DNA-Based Prediction of Nietzsche's Voice - <AUTHOR> http://thenewinquiry.com/blogs/shines-like-gold/dna-based-prediction-of-nietzsches-voice/

<comment><USER2> Has this method been tested on DNA of living people with existing recordings, to assess whether it's actually an accurate way of predicting voices?

EDIT: It's fake: [http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=18315](http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=18315)

>I have no idea whether anything in the Wikipedia article about Imp Kerr is true, but it's clear from internal evidence that the alleged Investigative Genetics article is a piece of performance art. The author is unable to restrain a certain telltale playfulness, e.g. here:

>>Nietzsche's vocalization exemplifies a flat, smooth, typical mild sounding voice: hued pitch, honeyed tone, low versatility in timbre, silvery hyponasal flow, disembodied texture with a touch of steel in vowels, and low head-nasal resonance (lower than expected in regards of Nietzsche's robust mandibles).

<comment><USER3> At best this could have only only been approximation. Even between identical twins, the realisation of a person's voice an vary quite a bit, independently of those features determined by genetics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yeah, it's obviously a joke, but it's a good one!

</comment><comment><USER5> Has any _real_ work in this area been attempted?</comment>


New in AFL: persistent mode - <AUTHOR> http://lcamtuf.blogspot.com/2015/06/new-in-afl-persistent-mode.html

<comment><USER2> > _On all supported OSes with the exception of MacOS X, the fork() call is > actually surprisingly fast_

I'm curious about this. What makes fork() on OS X slower than other OSes?

<comment><USER3> MacOS X is BSD with the low-level part of the kernel replaced by the Mach microkernel. Another way to say this is that the high-level parts of the BSD kernel got stuffed into the Mach microkernel. This is a nasty horrid way to design an OS. Microkernels add lots of pointless overhead while making the code hard to clean up.</comment></comment>


Famo.us pivots from JavaScript engine to micro-app CMS - <AUTHOR> http://famous.co/ <comment><USER2> Background: Famo.us was trying to build an open source javascript animation library meant to unlock native performance on mobile[1]. They took many millions of funding to do so[2] .

It didn't quite end up working out that way. Also, there's a community-run "fork": infamous[3]

[1] [http://famous.org/](http://famous.org/) [2] [http://venturebeat.com/2014/08/13/famo-us-raises-25m-to- doub...](http://venturebeat.com/2014/08/13/famo-us-raises-25m-to-double-down- on-javascript-app-development-framework/) [3] [http://infamous.io/](http://infamous.io/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I never understood their original business model, they were going to sell classes and events (conferences) around an open-source project that would compete with other open-source projects? Was that really what was worth 20+M of funding.

Now, seeing this pivot, I am still scratching my head a bit. So they are leveraging the work they did on famous to create a CMS which lets marketers easily create apps. Ok, I'll by that as a potential pivot, leverage what you've got in the high-performance library.

But I have a few issues with their new homepage and possibly business model.

1) you have to contact Sara from Famous to get her to sign you up. I'd think a company like Famous with access to so many potential customers would have been able to get a bunch of beta testers to try their product before setting up their homepage.

2) I clicked the play button under 'simple' expecting to see a video demonstrating the product, but it just led me to a bit of text describing a 'micro-app', I can't even touch an example micro-app they've created. Same with 'beautiful' and 'elegant'. Nothing here. I may expect that of a company trying to figure out their market, but the expectation is higher here. Maybe it's just me.

<comment><USER4> They didn't really have a business model to begin with, they were one of those "let's create a hype and see what happens" startups, led by a guy who thinks of himself as another Steve Jobs. The problem is that their framework was buggy and not really that high performing (the idea of adding matrix transforms on every single dom element is actually not such a good idea at all). If you really wanted a very animated GUI, native is still the only option. Plus, the whole over-animated GUI trend is also starting to fade (do we really need our apps to look like flash intros of the 90s?). Later I've heard they were aiming for a flash-like IDE for their framework to generate money, this might be somewhat in line with what they're trying now. On reddit a developer who left famo.us only 6 weeks ago said he didn't know anything about this project. So I think that they are running out of money quickly and this is all made up very fast without yet having a real product or example apps.

<comment><USER5> I remember how Apple mocked them when demoing Safari the previous WWDC, heh.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> That's odd... The site seems to be created with webflow.

</comment><comment><USER7> For a company that has raised so much funding for JS animations library and mobile web app performance, you'd think they would be able to get their mobile navigation working properly.

Is anyone else on iOS safari able use their nav?

</comment><comment><USER8> Some jarring mistakes in the copy:

"programatically"

"It's headquarters are at"

"branded to our clients exact needs"</comment>


The Tears of Donald Knuth - <AUTHOR> http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2015/1/181633-the-tears-of-donald-knuth/fulltext <comment><USER2> I find that most history books on technology appear to focus on everything but the technology. For example, books on the Wright bros. show very little understanding of the technical achievement of the Wrights. They enumerate places, dates, and trivia of their personal lives. History books on locomotives contain arcana on the numbers painted on the side, production figures, schedules, and very very little on the engineering advances. Same with airplanes. Etc.

<comment><USER3> Exceptions are rare enough to get called out for praise. A few:

Digital Apollo, by David Mindell (development of Apollo guidance and avionics generally)

The Dream Machine by Mitchell Waldrop (technical development leading up to the Arpanet, thence to the Internet)

Colossus, the secrets of Bletchley Park's codebreaking computers, by Jack Copeland et al.

Unfortunately, there's a lot more of the technically unsophisticated junk that Knuth is complaining about, and the excuses offered here rather badly miss the point. ("The history of software is not the history of computer science". Yes, and so? How does a history of software from which all technical detail has been drained away contribute anything of value?)

<comment><USER2> "Ignition" by Clark is another exceptional exception.

<comment><USER4> Ignition is fantastic and I'm continuously surprised how unknown it is amongst the engine folk at MSFC.

<comment><USER5> Wow, it's going for $3,115.00 (+ $3.99 shipping & handling) on Amazon. Put this next to Sled Driver on my list of books to buy when I win the lottery.

<comment><USER6> We all win the lottery.

[http://library.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pdf](http://library.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pdf)

[http://mirror.xwl.me/Sled%20Driver.pdf](http://mirror.xwl.me/Sled%20Driver.pdf)

<comment><USER7> Would you happen to have a copy of a similarly priced-out book, "How to Avoid Huge Ships"?

<comment><USER6> [https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome- instant&ion=1&e...](https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome- instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=How+to+Avoid+Huge+Ships+pdf&start=10)

Google is your friend and Bob's your uncle.

<comment><USER8> Seems the bots are getting damn creative. Perused the first few pdf links and they were all "spam" pages in PDF form, with embedded download links i don't dear follow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> [1] seems to be the paper Knuth is discussing. [2] is the link for the IEEE, but you're not getting the full text from them. (Weirdly, the top hit for Cambell-Kelly himself is [3], which only has a link to track his research proposals. Warwick's keeping their eyes on the ball, I guess.)

[1] [http://www.thecorememory.com/THTHS.pdf](http://www.thecorememory.com/THTHS.pdf)

[2] [http://www.computer.org/csdl/mags/an/2007/04/man2007040040-a...](http://www.computer.org/csdl/mags/an/2007/04/man2007040040-abs.html)

[3] [http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/dcs/people/martin_campbell...](http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/dcs/people/martin_campbell- kelly/)

<comment><USER10> [1] does seem to be the paper of interest. It's not clear what Knuth is unhappy about. Campbell-Kelly's big complaint seems to be that the early history of computing mentions machines, languages, and algorithms too much, and doesn't discuss applications and users enough. That's a reasonable comment from a historian.

When Knuth wrote Vol. I, "Fundamental Algorithms", there were almost no computer books published other than manufacturer manuals and a few introductory programming language books. Knuth's series is really a history of algorithms, with each one traced back to its originator. The early history is on the record.

We're now inundated with corporate histories, mostly of applications companies. There's a glut of CEO biographies. There are academic papers on the history of the spreadsheet. There's no longer a lack of history on the user- facing side.

This comes with progress in the field. A book-length history of the electric motor, from Henry to Edison to Sprague to Tesla and up to modern brushless motors, would be interesting - to a very small number of people. Popular articles on motors can be found in mainstream publications from 1880 to 1925 or so. After that, they were just routine items, not newsworthy. Low-level algorithms now belong in that category. A few people still have to study how to do hash tables, just as a few people have to study rotating electrical machinery theory and design new motors.

The important thing is not to lose the history. Campbell-Kelly says "we can't save everything". Well, we can. Disk space is cheap. Future generations (of humans and machines) can re-summarize it.

<comment><USER11> What I've seen is that history is saved, and even accessible, but mythology is often stronger than history. Here on HN I've seen people say that Apple was the origin of the garage startup, when that goes back to at least HP, or the Apple was the inventor of profit sharing, when that was a Valley practice predating even Intel. Elsewhere I see people say that PARC invented the mouse, when that came out of SRI, or that Xerox flubbed on the laser printer, when laser xerography was making them over a billion dollars a year in the late 1980s. I see people sell Agile using waterfall as the strawman opponent, as if those were the only two possibilities. (See [http://www.infoq.com/articles/bossavit-agile-ten-years- on](http://www.infoq.com/articles/bossavit-agile-ten-years-on) for one commentary.)

I personally think there's a rebranding of Linked Data as a way to rescue the real-world failures of the Semantic Web dream by saying that all interlinked databases are part of Linked Data and ergo the Semantic Web, and my limited research of the historical record backs that up.

But this knowledge doesn't really affect how most people do business now. (Though we end up with highly paid consultants who peddle a false mythos rather than paying historians for the real information.) It's mostly relevant for those points that Knuth enumerated, which are superb humanistic goals that few beyond the academically secure or retired can afford to advance.

While much can be saved, many things are only in people's heads, or in their personal effects. Doing that history now, rather than waiting, means that more of those can be recorded for the future.

<comment><USER12> And there's other examples of that, less obvious but more pervasive. For example, every single 'first' is mired in definitional issues which all serve to recast previous things in the light of more modern technology. It does a disservice to those older things to only view them through the lens of what we have now.

It's hard to fight because it is rarely based on outright lies, per se, just pervasive misinterpretations which cast things in a false light. Disputing it makes _you_ look like a nitpicking fool picking at things which barely even exist, but accepting it makes history seem like a teleological process, inevitably aimed at today like an arrow aimed at a target, with all previous processes culminating in what we have now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> " _So why is the history of computer science not being written \\(in the volume it deserves\\), or \\(the manner favored by Knuth\\)?_ "

\\\1 Too many principals of said history are still alive, still influential, and still kicking too much to allow much in the way of historical analysis. It is much easier for a historian to stick with a subject where those who remember events are safely dead.

\\\2 It would be improper to expect anyone to write informatively about ideas they cannot themselves understand. And it would be improper (as the author of the article writes) to expect a historian to understand an unrelated technical field.

This is unfortunate, because "history", the preferences of historians notwithstanding, is the story of technology. I do not believe there is any great difference between any of us and some goober fingerpainting on the walls of a cave.

<comment><USER13> Goober had to have been making good, even crucial, use of his mental abilities or we would not have ours.

So, what the heck was Goober doing with his abilities that were crucial? He found the cave, kept out animals that could hurt him, built a fire to keep it warm, built families, found food and water, make tools, weapons, and clothes, etc. Apparently found good uses for his brain.

<comment><USER14> And found the leisure time, materials and learned the skills required required to do some fingerpainting on the side (assuming the subject of the painting did not have practical or religious purposes).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> For scans of much of the historic software source code that Knuth mentions near the end of the video, see:

[http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Knuth_Don_...](http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Knuth_Don_X4100/PDF_index/KnuthDigitalArchive- Index.html)

</comment><comment><USER16> What would it take to get Computer Science departments to view the history of the discipline as an important issue to be dealt with inside the department? Surely the author's right that if the technical history of a discipline is to be done in the way Knuth wants, and I think that is incredibly valuable, it needs to be done by those who understand the discipline.

But can C.S. departments manage that as an institutional matter?

</comment><comment><USER17> Here is the web/non-mobile version (OP posted mobile version):

[http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2015/1/181633-the-tears-of- don...](http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2015/1/181633-the-tears-of-donald- knuth/fulltext)

</comment><comment><USER18> Mirror?

<comment><USER19> [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2015/1/181633-the- tears-of-donald-knuth/fulltext)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Non-mobile version has readable font size and color.

[http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2015/1/181633-the-tears-of- don...](http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2015/1/181633-the-tears-of-donald- knuth/fulltext)

<comment><USER21> Holy crap, thank you. The article linked by OP was hurting my eyes. Who creates a website where the body has no margin? And light-gray text on a white background? What were they thinking?

<comment><USER22> Lack of margin actually helps readability on older mobile devices. Not sure why they'd go with those colors, though.</comment></comment></comment>


Code statistics for Basecamp Next - <AUTHOR> http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3094-code-statistics-for-basecamp-next <comment><USER2> It's interesting to see how few integration tests there are in Basecamp Next. I used to use functional (controller) tests heavily, but in the last year I've switched over to integration tests (plus Capybara) for controllers and views. (I still use unit tests for models.) I really like their power and flexibility, and I've found it convenient and intuitive to test, e.g., a web form by visiting the page and (virtually) clicking "Submit". These are the stats for the current Rails Tutorial sample application (taken from the in- progress book at <http://railstutorial.org/book?version=3.2>):

        $ rake stats
        +</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>----+</comment><comment>-+</comment><comment>-+</comment><comment>---+</comment><comment>---+-----+</comment><comment>-+
        | Name                 | Lines |   LOC | Classes | Methods | M/C | LOC/M |
        +</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>----+</comment><comment>-+</comment><comment>-+</comment><comment>---+</comment><comment>---+-----+</comment><comment>-+
        | Controllers          |   164 |   139 |       6 |      23 |   3 |     4 |
        | Helpers              |    81 |    62 |       0 |      13 |   0 |     2 |
        | Models               |   102 |    58 |       3 |       6 |   2 |     7 |
        | Libraries            |     0 |     0 |       0 |       0 |   0 |     0 |
        | Model specs          |   256 |   198 |       0 |       0 |   0 |     0 |
        | Controller specs     |    29 |    22 |       0 |       0 |   0 |     0 |
        | Request specs        |   555 |   424 |       0 |       3 |   0 |   139 |
        | Cucumber features    |    87 |    34 |       0 |       0 |   0 |     0 |
        +</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>----+</comment><comment>-+</comment><comment>-+</comment><comment>---+</comment><comment>---+-----+</comment><comment>-+
        | Total                |  1274 |   937 |       9 |      45 |   5 |    18 |
        +</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>----+</comment><comment>-+</comment><comment>-+</comment><comment>---+</comment><comment>---+-----+</comment><comment>-+
          Code LOC: 259     Test LOC: 678     Code to Test Ratio: 1:2.6

(Note that "Request specs" is RSpec-speak for "Integration tests".) This is probably a little heavier on the test code side than I would have in an app designed for production rather than pedagogy, but it gives you the basic idea.

Even though there's some minor controversy about testing frameworks in the Ruby community (you can see that I use— _gasp!_ —RSpec), I think it's great that the only way to cause major testing controversy is not to do it.

P.S. I have some reservations about Cucumber, and the Cucumber features are there mainly for _Rails Tutorial_ readers who want a quick introduction to the subject. I don't use Cucumber much myself, although I do have a better appreciation of its virtues than I used to.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I still find myself worrying about the 'app-ness' of lots of JS in a web application. Think it's derived from my web standards background.

Twitter is my least favorite site in this respect.

No idea what this means for of Basecamp Next, as there's no actual code yet, but in my own work I like to make sure that no-JS doesn't necessarily mean no- functionality.

<comment><USER3> Andy, Basecamp Next does not have a one-screen app feel at all. We're still all about separate pages.

But we do rely heavily on JS for functionality, so it won't work without it.

<comment><AUTHOR> In an ideal world I'd like non-JS fallbacks but I'm torn as to whether I'm being too 'old school' or stuck in a 'progressive enhancement' approach more suited to a web site rather than a web app.

I suspect it comes down to the project and the trade offs therein. I'm no code zealot.

I'm presuming you're serving just desktop interface to start as well? No responsive or mobile at launch?

<comment><USER3> The UI has been designed to work great on tablets and it also works pretty well on a phone (albeit a tad crammed). We'll probably do something more dedicated for mobile after launch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wow, only 6334 lines of code? I find that to be shockingly small. It's less than projects I've worked on by myself for 4 or 5 months, which is nuts considering they've (presumably) had 5+ engineers working on Next for a year now.

<comment><USER3> I worked pretty much alone on the code base for the first three months. Then we were two people for another three-ish months. Then the last four months or so we've ramped up the team to have 4-6 programmers on, depending.

But we're also ruthless about keeping the code base small. In the beginning I would go through the entire code base every week and prune it. I still read through the entire thing every now and then and make sure there's no excess fat.

<comment><USER4> Ah, makes sense. I didn't realize you guys keep things so small. Is Next going to have an API when it launches? And if so, do the stats posted include lines of API-related code?

EDIT: And since I'm already asking so many questions, how do you guys feel about supporting older versions of IE?

<comment><USER3> Yes, we're launching with an API. The code stats include those for the API.

We will not support old versions of IE. We support IE9+.

<comment><USER4> Cool. It's pretty impressive to fit an API in there, too. Do you guys subscribe to the method of building your app on top of your own API? Or do you place more of a priority on speed?

<comment><USER5> It's Rails, so presumably the API will be one with the (regular) code for the most part.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> DHH's take[1]: _we have almost as much CoffeeScript as Ruby code!_

[1] <https://twitter.com/#!/dhh/status/164038209267974145>

</comment><comment><USER7> The most interesting tidbit is this:

      Code to Test Ratio: 1:0.8

That seems like an awful lot, no?

<comment><USER8> No, not at all; especially not for enterprise applications.

The current project I work on has 292908 LOC, and Code to Test Ratio: 1:1.1.

<comment><USER9> On the other hand, I work on enterprise apps with 200-500k LOC and maybe 1-2K LOC for test. So "Enterprise" probably isn't a good indicator on test ratios.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Still awaiting the release of Cinco…

<comment><USER3> Don't hold your breath. We haven't revisited the mobile version of Basecamp since we released it and haven't started any other new projects based on Cinco.

I'm not sure when/if we'll have a chance to get back to it.

<comment><USER11> I think I may have asked this before, but would you mind describing a bit about how you foresaw Cinco coming together? What would it have provided on top of Backbone.js + Stitch/Sprockets?</comment></comment></comment>


3 Types of Entrepreneurs: Compliers, Negotiators & Bulldozers - <AUTHOR> http://liadshababo.com/2011/02/entrepreneurial-zeal-and-the-velvet-rope/

<comment><USER2> Quite amusing but sometimes the bulldozer is just a self-entitled jerk who thinks the rules don't apply to them (eg. people who cut in front of lines, people who drive pass a long line of cars waiting to merge and wait until the very end, people who come late to synagogue who KNOW that if you come late you're supposed to wait outside).

Maybe a great example of this is AirBnb. Apparently spam is evil if everyone else does it but not if you're AirBnb. Bulldozing much?

On the other hand, I've "bulldozed" at times and have felt really guilty afterwards. For example, a few friends and I went to a busy restaurant on a Saturday night and the wait was something like 1.5 hours. It was literally a mob by the door. Names are being called out for the next table and I realize that, at times, no one is responding (because they've changed their mind and left). So I waited until a name was called and no one responded in the first 10 seconds, and claimed that name. We probably waited 10 mins total.

We were happy to disobey the rules, cut and sit early but everyone felt a tinge of guilt afterwards.

</comment><comment><USER3> "They don't understand the entire raisin-de-etre"

Just to say that raisin-de-etre should be spelled "raison d'être".

raisin, by the way, means grape ;-)

</comment><comment><USER4> Google Cached copy:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://liadshababo.com/2011/02/entrepreneurial- zeal-and-the-velvet-rope/)

</comment><comment><USER5> While it seems self-evident that a willingness to plow thru obstacles is a good trait for entrepreneurs to have, I think the specific example selected for the article is a poor choice. I have a word for the kind of person that would voluntarily attend and then disturb the religious observances of dozens of people because of a minor, fleeting, personal inconvenience, but it isn't "entrepreneur".

Bulldozing through a velvet rope to gain entrance to a club or restaurant is one thing. Bulldozing through a velvet rope because you were late to the opera or because you want to skip out of rabbi's sermon is another.

(Also, the title is misleading. The point of this article seems to be that there is only one type of entrepreneur.)

</comment><comment><USER4> 1\. There are obviously more that those three types of Entrepreneurs. Hopefully you weren't making that assertion.

2\. I'm a bulldozer, but not because I'm forceful or a bad person. I just see that reality has different levels of rules, and I pay attention to the most important (undeniable, or carrying heavy fines for malfeasance along with a high chance of getting caught) rules. To be clearer:

p(I get caught)*(cost of fine for getting caught) +moralCostOf(thisNaughtyAction)= expected cost of being naughty (taking conscience into consideration).

Some people are willing to pay more to be naughty. Some people overestimate/underestimate the probability of getting caught. Some people have no moral cost for a particular naughty action.

Anyways, there are thresholds that could predict whether or not I'd be naughty, given what I think the expected cost of being naughty is, and how much I'm willing to pay to be naughty in that particular case.

</comment><comment><USER6> My chief gripe with sweeping analogies like this one is that they glorify the irreverent, "disruptive" entrepreneur. It's probably the evocative nature of the word "disruptive" that serves to create and perpetuate this fallacy. And while there's something to be said for seeing opportunity where no one else can, I'm not sure asking entrepreneurs to be "bulldozers" (proverbial or otherwise) makes for great advice.

While the concept of "naughtiness" or that "gleam in your eye" itself is quite subjective and open to much debate on where the line is to be drawn, it would augur well for the community if we tempered our effusive praise for the brash, maverick stereotype with words of caution. Every gatecrasher hasn't had the good fortune of staying until the party was over.

</comment><comment><USER7> site is down?</comment>


Thousands Could Be Deported as Government Targets Asylum Mills' Clients - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/09/28/652218318/thousands-could-be-deported-as-government-targets-asylum-mills-clients <comment><USER2> I can understand going after the lawyers that set this up, that had no problems taking the immigrants' money when they knew they were on shakey legal ground.

But going after the immigrants themselves seems really unfair to me. If your lawyer tells you to do or say something you would generally follow their advice, they're the experts after all.

And then the fact that the person that helped the government go after the lawyers is now having to go into hiding to avoid having these immigrants being deported just seems completely surreal... crazy times!

<comment><USER3> But there is a difference between getting professional help and telling lies

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think asylum is being completely misused worldwide, and is just a cover for general (illegal) immigration. It would be better to stop issuing it and pull out of the UN refugee convention altogether.

<comment><USER5> As a point of fact, if a country grants asylum to someone then it is by definition not illegal immigration. The rest of your points are still arguable

<comment><USER6> This is not a valid statement. Entering a country illegally is illegal immigration, as is overstaying one's VISA. Until they are granted legal entry, it's illegal entry, and they are illegal immigrants. The solution is simple, asylum should only be granted to those with a current legal status. If they enter illegally, they get sent back to their country of origin where they must get in line with all of the others applying. There's a backlog in applications (400K+), but it's because of all of the people jumping the line which interferes with the quotas set for legal immigrants and clogs the system.

<comment><USER7> > here they must get in line with all of the others applying

For most people there is no line to get in. There is a line for close family of US citizens [1]. Employment visas for people with specific occupations, visas for exceptional people, investors etc...

The only thing that the vast majority of people could qualify for is the diversity visa--50k are awarded each year. _But_ you don't qualify if you come from a country that sent more than 50k immigrants to the US within the last year (most large countries).

There are also 30k a year admitted under refuge programs as well, but most people won't qualify for that either.

If you are accepted you need to make 1.5x the Federal Poverty level (other than refugees), pass a background check and a civil surgeons exam.

>but it's because of all of the people jumping the line which interferes with the quotas set for legal immigrants and clogs the system

People "jumping in line" (I assume you mean entering without authorization or overstaying visas) has nothing to do with how long you have to "wait in line" because there is no line for most people to wait in, and people who are waiting in some kind of line aren't held back by people breaking immigration laws.

1\. Spouses, parents and children. Siblings also qualify but the wait is extremely long for most people--up to 20 years for people countries with a lot of immigrants to the US.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Convincing Corporate America to Pay Employees to Travel - <AUTHOR> http://www.we-roam.com/corporate-partnership <comment><AUTHOR> We have been getting lots of traction partnering with employers to provide We Roam as a recruitment, retainment and development tool. While we are working on several different partnerships, our first official one is Hostmaker (hostmaker.co). Any opinions on how else a program like this could benefit a company? Specifically toward millennial talent.</comment>


The iconic iPhone interface tarnishes the legacy of Steve Jobs - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2011/11/iphone_touchscreens_tarnish_the_legacy_of_steve_jobs.single.html

<comment><USER2> TL;DR: lazy ass journalist uses linkbait headline to discuss an idiotic idea of his.</comment>


Drone.io is no longer Open Source (source available, non-commercial) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/drone/drone/blob/master/LICENSE <comment><AUTHOR> Drone.io is a CI system with a minimal and very fast interface, especially in comparison to the monster that GitLab is.

I'd rather have AGPL licensed code or an open-core model with proprietary enterprise features (e.g. LDAP/Active Directory auth), but I completely understand that making money from open source software is hard (see similar changes with Redis/MongoDB).</comment>


Ask HN: How and where to get good quality news? - <AUTHOR> How and where do you get good quality, preferably unbiased news ? <comment><USER2> I up-voted this because it is an important question, a question to which I would love to see some responses myself. Usually, I revert back to [https://news.bbc.co.uk/](https://news.bbc.co.uk/) though lately (the past half decade or so) I have been seriously questioning their lack of bias as well as their quality. I had high hopes for wikinews, but am left disappointed...</comment>


Learning from Code vs. Plagiarism - <AUTHOR> Pop is a new code search tool for Mac aimed at students and other coders who are learning a new programming language or API.
In the marketing we're trying to walk a narrow line between encouraging people to look at existing code and learn from it, without encouraging plagiarism.  (http://etia.co.uk/pop/about/)
Say I want to calculate the interval in seconds between two timestamps, and I'm getting an error on my line of python code:

    start_time = datetime.now()
 If I search for uses of datetime in some open source code and find this:

    start_time = datetime.datetime.now()
 I might learn that the now method is in a subpackage of datetime, itself called datetime. This fixes my problem, and I think that's ok because I've learned where the now() function is in the package namespace, rather than copied anything.
On the other hand if I see code like this

    (datetime.datetime.now()-start_time).total_seconds()
 I've learned that I can subtract results of datetime's now method and that whatever kind of object I get back has a total_seconds method.  But I'm a bit less comfortable.  Any code I write is reusing the algorithm even if my code ends up with different variable names and splits this logic over additional lines.  On the other hand algorithms aren't patentable, so maybe it's ok to use the algorithm.
We don't seem to talk much about this.  I'm convinced we can learn a lot from looking at other peoples' code; architects don't avoid looking at other architects buildings, and authors don't avoid reading other authors books.  It's surely a good way to learn best practice.
Do HN'ers look at other people's code?  Where do you draw the line? <comment><USER2> I think you confuse software development with I don't know what.

All the time we look at other peoples code. See Stackoverflow. If it is only a couple of lines that is also not plagiarism, that is code reuse which in software is encouraged (see DRY principle). If you can take some code (as is) and just change some params that is just using a library or a framework. And libs are usually free to use if they are publicly available. If you just copy the library and say its your work that is plagiarism.

In Software we don't just look at code we take snippets and reuse them (ALL THE TIME), like an architect snipping a windows design out of someone else's plans and reusing them. A couple of lines of well written clean code should be reused. Don't write your own interpretation. Either you have a better cleaner version or not.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's what I used to think too.

But some (admittedly junior) developers I've spoken to said that there was so much concern about IP theft they weren't allowed to look at other peoples' code (I assume Stack Overflow was an exception).

And this link [https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/100081/does- two...](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/100081/does-two-lines-of- copied-code-constitute-plagiarism) is about someone who was accused of plagiarism because of two lines of code.

<comment><USER3> I think the standards in academia are quite different than those in the workplace, primarily because the expected outcomes are quite different.

In academia, the instructors are attempting to tease out your understanding of the underlying concepts. Cutting and pasting even two lines of code from an online source doesn't show the instructor that you understand the concept.

In development, snipping well-written pieces of code is an efficient use of time, assuming the programmer is competent enough to understand the code they just snipped. We reuse common libraries for the same reason; once you solve a problem with a testable, proven solution, it's not a good use of time to have every developer redo that solution.

The main caveat, as illustrated in another comment in this thread, is the issue of licensing. Although I certainly have snipped from good stackoverflow answers, the times I build my own libraries from scratch I often crib from well-proven open source solutions with permissive licenses instead of rolling my own. It should be standard practice (and I recognize that I'm preaching to myself as much as anyone else) to reference those snips, not only for IP integrity but to provide a trail of breadcrumbs for your future self (or anyone else investigating your code) as to where that code came from and the rationale for it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Knuth has an interesting take on this, as he learned by reading programs. He claims if the programs he first saw were too good, he wouldn't have bothered with programming: [https://github.com/kragen/knuth- interview-2006/blob/master/R...](https://github.com/kragen/knuth- interview-2006/blob/master/README.md)

"I read the manuals that came from IBM, and it had; the manuals had example programs in there, and I thought of better ways to write those programs. I thought of, you know, well, okay, this program works, but if you did it this way, it would be even better. And so that's given me some confidence that maybe I had a talent for programming. Now, if the manual hadn't had these bad examples in it, I probably would not have gotten interested in programming, because I wouldn't have this confidence, and I would have been scared and say, oh, I would never think of this.But the fact is, the manuals were pretty stupid, and that's what gave me the confidence that I should think a little more about programming, because I might be, you know, I might be good at it."

</comment><comment><USER5> This is an extremely grey area that honestly comes down to the patent laws of your country, the uniqueness of the code you're reusing or porting, and your intended use for that code.

This is where it becomes important to use open licenses on public projects, as it lets people know "It's okay to use this code" instead of simply putting the source out there and leaving it's intellectual ownership as an ambiguous question.

In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with using code from others' projects or works as long as you're educating yourself or, if used commercially, your use of said code is solving a different problem than the project you took it from. This is just an opinion with no real consideration given towards legal implications.

</comment><comment><USER6> Excepting academic environments or IP issues, what you call "plagiarism" I would call code sharing, and see nothing wrong with it.

</comment><comment><USER7> For personal projects, anything is fair game. Once you're actually distributing your program/library to users, I think attribution for any non- trivial/non-standard snippets or algorithms is a good look (just in the form of in-line comments, possibly in the header comment block). As long as the licensing works out (for example, GPLv3 snippet in GPLv3 project, or CC/MIT in a permissive open project), I see no problems there. Obviously, for closed source or otherwise restrictive software projects (especially when working for an employer), things get more complicated. While you won't likely get caught or called out for lifting a chunk of code off Stack Overflow (which I believe defaults to the MIT license), it's worth reconsidering.

But as far as looking for inspiration in other people's FOSS code? Morally that feels like very fair game. Again, attribution would be nice for an actual algorithm.

</comment><comment><USER8> Reading code is essential to growth as a programmer. I do it all the time, often for pleasure. But reading snippets without context, like you're suggesting, is a common source of bugs in my experience.

So often when working on a legacy codebase, I'll track down a bug to some bit of code that makes no sense, and then search for that code and find it on Stack Overflow or similar. Even examples from documentation can be dangerous taken out of context; I can think of numerous times I encountered this with snippets that had been copied directly from MSDN without understanding.

Given that poorly-understood code reuse was implicated in many of our industry's greatest disasters, maybe the legality isn't what our concern should be here.

</comment><comment><USER9> If you are going to be looking at code a lot more than you are going to be writing it. In most cases you will be looking at code in attempt to ascertain a larger pattern that is being used in a code base so you can follow suite. Looking at code to see how a library is actually used will be the least (very least) of your worries and will become super second nature.

</comment><comment><USER10> i generally avoid looking at other peoples code unless 1) it's written for teaching purposes and aims to teach a concept I want to learn or 2) I have to because i'm having integration problem

I think looking at well-written code is a great way to learn best practices, but I think it's quite hard to do that in practice and probably not the best way.

there's a lot of garbage code out there and even if the code is good, often times you find that it's super out of date (using an old ass version of a language) or the logic is pretty obfuscated by unessential (to you) backwards- compatability / cross-platform compatability checks.

there's also a great deal of context around the intent of blocks of code that you don't have when looking at open source code in isolation in the example you gave. Some lines might seem like nonsense until you read the PR and understand the tradeoffs made at that point in time.

<comment><AUTHOR> What if you're having trouble with an API, you don't look at code to see what kind of arguments a function needs? You just go to the docs? What if the docs are sparse?

<comment><USER10> see my point #2

> 2) I have to because i'm having integration problem

i'll prob go to the docs first and source code last. that said, my point isn't "avoid looking at source code". It's "I don't seek out source code of libraries for the purposes of learning".

if i'm trying to get stuff done, i don't give two shits how a third party tool wrote its fancy functions. that's the point of abstraction.

and most of the time, when i'm using third party tools i'm just trying to get shit done.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Generalizing, but I draw the line between

> "Oh, I didn't think of doing it that way but it makes perfect sense!"

and

> "Uh... Does this do what I want? Guess I'll just copy/paste and see if it > works"

In other words, if you see something and understand what it does and how it does it, then I don't consider it plagiarism.

</comment><comment><USER12> I believe code should be freely shared, and in general (although there must be some upper-limit), the concept of "code plagiarism" is a non-starter for me.

With that said, I would hope that in general people would not copy and paste code. Follow along, write the code, and understand how it works.</comment>


SEO Remains A Viable Marketing Strategy For Anyone - <AUTHOR> http://searchengineland.com/seo-remains-a-viable-marketing-strategy-for-anyone-67141 <comment><USER2> I've seen a few commenters remarking that SEO is a zero-sum game. I hope to refute this to some extent.

Yes, there is only so much room at the top for any given keyword like 'buy Viagra'. Also, there is only so much room in the market for a product like Viagra. (I'm using Viagra because of it's infamous relationship to search engine spam.)

This is true of any market. You have market share, and you have your slice of the pie. Most marketers, entrepreneurs, and economists have gotten past this concept with the acceptance of creating value, or the 'growing pie'. But somehow, the general sentiment towards SEO doesn't make the connection. After all, if you're not in the top few rankings on the SERPs, you're not getting clicks. It makes apparent sense that there is only room for 3-4 'winners' for a given keyword.

The problem with this is that good SEO involves a traffic strategy that goes beyond the single most obvious keyword. There is an unlimited supply of keywords to choose from. Maybe 'buy Viagra' is too lofty a keyword to search for, but 3 minutes of brainstorming could produce other avenues to attract traffic. SEO isn't just the process of optimizing for a keyword, it's in choosing the most relevant keywords to capture the market, including the unrealized market.

 _If you are marketing your startup based on your competitive advantages or differentiating factors, then there is room to differentiate and win with your SEO. It's time for an example:_

Lets say there is only one type of car in the world. There is also a global car market of say, 100 million cars annually. To the casual observer, any new car maker would be competing in a zero-sum game. The only way to sell cars is to take car sales away from the one type of car maker. If you're selling the exact same car, then you have doomed your business. What about a different car? How about a 2 door car. Maybe it gets better gas mileage. Now you have your competitive advantage. Your marketing strategy is now to emphasize how you are different. Some portion of the car market will want your different car. They may even specifically look for a '2 door car', which your one competitor doesn't offer. Imagine an SEO strategy for this new car. You would probably pick keywords that emphasize your differentiating factors ('2 door car', for example). Why would your competitor be optimizing for '2 door car'? You've expanded the market for cars, and similarly have found an uncompetitive set of keywords.

My point in all of this is to say that while from an extremely narrow point of view, SEO could be considered a zero-sum game, but when you broaden your perspective it becomes evident that it's no different than any marketing for a business. In business it's possible to discover and meet new customers without taking away your competitor's customers, and similarly you can optimize and win on keywords without a ranking arms race with the other competitors. Optimize based on your competitive advantages and differentiating factors and you'll do well. If you don't have any such advantages, you've got bigger problems than poor SEO.

</comment><comment><USER3> There are many things I've always disliked about SEO. One of them is the aspect of it which makes it a zero-sum game with respect to a competitor who is also doing SEO. I'd rather spend my time, energy and money on making my product as good as possible, and then maximizing it's potential to spread virally and through word of mouth. What Google giveth, Google can taketh away. Quality wins in the end.

</comment><comment><USER4> Yeah really. The responses here to Chris Dixon's article were pretty negative.* Looks like others agree.

* <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2292901>

<comment><USER5> The funny thing is that anyone can rebut Chris just by citing some examples of companies that started post-2008 and got traction through SEO. But the only companies cited in that entire thread are: OKCupid (2005), Mint(2006), Github (2008) and Stack Overflow (2008). So right away we're down to two examples, neither of which was founded in the last two years and both of which arguably bootstrapped off large existing communities rather than organic web traffic.

Chris is right -- anyone doing a startup better have another way to acquire users than focusing on SEO and organic traffic. The alternative is being black hat and throwing user experience out the window, which is his point.

<comment><USER6> FeeFighters is doing a bang up job with link bait. They will start to reap the rewards in 12-18 mos.

It seems like the people who dislike SEO either a) high a high burn rate and can't wait 18 mos to get a payoff, or b) have investors who can't stand putting money into a marketing activity with such high uncertainty.

Bottom line-- it's no different from PR. High initial expense, uncertain payoff, but sometimes you get monsterous ROI.

<comment><USER5> I like the company and agree that SEO has value. But do you really think "high initial expense" and "uncertain payoff" are characteristics of good marketing strategies for startups? I'd say it's exactly the opposite, and don't think it's a good idea for startups to be doing PR either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> SEO is not a viable marketing strategy for everyone.

</comment><comment><USER8> Sure it is ... <http://i.imgur.com/WDCkI.png>

</comment><comment><USER9> the problem is that everyone is focused on SEO, so new startups have a hard time ranking for anything decent, since all their competitors that they are trying to overthrow have spent decades link building.

<comment><USER10> _new startups have a hard time ranking for anything decent, since all their competitors that they are trying to overthrow have spent decades link building._

It's a rare company indeed that's been link building on the Web since 1991.</comment></comment>


How to fight back against Google AMP - <AUTHOR> https://markosaric.com/google-amp/ <comment><USER2> Big thread from 6 months ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21712733](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21712733). The cutoff for dupes is a year or so:

Fear not, however: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23322730](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23322730) is there to fill your AMP-fighting needs.

</comment><comment><USER3> I disallow my blog from being indexed by Google. While they obviously don't care, and really all it does it deny me a large percentage of my traffic (it's a small personal blog, so it doesn't hurt me), if enough people do it or if even one of my posts gets popular for some reason and people are looking for it, Googles results suffer. This seems like a good protest. I always encourage people to put a "No AMP" link at the bottom of their blog or similar, deny Google in robots.txt, and link it to a post or page that explains why you're no longer allowing Google (this one is good: [https://uglyduck.ca/dear-google- im-blocking-you-from-my-webs...](https://uglyduck.ca/dear-google-im-blocking- you-from-my-website/)).

</comment><comment><USER4> I have to disagree with his final suggestion, lazy loading images for a faster load. In my opinion, unless your page is extremely image heavy, lazy loading images causes more problems than it solves. It's a janky and annoying user experience every time I scroll a Medium post and have to wait a few seconds waiting for a big blurry square to pop into an image. I would much rather that stuff was loading eagerly and ready for me when I scroll.

Not to mention, knowing about their ecosystem, I shudder to think of the size of some of these JS libraries performing the lazy loading.

<comment><USER5> I've got to agree. Lazy loading is obnoxious and unnecessary. Browsers already load images from top to bottom, so unless your site is already extremely slow, you gain nothing from it. It also makes sites _feel_ slower, since instead of reading a paragraph, and scrolling down to see an image, you read a paragraph, scroll down, and find an image loading.

<comment><USER6> > Browsers already load images from top to bottom

Is that true? I believe that they kick off the requests to load images from top to bottom, but I don't think they prioritise bandwidth in such a way that downloading image #3 will never make downloading image #1 slower.

<comment><USER7> That is my understanding as well and I checked mozilla documentation to confirm. [0] That link also covers loading="lazy" attribute for <img> tags, which I've commonly used to defer loading.

[0] [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/im...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/img#attr-loading)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> When I read something like this, I come away feeling sad. It's a well- intentioned essay, written by someone who understands why websites are slow. It pleads with readers to not make their websites slow and preserve their sovereignty on their own domains.

I'm not sad about any of that. I'm sad because the author skips right past a key point: how we got here. Why are websites slow, when there are good reasons to want to be fast? In my opinion, this isn't some kind of cosmic accident. It's not because most people building websites don't care or are incompetent.

Slow websites are, to my mind, a symptom. The disease is that there are economic incentives to do the things that make websites slow. Well-intentioned software engineers and web developers who like fast, light, clean websites are often not positioned to win the political battles required to cut unnecessary elements, third-party scripts, and so on.

Openness and respect for user privacy are wonderful, incredibly appealing things. I don't think I've ever been able to lean on then to convince other parts of a company to forego revenue, reach, or measurability. This could easily be an effect of my limited skills of persuasion.

I hope others have had different experiences.

<comment><USER9> Me too. So many of those postings seem to read "[something] is a problem with [list of ill effects] and I wish it would go away, but I have zero interest in learning about how or why this came to be".

Cf. Chesterton's fence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I just came to despise Google search five minutes ago, when I tried to search for "SpaceX launch" and it did not give link to the official NASA live streaming page, even after I added "NASA" search term. NASA's website was not even on the first page. Mostly various news agencies like New Yorker, WaPo or NYT.

</comment><comment><USER11> Looks like this was the intended URL: [https://markosaric.com/google- amp/](https://markosaric.com/google-amp/)

<comment><USER12> Trying to submit [https://markosaric.com/google- amp/](https://markosaric.com/google-amp/) results in getting redirect to this page.

Trying to submit [https://markosaric.com/google- amp/?dummy=234](https://markosaric.com/google-amp/?dummy=234) results in "Unknown or expired link"

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Define not "How to fight back against Google AMP" :/

</comment><comment><USER14> I think you got the URL wrong there.

<comment><USER15> If only someone could find a way to get rid of URLs completely!</comment></comment>


Paypal's logo designed to look like a recommendation? - <AUTHOR> http://openmymind.net/2010/12/15/Paypals-logo-looks-like-a-recommendation

<comment><USER3> First of all, this isn't PayPal's logo, it's just a button, and if anything "The safer, easier way to pay" may be their slogan. The button itself is just a web graphic that contains their logo. I'm not trying to be pedantic, but to designers/marketers (me), this stuff is important. Think of someone trying to offer the general Hackernews user some insight by discussing some aspect of Microsoft's Internet Explorer _search engine_ \- makes you grind your teeth.

Anyway, to comment on the actual content of the parent, I would say having the PayPal button designed to look like a recommendation is definitely the case. All calls to action should be designed to be as enticing as possible (Within ethical limits of course - stray outside of those and you break the UX.) The really interesting part comes when you ask, "Is it designed to look like a recommendation from the site hosting the button or from PayPal itself?"

I'd say the intent is definitely the former in this case and the button was specifically to designed look like a recommendation from the button's environment as well as an endorsement from the company itself. Is it ethical? I don't know, but I think it's pretty smart.

<comment><USER4> Not sure if I parsed your comment correctly, but I'd just like to clear up that it was my understanding that that's the official button you're supposed to use, not a ploy to drive people through PayPal by me. -humble bundle cofounder

<comment><USER3> Yeah, I get that. Reading it back it's a little fought to discern, but my intent was in fact to convey that all design considerations of the button and the logo was in PayPal's hands.

Congrats on the bundle by the way. It's great product!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In our online store 'The safer, easier way to pay.' _is_ a part of the page. The logo gif and the markup is part of the specs when you implement Paypal. The code looks like this, and came directly from the Paypal implementation guide:

       The safer, easier way to pay.

Edit: formatting

<comment><USER6> Meta: Is the scroll bar behavior in the above comment broken for anyone else? I can click and drag to scroll, but the scroll bar itself doesn't actually move until I release my mouse button. (Firefox 3.6.13 on Mac 10.4.11)

<comment><USER7> Meta reply: Nope, works perfectly for me. I am on Safari 5.0.3 on 10.6.5. Not sure about FireFox but it has always exhibited rather buggy behaviour in certain situations on Mac OS X.

<comment><USER6> Yep, you're right. It works fine for me on Safari.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Removing the antialias doesn't make it look like it's part of the website. It make it look fugly. Come on guys, this is almost 2011, who doesn't have antialiased fonts on their computers these days?

<comment><USER9> Those who can't afford a high dpi LCD screen?

<comment><USER10> I don't get this... I have a 90dpi monitor and subpixel antialiasing on Linux is beautiful.

I should also point out that antialiasing (and subpixel rendering in particular) is _designed_ for low pixel densities. High pixel density monitors do not need antialiasing. (This is why printed font rasterizers such as Metafont do not perform antialiasing.)

<comment><USER9> I've noticed that on some monitors antialiasing looks fantastic, while on others not. My sister's laptop has a smaller screen and enabled antialiased fonts, and they really do look great. But on my Samsung 2232BW, which is a 22" 1680x1050 monitor, antialiased fonts just look really bad.

So maybe it has to do with more than just DPI, but generally I've read that high-DPI screens have no trouble at all with displaying antialiased fonts. (And yes, I have tried numerous calibration tools, with no luck).

<comment><USER11> It's likely they have a different pixel color order. If the subpixels are not in the order the algorithm expects, it will look worse than without aa.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I was surprised that the article didn't comment on the _wording_ of the slogan in the PayPal button. The words 'safer' and 'easier' are comparative adjectives; they create an implied recommendation _for_ PayPal _against_ other options, which are both less safe and less easy. The other buttons don't acknowledge other options -- rather, they merely emphasize speed: 'now' and 'fast'.

If you were a naive online shopper presented with multiple payment options at checkout, with no other information to guide you, you very well might choose the one that is labeled 'safer' and 'easier'.

(And it's worth pointing out that many people don't have a clear idea of what's going on when they click on _any_ of the buttons. It's perfectly plausible that people will parse the PayPal slogan as a recommendation. Think of the infamous Facebook/ReadWriteWeb login incident.)

<comment><USER13> What I ask myself when I see such comparative slogans is why they often say the likes of "the safer and easier" instead of "the safest and easiest". I guess this is basic stuff for advertising pros.

Plausible reasons that come to mind: "safest and easiest"...

\- sounds more open to challenge; it invites the reader to challenge such a bold claim.

\- might put you in a mood to maximize. "Safer and easier", on the other hand, puts in a positive light any improvement over some other alternative, or over what you have currently. Thus it invites you to satisfice and act.

\- sounds more like bragging, like a phrase said from the advertiser's perspective. "Safer and easier" sounds more like an observation from the user's perspective. I'm not sure how to argue this, but it sounds that way to me.

<comment><USER14> I think it's because "safest and easiest" is quite a definite claim - <USER2> would be saying that no other payment method is safer than them, which could lead to claims of false advertising from their competitors. "Safer and easier" doesn't really mean anything at all without knowing what it is being compared to.

But I also agree with your assessment - safer and easier might have psychological advantages

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I think it's also interesting to note the Amazon button. The button has a strong call to action ("Pay now" rather than "* Checkout *") and only mentions the method (Amazon payments) underneath. This (I think) is a good method to get those users who don't have a preference (or don't know the difference) between PayPal, Amazon, or Google Checkout.

<comment><USER16> The Amazon button was also the most appealing to me, because it looks the most like my internal notion of what a "Buy now" button should be. I'm so trained by my experience on Amazon that that's what I click to make the purchase that it's the natural place I want to click to buy--even on a different site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> If anything, it's the Google Checkout graphic that seems to fit better with what he's saying. To my eyes, the Paypal text looks more a part of the graphic that the Google version does.

Of course I could be in a minority but I reckon you could place these logos on a number of modern websites and I bet Google's 'text' would fit the layout style best.,

<comment><USER18> I agree, the Google Checkout tagline looks like it would be more part of the page than the Paypal one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Fox News has a slogan 'fair and balanced' underneath their logo. It doesn't change my opinion.

<comment><USER20> It's a rule I called 'Processed Cheddar Cheese Food'.

When I worked at McDonalds (1st year of university) the cheese slices for the burgers were delivered in a box marked 'Processed Cheddar Cheese Food Product'. I built the rule then and there: _If you have to say it's food, it probably isn't._

I now apply that in the business world. Got a slogan that says 'We're the best' or 'Fair and Balanced'? Processed Cheddar Cheese Food.

There is a fine line. Sometimes you need to make a statement of this nature. A sniff test (bs detector) usually helps in borderline cases. If you even have to ask whether the rule applies, it probably does.

<comment><USER19> I'd imagine the 'food' part of that label might be required by law because the amount of actual cheese the 'food stuff' contains is minimal :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I believe it's intentional that they want you to think their method is safer, etc, but I don't believe it's an attempt to make it look like part of the site.

</comment><comment><USER22> Somewhat meta: why offer a customer three ways to pay? It's confusing; which one do I chose? What if I pick the wrong one?

<comment><USER23> Your concern is legitimate, but you'd have to look at real data to see if the impact of that confusion is outweighed by the impact of forcing people to register for another payments service just to buy your product. I know that I don't want a PayPal account or Google Payments account. Without the option to use Amazon Payments, I would have not bought the Humble Indie Bundle. I suspect many people felt the same about the other payment options.

<comment><USER22> I seem to recall being able to make a payment with a credit-card via PayPal without setting up an account. That was at least a few years ago; is that no longer possible?

<comment><USER23> Probably, but part of the reason I didn't want to register for a new account was just so I wouldn't have to go through inputing all my information again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I thought the same thing when I came across the logos on the page earlier today. Thought it was very smart

</comment><comment><USER25> All good design is intentional by definition.

</comment><comment><USER26> if only they put this level of attention to use on their adaptive payments checkout flows

</comment><comment><USER27> Doesn't matter. Google's got the feature I want. It respects my most preferred form of payment and it damn fast.

</comment><comment><USER28> Rubbish.

<comment><USER29> Care to elaborate why? (If not, just vote down or flag instead of posting.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> why on earth is this rant at the top of HN home?

<comment><USER31> Because it's a post dealing with UX and logo design, two topics that are extremely relevant to developers.

<comment><USER30> I'm still not convinced, the argument is poorly reasoned. The PayPal button might just look oldish style on purpose because that would imply PayPal is the old player (thus more trustworthy) but it doesn't stand out more than the other buttons. Maybe it does look like a recommended choice just because it's the first one in the row.

<comment><USER11> The way I see it (and it was poorly explained, I agree) is that because the text below the paypal button looks like it is part of the host website, rather than the button image, it appears that the website is recommending paypal over other payment options.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


September 9 2001 Assassination - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad_Shah_Massoud <comment><AUTHOR> "The attackers claimed to be Belgians originally from Morocco. According to Le Monde they transited through the municipality of Molenbeek.[122] Their passports turned out to be stolen and their nationality was later determined to be Tunisian. Waiting for almost three weeks (during which they also interviewed Burhanuddin Rabbani and Abdul Rasul Sayyaf) for an interview opportunity, on September 8, 2001, an aide to Massoud recalls the would-be suicide attackers "were so worried" and threatened to leave if the interview did not happen in the next 24 hours (until September 10, 2001). They were finally granted an interview. During the interview, they set off a bomb composed of explosives hidden in the camera and in a battery-pack belt. Commander Massoud died in a helicopter that was taking him to an Indian military field hospital at Farkhor in nearby Tajikistan.[115] The explosion also killed Mohammed Asim Suhail, a United Front official, while Mohammad Fahim Dashty and Massoud Khalili were injured. One of the suicide attackers, Bouraoui, was killed by the explosion, while Dahmane Abd al-Sattar was captured and shot while trying to escape." wikipedia

</comment><comment><USER2> Perhaps the real title [ such as 4hmad 5hah Mass0ud] could be used for this submission. I beleive this post on its own has merit, as it provides partial context regarding the state of world affairs at the time of sept, 2001 that could have fostered a desire for retribution.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, this is my first post. I was had no idea this event took place. Wild to think about all that was going on at that time. I would change the title if I could.

<comment><USER2> Im not sure of the time limitations to edit your own post title. There is a rule regarding editorialized titles, There are two main mods here, dang, and sctb they may be able to fix it. If titles are modified in such a way as to induce clicks into a page, thats not allowed. [i think click farming is the concern] thanks for the reply, now we know you are real.</comment></comment></comment>


Response from Sennheiser about the 555 mod - <AUTHOR>

"Dear St3fan,<p>The HD 595 is a high-end, open, dynamic stereo headphone with outstanding sound characteristics and excellent wearing comfort. It features Sennheisers innovative E.A.R technology creating a new kind of acoustic experience. Also included is a nifty headphone holder with leatherette nesting bow - the perfect home for your HD 595. If you are seeking a new level of audiophile listening, prepare to be totally amazed by the HD 595 , The HD 555 are using the same driver them HD 595 but headband housing is not the same quality the plastic material will not last the same them HD 595,in conclusion the HD 595 made specifics high end use , who want a better sound quality and a better material quality ." <comment><USER2> They should separate their marketing and support departments.

<comment><USER3> Exactly what I thought. It goes from great grammar to absolutely terrible mid paragraph. You can actually spot where the copy paste ends.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This discussion seems misguided.

Reading the mod page, it sounds like it's about removing/adding some foam behind the driver (which is the identical between models) to alter the high- frequency response. Unclear if it increases or decreases the high end signal -- but ultimately whether you like the sound one way or another is a matter of taste. Personally, I find most headphones way too bright, but YMMV.

I have a pair of Sennheiser 480s that i've owned and used regularly since 1989. I've replaced every part except the drivers at least once. For me, paying more money for the 595s for a beefier headband and higher quality materials would make sense because these are a long-term investment. Or at least the 480s were then. Not sure what the build quality is like now.

The idea that they're "crippling" one vs the other like a piece of computer hardware seems to miss the point.

</comment><comment><USER5> It was probably not answered out of Sennheiser USA division but the basic premise is that there's better material being used and you get a leather "nesting bow" for the premium price. Is it worth it? Probably not.

</comment><comment><USER6> Wow! An ad...

<comment><USER7> Not an ad, it's a customer query response to this article:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2214158>

 _This page will show you how to turn a $199.95 (Canadian – Suggested Retail) pair of Sennheiser HD 555 headphones into a pair of Sennheiser HD 595's that cost $349.95_

All you had to do is remove a piece of foam.

St3fan must have emailed them.

<comment><USER6> Oh, thanks for pointing this out! Their reply looks like they missed the point. Huh.</comment></comment></comment>


Fast Radio Bursts from Extragalactic Light Sails - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1701.01109 <comment><USER2> If we are receiving the FRBs, the focused beam must be pointed towards earth. So the spaceships with light sails must be headed in the direction of earth. Get ready for the invasion!

<comment><USER3> Well that's silly. How do they plan to decelerate?

<comment><USER4> You have two sails in concentric rings that are connected, with your craft attached to the outer ring. When you want to decelerate you disconnect the two rings and and tweak the reflection of the inner ring to be somewhat outward focused and give the inner ring a little push. As it moves forward the energy bouncing off the inner ring is directed backwards to the outer ring, which slows. As long as the inner ring reflect more energy backwards (and to the outer ring) than the outer ring is getting from your source the outer ring slows down. Really hard to describe, but easy to draw. First proposed by Robert L. Forward.

<comment><USER5> Images here: [http://www.lunarsail.com/LightSail/rit-1.pdf](http://www.lunarsail.com/LightSail/rit-1.pdf) (pages 5, 7 and 8).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Maybe I'm just crazy but there are a list of things I hope we figure out in my lifetime, and extraterrestrial intelligence is right up there in the top ten.

<comment><USER7> I think that's one of those things that's better to have been born well after (assuming a good outcome) or born well before (assuming a bad outcome). It's really hard imaging the transition as anything other than misery and chaos.

<comment><USER8> Uh, why would proof of extra terrestrial intelligence induce misery and chaos?

<comment><USER7> You're right, I'm sure the billions of deeply religious people would cope with literal proof that we're not a privileged and special "creation". Even worse, they might _not_ accept that.

Plus new tech, new perspectives, old power structures being overthrown, etc... etc...

Things would change, and change is good for the _future_ , but dangerous to those living through it.

<comment><USER9> What is it with tech/science forums and the belief that religious people are crazy, backwards, zealots who would go crazy causing enormous destruction when faced with compelling new scientific revelation. . . this despite the fact that theologians from nearly every religion, including Christianity, Islam, Hinduism have considered extraterrestrial life and claim it does not contradict with their religious beliefs.

<comment><USER7> _What is it with tech /science forums and the belief that religious people are crazy, backwards, zealots who would go crazy causing enormous destruction when faced with compelling new scientific revelation. . ._

[http://www.philipstallings.com/2015/06/the-biblical-flat- ear...](http://www.philipstallings.com/2015/06/the-biblical-flat-earth- teaching-from.html) Leaps readily to mind, along with the current state of Israeli politics, and you know... just a lot of politics.

You're right that lots of theologians are frankly much more impressive than the average adherent. What a pity that we're not surrounded by billions of theologians.

<comment><USER9> When you talk about biblical flat Earthers you are talking about a very small subset of Christians, to claim that all Christians are like them is akin to claiming that all Muslims are like ISIS.

Similarly Zionism is not really a religious view as much as it is a political one. This can most clearly be seen in the fact that orthodox Jews oppose the state of Israel. They correctly interpret the Torah as saying that Jews have had the holy land taken away from them by God and it can only be re- established by God, not by the the act of men. Similarly the Koran says outright that Allah had given the holy land to the Jews, and groups like the Muslim brotherhood and Hamas that seek take Israel are motivated by political, not religious goals.

If anyone is going to create violence and chaos at first contact, it's not religious people but rather politicians that have a stake in a system that exposure to other, more equal or efficient systems may upend and industrialists that have a stake in the technologies that first contact will replace. There are so many other, historically consistent places to look for potential sources of revolt than mere ordinary people (in fact the majority of the human population) who are merely in search of the divine and greater meaning.

<comment><USER7> It's always a "small subset". A "small subset" is rabidly anti-abortion. A "small subset" thinks women should be subservient to men, wear burkas, or stay at home and have lots of kids. A "small subset" thinks the Earth is 6000 years old. A "small subset" thinks that it's just a matter of time before the End Times. A "small subset" thinks that Shia/Sunni is apostasy. A "small subset" thinks gay people are evil, thinks that people shouldn't use contraception, etc... etc...

It's always these little small subsets hiding the allegedly "vast silent majority", but unfortunately they add up, they fight, and they ruin it all for the rest of us. I don't worry about the physicists with faith, I worry about the other 99.9999%.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> extragalactic travel seems to be a really dangerous and difficult prospect. The journey will take millions of years (assuming no FTL travel), and there's basically nothing in between. Even if your species is immortal or something, there's serious risks. You need to bring everything to need for the journey, including energy, because there aren't any stars you can stop at along the way to gather solar energy. You'd have to be very careful planning things so you don't wind up stranded partway.

<comment><USER11> If you're effectively immortal why would you want to hang around the same place forever? You wouldn't. In fact, you might _hope_ for "something to happen" along a 100,000-year trip just to shake things up a bit!

Also, don't assume that alien life is like ours. It could be many orders of magnitude more efficient and in all likelihood isn't even biological in nature if they've reached the point where a million-year journey is feasible. It could just be a bunch of AIs constantly re-making themselves from resources they pass by as they coast through the universe.

They might not even have a destination! They could literally just be a bunch of machines that "live" in space. Floating around from place to place, grabbing resources from asteroids as they go by.

Lastly, in regards to energy: Why assume solar? Once you've reached speed you're not going to slow down much. Just leave the sails open to protect your craft from debris. I'd also expect a _nuclear_ battery in such a craft to power on-board components. There's plenty of radioactive material in space to draw from for renewal as well. You also don't have to worry about disposal! Just toss it towards the nearest star system or asteroid belt and get a bit of thrust out of the action :)

<comment><USER10> I was talking about traveling between galaxies, my understanding is there's essentially nothing between them: no asteroids to mine. So you'd need to bring everything you might need in advance. But maybe I'm wrong, maybe there is a decent amount of debris floating between galaxies?

> They could literally just be a bunch of machines that "live" in space. > Floating around from place to place, grabbing resources from asteroids as > they go by.

Whenever I think of what an advanced civilization would look like, I picture something like this (though not necessarily just machines). Something semi- nomadic, an entire civilization of ships in a big fleet, wandering together through the galaxy, stopping at various systems to gather some resources or explore the planets. Maybe the fleet breaks up and goes in different directions for a time, and rendezvous later.

<comment><USER12> >I was talking about traveling between galaxies, my understanding is there's essentially nothing between them: no asteroids to mine. So you'd need to bring everything you might need in advance. But maybe I'm wrong, maybe there is a decent amount of debris floating between galaxies?

The current thought now is that there's likely quite a few "rogue planets" out there, and other asteroids that haven't gotten captured by a star. However, the density of such things is likely to be so low, and you won't know until you get there what they're composed of, so it seems like a bad idea to plan a trip assuming you're going to stop at a bunch of asteroids and rogue planets to pick up supplies; you'll easily make your trip far, far longer. Don't forget also the big problem in long-distance space travel is speed. If you want to get to a particular star system, you need to get up to speed and stay there until you're ready to decelerate. You can't afford to slow down and stop at a bunch of rocks along the way, and you'll be going far too fast to capture the small ones. Most of your fuel will be used in acceleration and deceleration, so you can really only do that once most likely.

>Whenever I think of what an advanced civilization would look like, I picture something like this (though not necessarily just machines). Something semi- nomadic, an entire civilization of ships in a big fleet, wandering together through the galaxy, stopping at various systems to gather some resources or explore the planets. Maybe the fleet breaks up and goes in different directions for a time, and rendezvous later.

That doesn't sound like an "advanced civilization" at all, that sounds like a nomadic gang. An advanced civilization will value stability, and stay on their home planet(s) where all their infrastructure is located. They may very well send out exploratory missions, but those nomadic wanderers will not be the civilization itself, just one small part of it.

<comment><USER10> > An advanced civilization will value stability, and stay on their home > planet(s) where all their infrastructure is located

My thoughts were that a sufficiently advanced civilization would desire exploration, both for resources and scientific advancement. And you don't want your people spread out too far (for some definition of far), for a variety of reasons, the biggest being the consequences of the delay in communication and travel. For instance, scientists in different solar systems would find in next to impossible to collaborate: it could take years for news of one group's findings to reach the other, at which point they may very well have independently discovered the same thing, which is inefficient. Also, if one of the systems is attacked, or has some sort of crisis that requires assistance (plague, natural disaster, etc), the rest of the civilization would be unable to react in a timely manner. In short, it's safer to stick together.

Therefore, it would make a lot of sense to put your whole civilization into a fleet of ships with all your infrastructure (or maybe a single giant ship, Death Star sized), and move around. You could stay in a single solar system for a few millennia mining resources, or hop around looking for life.

Sticking to one place or a few nearby places is also an option, but I think it lacks certain advantages a fleet civilization would have.

<comment><USER12> >Also, if one of the systems is attacked, or has some sort of crisis that requires assistance (plague, natural disaster, etc), the rest of the civilization would be unable to react in a timely manner. In short, it's safer to stick together.

This is incorrect. This is the "all your eggs in one basket" problem: if you have a big crisis in your civilization, you _don 't_ want everyone in one place, because your whole civilization could get wiped out. A civilization this advanced is likely also a very large civilization, so it makes more sense for it to have different parts in different places, just in case.

As for communications, as the other responder pointed out, a continuous transmission, assuming the data rate is high enough, will help keep the different locations in sync. Who cares if scientists independently discover things? Hopefully a civilization that advanced won't be so worried about patent rights.

As for "hopping around" looking for life, you'll do a whole lot better keeping your civilization in one place (or a few permanent locations better yet) and sending probes or exploration teams to a bunch of different places at once. Moving your entire civilization to only one star system at a time would be horribly slow, and sticking everyone in a giant death star means your energy requirements for transporting your civilization between stars would be ridiculous.

A fleet civilization wouldn't have any advantages besides mobility. You only need that if you have something you're trying to get away from, or have a well-founded concern that staying in one particular place could be dangerous. For Battlestar Galactica, it made sense because they were constantly being chased by the Cylons, and even then, the show did a pretty good job, at least at first, of showing what a PITA it is constantly being on the move. For a large, highly advanced civilization that doesn't have a bunch of genocidal robots chasing it, I just don't see how there's any advantage to remaining highly mobile. Mobility requires a lot of energy and greatly limits you in other ways. For a modern analogy, look at people today who live in RVs. Sure, they can drive their whole home away quickly and don't have to worry much about packing up to move, but they don't have much space, their home is easily damaged compared to normal dwellings, and it costs a lot to move it (because of the poor fuel economy). The only way living in starships makes any sense is if energy is basically free for you, which includes having a way to store immense quantities of it, because you'll need a lot when you're between stars.

<comment><USER10> Hmm your arguments make sense. I think I was overvaluing mobility, because I figured once reaching a post-scarcity society exploration would become the top priority.

My only other point is that the continuous transmission idea only works up to a point. Two populations that sufficiently far (I'd say hundreds of light years, but it could be thousands or millions of light years) apart are essentially different civilizations, because their societies would drift out of sync. Think about how much our culture, our language have changed in the past few centuries, and the rate of change in our society in only increasing. Extreme longevity or immortality might slow down the rate of change, but I'd argue that it wouldn't stop completely.

I guess my point is that civilizations have a maximum radius over which they can function, otherwise societies will drift apart until they are essentially distinct.

<comment><USER12> >Hmm your arguments make sense.

That's something I don't see much on these forums! Thanks!

>I think I was overvaluing mobility, because I figured once reaching a post- scarcity society exploration would become the top priority.

I know Star Trek isn't the most realistic TV show in the world, but I do think it (esp. TNG, esp. seasons 3+ because 1-2 sucked!) did a pretty fair job of showing what a post-scarcity society would look like, though to be fair energy was somewhat limited, but not that much.

In the show, most people/beings in the Federation lived on their home planets, or on colonies. There were a LOT of colonies; it seemed they were shown or mentioned every other episode. Most biological beings, assuming they evolve on a planet, and don't upload their minds into androids or something, are probably going to want to continue something like the lifestyle their ancestors had. In addition, there's huge logistical advantages to having stable facilities on planets. Where does the Federation build its starships? On planets, or in orbital construction yards (most likely, the components are largely made planetside, especially small but valuable ones like their computer equipment, and the ships are assembled in orbital shipyards). Where does the Federation mine the resources needed for ships and other stuff? Probably largely on planets and moons, though not necessarily the ones they live on, but the mines are probably very long-term and stable. And where does the Federation get the antimatter it needs to power its ships? According to the technical manual IIRC, they synthesize it from solar energy somehow, since antimatter is not naturally occurring in this universe. So all the infrastructure their society depends on for exploration (which is what many of those starships spend their time doing) is located in relatively fixed locations. Plus, the number of citizens in the Federation is surely enormous (they have thousands of members IIRC, and Earth alone probably has at least 5 or 10B by that time, depending on how many perished in WWIII and how many left the planet for colonization and of course the birthrate). The number of Federation citizens living full-time on starships is surely a tiny, tiny fraction of the total number.

>Two populations that sufficiently far (I'd say hundreds of light years, but it could be thousands or millions of light years) apart are essentially different civilizations, because their societies would drift out of sync.

That's true, but it really depends on the size of the civilization. If our civilization grew to span the nearest 50 star systems, for instance, they'd still all be within 16 light-years [1]. That's a pretty good-sized civilization IMO, and 16 years isn't _that_ long to wait for a news about what's going on the homeworld (though it also means it's about 32ly between the farthest two colonies). A civilization spanning thousands or millions of ly would either be an incomprehensibly enormous civilization, or one which is really picky about which star systems it bothers with.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nearest_stars_and_brow...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nearest_stars_and_brown_dwarfs)

If you expand that radius to 30ly, now you're looking at probably hundreds of stars. Couple that with the immortality you mention, and assume very stable governments (since a civilization with governments like ours is not going to be spanning multiple star systems, and wouldn't even get far off the planet) and I do believe the rate of change will be much slower so that it's not that big a deal if you don't learn about some interesting news or new music or something from one of the other colonies until it's 50 years old. And don't forget, we consider ourselves (humanity) as having a singular civilization, but how in-sync are we between different nations? Not that much; we don't even speak the same languages much of the time. Most likely, in such a civilization, the different worlds would have different cultures, and there's only be so much interconnection between them, mostly for trade but also probably tourism and such. But I guess now we're getting into an argument over the exact definition of "civilization"; do we have a singular one now, or are the US and China two separate civilizations with trade and cultural exchange? What about centuries ago when communication was all by hand-carried letter or word-of-mouth?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've often thought to ask whether we'd even come up with technology to pick up fast moving objects in space heading towards us even before we have the capacity to travel at those speeds ourselves.

we've always observe things in nature and then replicated them, if we saw something move faster than light that would advance our technology even if it's just by knowing it exists elsewhere.

<comment><USER6> More than once I've been in a meeting where someone said "But competitor A spent 1 Billion dollars building that". And I would quip back "And now we know it can be built and it won't take a billion dollars to do it".

I agree, the real value is know something is possible from there all things related make more sense and many decisions can be made based on that one fact.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Didn't read the article, but it's always fun following these lines of thought. We have no evidence of life outside earth, but darn it...we can't be the only ones here...I mean we can, but that just doesn't sit well with me. I wonder if almost any civilization would end up using lightsails powered by beams or if many skip it in favor of some other technology.

<comment><USER15> It will probably be something similar to this [1] that allows humans/aliens to travel to distant worlds. As per my limited understanding, nothing can move faster than light in space-time, but it seems that it may be possible for a space-time wave to move faster than light. We would just ride that wave.

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

<comment><USER7> Remember that any such device allows you to travel backwards in time. Does it still seem so plausible to you when you realize that 'c' isn't some kind of cosmic speed limit, but _the speed of causality in the universe_?

<comment><USER16> Other than the fact that it seems mind-boggling, is there any reason to believe that time travel is forbidden by the laws of physics, or that causality is an absolute?

<comment><USER10> Time travel isn't forbidden. At least, there are solutions to the Einstein field equations that allow for the existence of wormholes between two points in space-time. But that doesn't mean there are wormholes in our universe, or that wormholes could be created (that last part is a little tricky, it's not easy to talk about causality when dealing with time travel). There could well be other laws of physics that prevent time travel, but general relativity seems to allow it.

<comment><USER7> It's a solution that assumes things like a perfectly uniform sphere of gas collapsing from infinity (Schwarzschild geometry), without any angular momentum. Even then, the ERB isn't traversable. A lot of the talk around wormholes and time travel suffers from map-territory issues.

For example, if you look at the maximally extended Schwarzschild geometry (the Kruskal-Szekeres extension) you see two asymptotically flat regions of spacetime connected by a "wormhole". It's _probably_ just an artifact of the model though, and not anything physical.

A lot of the, "Math allows" stuff probably falls into that category, which is why when it comes to relativistic masses and velocities, you can't ignore quantum effects either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm as Astronomer. I think it's very interesting to read about these kind of scenarios in novels, but I don't think they have a place in a scientific publication.

We are researchers, we try to explain the universe by improving our understanding of the physical processes that lie behind what we observe. The moment we bring aliens or gods into the picture to explain something for which we don't have an answer, we are doing a disservice to science.

<comment><USER16> It doesn't sound very scientific to automatically discount an act of an intelligent being as the source of some phenomenon.

<comment><USER18> What sounds more scientific to you: "we don't know what causes effect A" or "we postulate elves are causing effect A"?

<comment><USER16> "We don't know what causes effect A" isn't science, it's just a statement that we don't know something.

If the elvish hypothesis proposes some experiments for testing and disproving it, then yes - it sounds more scientific.

<comment><USER18> Yeah, but you don't have experimental design for the alien intelligence "hypothesis." This is just emotionally satisfying drivel. There's nothing unscientific about not having a hypothesis when more information is being gathered. The paucity of data on FRBs makes any hypothesis right now almost worthless.

We don't even know for sure that the majority of FRB data we have are from non-terrestrial phenomena. FRB occurrences at Parkes correlate strongly with lightning storms near the observatory.

But sure, it's probably angels or little green men. Why not. That's a hypothesis, you're doing science Jimmy!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>