Antibiotic resistance now 'global threat', WHO warns - k-mcgrady http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-27204988 <comment><AUTHOR> > _Last year, the chief medical officer for England, Prof Dame Sally Davies, > said the rise in drug-resistant infections was comparable to the threat of > global warming._

Perhaps I lack proper context, but drug-resistance terrifies me _significantly more_ than global warming. Primarily, I think, because we are still speculating about the consequences of climate change - if not so much its causes. In contrast, we know what a world without antibiotics looks like, and it's pretty horrifying.

<comment><USER2> The worst case scenario for global warming is that it's an extinction-level event and civilization ends. The worst case scenario for antibiotic resistance is that people live with the medical uncertainties our grandparents and great- grandparents lived with.

Assuming everyone understands that, it's an interesting case study in psychology as to why the second one might be scarier than the first one.

<comment><USER3> > The worst case scenario for global warming is that it's an extinction-level > event and civilization ends.

I don't buy that. Beginning of a new dark age with a breakdown of civilization and loss of advancements? Yes. Extinction-level event? No.

> The worst case scenario for antibiotic resistance is that people live with > the medical uncertainties our grandparents and great-grandparents lived > with.

No, actually the worst case is that the antibiotic period breeds superbugs that are both more virulent and harder to kill than those that came before. Antibiotic resistance comes about because of unintentional selective breeding of bacteria. We don't really know what other traits we are unintentionally selecting for. We could potentially be breeding a wordwide pandemic and not realize it. Which could bring about a new dark age with a breakdown of civilization and loss of advancements.

<comment><USER4> I don't know how you plan to live in a world where outside its hot enough to melt lead.

<comment><AUTHOR> Please point to a single climate model that predicts air temperatures will rise to 300+ degrees _celsius_.

<comment><USER4> Venus.

<comment><USER3> While Venus' atmosphere is worth study, due to the theory that it underwent some sort of hyperactive climate change a few billion years ago, there are limits to the comparison:

\- Venus is about 3/4 the distance from the Sun as Earth.

\- Venus has slow, retrograde rotation that leaves a given portion of the surface exposed to the Sun for 56 Earth days at a time.

\- Venus has no magnetic field, which causes the loss of water vapor and other light gases due to the solar wind

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Oddly enough, I can't find a single reference to farms using antibiotics as a growth enhancer in this article. Isn't that the single biggest source of antibiotic-resistant bacteria?

<comment><USER6> Agricultural use of antibiotics has definitely been an issue, but perhaps they're trying to state narrow conclusions in the name of scientific rigor. Fortunately, in the US at least, the practice is being discontinued. [http://www.fda.gov/animalveterinary/guidancecomplianceenforc...](http://www.fda.gov/animalveterinary/guidancecomplianceenforcement/guidanceforindustry/ucm216939.htm)

<comment><USER7> Not everyone is so sanguine about the effect of the FDA's action. For example, NY Times food writer Mark Bittman:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/18/opinion/bittman-the- fdas-n...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/18/opinion/bittman-the-fdas-not- really-such-good-news.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&)

In California, though, there is much stronger action stirring in the state legislature, although it will need far more public support to become a possibility:

[http://www.sfgate.com/health/article/Ban-sought-on-animal- an...](http://www.sfgate.com/health/article/Ban-sought-on-animal-antibiotics- as-human-5439995.php)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> One alternative to antibiotics that may work, but will have a tremendous difficulty in clearing the regulatory burden for approving new drugs and medical procedures, is bacteriophage therapy.[1]

Nobody's going to fund or approve this in the West anytime soon:

\- phage therapists often use cocktails of phages to treat their patient. This type of treatment isn't even on the FDA's map - it even takes years for compounds of conventional drugs to be approved.

\- phage therapists often prepare customized phage cultures to treat a specific patient's infection. The FDA would likely view this a a crime and prosecute anyone trying it.

\- phage therapies have been around for over 100 years and are likely unpatentable. No drug company will fund R&D on the technique and no venture capitalist will fund a scrappy startup.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phage_therapy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phage_therapy)

<comment><USER9> Then maybe we should change the way we regulate medical treatments. And maybe how we fund some of the research.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> (source: doing research into this)

For those with a computational/hacker background wanting to make a difference:

There is actually a lot of opportunity in the Computational Biology/Drug Development/Genomics space, with the caveat that it is a very difficult field (especially for company creation). It's a lot easier for CS folks to build another no-SQL database than it is to build a ML framework for, say, cancer prediction, but the opportunity is there. A lot of folks in this space come from the bio side, and teach themselves programming. Very few folks come from the CS side, and partner with the biologists. As a result, there is a giant gap between what is possible for a computer scientist and what is currently being executed. The state of the art in this space will probably make you all very sad.

I will pay $$ for engineers to work on this:

I have a side project working with an academic lab to develop a new antibiotic to target drug resistant beta lactamase (the primary protein associated with drug resistance) using a relatively novel computational approach. Sadly I've been distracted by my primary job, but if you are interested let me know. I am based in SF.

<comment><USER11> It's something I am interested in getting into, but I don't even know where to start.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Whilst I totally appreciate the seriousness of this, I still don't get what exactly I can do about this. Most likely, nothing.

Therefore, much like the potentially developing WW3 in Ukraine, or Ebola outbreak in Africa, or rape culture in India, this kind of news is fairly useless. It just creates negative feelings with no positive outcome.

I'm happy to be convinced otherwise - what can I do about this?

<comment><USER13> Pressure your government (where ever you may be) to make responsible use of antibiotics a priority.

The misuse that terrifies me the most are antibiotics used on livestock. Particularly the antibiotics that are also used on humans. In my opinion antibiotics should not be used as a growth promoter and only used to help sick animals.

<comment><USER14> > should not be used as a growth promoter and only used to help sick animals

The issue is that a lot of animals get sick from being crammed together in small areas, unable to move, while living in their own feces and urine. If we regulated animal treatment better and required certain living conditions for animals they wouldn't get sick nearly as often and wouldn't need nearly as many antibiotics.

As it stands, regulating antibiotics to be used only on sick animals wouldn't change much since an incredibly large percentage of livestock are often sick (as a consequence of living conditions).

<comment><USER15> I don't eat meat or consume animal-derived products for this reason. This is where the next pandemic is mostly likely to originate, and it's completely preventable.

<comment><USER16> Unless you also avoid meat for other reasons, wouldn't it be better to eat meat, but _only_ from those farmers that raise livestock in humane, sustainable conditions (organic/free range/...)? That would increase competition and support their business models.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I think to make a dent in this problem we need to change many aspects of our culture and how we live: 1) that any annoying problem should have an immediate and rapid solution so that we can get on with our lives, 2) that we as people need to live in a bubble ecosystem from the rest of the natural world.

1) I stopped taking most medicines awhile ago because I realized that by relying on symptomatic relief, I wasn't actually listening to the needs of my body. Now when I feel a cold coming on, I start sleeping at 9pm, eat healthier, and reduce stress levels. Instead of popping a pill, I've learned to recognize that I'm deviating from "healthy" activity and had better get on track. The result? I haven't been sick in years and years, and am probably overall a more healthy, less stressed out person.

2) I often wonder to what degree language affects perception. Like the word dirty having such a negative stereotype yet so associated with dirt (i.e., soil). I feel like we often want such high levels of sterility that are just absurd, and do more to harm us in the long run. As part of a project, I interviewed farmers who said food safety experts are so draconian they expect cannons that shoot into the air to prevent birds from flying over with the risk of droppings. One food safety inspector commented that the farm was too "dirty." Can you imagine? I understand we don't want to get sick, there are bad things in the world, but I think we're pushing too far into the other end of the spectrum.

</comment><comment><USER18> The threat we now are facing with these resistant strains of bacteria are the main reason I got interested in the Public Health field. I am only in my second semester, going part time, but look forward to trying to address the growing need for infectious treatment "reform."

<comment><USER19> We may eventually need to have a compulsory hospital stay (or something else) for antibiotic treatment so that a patient treated with an antibiotic does not have any leftover resistant pathogens to transfer to the public.

<comment><USER20> Given the amount of antibiotic resistant bugs that live in hospitals, I'm highly skeptical that _longer_ hospital stays will result in _decreased_ colonization with resistant species.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Antibiotic resistance is a fact, what else can you expect given the game rules. What is less well known is that majority of people do not need antibiotics anyway and that majority of those who were taking them probably didn't need them too. Advice that recommended AB's before for stuff like otitis, helicobacter infection or even common cold (given for this disease because of opportunistic infections) is now changing without any problems, if anything, for the better.

AB's should be saved for those few moments in life where you really need them and is not something you want to do every few months like majority of people, particularly kids.

There are far better ways to strengthen your body and immune system without risks that are overwhelming with AB's (which are way better known today after we have some bits of microbiome) - nutrition and supplements. Even measures like using viruses as antibiotics are probably better then popping AB's like candies.

This news is probably beginning of the "next big big pharma thingy" that will come to rescue and will typically, yet again, use inappropriate tool for the job. The only good that will come out of it are probably not going to be, however, lives saved but science advancement.

</comment><comment><USER22> Here is a link to the World Health Organization media release[1] about the new WHO report, which links to a fact sheet summary[2] of the findings, and to the full report.[3] What's new here is the comparative data from different countries. It has been known for a while that multidrug-resistant tuberculosis is a grave problem in India,[4] for example, but the new report makes clear that antibiotic-resistant microorganisms that cause major human disease are present all over the world.

Some of the other comments posted here ask, well, what can we do about this? A submission to Hacker News from 189 days ago linked to a PBS report about the views of a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention epidemiologist in the United States[5] who advocated specific policy changes, some of which have been adopted since then. The discussion of that submission (including one of my highest-karma-ever comments[6]) provides more perspective on some biological evolution issues that are being brought up again in today's discussion here.

[1] [http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2014/amr- report...](http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2014/amr-report/en/)

[2] [http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs194/en/](http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs194/en/)

[3] [http://www.who.int/drugresistance/documents/surveillancerepo...](http://www.who.int/drugresistance/documents/surveillancereport/en/)

[4] [http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405270230344420...](http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303444204577460734274201756)

[http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-06-23/news...](http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-06-23/news/40134749_1_stop- tb-department-mario-raviglione-jmm-meeting)

[http://www.iom.edu/Reports/2012/Facing-the-Reality-of- Drug-R...](http://www.iom.edu/Reports/2012/Facing-the-Reality-of-Drug- Resistant-Tuberculosis-Challenges-and-Potential-Solutions-in-India.aspx)

[http://www.tbcindia.nic.in/pdfs/RNTCP%20Response%20DR%20TB%2...](http://www.tbcindia.nic.in/pdfs/RNTCP%20Response%20DR%20TB%20in%20India%20-%20Jan%202012%20update.pdf)

[5] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6599040](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6599040)

[6] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6599795](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6599795)

<comment><USER23> In America, the number one thing you can do is stop eating factory farmed meat. That is a huge contributor to antibiotics resistance. Either eat mainly vegan or spend the few extra dollars to buy meat that isn't gross. Remember, it is MORE EXPENSIVE in the long run to buy that cheap meat. When you have a routine infection that can't be cured with antibiotics, the hospital bills will be far more then the few dollars you saved. Eat less meat. Oh, and you'll massively reduce your carbon footprint as well, and you'll use less land and water, and you'll be healthier (if you cut out red meat). It really is a no brainer.

<comment><USER24> > Eat less meat.

I never understand how "Stop eating factory farmed meat" means you have to "eat less meat" \- why not just eat better sourced high quality meat?

It seems especially strange in a place like HN where you'd think that supporting the alternative grass-fed, non-factory farmers would be the entrepreneurial thing (and encourage more farmers to do it).

Meat is not the problem. The quality of the meat is. There are ways to solve that problem outside of eating less meat.

<comment><USER25> _why not just eat better sourced high quality meat?_

Because it's more expensive. Most people can't afford to eat large amounts of high quality meat.

<comment><USER26> Luckily people don't need _large_ amounts of meat.

<comment><USER25> Right, I agree. I was merely responding to the parent's assertion that people just go ahead and eat as much meat as they do now but make it higher quality.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> So every few weeks we get these news but this isn't reversible anyway i guess. Does this basically mean a lot more people will die from simple infections starting 1-2 years from now ? How likely is it that new antibiotics will be developed ? By reading articles like these it sounds like we are facing a massive increase in deaths from illnesses, yet the general public doesn't seem to care much. Genuinely curious.

<comment><USER28> _Does this basically mean a lot more people will die from simple infections starting 1-2 years from now ?_

No, the problem is not that severe right now. In fact, some of the antibiotic resistant infections have decreased over the last few years.

This is something we need to worry about 5-10+ years from now. It is inevitable that bacteria will become resistant to current antibiotics. The only way to keep ahead of them is to create new antibiotics.

<comment><USER15> Exactly. But because of the difficulty, time and capital requirements, this is something that can't be left to the market economics. It will be too late by the time we need them because of the years it takes to develop a single new drug. This is a "going to the moon" type thing that needs to happen if we intend to survive. Because that's what's at stake.

<comment><USER28> Two comments:

(1) You say it can't be left up to market economics, but two of the big hurdles to new antibiotic development are government regulations: (I) In the past the FDA was not very responsive to the resistance problem, if you had a new drug, you went through a normal review; luckily they have changed their approach recently (II) The way that Medicare and Medicaid pays for antibiotics doesn't encourage investment in novel agents

(2) I have to push back on the "going to the moon" type thing. This is more like we've already been to the moon and we need to go back and do something different. Drug companies know how to develop new antibiotics (not to say it's easy, but they have ideas) and they know how to get them approved. There are new discoveries all the time. We just need to create an ecosystem that encourages further investment.

<comment><USER15> Edge cases. The big picture is that it's not happening fast enough, which is why the government will need to step in and will need to assume a leadership role to push hard on this.

<comment><USER28> That's not going to happen. The gov't will change the regulatory and reimbursement environment but the heavy lifting will be done by academic and pharmaceutical researchers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Isn't (one of the reasons) this due to _excessive_ use of antibiotics?

<comment><USER18> Yes, excessive use in not only humans, but in livestock.

<comment><USER21> You are wrong. Excessive use in livestock contributes a lot given that 40% of worlds AB's are used for growth promotion and we eat that junk.

<comment><USER30> When you say "You are wrong.", that indicates that you disagree. But the rest of your comment indicates that you agree. Could you clarify?

<comment><USER21> Ah, I misread that, didn't see that tiny "not". Yes, he is right :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Another worrying development: Pfizer buying Astra-Zeneca.

It's not to streamline drug development, the deal is a tax dodge in its entirety. Some lovely commentary down the hallway, in the Pipeline: [http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2014/04/28/pfizer_and_a...](http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2014/04/28/pfizer_and_astrazeneca_what_the_hell.php)

Scientists worry about the cuts to NIH funding, but the cuts to pharmaceutical research are ten times more worrying - who is going to develop the compounds to replace the current set of antibiotics when they have become useless? Wall Street is entirely unequipped to deal with this question; there are things that cannot be bought with money or at market, and scientific progress is one of them.

<comment><USER28> Pfizer got out of antibacterial R&D a few years back.

And I have to take issue with your comment "scientific progress can't be bought with money". What do you call all the new drugs that have been produced in the last century? It wasn't done by the government. Yes, basic research funded by the NIH advanced basic science, but it didn't put those pills in a bottle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I have long thought that humans (at least those living in the first world) had developed civilization to a point where natural selection was not really operating anymore. We can shelter ourselves, feed ourselves, and cure illnesses and injuries so well that almost all of us live to reproduce and raise our children to the point where they can take care of themselves. We haven't even had a large-scale war in the time that most of us have been alive. But on evolutionary timescales, we've really lived this way for only the blink of an eye. So maybe I'm wrong. This is a reminder that we live in a larger ecosystem that we really have a lot less control over than we might think. Nature has a way of keeping things in balance, and it's never pretty.

</comment><comment><USER33> Isn't this caused because some countries make antibiotics easily accessible without a doctor?

<comment><USER34> Yes; there are perverse disincentives built into the profit mechanism underpinning the commercial pharmaceutical industry.

Patents on antibiotics last no longer than on any other type of medicine (20 years, minus the substantial time taken to test it, jump through regulatory hoops, and bring it to market -- typically 8-14 years). The cost of meeting those regulatory prerequisites is measured in the hundreds of millions of dollars in the USA alone -- more if you want to get a product license everywhere worldwide. So you need to earn back several hundred million bucks in profit in a single-digit period of years ...

But antibiotics are unprofitable. A typical AB course lasts 5-14 days after which the patient is completely cured. Compare with antidepressants or ADHD drugs -- where you get a customer for life! Which would _you_ invest in, if you were in that business -- a product 10% of the population will use annually for a week, or a product 10% of the population will be hooked on for life?

It's not a coincidence that research into new antibiotics ground to a halt in the 1970s around the time that the regulatory barriers to entry rose so high that small and medium scale pharmaceutical companies were frozen out of the business and the surviving operators were the large conglomerates.

(Disclaimer: wearing my ex-pharmacist hat here.)

<comment><USER19> I saw a documentary in which it was said that another disincentive to antibiotic research is that its very use causes its effectiveness (for the general population) to reduce, due to antibiotic resistance. So that it would eventually stop selling.

It is not so in the case of medicines for BP, diabetes etc.

We may eventually need to have a compulsory hospital stay (or something else) for antibiotic treatment so that a patient treated with an antibiotic does not have any leftover resistant pathogens to transfer to the public.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Is there any particular reason we can't just create new antibiotics? Is there something inherent in the current design of antibiotics that prevents creating new versions of what we have? If so, is there an 'upper limit' of how many we can create, and have we reached it already?

<comment><USER36> Most antibiotics are not created but discovered. They are often species of fungus or other microorganisms that happen to attack certain kinds of bacteria. Take any place on earth where you might find microorganisms, grow them in a culture and then test their effects until you find one with the desired properties (kills bacteria but not human cells) and then you might be able to develop a new drug from it. The problem is we're running out of places to scoop up microorganisms from and the newest drugs are being made from fungi found deep in the most inaccessible caves underground for which bacteria above ground has not developed a resistance to. It's an evolutionary arms race which we're ultimately destined to lose which is why we need to find better ways of killing bacteria.

<comment><USER5> Couldn't evolution be accelerated in the lab? If the bacteria can evolve a way to thwart a fungus' defense, wouldn't it stand to reason that the fungi could evolve a new defense as well?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Homeopathy offers remedies for antibiotic resistant infections. I had a relative who had severe infection post knee replacement surgery. She was operated 4 times due to this infection as the bacteria is considered antibiotic resistant. A classical homeopath treated her to recover from the infection.

This is the bacteria that caused the post surgery infection

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acinetobacter_baumannii](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acinetobacter_baumannii)

Here is a relevant article on how Homeopathy provides an alternative to antibiotics

[http://aurumproject.org.au/homeopathy-alternative- antibiotic...](http://aurumproject.org.au/homeopathy-alternative-antibiotics/)

</comment><comment><USER38> Yip, this is definitely a serious threat, one that will affect the rich in ways that climate change won't so immediately do. Probably a good thing in terms of finding a solution ;)

I did come across (I forget where) a very interesting talk which was outlining new techniques in antibiotics. The basic idea was that instead of straight out killing them (in which some breed resistance) instead you get in the middle of their chemical signals and basically tell them to attach before they've reached the point where the immune system won't win.

Still, bacteria being bacteria they'll probably work their way around it, but maybe rewriting your messaging system is a little harder than breeding resistance.

</comment><comment><USER39> Instead of developing more antibiotics, can we reengineer these disease bacterias with a kill switch built in? Then release them into the wild to compete with non-engineered species and eventually displace them?

<comment><USER40> You would have to also engineer an evolutionary advantage - something that would make them likelier to survive in the wild than their non-engineered counterparts. Building in a 'kill switch' by its very nature gives engineered bacteria a huge disadvantage, meaning there'd have to be something else making them more likely to reproduce.

It would probably be a better use of time engineering the bacteria to be harmless to humans, negating the need for a course of drugs to kill it off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> On a personal note, my mom is still under the weather, having stuck to three different courses of antibiotics for a simple nasal infection.

It's frightening when this becomes the norm, not the exception because we're basically running out of options by natural selection moving faster than research.

We need a crash program to develop antibiotics before it's too late.

</comment><comment><USER41> I would like to know why wouldn't it work to simply flood hospital rooms (any time they were empty) with lethal (for bacteria) doses of non-ionizing radiation (or any kind that doesn't go through walls and don't make said walls radioactive) so that those pesky tolerant strains have a really hard time propagating

<comment><USER28> Most of the transmission of infections is from human to human contact. Yes, bacteria can reside on equipment and facilities, but we have adequate measures to deal with that.

As an interesting aside, more and more copper is being used in medical equipment as it is naturally antibacterial.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimicrobial_properties_of_cop...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimicrobial_properties_of_copper)

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> What are the limiters to creating new, stronger antibiotics to beat the resistant strains?

<comment><USER43> The one limit seems to be that even if we did that the bacteria will evolve to become resistant against those as well. This is a game of leap-frog, we've been ahead for a while, now we'll be behind for a while and so on.

Think of it as a very slow arms race where on the one side there is intelligence and design and on the other there is the lottery driven mechanism of evolution that rewards the solver of the newly posed problem with a very large number of offspring.

The sides are surprisingly well matched and short of total eradication this is likely going to be the game for the next foreseeable future.

The bigger challenge will be to restrain ourselves to consume much more limited amounts if and when we do find antibiotics that work again in order to lengthen the time that we're 'on top'.

<comment><USER15> That's part of it, but this is something governments have to take leadership on right now. That will only happen with direct pressure. Waiting until it's the leading cause of death will be too late, because of drug development pipeline timeframes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> There are multiple kinds of antibiotics, right? Couldn't one globally rotate the different kinds of antibiotics so that germs have a harder time adapting to it?

<comment><USER28> Not really. Resistant strains of bacterial exist everywhere. Every area in the world needs the full range of current antibacterials.

The other thing to remember is international travel. It's pretty easy for someone in North America, who has a resistant bacterial infection, to hope on a plane and spread it around Europe.

</comment></comment><comment> k-mcgrady Are there any potential alternatives to antibiotics? For example could nanotechnology be used?

<comment><USER21> Yes, bunch of alternatives:

\- bacteriophages (viruses that kill bacteria) \- vitamin C for some bacteria, vitamin D, other supplements like MSM. Most must be used in megadoses for this effect. \- plant AB's (onion, black pepper, curcumin, the list is enormous and probably infinite)

<comment><USER45> There's a very good documentary about bacteriophages:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6sZ7E9Hh-Y](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6sZ7E9Hh-Y)

It's history is muddied, mainly because of money & politics.

<comment><USER21> Apart from 'sacred rivers' the best known example is probably your mouth - viruses do kill majority bacteria there until you start to adopt non-natural cleaning systems (i.e. toothpaste) and carb overflowing you are actually making thing worse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Best case scenario is that we find a way to get back in front of the mutations, but even that would just be buying time before the bacteria adapted again. On a long time scale, it's hubris to think we can stay in front indefinitely. We'd be better off improving our relationship with/attitude toward death on the whole.

</comment><comment><USER47> time to buy an auto-clave

<comment><USER48> Sterilizing things you own is unlikely to help. You'd reduce any naturally acquired resistance, yet still remain vulnerable to getting infected from the entire world you cannot sanitize.</comment></comment>


$130 wireless touchscreen hacking platform from Kodak  - <AUTHOR> http://amzn.com/B0030MIU16

<comment><USER2> I used to use things like this to make kiosks. It's not multitouch. The touch display tech can best be described as "janky." It's essentially just using your finger as a mouse. No comparison to what Apple does. Nobody who has used an iPhone will still consider non-multitouch touch screens "good enough."

<comment><AUTHOR> Compared to the control systems on lots of existing equipment, it's still a big potential improvement. It's not an iPhone replacement. It's a high resolution display with touch interface enabler.

A lot of restaurant POS systems would fit nicely on such a device. For that purpose, you don't even need to have them battery powered. Just make each waitperson's "login" very rapid. (4 digit PIN?) Scatter these things throughout the place.

<comment><USER2> the key word is "potential." I don't see an obvious way to make this much better than existing industrial touchscreen. Also, there are plenty of touchscreen kits that don't require taking things apart and figuring out your own operating system.

<comment><AUTHOR> _I don't see an obvious way to make this much better than existing industrial touchscreen._

There's some nice demo/sales potential, in that it looks a faux iPad. If it's nice close up, then that is one advantage.

 _Also, there are plenty of touchscreen kits that don't require taking things apart and figuring out your own operating system._

Part of the fun!

In any case, if entire systems this capable are end-consumer commodity items for only $129 now, that fact alone is interesting. It's only a matter of time before someone has a platform at this price point capable of supporting a browser-centric system. For $129, I think a lot of DIY folks would be willing to forgo multitouch and be tethered by a thin power cord while on the couch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Anyone taken it apart to see what hardware is on the inside? If anyone gets this running with Linux/BSD and a compiler, I'll get together a keyboard attachment along the lines of: <http://adamsolove.com/index.php?id=3>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Odds are, this can be subverted into a programming platform quite easily.

<http://boingboing.net/2010/01/06/kodak-picture-frame.html>

This has serious repercussions on the notion of iPad as an industrial equipment control device:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1160975>

It has wireless. It's 1/4th the price, and while the touchscreen might not be as capable, it's probably good enough.

<comment><USER4> It probably doesn't have ten hours of battery life.

<comment><AUTHOR> You probably don't need 10 hours of battery life for industrial control applications. Just add some Li-poly modules and a docking station.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If I may suggest a couple of Android alterantives in $200 price range:

<http://bit.ly/bePvIF>

<http://bit.ly/cUywzo>

The nice thing about them is that you can get right to application development without inventing your own OS.

Archos has questionable quality reputation, and I don't know anything about the other device, so buyer beware.

</comment><comment><USER6> Here's the actual url instead of the shortened one that was submitted: <http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0030MIU16/ref=cm_sw_su_dp>

</comment><comment><USER7> You can get it for about $100 at Provantage: <http://www.provantage.com/kodak-1338813~7EAK90Q0.htm>

</comment><comment><USER8> Ok, I'll take a run at it. Two on order from Provantage. But it isn't hacking until I can replace the software.

(And a special thanks to Amazon for that _special_ discount that can only be shown in a shopping cart. Sorry, that $1.18 didn't make you competitive, even with my prepaid Prime shipping. On the other hand, Provantage doesn't really have any of these and is going to go looking for them, so they may fail.)

</comment><comment><USER9> It has Wi-Fi, but it also has a wall-wart power supply. It won't replace the iPad unless you duct tape a battery to the back of it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Just make the back thicker and add Li-poly modules. It's a suggested _hacking_ platform, you know!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Anyone know of any touchsreens in the 5-7" range that cost <$50 in bulk, or where to look for them?

<comment><USER11> Some of these are quite cheap, from $1 to $27, in bulk. [http://www.alibaba.com/showroom/touch_screen/--4401</comment></comment><comment>---...](http://www.alibaba.com/showroom/touch_screen/--4401 </comment><comment></comment><comment>--5-3231,</comment><comment>----.html)

<comment><USER10> Thanks, but at first glance, I don't see any touchscreens...

<comment><USER10> My mistake, they're all touchscreens. I didn't see the word "touchscreen" in the description.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Community software for Overcoming Bias? - <AUTHOR> The two main posters on the blog Overcoming Bias (which has appeared on HN many times) plan to cut back on posts in the near future.
One possibility under discussion is to split off/convert to a more community-oriented site - one that e.g. would let anyone submit their own articles or stories; the readers would vote up or vote down; and good posts would get promoted by editors to a front page.  E.g. Scoop has been suggested to us.
Dear Hacker News - over the last years, billions of dollars in venture capital have been spent on Web 2.0.  A rationalist community is surely a good cause.  What has that money built that can help us?
We're even willing to spend money - not enough money to develop code from scratch, but we aren't restricted to free products.
We don't want to throw sheep at each other.  We do want to have sensible discussions (which requires some kind of community policing such as downvoting).
We don't want people with lots of time to waste, to waste that time at our site.  We do want busy people to be able to check in, quickly see the newest comments, and check out again.
(Hacker News does great on e.g. downvoting trolls, making them nicely invisible, but still letting me drag-select to see the text.  But HN doesn't do so well on e.g. letting me see the latest comments on posts I've previously upvoted.)
We occasionally have meetups.  It'd be nice to know who else, or at least how many other rationalists, are within 10 miles of my zip code - that sort of thing.
But mostly I'll throw the question open - what has all that venture capital, and all the efforts of so many of you, built that will help us?
Please go ahead and say "obvious" things if no one else has said it yet, i.e., "You should have a Facebook group (and use it for X, Y, and Z)".  Think of it as if you were creating a standard reference list for new communities.  I don't know where to start, myself; and I'm sure this won't be the last time the question comes up. <comment><USER2> Very sad news that two OB contributors are stepping away.

I find that the reason why Overcoming Bias is a great source of articles for me is that the articles there are without exception written by extremely sharp, clearly brilliant people with both an excellent brain and a top notch writing ability. The topics aren't what brings me there, it's the quality.

I don't think I'd bother reading a community powered Overcoming Bias... maybe I'm wrong, maybe I will read it, but it doesn't sound appealing at all.

Perhaps it's better to just reduce the posting frequency but keep the quality... as it is OB is too frequent for me to read everything, since each post requires careful thought and concentration to get the many points made within.

<comment><USER3> I think part of the problem you're perceiving is that the examples that come to mind for"web community"--reddit, digg, slashdot, something awful, kuro5hin, sensibleerection, .+chan, etc.--carry inherent bias and groupthink: in learning to overcome bias, they best serve as sources of what to avoid.

This site does, perhaps, better than any other non-dictatorial group at keeping discussion rational: even groups of open-source developers working toward a common goal often devolve into chaos if there's not a single, strong personality in charge.

I'm not sure what the optimal solutions are, but if the hypothesized OB community doesn't reach at least the very high bar set here, I wouldn't have much interest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Drupal is the powerhouse when it comes to these sort of sites, but it's not for the faint of heart. It's got the flexibility to build whatever you want but it doesn't have to be a deep indepth site or the endless links of a link aggregator. It can provide the social base for those of your members who do want forums or to organize meetups.

</comment><comment><USER5> Check out slinkset.com -- it's a pretty good roll-your-own-reddit. If you talk to the guys they might help you customize it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the pointer, but as Matt Maroon says, we're looking for something where people can post original content.

<comment><USER6> We've seen it used w/ success for original content. e.g. <http://justhackit.slinkset.com/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Check out bleacherreport.com. It's a lot like what I think you're describing, but for sports. People write original articles, other people can edit them, and everyone can vote. Writers who have gotten big on there have gotten contracts.

I'd love something like that for rationalism, and would write for it a bit. I'd even invest a small amount if you need. In fact, I'd be surprised if you wouldn't get into YC with that idea :)

</comment><comment><USER8> I am using Plone for a similar sort of venture. Same idea as Drupal, a bit of overhead to get ramped up, but once you figure out how to get things done it's a very cool, useful, well built tool.

Plus it's python based instead of PHP, which I prefer.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Drupal, Plone, Joomla, Slinkset. And as previously referred, Scoop.

Thanks all!

</comment><comment><USER9> One system that appears to meet your needs is Joomla Community Builder with the Simple Machines Forum plugin.

This gives you a fully configurable forum including multiple ways of configuring Karma/Reputation, etc. It also gives you the community features that would potentially facilitate the rationalist meetups that you mention.</comment>


Totally Isolated TLS Unwrapping Server - <AUTHOR> https://www.opsmate.com/titus/ <comment><USER2> You might want to look at:

[https://tlspool.arpa2.net/](https://tlspool.arpa2.net/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Storing the private key material in a separate process is a nice touch.

</comment><comment><USER4> Isn't the normal term for this to terminate TLS, not unwrap it?

<comment><USER5> That wouldn't fit in a nice acronym

<comment><USER6> I dunno. TITTS seems pretty memorable to me

<comment><USER4> A bit _too_ memorable perhaps.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Uses a separate process for every TLS connection" sounds scalable.

<comment><USER8> It should be - the OS's whole job is to manage processes. I mean if it's allocating 4kb of physical memory to each then that would scale poorly, but who does that?

<comment><USER9> 4KB is the size of a page on x86 and most architectures, the smallest unit of memory the OS can dispense. SSL termination is definitely a function you don't want the kernel to swap to disk, therefore each connection would get at least 4KB of physical memory under a process-per-connection model.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is there any info about the per connection memory usage?

</comment><comment><USER11>
      The current version of titus is 0.2, released on 2014-08-17.

I'd be wary of using any piece of security software that hasn't had a release in over a year.

<comment><USER12> (Author here.) I'd be more wary of using security software that changes frequently, since every code change is an opportunity for a new security vulnerability to be introduced. I'm very cautious with changes to titus.

That said, 0.3 will be released any day now. It's pending testing of the new FreeBSD support.

<comment><USER13> This looks great. Any tips on how to terminate mixed-mode protocols like MySQL's SSL mode and IMAP's STARTTLS? Vanilla unwrapper daemons generally don't handle the case of initial unencrypted bit twiddling, and then SSL negotiation.

<comment><USER12> Unfortunately not. STARTTLS is the bane of standalone TLS terminators like titus, which is one of the reasons I really dislike STARTTLS. I won't rule out titus supporting STARTTLS some day, but the idea of integrating parsers for a bunch of different protocols into titus is really unappealing.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Good customer support AI system? - <AUTHOR> Has anyone found a good customer support system that you can train to auto-tag support requests? <comment><USER2> Dialogflow, wit.ai, amazon lex, Microsoft language work well.</comment>


Is That Review a Fake?  - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/08/20/business/20110820-is-that-review-a-fake.html?src=tp <comment><USER2> Fake reputation is an interesting problem space for libertarians to grapple with since reputation is their solution to so many problems. One of my ideas in this space is a bitcoin like system that maintains a public ledger of contracts you've entered into and completed as verified by a variety of sources. People could supply their public key allowing you to check their reputation history and sign contracts with their private key.

<comment><USER3> We are experimenting with reputation derived from complete anonymity since we believe that anonymity is required to maximize sincerity. In our current stage, we're manually moderating all the content generated, rejecting what looks fake based on common sense and intuition. If we ever generate traffic above a certain threshold then we have a mechanism where the content is validated by the creators themselves. Basically, the writers of opinions ("spots" for us) will have to evaluate other opinions before they can post their own, and a decision is made based on the number of coincidences among all the reviewers of a specific posting. We got the idea from previous work by CMU's Luis Von Ahn, in particular his (now Google's) ESP game.

These are examples of anonymous reviews about hotels that we have in our site:

A positive one => <http://www.spottiness.com/spots/BHBZ8QJT>

A negative one => <http://www.spottiness.com/spots/RKTPXLJJ>

Interestingly, they don't have the strong deceptive indicators...

<comment><USER4> "We are experimenting with reputation derived from complete anonymity since we believe that anonymity is required to maximize sincerity. "

Interesting. Where do "real name" Amazon.com reviews fit in? These make a selling point of being attributable to real people, and to me, imply sincerity, since often these reviewers seem to write reviews almost as a hobby, and often make a point of covering both good and bad aspects of a product.

There's a interesting dynamic here, since Amazon is vanishingly unlikely to harass you on the web, unlike say an ebay seller, who might well come after you if you leave anything other than a perfect review. In this case you are likely to be anonymous as far as everyone but the seller is concerned, yet being sincere may carry some risk to your own ebay account.

<comment><USER3> Amazon is a good example where "real name" reviews cause a bias towards positive reviews. I believe that most people are reluctant to write negative reviews if their real names are associated with it, even if the fairness of the review is not in question. Negative reviews always put a negative halo on the reviewers, so good reviews are overwhelmingly more common. Curiously in our site, where anonymity is a requirement, also the positive reviews dominate by far, which is indicating that there's much more good than bad in the world. Cool!

<comment><USER5> "in our site, where anonymity is a requirement, also the positive reviews dominate by far, which is indicating that there's much more good than bad in the world"

Or indicates a lot of fake reviews or something in between.

<comment><USER3> You mean a lot of "positive" fake reviews, in which case people tend to fake positive opinions much more than negative ones. Definitely better than the opposite...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Direct link to the paper: <http://aclweb.org/anthology/P/P11/P11-1032.pdf>

<comment><USER7> Interesting. To summarize their methodology:

\- Take the top 20 hotels from trip advisor

\- Filter out all non-five star reviews, plus any non-english, excessively short, or first-time reviews. Then sample (via a log normal distribution on review length) 20 reviews per hotel. This is their "real" dataset.

\- Use Mechanical Turk to collect 400 reviews for these hotels. Turkers are instructed to pretend they work for the marketing dept of the hotel and are to write deceptively fake reviews. Again, quality filters on length, user approval rating, and deduplication are applied. Turkers are paid $1 per review. This creates their "fake" dataset.

I suppose one could still argue that there are selection bias issues here. The sample size is also moderate. Nevertheless, it's a novel approach and you have to start somewhere. Interesting work.

<comment><USER8> It seems like writing a naive Bayesean classifier for "Was this written by a Turker" should be like taking candy from a baby who hates candy, has very slippery fingers, and is unconscious.

<comment><USER9> If it was that easy, why did their human judges fail at it?

<comment><USER10> Does the experimental setup for the human judges sound fair to you?

For example, the naive Bayes classifier knows the a priori distribution of review spam (which appears to be held to 50%), but do the undergraduate human judges? It would appear not, given that one judge only labeled 12% deceptive.

Likewise, were the human judges able to see examples of truthful and deceptive reviews before beginning the task? (In other words, are the human judges solving a different problem, e.g., "deception detection", than the classifier e.g., "similarity to prior deceptive reviews from Turkers").

If these are differences between the human and computer annotator setups, are they major differences? Can you spot any other big differences between the two experimental setups?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I usually find the low-star reviews more informative. What can the 5-star reviews do other than affirm the quality claims of the reviewed book/movie/hotel/restaurant? I read 1-star reviews for a laugh and 2- and 3-star reviews to be informed by reviewers who care enough to write a review but whose opinions are not extreme.

<comment><USER12> Indeed. While there's always _some_ one-star reviews no matter how good the thing being reviewed might be, the best guide is just to read them and see whether they sound like rational complaints from sensible people. If the one- star reviews say things like "the checkin girl rolled her eyes at us the third time we asked for our room to be changed to one with a better view" then it's probably an alright hotel. If they say "filthy, noisy, unsanitary" then I'm probably not gonna stay there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> It might be interesting that at UIC, we do a data mining course research project on this topic - <http://www.cs.uic.edu/~liub/#projects>. We used resellerratings.com and apart from a handpicked, there is no way of determining a pattern. There is no luxury of mechanical turks for a course project, and we are strictly forbidden from writing any reviews. I had to use the #of reviews, variance in similarity of the review text, time interval between posts, user since date, helpful review count, average rating(user/review/store),etc. and calculated the Mahalonobis distance[<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahalanobis_distance>] to separate outliers as the spammers. Then with these as labeled spammers, used graph based semi-supervised learning to classify the reviewers as spammers. Its a wild open problem - and very easy to argue on both sides of any method :D

</comment><comment><USER14> If I was writing a real review, it might look a lot like the one marked up with all the "deceptive" indicators, with the exception that I'm not a big exclamation mark user.

The grumpy old man in me wants to suggest that anyone who actually learned how to write would be marked as a fake. Is well-written English so hard to come by nowadays that it makes people suspicious when they see it online?

(Edited to add: apologies if I'm saying something that's covered in the article--couldn't get past the paywall.)

<comment><USER15> That was similar to my impression, that is not the way I write, but most normal people's reviews would trigger the "deceptive indicators" presented on the linked page.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> As these kinds of issues continue to bring into question the reputation of (mostly) anonymous review sites, the reliance on reviews from your social graph (I.E. folks you presumably know & trust) could continue to rise, particularly if the search engines remain unable to differentiate between the spammers and legit reviewers.

No wonder Google proactively sought out that kid who worked on the paper.

<comment><USER17> Yelp has had this for a while: when you visit a business page, the first reviews they show you are ones from your friends, if available. It's a good way to make sure you're not seeing spam reviews right off the bat, but it does rely on you actually engaging with Yelp's social features.

<comment><USER18> "while", "friends", "good", "you're", "you"... yelp spammer!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The related parent article is worth a read as well: "In a Race to Out-Rave, 5-Star Web Reviews Go for $5." ([http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/20/technology/finding-fake- re...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/20/technology/finding-fake-reviews- online.html))

</comment><comment><USER20> The interesting point lies in how they construct their training data. In addition to producing fake reviews via mechanical turk themselves, they use a complex procedure to retrieve actual positive reviews from tripadvisor.

...which is kind of funny if you think about it: to develop a classifier that can identify real reviews, the first thing they do is _create a classifier that can identify real reviews_ to produce a training corpus.

Then they try to approximate the output of their first (rule-based) classifier with a machine learning classifier.

</comment><comment><USER21> personally I focus on negative reviews.

But then you have to grapple with whether or not the bad review is true or not(i.e a competitor posting it). In those cases it's best to focus on places where the reviewer's reputation can be checked.

i.e. all those review sites that let anyone review are more or less worthless. But a blog post by someone with hundreds of posts is a lot more likely to be a real story.

</comment><comment><USER22> Shrewd (though likely just very lucky and timely) choice of topic. Looks like they can either (i) take their talents to any one of 10-15 companies that desperately need improvement in this area OR (ii) create a very promising startup and perhaps get taken out in a talent acquisition.

</comment><comment><USER5> As businesses get more adept at gaming the online review process, the rewards for a system capable of a high "honest review" fraction will increase.

</comment><comment><USER23> Sometimes I still cannot believe how prevalent fake reviews are.

Not too long ago a friend of mine contributed a chapter to a programming book for one of the major publishers and they made sure to tell him to ask his friends to write reviews for the book on amazon, down to detailed instructions how to fake it "properly" and in accordance with how they were trying to position it on the market - like saying that "it is great for beginners to learn X" but one should also add a negative point about how this-and-that chapter needed more clarification or more examples or images.

</comment><comment><USER24> As if the bots wont adjust their syntax when the software becomes more comprehensive. Silly Cornell, you're up against spammers, not actual robots.

<comment><USER25> If you read the article, it's a system to detect fake reviews in general - there's no mention of bots or spammers at all. By looking at their methodology it's clear that it targets people who write fake reviews, not bots.

Also, it's not as if every spammer in the world is aware of this software and will adjust to it accordingly. In fact, I'd say the vast majority wouldn't even be aware.</comment></comment>


A Car's Computer Can 'Fingerprint' You in Minutes Based on How You Drive - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/2016/05/drive-car-can-id-within-minutes-study-finds/ <comment><USER2> <With 90 minutes driving data or monitoring more car components, they could pick out the correct driver fully 100 percent of the time.>

With 90 minutes of data, they could pick out one driver _out of a sample size of 15_. How meaningful is that, really?

<comment><USER3> Not sure it's as trivial as you seem to be implying, but extending this to more drivers would certainly be a logical next step.

Honestly it seems like everyone reading these kinds of papers/articles does a ctrl-f "sample size" before anything else. Bit cynical.

<comment><USER4> For good reason.

It's been easy to do face identification for a very small population for a while. But scaling that to thousands of people has proven quite difficult.

<comment><USER5> Its perhaps surprising to those within the tech industry, to find out how fast progress has been -- as I recently read

[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/17/findface-...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/17/findface- face-recognition-app-end-public-anonymity-vkontakte)

and the HN discussion

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11712197](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11712197)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Talk about doing things the hard way. With 15 people, I'd bet you could determine the driver simply by the weight sensor in the driver's seat. No need to do any actual driving. You could probably make some progress with radio station settings (volume/channel etc) or even how they adjust the seats/mirrors.

<comment><USER7> Weight is only one dimensional though, so you'll have more collisions. If two people happen to weigh about the same, then your weight sensor is useless and your driving analysis is not.

<comment><USER8> It's far from useless, it limits the pool of candidates to two. Far easier to distinguish two drivers from each other than fifteen.

<comment><USER9> And the article points out that they can already distinguish drivers with 90% accuracy based on the throttle sensor alone after 15 minutes of sampling. With extra sensors or more time, they get much closer to 100%.

So yes, you(s) are all correct. With one sensor you get decent accuracy, with more you get improved accuracy.

Noting that these are forensic assessments, and thus useless for personalising car settings when a new driver gets into the vehicle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The privacy concern is valid. It won't be long before all new cars are sending data from the sensors to third parties, and it would be unthinkable for the manufacturers to ask for your consent before collecting that data since they'll make money off of it.

The article mentions concerns with insurance companies. One I worked for tried to get customers to agree to having their rates adjusted based on data from their cars. It was mostly to do with how many miles the customer drove, but I think there was also an element that looked at speed coupled with GPS data to determine if they habitually exceeded the speed limit. There was a lot of pushback from customers and privacy advocates at the time and it didn't really go anywhere at the time (2007-08 iirc) but since that time I recall hearing of another company doing just that with some volunteers.

Now imagine the insurer has access to everything on the CAN bus. Your rates could go up based on taking curves too fast, braking too hard too often, or following too close.

The law enforcement angle is disturbing too.

Then there's the nightmare of the advertising people getting hold of it, complete with GPS data. God knows what they'd do with it exactly, but whatever it is, it will be sleazy and annoying by definition.

Time to include this on the list of things to oppose for privacy's sake.

<comment><USER11> I can't see how this is a bad thing at all. Currently rates are set on arbitrary things that merely correlate with driving skill, like past record, age, and gender, etc.

I'd love to be rewarded for actually being a good driver. Rather than being lumped in with bad drivers who have a high chance of being in $50k accidents, which everyone has to collectively pay for.

Driving is also the leading cause of death of young people, so anything that encourages people to drive safer is a huge net good for society. What's more effective, a sticker that says "buckle up" or "drive slower", or knowing that your insurance company is keeping track of it?

Of course it should be voluntary and opt out. But there could be a huge gain for people who opt in.

<comment><USER7> >I'd love to be rewarded for actually being a good driver. Rather than being lumped in with bad drivers who have a high chance of being in $50k accidents, which everyone has to collectively pay for.

The whole point of insurance is _not_ to lump you into good driver / bad driver categories. If you make bad drivers consistently pay for accidents, then you might as well not have insurance at all, and you'll pay perfectly in direct proportion to the accidents you are involved in.

Insurance adds fuzziness to the otherwise "perfectly rational" outcome because people that do not behave rationally with respect to accident avoidance and financial planning will be at a severe survival and status disadvantage to those who do. It's like putting safeties on guns to prevent careless people from shooting people or getting shot. It makes the world more forgiving of individual mistakes at public cost.

<comment><USER11> The entire point of insurance is to pay based on _risk_. Someone with a bad driving record _should, and does_ pay much more for insurance than a normal person. An old person should and does pay more for health or life insurance. A wooden house costs more to get fire insured than a brick building.

The point of insurance is not to let bad drivers get away with their bad driving. It's to make sure you aren't punished for _bad luck_. But if we can exactly predict the probability you will get in an accident, there is no luck involved, you are just a bad driver.

<comment><USER7> You already pay based on risk without insurance. You pay insurance to _reduce_ your risk -- to reduce the costs associated with an accident.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm surprised it took 90 minutes; I'd imagine that it'd only take two or three. The data is very rich and continuous, and the knowledge is almost entirely reflexive. I would also think that identifying typists wouldn't take much longer. Does anybody know of any papers on that? You could pull that off with javascript.

<comment><USER13> I don't know of any papers, but for verified certificates from Coursera, you validate your identity via a webcam selfie and typing their one sentence honor code into an input field.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Wouldn't this mean that you could do that too based on mouse movement? I.e. couldn't you create a security system based on how you use your mouse?

<comment><USER15> Was an Ex Ebay'r founded startup tried to recruit me. The mouse movement was part of their security product. Not sure what else they were doing or what happened to them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I suppose it would depend on the driver. I know a few people I could fingerprint with the lousy IMU built into my ears with no computer analysis - some go constantly from the white line to the yellow line and back, some don't realize that the accelerator works at input levels below 10%, some second- guess the automatic transmission at every shift...but many drive, well, normally. Regarding the mouse or keyboard inputs discussed in this thread, there are a few hunt-and-peckers or over-correctors who would similarly be found. I don't think it's that impressive to get a few drivers out of a sample, they likely have detectable quirks.

</comment><comment><USER17> Direct link to the publication: [http://www.autosec.org/pubs/fingerprint.pdf](http://www.autosec.org/pubs/fingerprint.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER18> So... I'm expecting surveillance like driver fingerprinting + that shit Progressive is doing with "Snapshot" to be used to really penalize drivers in the future for the slightest mishap.

I hate driving - especially in California. Automate all the things.

</comment><comment><USER19> "In a study they plan to present at the Privacy Enhancing Technology Symposium in Germany this July"

How would this enhance privacy? It seems like it would do the opposite?

<comment><USER20> This is exactly the reason they would never consider lock-picking techniques at lock symposium.

<comment><USER21> And hacking techniques at a computer security conference.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I wonder if you could defeat this by using your left foot (assuming the fingerprinting was done when you used your right foot).

<comment><USER23> I scratched my head reading this thinking "Why would using the clutch change things" also made me think of two things, one being that yes i believe that swapping your primary foot your using would most likely cause different driving patters much like swapping where your hands are sitting on the steering wheel would have a similar effect. And two is i wonder if there would be an improvement in recognition time if the car being tested had a manual transmission adding common shift patterns to the equation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Good thing self-driving cars are coming, then.

</comment><comment> King-Aaron I bet my 40mm Webber can't.</comment>


Netflix Sued by Choose Your Own Adventure Over Black Mirror: Bandersnatch - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/11/18178846/netflix-black-mirror-bandersnatch-choose-your-own-adventure-book-trademark-lawsuit-chooseco <comment><USER2> This has to be one of the most ill conceived lawsuits since SCO sued IBM. Not because Netflix have an IBM like legion of Nazgul as their legal team, but in this case because it's self-defeating. The popularity of Bandersnatch will probably do more to drive demand for CYOA books than anything Chooseco would ever have done. That mention of CYOA in Bandersnatch? That was _free advertising_.

And even if the argument is "Well, Chooseco was trying to get into interactive media as well" I think the exact same argument still holds. Bandersnatch is proving (helping build?) the market for this kind of stuff in general. It's success is paving the way for Chooseco to follow with their own CYOA branded interactive movies / tv-shows, if they want.

And never mind that they probably still could have negotiated a deal with Netflix eventually anyway.

Basically there's nothing good about this... it's just killing goodwill, harming a potential relationship, wasting money on lawyer's fees, and distracting them for, oh, I dunno, creating quality content?</comment>


Understanding Quaternions - <AUTHOR> https://www.3dgep.com/understanding-quaternions/ <comment><USER2> Sorry to spoil the party, but this is the old 19th century way of teaching quaternions (and also complex numbers). It is much easier to start with some [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_theory) and then you understand that quaternions are simply matrices of a specific form: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternion#Matrix_representati...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternion#Matrix_representations) . Quaternion multiplication is simply matrix multiplication of these matrices. And that's it. No mysteries, this is just simple linear algebra (you do't even need complex numbers, the real representation is enough and makes the connection to 4d rotations manifest).

<comment><USER3> it shouldn't be an either or with geometry and algebra. both are valid and it helps to know both. representing H as a matrix is certainly valid and makes computations easier, but I dont really think that is building intuition

<comment><USER4> The modern approach is not lacking all geometry, and the 19th century presentation is not lacking all algebra. Any respectable treatment will include both, the question is which makes the relationship clearer? The abstract algebraic approach talks of 'the rotation group' which maps on to geometric concepts as cleanly and directly as possible. Then we talk of different parameterizations or representations of this group, with the unit quaternions being the 'double cover' of the rotation group (which gives rise to the primary difficulty in understanding them - that a rotation by 360 degrees reverses orientation, and 720 degrees returns us to where we started).

I think the modern approach is much clearer - the geometric ideas appear more directly, and the algebra is far less messy.

<comment><USER5> > I think the modern approach is much clearer - the geometric ideas appear > more directly, and the algebra is far less messy.

Can you show us an example?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In case you missed it, 3B1B has a brilliant video introducing quaternions: [https://youtu.be/d4EgbgTm0Bg](https://youtu.be/d4EgbgTm0Bg)

<comment> raffael-vogler His videos are really incredibly intuitive and well-made. He deserves an award for his channel.

<comment><USER6> Yep, and all the source code is developed in the open as well! [https://github.com/3b1b/manim](https://github.com/3b1b/manim)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Possibly off-topic: why does practically any description of quaternions include the anecdote about somebody carving something into some bridge in Ireland?

I've learned about plenty of mathematical concepts while having no idea who discovered them or under what circumstances. Why are quaternions the exception?

<comment><USER8> I think the story is told as a sort of cultural marker of what a Big F-ing Deal this discovery was/is. Mathematics, collectively, struggled for a long time to find a way to make 3-dimensional numbers into an algebra in a way that extends the algebra of complex numbers. (The cross and dot products are unsatisfying, because they don't have division.) The shock that this can be done in _four_ , -- not three -- dimensions is still sort of reverberating, and that's what I think this story marks. It's a short stand-in for the longer story I've just summarized, and it evokes (or is meant to evoke) the mind- shattering thrill of discovery.

I don't necessarily think the story _accomplishes_ this -- your question is but one piece of evidence that it doesn't -- but I think for those who spend a good amount of time with these kinds of algebra questions, it comes to take on that role, and that's why I think it's repeated.

(Teaser -- if you want to know more about these kinds of questions, Google for "real division algebras". There are not very many, and they way they are organized is not, I think, something one would expect.)

<comment><USER9> Also, in Hamilton's time they didn't have the view of mathematics as axiom systems that could be played with. Math was a way of finding Truth, so the idea of making up multiplication rules at your convenience probably seemed like an extremely non-obvious move.

The discovery of complex numbers and quaternions probably played a big part in getting people to question what math _is_ , leading to Hilbert's program to study Foundations etc. Hamilton's story is a nice, rare single instance we can point to, symbolizing this discovery.

<comment><USER7> Fair point, but hadn't complex numbers been around for a while by the time quaternions were discovered?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Dual quaternion are even whackier. They are the best formalism for reasoning about 3D space developing over time.

Here's a cool example [http://www.chinedufn.com/dual-quaternion-shader- explained/](http://www.chinedufn.com/dual-quaternion-shader-explained/)

</comment><comment><USER11> Previous discussion

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7364442](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7364442)

Those who like to have a print version:

[https://github.com/frankMilde/interesting- reads/blob/master/...](https://github.com/frankMilde/interesting- reads/blob/master/3d-game-engine-programming_jeremiah-van- oosten_understanding-quaternions.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER12> I remember being introduced to quaternions recently by this post[0] which recommended this book[1].

[0]: [https://www.haroldserrano.com/blog/best-books-to-develop- a-g...](https://www.haroldserrano.com/blog/best-books-to-develop-a-game- engine)

[1]: [https://www.amazon.com/Quaternions-Computer-Graphics-John- Vi...](https://www.amazon.com/Quaternions-Computer-Graphics-John- Vince/dp/0857297597/)

</comment><comment><USER13> I had a question about quaternions: does anyone use them for anything else than multiplying a rotation by a scalar?

In particular, it feels a bit like a waste of coding space to always use unit ones.

<comment><USER14> The remarkable thing about quaternions is that you can describe rotation around any arbitrary axis! Try doing that with real rotation matrices and you will bump into a major problem:

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

Because matrix multiplication is not commutative, you can't easily compose a matrix representing rotation around an arbitrary axis from "component rotation matrices".

With quaternions/clifford algebras, you can say "here's the vector I want to rotate about and here's this is how much I want to rotate", and it just magically works.

<comment><USER15> I find that many articles explaining how to describe the orientation of a rigid body rotated along an axis by an angle in a confusing manner.

Normally in 3d space you will have to construct quaternions for rotations along yaw, pitch and roll, and then take their product to get the quaternion of the orientation of the rigid body.

That is, when using quaternions to describe orientations,we are actually describing the rotations done to bring the body from its default orientation to its present orientation.

<comment><USER16> > Normally in 3d space you will have to construct quaternions for rotations > along yaw, pitch and roll, and then take their product to get the quaternion > of the orientation of the rigid body

Is this not just using Euler angles via quaternions? If I understand correctly, tracking rotation via yaw, pitch, and roll will still run into issues of gimbal lock because it's the same parameterization just using quaternions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Anyone know an easy way to show that multiplication by a unit quaternion is a unitary operator?

<comment><USER17> Unitary in what sense? Clearly multiplication by a unit quaternion preserves the quaternion norm.

<comment><USER5> In the sense of preserving the dot product, x.y = (ux).(uy).

<comment><USER17> Since the quaternion norm is induced via the quaternion dot product, any transformation that preserves the norm automatically also preserves the dot product. This is a standard result for inner product spaces.

<comment><USER5> Ah, polarization? And for it preserving the norm you can use the conjugate. Easy! Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I found these videos very helpful: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCbpxiCN0U0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCbpxiCN0U0)

</comment><comment><USER19> Protip: learn Geometric Algebra.

<comment><USER20> Can you recommend any good references?

<comment><USER19> Here's an appetizer from Eric Lengyel in the context of game development (or 3D graphics in general): [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WZApQkDBr5o](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WZApQkDBr5o)

And here's the in-depth stuff:

Geometric Algebra for Computer Science: [http://www.geometricalgebra.net](http://www.geometricalgebra.net)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Please use Lie Groups/Algebra instead.

<comment><USER22> Do you mind on elaborating on that? Any nice books or tutorials you've seen on the subject?

<comment><USER21> Skipping the formalism you can get directly into the practical aspects in this book.

Modern Robotics by Lynch and Park Chapters 3 and 4

pre-preprint of book / more info available here [http://hades.mech.northwestern.edu/index.php/Modern_Robotics](http://hades.mech.northwestern.edu/index.php/Modern_Robotics)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> left handed thingies. go to geometric algebra for the real meal deal.

</comment><comment><USER24> I have no idea why they insist on using such horrible graphs to explain a simple idea.

Go to wiki/quaternions. scroll down to about 2/3rds of the way ;)</comment>


Ask HN: Popups to capture emails? - <AUTHOR>

Hi HN!
A lot of wordpress website have popups to ask for emails address. Sometimes they appear at the center of the screen after some reading, and sometimes it's in the bottom right corner.
I'd like to do the same for my website, which is custom built. Do you know which free plugin / service should I use? I'm just looking for the popup, not the email integration.
All my google search so far have only showed me wordpress plugins.
Thanks! <comment><USER2> [http://witget.com/](http://witget.com/)</comment>


40,000-year-old bracelet made by extinct human species found (2015) - <AUTHOR> http://www.digitaljournal.com/science/40-000-year-old-bracelet-from-extinct-human-species-discovered/article/432798 <comment><USER2> I always love quotes like this: "All jewellery had a magical meaning for ancient people. Bracelets and neck adornments were to protect people from evil spirits, for instance."

And we know this how? Maybe it was just made to be pretty. A rich person giving their partner a gift etc. No one could possibly be able to make any further inferences from a species of human we know almost nothing about.

<comment><USER3> My mother studied archaeology and she told me once what she heard during her classes - that "religious significance" is the default label that is put on things they found when they have no clue what those things were for.

<comment><USER4> I went to grad school in archaeology, and I can tell you that this is absolutely the case. Part of the problem is that archaeologists are generally terrible at cultural anthropology (compared to other anthropologists, not compared to the general population). The other part is that in most societies, there is not a firm dividing line between the religious/magical and the mundane.

<comment><USER5> Which is curious, because you'd think there'd be conceptual understanding with regard to " _ornamentation_ ," " _amusement /diversion/boredom_" and " _craftsmanship /showmanship_."

The amount of time spent fixating on ornamentation should be obvious, just by spending time in a flea market, looking at the trays upon trays of common jewelry people toss tens of dollars at.

Amusement, and diversions should be obvious from watching people engage in repetitive tasks like crossword puzzles, card games and knitting. Fidget spinners fit into this category. Boondoggles have a utility in letting the mind wander. Polishing stone by hand was probably rewarding, when there were no consequences tied to failure.

Craftsmanship as a sign of status is probably the closest secular concept to the token "religion or magical thinking" and goes hand in hand with fashion and ornamentation. There are extremely slim reasons for the geek cred associated with odd piercings or those decorative spin tops based on the one from the movie _Inception_. Being able to show that you know about something, and or how to do something, displays skill sets without having to brag openly. The subculture of skin piercing and body modification displays a capacity for tolerating pain, awareness of anatomy, and a taming of wound infection in edge cases. Spin tops really represent membership within a nerd subculture that has money to burn, and fetishizes metallurgy trivia juxtaposed with movie trivia, but the craftsmanship of the pieces justifies their price, earning it's owner status, since there remains the authentic barrier to simply making a DIY inception top, contrasted against buying the collector's item.

Rare sneaker subculture probably encapsulates all three of these ideas without being religious at all. But observing sneaker collectors in the wild leaves me with the impression that maybe it really is a religion after all.

These are probably difficult concepts to communicate in academic papers that often must get translated into multiple languages, so the catch all religious, magical shrug will probably persist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > The cave is named after the Denisovan people — a mysterious species of > hominins from the Homo genus

Nope. The Denisovan people are named after the cave and the cave is named after a hermit Denis who lived there in the 18th century.

<comment><USER7> i wonder then if Denis drilled the hole in the thing. How would one determine the age of a drilled hole?

<comment><USER8> IANAA[0] but there are some pretty good techniques for telling the difference, from what I understand. Publishing something like this only for it to be something like 'Oh wait, I guess Denis did it' is a great way to end your career as a scientist.

[0] I am not an archeologist

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This article about the bracelet is from 2015. No updates since then, and it does not link to anything peer-reviewed. All in all I would take this with a huge grain of salt.

<comment><USER10> A simple google search shows further updates...

[http://siberiantimes.com/science/casestudy/news/n0711-worlds...](http://siberiantimes.com/science/casestudy/news/n0711-worlds- oldest-needle-found-in-siberian-cave-that-stitches-together-human-history/)

[https://www.nature.com/articles/srep23559](https://www.nature.com/articles/srep23559)

<comment><USER11> Except the Siberian Times article also doesn't link to anything peer-reviewed, and the Nature paper is about bone identification, not bracelets or other artifacts.

The only academic paper about the bracelet I could find is from 2008 and was submitted to the journal "Archaeology, Ethnology and Anthropology of Eurasia", whose editor-in-chief, Anatoly Derevyanko, is also the paper's primary author.

<comment><USER12> True but to be fair they're still fresh findings. And oldest as well, so comparison to other findings is pretty low.

<comment><USER11> > _True but to be fair they 're still fresh findings._

Your "fresh finding" was found _nine years ago_ \- this is even explicitly stated in the 2015 Siberian Times article.

All of the citations for the paper describing the "bracelet" [1] are for uncontroversial findings (that Denisovans existed, that they interbred with Neanderthals, etc.) - none of them make any reference to the supposed "bracelet".

[1]: [http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1563011008...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1563011008000378)

<comment><USER12> I figured someone who has no idea what they were talking about would say that. They're fresh but I'm not going to teach as to all the reasons why, as it's clear you don't do much with science, research or archaeology. Good luck.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> "and they confirm that it could not have been made by homo sapiens or Neanderthals"

Could not? Really? I would be very interested in seeing how that could possibly be true.

Without a better explanation of this line, I find this article _very_ suspect.

</comment><comment><USER14> > the recent discovery of a female Denisovan finger bone and various teeth > shows that they had no morphological similarities to either Neanderthals or > modern humans.

Does "morphological similarities" have a particular definition in palaeoanthropology beyond the apparently plain meaning of the words? Even if "they" refers to the finger bone and teeth rather than the Denisovans as a whole, I would have thought they would have had _some_ morphological similarities to modern humans, otherwise they wouldn't be recognisable as a finger bone and teeth.

<comment><USER15> Also, how could they have mated, let alone have hybrid children?

<comment><USER8> For some modern people, as much as 5% of their DNA comes from neanderthals. Pretty-close species can have hybrid children, but the more distant the less likely the child will be fully-functional.

Consider mules (horse + donkey) which are sterile or the infamous Ligers and Tigons (Lion + Tiger can make some monstrously large cats).

<comment><USER16> I remember reading that Australian aboriginals have up to 5% of Denisovan genes (don't remember source, but it was widely reported after the discovery)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> 200km is not necessarily 'imported'. People can walk 5km/hr easily. You are talking about 4 days' comfortable walk. Many nomadic groups would have had ranges exceeding 200km at least on occasion. For example I believe there is evidence that some Australian aboriginal societies regularly communicated over vaster distances, at least sporadically - eg. annually in certain seasons.

<comment><USER18> Many people walked that distance every year for seasonal jobs even in 20th century.

<comment><USER15> They still do for pilgrimage - the main "Camino de Santiago" (St. James' Way) from France to Spain is 700km+, and some people make the journey every year. Obviously nowadays they have modern comforts, but the Way stretches back centuries.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is not uncommon:

* In Europe which was home of Neanderthals at that time (middle/upper paleolithic) , there are beautiful artifacts in places such as: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hohle_Fels](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hohle_Fels)

* In Africa were Homo Sapiens comes from, there are similar places at that time where beautiful artifacts are retrieved like: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enkapune_Ya_Muto](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enkapune_Ya_Muto)

</comment><comment><USER20> _Until now, scientists had believed that such skills had only evolved among humans in the Neolithic period, which began at about 10,000 BC. Indeed, originally, they believed that the bracelet had somehow become mixed up with materials dating from a later period. However, experiments have now definitely ruled that out, and they confirm that it could not have been made by homo sapiens or Neanderthals. After 7 years of analysis, the scientists are confident that the piece was made 30,000 years before the beginning of the Stone Age._

What experiments??

Thanks article! Useless.

<comment><USER21> > the piece was made 30,000 years before the beginning of the Stone Age.

Considering that the Stone Age began almost three and a half million years ago, that is quite a statement of precision.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> A better term for species would be 'race'. Modern homo sapiens interbred with Denosovians at times and acquired some of their genes. Species means a lack of cross-bredability.

<comment><USER23> Species means that there is normally no cross breeding in the wild. You can have two species which will reproduce in captivity, but in the wild are blocked by some geographic feature such as mountains or water, or by some behavioral aspect such as a mating ritual.

It's not uncommon for two species in the same genus to be able to have offspring, for example equines (mules) and felines (ligers).

In some cases the resulting hybrid offspring are fertile, for example the "Savanna" cats which are domestic cats hybridized with servals.

In the wild, when previously separated species are put in contact with each other, there can be instances of natural hybrids. This is what happened with the various Homo species, due to various migrations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> It's a little outdated, but anyone interested in "extinct human species", or proto-humans, should read Jared Diamond's book "The Third Chimpanzee", which is about the small genetic and vast cultural differences that separate us from other large primate, including the two other types of chimp...

</comment><comment><USER25> How do we know that 5000 year old humans didn't make jewelry out of 35000 year old materials?

<comment><USER26> Because archaeologist's aren't dumb.

<comment><USER27> You've managed to quite rudely respond without actually answering their question except with an appeal to authority.

While I'm sure the archaeologists who determined it was 40,000 years old had a good reason for it, jeez.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Obviously the Nephilim.

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

Ie. The half man / half God creatures from the Old Testimate that some believe are Alien hybrids.</comment>


The NSA Worked to "Track Down" Bitcoin Users, Snowden Documents Reveal - <AUTHOR> https://theintercept.com/2018/03/20/the-nsa-worked-to-track-down-bitcoin-users-snowden-documents-reveal/ <comment><USER2> Bitcoin is aggressively used in dark net, drug dealing, zero day exploit selling, and is used by nationstates to hire and pay "plausibly deniable" contractors to attack NGO's and governments.

There was a period when people erroneously thought that bitcoin was anonymous and secure.

If the NSA was not working to track down the premiere currency of the dark web and of the nation state actors they work counterintelligence against, this would be dereliction of their duty.

This is like suggesting the FBI tracks down "USD" users. No duh, law enforcement and counterintelligence requires regulation of the financial systems in use. Any unregulated financial system is a hive of villainy and scum as a truism.

<comment><USER3> "Any unregulated financial system is a hive of villainy and scum as a truism."

Wow, you do realize that fiat is the number 1 one way to fund the drug trade and terrorism right? It certainly isn't crypto.

Not exactly a great way to sum up what will prove to be one of the most important innovations in human history.

<comment><USER4> _Wow, you do realize that fiat is the number 1 one way to fund the drug trade and terrorism right? It certainly isn't crypto._

Number 1 by volume (duh) or number 1 by percentage of transactions for illegal goods and services?

 _Not exactly a great way to sum up what will prove to be one of the most important innovations in human history._

You hear that atomic energy, antibiotics and computers?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is the most important and disturbing part in my view:

> At the same time, MONKEYROCKET is also described in the documents as a "non- > Western Internet anonymization service" with a "significant user base" in > Iran and China, with the program brought online in summer 2012. It is > unclear what exactly this product was, but it would appear that it was > promoted on the internet under false pretenses...

> The scope of the targeting would then expand beyond terrorists. Whatever > this piece of software was, it functioned a privacy bait and switch, > tricking Bitcoin users into using a tool they thought would provide > anonymity online but was actually funneling data directly to the NSA.

One has to wonder what this tool was. Later in the article they speculate that it could be a VPN.

My advice if you want your traffic to be anonymous and private: use a VPN over Tor (not the other way around!). That way the VPN can't see who you are, and Tor exit nodes can't spy on your traffic either.

<comment><USER6> > That way the VPN can't see who you are

So how do you get around the part where you pay for the VPN service and provide login credentials to use it?

<comment><USER7> I remember there was a VPN (can't remember the name right now but I'm sure if you're interested you can find it easily) that accepted logins without e-mail, or any kind of ID, and accepted payments in cash in an envelope.

<comment><USER8> Mullvad does that.

<comment><USER7> Yes! That's the name. I knew if I'd see it I'd remember it :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Always and forever, surveillance is a precursor to and enabler of extortion.

The extortion we usually hear about is people forced to testify, often to lie, about others still under investigation, or to recruit other informants and exfiltrate secrets. We hear about it because it is useful for us to have heard about it. In the other instances there is no reason to tell us, so the only way to find out about them is to be extorted.

</comment><comment><USER10> Although bitcoin could be used for some bad things, but also there are some (501c) charities that accept bitcoin too,

\- give directly

\- redcross (used to at least)

\- water project

\- ..

(there are at least two others but I forget)

So hypothetically (assuming it would pass like sec / whatever regulations) at the right point in time you could make like a coinbase type thing that \- buys $30 of bitcoin \- automatically watches some exchange API until it appreciates to 'desired amount in US / GBP / Whatever currency you use' \- makes the donation automatically at say 10x the value \- gets 'the actual registered charity' to send you a non-deductible receipt for that amount, (non-deductible since you no longer 'have control of the coin once it's in the app', which would is essentially the price you pay for getting the increased amount of 'social-benefit', since it's 'going to hurt' to see the potential missed profit, even though the alternative would be to lose the $30 at the earlier time in just a 'tethered' amount)

There is a 'large benefit' to automating / appifying this process to people in that, putting such a system together in one place could lessen the dangers in a manual process of doing this like: lost receipts, hacked exchanges, constantly watching prices, actually dealing with crypto.

In any case, my point is that, given that there is probably 'some good potential to bitcoin (although it might require a team of some creative / dedicated thinking at the right time)' it seems that there might be some benefit from viewing it less as an entrapment / tracking device, and more as a tool for social benefit, and thus making a strong push in the warnings / regulations area to get people on the social benefit track of it's potential use rather than the negative aspects of it. To restate: you have the choice of either guiding bitcoin use towards being a law enforcement tool, or towards being a social benefit / solve world problems tool. I think the recent SEC exchange warnings thing is probably a step towards pushing it in the right direction... (potentially there are some deep sci-fi strategic reasons for viewing crypto-coins in a certain way in terms of desired world progress in a certain direction, which would be interesting to think about).

<comment><USER10> By the way, I don't have the depth of experience or team to build something like this in a way that I would feel happy with, so feel free to please use this idea if you think it is good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Pretty toxic comment section by HN standards..

<comment><USER12> By toxic, of course, you mean "not devoid of emotion"?

<comment><USER11> No I mean, devoid of fact. 100% emotional opinion.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Bid with Bitcoin to write whatever you want on my web page - <AUTHOR> https://www.coinsayswhat.com/

<comment><USER2> Typo on the front page: "This message will change to something else in 5:58 or when someone bids or when someone bids 0.002."

You say "or when someone bids" twice.

Other than that, nice concept.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Got it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is a really great idea, would love if you could embed the message on your own webpage instead of ads, or maybe even see a list of the last bidders. Kind of like what happens on the Humble Bundle site.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! The site is build on top of a JSON api that would definitely allow this. This is sort of a "proof-of-concept" version, but there's a lot you could build on top of the concept.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is clever. Officially clever.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! You can make your own at [https://www.coinsayswhat.com/pages/new](https://www.coinsayswhat.com/pages/new)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Great work!</comment>


Einstein was Probably Wrong About the Universe - <AUTHOR> http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/more-light-on-speed-record-20111119-1nodp.html

<comment><USER2> It's way too early for the "Einstein was probably wrong" class of headline. If the LHC results were real and portentous, the neutrino pulse from the 1987 supernova would have arrived 4.13 _years_ before the light flash, rather than three hours before (with a trivial explanation).</comment>