what's new is that the receiver is being misled about (2) and possibly even (1).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Google is winning with TPU's. Most other competitors even with great machine learning talent would not be able to match the speed that Google does things with because of the TPU's.

<comment><USER15> And optimized sw for those TPUs

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The Wavenet assisted new voice got me thinking.

I need an Alan Watts voiced Google assistant / Siri.

</comment><comment><USER17> I can hardly believe that people cannot control themselves to the point that adding features to disable the mobile use is a sell point.

<comment><USER6> If you're referring to 'Shush' I'm excited for that purely for convenience sake. I see a lot of my friends use that same action (flipping phone over on table) when we're holding a conversation/eating/etc.

<comment><USER17> I just put it on silence and leave it on the pocket.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Theme that I see is branding that besides engineering smarts, Google is likable, thoughtful, someone you'd want as your friend. Leading with the hamburger emoji to move the image of Google as more fun / regular human. and IMHO think its well done.

</comment><comment><USER19> I get the sense that Google isn't completely sincere with its Digital Wellbeing campaign. Rather than tally up your usage statistics on a dashboard, why not confront the addictive technologies (social media apps, clickbait/sensationalist styles of speaking) head on? Surely they have the data on what addicts people on a deeper level.

One example that comes to mind is "Hey, you've used social media X times today. Here are some websites you may like that would _increase_ your attention span."

<comment><USER20> They actually seemed to have touched on something like that briefly, saying they'd come back to it in their android segment. Still not sure if it's sincere but if it is, it's a good set of steps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> > This video is restricted. Try signing in with a Google Apps account.

Ughh.. I really hate this - why does Google put videos like this behind sign- in walls? Now I gotta go find my g-apps sign-in info, and rmember to purge it from my browser when I'm done again. GRRRR

<comment><USER21> It opens in incognito/private browsing for me just fine

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I wanted to download it to watch it offline during long bus trip but none of the downloaders seem to be working for previously live streamed videos on YouTube. Any other working method?

</comment><comment><USER23> I am not sure what all this is supposed to enable us as customers or users to do. What I can see is a bunch of ways to avoid human contact including no longer calling people like a real human or not even choosing my own words in an email. But from the perspective of someone who dealt with Google's awful customer service, maybe they could use this in that regard to actually have a voice on the phone even if it isn't human. Automation is a great thing until you see the human cost. At some point Google is going to have to use its vast capacities to not give people more time, instead give them more opportunities. For e.g. the DeepMind paper showing how to save energy - that was cool.

<comment><USER24> > What I can see is a bunch of ways to avoid human contact including no longer > calling people like a real human or not even choosing my own words in an > email.

Auto-complete is hardly "avoiding human contact", is it?

Regardless, these features are all optional - if you feel as though you're avoiding human interaction by using auto-complete, why not just... not use it?

<comment><USER25> >Auto-complete is hardly "avoiding human contact", is it?

It is. It removes the color and nuance from typed communication. There's a lot of metadata in typos.

<comment><USER24> > It is. It removes the color and nuance from typed communication. There's a > lot of metadata in typos.

Oh puh-lease. Are you seriously trying to argue that TYPOS are the anchor upon which genuine human interaction hinges on?

I mean, wow. If you're trolling that's amazing.

<comment><USER26> You conveyed more emotional information in the misspelled "puh-lease" than you would've with the correctly spelled "please".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> the actual keynote starts at 1:20:17. Can someone get the direct link for people coming later? I can't seem to do it on mobile. And can we perhaps change the link in the post?

</comment><comment><USER28> This has to my favorite part: [https://youtu.be/ogfYd705cRs?t=2536](https://youtu.be/ogfYd705cRs?t=2536)

</comment><comment><USER29> Stream was using AV1 codec for me, on both Chrome and FF nightly. Unfortunately quality was terrible, for whatever reason

</comment><comment><USER30> > The all-new Google News provides you a variety of diverse perspectives on > any given topic to help you get the in-depth, balanced picture

Proceeds to show stories by: CNN, ABC, Huffington Post, Buzzfeed, Vox, and Politico. Yeah, really diverse perspectives. Its not as if they all hold nearly the same point of view on any issue.

<comment><USER31> What would you have in there?

<comment><USER32> BuzzFeed and HuffPost are on par with The Daily Wire and Breitbart News -- blatant propaganda ad nauseum.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Looks like the Google I/O keynote has turned into the Google AI keynote.

<comment><USER34> All your I/O now belong to our AI

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> No new hardware this year? The rest was quite impressive.

<comment><USER36> I cannot seem to find the time but they did announce a new TPU and it is now even liquid cooled.

Edit: here is an article on it and they are apparently 8x more powerful than the previous generation: [https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/08/google-launches- tpu-3-point-...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/08/google-launches- tpu-3-point-0-third-version-of-ai-chips.html)

<comment><USER35> I meant consumer electronics hardware, new pixels or chromebooks etc. But that's for a separate event, apparently.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I love technology. But I don't like what I see anymore. It's scary now. We are heading towards a dystopian future. My smartphone is now a black box in control of my life. I think I will just install a minimal Linux distribution and forget about these big corporations like Google, Apple and so.

<comment><USER24> > I love technology. But I don't like what I see anymore. It's scary now.

Welcome to almost every century in human history heh.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I closed it after 20 minutes or so.

I gotta hope that if I were at the helm of a multi billion dollar company that had been operating efficiently for years, I would take MUCH bigger risks than Google.

The projects in this keynote were incredibly boring, and some of them borderline useless. Leave that stuff for smaller companies to tackle, Google. Take on big problems.

<comment><USER39> Personally, it seems that during the past few years, Google has become so bloated and inefficient that innovation has slowed to a crawl.

It's to the point that they are now essentially just like Microsoft during the Steve Ballmer days. They need a visionary leader that can lead and inspire the hundreds of smart people they have.

Not to mention the fact how everyone always jokes about how long a product will last after being announced before they kill it off. Their strategy seems to be scattershot, rather than having a sense of direction. I'm curious to see how their internal roadmap looks like.

<comment><USER40> Inefficient and bloated? They are putting out a ton of stuff. Have YouTube TV and an excellent product but just one thing.

They appear to be doing an entirely new OS and UI. Flutter is pretty impressive tech.

Beyond Corp is pretty revolutionary and can see it being the norm.

But so many more. The TPU 3.0. Google Home Max is a great product as well as Google WiFi.

K8s is on fire and growing like crazy. They have cars driving around without a safety driver.

So many other things. What in the world are you talking about?

Did you mean some other company?

<comment><USER40> I am curious who has done more than Google in the last year?

Thanks in advance!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Can I be "put on a list" for contacting foreign researchers? - <AUTHOR> I may or may not be a scientist doing frontier research in the areas of information theory, NLP or deep learning.
Some of the research I am doing may have very important applications. One project may be to create novel data ex-filtration strategies involving deep learning and linguistics that allow the concealment of important messages in plain text. Another project may involve the creation of a way of profiling computers users using special  measures of their interactions with standard human computer interfaces.
Both of these applications have pro-social uses, such in the first case supporting whistle blowers who are restricted to locked down systems, or in the second case helping to filter out state-sponsored bad actors on social media in a way that fundamentally cannot be concealed. These can also be used in negative ways, that I'll leave to the imagination.
In the full academic spirit, I want to be able to communicate with the best researchers in my fields, which may include Chinese scholars. Separately, everyone here should know that if I'm in a Five Eyes country, which I am a citizen of, my emails to anyone in these countries will be picked up and read.
My question is: Should I be worried about contacting or building relationships with Chinese scholars for the purposes of furthering my research?
I'm worried I'll basically be put on a list that affects my future travel or employment. This is despite no bad actions or intentions on my part and the various nominal freedoms and rights I have. Is there any precedent for what I'm saying and does this interact with my profile in my field? <comment><USER2> Generally all emails are read by the five eyes as well as China in some automated way I believe.

I think if you do research for spying purposes you'll eventually get attention from someone and you may need to figure out which side you want to be aligned with if it is good. If it is not useful, and this is likely the case given no prior, then this is just idle talk.

I prefer to stay away from these things as the intrigue youll run into as an independent researcher is just not worth the hassle. Go get a job at a three letter agency or something like that.

Seriously do not get between China and the US as an independent researcher. It isn't worth it, especially if it is just intellectual curiousity.

</comment><comment><USER3> Are you a US citizen? I am not (I have a green card) so won't even sign a greenpeace petition. A legal ruling during the Reagan administration made it clear that green card holders do not have first amendment protection.

Even US citizens need to be careful these days: [https://twitter.com/shaunking/status/983418121808760833](https://twitter.com/shaunking/status/983418121808760833)

</comment><comment><USER4> I think the problem here is that you want to have your cake and eat it, too. The short answer is: You can't have both. Either you do what you need to do, or you fear for various bad consequences that might or might not happen in life and don't get things done.

You can't expect bad things to happen to you when you do nothing, but you can't expect good things happen to you when you do nothing, either. If you fear it, then don't do it.

E(x) = P(x) * Return(x)

When you do nothing E(do_nothing) = 100% * 0 = 0, When you do something, try to evaluate E(do_something) = E(bad) + E(good), and see if E(do_something) > 0 or E(do_something) < 0.

</comment><comment><USER5> I have to say, I find it remarkably ironic that a researcher developing surveillance technologies has this much concern over being surveiled. I'm also inclined to note that the argument "these technologies with obvious, profound antisocial uses have some feasible prosocial uses _also_ " doesn't justify the work.

Having gotten that off my chest; you're probably worrying about nothing, at least in terms of impact on your day-to-day activities- if the U.S. or aligned nation started curtailing the travel of computer scientists, it would be all over HN for weeks. Maybe if you want to go work for your country's intelligence agency someday (an obvious move, with your interests) they might look over your file before an interview. But perhaps in that case, contacts with Chinese researchers would be seen as an _asset_ \- the CIA and similar organizations have been known to try to recruit cooperative foreign-employed scientists in interesting fields, for various purposes, and to use their own experts in those fields to make contact.

It might matter if you're a "real academic," i.e., affiliated with a university and conducting your research in "conventional" settings. For an academic to _not_ be talking to out-of-country colleagues would look pretty odd, in most fields. But if you're just some dude in your basement chatting with Chinese espionage experts, that might raise some red flags. :)

</comment><comment><USER6> Will your outreach be noticed, recorded and stored? Almost certainly. Will it impact your ability to freely travel and gain employment? I don't know. Maybe not today, but who knows how the winds of politics will blow.

<comment><USER7> I agree with this. I worked with some Chinese lecturers as part of a course and we (European members of the group) joked about things being read which at the time came across as insensitive as they had issues with this before.

I don't think it has put me on a list though - well maybe to the same extent as reading 4chan...

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I don't know it it helps but one of the reasons that the nra was against banning guns from people on the no fly list was that there was no legal process to get in or off the list. Am angry bureaucrat can put anyone (including senators) on the list for whatever reason.

So, based on that I guess that there is a non insignificant change that you will be put on the no fly list

</comment><comment><USER9> If you want to advance science and research, you can always leak it anonymously over Tor; if you do it properly you will have no repercussions.

</comment><comment><USER10> > Should I be worried about contacting or building relationships with Chinese > scholars for the purposes of furthering my research?

Yes.

</comment><comment><USER11> no...</comment>


Show HN: The animated JS/CSS font, LetterBolt - <AUTHOR> http://buseca.github.io/letterbolt/

<comment><USER2> Rendering is pretty slow for me.</comment>


South Korea rules pre-installed phone bloatware must be deletable (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://www.zdnet.com/article/south-korea-rules-pre-installed-phone-bloatware-must-be-deletable/ <comment><USER2> > Under the new guidelines, telcos are required to make most of their pre- > installed apps deletable except for four necessary items related to Wi-Fi > connectivity, near-field communication (NFC), the customer service center > and the app store.

I don't believe the purveyors of 'bloatware' are going to struggle much exploiting that list of exceptions. I think I could shoehorn just about anything into 'customer service center' and 'app store.'

<comment><USER3> In fact there is no "non deletable" apps on your phone. You can do "adb shell" then "pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.huawei.android.mirrorshare". No need for root or something.

<comment><USER4> Because that's what your average consumer knows how to do....

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Its a miracle what is all possible, if somebody manages to inconvinience politicians.

</comment><comment><USER6> It's from 2014.

<comment><USER7> God damn it, and Samsung made the Facebook app now non deletable [https://toot.jeena.net/@jeena/101478873892782169](https://toot.jeena.net/@jeena/101478873892782169)

<comment><USER8> I was using an s8 last year and iirc facebook could only be 'disabled,' not uninstalled. Same with many others. I switched to a lineageOS friendly phone since with very few issues (pixel XL).

<comment><USER9> On modern Android, disable and uninstall are the same exact thing. And please don't start telling me that the difference is the binary stays around. It does not run. Ever.

Trust me, you prefer it this way. The system partition being read only is the same reason why your phone is much more secure than it would be otherwise.

And as to why it is there in the first place, that is a question for Samsung.

But please stop spreading around false information about Android. Uninstall and disable are the same thing as far as the app is concerned and as far as the user is concerned and as far as the operating system is concerned.

<comment><USER10> Disabled apps take up space. It's not the same thing.

<comment><USER9> No they do not!!!

They are in the /system partition, which is sized once per Android release and never changed again. If you remounted it as read/write, and deleted them, you would recover no space!

Any application installed in the /data partition can be deleted. That has the space you see and the space you can free. Applications that come pre-installed on the phone and cannot be deleted are in the /system partition. It is a completely separate part of the storage, not accessible to the user for writing and does not count against free space. It is where the OS lives. Even if you do modify this partition, no matter how, you will not get any more free space for your user data

<comment><USER7> I guess if even I myself didn't get that from the UI then most probably most of the people out there have no chance to get that either. It would be nice if the UI would somehow convey this information.

Also, the size of that partition is decided by taking into account that the Facebook app will need to fit there. If you hadn't any preinstalled apps then this size would be able to be smaller and then you would get more space on your device for applications which you actually need to use.

<comment><USER9> Actually, it's sized with some amount of free space to allow for future updates. Pre-installed apps rarely make a significant difference. Core Android at this point is pretty large</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Kindle Fire HD 8.9 vs. iPad 3: Is the Apple Experience really worth $200? - <AUTHOR> http://www.extremetech.com/computing/135646-kindle-fire-hd-8-9-vs-ipad-3-is-the-apple-experience-really-worth-200 <comment><USER2> What this tells me - and it's what I expected even as I put down the money for the iPad 3 - is that in a couple of years, hi-dpi screens will be a stock feature even on the cheapest commodity tablet.

That's an amazing thing, if you ask me. Hi-dpi screens are a benchmark feature that made me a heavy mobile device user. Web browsing on a phone was not very appealing, and then comes the "Retina" display on the iPhone 4, and bam, I'm an Apple customer.

I got an iPad 1 as a gift, and I ended up using it for reading a lot more than I expected, which just had me itching for the day a "Retina" display landed in an iPad. Got the iPad 3 recently and love it to bits, much more for that screen quality than anything in the iOS ecosystem.

Hi-dpi is what finally killed print media fully for me. I have no use for print books or magazines. I have an old-ish Kindle e-ink reader and the iPad 3, and the two of them combined weigh less than a single hearty book in my book bag. I look forward to the day when people unwilling or unable to pay the Apple premium for devices can enjoy the same screen quality. Ubiquitous hi-dpi tablets is the coolest next high watermark in consumer computing IMO.

</comment><comment><USER3> I enjoy how the author takes the iPad (which has been out since March) and the Kindle Fire (which hasn't been released yet) and manages to equate them completely devoid of context.

Here are some things to consider:

1\. One of the form factors touted around for the iPad mini is the 8.9 inch form factor. No one expects the iPad mini to be the same price as the iPad 3. So that $200 difference may be a temporary advantage.

2\. The iPad/iPhone app store has been around since 2008. Folks who have purchased an iPhone and an iPad may have sunk substantial money into buying apps. That "sunk cost" is just another hurdle any other tablet maker is going to have to beat.

3\. People talk about how Amazon and Google are "giving away the razor and selling razor blades" and Apple is in the hardware business. That's quite simply BS. Apple gets 30% of the gross from the App store, including in-app purchases. Those 99 cent Angry Birds downloads add up. The app store may not have been a big profit center in 2009, but we're not in 2009 anymore.

4\. Frankly, I'm excited that Google and Amazon are bringing competition to the iPad-dominated tablet market. Competition means better prices and better services. However, I'm not calling a winner to this round until we see what Apple has up its sleeve.

<comment><USER4> Hey, I see you mention the iPad mini. I've heard nothing about this, and I thought it was a rumor. Brief internet searches are very unclear, and a lot of the info seems circular. Could you post the main source for the iPad mini information?

<comment><USER3> I'm surprised you've heard nothing about this. Apparently you don't read "Daring Fireball." These two articles are vague but well-sourced:

* [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-03/here-comes-nexus-7-...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-03/here-comes-nexus-7-nightmare-the-ipad-mini.html) * [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230414120457750...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304141204577506471913819412.html)

Apple is rumored to be revealing a smaller iPad tablet during an event this October. Most people are calling it the iPad mini. I'm calling it the reason I haven't bought a Google Nexus 7.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This comparison fails to acknowledge that part of the cost of the new Kindle Fire HD is mandatory ads on the unlock screen and the home screen, which can't be disabled. You can also safely assume that Amazon is closely tracking your usage and selling your demographics to advertisers.

In this case, Amazon is taking a risk by selling the Kindle Fire HD at or close to cost, and hoping to make it up in advertising revenue. This is the Google model in action.

Personally, my privacy is worth a little more than $200 to me, so no thanks. Not to mention that the iPad 3 still has a larger screen and several hundred thousand more apps, which is really difficult to put a price on.

<comment><USER6> Is your privacy risk through these particular ads really worth $200? In other words, do you think your information would add $200 to the bottomline of Amazon (or whoever is placing those ads)?

<comment><USER7> You can't relate the privacy risk to 'those particular ads'.

The advertisement you see doesn't mean anything- the risk comes through complete usage gathered by the advertising networks who bought the ad, and then resold to partners and affiliates.

The risk some of us worry about is that a data tsunami will eventually push total awareness of device users to a hostile government or facet of organized crime.

And while you would have worse things to worry about if the NSA or Google are compromised, there are millions of advertising affiliates and companies that share information and go bankrupt, which makes this concern a plausible fear in my mind

<comment><USER8> KSO ads aren't served by ad networks, and Amazon prohibits ad networks from having access to the ads for the very fear you mentioned. The _only_ data recorded are impressions and ad-specific aggregate usage -- how many times did people watch the movie trailer? How many people converted? There are no tracking cookies included with the ads.

Amazon values its customers deeply and letting the third-party networks gather intel about its customers is a lose-lose proposition. Amazon loses its competitive advantage for having great data to make great recommendations, and customers lose their privacy. The ads don't work that way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> No, that's why I bought a Google Nexus 7.

And unlike the Nexus or the iPad, Amazon's devices (well, at least the Kindle Fire) now comes with ads on the home screen and lock screen by default:

      http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/09/all-kindle-fires-sold-to-us-customers-will-have-home-screen-ads/

It's unclear yet how consumers will be able to opt out of those (that is, whether it's a simple setting or fee-based).

<comment><USER10> For me, I'd rather be forced to have ads on a lock-screen than be locked into the Apple 'eco-system', where I have no say on what I'm allowed to install.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This article wears its bias on its sleeve:

 _Really, when we boil it all down, the main thing the iPad has going for it is the Apple Experience — and is that worth $200?

For existing tablet owners (most of which are iPad owners), it's hard to say; they've already bought into the app ecosystem, filled up their iCloud, and sipped the Jobsian Kool-Aid._

I have no horse in this tablet race (waiting for an iPad mini announcement to choose a 7-8" tablet, and switching from an iPhone to a Nexus phone), but we know _nothing_ about the Fire HD 8.9. The comparison table in this article says "Unknown" for battery life and the screen comparison includes the words "early reports suggest." Whoa, giving Consumer Reports a run for their money!!

I won't compare the app stores (Android is rapidly catching up, with release for Instagram, Instapaper, and more and more games, while iOS still wins on volume), but this is a crazy comparison. Comparing a tablet that hasn't released yet to one that is 7 months old? Aren't there better things to write about?

</comment><comment><USER12> I think reviewers overemphasize trivial differences in product dimensions just because those things are easy to measure.

They talk about the Fire being thinner, as if a 0.6mm difference in thickness is going to make one tablet easier to hold.

I also doubt many users care much about a 2.5 ounce weight difference.

Price matters a lot to potential buyers. After that, it's just a question of whether using the tablet feels pleasant or frustrating.

The dimensions fetish seems to cut across reviews of all sorts of consumer electronics.

<comment><USER13> For me, the iPad is uncomfortably heavy at times -- especially if I try to hold it in one hand.

I mean, yes, it seems like splitting hairs -- but at some point, a device goes from being 'heavy' to 'light'. Same with thickness -- at some point a device stops feeling 'chunky' and becomes 'lithe'. I just don't know where those thresholds are :) (but I'm sure that industrial designers put a lot of thought into it).

<comment><USER12> I think it's a spectrum rather than a threshold. If one device was half as thick as another, you'd clearly notice that.

But it's hard to believe there's going to be a major change in user experience with a half millimeter decrease in thickness.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> When did 8.9 = 9.7? Is the writer using republican arithmatic? And the answer is yes, it's worth 200 more for the apps alone. The nexus 7 hardware is nice, android tablet apps are horrible. But then again, if all you knew was android then it would be OK.

<comment><USER15> Downvoted for "republican arithmetic". (I _very strongly_ dislike the Republican Party and what it has come to stand for over the last few decades, but the world has enough political arguments already without injecting them into technical discussions like this one.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Sure as hell isn't worth it for Ipad2, IMO. I have both, and actually like the Fire much better. Love my old Macbook Pro, but I didn't drink the coolaid on for the ipad. Now when I fly, the ipad stays home, and my Fire goes with me, neatly tucked inside one of the cargo pockets on my shorts.

The larger issue is though, if Apple is first to market, then they charge typical Apple premium prices. So it doesn't make any difference whether you're buying an Ipad2, 3, or whatever. Just be patient and wait for some other pad to come out which is generally just as functional, but will usually always be cheaper.

</comment><comment><USER17> Amazon is going to commoditize the entire tablet market, simply because they don't care about making profits on hardware, while everyone else, including Apple, does.

Microsoft is going to feel this as well, as manufacturers won't be very happy selling $200-$300 tablets with $100 ($200 for enterprise versions) Windows licenses. The tablet market is going to be commoditezed so much faster than the PC market. Hopefully, Amazon launches a smartphone with a similar strategy as well.

Intel will invariably be hurt by this, too, as people move to much cheaper, yet capable devices. Even if they succeed entering the tablet market with their Atom chips, they'll be be forced to have very competitive prices with ARM chips. So instead of selling $200 chips for ultrabooks and PC's, they'll be selling $20 chips. There's no way they can make it up in volume to keep or increase their current revenues and profits.

<comment><USER18> And Amazon will always trail in terms of innovation, because selling things at a loss doesn't give you much room to spend on R&D.

And your view of history is skewed; IBM released the PC (5150) in 1981. Compaq shipped the first compatible in 1982, and by 1985 the PC market was thoroughly commoditized.

Jump to the iPad's release in 2010. It's been 2 1/2 years, and still no signs of the tablet market being commoditized. It's still an iPad market, and not a tablet market.

<comment><USER19> Innovation doesn't run forever. What's left to innovate on a tablet's hardware? Non-zero, but it's not like next year Apple's going to equip them with little robotic arms and legs or anything. There's more room for innovation in the laptop market, and that's a market that hasn't been driven by very much "innovation" for a long time.

Innovation isn't a magic word you can just wave around like a mantra, it has to concretize into something real if it's going to have any effect. There is, quite literally, not much room left for tablet innovation.

<comment><USER18> Wow. I guess I disagree with you about the innovation in the laptop market. I showed my wife the MacBook Air yesterday, and she was amazed at how different it was from the stuff she was used to.

And your argument about "what's left to innovate on a tablet's hardware" is also pretty shortsighted. I'm sure that you had the foresight to predict the iPad?

Change and innovation aren't magic. But saying that there's no more room for innovation has been proven wrong, time and time again.

<comment><USER19> My saying it was "non-zero" is an important part of my point. It isn't zero. But it isn't going to be the driver of the market anymore. Just as your MacBook Air is merely "an interesting offering" and not an "OMG this rewrites everything!". (It was hyped that way at the time but I don't think it worked. The iPhone killed everything that came before it. The Air certainly did not; laptops are alive and well.)

"Trailing in innovation" to grab market share is probably a very good move at this point.

I know it's chic to talk a lot about innovation, but take a serious look around yourself and what you'll find surrounding you on all sides are markets of incremental improvements, not "innovation"-driven markets. I think the tablet market is here now, or very nearly.

<comment><USER18> I guess we have to disagree about the Air. I don't think it revolutionized computing, but it was a huge shift for notebooks.

And grabbing market share with no foreseeable plan for decent profits seems hard to sell, but Wall St. seems to love Amazon.

<comment><USER19> Of course Amazon has a plan for profits. They've all but spelled it out, sell the hardware to sell the services. "They don't have a plan" != "I don't think their plan will work", or whatever else you've got on the right side of that !=.

<comment><USER18> I meant in more general terms for Amazon. Their margins are incredibly low, their P/E ratio is way out of whack, and they seem to epitomize the old "we'll make it up on volume" angle that proved so helpful in 2000.

Maybe they just want to be like a grocery chain that ekes out a 1-3% margin. But if that's the case, Wall St. won't be happy. Wall St. expects outsized profits based on their P/E ratio.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm glad the zines are enjoying writing about this $200 difference. I'm sure they won't mind writing about how it disappeared when the mini is finally launched. Apple can charge whatever it wants for the new ipad until the HD ships, and then $(PriceHD) + $50 indefinitely.

Not to mention, there are already hands-on reviews rolling in about how laggy the new kindles are.

<comment><USER21> Link to some of these reviews?

<comment><USER20> [http://gizmodo.com/5941095/kindle-fire-hd-hands-on-pretty- im...](http://gizmodo.com/5941095/kindle-fire-hd-hands-on-pretty- impressivefor-the-price)

[http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/06/tech/gaming-gadgets/kindle- dem...](http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/06/tech/gaming-gadgets/kindle- demos/index.html)

[http://www.androidpolice.com/2012/09/06/hands-on-and- initial...](http://www.androidpolice.com/2012/09/06/hands-on-and-initial- thoughts-on-the-7-inch-kindle-fire-hd-versus-the-nexus-7/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> "with the iPad 3 possibly having a slight edge on graphics performance"

Here's how the OMAP 4470 actually compares to the A5X in the iPad "3":

[http://www.anandtech.com/show/6158/the-archos-101-xs- review/...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/6158/the-archos-101-xs-review/3)

tl;dc: beaten by iPad 2 on many benchmarks. A5X >> A5 >= OMAP 4470 > Tegra 3

</comment><comment><USER23> This has always bothered me: What use are stereo speakers, when the speakers are _closer together than your ears?_

The same feature is advertised on a lot of phones too, and I just don't get it. Who cares if two speakers half an inch apart are stereo, they're so close together they're always going to sound mono anyways.

<comment><USER24> I'm pretty sure our mind is capable of, subconsciously, differentiating between two noises a few inches apart.

<comment><USER25> Perhaps. I haven't been able to find any articles on stereo separation / minimum distances but the generally accepted criteria (and you can test this at home with a hi-fi) is that you and the L/R speakers should form an equilateral triangle for "best sound". (see [http://www.linkwitzlab.com/accurate%20stereo%20performance.h...](http://www.linkwitzlab.com/accurate%20stereo%20performance.htm))

Anyway, I agree with the OP that stereo speakers in a device so small, situated so far away from you, is likely not to produce much of the intended effect, unless the intention is featuritis.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This is really about asymmetric competition. @asymco does a great job analyzing this; that Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon, while competitors have fundamentally different business models.

Even if these companies had similar business models to Apple, they would be insane to try to complete with Apple on Apple's terms. This is why Microsoft is not really becoming a hardware company[1] and why Amazon is focusing on 'services' (what I call 'experiences')[2].

[1] [http://ceklog.kindel.com/2012/07/25/a-mouse-and-keyboard- don...](http://ceklog.kindel.com/2012/07/25/a-mouse-and-keyboard-dont-make-a- hardware-company/)

[2] [http://ceklog.kindel.com/2012/06/07/wanna-compete-with- apple...](http://ceklog.kindel.com/2012/06/07/wanna-compete-with-apple-focus- on-experiences/)

</comment><comment><USER27> With a device lifetime of say 1.5 years you could turn that $200 into $0.50 per day.

I'd definitely pay that for technology that didn't annoy me.

(Disclaimer: most technology annoys me but that's because of the lack of flying cars, etc and me being generally cantankerous)

</comment><comment><USER28> I guess it is. Not for everybody though.

I've played a bit with the initial Fire tablet and I was really surprised with overall UX. Some Chinese "noname" tablets felt like a better option than "this".

Apple has really high standards in producing their products and user experience from store to watching a movie on iPad. Amazon is good at providing services, but they fail at the overall UX. Maybe that's going to change, maybe HD 8.9 is a huge step forward(i just don't know yet). But for me, the overall experience really matter much more than a price badge on a box. IMHO.

</comment><comment><USER18> Let's wait until the hardware is shipped before we compare this to much with stuff you can purchase today. It's easy to "Surface" with a new product and tout it as the best thing since sliced bread.

But all the sites that depend on linkbaiting will have a field day for a few weeks.

</comment><comment><USER29> Any review that includes a spec comparison matrix loses a lot of its credibility, in my book.

</comment><comment><USER30> Yes, it is.

</comment><comment><USER6> If I am able to produce much more content on iPad compared to the Kindle Fire HD, then I would answer "yes".</comment>