Ask HN: Gambling & smoking limited but not entrepreneurship and stock trading? - <AUTHOR>

There are dangers involved in gambling and smoking.  Consequently, governments provide limits/warnings to mitigate those dangers.
But why do governments not do the same with entrepreneurship and stock trading?
For example, 3rd party developers could receive a warning that gives them the expected profit from a particular platform.  Without such warnings and in cases with very low expected profit, companies would be essentially getting free labor to promote their products. <comment><USER2> I assume you are joking. Gambling is a closed system with fixed rules. The expected winnings form a Gaussian bell curve. Entrepreneurship is an open system. You can change the game. The idea of expected profits assumes that profits will follow a bell curve. But in fact they don't. There is really no upper bound. To use the terminology of Taleb's Black Swan, entrepreneurship profits are Mandelbrotian. The outliers can completely change the average, to a point where the concept of the average or expected becomes meaningless.

<comment><AUTHOR> You could give the median profit, which is not sensitive to outliers.

<comment><USER3> Why should the government be required to help you out here. Contact the company and find out some more about their platform. If they won't give you some straight answers, then it's time to move on. It's a private company, and it's totally within their right to refuse your information request, but they will also be driving themselves out of business...

<comment><AUTHOR> Why would a company voluntarily give out information that would discourage third party developers?

Does Facebook for example give out the median profit from a Facebook app?

<comment><USER3> They wouldn't. And if they lied to you, that's fraud, and you can press charges against them.

If they don't lie, but they don't tell you good things about their platform (you'll have to judge the amount of 'spin' on your own)...then move on. It's really that simple.

From your example, you could contact Facebook and ask for some stats about their application platform (telling them that your company is thinking about building an app for that platform). If they refuse to give you stats, either ask to be transferred to a 'higher-up', or tell them you're sorry you couldn't work together and get off the phone. If they do give you stats, you need to judge for yourself if building your app will be profitable on that platform.

There is absolutely no company (or person) in the world that is going to be able to quote you a hard number on the amount of profit your app is going to make before it exists.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Oh, yes, more government involvement in the tech industry is _exactly_ what we need at this juncture in American history. It's worked so well for automobiles, railroads, health care, and drugs, what could possibly go wrong?

</comment><comment><USER3> I think that if you develop something for a 3rd-party platform without knowing what you're getting into, any negative (i.e. non-profitable) outcome is 100% your fault. I'm certainly not going to ask for my tax dollars to go toward someone that was so excited by greed that they didn't even bother to google around a bit and find out some more about that platform.

If you do some preliminary web searches on small business statistics or entrepreneurship, you'll find that plenty of them fail right off the bat. I think that a large part of the reason that people love 'corporate culture' is because it's very secure, unlike when you start your own business and have to actually take some risks with your future.

</comment><comment><USER5> I see the difference between gambling and stock trading as this: Gambling has a negative long-term percentage, but stock trading is the opposite: a positive long-term percentage.

If you gamble at roulette for long enough with any strategy, you'll lost 2.6%.

If you play the stock market for that long, again randomly, you'll GAIN 2.6% (just a made up number - it could be 1% depending on the economy).

Postscript: At stock trading, like in a casino, you have to make enough to cover the "house cut", which is the fees you pay to brokers to sell and buy stocks (in roulette, it's 2.6%).

<comment><AUTHOR> I suspect most people lose money in the stock market because they need the cash so they may end up selling low.

<comment><USER3> It's called Risk Aversion:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_aversion>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There are dangers involved in eating at McDonald's, going to grad school, talking to strangers, thinking things through very carefully, dressing funny, starting religions, getting married, staying single, doing meaningless homework, getting a cubicle job, and heeding the advice of your high-school guidance counselor. The dangers are quite severe, including heart disease, getting beaten up, and living a wasted, unfulfilling life (a fate worse than death).

</comment><comment><USER7> Why not right? You may soon get more than just protecting 3rd party developers when the bill to regulate VC funds is passed. I think it will be big blunder. Nobody who is an entrepreneur has any delusions of safety, we know the risks we are taking. The whole reason that this model has worked so far is because people have the freedom to take these risks. Take that away and you will probably end up killing a lot of innovation.

<comment><AUTHOR> _Nobody who is an entrepreneur has any delusions of safety, we know the risks we are taking._

Not true! <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=683810>

<comment><USER7> Sorry, an article in businessweek doesn't disprove the fact that fact that Apple, Microsoft, Sun and a gazillion other startups were created by entrepreneurs and VCs who were willing take those risks.</comment></comment></comment>


The story BCG offered me $16,000 not to tell - <AUTHOR> http://tech.mit.edu/V130/N18/dubai.html <comment><USER2> Here is my best story about business consultants...

I was contracting at a big three automaker and they had retained just such a firm, possibly even BCG, to "restructure" the IT department.

So they had a team of overpaid consultants come and perform an analysis. I won't even get into the pointlessness of all that. However, the leader of the pack, the alpha male of the consulting team, would physically walk his laptop over to a printer near the admin's desk to print because the information was too sensitive to print over the network.

In true hacker fashion a buddy and I had recently discovered that you could telnet into the printers and with a carefully crafted command actually set the text on the LCD readout on the printer itself. (The spot where is usually says "Load Paper") So we actually wrote a program that would allow us to send any text we wanted to any LCD of a printer.

So of course, this self important consultant became our first victim of the prank. He hooked up his laptop and we starting sending text like "Loading Virus" to the LCD. It actually became a little frustrating because he wasn't noticing the LCD.

Finally, he looked at the LCD and we starting sending text like "Downloading files from computer". This guy just went into an absolute panic and after the first few seconds of frantic inactivity he got his act together and closed the laptop. Of course, that didn't stop the printer from "Downloading files", so he finally ripped the cable from his laptop to sever the connection.

He was in a panic for what I'm sure were some of the longest seconds of his life, but by then we were doubled over laughing just a couple of desks away and he caught on.

I will give him credit for taking the joke well and he never tried to push it up the food chain or anything to involve any management.

<comment><USER3> Well, if you're looking for fodder for future fun and games, remind your mark that all sorts of interesting stuff can be recovered from the disks that are often resident inside mid- and upper-end printers. And remind your mark that printers actually can be infested with stuff; it's a good spot for malware to operate on a LAN, too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Great description of burnout: "What I learned is that burning out isn't just about work load, it's about work load being greater than the motivation to do work."

<comment><USER5> This is so true. My father took on a nightclub all by himself. It was a stupid move, he lost a lot of money doing that. What he was missing was a partner. Not only to lessen his work load, but also to keep him motivated.

This is the reason you see musicians take 5 year breaks, or even quitting music. They are lacking in motivation. Look at the band Queen, They are still making music and touring, but half the band has quit. Freddie Mercury died and John Deacon quit music altogether. What did John Deacon lose? His motivation. Brian May and Roger Taylor both had a lot of say in the bands creative process, and that process motivated them to continue, even after Freddie had passed away. Now, Deacon, he wasn't as involved in that process, and he was the one who quit.

<comment><USER6> "Not only to lessen his work load, but also to keep him motivated."

Advantages of doing <http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?PairProgramming>

<comment><USER7> yep, whole > sum

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "At my salary level, and with my expected advancement path, I could comfortably retire in my thirties."

I've heard this or statements like it in quite a few articles over the years, but I've never actually met a retired thirties business consultant. Do they exist and am I just missing them? The only ones I know are well into their thirties, working 70+ hours a week, and looking forward to making even larger boatloads in their forties.

<comment><USER9> They think they will retire in their thirties, but they never have enough.

"At a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island, Kurt Vonnegut informs his pal, Joseph Heller, that their host, a hedge fund manager, had made more money in a single day than Heller had earned from his wildly popular novel Catch 22 over its whole history. Heller responds, "Yes, but I have something he will never have...

Enough."

[http://www.johnboglemedia.com/component/content/article/1-la...](http://www.johnboglemedia.com/component/content/article/1-latest/1-john- bogle-enough.html)

<comment><USER10> Their fixed costs keep rising. When you are 22, you think that $100,000 a year (rising with inflation) is heaps. But by 30, you buy your first yacht, and it takes $50,000 a year just to keep it in the dock.

<comment><USER11> While that's true, the cause of this is a salary that compounds faster than inflation. If you make 10% more each year it's almost impossible to retire anywhere near the salary you had 5 years ago without saving a huge percentage of your income.

EX: Ignoring inflation, if you get a 10% rase a year and get a 10%ROI on your investments every year then you need to save 40% of your income to for 35 years to retire on what you made 5 years before you retired. (Assuming you can live safely on 4.5% of your capital / year)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "I got the feeling that our clients were simply trying to mimic successful businesses, and that as consultants, our earnings came from having the luck of being included in an elaborate cargo-cult ritual."

WOW that is dead on. I get the feeling half the world is like that.

<comment><USER13> The problem is that it is not that simple, because just doing what others do works very well in most cases and you don't have the time to start questioning _everything_ - why do you shower in the morning? Why eat three times a day?

I don't want to defend cargo-cults, but people copy because it works.

<comment><USER12> No, it's worse than that. I have seen this before. There is an entire portion of the business world that merely goes through the motions of being successful businesses rather than actually being businesses at all. It's really weird.

You could look at it as investment fraud with plausible deniability. Take money, hire consultants, look busy. The only thing is, I don't think it's that explicit or intentional. I think there's a breed of person out there in the business world who does not grasp the distinction between actually doing something and imitating the appearance of doing it.

<comment><USER14> There's always been something wrong, and I couldn't quite put my finger on it, with the idea of getting a degree solely in "business"... I think I get it now.

Reminds me of a shirt I saw somewhere from a cartoon I've never seen: "What's this? I'm going to go do some Science on it!" Seems very similar to: "I'm a business man"

<comment><USER12> I could not agree more. Business is something you do with stuff, but you have to have stuff to do business about. Business is not something that can be done in a void.

A lot of the fakers and cargo cultists are trying to do business about business to do business... they're not delivering any value because they don't know how.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The author's first two articles on Dubai:

<http://tech.mit.edu/V130/N16/dubai.html>

<http://tech.mit.edu/V130/N17/dubai.html>

<comment><USER16> thanks for this, tried looking for them after the little footnote but their website had no links to them that i could find.

<comment><USER17> Interestingly, a google search for "This is the first in a four-part series on the author's experiences as a consultant in Dubai." and "This is the second in a four-part series on the author's experiences as a consultant in Dubai." (with or without the quotes) turns up the other two articles well enough.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This story is written with a wonderful naivete. Consultants like BCG exist only to lend credentials and competent temporary labor. The companies who hire these consultants are looking for affirmation and peace of mind -- most of them too mired in bureaucracy or incompetence to draw even the most basic conclusions by themselves.

<comment><USER19> Still, it's hard to believe that peace of mind is worth paying 5 kids graduated 6 weeks ago in Political Science from Stanford to come give Powerpoints on meaningless, vapid crapola billed to you each at $300/hr, even where such figures don't make much of a blip on the bottom line.

<comment><USER20> They don't want anyone that has a clue and might therefore threaten them! (sadly seen this in my work)

Edit: many of the other cynical explanations further down in the thread are quite valid too (scapegoat theory et al)

<comment><USER2> I've worked at so many of the largest companies as an employee, contractor and even overpaid consultant and this is completely true. These companies are completely mired in their own structure that there is nothing they can do to get out.

Everyone is protecting their turf and their headcount that you almost have to have "Bob and Bob" come into, even though they don't know anything themselves.

When I was working for a professional organization as a consultant, sometimes I would go into gigs where I literally knew nothing about the product that I was supposedly an expert on. I remember specifically one case where I spent a frantic weekend learning about a tech that I was supposed to help this company plan a rollout for because I was the expert. The worst part was these employees had been preparing for this rollout for weeks, so they already had a good grasp of the core and I was still trying to learn all of the acronyms.

<comment><USER12> Human group social behavior is a liability in our modern society. It works pretty well when you're a tribe of 20 people hunting and gathering, but it doesn't scale.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> "I wasn't sure at the time, but having had enough free time of late to ponder such questions, I think I've come to the conclusion that having a father who can pay for a top-notch education outweighs the disadvantage of being raised by a hypocrite. Sticking with the job for the sake of a paycheck passes the children test."

I wonder how many children get sent to college by dads like that.

<comment><USER22> I think it shows closed-mindedness on his part. They taught him analysis at MIT, but they didn't teach him to think properly.

You're a guy with a degree from the top technical school in the world and you've got one of the world's most prestigious consultancies on your resume: you don't think you could go on to find a job in which you could afford your kids' education AND not be a hypocrite?

I respect him for standing up after the fact and saying "I'm a wealthy hypocrite." But I don't respect him for going to work there in the first place. You'd have to have spent junior year of college buried in sand not to know it's a game, mostly dirty.

<comment><USER23> Well he was taking a double course-load and working, so that may count as being buried in sand.

But still, even if he didn't know beforehand, he figured it out very quickly upon arrival and then stayed for a long time for the money, so I agree with most of your point.

<comment><USER24> Did he stay a long time? It doesn't look that way to me from the article, but maybe I just missed something.

[http://thesensibletechnocrat.blogspot.com/2009/06/third- day-...](http://thesensibletechnocrat.blogspot.com/2009/06/third-day-in-dubai- work-is-still.html) seems to imply that he started there in June 2009. [http://thesensibletechnocrat.blogspot.com/2009/10/moral- impe...](http://thesensibletechnocrat.blogspot.com/2009/10/moral- imperative.html) seems to imply he was still there in October.

... Ooh, and all four parts of the story of which the OP here is part 3 are together in one handy bundle at [http://thesensibletechnocrat.blogspot.com/2010/03/dubai- and-...](http://thesensibletechnocrat.blogspot.com/2010/03/dubai-and-back- again-consultants-tale.html) .

So, he was apparently there for at least 4 months and at most 9 months. I wouldn't call that "a long time" in this context.

<comment><USER25> However long he worked there, he didn't bite the hand that was feeding him, but when the party was over he did turn around to bite the hand that fed him.

Being moral about the NDA does not weigh up against working there in the first place, and I don't know what $16 K means to a high profile Dubai consultant, it may have been substantially less than the severance pay he was entitled to anyway.

<comment><USER24> I don't think anyone was claiming that being moral about the NDA _does_ "weigh up" against working there in the first place. If he were trying to paint a glowing picture of his own morals, he wouldn't have written the article in the first place.

(Since he appears to have been there for something like 6 months before getting fired, I'll hazard a guess that his severance pay wasn't all that spectacular.)

<comment><USER25> 10 K+ per month is not unusual, and depending on his contract they may have to 'buy you out' (for instance, after three months they might have signed a years contract with you including the first three months).

So the severance could be anywhere from $5K up to a very substantial amount of money. The fact that they're willing to pay another $16K just for signing an NDA suggests it was a pretty high salary.

<comment><USER24> He already said, kinda, what the salary was: with bonuses and whatnot, he expected to be getting $200k per year.

Given what he's possibly done to their reputation (I don't know; perhaps everyone already thought they were corrupt and dishonest anyway) that he wouldn't have been able to do if he'd signed the NDA, I don't see that an explanation in terms of salary is required: getting everyone to sign the NDA greatly reduces their exposure to this kind of bad publicity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The tl;dr version:

Large consulting companies often tell their clients what they want to hear, which more or less negates the point of consultants but can often pay better. There are ethical concerns here.

I like the story, but the article itself has way too many metaphors that cloud the point.

Or maybe I'm just too used to having all my stories condensed into 140 characters...

<comment><USER27> There was another important point: a guy new to the consulting business and with no significant amount of relevant training or support wound up being marketed as an expert and became the senior person on each project he joined.

I've seen this in action, both from the client side (management brought in absurdly highly paid consultants to back up what they wanted when their own people wouldn't support it) and the other side (friends and friends of friends who went into consultancy firms; few of them have stayed there much longer than this guy).

What I don't get is why shareholders (for big companies) or government auditors (for government organisations) don't openly criticise the policy of wasting money hiring these completely unqualified people who either offer no real benefit or actively cause harm to the projects they join. Obviously a genuine expert could offer useful consultancy in their field of expertise, but that doesn't seem to be the MO of these big multinational consultancy shops.

<comment><USER28> Shareholders care only about relative performance. Absolute performance is irrelevant. So as long as all big companies in a particular sector waste X on consultants, that's fine for the shareholder. It doesn't even affect the dividend as you might think, because if everyone does it the cost can be passed on to clients.

Shareholders start to care once a lean competitor enters the scene. Someone who does away with all the fluff and is more profitable. These things happen. But my reaction as a shareholder is to become a shareholder of the better company and dump the stock of the inefficient one. I'm not trying to make the inefficient company more efficient. Some activist shareholders do that, but most don't.

There is one very important truth that too few people are considering: Shareholders are not entrepreneurs. Most shareholders have no interest in improving a particular company. Their interest is in choosing undervalued companies and selling them when they are not undervalued any longer, preferably at a higher price.

The distinction between investors and speculators is a lie. There is no difference between the two. The important difference is the one between owners and entrepreneurs.

<comment><USER29> Shareholders used to try to improve a company - it was quite popular in the 70's and 80's. Ever watch the movie "Wall Street?

What happened since then is that legislators and courts have become hostile to corporate raids, and have mostly made it toothless. We would have plenty of shareholder activism if it wasn't for that.

<comment><USER30> Yes. I also never understand the reason behind poison pills (part from shielding management). Why should shareholders limit their own rights to sell the company to somebody who wants to run it?

`Corporate raid' is a term as backwards as `piracy' for copyright infringement. Those `raiders' buy a company with their own money (or money they borrowed) from shareholders willing to accept their price. They should be allowed to do whatever they want with their newly acquired company.

<comment><USER11> The only problem is they rarely buy the whole company, often they just get a controlling share. At which point they can do a pump and dump which is great if you sell at the right time but it tends to hurt long term investors.

<comment><USER29> How do you pump and dump a large company that you just purchased at a premium?

Incidentally, if such a pump and dump scheme was performed, the guilty party is completely obvious. A minority shareholder lawsuit would be readily forthcoming.

<comment><USER11> There are several approaches you can use on large company's including Enron style accounting fraud but clearly it's much simpler with small ones. Other options include <http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html> where you try to hype the market segment not any of it's products. But a far more legal approach is to simply kill off the R&D program and look for a sucker/greater fool to buy the rotting shell which looks great on paper.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> "I'm a free marketeer. I believe that voluntary exchange is not just a good method of incentivizing people to provide their labor and talents to society, but a robust moral system — goods and services represent tangible benefit to people, market prices represent the true value of goods in society, and wages represent the value that a worker provides to others. Absent negative externalities or monopoly effects, a man receives from the free market what he gives to it, his material worth is a running tally of the net benefit that he has provided to his fellow man. A high income is not only justified, but there is nobility to it."

Oh, man, it'd be awesome if we had that. But then, much of the Web 2.0 "industry" about which this site revolves would not exist.

<comment><USER31> I found that quote particularly hilarious given the article in which it is embedded. The article would make a good reference for the wikipedia article on cognitive dissonance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> He invokes Excel as an analytical engine several times in this story. I am trying to figure out if he actually considers it to be a powerful statistical engine, or if he is merely using it synecdochically for the benefit of non- technical readers, in order to represent statistical software more generally.

<comment><USER33> It actually is the de-facto-standard modeling engine in a lot of areas, even some scientific areas, but mainly economics/finance. There are some pretty nuttily complex simulations written entirely in Excel, with the visualization part of the simulation done by popping up a chart--- you can even make it animated by popping up a new chart at a certain time interval. There's even a market in commercial spreadsheets, which you buy and load sort of like libraries: <http://www.palisade.com/RISK/>

Not necessarily a good idea, but somehow it caught on. One possible reason is that it was one of the earlier widely available pieces of software for doing declarative, dependency-based modeling that auto-propagates updates: if box A and box B are linked by a "B = 2*A", then B auto-updates whenever A changes, without you manually writing a propagate-updates loop. You can now do stuff like that in a lot of languages, but it's relatively recent (e.g., it's one of the new features JavaFX variables have).

<comment><USER34> _You can now do stuff like that in a lot of languages, but it's relatively recent_

Saying "Lisp had it X years ago" sounds perhaps a little weenish, but... that sounds a lot like the Cells library, and the even older Garnet KR. Granted, they're quite a lot less accessible than spreadsheet programs.

FRP seems to be modern take on it. It's being very actively researched in the Haskell community.

<comment><USER24> Visicalc: 1979. Excel: 1985. Garnet: early 1990s. Cells: 2000 or so.

On the other hand ... Sketchpad: 1963. (Constraint satisfaction, but not embedded in a general-purpose programming system.) Prolog: 1972. And Guy L Steele wrote a nice general-purpose constraint system in 1978. ("Constraints", MIT AI Memo 502.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> _I couldn't sleep at night. I'd fill up a bathtub and scream into it._

Eh, what? Do (normal) people do this? Is it because it absorbs the sounds or something?

<comment><USER4> Maybe he meant that he got _into_ the bathtub and then screamed underwater?

<comment> lobo-tuerto I also think this is the correct interpretation.

Maybe he needed to scream out loud to bring a bit of relief to his abused up moral.

<comment><USER36> The problem is, his description of his morality crisis don't quite match with his actions.

He did quit, but it was probably because everyone else saw the ship sinking and was jumping off.

His $16k "sacrifice" at the end was not much if he claims he would have made enough to retire by 30s and just live off interest. So, yes, he had a bit some moral struggles, but it sounds like he managed to successfully "overcome" most of them via rationalizations.

The blog post was written just to make himself feel better and to somehow turn not taking a little bit of hush money into a great moral victory. Perhaps his future employee will read how honest and devoted to the truth he is...

<comment><USER37> Have to add that the sacrifice is not the 16K, but it is the $200,000/Year salary.16 K was just the signing bonus.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I don't think this is specific to business consulting, or to Dubai. I know several people who were hired by high-powered technical consulting firms here in the US; all of them were fairly bright, attractive young people with very little experience of any sort.

</comment><comment><USER39> i have the feeling, children or not, that we wouldn't have been hearing this story if the $16,000 offer had been a bit larger.

<comment><USER40> As Calvin and Hobbes put it, the disturbing thing is not that everyone can be bought, but that the price is often so low.

<comment><USER41> Exactly.

He even said that he decided that he would rather have a "hypothetical children" have a rich morally bankrupt father that could pay for college than one with integrity.

edit: oops this is pointed out above.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> "Absent negative externalities or monopoly effects, a man receives from the free market what he gives to it, his material worth is a running tally of the net benefit that he has provided to his fellow man"

I'm not surprised that someone whose ideology makes him believe that Einstein's contribution to society was smaller than that of the bosses of Lehman or AIG would be disappointed by reality. Or is it that reality itself is a "negative externality"?

No, I think the issue is one of faulty interpretation of that ideology. It's a serious mistake that people make all the time. They mix up statistical probabilities and individual causality. The average efficiency of markets includes scams as well as geniuses. It includes people who contribute a lot but market themselves badly and it includes the exact opposite.

<comment><USER42> _I'm not surprised that someone whose ideology makes him believe that Einstein's contribution to society was smaller than that of the bosses of Lehman or AIG would be disappointed by reality._

Would you care to clarify? I genuinely don't see where you are getting this from.

<comment><USER43> He's saying that since Einstein wasn't a rich man, by the author's logic, he couldn't have contributed much to society.

<comment><USER30> No, he doesn't say so. The reverse of A -> B is not B -> A or even (not A) -> (not B), but (not B) -> (not A).

<comment><USER44> contributes -> rich : (not rich) -> (not contributes)... what exactly are you arguing?

<comment><USER30> Einstein did not contribute to the market, and thus shouldn't be judged by that. You could say he gave his insights away as gifts (or in exchange for reputation?).

<comment><USER28> The author of the article says "wages represent the value that a worker provides to others". Do you really think Einstein's wage represented the value he provided to others?

People work for all kinds of reasons. Money is just one of them as you yourself allude to when you mention reputation. So wages representing the value a worker provides is clearly nonsense.

They just represent _expected_ value for those able to pay, and it includes all kinds of distortions like immigration controls.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I guess Welcome the Real World, is the best response I can give. So sorry that the real world is so non-idealistic and disappointing to you, and that your wonderful skills and knowledge aren't being prized and utilized.

In other words, you're experiencing the reality shock _everybody_ experiences when engaging with, and learning about, the corporate world.

It seems you'd be happier in Academia, a research institute, or perhaps creating something on your own.

<comment><USER46> It's not the Real World, it's just a certain part of it. Not a small part, but not all of it either. There are a lot of places that offer a chance to do far more satisfying work.

(BTW I'm not sure I'd recommend academe for someone with his mindset. The politics are perhaps even worse and the monetary gains much lower. A startup - even though far from the Disneyland some HN posts paint it as - could be a good place for someone like that)

<comment><USER45> You're right. That youthful energy and talent are likely to be utilized best in a purely creative start-up. That was the idea with the creating something on his own suggestion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> _"Find me a rock" problems sound dead simple, but in actuality have requirements that are poorly stated or unknown. You never know what you're looking for; you only know that you'll know it when you see it._

Even better perhaps: "you only know that _someone else_ will know it when they see it".

</comment><comment><USER48> What an amazingly insightful article. Props to the author for speaking up. Yet, slightly dissapointed that he did not leave out of his own accord, but waited to be laid off.

In his own reasoning "I've come to the conclusion that having a father who can pay for a top-notch education outweighs the disadvantage of being raised by a hypocrite."

Acting as if financial success equates to dishonesty. While in the very same piece the author praises free market, and money in exchange for true value does not compute. Does he believe, or not believe in the power of a free market, or has he come to develop a disbelief in honest trading?

</comment><comment><USER49> Something that leaped out at me: "I believe that voluntary exchange is not just a good method of incentivizing people to provide their labor and talents to society, but a robust moral system".

Voluntary exchange is not a moral system. A free market doesn't have morals.

<comment><USER50> You are completely incorrect, the free market is a moral system because it does not rely on coercion or force to compel others to interact. All interactions in a free market system are voluntary and beneficial to all participants in the transaction. No other economic system can make those claims.

<comment><USER51> It can be beneficial to all "participants" but disastrous to society as a whole, can it not? Look at the current rage against free market instruments like CDOs and other complex unregulated derivatives.

Are you really claiming we dont need "coercion or force" from regulators like the SEC or FTC?

<comment><USER52> _Are you really claiming we dont need "coercion or force" from regulators like the SEC or FTC?_

It is naive to think any one human agents or regulatory agency is able to prevent those "complex unregulated derivatives" or not be corrupted by unethical firms/special interests/etc.

The free market system already have a "fail-safe" or "regulatory" function through the bankruptcy of entrepreneurs and rewarding prudent entrepreneurs with the leftover possessions of the bankrupt one. Failure is at the heart of the free market enterprise system. It is a feature, not a bug.

It is those who wishes to prevent these failures at all and any costs that keep our society stagnated or hurling down to its destruction as they keep funding economic activities that is out of reality with human needs and desire.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> I can recommend this book - it covers the same topics but is written by someone who spent decades in consulting rather than a few months:

[http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rip-off-Scandalous-Management- Consul...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rip-off-Scandalous-Management-Consulting- Machine/dp/1872188060/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271069591&sr=8-1)

</comment><comment><USER54> Isn't the headline offer he's talking about, which he goes into at the end, really just a very standard clause in a layoff agreement?

<comment><USER27> No, it really isn't.

Not at any of the small businesses I ever worked for, where the guys at the top probably decide these things themselves.

Not at a very, very large business I worked for, where the guys at the top probably didn't know the name of anyone in my building and everything was done by HR and Legal automatons.

And not at any medium sized businesses I have ever worked for, either.

The only time an agreement like this is standard is when you know you're doing something you shouldn't be, and you know you're about to lose your legitimate influence over people who could out you, so you try to buy their silence because to you the cost is cheap.

<comment><USER55> _The only time an agreement like this is standard is when you know you're doing something you shouldn't be, and you know you're about to lose your legitimate influence over people who could out you, so you try to buy their silence because to you the cost is cheap._

What country are you in? In the UK this is pure boilerplate text.

<comment><USER27> I'm in the UK, and I have never had anything even close to this proposed to me, by any employer, of any size, regardless of how happily I left.

It's only boilerplate text if you're the kind of person who also accepted the "We own copyright to everything you ever do, at work or otherwise" clause in the employment contract.

<comment><USER55> I've been laid off twice, and both times the severance agreement included clauses that I basically agreed not to sue them for unfair dismissal. When I've quit, of course there was nothing like that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> In college, I used to debate with myself on which career was better, ibanking or management consulting.

In the end, I chose to pursue management consulting, which I've been doing for the last 2 years.

Now, I debate with my friends on which career is worse, ibanking or consulting because frankly, after sifting through so much corporate BS, I've come to realize that all these jobs need to be prestigious in order to get ivy league grads to pursue them. In reality, we're either glorified excel junkies, or overpaid powerpoint formatters.

I'm crossing my fingers now hoping that this start-up I'm working on takes off... I really do want to leave the corporate world for good. The realization that the preparation we had in college is absolutely useless in the real world, and that any semi-intelligent high-schooler could do our jobs is a depressing thought.

</comment><comment><USER57> Isn't the "billion dollars destroyed" argument he makes just the broken window fallacy in reverse?

<comment><USER58> If by, "broken window fallacy in reverse" you mean "pointing out that the broken window fallacy is a fallacy", yes. He is troubled by the fact that he is earning money by breaking windows.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> I'm so sorry for pointing this out, I loved the article, but was surprised that no one else raised issue with:

"Like downloading MP3s, it was a victimless crime."

After all these years we know better than to say this carelessly. Is stealing code from a hardworking programmer a victimless crime?

<comment><USER60> I thought this example was well chosen. Downloading mp3s is a familiar thing that's very easy to do, but may not be ethically defensible in the final analysis.

If you want to have a discussion about copyright though, you're poisoning the well by calling infringement stealing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think this is the reason why MBAs find it difficult become entrepreneurs.

</comment><comment><USER61> Should be required reading at every business school in America.

</comment><comment><USER62> His description sounded about the same as my time doing consulting at Deloitte. It didn't leave me with a good impression of consultants.

</comment><comment><USER63> sounds like what I did at accenture

</comment><comment><USER64> confessions of an economic hitman

</comment><comment><USER65> I had a job like that. I was supposed to use my analysis and creativity to build models for client forecasting, but if they didn't confirm what the brand team wanted to hear, they'd be rejected. It sucked. I was fresh out of school and cared more about getting the right answer than appeasing clients.

I lasted 8 months in that job. No regrets about leaving.

Also, $16k is piss-poor for a severance package in a brand-name consulting firm like BCG. Given the economy and the likelihood of a necessary career change, OP should have asked for 6 months' base (including COBRA) and an "office firing" (you're terminated but can use office resources for the job search and retain the right to represent yourself as employed).

<comment><USER66> I think I missed the part where he had the leverage to make that kind of demand. Perhaps even the brand-name consulting firms have figured out that ridiculous severance packages don't make a whole lot of sense.

<comment><USER65> What I'm talking about isn't that ridiculous. Paying 6 months' salary is a small cost compared to the cost of a termination lawsuit or a negative article being written about the firm.

I'm guessing they gave him 2 months pay and _nothing_ for the move back, from _Dubai_ (which is a dangerous place to lose your job, by the way). They also seem to have given him nothing in terms of exit counseling.

To answer the question you raised: his article and the fact that it got published is the leverage he had. I bet it's circulating around BCG right now. It has the potential to be a morale and image problem, and not the Goldman Sachs style of image problem (where people hate GS but consider them good at what they do).

There are rational reasons for firms to pay decent severance packages. It's not just something they do to be nice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> It's the same everywhere. For example, people who are reselling SAP in, say, Russia, are doing exactly the same thing - tuning numbers and telling lies. The better you're able to lie the better SAP consultant you are. There are no project with was completed on schedule and within budget.

</comment><comment><USER68> My prediction: "The version number finally equals Pi. No more changes to the software are possible, because it's now perfect."

<comment><USER30> Wrong thread.

<comment><USER68> One of the pitfalls of tabbed browsing.</comment></comment></comment>


Introducing the React VR Pre-Release - <AUTHOR> https://developer.oculus.com/blog/introducing-the-react-vr-pre-release/ <comment><USER2> Compare and contrast: [https://aframe.io/](https://aframe.io/)

A-frame has got a certain amount of traction, it's component based and declarative. It feels like an extensible "VR HTML" (or "VR Web components"). React is similarly component based - but one step removed from the markup.

<comment><USER3> Hi! I work on A-Frame. The biggest difference for now is that A-Frame is ECS- based (entity-component-system) which promotes composability versus inheritance, similar to the way Unity is set up. A bit confusing since the meaning of component in "ECS" vs. component in "Web Component" or "React Component" are fairly opposite.

A-Frame works with React as well, [https://github.com/ngokevin/aframe- react](https://github.com/ngokevin/aframe-react) ... but I hope that React VR will attract more web developers to the WebVR community! Good to have more friends in the framework space.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't understand the intent here. What am I building that's a browser VR experience? That's as foreign to me as saying a browser cooking experience. Those are words, but I just don't understand how they'd operate together in a way that would be enjoyable and easy to use.

<comment><USER5> VR videos, VR videogames, VR [insert other here].

Being able to watch a 360 degree video in the browser. Optionally hit a button and put on a headset and use head tracking to look instead of click+drag.

Playing VR games using something like daydream, oculus, etc... All within the browser.

The idea being it keeps the same cross-platform, cross-device, cross-"viewer" (VR headset, phone screen, computer screen, KB+mouse, touchscreen, etc...) that the web is built on.

You probably won't be making the next AAA title in the browser just yet, but it's more than capable of games, videos, and other VR "experiences".

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The future of the VR web: everyone who uses it gives patent indemnity across their whole portfolio to Facebook. Facebook only gives reciprocation across the narrow patents covered by React/ReactVR, not their full portfolio.

If you build a part of your business on this, they can pull the license if you sue them for infringement in some completely unrelated area and leave you screwed.

</comment><comment><USER7> I really want WebVR to work but when I tested with a Chromium WebVR-capable build I ran into a bunch of aframe samples that claimed my browser was not VR capable, some that were really choppy in performance, and a handful thay worked correctly.

After that I started thinking I should just build in Unity because there was a much greater liklihood of people actually using it with a client they download that actually works rather than hoping they would have a working browser for WebVR.

I also would like to have browser windows available inside of VR for interfacing with remote desktops or any existing 2d interface. Which you can do that with Unity using a browser component from the Asset Store.

But I would prefer using JavaScript/A-Frame if it would actually work for most people.

It seems that Altspace maybe is some custom build of Chromium build because they support aframe.

<comment><USER3> WebVR and browsers and library versions are very much in flux. It is definitely early-adopter and experimental mode, although WebVR is on clear tracks to get to release versions of browsers: [https://iswebvrready.org](https://iswebvrready.org)

Totally fine to not want to deal with all of that now. We're all eager for the day that WebVR is stable and in the hands of hundreds of millions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Who wrote this release copy? Full of English errors...

</comment><comment><USER9> ctrl-F: "vrml"

welp, now I feel old.

<comment><USER3> Don't feel too old; VRML is mentioned (usually in snark) just about every time a WebVR framework is discussed. Always found the comparisons weird though: one is a standardized file format, the others are JS frameworks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> So, where is all the real work being done?

Oh, that's right, by THREE.js inside the normal WebGL API.

This is just a fancy way to execute a banal-ly simple 3D scene that takes a single parameter - what text to show. It doesn't do much and I don't see any useful abstractions for the usual 3D primitives and doesn't meet the requirements of 3D programming in general.

<comment><USER11> It uses the declarative syntax of React to compose views. The benefit is the common abstraction which will allow people familiar with React to quickly get something running.

Why the negativity?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> How do I say that this is total bullshit without being spotted as redditor?

<comment><USER13> "VR is the next platform, it's just not ready yet."</comment></comment>


Constraints on the Universe as a Numerical Simulation (2012) - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1210.1847 <comment><USER2> Even if we live inside a simulation inside a simulation inside a simulation, ultimately there is a base reality that influences the design of the simulations contained within it, and can impinge upon the simulations at any time. Infinite regression doesn't work here - using the term "simulation" implies some special pleading when moving from the outermost simulation to the base reality. If you want to regress forever, then there is no qualitative difference between layers of reality and the word "simulation" is meaningless.

We live in the base reality. All a simulation could do is obscure complexity.

Interestingly this isn't a new idea. The gnostics of the first two centuries BCE had a theology of this, in which a flawed world, in which humans lived, was created by an imperfect creator called the demiurge. There was a perfect realm beyond this world with an intercessor named Sophia (wisdom) who would rescue us from our flawed world, the simulation created by the demiurge.

<comment><USER3> I disagree with you that:

>and can impinge upon the simulations at any time

A simulation could just be some states. Consider the rule, double and subtract one to get to the next world-state, over the integers, and start the world with the state 1. So the next state is 1. The one after is also 1. The one after is also 1. The universe is stuck in a static state.

As I, you, or a Python script is modeling this universe, where does the outside universe "impinge" on it?

Then let's do a different universe, starting at 2. Then the next state is 3, the state afrer is 5, the state after is 9, and so forth.

As you do this universe in your head, where does the outside universe "impinge" on it?

There is a problem, however. All future states are well-defined in the universe I've given even if nobody in our universe or any other is calculating them.

It is trivially obvious that the human mind is an emergent property of its neural firings (of the brain), and that replacing some part of it with a black box that interacted with the rest would leave it with the same emergent properties, even if this black box were modeling in a different medium.

The question is, if you can model the whole thing over a well-defined program that did not require non pseudorandom entropy, then it would be similar (just start with more complex data than 1 or 2, and more complicated rules than double and subtract one) - so in order for these states to exist, would anyone have to actually calculate it, or is it enough for these states to be mathematically defined?

What I am saying is that it is a statistical certainty that within a thousand years we can create a deterministic model of a brain in a VR, where the brain reports consciousness. (this is 100.000% absolutely necessarily true and not open to debate. The brain is a couple of pounds of stufd, with just a few hundred billion neurons or fewer - I bet we could practically have the hardware to model one today.)

Does this mean that that model already exists? (before anyone chose to calculate it)?

This is similar to asking whether the quintillionth prime exists. Yes, of course it exists.

Really? Even if nobody calculates it? Then what is to say that we might not exist without anyone calculating us?

Perhaps the states of the universe, like the quintillionth prime, exist without anyone calculating it. Perhaps there is no underlying reality at all, just as there is not an underlying reality in which the quintillionth prime is embedded.

<comment><USER4> Reminds me of a short story called Luminous by Greg Egan. In that story the universe is a declarative system that does have a non-pseudo random component to it -- with actual reality being an emergent phenomenon between this declarative model and the entities within exploring that model by causing the universe to imbue the mathematical objects implied by the universe with specific reality by actually computing them, in so doing "expanding" the size of the universe and introducing new effects from this expansion into the evolution of the system ... in the story it turns out there are multiple actors active at the edge of defining the universe -- and their actions can actually influence the ability of other actors to continue in their participation in the universe creation process ...

Edit: my attempt to elaborate on the idea from the story ... I don't know if I can summarize the concept that well -- I think the framing within the story for the plot is something along the lines of: 1\. Mathematical truth exists 2\. There is an existential difference between a mathematical truth and a specific occurrence of the "pattern" described by that truth within the physical material of the universe.

I think the eli5 example in the story is based on the integers. You have the integers which are infinite, and you have an instantiated version of some number n if you have an occurrence of n things in nature. The reality of n is fundamentally different if you are in A universe with "n things" vs one with only m things m<n.

I think that's the motivation for the concept -- and in the story a researcher sets off to find scenarios where the universe had not yet "instantiated" one of the "laws" that could be derived from mathematical reality -- and ends up finding out that there is more than one possible way for the laws of "reality" to expand ... -- with different implications on what laws might be discovered in the future ...

<comment><USER3> This is really, really interesting. As I don't have access to the book just now, could you expand (by editing) your comment a little, your summary is very dense. I realize you might not remember it all exactly but it's really interesting to me.

EDIT: Thanks for the expansion! Fascinating and really interesting idea. The idea, "There is an existential difference between a mathematical truth and a specific occurrence of the 'pattern' described by that truth within the physical material of the universe" is a fascinating one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I would be surprised if we are not living in simulation. Look at superposition and function collapse in quantum physics, it's equivalent to what we are doing in games today = do not render if player is not watching, save resources. Think about it, look for example at GTA V, what we can achieve today and think about how world looked like 100 years ago.

I imagine that in 1000 years from now, simulating world similar to ours will not be a problem at all. Maybe not as complex because every level you go deeper you have less resources at your disposal. Who knows which level deep we are? Maybe we are simulation in simulation in simulation...

<comment><USER6> This is a common misconception, but superposition has nothing to do with "do not render if the player is not watching." As far as we know, every particle in the universe is interacting with every other (with a light speed delay) and thus "measuring" it (modifying and responding to its wavefunction) at all times. In the two-slit experiment, for example, the wavefunction of a particle moving through a slit interacts with the wavefunction of the particle used to detect it, causing both wavefunctions to be more narrowly distributed in the space around the slit. But before or after this interaction, the whole wavefunction still needs to be simulated to produce the effects we see experimentally. The wavefunction itself is the real thing being simulated, and it's always "running."

You may be right that it will become easier to simulate worlds like ours, but it will require innovations that make a quantum computer look like an etch-a- sketch. The universe is really big and really detailed.

<comment><USER7> I see the distinction you're making (I think), but I still don't see how that invalidates GP's analogy. Surely "running" a wavefunction is computationally cheaper than re-evaluating the particle's characteristics at every universal frame. Perhaps it's not so much about our own "watching" but rather "do not calculate when irrelevant". My own analogy might be an online map frame like google maps, where tiles outside the viewing box are not loaded. This is because we can tell what needs to be calculated by the bounding box of the viewer without needing all the other finer details. I see it more as a lazy eval.

<comment><USER6> The particle's characteristics ARE the wavefunction - or to say it another way, the wavefunction is the only real characteristic a particle has.

When I run a quantum mechanics simulation at work, I might afterwards calculate the particle positions or some other classical characteristic of the system. But I need those characteristics only because I'm trying to get a classical model of the system. The system itself, when it's running, doesn't do any of that. It interacts wavefunction-to-wavefunction. As far as we know, that's how the universe works.

<comment><USER8> > The particle's characteristics ARE the wavefunction - or to say it another > way, the wavefunction is the only real characteristic a particle has.

As far as I know not in the De-Broglie-Bohm theory (but I'm not a physicist, so correct me if I'm wrong):

> > [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Broglie%E2%80%93Bohm_theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Broglie%E2%80%93Bohm_theory)

> [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm- > bohm/](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-bohm/)

> [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm- > decoherence/#PilWavThe](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm- > decoherence/#PilWavThe)

<comment><USER9> > As far as I know not in the De-Broglie-Bohm theory

As a physicist I am telling you should not conclude that the De-Broglie-Bohm theory is tell you anything different than what comicjk said.

> The particle's characteristics ARE the wavefunction

This kind of statement is normally said to stress the fact that the best evidence and experiments indicate quantum mechanics accurately describe the physical world and even parts like superposition(single particle double slit experiment, tunneling etc) that defy more classical intuitions.

De-Broglie-Bohm theory includes the same set of non-intuitive behaviors that all valid interpretations of quantum mechanics have, in other words it is not testable different from other interpretations.

<comment><USER8> > De-Broglie-Bohm theory includes the same set of non-intuitive behaviors that > all valid interpretations of quantum mechanics have, in other words it is > not testable different from other interpretations.

There exist opinions that disagree:

> > [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=De_Broglie%E2%80%...](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=De_Broglie%E2%80%93Bohm_theory&oldid=740277352#Non- > equivalence)

"In 2016, Pisin Chen and Hagen Kleinert argued that the Copenhagen interpretation and the De Broglie–Bohm theory yield different results for the ratio of peak intensities in the double-slit experiment. They concluded that they are thus not mathematically equivalent."

> > [http://www.ejtp.com/articles/ejtpv13i35p1.pdf](http://www.ejtp.com/articles/ejtpv13i35p1.pdf)

<comment><USER9> Thanks for the citation, I had not seen that recent paper(2016).

Pisin Chen and Hagen Kleinert say that De-Broglie-Bohm theory does not agree with experimental results or the rest of quantum mechanics.

This is surprising since there evidence of this is from a 1979 paper, their citation [15]

[15] C. Philippidis, C. Dewdney and B. J. Hiley, Il Nuovo Cimento 52B, 15 (1979)

can be found online(republished) at: [http://www.pbx- brasil.com/FisQuan/Notas/Area01/semana041/pap...](http://www.pbx- brasil.com/FisQuan/Notas/Area01/semana041/papers/QuantumInterferenceAndTheQuantumPotential.pdf)

I would want to do some additional research before agreeing with Pisin Chen and Hagen Kleinert that the De-Broglie-Bohm theory has been experimentally disproven.

Other then combining the existing research double checking the numerical simulation and algorithms in [15] would be my approach.

Pisin Chen and Hagen Kleinert paper seems to lack such an examination which would have made for a more conclusive argument.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Keep in mind that if you wanted to create a simulated universe you can ensure nobody ever finds out.

If someone does find out, you can simply fix the problem and revert to a point in time just before the data leading to the discovery was captured.

Speaking academically, you might be playing with fire if you probe the outer limits of the universe _and_ we are in a simulation run by some entity concerned with keeping that a secret.

<comment><USER11> > you can simply fix the problem and revert to a point in time just before the > data leading to the discovery was captured.

Only with classical computers, not quantum computers.

<comment><USER12> Who's to say "real" computing, or "reality" at all, has to adhere to the laws we observe within the simulation? That's like Luigi in Super Mario Brothers saying you can't kick a turtle into a brick in the our world and not expect a gold coin to pop up in front of our faces.

<comment><USER13> I wish most of the people who talk about the Simulation Argument understood this.

There is not even a reason to believe that the "outer universe" has such things as _space_ and _time_ or _information as we know it_ , and no way to know what a "computation" might comprise in such a situation.

Maybe the situation is not that pessimal, and an outer universe is much like ours, but to prefer that believe one would need evidence, of which we have none.

<comment><USER14> Various eastern philosophies have a somewhat different solution to this whole problem.

Consciousness -- as in the sheer fact of experience -- is itself the base "reality," out of which everything is made. If you examine everything you're calling "the universe," all you will ever discover is sights, sounds, thoughts about sights and sounds, belief (or certainty) that those sights and sounds are caused by something external, etc. What are all of those made of? Consciousness, of course.

In this reality, "brains" are the entities that consciousness has dreamed up to demonstrate correlations with conscious properties. In our reality, we therefore say that "the brain causes consciousness."

If you investigate your experience closely, you'll discover that the epiphanies "I exist," "I am conscious," "I am alive", "a world exists" all point to the same ineffable "miracle" of existence, the one "substance" of which all realities are made.

Upon hearing this, perhaps the mind thinks "just as there are realities that exist without time and space, why can't there be some without consciousness?" There's a very interesting answer to that question, but it won't come in the form of thoughts.

Of course, there's no reason to believe any of that. On the other hand, as the Buddha said, don't believe me....

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> IMHO as a biologist infused with awe of the natural world from observation and reading, it is laughable that gods or computers could design or simulate the infinite levels of mind numbing complexity and unimaginable patterns that evolution has produced. But most people who are more focused on, and hungry for, the order created by technology and society in general, find it easy - with occasional cognitive dissonance, my favorite expression of which is the poem "Design" by Robert Frost:

I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,

On a white heal-all, holding up a moth

Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth-

Assorted characters of death and blight

Mixed ready to begin the morning right,

Like the ingredients of a witches' broth--

A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,

And dead wings carried like a paper kite.

What had that flower to do with being white,

The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?

What brought the kindred spider to that height,

Then steered the white moth thither in the night?

What but design of darkness to appall?--

If design govern in a thing so small.

<comment><USER16> As a BS in bio as well I learned everything in biology arises from chemistry which arises from physics which can be explained (mostly?) with math. If that isn't abundantly clear on graduation your teachers did you a disservice.

You don't have to design anything, it should just show up if its an accurate enough simulation.

<comment><USER15> You are assuming unlimited computational resources. At some point the computer required is bigger than the universe and exceeds the limits of what our current knowledge of physics and cosmology allows us to speculate about in any kind of meaningful way. I actually believe that a computer with human level intelligence and consciousness will be possible - but only because it won't need to be as messy as real human minds. To paraphrase Hitchhikers Guide, biology is messy. Really messy. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly messy it is.

<comment><USER17> If the idea is that our universe is a simulation then its state is, by definition, represented by a finite subset of the state of the simulating universe. In other words, yes, it would be a computer bigger than our universe, in the same way we simulate a universe smaller than ours on one of our computers today.

<comment><USER15> It's turtles all the way up. Or in this case It's Turing Machines all the way up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> For those, who want to read it in lay man's language, they can go through following articles:

[https://www.technologyreview.com/s/429561/the-measurement- th...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/429561/the-measurement-that-would- reveal-the-universe-as-a-computer-simulation/)

[http://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/physicists-may-have- evide...](http://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/physicists-may-have- evide_n_1957777)

<comment><USER18> The tech review summary seems to be saying this super intelligent universe- simulating computer builder doesn't know about Bresenham's line drawing algorithm [0] and as a result it can only walk high energy particles along a limited number of paths.

[0] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bresenham%27s_line_algorithm](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bresenham%27s_line_algorithm)

<comment><USER19> Possibly? I can see why one would want to assume that an entity that can simulate a universe would be able to know more than the collective ability of that simulation, but on the other hand, we simulate things and learn unexpected results from our simulations. I think it's entirely feasible that a simulation can generate _more_ knowledge, or _different_ knowledge, than exists outside the simulation.

<comment><USER18> Certainly, but the idea that some hyper intelligent entity would develop the tech to build a universe-scale finite element simulator without groking anti- aliasing along the way is simply absurd. Bresenham's algorithm is a big deal because it's essentially the first thing everyone needs to invent when they start trying to render continuous processes on a discrete grid.

<comment><USER20> Bresenham's algorithm draws aliased lines.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> So we stopped believing that God created the universe, and us as part of it. We believed only in science and natural processes. Following that through, we started believing that we live in a computer simulation with, presumably, some kind of programmer. That's pretty ironic.

<comment><USER22> The root distinction seems to be whether you prioritize reality or abstractions.

If reality comes first, you might not even believe that there is a set of universal mathematical laws governing nature (Feynman expresses this viewpoint, and raises the possibility that no such laws exist here[0]). Edward Nelson came up with similar ideas on the limits of abstractions in mathematics, based on Christian philosophy [1].

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkhBcLk_8f0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkhBcLk_8f0)

[1] [https://web.math.princeton.edu/~nelson/papers/warn.pdf](https://web.math.princeton.edu/~nelson/papers/warn.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> It kind of irks me that they basically assume a cubic lattice. Nature does not form cubic lattices, when nature forms a lattice (for example, in a foam) it tends to form roughly dodecahedral cells (with coordination number 12). Given this property, a space-time lattice would be very nearly isotropic.

<comment><USER24> It kind of irks me that they basically assume 3+1- space-time.

<comment><USER25> That's pretty natural since it is extremely hard to recover the inverse square law (for gravitation and electromagnetism) from any configuration of spacetime, assuming large dimensions (large compared to the Planck length).

Ehrenfest and Weyl showed this as early as 1920 and 1922, respectively.

3+1 is also baked into the Minkowski metric by the latter's definition, which leads to the Poincaré group being the isometry group on local patches of spacetime; the Poincaré group is a subgroup of the Standard Model, and is extremely well tested in controlled, laboratory settings (and supported by an abundance of observational evidence too).

Extra dimensions of spacetime have to be small compared to the Planck length in order not to be obvious today. For all practical purposes, if such tiny dimensions exist, we can safely omit them from effective theoretical descriptions of everyday physics, just like we can ignore things like very large extra dimensions where the smallest step one can take is much bigger than the Hubble diameter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Should we perhaps hypothesize the motive of this simulation, if any? Death seems to be a very important focal point: All living organisms are condemned to their aging bodies, eventually begin decaying, then die. Death of the universe is also inevitable, "Heat Death". Then there are other existential issues our feeble brains have to deal with. Then of course, our Earth is replete with suffering around every corner. Perhaps other terrestrial planets operate differently, for better or worse. You would think our maker(s) should have known the possible outcomes and scenarios before hitting the "start existence now" button, or perhaps it is just part of the grand plan.

You have to wonder: Are these entity/entities sadistic pranksters of some sort?

<comment><USER27> A cursory reading of most religious texts would certainly indicate a degree of sadism and lack of empathy with our human feelings. Human sacrifice? Plagues? Genocide? As an experiment, they would make sense. Virtual vivisection.

The old God-as-a-Programmer argument certainly has its appeal :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> If we're living in a simulation, the question of whether AIs can have consciousness is solved.

<comment><USER10> What if the simulation is actually being "run" inside an entity or organism that was the natural product of its environment?

<comment><USER29> Still, human intelligence would be simulated within that, presumably. So the platform might not be the obvious one, but the software would still be theoretically possible.

That, or there's some interface to that platform that provides a source of intelligence. Maybe we're nothing more than Docker containers running on God's hardware.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> What is interesting is if we are the result of an unfathomable number of transistor gates, the consciousness that arises from it would never be able to understand the 'platform' (hardware) that it sits on.. would it? The idea being that you are creating a new dimension that cannot see the dimension that gave rise to it.

I feel like no matter what we are in a 'simulation' where another dimension gave rise to ours whether it was intentional or not.

What dimension is thought in?

<comment><USER31> Nobody said the simulation is being done with transistors. Even if it was why wouldn't it be possible? I don't see any constraints. One day humans will fully understand neurons. One day we will make an AI using transistors who will be able to "understand" transistors

<comment><USER30> I meant it more in an abstract sense. They don't have to be silicon they could be enormous metal planets and moons..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> On a semi-serious note, I've always had this nagging feeling ever since I first heard of Planck time and Planck length. Why would there be a lower limit to the resolution of the universe, unless there was something spooky going on?

(I know they're just theoretical, but...)

<comment><USER32> I'm not a physicist, so I'm speaking as 100% layman, but I can better accept a fixed-resolution universe, where forces have a certain magnitude and beyond them (in either direction, smaller or larger) matter doesn't behave in productive ways.

For a long time, we thought atoms were these building blocks; now we think it's quarks; the Standard Model does a pretty good job at relating all observed phenomena to each other, except for, you know, gravitation, and that pesky observed-but-unaccounted-for thing we deemed 'dark matter'.

A few things about the Standard Model make my head hurt, but the idea of a fractal universe that is infinitely scalable up and down and assumptions about spacetime and forces still hold the same way is truly mindbending that I don't know how to reason around it. So perhaps conversely, can we flip the question and ask, why wouldn't the universe have a finite resolution in terms of matter actually existing and behaving like we know and love?

<comment><USER25> That's a good question you asked.

The Standard Model has as a subgroup the Poincaré group, which is the isometry group of flat spacetime, which is both the (global) spacetime of Special Relativity and is the local spacetime of General Relativity for a pretty narrow definition of local, although we regularly construct Local Inertial Frames which are regions of spacetime that are so approximately flat that the difference is negligible.

The Poincaré group has as a subgroup the Lorentz group, and its generators include rotations about the three spacelike axes of Minkowski (i.e., flat) spacetime.

The other symmetries of the Standard Model are invariant under these rotations.

A distant observer moving transversely relative to a particle observes a tiny rotation of the particle. The particle's fundamental properties do not change under that rotation, which can be arbitarily small.

Rather than descending into group theory to reason about a minimum translation or boost, we can look to the energy-mass-momentum equivalence E_r^2 = (m_0 c^2)^2 + (pc)^2 and focus in on photons so we can ignore the m_0 term. Here we have E = E_r = (pc) = \hbar\omega = hc/\lambda = hf. Photons come at arbitrary frequencies, and we have good blackbody radiators all across our sky. If there were a minimal length scale, we would expect that derivatives of position would incorporate that minimal length, and so we would impose observables on things like the doppler shift, for example if we accelerate in a straight line towards a radiator emitting extremely high energy photons.

So it's not so much "why wouldn't it have" but rather, "Q: does observation or experiment support a minimum scale that is large compared to the Planck scale for spacetime intervals in our universe? A: no"

The answers for minimum length et al. scales that are small compared to the Planck scale are subtler (essentially by definition of the Planck scale, at those scales quantum corrections to account for gravitation become significant, spoiling the observability of short spacetime intervals) but so far still 'no'. For every particle in the universe there can be an (ultrarelativistic) observer who sees the particle wavelength shrink below the Planck length; there is nothing special about this observer -- there is likewise a possible observer who sees the particle at some much longer wavelength -- and the point of relativity is that neither observer is more correct than the other. Furthermore, if the former type of observer manages to see a star ultra-blueshifted and extremely Lorentz-FitzGerald-contracted, that observer does not create a black hole; no event horizon forms (event horizons are a _global_ feature of the causal structure of spacetime[0]), and so we can turn an argument about Planck length into an argument about localized Planck energy: there is nothing obviously special in _spacetime_ about the Planck scale. However, our ultrarelativistic observer will certainly see some very strange stuff courtesy of the Unruh effect: different observers observe different particle counts, and one would expect our observer would see an explosion in the number of particles compared to a more typical observer, and those particles -- like all others -- will also interact gravitationally, and we don't know yet how to decomplicate the picture enough to do useful calculations on them.

[0] different observers may disagree on precisely where the event horizon is, what its shape is, and even the count and energy of the particles just outside the event horizon. but they will all agree that there is an event horizon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> In my opinion this seems all pretty pointless. To be able to differentiate between a simulation and reality you have to know at least how one of those works in quite some detail. What if we discover floating point rounding errors in the laws of physics we observe? Who is to say that this is not a feature of reality? What if it is the other way round, what if we live in a simulation with laws of physics made out of real real or complex numbers but the reality outside of our simulation has laws of physics behaving like floating point numbers? It seems pretty impossible to ever figure out what reality or a simulation must look like so that we can determine what surrounds us. Maybe there is some incredible self-consistency law at the bottom of reality, forcing reality to be what it is because there is one and only one way reality can be. But besides something like that?

<comment><USER34> Not so pointless. Think that one of the NPC in a computer game gets intelligent. It could learn how to trigger bugs or cheats in the game or features thought only for the player. Examples: crash the game, which hopefully restarts from the last save. Get where no NPC was supposed to be, only players, and get teleported somewhere else. Trigger a stack overflow and perform actions in the host, maybe changing the programming of the game or the data in the save files.

In our case it could be the way to FTL. Did any Sci-fi author considered that yet?

<comment><USER33> But how would that NPC know that it is in a game? What if we figured out how to do teleportation or time travel? How would you determine whether that is a feature of reality or whether we discovered a bug in a simulation?

<comment><USER34> Gut feeling: it can't know. But the simulation in some way is part of reality and maybe that's why it couldn't be known.

I guess there has been plenty of philosophical research on this subject.

<comment><USER33> But exactly that was my point - unless you know what either reality or a simulation really looks like, you can not look around and draw conclusions whether we live in reality or a simulation. People trying to do this make the assumptions that a simulation would have properties similar to simulations we perform and that reality would have properties similar to the laws of physics as we know them, but neither assumption seems really justified.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> 13th floor style? [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0139809/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0139809/)

</comment><comment><USER36> I'm really surprised (every time!) when someone talks about conscience or discoveries or whatever so human-centric and local and unimportant in the cosmic scale while talking about simulations. If it's simulation, it certainly isn't made because of us.

<comment><USER37> We are on the only planet we know about with life on it, so it is fairly easy to assume this is the most interesting place in the universe. Whether that's rational or not is another question, but it doesn't seem surprising.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> The other day I saw a post on social media that how he explained spaces from 0-dimension to 10-dimention in simple drawings. At the end, he claims that 10-dimentional space is just a dot, and there is no higher dimensional space more than 10-dimention any more. And he justifies his claims based on the string theory. At that time immediately I thought about the billions of parameter space in deep neural network and fractal spaces such as Mandelbrot Set. How could one simulate the universe based on only 3D space-time lattice?

</comment><comment><USER16> What sort of moral issues result from creating a simulation universe that gives rise to sentient beings? I feel creeped out and reminded of Source Code with Jake Gyllenhaal for some reason.

<comment><USER39> Greg Egan has written a (slightly ham-fisted, but still interesting) short story about that question: [http://ttapress.com/553/crystal-nights-by-greg- egan/](http://ttapress.com/553/crystal-nights-by-greg-egan/)

The author has commented that he regrets having overlooked the moral implications of simulated life in his previous works (see e.g. [http://gregegan.customer.netspace.net.au/PERMUTATION/FAQ/FAQ...](http://gregegan.customer.netspace.net.au/PERMUTATION/FAQ/FAQ.html), which contains spoilers for _Permutation City_ ) so I wouldn't be surprised if that was the inspiration for this story.

<comment><USER40> Also highly recommended along these lines is Stanislaw Lem's _Cyberiad_ (published in 1965):

[https://www.amazon.com/Cyberiad-Stanislaw- Lem/dp/0156027593](https://www.amazon.com/Cyberiad-Stanislaw- Lem/dp/0156027593)

It touches thoughtfully and humorously on: AI, simulations, robotics, ethical and moral questions regarding artificial life, among many other interesting topics. It's one of the funniest and greatest science fiction books I've ever read.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> > At fixed quark masses, the CRR of a lattice ensemble generation (in units of > petaFLOP-years) scales roughly as the dimensionless number...

The formula they give, indicates that the largest QCD calculations to date have taken 7.9e11 petaflop-years; this is consistent with the graph they give, but not with actual feasibility. What am I missing?

</comment><comment><USER42> I'm not sure why people insist on assigning agency to this phenomenon. If you wanted, couldn't you invoke the 'many worlds' theory and suggest that our particular universe exhibits the same properties as what you might find in a simulation? This would do away with the need for an agent who is simulating.

</comment><comment><USER43> Can someone summarise the paper? Seems to complex for a lay-man. For example, what is Lattice QCD?

</comment><comment><USER44> Sigh. Why would you dedicate your life to proving this?

You will either find you cannot prove it, in which case you have wasted your entire life on falsehood, or you prove it true in which you undo your dilute your existence and everyone you have ever known and loved.

Kinda like religion I guess...

<comment><USER45> though, if we are a simulation... maybe we can exploit bugs in it and give ourselves advantages! After all, the only bug-free program is one that was never started.

<comment><USER46> What are you trying to tell me? That I can dodge bullets?

<comment><USER45> I'm trying to say that when the time comes, you won't have to!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Let's all just think, very hard, of the number 42 and see if the simulation ends.

</comment><comment><USER47> The title of the arxiv article is: Constraints on the Universe as a Numerical Simulation

The only time they use the word evidence is in this quote:

__ Therefore, there is a sense in which lattice QCD may be viewed as the nascent science of universe simulation, and, as will be argued in the next paragraph, very basic extrapolation of current lattice QCD resource trends into the future suggest that experimental searches for evidence that our universe is, in fact, a simulation are both interesting and logical.

<comment><USER48> We've updated the submission title from "Physicists May Have Evidence Universe Is a Computer Simulation", which breaks the guidelines by being editorialized.

<comment><USER47> Awesome, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Per the arXiv abstract, physicists _may be able to find_ evidence. That's very different from _may have found_.

</comment><comment><USER49> (2012)</comment>


HK police accessed full details of injured protesters, says lawmaker - <AUTHOR> https://www.hongkongfp.com/2019/06/17/police-can-access-full-details-injured-protesters-hospital-says-medical-sector-lawmaker-following-patient-arrests/ <comment><USER2> I asked a technical question in another posting about whether this is a common practise

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20208845](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20208845)

<comment><AUTHOR> I think this transcends this as hospital workers were asked to distinctly mark protestors. Stateside passwords are commonplace if only for HIPPA compliance.</comment></comment>


How to Reddit: A Practical Guide for Marketers - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@janel_az/how-to-reddit-20058e8836e5

<comment><USER2> "Reddit is a self regulating marketplace of ideas." -> I like that.</comment>


Climate-Strike License - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/climate-strike/license <comment><USER3> Using software covered by a license like this is the legal equivalent of Russian roulette.

Without precedence, nobody knows how "The Software may not be used in applications and services that are used for or aid in the exploration, extraction, refinement, processing, or transportation of fossil fuels." would be interpreted in any of the thousands of different jurisdictions an online business could be sued in.

In the broadest interpretation, almost any business with a large customer base could be found in violation, because some customer has a customer that does something related to oil.

So while this license might be well intentioned, it would make any open source project that adopts it toxic to large corporations. That would cut off a lot of potential corporate support, and spawn forks and competing projects. Nothing good will come of this.

</comment><comment><USER4> See also: the Hippocratic License 2.1 "An Ethical License for Open Source Projects" [https://firstdonoharm.dev/](https://firstdonoharm.dev/)

"prohibits the redistribution of the software in modified, derivative, or collected work form from being relicensed to any individual or organization which directly or indirectly facilitates, encourages, manipulates, coerces, or forces people to engage in behaviors that are in conflict with the rights enumerated in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights."

<comment><USER5> Especially the "indirectly" part is probably something everyone can be guilty of if you search long enough. So, a great license if you want no one to use whatever you write. No idea why you even bother licensing it then, but to each their own.

<comment><USER4> agreed. The atmosphere license seems to have better wording "...materially and directly invested..."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Open source software works because it's easy to use. Start including limiting clauses and you'll need lawyers to figure out what you can and can't use. Even then, there's still the chance that downstream the package will still end up somewhere you didn't intend. Which is why the current model is popular and this isn't.

<comment><USER4> the intention is not to make it easier for companies to use, it's to put a burden on them. The aim is not to make the software widely used - <USER2> ethically used.

<comment><USER6> > the intention is ... to put a burden on them

Sounds like a great model to get people to use software.

<comment><USER4> Yes. it is not a model to get people to use it at all!!

I think the aim is not to get as many people to use the software. It's to get certain people not to use it.

It's kind of like comparing a non profit to a for profit business and noticing that the non profit does not have the aim to make more money.

I wouldn't expect any library or application to have this license on to become popular at all. But there might be a use for better worded exclusive licenses somewhere in our world.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> prior art? [https://www.open-austin.org/atmosphere-license/](https://www.open- austin.org/atmosphere-license/)

The Atmosphere Licenses are open source, copyleft software licenses with fossil fuel divestment provisions.

"a similar license that prohibits the redistribution of the software in modified, derivative, or collected work form to any individual or organization that is materially and directly invested in operations or facilities that have significant negative impact on the global climate response, as documented by the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat."

seems a bit more better worded than the climate strike license:

"The Software may not be used in applications and services that are used for or aid in the exploration, extraction, refinement, processing, or transportation of fossil fuels."

</comment><comment><USER7> So if I create a library that helps chemists predict how to do something 30% more efficiently, and I license it with this license, refineries won't be able to use it, even if they are trying to improve their current processes to make them more eco-friendly...

<comment><USER8> Yep, because the point is that at this stage, we are basically screwed if we don't keep oil in the ground. There was a time when we could've focused on efficiency and given ourselves another century. It passed in the 80s or 90s, I expect.

<comment><USER7> And you wrote that on a device that would not exist without that oil.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is not a free/libre software license.

</comment><comment><USER10> Won't these oil and gas companies simply hire their own developers to create software that they need? Doesn't that mean lots of development time will go into solving problems other projects have already solved? This seems like it could create competition, but it doesn't seem very likely to me that it would ultimately help the environment.

Perhaps the awareness it spreads has a greater impact than the rest of it.

</comment><comment><USER11> I wonder where Stallman lies on this. 'There ought to be a law!!!' or his actual beliefs.

</comment><comment><USER12> I can't see this post on any of the ranked (default) pages, has it been demoted?

</comment><comment><USER13> This is a disturbing new trend, open source software is just that, it is open source. Defining who can and can't use it goes against the spirit of FOSS.

<comment><USER14> Which they adressed in the last paragraph of the linked page:

 _" Is it an Open Source License?

While the Climate Strike License violates the Open Source Initiative's canonical Open Source Definition, which explicitly excludes licenses that limit re-use "in a specific field of endeavor", we feel that as tech workers, we should take responsibility in how our software is used, and that the urgency of climate change cannot be limited by the ideological position of open source software. Instead, we want adopters of the Climate Strike License to take a bold stance in the fight to save the planet."_

<comment><USER6> "the Climate Strike License violates the Open Source [Initiative]"

So it's not open source.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Prevent oil and gas companies from co-opting your work and extracting more fossil fuels with this software license.

</comment><comment><USER15> This seems nice on the surface, however I'm not sure it will be enforced at all or easily for that matter.

</comment><comment><USER16> This reads like a parody of every bad "open source" license.

Particularly the list of offending projects. Requests? Sphinx?

</comment><comment><USER8> Good. I always thought the stuff about letting weapons manufacturers and oil companies etc use OSS was rubbish. May there be many more of these licenses - perhaps ones stipulating gender balanced boards, or forbidding specific tax practices, or banning union busting.

I accept my downvotes gladly, because at this point anyone who wants to improve the world has to use any means at their disposal. Props to these people.</comment>


Ask HN: What is your favorite newsletter that you pay for? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Mine would be Cassidy William's newsletter: [https://tinyletter.com/cassidoo](https://tinyletter.com/cassidoo). It's free, but there was a few newsletters where she linked her Venmo/Paypal in case people wanted to support, and I contributed during that time. She's since removed those from the letters for whatever reason. This newsletter is great on a Monday morning because it's light and has some interesting/cool links in it.

Another great one would be Kent C Dodds' newsletters: [https://buttondown.email/kentcdodds](https://buttondown.email/kentcdodds). Kent is highly active in the React/JS/OS community and he's a super great guy. Same deal here, its free but you can choose to support, which I do from time to time. His newsletters are focused on JS/React and are a bit more dense, but they're interesting.

</comment><comment><USER3> Scott's Cheap Flights. No affiliation. I probably don't travel enough to justify paying, and when I can travel I just buy the dates available, but if you have lots of spare time, they do a great job of curating low-cost tickets. I especially like that they mention things like "no bag fee" and "nonstop" — not just some random aggregator, but actually handpicked and digested.

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


Ask HN: Dead Man Switch / Emergency Drill UX Best Practice? - <AUTHOR> I'm working on an emergency / dead man switch type app & am wondering if I should hold "drills" or not.
Scenario: User A activates switch on his mobile phone, if not de-activated before time Z, User B (Guardian) gets notified that User A may be in an emergency.
Use Case: high risk sports, activists, etc ...
My Question: Should User B (the Guardian) receive emergency drills to score responsiveness or will this lead to fatigue and ignoring the real signals? <comment><USER2> I would say that regular drills are useful to develop reflexes and awareness in the guardian. See e.g. fire drills in office buildings to make sure everyone knows where the emergency exit is and knows to leave the building without panicking. Just make sure it's obvious quickly enough that it's a drill.</comment>


Incredible snowflake macro photos using cheap cameras/lenses - <AUTHOR> http://www.flickr.com/photos/chaoticmind75/

<comment><USER2> This one look artificial: [http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8194/8370539735_2022779412.jpg](http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8194/8370539735_2022779412.jpg)

What kind of camera you need to take pictures like these?

<comment><AUTHOR> I finally found the original blog post here:

[http://chaoticmind75.blogspot.ru/2013/08/my-technique-for- sn...](http://chaoticmind75.blogspot.ru/2013/08/my-technique-for-snowflakes- shooting.html)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Be sure to look at the full original size, they are amazing.</comment>


Juan Williams' firing reveals a clash of cultures - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/10/22/EDAE1G0LUT.DTL <comment><USER2> _After yelling about censorship, NPR's critics now want to censor the news network by yanking a small amount of federal funding_

They keep using that word. I do not think it means what they think it means.</comment>


Player Career Timelines - <AUTHOR> http://careers.fantasysp.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> This is my take on Facebook Timeline, except for a sports player's career.

The goal is to easily visualize a player's career based on the year and month. It's a neat way to relive a player's ups and downs. For example, it works nicely with Jeremy Lin.

There are a few outstanding bugs and I plan to further improve accuracy, but overall I'm excited to let everyone check it out.</comment>


Dig +short Google-public-dns-a.Google.com TXT - <AUTHOR>

> dig +short http://google-public-dns-a.google.com TXT<p>"http://xkcd.com/1361/" <comment><USER2> What is this?

<comment><USER3> Looks like a friendly warning to me intermixed with tracking cookie.

They got you.</comment></comment>


How the Campuses Helped Ruin California's Economy - <AUTHOR> http://www.mindingthecampus.com/originals/2010/03/how_the_megacampuses_helped_ru.html

<comment><USER2> The author claims the protestors are simply asking for more funding, and have no constructive input into California's budget crisis. The signs in the graphic accompanying his article contradict him, showing clearly that the students want funds spent on classroom teaching rather than the construction of new facilities on campus.

Hard to know what is reasonable without someone breaking down the University budget.</comment>


Customer takes car in for service, Telsa sells it - <AUTHOR> https://www.plainsite.org/dockets/download.html?id=288187296&z=8ad61cff <comment><USER2> So after the car was in for service they got a call suggesting that because they didn't have an ETA for repair it was suggested they buy a "replacement vehicle".

That seems weird...as is the owners lack of asking "Uh I just bought a vehicle from you, why would I buy a second?"</comment>


Twitter, Microsoft, Google and others say they haven't scanned messages like Yahoo - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/04/twitter-microsoft-and-google-say-they-havent-scanned-messages-like-yahoo/?ncid=rss <comment><USER2> So not the same implementation?</comment>