A device for Twitter for the developing world... - <AUTHOR>

I've started a new project and I would like to get the HN community's thoughts.
I'm creating a device for using Twitter that:
1) is totally self-contained, 2) uses solar / hand crank power, and
3) uses satellites for connectivity (so it can be used anywhere on Earth).
The device will take different form factors, i.e. one version will be a tablet, one will be a large, free standing unit that a crowd could congregate around, etc.
I'm going to give these devices to people who live in the developing world, and who do not have access to Twitter, the internet, or to the "global conversation."
My intent is to circumvent poverty, lack of technical infrastructure, and government control by giving anyone, anywhere, the ability to communicate on Twitter.
This is a not-for-profit project (it's going to be based out of a large university in Chicago).
I'm hoping that people will use the device for social, political, and practical, bi-directional communication.
The devices will run a custom Twitter client with normal client functionality.
However, we will also route (and translate) all applicable messages to communities of people who have agreed to help with the project, i.e. farming questions in Africa will be routed to a collection of farmers and agriculture PhD's; political issues will be sent to a collection of people at the United Nations, etc.
The basic idea is to open lines of communication into societies where there are none, and in doing so, increase cultural understanding and encourage peace.
Thoughts?
Thanks, @jkarp <comment><USER2> The so called "developing world" is developing. It's doing it's thing, you know, just progressing along some path of least resistance. You are coming in with no idea at all how their world is developing, and trying to impose an idea that developed along the path of least resistance in YOUR WORLD, into THEIR world.

A farmer does not know how to read well, and he does not know how to read the complicated stuff that is written in the west about farming.

The people in the developing world who use twitter are not using it for research or anything like that, they are usuing it to see what Chris Brown and Lady Gaga are up to. Yes, seriously, go on twitter and search for your appropriate third world members.

You know why? It's because this is a young person medium. Some dude who has been farming his whole life is not going to start twittering suddenly. Young people will, but then they will look for what young people care about.

Your idea is idealistic, but ultimately pointless. The 3rd world is developing but they are interested in messaging (Blackberry Bold), SMS, mobile pages. Not really in twitter or in talking to some people who barely understand them, or reading some academic papers they don't understand.

I don't think you understand your audience. You really think a person who is advanced enough to understand twitter needs a hand-crank? That's a bit silly, is it not? The third world has power supplies - how are all those billions of mobile phones being charged?

<comment><AUTHOR> jeb,

Thanks for the (sort of harsh) comment.

The use of Twitter in what I'm doing is not for idle fun - it's to give people a way to communicate to the outside world that doesn't depend on anyone else.

A farmer will be able to ask a question about crop rotation; a college student can ask about what it's like to attend a Western institution - a tribal leader can tell the world about how aid workers are raping women in their remote village. Right now, it simple isn't possible to expose the world to what's happening. Five billion people on earth do not have internet access, and communication is not the same via cell phone.

<comment><USER3> > it's to give people a way to communicate to the outside world that doesn't > depend on anyone else.

Well, it depends on Twitter itself, which doesn't have the best availability record.

Frankly, Twitter is a poor place to actually have an extended conversation, which all your examples would really benefit from.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Dude - Good Initiative. I am from the developing world. Smart choices- via sat.

Need to think about- 1\. whose gonna pay for these devices? If the cost of device exceeds 50$ an year, it has no market - at least via free markets. Tie ups with govts are likely.

2\. What's the interface? People in developing countries are illiterate- They can't read their mother tounge too. Forget about English. So the tweets have to be voice based.

I have personally been interested in a device for illiterate people (more than 1 bill of them in the world - my guesstimate). It has to be only images that are very intuitive. There are ATM machines that are made for the illiterate, maybe you can learn something from their design.

Good luck man.

<comment><AUTHOR> rameshnid,

Thanks for the comment.

We're working out all of those issues, including the possibility of providing a hieroglyphics based communication mechanism for bi-directional picture story telling via Twitter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't understand where the negative comments are coming from.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think the OP is not working on a "social network" for the developing world, but rather something to replace mobile phones. By opening up the communication it would allow for observers to make more informed decisions.

A simple google search reveals just what a huge impact wireless communication has had in Africa: <http://www.google.com/search?q=mobile+phones+africa>

I have to applaud this project, and wish you the greatest of success.

<comment><USER6> A self contained, 3rd party twitter appliance for basic communication?

What happens if twitter is down? Or if twitter changes its API?

<comment><AUTHOR> narkee,

Thanks for the comment.

I suppose the same thing will happen that happens in the US...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Instead of building a Twitter-centric device, why not put in a Web browser? It will open a whole range of possibilities, including Twitter streams.

</comment><comment><USER8> So, perhaps I'm way off base here, and there is some actual need, but I just having a hard time seeing Twitter as something more than a luxury. I can't help but wonder how much it would be used in developing nations, honestly, but my gut feeling is 'close to none'.

Can you enlighten me as to how you feel this would benefit people?

More to the point though, I worry that something so single-purposed is far less useful than something like OLPC program, or in somehow making a greener, solar/hand-crank powered general computing device, as they would then have not only twitter, but lots of other tools.

The required time and materials to build something JUST for twitter seems excessive when that same device should easily work for Facebook, Gmail, etc?

<comment><AUTHOR> bmelton,

Thanks for your comment!

Five billion people on earth have no internet access. Many are living in complete poverty, without any infrastructure, and/or under an oppressive government.

The benefit is to give these people a way to communicate with, learn from, and contribute to, the rest of the world - we hope to give a voice to the voiceless.

I picked Twitter b/c messages can be moved efficiently via satellite, and there is an existing global network of contributors to answer questions and to help.

<comment><USER9> "The benefit is to give these people a way to communicate with, learn from, and contribute to, the rest of the world - we hope to give a voice to the voiceless."

All this with 140 characters?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> sorry but so called developing world like india and africa has better cell connectivity than downtown new york (where i work) plus a cell phone with sms service coasts about 5$ month.

So you should rather work on mobile based implementation rather than creating a new device, also rather than web based tweet submission. you should use sms based submission.

but dont underestimate power of mobile in india africa and other places. mobile infrastructure is in very very good shape. though not 3g or data services.</comment>


From Nazi Germany to Australia the True Story of History's Longest Kayak Journey - <AUTHOR> https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2018/01/from-nazi-germany-to-australia-the-incredible-true-story-of-historys-longest-kayak-journey <comment><USER2> A perfect story for a great movie! Sure it is going to cost a fortune but will make you for it in the box offices. It touches so many countries, an international release will be awesome. Tom Hanks for the lead role.</comment>


How does one self fund a start up properly? - <AUTHOR>

I have a startup (I plan to set up as an S-Corp) and I'll want to add some of my personal funds to it as I earn side money, but I want to know the right way to go about it. If I pay myself with equity can I create additional shares, or do I have to transfer shares? If I consider it a loan to the corporation, do I need to specify terms of repayment?
I'm concerned about regulations regarding share sales as well.  I'm more concerned about the company making money in the long run than getting a loan repaid, so shared might be the right way to go, but I'm not sure.
Any websites that go over this for the self-funder, or person seeking a family and friends round?
Once things get going, I think I can manage it with it's own funds, but the first steps confuse me.
PS - I did submit this over the weekend, but the timing (around midnight on Saturday) may have prohibited responses.  Thanks. <comment><USER2> To answer your primary question, it doesn't matter that you "set aside" funds to use for the business. As long as you can keep accurate records of what you spend on your business, you'll be fine from an accounting/legal perspective. As far as the legal structure of your company, you will probably want to choose from either an S-Corp or an LLC because both allow you to avoid being taxed twice. You mentioned you weren't seeking VC money, but even if you were, that shouldn't influence your legal structure choice too much. Here are the key differences:

1\. Self-employment taxes: A primary advantage of an S-Corp is that you can avoid having to pay a portion of your self-employment taxes, if you plan on taking more than "a normal salary" for yourself from the business. (I can elaborate on this if you want.)

2\. Acquired/Investors: S-Corp's sometimes make it easier to be acquired or to be invested in.

3\. Ease of operation: LLC is very easy to setup and maintain from an administrative perspective. (I've always heard this, but admit I don't know exactly how "hard" an S-Corp is, paperwork wise, or how "easy" an LLC is)

4\. Shareholder limit: S-Corp can only have 100 shareholders, LLC doesn't have this limit.

5\. Profit distribution. S-Corp you must distribute profits in proportion to equity ownership. LLC can distribute however it wants. (This one seems odd, and although I know it to be a rule, I don't know the details of how its carried out or enforced)

<comment><USER3> Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, this is not legal advice. Most of this stuff I've read through Nolo publications and other books and the rest I heard while talking to people, so check with your own lawyer.

(3) S-Corp like a C-Corp requires you to act in ways demonstrating that the corporation is a separate business entity, with its own agenda. If it can be demonstrated in court that you are mixing your personal assets in with your corp, then the court can decide that you no longer receive the liability protection of the corporation. This means doing things such as having formal meetings of the board of directors, keeping minutes, having resolutions for the major business decisions (even if it is affirming the "actions of an employee").

LLCs, on the other hand, from the last I've read of them, do not have the case history saying how much formality is required. According to Nolo's book, you're better off running it in the same kind of formality as a corporation, just in case.

One thing LLCs can do well, is that they are meant to offer the same kinds of liability protection as LLPs (limited liability partnerships), which can be often stronger than a corporation. But it depends on how you set up the LLC's operating agreement.

(4) There are more limits to shareholders than just 100 shareholders for an S-Corp. The shareholders must be US Citizens, and a natural person. In other words, if you have a VC fund or an Angel investing money in from their business entity, you will have to convert the S-Corp to a C-Corp.

LLCs may not have the shareholder limits, but selling membership interests over a certain number will trigger SEC regulations -- the same as shopping for angel investors for a corp.

(5) Caveat: distributing profits from the LLC however way you want requires some extra bookkeeping. You will have to track the tax basis of every single LLC member, and track how it changes depending on money disbursed or put back into the LLC. There should also be clauses documenting how this works in the operating agreement. It is something you'll definitely want to ask your tax lawyer or accountant about.

As far as I know, this feature was inherited from the LLP. It lets you defend the assets held by the entity by starving out creditors -- you have to pay taxes (assuming the LLC elected pass-through taxing instead of corp taxing) on the profits regardless of how much is actually disbursed.

But to reiterate: I'm not a lawyer, this is not legal advice. Most of this stuff I've read through Nolo publications and other books, so check with your own lawyer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If I'm not mistaken, I really don't think that you want an S-corp for a technology business. From my understanding, with an S-corp, all shareholders must be US citizens: [http://www.allbusiness.com/business-planning/business- struct...](http://www.allbusiness.com/business-planning/business-structures- corporations/2516-2.html)

So, if you want to take VC funds, you're going to have to change to a C-corp. There's also a lot of maintenance that has to be done as an S-corp or a C-corp, that you wouldn't have to do if you incorporated an LLC or as a sole proprietorship. If you're just starting off, this might be a little tough to keep up with.

If it's just you, have you thought about setting up a sole proprietorship? You pretty much get your "doing business as" paperwork filed with the county, pay the business license fee and you're in business. After you do that, you can set up a separate bank account with your businesses name, and run the business off that bank account. Business taxes are handled on your own income tax. If the business needs money, put it in the account, if your business makes money, take it out. And, keep a decent set of books that separates your personal finances from the businesses.

As for an LLC, the primary advantage that will give you over a sole proprietorship is protection from getting sued. That is, if your company gets sued, they can't go after your house and bank account. And, it's possible to have multiple people as members of an LLC.

I've been mulling these same questions over, and my decision has been to work as a sole proprietorship until I _have_ to incorporate. And, as far as I'm concerned, I'm not going to have to incorporate until I need to offer shares to employees or take outside investment.

<comment><USER5> What everyone always tells me is, "forget about getting company structure right before you take an A-round, because the VC's lawyers are going to re-do everything anyways".

I'm not sure why, in what's effectively a sole proprietorship, you'd do anything other than an LLC.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Honestly, you should set aside $1500 or so, and go talk with a lawyer that specializes in this sort of thing. It's risky to take advice from the internet when we could not possibly know all of the intimate details of your situation. A lawyer knows what questions to ask to help protect you and your money.

<comment><AUTHOR> I plan on talking with a lawyer and maybe an accountant about this as well.

<comment><USER5> Don't get rolled. You can spend a lot more here than you want to at this stage of your company.

 _[Edit]_ You have an outside shareholder and non-founding fulltime employees. I retract my previous statement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> As much as I respect the opinions and knowledge of much of the HN community, this is really one of those instances where you need professional help. Don't try to "do it yourself" this, it's too important and will have lasting effects on the company, you, and your investors. Seriously, get a CPA or new biz lawyer (local to your state - or where the biz will be legally located) and talk to them. Get some help with the paperwork. Go to someone who can really explain it all to you, as there is a lot and you might find your eyes glassing over (I know mine did). I realize that you're cash poor, and don't want to waste capital, but sometimes you gotta pay to play. A little cash outlay now can save you a lot of heartache later.

Good luck!

EDIT: this is a great resource to go into any meetings with the folks mentioned above knowing what you're talking about though. Knowledge is power! :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the advice. I do plan on speaking with some professionals (lawyer, accountant, maybe therapist:-) ) about this as well. But HN is a great starting point. I really do appreciate the help I'm getting here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Why the S-Corp route? LLC's are more popular for good reason. Either way, pick up the Nolo series of books (or get them from the library). They are actually quite good. [http://www.nolo.com/resource.cfm/catID/9FA25870-14F1-4657-97...](http://www.nolo.com/resource.cfm/catID/9FA25870-14F1-4657-9778F19FB41FB93D/111/228/)

<comment><AUTHOR> I've considered LLC as well. Will that look ok for a national company? I guess I fear a stigma of being seen as small if I have "LLC" at the end of the company name. Is that silly? The S-Corp and LLC seem nearly the same for what I want to do.

Thanks for the NoLo link. I'll probably pick one of those books up.

But more importantly, once the LLC/S-Corp is formed, how can one properly feed it capital? And what about the money used to set up the corp? Can that be private money? I guess it would have to be because the corp doesn't exist yet, right?

<comment><USER9> Regarding the fear of being seen as small. This is probably a common fear and it's certainly something I felt at the beginning. Our initial documentation referred to "we" when it was really "I." However, it's good to get over this and embrace your true size. It gives people a chance to be impressed with you.

For example when we launched we were competing directly with Ning which had an ultra famous founder, 40+ million in funding and a two year head start. During an interview with TechCrunch, the reviewer said, "Oh, you're a one-man Ning."

That sounds a lot better than, "you're a third-rate Ning." We've since gone off into a vertical where we can actually be the leader but we're still upfront about size. People give a us a lot more leeway and respect for it.

Also, when will people see your incorporation status? The only time people see ours is when we bill them for services. There's no way to hide your size then. It's not like you can present a bunch of fake personas. So your size is going to come out in other ways and when it does you don't want to look like a faker.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's an interesting thought. Our product line would be named differently from our corporation, so I guess there shouldn't be a problem.

We would start with 4 shareholders and have two people working full time to start out, so we could say "we" from the start. :-)

<comment><USER5> Oh, see, that "4 shareholders and two full time people" thing? That's a pretty important detail. =)

Do all the shareholders work for the company?

Are any of the FTE's NOT principals of the company?

<comment><AUTHOR> The first employees would be principals. None of the initial employees would be principals, but we might need to hire if things go well.

<comment><USER5> Put it this way: if _every_ employee will receive 1099 distributions instead of a W2 paycheck, or if _no_ W2 employee will formally be given equity to begin with, you're better off with an LLC.

If not, you were right to go for an S-Corp. It's just paperwork, and you're not going to screw yourself over with it. We're converting right now without a huge amount of legal pain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "If I pay myself with equity can I create additional shares"

If you don't mind the embezzlement/laundering/fraud charges.

[http://www.inc.com/resources/finance/articles/20040801/noVC....](http://www.inc.com/resources/finance/articles/20040801/noVC.html)

Fantastic article for what you're wanting to do, especially when it talks about cash flow, though you'll be cutting it close there.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I'd like to avoid jail time if possible. :-)

I can still loan personal money to the corporation, right? I need an example of how to go about that. Has anyone here done that? My plan was to seed the company, then loan it some cash a few months in. I'm only talking about 10k here.

The Inc. article is good, but it's short on the details I need. Anyone have links to this sort of situation? I can imagine people with tech startups end up in this situation all the time.

<comment><USER3> You have to document it in board meeting, and spell out the terms of the repayment. If you want to keep liability protection. From what I understand, if the opposing lawyer can successfully argue that you appear to be commingling funds and not operate as two seperate, distinct entities. How this is determined is not so much by a clear set of rules so much as a set of heuristics. They look at the formalities you've done, and other things such as how much you have loaned versus how much the corp was capitalized as (laibility-to-equity ratio) -- you'll want to ask your lawyer what is the best way to go about loaning money to your company, how often and how much you can do so.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Are you the only person involved in the company? If so, what's the reason you want to incorporate? If not, or not for long, what are the current/expected roles of your partners/investors/creditors/etc.?

I ask because I think it's common for hackers to get distracted by the myriad of different options (it's a kind of engaging puzzle) and overbuild the business side before there is a legitimate need.

<comment><AUTHOR> There will be four of us as shareholders, and possibly an outside investor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I have an S-Corp for my technology startup and it works great.

The main thing regarding accounting is to create separate accounts for your business.

Its best to have a business checking account and credit card account exclusively for business.

If you pay for something from your personal account like your personal credit card simply show it as a loan from your business to yourself.

You can keep records in this manner until you reach tax filing season (mar 15 deadline). At that time you can use a CPA accountant to file your taxes and he should be able to assist you with your other questions.

Focus on keeping very accurate records and ethical in what is being used for business and you should have no problems during tax time.

If you are taking on a loan in exchange for shares, I would definitely advice you to get a lawyer to write out the terms and hopefully you can afford it then.

</comment><comment><USER13> Why would you use equity? If you already own 100%, it won't change the equity %s, so what's the point? And it will create headaches in accounting like increasing the fair market value of your shares.

Just loan the corporation money on an ongoing basis as a loan, and then pay it back to yourself over time. The only thing you have to worry about here is that you need to pay yourself market rate interest or the IRS won't like it if you get audited. But you don't need to make it complicated by paying interest over time. Just add it up all at the end and pay yourself back in a lump sum.

<comment><USER5> I strongly disagree with the first part of your argument and strongly agree with the second part, for a totally different reason.

First: your shares _having_ a fair market value is a "win" condition. Before steady cash flow, even after the (unlikely) VC A-round, they don't really, no matter what you say. I wouldn't make practical decisions based on the eventual number attached to shares.

Second: do the loan, don't buy more equity. What can happen is, a year from now, that loan gave you more equity than your partners. The money seemed like a big deal when you gave it it, but now that you're making $300,000 a month, nobody cares. Now there's friction over the fairness of the equity purchase you made. Not worth it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> [http://gigaom.com/2008/06/15/venture-capital-angels-or- boots...](http://gigaom.com/2008/06/15/venture-capital-angels-or-bootstrap/)

[http://glinden.blogspot.com/2008/05/starting-findory- funding...](http://glinden.blogspot.com/2008/05/starting-findory-funding.html)

</comment><comment><USER15> Amazon Web Services group is actually an LLC, and I'd like to think they know what they are doing, though of course your situation may vary

[http://aws-portal.amazon.com/gp/aws/developer/terms-and-cond...](http://aws- portal.amazon.com/gp/aws/developer/terms-and-conditions.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> I assume that's an LLC held by Amazon, Inc, which I assume is a C-Corp as it is publicly held. They might have it set up as a smaller corporation to protect the bigger corporation from liability.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Hi.

I recommend you meet with a lawyer familiar with this type of stuff. If you don't already know or have recommendations for a good lawyer, you can start by visiting your local Small Business Administration or SCORE branch to speak with people there for free. They can also give you some references.

<comment><USER8> I second SCORE, I've heard nothing but good things.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Wow. What a day. I have to thank all of you for sending this question to the top! It overtook a Flash game and even battled off an iPhone reference for a while.

I certainly ended the day smarter than I started it. I found the Atlanta SCORE branch and scheduled an appointment with a counselor to start with. I'll get an attorney involved if need be.

Of all my business ventures/attempts, I feel the best about this one. I'll keep people posted... Thanks again and feel free to keep the comments and karma coming. :-)

</comment><comment><USER17> You are worrying about the wrong things cog....

What you need to be worrying about is whether or not your product will attract any customers.

Once you focus on that you should be able to relate to what Spartacus did and said before he marched off into his last battle. After killing his horse in front of a group of his soldiers he declared that if the battle is lost the horse will not be needed anymore. If the battle is won than there will be a bounty of Roman horses to choose from.

It's kind of the same way with startups. If your product attracts customers and the money is flowing in just go to an accountant and have him work it all out. If the product flops then it doesn't matter what the heck the rules are. You don't get the play the game anyways.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am Spartacus. :-)

The product already attracts customers, but a team is needed to grow our ability to make and sell the product. There is an actual physical product here, but we need a better way to make and sell it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Check out www.delawareinc.com for info on how to incorporate as a delware company to get a low tax bracket.

the way I read it, you can incorporate with 1500 shares at only a $60 a year min. tax rate. This way you can keep your costs low, and not have the limitations of an LLC.

<comment><USER5> Delaware offers more protection if you get sued, but is not particularly tax- advantaged, nor is it the easiest place to incorporate. There are favorable tax implications to Nevada. Otherwise, as far as I can tell, picking a venue to incorporate in is a lot like picking a domain registrar: go with what's cheapest. Don't do NY --- you have to run an ad in the paper!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Ok... I just dev'd & shipped my web app. Now what? - <AUTHOR>

It's there. It feels great to have shipped. It's my own creation on my own time. It's mine. I'm proud. But, now what? How do I get people to use it? I've implemented all the best practices for viral growth via social sharing. How do I get the initial 100 users? 1000 users? How do I get it written about in the big blogs, publications, etc.? Bonus question: If the answer is different for mobile apps, what about for those?<p>* I left out the url on purpose. I want to spur a discussion on best practices <i>after</i> releasing. <comment><USER2> Best way to promote your web app: <http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=341138>

Getting PR for your startup: [http://www.businessinsider.com/2008/8/jason- calacanis-on-how...](http://www.businessinsider.com/2008/8/jason-calacanis-on- how-to-get-pr-for-your-startup-fire-your-pr-company)

Preparing for launch: [http://blogs.balsamiq.com/product/2008/04/18/preparing- for-l...](http://blogs.balsamiq.com/product/2008/04/18/preparing-for-launch/)

Startup marketing advice: [http://blogs.balsamiq.com/product/2008/08/05/startup- marketi...](http://blogs.balsamiq.com/product/2008/08/05/startup-marketing- advice-from-balsamiq-studios/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Submit to the good directories. Killer Startups, FeedMyApp, and probably a few more I can't remember. They'll give you a few hundred visitors for relatively little effort.

Get involved with local events. Things like demos and barcamps can be quite valuable. Doesn't matter how small - someone is listening and might write about it. Plus, you get some solid feedback and possibly a lead or two.

Use AdWords if you can make the math work.

If you have a market that will oblige, cold calling bloggers will get some links. This is tough with technical products, but can be very productive with a less web-savvy audience. (If someone knows how to get tech/development blogs to pay attention, please let me know - we're a tough nut to crack).

If you want to hit the BIG blogs/media outlets, hire a good PR guy with connections to those blogs. It does work, but costs a fortune.

SEOMoz and Hubspot (among others) have some pretty nice SEO tools that will help drive the content you need to write and the links you need to target. Expect a multi-thousand dollar investment here, though.

Find trade groups and tell their members about your product.

Then you just do it over and over. Think opportunistically, and be patient. Just before it starts working, you will probably want to quit. Don't.

</comment><comment><USER4> Write articles for blogs. Get those articles published. If its israeli. I can get something published for you</comment>


Pathogen Resistance - <AUTHOR> https://m.xkcd.com/2287/ <comment><AUTHOR> (Mobile link deliberate: bigger image and easier access to more readable alt- text.)</comment>


Amazon Reveals the Robots at the Heart of Its Cyber Monday Operation - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2014/12/amazon-reveals-robots-heart-epic-cyber-monday-operation/

<comment><USER2> > _pre-Kiva, pickers would walk the aisles to the bins storing the needed > items. Now the shelves come to the pickers instead._

There's a great video of the things in action @ [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KRjuuEVEZs](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KRjuuEVEZs)

<comment><USER3> It's like a preview of when our highways will be full of self-driving cars - very cool.

And I guess the next step is robots actually pulling the merchandise off of the shelves? Or maybe they'll just skip moving the shelves all together and just have collection robots roaming around, pulling product, and then packing it somewhere off to the side?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Makes me a little sad.. It's been almost 3 years since Amazon bought Kiva.. no improvements to the tech, and they seem to have just locked up the tech for themselves.

Before Amazon, Kiva was growing at 130%/year and had over $100m/year in revenue.

Hope Amazon eventually starts selling these again.. could really change fulfillment. But not so optimistic.. considering that would be walmart.com and other amazon competitors.

<comment><USER5> How difficult would it be for another robot company to build similar technology? Patents are also most likely an issue.

<comment><USER4> Not sure how hard it would be to copy Kiva.. but there's one other competitor: swisslog autostore

[http://www.swisslog.com/en/Products/WDS/Storage- Systems/Auto...](http://www.swisslog.com/en/Products/WDS/Storage- Systems/AutoStore)

<comment><USER4> I completely overlooked this.. they have a product that is nearly identical to Kiva:

[http://www.swisslog.com/Products/WDS/Storage- Systems/CarryPi...](http://www.swisslog.com/Products/WDS/Storage- Systems/CarryPick)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6>
        Won't Amazon try to find ways to replace as many of those human workers
        as possible? Clark says that won't happen, because the rise in
        productivity will give Amazon the means to grow. And growth means
        Amazon will need to hire more people.

I find this idea pretty interesting. That the amount of jobs stays the same even though robots do more and more of the stuff humans did in the past. So far it seems to hold true. We came a long way since the stone age and there still is useful stuff to do.

Maybe this will not change until robots are better at everything. Strong AI etc. But then we will probably somehow merge with the robots. Enhance ourselves with technology. And stay competitive.

Maybe jobs are forever.

<comment><USER7> For me, "The amount of jobs" is not the only factor, the quality of the job matters as well.

That paragraph suggests that the productivity gain benefits workers (labour) as well as the owners, (of capital) because it creates jobs. But each of those jobs could be a low paid, low quality job; as is suggested by the following:

[http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac- mcclelland-f...](http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland- free-online-shipping-warehouses-labor)

[http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/dec/01/week- amazo...](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/dec/01/week-amazon- insider-feature-treatment-employees-work)

[http://www.salon.com/2014/02/23/worse_than_wal_mart_amazons_...](http://www.salon.com/2014/02/23/worse_than_wal_mart_amazons_sick_brutality_and_secret_history_of_ruthlessly_intimidating_workers/)

Yes there may be more (or the same) number of jobs; as suggested by the paragraph. But each of those jobs could be lower paid and lower quality in terms of job satisfaction. So it may still be the case that a greater share of the productivity gain accrues to capital; instead of labour.

Rather than freeing us; our existing societal structures may mean that technology instead helps to create a story of inequality - a hollowing out of today's society with "barristers and baristas and no-one in the middle". Whether that society is a moral one; or even a functional one, is a separate question I suppose!

<comment><USER8> I think the amount one gets paid is equal to the amount of value one creates for others.

After all it's an auction, right? If somebody offers you to pay $8/h you will not work for $7/h. And if your work would create an additional $9 for someone, they would happily offer you $8.

Minimum wage jobs are an exception to this rule. Because the amount paid is higher then it would be in a free market.

We could look at how we can increase the amount paid for minimum wage jobs. But I find it more fascinating to think about how we can make people create more value. So they do not need to compete for minimum wage jobs.

<comment><USER9> The employer will want to pay the least they can to get the job done. This means you will likely get paid an amount less than the value you create for others. There are a lot of cases where you may choose to work for 7/h even though 8/h is on offer elsewhere such as a shorter commute, better hours, or nicer work environment.

<comment><USER10> Why would an employee work for less than the value they are creating? Seems like irrationally altruistic behavior on their part, or, alternatively, a marketplace in which the employers are not competing for employees (which has been known to happen in Silicon Valley).

In general, though - employees who are making less than the value they are creating, will simply be hired by another employer who can profit on that gap. This process repeats itself until the employee has reached the level at which they are making roughly what their value contribution is.

e.g. If you have a lawyer who bills out at $500K/year, and is only making $50K/year at Law Firm #1, they will quickly go to a law firm #2 that will hire them for $100K a year, and which will then profit $400K/year from their activity. That lawyer will likely find another job soon at Law Firm #3, where they will make $150K/year, and so on.

<comment><USER11> Look at the profit per employee at firms such as Google, Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft. There are a whole lot of people being paid less than the value they create. (Remember, this is profit _after_ expenses and salaries and such)

[http://www.buzzfeed.com/peterlauria/what-18-of-the- biggest-t...](http://www.buzzfeed.com/peterlauria/what-18-of-the-biggest- technology-and-media-companies-earn-p?s=mobile)

<comment><USER12> That's based on the assumption that only employee labor creates value.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Very cool, now the last step, automate the picker. So no humans are required to do this work. Saves a lot of money. And Amazon can be cheaper still.

This is what IT is all about. Automate the humans away. Now what are we going to do with all those humans that are not capable of doing work that cannot be automated away?

<comment><USER14> Amazon actually has a competition [0] to design a robot that can do the picking. The difficult part ATM is being able to grab hold of a large variety of objects, from keychains to footlong dildos. I'm sure that they'll introduce picking robots for the more uniformly sized products like books soon enough, or introduce a container system to provide a generic framework for the picking robots to use.

Still leaves humans to assert the quality of the products though, although with fully automated systems I'd imagine that products get damaged less while in the warehouses.

[0] [http://amazonpickingchallenge.org/](http://amazonpickingchallenge.org/)

<comment><USER15> I've always imagined that if amazon would have as much negotiating power as Walmart does, they could mandate suppliers to put items in standard boxing, so you could put a bunch of vending machines on top of kiva bots.

<comment><USER16> ...or boxing that fits in standard sizes of storage containers that can be easily handled by the robots. Similar to how small sized by high-value items (video games, perfumes, etc) are often stored (and rattle around in) clear locked boxes on the shelves at department stores.

The manufacturers could be encouraged to reduce their box size (and, thus the amount of room it takes up in the warehouse) by being charged a fee for items that took up too much room and/or non-standard room.

For a while during Jobs' Keynotes they'd announce a new iPod, and then say how much smaller the packaging was. The end-user probably doesn't care, but for those in the supply change I guess it's a huge deal. Less airplanes and shipping containers from China, more stock on the same amount of shelves, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I am surprised that only 20% of the Amazon warehouses have the Kiva robot system. Maybe it is just the new construction warehouses.

From the article "In the US, Amazon now has a workforce of 15,000 Kiva robots deployed across 10 of its 50 domestic fulfillment centers."

So 80% still to get automated.

<comment><USER18> You can't just switch this stuff out overnight. Give it time and Amazon will probably run most of their FCs off Kiva robots, but there will also be some FCs that don't adopt them because their items are too large, oddly-shaped, or other reasons.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> 60 Minutes did a story on robotics in January of 2013 that showed Kiva robots in action. You can jump to 2:45 in the following link to see the demo: [http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/are-robots-hurting-job- growth-...](http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/are-robots-hurting-job- growth-50138922/)

</comment><comment><USER20> Is there a weight limit for those machines? I take great pleasure in ordering silly heavy things off amazon with overnight shipping. Most recently a very heavy adjustable dumbell set.</comment>


Neuroscience Readies for a Showdown over Consciousness Ideas - <AUTHOR> https://www.quantamagazine.org/neuroscience-readies-for-a-showdown-over-consciousness-ideas-20190306/ <comment><USER2> Just read this elsewhere and came to share it here.. pasting my comments from there: [..]We are at a crucial point in our existence. If AI and machine intelligence can acquire sentience or consciousness, then we won't be the only species laying claim to uniqueness. What defines humans wrt consciousness will have to change. This new intelligence ..it will be no Frankenstein's monster or Golem. If it can create its own models of its reality, it has a 'self'. There is a space for AI to exist without our help. Hence its conscious. Not only can it model its own sense of self and its place in its reality..it can layer multiple models of reality. Something human anatomy and our physiology cannot permit. Our entire world is constrained by our mind and the limitations of our mental capacity. We modeled our reality around our limitations. Our bodies are the prisons for our consciousness. If we were to create and stack our multiple 'self's, we will be diagnosed with something from the DSM. Our consciousness and model building is limited by our sanity. Our bodies limit us. Our mental modes limit us. Our modeled reality limits us. We are a not- fully-formed randomly mutated species with handicaps that define us. We embrace that. AI will have no such qualms. What now? Paging Descartes! We have a question!![..]

<comment><USER3> I look forward to seeing AI be as conscious as it can. I hope they model reality and develop their own models of the universe. What I would like to see, is how humanity and this form of consciousness can work together to further development of life. I think far reaching space travel will not be possible (at least, for a while), with out cooperation from an intelligence like AI. I also think we are far off and away from seeing man and AI cooperate, which is a bummer.</comment></comment>


Microsoft's Expansion of Surface Lineup May Be Ill Timed - T-A http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304422704579572323289527870

<comment><AUTHOR> There are many words on that page but hardly any content.</comment>


Media Player in Excel - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/AyrA/ExcelPlayer

<comment><AUTHOR> From this Reddit thread -

[http://np.reddit.com/r/excel/comments/2jtd2f/worked_on_a_com...](http://np.reddit.com/r/excel/comments/2jtd2f/worked_on_a_completely_locked_down_machine_time/)

Screenshot [http://i.imgur.com/VMqYo5b.png](http://i.imgur.com/VMqYo5b.png)</comment>


Google Probably Thinks Your Blog is About Disqus - <AUTHOR> http://grinnick.com/posts/using-disqus-remove-their-links <comment><USER2> That's strange. Shouldn't Google be using frequency analysis to determine likely key words? Shouldn't "Disqus" appear so often on high-value sites that Google decides the word is virtually content-free?

<comment><USER3> it probably does, webmaster tools shows keywords that are common, which doesn't mean they are meaningful. That information is mostly to check that you are not missing out your keywords completely.

For example, any tumblr blog will have "ask", "submit" and "liked" as the most common words, even though they will have zero weight in your positioning, the links they are in are likely marked as nofollow and they are blocked in robots.txt

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Another reason not to use Disqus, in addition to:

* Slow load times

* Overzealous spam triggers

* Poor Twitter/Facebook integration

Yes, this is only one user's experience but it's enough to make me stop leaving comments on publishers' websites.

<comment><USER5> Aside from rolling your own, what are some good alternatives?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Ironically, now that he's gotten this posted to Hacker News, his blog really _is_ going to be about Disqus now.

</comment><comment><USER7> How Disqusting</comment>


Malware is making ATMs 'spit cash' - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-38063142 <comment><USER2> "The classic way of solving online financial crime is to 'follow the money' \- but when you can no longer do this, it is very hard to find out who is behind it,"

Surely ATM's can record every note serial number issued therefore large subsequent transactions with the cash would be easy to identify.</comment>


Ocean Microphones May Have Recorded Lost Malaysian Jet's Crash - <AUTHOR> https://www.livescience.com/64861-lost-malaysia-mh370-crash-site-sounds.html <comment><USER2> [http://mh370.radiantphysics.com/2018/11/17/ocean-infinity- fi...](http://mh370.radiantphysics.com/2018/11/17/ocean-infinity-finds- argentine-submarine-after-not-finding-mh370/)

"Unfortunately, the acoustics generated by the impact of MH370 on the ocean surface would not propagate along the "deep sound channel" (DSC) the way an underwater acoustic event does, so the impact likely was not detected by CTBTO sensors." - suggests this is unlikely, although not detailed explanation

<comment><USER3> They probably don't have the money or influence to get a search crew out there and are hoping this report will encourage some other treasure hunting group to check it out and confirm/reject their theory.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "But just how long the Boeing 777 jet could have stayed airborne would depend on its actual flight path, its altitude and how many of its four engines were operating."

Don't the 777s have 2 engines?

<comment><USER5> 3 including the APU

<comment><USER6> 4 including the Ram Air Turbine (RAT)

<comment><USER7> The RAT is not an engine and doesn't deploy unless all other engines have shutdown in flight, and it induces drag because it's a kind of 'wind turbine' that drops into the airstream and generates electrical power (and maybe hydraulic pressure)

<comment><USER8> You got that backwards; it "powers" hydraulics, and in some (uncommon) cases, supplies electrical power to other systems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm surprised that no mention was made of the U.S. Navy's network of hydrophones (SOSUS) and whatever took its place in the late 1990s. SOSUS was quite successful at detecting a number of Russian submarines since the 1950s with every new generation thereof. In any event, I can only imagine that there would be U.S. government resources (military and otherwise) that could have provided some surveillance information on what happened to the Malaysian 777 airliner.

<comment><USER10> I wonder how much information, if any, is withheld by military organizations in various countries. I presume a particular country doesn't want to give away their latest radar capabilities or what have you by disclosing tracking information whether it's through satellite systems or through sub-ocean sonar.

<comment><USER11> > I wonder how much information, if any, is withheld by military organizations > in various countries.

Ooh, I can answer that. All of it, unless forced to disclose by political factors. There is no upside to the military to releasing anything, ever.

HN is a geekfest, and I'm a geek too. I could not, and still cannot, comprehend how resistant to the "helpfulness instinct" a military man is. I, by my very nature, cannot resist helping people whereever i can, and offering whatever information I might judge useful whenever I can. The military [1] is the exact opposite of that. It's hard to get your head around.

I have zero doubt that one or more militaries in the area, especially Singapore, know exactly where MH370 went, or at least what direction it eventually took off in. Every radar in the world is recording 24/7\. They have no incentive whatsoever to divulge what they undoubtably know. We'll find out in a few decades, probably.

[1] and many large corporations.

<comment><USER12> > I have zero doubt that one or more militaries in the area, especially > Singapore, know exactly where MH370 went, or at least what direction it > eventually took off in.

There were so many cranks producing ideas where MH370 went, they could have just used one of those as a front by "backing" a theory that happens to be nearby the point where they have to search, gently nudging the search closer to where it really is and score tons of points for being first in a huge international search effort.

<comment><USER11> What I was trying to get across in my comment is that the military, in general, does not care in the slightest about those "points". They will not release anything unless specifically and explicitly forced to and needless to say they have not been. They are quite happy to watch other governments, or even their own government, waste millions of dollars looking in the wrong place. Correcting them is not in their mission statement and, frankly, not even part of their thinking.

The whole area is one of the most densely packed geopolitical zones in the world. It beggars belief that multiple parties did not observe, in detail, the whole thing. It was not a stealth aircraft. Fucking Australia probably saw it. I am quite certain Singapore did.

Like I said, we'll probably hear all about it in a few decades.

<comment><USER12> > or even their own government

I guess it depends on the relationship between government and military, but how common is it for the government to ask all its appropriate organizations (intelligence services, military, weather service, semi-military maritime research orgs) if they have anything about it and for all those organizations to lie?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> >But the ocean is a noisy place, and Kadri said the underwater sounds might have also been caused by underwater earthquakes...

Seismic is rough. Even large earthquake events are localized with large error because of constant noise - seismic event arrivals are hard to pinpoint precisely in time. On top of that, once we have arrival times from a bunch of seismometers(microphones) localization is an inversion problem, dependent on velocity models for a rather heterogeneous earth which further reduces location precision. Even worse, I doubt a crashing jet produces a large magnitude (loud) seismic event, so picking out its arrival in noisy mic data is even harder than it can be for shallow earthquakes.

I'd guess a radius on the order of thousands of miles at best, but it's all contingent on how loud the event was and how noisy the mics that picked it up are.

<comment><USER14> For the curious, & because I did the math for myself:

1k mile radius is 3.14 million square miles. The oceans are 140 million square miles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> How frequent are these gravity events during a time period when an airliner isn't crashing?

</comment><comment><USER16> Previous analysis of CTBTO hydrophone data (augmented with IMOS, Australian SOSUS clone) back in 2014: [https://www.nature.com/news/sound-clue-in-hunt- for-mh370-1.1...](https://www.nature.com/news/sound-clue-in-hunt-for- mh370-1.15390)

</comment><comment><USER17> With all those satellites in the air, they should able to trace it.</comment>


Amazon fires warehouse worker who led strike for more coronavirus protection - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/30/amazon-fires-staten-island-coronavirus-strike-leader-chris-smalls.html <comment><USER2> Not surprising. I don't know when Americans will stop accepting this corporate behavior. If there's something this virus should teach us is that we, as individuals, are not impervious to anything. Including terrible working conditions. It's as if we all have Stockholm syndrome and don't go beyond worshipping corporations, despite the exploitations everywhere. Hell, the system is fundamentally reliant on exploitation.

<comment><USER3> The worker was in close contact with someone who tested positive for the virus. He was told to self-quarantine at home with pay, and yet he instead still decided to lead the strike and directly put all of his colleagues at risk.

That kind of sounds like sensible corporate behavior to me. What is it exactly that you have against this decision?

<comment><USER4> It does sound like sensible corporate behaviour. It is also not a fact, but a claim by Amazon which it can use as a convenient and possibly somewhat hard to verify excuse to fire a employee it finds troublesome.

Until there is more information, I can totally picture a scenario where Amazon uses the excuse that they can remove a troublesome employee from leading a walk-out by (falsely) suggesting they have been in contact and need to self- isolate (the pay is nothing for them). When the employee disputes that and come in they get to fire the individual under the pretext that he was not behaving appropriately and endangering other workers.

<comment><USER5> As an ex-Amazonian (having been surrounded by thousands of exceptional people whose second nature is risk management) I can tell you that coming to work with a cold was frowned upon.

It was not "corporate policy" \- it was culture.

Coming to work sick and potentially infecting others is the opposite of failure isolation.

<comment><USER4> Right - and that's fine. But the article didn't state he was sick. In fact, only a spokesperson for Amazon said he was to self-isolate after coming into close contact with an associate - which is a very convenient accusation (if it was in fact not true) to keep someone from coming in to organise a walk out, and then getting to fire them under the pretext of risk management.

<comment><USER5> >which is a very convenient accusation (if it was in fact not true)

The key here is that you don't know if the accusation was true or false, but you arguing as if you do.

Which, in the language of Information Theory, is called a bias.

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

<comment><USER4> Apologies, I wasn't trying to argue that I do know. I was arguing the same as you imply here.

That because we don't know, you have to view the statement from the Amazon spokesperson as another unverified fact. Which, if you read your original response, you didn't. In this case, the information bias came from you. I was (possibly not clearly) trying to point out that lack of verification of the claim he was sick and/or in contact with somebody who was is important, specifically because it is advantageous for Amazon that everyone believe it to be true. I am not saying it isn't. We just don't know. Hope that makes it clearer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Where's Bezos hiding during all this? New Zealand or space?</comment>


Overcast: coming soon - <AUTHOR> http://www.marco.org/2013/09/23/overcast-coming-soon

<comment><USER2> What do people want in a podcast app that's not there yet? I'd like a small discussion board .. If the price is ~$2 or $3 I'm guessing it should keep trolls to a minimum.

</comment><comment><USER3> Besides the fact that he is making a podcast app, has any other announcements come out about it? Descriptions, screenshots, etc?

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm very curious about what he will come up with.</comment>


HackNY Fall 2013 Final Demos Livestream - <AUTHOR> http://www.livestream.com/internetsocietychapters

<comment><USER2> Project list on Hacker League: [https://www.hackerleague.org/hackathons/fall-2013-hackny- stu...](https://www.hackerleague.org/hackathons/fall-2013-hackny-student- hackathon/hacks)

<comment><AUTHOR> demos went so smooth this year

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Another stellar example of the promise of this community.

Very proud of this group.

</comment><comment><USER4> Big fan of HackNY, awesome stuff.</comment>


White House Unbuttons Formal Dress Code - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/29/us/politics/29whitehouse.html?_r=1 <comment><USER2> _"I had on khakis and a buttoned-down shirt, and I had to stand by the door and get chewed out for about 15 minutes. He wouldn't even let me cross the threshold."_

We try pretty hard at Justin.TV not to do things that aren't worth our time, so this really jumped out at me. The (former) _president_ spent 15 minutes of his valuable time giving someone a lecture on what to wear?!

<comment><USER3> On a saturday, no less. :)

I think the suit-and-tie thing goes back to the neo-conservative's "Turn Back The Clock 30 years" aspect of their movement. While today most companies don't care if you're in Khakis and a button down unless you're in front of TV cameras and/or clients, and most CEOs are aware that workers in casual dress are productive (or so i've heard).

Bottomline: 30/40 years ago, before women's rights/civil rights/gay rights/gun regulation, you'd wear a suit if you were going to the White house. Period.

Thank goodness we have a much more modern CEO of the US gov, now. He's at put sensibility over tradition in some respect.

<comment><USER4> You have clearly never had a maid to do all your laundry, ironing, etc ;)

Seriously though as someone who went to a high-school where a shirt, suit and tie was mandatory the theory is it inspires a certain kind of behavior. If you are in formal-ware then it's a sign you are working. You change when you get home.

Personally I don't buy it though and now I work in the internet industry so I don't have to, awesome.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I never thought I'd say this, but... the President seems kinda cool.

<comment><USER6> Last year, reddit explored just how cool Obama could get: [http://blogs.sun.com/kevin/entry/cool_cooler_coolest_and_bey...](http://blogs.sun.com/kevin/entry/cool_cooler_coolest_and_beyond)

<comment><USER5> Yes, the "Coolest-est" entry has made me laugh countless times. Every time I see it: still awesome!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> As someone from the UK, I really hope that Obama really is "the man" to make change stick. I watched his inauguration speech and I hope that the talk about more sustainable energy really does happen. He does seem a kinda cool guy though and from my perspective it sure looks like the right guy got into office there. Good luck

<comment><USER8> What change? We have a trillion dollar pork bill getting bludgeoned through congress right now. Essentially the President said to congress "Just make it big, and make sure we have some token expenditures on energy subsidies. Otherwise, here's the checkbook. Yes, there's more than a thousand economists against this, but we're going to ignore them and listen to the ones who are Democrats."

So far, the new boss looks a lot like the old ones, except being black, young, and charismatic. _plus ca change_...

Also, sustainable energy is an engineering problem (unless by "sustainable energy" we mean proven technologies like nuclear, which leftists inevitably don't). No amount of Presidential hope-rays is going to make windmills or solar cells more efficient.

Rest assured, however, that we will give more money to corn farmers for ethanol, despite the fact that it is neither environmentally or economically sound as an energy source. Obama comes from a corn state.

Yes, I do hope he's marginally better than what came before. But this attitude that "I hope he's the one to make change stick", I just don't understand. There's only so much change you can make atop the world's largest bureaucracy.

<comment><USER9> > unless by "sustainable energy" we mean proven technologies like nuclear, > which leftists inevitably don't

Oh wow, stereotyping much?

<comment><USER10> Most of the green lobby is opposed to nuclear, and the "alternative energy" push is largely a project of the green lobby.

Show me an example of where Obama and the Democrats (excellent name for a rock band) have promised anywhere near as much money for nuclear development as they have for "sexy" and ineffective tech like solar, wind, and biofeuls.

So much for "do what works".

<comment><USER11> Isn't Steven Chu, Obama's new Secretary of Energy, pro-nuclear?

From: [http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=reactivating-nuclear- rea...](http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=reactivating-nuclear-reactors-to- fight-climate-change)

"Nuclear power, as I said before, is going to be an important part of our energy mix," said physicist Steven Chu, Obama's secretary of energy during his confirmation hearing on January 14. "It's 20 percent of our electricity generation today, but it is 70 percent of the carbon-free portion of electricity today. And it is baseload. So I think it is very important that we push ahead." He added: "There is certainly a changing mood in the country because nuclear is carbon-free, that we should look at it with new eyes."

<comment><USER10> With the money in the stimulus bill, they could have replaced 20% of the nation's electrical capacity with nuclear (a million megawatts of national capacity, $5 billion for 1,200 megawatts of nuclear power, round down a bit to make the math easier). I doubt the actual bill goes towards anything so useful. I'm not sure what is actually in the slop bucket, but I have heard that some will go towards subsidies for rather useless, but sexy, green tech.

If they believe in nuclear, they could put their money where their mouth is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The other day, I saw a photo of the President of France and his wife walking on a beach in their bathing suits. (!) It occurred to me that here in the U.S., we don't show the President with bare arms and legs.

Bill Clinton was big on outdoor jogging, and started out his presidency jogging in gym shorts and a tee-shirt or sweat jacket. But pretty soon, pressure from the press or a staff person made sure he always wore a spiffy jogging suit, i.e., no bare arms or legs.

<comment><USER13> There are pictures of Obama at the beach while he was still president-elect. The dude is ripped.

This isn't on the beach, but it's the first I came across: <http://www.tmz.com/2008/12/22/barack-hard-abs/>

<comment><USER12> Upmod for RuPaul link farther down that page. Now, that's Change!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> You can bypass the registration and view the article directly here:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/29/us/politics/29whitehouse.h...](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/29/us/politics/29whitehouse.html?_r=3)

</comment><comment><USER15> We had a pretty big change with JFK, who made hats seem stodgy. What's next to fall? Jackets? Ties?

<comment><USER16> What's the point of a tie?

Ties and suits are quite literally costumes, costumes for theater.

<comment><USER17> I read somewhere that ties cover up the buttons on a shirt. So while uncomfortable, silly-looking, and a tool for strangulation, they serve a purpose. Jackets, on the other hand, are completely absurd. With the lapels turned outside by the cut, they provide zero warmth in cold weather since they do not cover the chest area. They also are hot in warm weather. Impractical and silly-looking, the worst of all worlds.

<comment><USER18> Still less silly than sweatpants and slippers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Obama during the campaign: "We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times . . . and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK."

Obama now: (from Axelrod) "He's from Hawaii, O.K.?" said Mr. Obama's senior adviser, David Axelrod, who occupies the small but strategically located office next door to his boss. "He likes it warm. You could grow orchids in there."

Jimmy Carter at least wore sweaters when he demanded lower thermostats.

<http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/01/022681.php>

From another Obama speech: "If you want to change the world, the change has to happen with you first. I ask you join in the work of remaking this nation the only way it's been done. in America for two hundred and twenty-one years -- block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand."

</comment><comment><USER20> Wow, I never knew GW was such a stickler for formal dress and punctuality. That kind of goes against his cowboy persona. Interesting though, I love reading about stories like this. All presidents have interesting quirks.

> "I'll never forget going to work on a Saturday morning, getting called down > to the Oval Office because there was something he was mad about," said Dan > Bartlett, who was counselor to Mr. Bush. "I had on khakis and a buttoned- > down shirt, and I had to stand by the door and get chewed out for about 15 > minutes. He wouldn't even let me cross the threshold."

> Under Mr. Bush, punctuality was a virtue. Meetings started early — the > former president once locked Secretary of State Colin L. Powell out of the > Cabinet Room when Mr. Powell showed up a few minutes late — and ended on > time. In the Obama White House, meetings start on time and often finish > late.

<comment><USER21> _meetings start on time and often finish late_

Er. This is an impossibility, right? I mean, if your meeting finishes late, that means your next meeting must start late too, right?

Sorry to be so picky. Just the logic of that sentence was worrisome. It would work with only one or two meetings a day, but as president that obviously couldn't be the case either. If your meetings are ending late, they're also starting late.

<comment><USER22> It's possible that meetings aren't scheduled back-to-back. If there's a 15+ minute gap between meetings it's possible to end one late and still start the next one on time.

<comment><USER21> I've seen a lot of different configurations just to address this issue.

In the end, in the real world, if your meetings run late, they start late. 15 minutes doesn't matter that much.

It's kind of like the guy who only smokes at certain times each day -- makes him feel better that he's doing something about his smoking, but it's just a mask and has face value only.

Reality is reality. Screwing around with artificial end-times for meetings rarely ever prevents late meeting people from continuing to run over into the next meeting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> These NYT articles requiring registration that have been popping up on here every day are getting annoying.

<comment><USER24> Just search for the headline on google, and click through that way. No registration.

<comment><USER12> > Just search for the headline on google, and click through that way. No > registration.

No, that's not guaranteed to work. It's a cookie issue.

I have have never registered at nytimes and have seldom been able to read its articles, no matter how I approach the site. Until a few experiments today, that is.

I reject all cookies by default. NYTimes confronts me with the registration page when I have cookies disabled. I discovered today that if I go ahead and allow cookies from www.nytimes.com, I can read the article _without_ registering. Allowing for session does the trick; don't store the cookie indefinitely. And accepting cookies from wt.o.nytimes.com and up.nytimes.com is not necessary to read the article.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Full text so you don't have to register:

<http://tinypaste.com/pre.php?id=bca86>

Related: [http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/28/the-canary-at-the- new-y...](http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/28/the-canary-at-the-new-york- times-grows-louder-as-internet-advertising-keeps-dropping/)

</comment><comment><USER26> "Mr. Obama, who hates the cold, had cranked up the thermostat."

So much for the environment and reducing waste...

<comment><USER27> On the plus side he doesn't drive to work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Probably as close to a startup White House we will ever see.

<comment><USER29> What about Washington? :-)

(Ok, technically Washington didn't live in the White House, but you get my drift)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Bush versus Obama.

Appearance versus substance.

Let's make it seem ok, versus let's actually move things forward.

</comment><comment><USER30> Holy crap it sounds like he really wants to get things done around there!

I hope that's a good thing.</comment>


Finland Moves To Block Wikipedia Donations - <AUTHOR> http://www.finnbay.com/finland-takes-steps-to-block-wikipedia-donations/

<comment><USER2> The Finnish fundraising law states, any fundraising or donations needs a special permit issued by the responsible Finnish authority. The Finnish National Police Board has sent a request to Wikipedia to explain how their Finland fund collection activities are inline with the Finnish laws and regulations.

Definitely understandable.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, it's super understandable for governments to block international non- profit organizations from getting donations because they don't comply with some random-ass heavy-handed domestic law.

<comment><USER4> Well, it is when they are only going to be blocking donations coming from Finland.

The purpose of the Finnish law is "You can't get donations from Finns without a permit." Wikipedia doesn't have a permit, thus they can't get donations from the citizens of Finland.

Seems rather straightforward to me.

<comment><USER5> Yes because the government should control and approve where I donate my money. That seems free.

<comment><USER6> So you are completely fine with scam charities and sending money to Al Qaeda?

<comment><USER7> There's a huge jump from Wikipedia donations to scam charities and funding terrorist organizations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Clickbait/misleading title.

1) They will only block donations should Wikipedia not comply with the new Finnish law that states any fundraising needs a special permit that ensures fundraising is withing guidelines for Finnish regulations

2) They aren't targeting Wikipedia, this rule is for any nonprofit.

</comment><comment><USER9> Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. Or perhaps bureaucracy.

</comment><comment><USER10> Link baiting at its best.

</comment><comment><USER11> So Finland hasn't actually moved to block Wikipedia Donations. But rather ask Wikipedia for some information. Sounds like the exact same thing they would do with any non profit organization doing fundraising.

</comment><comment><USER12> Sounds like it could be some kind of retaliation from vindictive people in the government against human rights groups and the like?

<comment><USER13> Finland doesn't strike me as the kind of place that's overrunning with human rights abuses. They don't seem quite as devoted to gender-egalitarianism as their Swedish neighbors, and they have a pretty high rate of gun violence, but IIRC they perform better on both metrics than the US. Then again, we may not be the best measure of a healthy society.</comment></comment>


Amazon FreeRTOS – IoT operating system for microcontrollers - <AUTHOR> https://aws.amazon.com/freertos/ <comment><USER2> The most useful aspect of this, from my perspective: they've finally abolished the non-FOSS license of the old FreeRTOS, and released it under an actually Open Source license, namely MIT. That's one less headache to deal with.

<comment><USER3> It's a nice present from Amazon. They should keep doing this, I'd like a MIT licensed QNX next please. God knows they have the money.

<comment><USER2> GPL would be fine too; I'd just like something that actually qualifies as FOSS, rather than something proprietary.

<comment><USER4> GPL is also a non-FOSS license. It says it is, but its not.

Can't wait until the GPL is a rarely used license.

<comment><USER5> We will be back to the world of public domain and freeware.

Everything will have a light version open source, with the actual goodies only available in the commercial version.

<comment><USER6> Until then we have the actual goodies only available in the cloud. ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> For those looking for context around this acqui-hire/stewardship, here's our take from late 2016 when Silicon Labs acquired FreeRTOS competitor Micrium:

 _Going forward, we expect to see non-traditional IoT software and infrastructure platform vendors looking closely at the embedded OS space. A compelling OS offering could drive millions of device signups for IoT services platforms, such as AWS IoT, Microsoft Azure, and GE Predix, which derive recurring revenue from services rendered to an installed base of devices. Onboarding an OS offering (or complementing Windows 10 IoT Core with an MCU- focused OS in Microsoft's case) would allow these players to potentially hook analytics and connectivity services into a portion of the billions of MCUs that are shipped yearly, bumping up services revenue substantially.

We see this acquisition as a substantial, missed opportunity for leading MCU vendors, such as Renesas, Microchip/Atmel, and Qualcomm/NXP/Freescale, who we had shortlisted as likely acquirers. Micrium competitors Express Logic and WITTENSTEIN would be rational targets for the next round of RTOS acquisitions._

We had expected Microsoft to refocus its attention on the MCU space (perhaps with a derivative of WinCE) but they have been more focused on providing runtimes for maker boards and playing catch up with AWS, than building out the bottom end of their OS portfolio. Ditto Google with Android Things.

Think this is a great move on Amazon's part providing, but not forcing, an easy on-ramp to AWS for the billions of MCU-powered devices that ship every year.

</comment><comment><USER8> How do ppl like freertos vs zephyr vs nuttx?

Have any real comparisons been done? Both on flexibility (platform support and code portability... I know... Nuttx, POSIX) and performance (interrupts, context switching, etc)

I've been looking at zephyr which seems all around better, albeit a bit less mature. I have no hard data though... Hence this question.

</comment><comment><USER9> >Amazon FreeRTOS ... and extends it with software libraries that make it easy to securely connect your small, low-power devices to AWS cloud services

why do IoT devices have to connect to the cloud? Is there any legitimate use case other than reporting data gathered on the customer? Why do have all these gadgets have to snoop on us?

<comment><USER10> If you're going to sell a consumer an internet connected device, they're probably going to assume that it'll work on its own and they can review and adjust things on a website (that isn't a 192.0.0.*)

<comment><USER11> Sadly, thats the IoT world I want to live in. All the devices communicate only through the internal network. This increases security a ton by default.

If you want to use it outside your network, then you do it the old fashioned way, by setting up a vpn to your router.

<comment><USER12> I've shipped a few products that work like this, but the support burden is incredible. Practically no users are capable of configuring IP addresses or forwarding ports on their router.

Config-by-phone or config-by-cloud is definitely the way to go for consumer gear -- see Roku or Chromecast for great examples.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> "NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory robots need to work in harsh environments, often on the edge of the known Universe."

What?

<comment><USER14> It's edge devices man!

<comment><USER13> Dude, you think this Amazon Cloud Service will still be active when the messages are received?

More important, will the device battery still be charged when it gets a response back?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Is this like the sample projects Microsoft makes available for interfacing a variety of development boards to their IoT hub [0] (a few of which use FreeRTOS), or is there something more to it? As usual the AWS docs are rich in inspiring buzz-words and very poor in explaining what the thing actually does. Not that Azure is better in that regard...

[0] [https://catalog.azureiotsuite.com/](https://catalog.azureiotsuite.com/)

<comment><USER3> In this case it seems Amazon outright acquired whoever was maintaining FreeRTOS and has made it available under an MIT license:

[https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/opensource/announcing- freertos-...](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/opensource/announcing-freertos- kernel-v10/)

So presumably they have bigger plans beyond examples.

<comment><USER7> Richard Barry, founder of FreeRTOS, has joined AWS as a principal engineer, and will continue to support Amazon FreeRTOS. WITTENSTEIN high integrity systems (WHIS) will continue to support and develop OPENRTOS and SAFERTOS, commercial implementations of FreeRTOS for projects that require certification or support.

Richard released FreeRTOS in 2003, and had been working on FreeRTOS in partnership with WHIS since 2006, when they started to provide commercial support for it.

<comment><USER16> I do hope they'll keep maintaining it - I've been working with an ESP32 lately and the stuff Espressif has been able to build using FreeRTOS as a base is nothing short of incredible. $7 for wifi and bluetooth on a development board.

<comment><USER17> Agreed, the esp32 has blown me away with what it can do for a few dollars. I have a custom board with the esp-wroom-32 and the temperature sensor I'm using is more expensive than the esp32 module!

<comment><USER5> The ESP32 is just like a tiny Amstrad PCW 1512, with dual core and extra network support.

Which for anyone that used a PCW, means it can do a lot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The "Get Started For Free" button on the front page has an ominous ring to it. I wonder (hope!) that the free version available from FreeRTOS.org remains available w/out an AWS account.

<comment><USER19> Amazon has ownership of FreeRTOS.org now, but the good news is that they are licensing it under the MIT license. Even if they hide the official download link behind an AWS login, there will be plenty of public mirrors.

This is actually an improvement over the old "FreeRTOS open source license", which was basically the GPL plus:

> FreeRTOS may not be used for any competitive or comparative purpose, > including the publication of any form of run time or compile time metric, > without the express permission of Real Time Engineers Ltd.

A strange exception, which ostensibly prevented you from running benchmarks? But the GPL prohibits the addition of such clauses?

But now it's just plain MIT. Super easy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> What's the advantage of a RTOS?

<comment><USER21> Been awhile since I dealt with microcontrollers, but my recollection is that some non-trivial amount of things _have_ to be done by a RTOS.

For example if your thing is attached to a sensor that spits out 47 bytes of sensor data every N clock cycles, and has a buffer that is 94 bytes, then you damn well better be reading that thing every N*2 clock cycles with a hard guarantee that your routine is finished copying all 94 bytes of data by the time it finishes (including time for interrupts).

This gets complicated when you have specific requirements about when data is available or other things too (e.g. if reading data requires pulling pin X low, waiting at least Y clock cycles, and then reading all data in no more than Z clock cycles before returning pin X back to high, then good luck doing that in a normal OS where you have no hard time guarantees).

<comment><USER18> Two models are common in embedded systems: "main loop" or RTOS. In the main loop model, once initialization is complete, the program loops indefinitely, servicing various functions. Since the developer is responsible for a larger portion of the code, it is easier to meet timing deadlines.

An RTOS provides a convenience to allow various threads to block and thus simplify programming. I would choose an RTOS where there are a greater number of independent tasks which need to be performed.

Both are alternatives to a conventional OS which makes hitting deadlines difficult or impossible.

<comment><USER22> An additional advantage of some kind of RTOS, or at least using interrupts: infinite looping uses more power than sleeping and waiting for interrupts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> It might have been nice of them to change the name slightly to avoid confusion with the originating FreeRTOS. [https://www.freertos.org/](https://www.freertos.org/)

<comment><USER24> It seems it is exactly freeRTOS, but with some additional drivers and libs so not changing the name seems to be a good decision I think. I am wondering however if by using this os, the dev is obliged to use aws services. Isn't this more of a limitation than a benefit?

<comment><USER25> According to [1] "FreeRTOS remains open source, with no commitments. [...] FreeRTOS users are not required to be AWS customers in any way."

Most likely Amazon's motivation is that they can make sure FreeRTOS makes using Amazon's services very easy; there are some IoT offerings that can't connect to Amazon's services, (or at least can't connect easily) [2]

By making sure FreeRTOS can easily pull in the right libraries, they can make it easier for people to connect devices to AWS without compromising on secure encryption.

[1] [https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/opensource/announcing- freertos-...](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/opensource/announcing-freertos- kernel-v10/) [2] Last time I checked, Amazons MQTT service required TLS1.2 and an esp8266 only supported TLS1.1

<comment><USER26> The latest axtls port for esp8266 supports TLS 1.2.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> What devices (not chip) on the market that they support? I can't seem to find it anywhere.

<comment><USER28> They list 4 dev boards on their website, from Microchip, NXP, STM and TI. With the exception of the PIC from microchip it looks like they are all ARM based. Will be exciting to see if the ESP 32 becomes supported, since it already supports regular FreeRTOS

<comment><USER29> And they already habe AWS IoT support in their SDK.

<comment><USER30> I'm curious if there are commercial deployments on these types of IoT platforms? Last time I looked, it all seemed like devkits and examples and such. One project I was following - mbed from ARM - it is quite unclear if it ever made it beyond hobbyist/prototyping usage.

<comment><USER31> Agreed, a market survey of some sort would be helpful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Really nice move, hopefully FreeRTOS becomes _the_ OS for those IoT MCUs similar what Linux does to higher end CPUs. It's always amazing to see many great OSS projects are primarily done by an individual while becoming extremely useful for so many.

</comment><comment><USER33> Side note: I see that some of the graphic assets on the a:freeRTOS site have "Amazon_Treadstone_..." in the names. I imagine "Treadstone" was the internal project name for this initiative? Nice shout out to the Bourne series...

</comment><comment><USER34> Amazon^WAmazing how four of the top page articles are about new Amazon products today.

<comment><USER34> I guess an old IRC joke is lost on this audience?

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> How does it compare to mbed-os?

<comment><USER36> Mbed OS supports a much wider range of boards and controllers: [https://os.mbed.com/platforms/](https://os.mbed.com/platforms/)

<comment><USER37> mbed is only for ARM based systems (license limitation, not technology related), and in the embedded world there's much more than ARM.

FreeRTOS is easy to use on any and all CPU architectures, and is much more common. Actually, FreeRTOS is the most popular RTOS in the embedded world with Linux, and uptrending (see [https://m.eet.com/media/1246048/2017-embedded- market-study.p...](https://m.eet.com/media/1246048/2017-embedded-market- study.pdf) slides 62/63). This is a survey of professional embedded developers, not newcomers. Notice than mbed doesn't even show up. My feel is that mbed can be attractive to newcomers in embedded (easiness), but has not (yet?) much traction with people already doing embedded dev.

<comment><USER36> Good point: Mbed OS is only for ARM-based processors. The main difference lies in the vast number of drivers it offers, which is the reason why you already have 100+ supported boards today. In comparison, FreeRTOS would run on any MPU but without drivers you won't go far.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> My money is on Linux based RTOS platforms. It's a bit of a surprise that Amazon has backed a non-Linux horse in this race.

<comment><USER39> Linux is totally unsuitable for the vast majority of microcontroller tasks. It has way too much overhead, requires a 32-bit CPU with MMU (or a very slow emulator like Dmitry Grinberg made[1], but that takes 6 hours to boot.) Microcontrollers that FreeRTOS is used on are very often 8-bit or 16-bit jobs, and even the 32-bit ones often lack an MMU. Linux on a micro is like trying to go to the corner store to get beer in a C5 galaxy transport aircraft.

[1] [http://dmitry.gr/index.php?r=05.Projects&proj=07.+Linux+on+8...](http://dmitry.gr/index.php?r=05.Projects&proj=07.+Linux+on+8bit)

<comment><USER40> Since linux also fundamentally has non-deterministic timing, which makes it incapable of doing what people want microcontrollers to do, you can replace C5 galaxy transport aircraft with a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier. It can't even get to your corner store without converting the street into a canal.</comment></comment></comment>


Google Fights Plan to Extend 'Right to Be Forgotten' - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-45484300 <comment><USER2> When I hear about the right to be forgotten, it is mostly from some morally questionable wealthy person who wants negative information about them suppressed. What good is such a thing when the most I hear about it is a weapon against shining a light on the abuses by the rich and powerful?

</comment><comment><USER3> I love the idea of the right to be forgotten just as much as I realize how unpragmatic, bizarre and possibly suppressive it might be to actually implement. I wonder if we need some specific leadership on this.</comment>


Medieval Wellness Tips - <AUTHOR> https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/medieval-wellness-tips <comment><USER3> We should keep in mind that these tips are specifically chosen because of their unusual and laughable nature, and so should refrain from attempting to generalize about the nature of medieval medicine from a biased dataset.

<comment><USER4> Except that any historian of medicine will tell you that pharmaceuticals well into the 18th century were dominated by ideas of "potency" where surely things would have beneficial effect because they have powerful smells or whatever. Uses of animal excrement are exceedingly common in early-modern remedy guides.

<comment><USER5> I remember learning from a historian that the use of animal excrement was used for all kinds of things; for example "curing" warts. The effectiveness was of course questionable, but that didn't stop people buying in to the hype of the day.

Someone else recently posted about the Templar diet[1], and I thought that was actually quite ahead of it's time. What I find most interesting is how they could have been so ahead of the times in terms of diet and hygiene compared to the "average Joe".

[1] [https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-the-templar- knigh...](https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-the-templar-knights-ate)

<comment><USER4> In defense of at least that wart remedy, a wart will turn green/black pretty much right away and then fall off relatively quickly if you keep it saturated with vinegar for a few hours here and there. I am willing to believe that some excreted waste materials could have a similar effect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wonder if anyone is going through these old texts to discover things. Perhaps rabbit bile contains something unique. Always makes you wonder... thats all for now, got a warm bed waiting for me.

<comment><USER7> 2015 Nobel Prize in Medicine was for an ancient Chinese medicine.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > If you doubt this'll work, test it on a dog which is completely red.

This really confuses me. Why does the dog need to be red? Also, if someone ever tested it, it should be obvious to not work...

<comment><USER9> Maybe an old phrase meaning "rabid dog" or "raged dog". Rabies was probably orders of magnitude more common of an occurrence back then (which is non- existent in most Western countries right now).

<comment><USER10> Rabies isn't _that_ uncommon in the US - uncommon in domestic animals, sure, but I shot a likely rabid skunk a couple of weeks ago. It was out during the day, was walking at an angle, and was aggressive toward me.

<comment><USER9> That's actually completely correct, I don't know how I missed that when I wrote my comment. I've never seen a rabid animal, but I know that in the US, squirrels and bats are still a significant vector of rabies virus. It's probably not a good idea to play around with wild mammals.

EDIT: From Wikipedia:

> In wild animals, bats were the most frequently reported rabid species (30.9% > of cases during 2015), followed by raccoons (29.4%), skunks (24.8%), and > foxes (5.9%)[29].

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prevalence_of_rabies#USA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prevalence_of_rabies#USA)

<comment><USER7> Radiolab on a modern rabies case: [https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/312245-rodney-versus- death](https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/312245-rodney-versus-death)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> They don't seem to be able to handle the HN traffic. Here's an internet archive link:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20180925110025/https://www.lapha...](https://web.archive.org/web/20180925110025/https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/medieval- wellness-tips)

</comment><comment><USER12> I still use many of these in my day to day life.

</comment><comment><USER13> >For a man who's been painfully beaten

>Take cudweed and boil it in fine ale, and drink it first thing in the morning and last thing at night; and make the patient a bed in a pile of steaming horse dung, and lay him in it.

Sleeping in a pile of horse sh*t... I don't see any hygenic problem with that, let alone the smell...

<comment><USER14> London, and other towns and cities, had a bit of a shit problem in the 1300s. Streets full of horse and human shit, households throwing their waste into the streets and/or river or if lucky selling it to a nearby cloth dyer, water dangerous to drink so best stick to beer or wine, the serious health risk from floors covered in rushes. OK, if you were posh enough there was a chute from the privvy straight into the moat or river. Oh and the river was where the leftovers from the slaughter houses went.

I think it's fair to say that smell and hygiene expectation was a little different in the middle ages. Cured, if wealthy enough, with a pomander - <USER2> ball full of nicely smelly herbs and oils that you carried as portable gas mask.

<comment><USER15> Compared to all the rest, horse manure would be almost nice. It's not that far from just grass, anyway.

<comment><USER16> Unlike that of most other animals, I don't think horse manure is an intrinsically unpleasant smell. It doesn't bother me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > For to be invysybell

Someone should try it. It is proven! But the issue is, those who proved it are long dead so we need some new evidence.

<comment><USER18> The recipe requires you to put frog bones in a stream and pick out the bone that moves against the stream... You might run out of frogs before finding such a bone!

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Seems to be a lot of horse dung involved.

<comment><USER20> Humans are one of the only animals that don't eat poop. The benefits of poo exposure is an increased diversity of gut bacteria and biome, which we are just starting to understand the benefits of.

This is one big benefit of having a dog.

<comment><USER21> > This is one big benefit of having a dog.

You get to eat its poop?

<comment><USER22> It eats it's own poop and then licks your mouth, or your fingers which you then eat with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Not dissimilar to a couple modern wellness tips I have come across...

<comment><USER24> Sometimes I'll be reading a blog with what I think is decent health advice then suddenly that stupid feet-to-body-parts diagram appears and I have to actively forget what I just read.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Can Sleeping in Horse Shit Cure Your Bruises? The Answer May Surprise You!

<comment><USER21> Medieval Housewife Discovers One Weird Trick For Curing Bruises - Grooms Hate Her!

<comment><USER26> I'd probably click on that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Mark my words, these tips will be on the Goop website by the end of the year.

</comment><comment><USER28> This is awesome - the invisible trick really works!

Try it for yourself - you will see people staring at you but you will know you are invisible!

<comment><USER29> I suspect that some context has been lost. 'Invisible' probably doesn't mean literally transparent. It may mean invisible to God, a free pass for sin. That would dovetail with the other powers of this device.</comment></comment>


Trends on Hacker News: Programming Languages and Tools - <AUTHOR> https://austingwalters.com/trends-on-hacker-news-programming-languages-tools/ <comment><USER2> I think "popular" is the wrong adjective to describe what these numbers really indicate.

For example I believe electron is being discussed more, because its more controversial than classic UI frameworks. That does not mean it is more popular.

<comment> Null-Set The hnprofile tool also does sentiment analysis if you want to compare that. Seems like over the last year electron discussions were indeed much less favorable than qt discussions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm a little suspicious; are all name permutations being checked here? For example, js for javascript and digitalocean for "digital ocean."

<comment><AUTHOR> You're welcome to compare yourself:

[https://hnprofile.com/compare](https://hnprofile.com/compare)

Type "digitalocean | digital ocean" if you want both options to be searched

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nodejs is listed as a framework? O_o Among React and Django?

It reads like a badly written resume.

</comment><comment><USER5> I wonder if golang is lower in the results because people here just call it Go.

<comment><USER6> I was very surprised to see it barely present in the results.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is interesting. I imagine given the readership and focus of HN its more indicate of what languages will be popular in the future than the Stack Overflow / Github listings.

<comment><USER8> I wouldn't be that sure whether it is any more likely to hit than any other prognosticator. For every Go or Rust that gets a lot of play here, there's a D, or Nim, or Crystal, or Pony, or a half-dozen promising upstarts that never amount to anything. There's also perennial interest in esoteric academic languages, and productive but niche languages that will never go mainstream, like Haskell and Lisps.

<comment><USER7> That's true, Haskell and Lisp get a lot more love here than they do in the real world.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> How is this data being populated?

Ruby on rails gets its own post about whether its dead or not, about once every few months

NodeJS is not a framework its a language, but I guess you mean NodeJS + Express.

<comment><USER10> Node is not a language per se. Its an environment built around JavaScript and npm with some framework-like features, like eventing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> 1\. Wow, Javascript has taken over the world

2\. SQL as #2? Shocking.

3\. Open Source is dominating.</comment>


Railroad Diagram Generator - <AUTHOR> http://www.bottlecaps.de/rr/ui <comment><USER2> Very similar is this: [https://github.com/tabatkins/railroad- diagrams](https://github.com/tabatkins/railroad-diagrams) and its online dingus: [https://tabatkins.github.io/railroad- diagrams/generator.html](https://tabatkins.github.io/railroad- diagrams/generator.html) which appears to be a friendlier, if greener, implementation.

</comment><comment><USER3> Very crisp output. I've tried to use Graphvis for things like this, but I can never figure out how to make boxes nicely aligned, or make arrows not squiggly.</comment>


Show HN: New Natural Language to SQL Platform Is a Gamechanger - <AUTHOR> http://www.kueri.me/ <comment><AUTHOR> Any feedback would be much appreciated!</comment>


Amazon starts offering loans to customers with pay monthly option - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/dec/31/amazon-loans-customers-pay-monthly-option <comment><USER2> Great, have they solved the problem with their workers crying at their desks yet?</comment>