AngelPad: Seven Ex-Googlers Are About To Launch A New Incubator - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/22/angelpad/

<comment><USER2> Seems like an incubator is the wrong type of vehicle for them.

These guys seem to be great product guys...but they don't seem to have been founders prior to Google. What does a product guy at a corporation like Google know about jump starting a startup? That requires a completely different skillset and approach.

As a boutique VC firm, these guys would be perfect...as an incubator...not so much.

<comment><USER3> My co-founder brought up the same objection when considering joining AngelPad. I responded with the following:

Two of the seven partners are currently running their own startups -- Vibhu Mittal is the founder of Root-X Research (dedicated to improving learning online, etc.) and Gokul Rajaram is the founder of Chai Labs (acquired by Facebook last week).

David Scacco (though not a founder) is one of only 4 people at MyLikes, a very new startup with seed funding. He's already shown his ability to execute by bringing in early revenue from advertisers and securing multiple partner commitments to grow their company.

Keval Desai co-founded Achex (a la PayPal) with Michael Arrington over 10 years ago, which was acquired in 2001 by FirstData for $32M. That's in addition to him being the pioneer of Google TV Ads and currently working with Kevin Rose in a leadership function to re-launch Digg.

Deep Nishar founded Patkai Networks (a B2B online services provider) 10 years ago before moving to Google and now is essentially the #2 guy at LinkedIn (granted, a good-sized company now).

Rich Chen is an accomplished angel investor with multiple successful exits in his portfolio companies in recent years, but he too founded his own company in Japan called OptoMail 10 years ago, which was a B2B email marketing startup.

Thomas Korte is a founder in his own right by being the lead in launching AngelPad. However, he too has startup experience (though not a founder) at an enterprise news startup a decade ago called Moreover Technologies.

So whether prior to or after Google, every one of the partners has significant early startup experience to complement their leading roles at Google. Just wanted to make the clarification.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> FYI, as a founder for a startup recently accepted into AngelPad, I added a detailed response on how it's different from Y-Combinator: [http://www.quora.com/How-is-AngelPad-different-from-Y- Combin...](http://www.quora.com/How-is-AngelPad-different-from-Y-Combinator)

<comment><USER4> Very interesting change of perspective. I think there's definitely room to experiment with tweaks of this caliber on YC's model (not so say that YC needs tweaking themselves).

I'm excited to see what they come up with!

<comment><USER5> Everybody needs tweaking, nothing is perfect.

<comment><USER4> The counter-argument is that, based on public gathered figures, YC is doing pretty damn well right now. I say they don't need tweaking because of that. They could tweak and try to scale quickly or get better returns, but they don't need to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Any chance for non Bay Area based startups? like startups near Google... Zürich? (In case they are on HN?)

</comment><comment><USER7> The article starts with: _"The problem is obvious: it's hard to launch a startup"_

Really? Seems contradictory to what I see & read elsewhere.

<comment><USER8> Should probably be qualified better: "The problem is obvious. It's hard to take a startup and turn it into a successful company."

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> These guys appear to lack both technical backgrounds and start-up backgrounds. They're backers not hackers. Could be useful for some businesses, but for consumer web startups the YC approach and team seem far more relevant.

</comment><comment><USER10> Have incubators worked out somewhere? I thought all the empirical evidence has shown they are a waste of effort.</comment>


Deposits.org API Access - <AUTHOR> Our startup has interest bearing product data worldwide from P2P, banks, etc. We are looking to reach out to the Hacker news community if we were to open this up if their is any demand for API access for developers. Im certain it could be used in numerous applications but am wondering your thoughts for consideration? <comment><USER2> Serious businesses with algos that need snapshot "now" views of this information will probably get this information from a financial data provider I imagine, Bloomberg? Reuters? or give relative infrequency of change (max few times a day?) perhaps internally by feeds managed by their own researcher/analysts.

I can could see some use for non-trading researchers and analysts, or even on the trading side for very small shops, by being able to grab historical information, perhaps applying some aggregation over the data too, but surely it's already available. Where do you get the data from?</comment>


Basic Income: We tried this before and its failures are quite famous - <AUTHOR> http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2016/01/ubi-we-tried-this-before-and-its.html <comment><USER2> The title doesn't fit the content. The article does not list any famous failure of Basic Income. It does mention one famous success of Basic Income and questions the validity of that success.

Also this quote: _" Wealth is something humans create. It can be as easily destroyed if we disincentivize working at all."_ But here's the thing: Basic Income doesn't disincentivize working at all. It incentivizes it, because you keep the BI when you work, unlike the welfare, unemployment and disability payments we currently have. _Those_ really disincentivize working.

Finally, there's the fact that there's simply not going to be enough work for everybody in the future. More things will be automated, and less human labour will be needed to take care of our needs. The only way to prevent extreme poverty, is to ensure that people who don't work, can still eat.

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting way to frame it in the context of "freeing women from the slavery of home-making" but I don't think that makes a coherent argument.</comment>


Digital marketing made easier: Introducing Google Tag Manager - <AUTHOR> http://analytics.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/google-tag-manager.html

<comment><USER2> I've been testing out Tag Manager for a few weeks now. If you want a free service it's good and I'd recommend it, especially if you do a lot of work with Dart, AdWords, and Google Analytics.

If you have money to spare, though, I'd recommend another solution. I've only briefly looked into Satellite but I'd say go with that over GTM. GTM has the normal Google problem of making things a bit too complicated, while with Satellite I was confident that I could hand off the account to a less technical member of our team and there'd be no problem making changes.

<comment><AUTHOR> What is the rough range of cost for Satellite?

For those interest to know more, the Satellite link:

<http://www.searchdiscovery.com/satellite/>

<comment><USER2> If I recall correctly it was $500 for the first site and $200 for each following.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Having evaluated a lot of tag management solutions I consider this a big deal. Most solutions for a site in the 50 million+ pageview range are around $3-$7K a month with a $5K - $15K installation fee. A few are $500-$1K a month. However for the most part Google's solution covers most of the functionality and it's hard to beat free.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> An admin changed the title here, which I altered to try to include an explanation. So instead...

I was somewhat confused what it was talking about when it referred to tags - it primarily means snippets of Javascript. Things such as your Google Analytics snippet, Facebook Like button snippet etc.

<comment><USER4> Not a Facebook Like button snippet, as that goes in a specific place on your page.

This is for things like Google Analytics, Compete, QuantCast, AdWords/DC/etc remarketing, MixPanel/KISSmetrics PV events, ad trackers... JS code that tags your visitors for tracking and remarketing purposes, not code with output.</comment></comment>


Journalists decry Facebook experiment's impact on democracy - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/25/facebook-orwellian-journalists-democracy-guatemala-slovakia <comment><USER2> This tells more about the journalists than Facebook. Facebook has always been the same. It's journalists who sold their soul so that they can make money.

Furthermore, it's funny hearing this hypocrisy coming from journalists, since they are the ones who are throwing away their "journalistic integrity" to make money. It's impossible to come across a mainstream publication with unbiased point of view nowadays.

They have to write polarizing articles to gain more eyeballs since otherwise no one will have enough attention to read their articles. They should realize there's a bigger opportunity here but instead all they're focused on is short therm revenue and complaining about how Facebook (who focuses obsessively on long term value) is being unfair.

<comment><USER3> > This tells more about the journalists than Facebook. Facebook has always > been the same. It's journalists who sold their soul so that they can make > money.

I'm not sure what your whole screed about journaists has to do with the decision at hand. It's just a fact that one of the largest online audiences is on Facebook and that newspapers & magazines have to be present on that platform to get views. They can't really get around posting to Fb, can they? If Fb suddenly cuts a major source of revenue for a whole industry without any discussion, if that is Fb's power, then this is really unhealthy for our market economy and our ideas of democracy

<comment><USER2> The Web is an open platform. Facebook is not some big brother who has power to censor anything. People can type [https://nytimes.com](https://nytimes.com) to go directly go to the new york times if they want.

From Facebook's point of view, these media sites are nothing more than parasites that try to write sensational articles to mislead the public and get people to fight online.

Users become unhappy because they get into unnecessary arguments with their friends and family about things that ultimately have no right or wrong answer (such as politics), and end up blaming Facebook for facilitating it.

Facebook is unhappy because their users are unhappy.

It's only these short-sighted media companies that "benefit" off of the traffic (but in the long term not so much).

By cutting this party out of the equation, users are happier. Facebook is happier.

And I would say it's a good thing even for the media because essentially they are being cut off of access to the race to the bottom that's killing them. One of the reasons why these publications had to write sensationalism articles and disseminate them onto Facebook was because if they didn't, their competition would.

Now that they are cut off, they are forced to compete in healthier ways. It's kind of hilarious because it's like these self-important media companies are some kids trying to get their hands on a cookie jar and fighting, and one day their mom (Facebook) takes it all away so nobody gets the cookie jar. The kids cry and bitch about it saying it's not fair. But soon something great happens. kids no longer fight because there's nothing to fight over, but go out to earn their own cookie in their own creative ways. They may even share the ones they earned with one another if they're generous.

Anyway this has nothing to do with democracy, they're just doing the thing they've become good at doing--spinning news to fit their interest--like kids crying and complaining about how it's not fair that the free cookie jar is gone.

<comment><USER4> >And I would say it's a good thing even for the media because essentially they are being cut off of access to the race to the bottom that's killing them.

I would completely agree if it wasn't possible for a media page to pay to have their posts back in the news feed again. Which it is.

If FB was genuinely trying to "make users happy" then I'd be more charitable. But they're not. They're trying to monetise more.

As a publisher affected by this test, it was a nightmare. All our users are on mobile, and use FB as their search engine. We saw a ~75% drop in engagement for the main site affected by it.

Yes, people _can_ type a url into a browser. But they don't. they scroll their newsfeed.

Our choices are: take FB head-on trying to get engagement with our users outside FB, or pay FB to regain our old levels of engagement. Not fun.

<comment><USER5> _Yes, people can type a url into a browser. But they don 't. they scroll their newsfeed._

They don't ... for your site.

You know how often I see Hacker News on Facebook? Never. Yet I visit here regularly. Same for reddit and many other sources of news.

You know how often Breitbart links appear in Facebook or Google News? Never. Yet it's the 49th biggest site in the USA according to Alexa.

 _Our choices are: take FB head-on trying to get engagement with our users outside FB, or pay FB to regain our old levels of engagement. Not fun._

Isn't that cookie-jar thinking, just like cocktailpeanuts says? You got large amounts of free advertising and referral traffic for a long time. Very few businesses benefit from that sort of thing. Now you're back to having to get loyal users the old fashioned way, or you can pay for that traffic in the manner of traditional advertisers.

<comment><USER4> HN, Reddit and FB are all aggregators, not journalists. They are not sources of news, they merely link to it.

Producing quality journalism is expensive, the business model doesn't work to pay for the journalists and also pay for our traffic.

Having been through this test, our only viable long-term choice here is to gtf off FB. That's going to be extremely painful.

Let's hope a few good news sources survive the pain, eh? Otherwise all you've got left on your lovely FB/HN/Reddit feed is the shite that's cheap to produce and optimised for clicks...

<comment><USER5> HN/Reddit being aggregators isn't relevant to my point - I derive value from these sites and browse to them directly. If your site was that valuable, people would do the same. Besides, much news in newspapers is also just aggregations of AP/Reuters stories.

The vast majority of news sources are actually worse than "shite that's cheap" and optimised for clicks - they're stuffed with lying, manipulation and nonsense designed to bring about political outcomes preferred by the journalists. See my other post in this thread about the FT. If we end this era with most current journalistic outlets going bankrupt and disappearing, fine! There will always be news. If it comes from other people who see journalism as a way to aggregate timely facts rather than push agendas, so much the better.

<comment><USER6> Does reading stuff like this make anyone else weep for the future of humanity?

And, since this sort of thinking seems to be quite prevalent on HN: does anyone subscribing to this dystopian view of today's journalism care to provide a single example of a for-profit publisher that they consider high quality?

Because all I can think of when I read about "aggregate[d] timely facts" is the phone book.

<comment><USER5> Ah, insults. The last refuge of the pointless.

Technical and scientific journals, for example, are higher quality than newspapers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Why don't these publishers band together and launch their own news aggregator if they think that's something people want? I don't see Facebook owing them a platform here and from a personal perspective politics can't be removed from my _social_ feed fast enough.

<comment><USER8> If you construct a community resource, you have a responsibility to the community. This transcends business interest, which is illegitimate and immoral. If you want to be a part of my life you need to be responsible.

<comment><USER9> As things stand, Facebook has no responsibility beyond those required by law and market. This is not an endorsement of anything, but a reminder of the reality.

<comment><USER10> No, they have no _legal_ responsibilities beyond those required by law.

If they behave unethically we can certainly complain about it, and possibly take some kind of action if we feel strongly enough (e.g. boycott).

<comment><USER9> Like I said, they have a responsibility defined by the market. I'm not sure how your argument extends their responsibility any more than I did.

You comment concerning the users' freedoms is, sure, correct; that's the _market_ I'm talking about.

Please clarify your argument if you have one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I assume probably a response to decreased engagement metrics. My 'sample of one': I don't look at FB anymore, going from a daily user to maybe once a month if that. I would likely re-engage if only 'human social' posts were in my main feed. Sounds like I could still find public page posts and meme video shit if I want in the second feed. I could manually attempt to manipulate this outcome but the time and effect would pale in comparison to what FB could do fairly simply.

As an advertiser, I would love this change if it does in fact bring daily users back to engaging on FB. I already pay for reach, but much of it is mobile and off FB news feed.

I wonder what their metrics for ad engagement would show though: does ad engagement increase if the ad is the only non 'human social' post in view, or does the mixed content that 'blends' an ad into similar looking content produce more engagement (perhaps through engagements that users don't realize are on an ad)? And if engagement is higher because of this blending 'trick' engagement, do I actually want to pay for it or do I want to pay maybe a higher price for more 'authentic' engagement? Probably very hard to measure, which is why in my business we use polling to look beyond metrics FB reports...

<comment><USER12> I think FB only cares about maximizing impressions (if the ad is CPM) and clicks (if the ad is CPC).

Maximizing user's time by decreasing efficiency with dark patterns seems to be the name of the game.

<comment><USER11> Simplistically yes. I am not an engineer there so I don't know for sure, but my experience says its a bit more complicated since you can have a more complex bid that might be bidding CPM but uses LTV or CPA or some other metric (ie for us we are happy to pay $50 CPM to reach certain voter who donate to campaigns). Increasing impression load might work short term (or maybe even might work in majority of cases so my point might be moot) - until the end metric that ad buyers care about takes a hit (which in itself is a balance of quality/cost so again, it's complicated).

I mean it's harder to measure for brand advertising, but we track very closely lifetime value and persuasion through surveys, so the bid method doesn't matter as much to us - and FB is probably the best IMHO at letting us bring in whatever value data we want and optimizing for that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This reads pretty similar to the cries that come out whenever Google updates their search algorithm. It's as if people believe there is some code big internet companies must live by, that ensures they never change.

These companies live by the code of the market - they will happily make changes that make them more profitable. It does not make them evil if a small customer gets caught in the crosshairs - it just means that small customers need to be resilient to change.

<comment><USER14> And if you complain about low internet speed pick up a showel and start digging that fiber. I don't see a reason why cable companies need to cater your need for Netflix.

<comment><USER15> Was Facebook granted a government-sanctioned monopoly like Comcast was?

<comment><USER16> Does it matter where the monopoly came from? Honest question, I'm genuinely unsure myself

<comment><USER17> Easy answer: yes it does.

Think of something else like monopoly: money. Does it matter where your money came from? A drug network killing teenagers across the country or selling iphones to rich people. One makes you a criminal, the other makes you Steve Jobs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Have no love for Facebook but: The Guardian would publish this wouldn't they?

This is a good idea by former editor (1975-95 [1]) Peter Preston: move The Guardian back to Manchester from London and trim the wage bill in the process. [2]

Perhaps then they might slow the cash burn of their Scott "Trust" endowment (£838.3m 2015) ... [3]

Also, if they weren't quite so London centric they might be less surprised by "events" outside their Facebook bubbles like Brexit and Trump.

I write the above as someone born in London, but now an expat (Japan) who voted against Brexit, but wasn't surprised or offended that others didn't.

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/profile/peterpreston](https://www.theguardian.com/profile/peterpreston)

[2] [https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/apr/09/guardian- manch...](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/apr/09/guardian-manchester- move-rumour-london-media)

[3] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Scott_Trust_Limited](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Scott_Trust_Limited)

<comment><USER5> The Guardian has been pushing the line that non-Guardian news sources are 'dangerous for democracy' for a long time now. Other similar publications like the NYT have the same viewpoint.

It's impressive double think: what they mean is, exposure to views they disagree with might cause people to vote against things Guardian writers like and for things Guardian writers dislike, therefore, it's important that such people are not exposed to "wrong" views. The assumption that the Guardian can't or shouldn't argue against those views is held very deep - if they took opposing views seriously and tried to engage in debate, that would "legitimise" such views or worse, they might lose the argument.

I used to be a Guardian reader. I read it religiously around the time Snowden's stuff was getting published there. But I came to find it manipulative and extremist. The amount of vitriolic hate they publish in their comment is free section is very disturbing. If they go bankrupt I won't miss them.

<comment><USER18> This.

The publishing that they did concerning Snowden was important for journalistic freedom.

All that stuff stopped after Katherine Viner became editor in 2015.

I do read it occasionally - just have uBlock Origin picker handy each time her face pops up begging for funds ...

<comment><USER5> Yes, I noticed a sharp drop in quality after Rusbridger left too.

Likewise at the Economist. Once Micklethwaite left and was replaced by Minton Beddoes the stories became much less neutral.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The journalists should really blame themselves for using facebook in the first place. They knew what they were buying into.

<comment><USER20> Sadly, it's where their audience is.

<comment><USER19> i dont know. it didn't have to be. journalists embraced social media so tightly both for getting input for their work as well as for audience. They 'd hate to admit it but they became lazy. Partly, they made facebook (and twitter) as mainstream as it is now.

<comment><USER21> Facebook has over a billion daly actve mobile, and over two billion monthly active users. It is the biggest single media platform in the history of the planet. If you're in the audience business, it's simply a fact of life.

[https://zephoria.com/top-15-valuable-facebook- statistics/amp...](https://zephoria.com/top-15-valuable-facebook- statistics/amp/)

Media tends to winner-take-all dynamics for various reasons. Zipf's law means that at best a small number of outlets will be significant. These are characteristics of media platforms, period. Not journalists' or publishers' fault.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This is why you don't put all of your eggs into someone else's basket.

</comment><comment><USER23> > The experiment, which began 19 October and is still ongoing, involves > limiting the core element of Facebook's social network to only personal > posts and paid adverts.

This is the Orwellian outcry? I'm much more concerned about the idea of everyone getting their news (especially passively) from Facebook and making Facebook some sort of "social network" instead.

<comment><USER24> The Orwellian part is that they rolled it out in Guatemala, where:

> _Soy502 is a new site in an unstable democracy where journalists and civil > society groups already face an uphill battle to be heard. "We currently have > a smear campaign that is targeting journalists, which is really vicious, > fuelled by interest groups who are against the anti-corruption drive in our > country," she says. "We are regarded in the region as a success story on new > media for the digital age. This can destroy us."_

<comment><USER25> If I understand the problem correctly (I'm not a Facebook user) their articles, which were being stuffed into users' feed, now require _one more click_ from the user to be seen. And if their audience don't do that click now, they overestimate importance of their work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> My visits to Zuckerberg-land are few and getting fewer. Mainly to pick up the occasional personal message and redirect it to a more civilized channel. And _when_ I visit, I am heavily insulated by various sorts of filters - I never see ads or silly recommendations.

So clearly, I'm in a bubble, and my ignorance is self-wrought, but honestly, I never get it when there's talk about people reading _news_ \- fake or otherwise - on Facebook. How do you even do that? Why would anyone? What am I missing? If I ever _did_ see a news item there, my first instinct would be distrust, my first potential reaction would be seeking out some external source, and if none could be found, absolute dismissal.

Two billion users _do_ realise FB is nothing but a cheap, tacky marketing ploy, yes? They do, don't they? Please!

<comment><USER27> Narrator: they do not.

<comment><USER26> And apparently, neither do several downvoters here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Maybe the problem is trying to centrally control vast and varied resources to reach some kind of "fair" outcome.

Wait, Silicon Valley techies wouldn't be in favor of anything like that, would they?

Ohhh....

</comment><comment><USER29> it's the old Facebook honeypot. So easy to share your content with users, until FB decides what will and will not be shared.

[http://theoatmeal.com/comics/reaching_people](http://theoatmeal.com/comics/reaching_people)

</comment><comment><USER30> I don't get it, in the olden days where forums were popular everyone knew that the final say of the content in that forum was of the administrators. Now, however, we join a website we do not own, run by people we do not know, and expect them to what, do as we say? Yeah, doesn't work like that. I'm not supporting what Facebook does, but I'm not against it either. Like it, use it, don't like it, don't use it.

<comment><AUTHOR> The forums were/are usually catering to niches. Facebook is a behemoth. To many people, the internet is basically it.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> FB is not obligated to listen to every media outlet in the world when it decides to change its product, but certainly it's ethical to estimate the impact a change will cause on society, how small it can be. Remember: they are not testing the new feed in established and healthy democracies, but in places where independent journalism needs to gain traction

</comment><comment><USER31> "Media does not spread FREE opinion; It GENERATES opinion" \--Oswald,1918 [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_of_the_West](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_of_the_West)

</comment><comment><USER32> In David Kirkpatrick's book _The Facebook Effect_ , which was basically the positive counterpart book at the time to Ben Mezrich's _The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook_ , Kirkpatrick talks on the first few pages how Facebook's viral and collaborative social network allowed for protests and eventually political revolutions to be organized in various countries. He says that one guy was so thankful for Facebook that he named his own child with the name Facebook.

If Facebook back then was lauded for enabling online communication in a way that wasn't possible before that led to political revolution for certain nations, it is ironic that these journalists are complaining about Facebook killing their click count by taking their official pages out of the mainstream feed. Taking their official pages out of the mainstream feed perhaps brings Facebook closer back to the Facebook that Kirkpatrick wrote about. This leads me to wonder whether the journalists are worried about political freedoms or really their income while raising the banner of political freedoms. The fact of the matter is that if Facebook indiscriminately removes these pages from the mainstream feed, they'll remove "good" pages, but they'll also remove "bad" pages (and let's not even get into which news media are "good" and which are "bad").

Today, we can see that Facebook is like any other technological product: it is amoral and can be used for "good" and "bad". Even though Zuckerberg now concedes that Facebook may have had a part to play in Trump's election, an idea he at first thought was nonsense, and even though he now makes overtures of wanting to help ensure elections around the world are fair (where a private American organization may or may not even be the right party to do this), Zuckerberg in fact does not have much ability to control what happens on his network. At a fundamental level, Facebook is about online social activity. Even if he manages to successfully ban politically manipulative ads (and which ads aren't?), bans fake accounts with amazing accuracy, and gets reviewed by government committees for political ads the way television and radio get reviewed, Facebook cannot survive without the lifeblood of its members engaging in online social activity. It would not be easy to ban all the "bad" people if there are a lot of "bad" people who still "deserve" their freedom of political speech. So there will likely always be an attack surface for some smart strategist to take advantage of Facebook and spread ideas maliciously and manipulatively.

Pandora's Box has been opened, and it's not going to get closed again. And if people mute those they don't like, then all it does is increase individual echo chambers, which in turn then increase political polarization.

If technology is amoral and can be used for both good and bad, depending on the user, we should have seen this future coming from a mile away. But we didn't, I certainly didn't. It's funny how all the lessons from _1984_ , _Brave New World_ , and all the other classics have come true in so many ways. Not sure if there was a book that warned about _this type_ of future discussed in these comment threads, but anyway. I should have seen it coming and not sure why I didn't. So we'll live in an era where information and misinformation seem to become one.

</comment><comment><USER17> Ah, poor "journalists"! But on point, I'd pay a small fee to make my FB feed free of posts by any professional news outlet.

</comment><comment><USER33> There was a time when patio11 was going through a phase calling out Zynga as one of the shadiest companies around.

I remember thinking "If Zynga is that bad, then what about Facebook?"

Facebook's ability and willingness to manipulate just about everything in sight - WhatsApp ad policies, privacy policy changes, arbitrary censorship of content, providing clear misinformation to legal entities for e.g. the promise to EU that they cannot infer/merge user profiles, the absolute shitshow that is shadow profiles - in line with corporate profits is starting to make Zynga look angelic in comparison.

<comment><USER34> Substantive critique of Facebook is fine on HN. To illustrate the point, I used a moderation mechanism to rescue the OP from being penalized, which is why you see it on the front page now.

That said, you can't do this with an account named "markyuckerberg". We want thoughtful conversation, not cheap shots or personal attacks. Perhaps Zuckerberg needs no protecting when it comes to these things, but HN certainly does, so I've banned this account. If you want to comment on HN, a good place to start would be with a username that doesn't violate the spirit of the site, re which please see [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) and [https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html).

Btw, special-purpose accounts aren't allowed here either. We're hoping for good conversation, not pre-existing agendas.

<comment><USER35> _Perhaps Zuckerberg needs no protecting when it comes to these things_

Thanks, Dan! But regardless of one's feelings toward Facebook, I think Mark Zuckerberg should be treated with respect here just like anyone else. Not only is it good for the overall tone of the site, but there are enough "public figures" in tech that use this site that a flat "no personal attacks" (without exceptions for fame) seems like the best policy.

<comment><USER34> I agree completely. But even for people who don't feel that way, there are good reasons for HN to have this rule. Breaking it degrades the community and oneself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> This was recently posted here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15552252](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15552252)

</comment><comment><USER37> I think there will be increasing scrutiny over Facebook's ability to wipe their hands while claiming "it's free speech."

There's a reason the media were information gatekeepers: there's a responsibility to be accurate and unbiased.

Facebook's product was manipulated and helped Donald Trump get elected by swaying public opinion. There has to be consequences- sorry, but in my opinion not every voice deserves to be equal.

<comment><USER38> > and helped Donald Trump get elected

Do you have actual proof of that. For all we know if facebook didn't exist the population might have voted even more towards Trump.

<comment><USER39> Actually entertaining how some are manipulating their biased, subjective opinion into some sort of truthieness.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Old agents of disintermediation complain of new agents of disintermediation.

More news at 11.

<comment><USER41> Indeed, the usual as usual.

More speech from sources = goodright unless it's someone else's different message to a wider audience. Then it's badwrong. As long as you have the money to shout it loud enough and long enough you have the same equity of audience as anyone else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Where by "impact on democracy" they mean impact on their ad revenues.

<comment><USER43> Yes, but also impact on their ability to generate and wield political power. Journalism is practically non-profit these days, but there'll never be a shortage of journalists looking to marshal the Fourth Estate.

<comment><USER42> That, too. Everyone is so eager to offer their "valuable" opinion and omit the parts of the story that don't conform to that opinion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> FB is like a big dumb blind elephant. FB users are people expecting to get on the elephant for their daily commute ... and expect to get from A to B in a timely fashion.

Fail.

</comment><comment><USER45> Facebook has gotten worse and worse to use. I'm still surprised it hasn't gone the way of MySpace. Most of my friends don't post nearly as much. I'm sure that's partly getting older, but it also just didn't seem fun anymore. Reading about all the the scummy stuff Facebook has done doesn't thrill me either.

<comment><USER43> > it also just didn't seem fun anymore

That's exactly why they are doing this experiment. To answer the question: will people come back if they don't have to wade through all this stuff they don't really care about?</comment></comment>


Show HN: Sketchology - <AUTHOR> http://www.sketchologyapp.com/ <comment><USER2> Don't listen to the naysayers. You've created something simple, elegant, and instantly understandable. In a world where we're constantly bombarded with technical discussions of whiz-bang jetpacks, an app like this turns the corner into the basics of what can be done with one simple mechanic: infinite zoom.

I, for one, downloaded it because I want to take notes on my iPad, but the resolution isn't built for that with a stylus. Now I can take sketch notes, written notes, and doodle to my hearts desire.

Kudos on taking the leap a few years back and kudos on building something "featureless".

Monetization will always be your biggest hurdle. The sure bet that I've found, and you can look no further than Candy Crush for this mechanic, is to get someone as close as possible to the end of what they want to do and if they can't do it in that amount of time/moves/etc, they have to pay to get one more move/life. How that integrates with a "drawing" app will require time and thought.

<comment><USER3> This is the iPad app I've wanted to build. Nice work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It would be nice to indicate in a title that the link is only useful for people with specific platform. It's kind of disappointing to go there and find out I cannot try it because I don't have that kind of device. Something like "Show HN: Sketchology [iOS]" or "The thing [Android]" or something like that could be helpful.

<comment><USER5> Not useful doesn't imply not interesting.

Having the 'Show HN' posts all tagged with platforms would sorta make me feel like I'm in a supermarket, skipping past the isles containing stuff I'm not going to walk out with.

<comment><USER4> Why all? My estimate is that most of them are web apps, mobile apps are often at least Android/iOS, I would say that those tags I proposed would be needed quite rarely. And it's not like I am demanding it, it was just a proposal to see whether others would like or not - just my $0.02 - you certainly raise a valid point, we certainly do not want to complicate things too much.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Very, very cool. It "feels" great to use it - the lines look smooth and satisfying to draw. I can see this being a lot of fun to use for random doodling. The simplicity is also great - it does exactly what it needs to, and no more.

Only one problem: I have zero artistic talent or ability. I've often wanted to start practicing drawing, but it was never THAT high a priority, and I never put in the effort to get a pad, pencils, start carrying them around with me, etc. An app like this can make it close to zero effort to get started and to doodle something every day.

Now there's still the problem of guidance or knowing where to start. Give me something like daily challenges or tutorials - can range from something as simple as "here's a picture of a cat, draw it" to more advanced animated tutorials - and I could see myself getting hooked. I would not mind paying for "content" or for a monthly subscription under this model.

<comment><AUTHOR> Having recently taught myself to draw (somewhat) I know where you're coming from. From a design perspective this is a super challenging problem though.

I actually spent a while trying to come up with an introduction to the app that would do a drawing tutorial of sorts. (Along the lines of [http://www.drawastickman.com/episode1](http://www.drawastickman.com/episode1)) - but the line between the app telling you what to do and guiding you is very thin, especially in content creation software. In the end I decided that it was best to try and build motivation and a personal connection through more subdued means, and that that method would be "truer" and deeper as well.

This is the same reasoning behind not having sample artwork within the program, not even as a tutorial. I didn't want people to open it up and see anything that they had not chosen to create.

I don't know what the proper solution to what you're asking would be - I want it to exist in theory, but I can't convince myself that it would be good in practice.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, I understand what you mean - the devil is in the details.

There are two possible kinds of guidance, I think. One would be actual tutorials - draw a circle, the circle becomes the head, etc. - with the goal of teaching technique and building up skill.

The second would be aimed more at motivation and inspiration - getting people to draw _something_ every day, no matter what their technique is or how good they are. Maybe it's a "Seinfeld calendar"-like nudge to draw every day, maybe it's a "daily challenge" or "idea of the day" for various skill levels.

Easy to say, of course, but much tougher to get it right in practice, especially with the level of simplicity and elegance you have right now. Maybe it's a completely separate app, but I think there's a lot of potential there if someone can get it right.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This looks like a really wonderful app, but the icon needs a lot of work. Maybe export a beautiful, colorful world as the icon and have it look sort of abstract? A big ugly S is something I really don't want on my home screen, to be completely honest.

<comment><AUTHOR> Appreciate the feedback - at the very least though it's better than the development version:

[http://s3.amazonaws.com/sketchologyapp/static/img/old- icon.p...](http://s3.amazonaws.com/sketchologyapp/static/img/old-icon.png)

<comment><USER8> Does it require any special pen or works with hand? Looks pretty sweet btw.

<comment><USER9> No iOS apps require a special pen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > Previously the domain of thousand-dollar tools

Or Inkscape

<comment><USER11> Inkscape is on iOS?

<comment><USER12> Thousand-dollar tools are on iOS?

<comment><USER13> Ironically, the highest possible price for an iOS app is $999.99

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Well done. After a couple of minutes playing with it i see your app has nuggets of subtle UX brilliance. I think my favourite is the eraser and how it responds when you start erasing faster....

Also very alluring marketing.

Best of luck, I hope you do well, you clearly have vision. Your app made me smile.

</comment><comment><USER15> Looks awesome! And it's free? I will definitely check it out at work when I have an iPad around.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's free to download and use, though to unlock all the tools (about 50% come standard) there's a one time IAP for $5

<comment><USER16> Another app to get me to save for a new iPad (still 1)

<comment><AUTHOR> Definitely :) - Even getting this to run on the iPad 3 was a lengthy adventure in profiling. I wish I could have hit the 1, but it just wasn't meant to be.

<comment><USER16> Yeah, no problem. I can't even update SmartGo Kifu, so...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is probably outside your vision for the product, but adding a text box tool would transform this into a pretty amazing notebook app. All the type- and-draw apps I've used are locked into the physical concept of a page, and combining a ZUI with art tools _and_ text would be a delightfully organic way to take notes, build loose wireframes, or annotate concept sketches.

</comment><comment><USER18> This looks excellent - as a designer my brain has always worked better with infinite canvases like Illustrator/Sketch.app; I feel really constrained by Photoshop etc. Great stuff.

<comment><USER19> Sketch.app is just great, this was probably the first app I instantly bought when the trial ended.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Are there Android and Windows Phone ports on the horizon? This App would pair up nicely with active digitizers such as Samsung's S-pen and Surface Pro's pen input.

On a more skeptical note, how does it compares with Evernote's Skitch and Omnigraffle?

</comment><comment><USER21> So does the tool just abstract pixels or is it using Vectors? If it is vectors, what kinds of tools does it offer for exporting?

Note that I'm not into designing at all but I might suggest this to a friend for their projects

<comment><AUTHOR> It's fully vector but you cannot export to SVG or any other open formats due to the performance difference between Sketchology and other vector apps. (More than 100x even against x86 hardware.)

You can export to web[0], which creates a zoomable raster copy of the drawing, but this is obviously limited to getting an editable vector copy.

[0] For example: [http://www.sketchologyapp.com/u/sketchology/18](http://www.sketchologyapp.com/u/sketchology/18)

<comment><USER22> Due to the what? It's not up to the application to decide if its data is useful in other applications or not, that's just ... silly lock-in talk. Quite an annoying attitude, if that's representative.

Luckily I a) can't draw and b) don't have an iPad so I'm not a lost customer.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well no, I could never say that there isn't tremendous benefit to being able to use multiple tools in a workflow and have control of your data.

Lack of SVG export isn't due to wanting lock in, or even a question of priorities. I spent considerable time working with all the leading vector drawing programs and investigating their performance. The simple fact was that it couldn't work well. Even trivial drawings (20 lines) done with the pencil tool in Sketchology would cause Illustrator to lock up for hours and consume all available memory. Larger drawings would fail to open altogether.

Ultimately I think offering the feature would have been extremely misleading and frustrating for people. I'd rather cut a feature than ship a bad experience.

<comment><USER23> That sounds like a problem with your app, not theirs. There's no reason why a compliant SVG with only 20 lines shouldn't be easily compatible with any vector drawing program.

<comment><USER24> Inkscape which uses SVG as it's "internal" format often chokes on seemingly "simple" svg files (which when you look into it have thousands of points on a simple curve).

Often these have been generated by another SVG tool, support another tools idiocy for whatever marginal gain he might make is maybe why he doesn't want to do it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Looks very neat, I'm disappointed that's it's apparently iPad only. I'd love to give it a try next to Sketchbook Ink [0] on my Android devices.

Though, I have to say, I'm growing really weary of dramatic copy that insists on telling me how "beautiful" (4x) everything is.

0: [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.adsk.sketc...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.adsk.sketchbookink_gen&hl=en)

</comment><comment><USER26> Folks on Android might want to check out ScribMaster:

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.thoster.no...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.thoster.noteshare&hl=en)

Can't say how it compares to Sketcholgy (not being in the target audience) but it exports and imports SVG and also has what seems to be near infinite zooming.

You need to buy the full version (US$2.00) to get all the features but the free version is still quite nice.

</comment><comment><USER27> First, congrats on the app and the selling method. Free trial and extras for sale are definitively a honest way to go on the app store! I understand it's hard to export a svg, but how about exporting a hi-res picture? When choosing 'save image', the super resolution option disappears, and zooming before saving exports only a partial tile. It would be great to be able to save a huge picture, for pro printing, for instance

<comment><AUTHOR> Definitely - it's on the todo list!

<comment><USER27> yay! In the meantime there's always the possibility to export to web, save the tiles one by one on your HD and reassemble them in Photoshop like a puzzle. Quite a fun operation

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Fiddling around with it some. Interesting. It's not going to replace Illustrator by any means (that's been my main medium for 13 years) but I kinda like it more than Ideas - I think I might take it out to doodle some this week.

Stuff I'd like to see:

sync sketchbook across devices (maybe via evernote?)

palm rejection with bluetooth styli

an equivalent to AI's artboard - a way to say "this is the edge of my canvas, please export a 72/150/300/other DPI image" instead of making the user futz with it

some way to organize drawings into different sketchbooks, also a way to delete a drawing from the home page

I also kinda feel like I'd like to see some calibration notches on the sliders.

The UI could be a bit more streamlined? I'd love to have immediate access to all the tools and a color popup instead of having to possibly double-tap on the brushes/tools icon to get the menu. ArtRage really gets it right with its little popups in the corner and a tiny toolbar on the bottom, but bitmap apps just make me itchy.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. I could see all of those features being useful and integrating well into the rest of the app, though setting up edges to work within might require a bit to much UI compared to the gain in typical usage.

I went back and forth on the number of taps required to open up the brush or tools menu - the current implementation will open the menu directly if you already have that tool selected, and switch to the tool otherwise. Ex if calligraphy is selected then you touch brushes -> menu opens. If calligraphy is selected and you touch tools, then the eraser (or the MRU tool) is selected and the menu does not open.

This flow works really well when you switch are switching between 2 types of anything, like between calligraphy and the pencil, or calligraphy and the eraser and (I like it because) it doesn't have popups flying in your face constantly. It works less well if you switch between 3 (ex calligraphy->eraser->pencil.) A second downside is that the logic behind when 1 or 2 clicks is required is somewhat less than obvious.

(You can delete drawings, press and hold on the thumbnail in the homescreen)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> i was actually trying to use sketchbookX from autodesk to take quick notes and draw schema diagrams.

the lack of boundaries will make me continue to use your app! it is how i ever felt those apps should work in the first place. you nailed it.

only critic i have now: the fake width of the traces are ok for testing out the app. do a few swipes and something similar to a brush drawing appears. nice. but using speed for that is completely unintuitive and impossible to "use".. no way to make a thin straight line (have to do it slow, so it ends up jittered) and no way to do a short bold line (no way to get to speed). either find a way to get finger pressure or just leave it flat.

and a feature request: add simple text tool so my schema designs are easier to do :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Glad you like it! Straight bold/thin lines really aren't possible with the default calligraphy brush. There's a marker tool if you open the brushes menu which just does unshaped, straight lines. It's locked to the full version of the app however.

The inkpen brush is also 'untextured' (for lack of a better word) and has a shape profile opposite to the calligraphy brush (slower=wider).

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Can you export to SVG, PDF or some other vector format?

<comment><AUTHOR> No unfortunately. While it's fairly trivial for me to support, the performance difference (a factor of more than 100) between Sketchology and other vector drawing apps makes it impossible to actually load the exported file anywhere.

I tested against Adobe Illustrator, Inkscape, iDraw, and Inkpad and was unable to load a file equivalent to drawing for more than about 2 minutes in Sketchology. I'll have a more in depth technical analysis of this soon.

<comment><USER31> Congratulations, it looks really nice.

Are you going to be sharing the details of how you've done it or will it remain secret? Just interested because I've done a lot of work with large svgs (sometimes million+ nodes) over the last year (for an ongoing project) so I'm well aware of the performance issues you mentioned.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I want to talk about it - I think it's probably the coolest part of the program. It's difficult though, I left my job about 2 years ago to work on this so commercial success is a definite goal. Hopefully sometime in the future I'll be able to give out algorithmic details without compromising that.

<comment><USER31> Totally understandable. I'm in a similar position myself (though in a completely different space).

If you ever decided the secret was too much to bear and you'd like to get it off your chest you could always drop me an email (in my profile) and we could discuss it :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Very nice, it reminds me of the approach of Mischief[1]

"What makes Mischief tick? Mischief uses Adaptively Sampled Distance Fields (ADFs), originally invented and developed by Ron and Sarah at Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs and further enhanced by 61 Solutions. ADFs are a new digital representation of shape which provide numerous advantages including high quality anti-aliasing, very fast rendering, support for massive parallelism, very small file sizes, and the ability to succinctly represent variable-width, scalable, textured strokes. This technology is protected by over 50 patents."

[1]: [http://www.madewithmischief.com/](http://www.madewithmischief.com/)

<comment><USER33> I'd been looking for Paper/Sketchology type apps for desktops but the only solutions looked to be overly complicated vector apps like Illustrator and Inkscape. Had never heard of Mischief before thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> A couple of years ago, I watched a guy explaining his concept starting with nothing but a blank canvas in Adobe Ideas (very similar iPad vector drawing app that's been out a while). He'd sketch the high-level stuff and continually zoom in to provide more details. It was like watching a Prezi being built in realtime and it was memorizing. It held my attention and communicated way more than any prebuilt presentation would have done.

</comment><comment><USER35> This app looks pretty neat.

I'm working on something similar for Android but focused on note taking and diagramming instead of drawing. I think of it as a kind of handwritten wiki. I allow placing of links in the document that jump to other parts of the document. It is still very much a work in progress and my lines don't look anywhere near as good as the ones in Sketchology.

</comment><comment><USER36> I much prefer Sketchology's freely zoomable canvases over a fixed canvas, but somehow the brush styles don't look as nice as 53 Paper ([http://www.fiftythree.com/paper](http://www.fiftythree.com/paper)). I don't know how to better explain this, but can Sketchology be configured to produce similar results?

<comment><AUTHOR> No it can't, more than it is already at least. I'd definitely put Paper by 53 in the top spot for drawing feel on the iPad though by a fairly wide margin - second to Sketchology :D - I might have a slight bias though.

The way Paper implemented their tools is pretty interesting. I'd put the #1 feeling difference as due to their automatic layering system. (The most recent line you draw in Paper is not always on top.) This goes a long ways to creating interesting effects but isn't a direction that Sketchology went in for a bunch of reasons.

There's also other tradeoffs ex: \- I'd say Paper's watercolor tool is better than Sketchology's for intra-line interactions. (i.e. keep your finger down and draw for a while) However Sketchology's is better for building up layers of watercolor (lots of lines.) \- Drawing responsiveness is one or two input frames faster on Sketchology than Paper, but Paper will do slightly more shaping in that time.

There's also different design requirements, as an example Sketchology needs line shaping algorithms that work across a wide variety of brush sizes, and the ability for them to look consistent across zoom sizes. A lot of my early work on shaping algorithms would look great at one size but not another.

I've a really high opinion of Paper, the drawing feel they achieved is bounds ahead of everyone else. (Except Sketchology, again in my biased opinion.) Ultimately though after getting used to the ability to just move drawing around in Sketchology though I couldn't go back. Then again I wrote Sketchology so there'd be a problem if that wasn't the case... :)

<comment><USER36> Thanks for the extensive reply. I haven't been able to try Sketchology yet, as I'm waiting to get my iPad back after repair, but when I do, I will pay attention to the responsiveness you mention. Snappiness is definitely important.

I am far from an artist, and I mostly use Paper to sketch out rough interfaces and interaction impressions, and I always like how Paper somehow makes my stuff look nicer than it should. I'm terrible at space planning though, so I'd pick function over style any day :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Looks awesome! I can't wait to get my hands on an iPad at work and download it. I love vector drawing/illustrating - and based on your other comments, I'm hoping there's some export functionality (even as svg) in the near future so I can edit my creations on the internet. Your demo illustrations look amazing too - nice artistic touch.

</comment><comment><USER38> Looks great. Congrats!

Funny thing that came to me about an artist using it, falling into "recursion stack overflow":

\- This is it, it's finished... Wait, I can make this beautiful picture as only a detail of a greater, bigger and better masterpiece? (3h later) This is it, it's finished... etc. :)

</comment><comment><USER39> "Make something big" with a very little download button looks a bit awkward.

</comment><comment><USER40> Got really excited. But it's only available for iPad. I use an iPhone :(

</comment><comment><USER41> You could use something like this to hide secrets 5 levels of zoom deep - steganography. Someone could always export it and use tools to find your secret, but they'd have to know it existed first.

</comment><comment><USER42> This is what I've been looking for since the iPad came out. Your brushes aren't as good as Paper, but the zoom feature is killer and makes the iPad a real drawing tool for the first time.

</comment><comment><USER43> Looks like a closed source Ipad clone of mypaint. If you want this for the desktop I recommend mypaint instead, it already has 8 years of development and its free.

</comment><comment><USER44> Rather seriously consider porting it to the Mac and adding actual tablet support. This could be a hit if done right - see Paint Tool SAI for some inspiration.

</comment><comment><USER45> Wow! This is a fantastic app. All of the basic tools feel natural to use, and the vector smoothing "just works". Well done!

</comment><comment><USER46> Looks awesome. Is there any specific stylus that is recommended for this app? Also would it work on an iPad Mini

</comment><comment><USER47> Been thinking about this for a long time, glad to see it's a reality now. I'll absolutely download it

</comment><comment><USER48> A very cool idea - definitely an app I'll be downloading once I finally purchase myself another iPad.

</comment><comment><USER49> wow, something like this and no one points out two fantastic FOSS alternatives: krita and mypaint

</comment><comment><USER50> Any plans for other platforms?

Android? Windows 8?

<comment><AUTHOR> The first 6 months or so of development were on Windows/Linux, so cross platform compatibility is something I've always had my eye on. I can't say when though, in all honesty an iPhone version is far more likely to come before Android or Win8.

<comment><USER51> iPhone version awaited! :) The app does seem nice and handy. A better icon and nicer website would help though not a big deal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Excellent execution for something I always wanted on the iPad, congratulations!

</comment><comment><USER53> Now only if I had layer support and export to _some standard format_

</comment><comment><USER54> Awesome app, well done! Any plans for POGO stylus support?</comment>


The Weird, Wild Saga of Gizmondo - <AUTHOR> http://www.thedrive.com/news/2559/the-weird-wild-saga-of-gizmondo-part-1 <comment><USER2> _In March of 2008, Eriksson was re-arrested in Sweden — only a year after being deported from the US after pleading no contest to charges of embezzlement and illegal gun possession. After trial in Sweden, on July 10, 2009, Eriksson was convicted of extortion, theft and assault, and was sentenced to 18 months in a maximum-security prison. Yet this sentence was for a completely unrelated crime — all involved in the Gizmondo collapse escaped legally clean and free from a debacle that destroyed a multination corporation, and fleeced hundreds of millions of dollars from investors._

If these guys -- known mobsters dressed up as technology businessmen, living the most conspicuous lifestyle imaginable -- can get away with all this, what other kind of corruption and crime is going on in investment-fuelled industries?

<comment><USER3> >what other kind of corruption and crime is going on in investment-fuelled industries

HSBC actively and knowingly helps funnel Mexican drug-cartel and Hezbollah (literal terrorists) funds with mere fines as punishment. The U.S. government does not stand up to multi-national banks which can ruin the global economy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wow. That story was more like a Hollywood movie script than the tale of a video game console company. Some of it reminded me a bit of the Paul Le Roux thing posted here a few weeks ago (especially the 'move to international waters before trying to throw enemies to the sharks' part).

Either way, this is the sort of journalism we should be seeing more of nowadays. Not the early BuzzFeed style clickbait that most online media seems to be producing day in and day out.

</comment><comment><USER5> If you would like to see a Gizmondo in the flesh, come to the Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment in Oakland. Ours is dead, sadly, but you can at least look at it, and the unreleased game Hit and Myth.

I was at the launch party for this device and it was clearly a shame from the word go. They gave out free devices to the press, which no one EVER does anymore. Nintendo does not give out free DS' to everyone at their press events.

Still, EA built SSX Tricky and a motorcycle game for it!

</comment><comment><USER6> This is a timely read for me. I just finished reading "Disrupted," by Dan Lyons, about corruption in the digital marketing industry.

</comment><comment><USER7> Wow, quite an interesting story. I vaguely remember this device being on the market, but I had always thought it was made by the same Tiger that made those little LCD handheld games</comment>


Ask HN: Is anyone developing a HTML5/JS offline version of FreeMind? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Why, are you looking to make one yourself or are you hoping one already exists so you can use it? :)

</comment><comment><USER3> You are, I'd guess? :D</comment>


Poka-Yoke is Not a Joke (2010) - <AUTHOR> https://hbr.org/2010/02/my-favorite-anecdote-about-des <comment><USER2> Wait, ARE TYPESYTEMS POKA-YOKE FOR PROGRAMMING?!?!?!

On of the well known Poka-Yoke strategies are cables that can not be plugged to the wrong port since there is a different one for everything. Kind of relates well to function signatures that make sure only the right type of data comes in.

<comment><USER3> It's not that simple.

You can easily design type system + compiler, which will have destructive "attitude".

It's no different from human interactions and how being "right" is not always "being constructive".

Best type systems have low mental overhead, can be selectively applied (to benefit when it's profitable, and to avoid costs where it's too costly), are humble, and are good companions by helping developer learn the domain space.

E.g. 1 there are good blog posts describing how you can write Haskell code by just asking Haskell compiler what type is needed to fit with the rest of your code. Step by step you fill in the blanks.

E.g. 2 there are good videos from Clojure about how you can follow types to implement a new idea.

Counter example: Neither 1) nor 2) is possible in C, and yet you pay hefty price mandated by C type system.

All 3 type systems have their own trade offs. Picking one that is most aligned with goals of your project does have impact :)

<comment><USER4> What C has isn't really a type system, it's more a system for expressing storage characteristics. Custom types are cumbersome, polymorphism is nonexistent, but blatant errors are not prevented.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Not all poka-yokes are as elegant as the ones in the article. A friend once told me about a poka-yoke measure put in place in their factory after someone left a wrench in an airplane engine as it was being assembled (leading to millions of dollars of damage).

Tools were stored in a special toolbox. The tools each had a slot to be stored in (the slots were foam, cut in the silhouette of the tool, so only that tool could be stored there). Each slot had a sensor to tell if the tool was there. You had to scan your ID to open the box. A computer system logged which tools you took, and you could not punch out your time card until all your tools were returned.

The system was complex and costly to build, but less costly than a single mistake like the one that inspired it.

<comment><USER6> Curiously this sounds like a system that would be useful to lots of workplaces where hand tools curiously go missing!

[https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing- aerospace/boein...](https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing- aerospace/boeing-tanker-jets-grounded-due-to-tools-and-debris-left-during- manufacturing/)

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

<comment><USER7> Variations on the foam cutout or outlines of tools have been in workshops for at least a century, as good tools are expensive. Its not done everywhere as it's a pain to setup, and you need discipline to keep following it.

Preventing surgical instruments is easier the more expensive the tool is. Anything over $5 can easily get a RFID tag and you can simply scan the patent then the work area to get accountability. The hard part is with gauze and other cheap items that can't easily be tagged, and will be going inside the body, so they have very high biocompatibility requirements (eg: inks in spectrum transparent to blood might be too toxic to use).

<comment><USER8> Many things like gauze sponges can be given a few radiopaque threads and an X-ray is taken after the surgery. It's still no substitute for a good count of materiel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Poka-yoke is a massively useful concept in the design of physical objects, and it should apply to design of software interfaces as well.

A key principle is making different things _look_ different. In a mechanical assembly, often you see very different pins and fasteners doing similar jobs - but what may seem an oddity on the part of the designer is a godsend when assembling. I'm sure we've all puzzled over putting together household objects where you have several slightly-different lengths of the same screw. In software, consistency is incredibly important, so that users can expect behaviours and discover features, but there's still a case for making different things visibly different.

<comment><USER10> Poka-yoke plays a big role in making my life easier. I implemented a bunch of them around the house, and in the garage. They're an excellent coping mechanism for people with ADHD, because they make it hard to do the wrong thing.

\- I leave my backpack against the door to make sure I don't leave the house without it.

\- I put coloured tape around the 10 mm spanner, and the 10 mm socket. The 12 mm socket is 2 sockets to the right.

\- Every tool has a place. If a slot is empty, a tool is missing.

\- When I disassemble something, I place all the screws down in order. When I put everything back together, I should always need the rightmost screw.

\- I always do mise en place before cooking. If an ingredient is missing, I'll know before I start cooking.

I also try to implement them in the workplace. Errors can happen, but they shouldn't happen twice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The author's Poka Yoke measure to filter words from email reminds me of my own email Poka Yoke ritual. Before writing or replying to a lengthy or important email, I type some gibberish in the address field. This ensures that outlook/gmail prompts a confirmation if I accidentally hit send.

</comment><comment><USER12> This is a nice article.

I've been incorporating ReadMe.md files in most projects and folders, as well as self documenting Makefiles, with their default target set to help so that it displays something informative about what it will build.

Most of the times I try to include some sort of testing, or alternatively generate index files about the dependencies needed to build.

This has helped me remember the essential parts faster when I revisit projects that haven't been in my mind lately, thus I avoid mis-typing commands and 'forgetting' information.

</comment><comment><USER13> Reminds me of this anecdote an ex-colleague told me: he was working at GE on an x-ray machine they use during cardiac catheterization to monitor the catheter as it moves from your groin towards your heart. The machine recorded the whole procedure, and there was a "replay" option to evaluate the findings I guess. One day they got a bug report which asked for a more prominent warning on the UI if the device was currently in "replay" mode. It turned out that there was an incident where a doctor only realized midway through the procedure that they were looking at the replay footage from the previous patient...

<comment><USER14> Dang, that's scary! Cath labs are amazing if you ever get a chance to tour one - not as a patient of course.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> You could make your documentation generator detect if any functions are completely missing documentation. Then in addition to printing "No overview available" in the docs, it could also flag a warning -- and in Release mode, an error. Not that I'm bitter or anything.

</comment><comment><USER8> Are they rhyming yoke with joke or vice versa?

<comment><USER16> You'd be forgiven for thinking so! It comes from Japanese, yoke (除け) meaning protection and poka (ポカ) meaning blunder, careless mistake, or error. Although it looks as if it would rhyme with joke, it's more likely to be said yoh-kay. If you're curious, paste ポカヨケ into Google translate, select Japanese, and hit listen :)

<comment><USER17> (I suspect OP knows this -- the question I think was meant to be a sly way to say "are you supposed to say yoke like yolk so that it rhymes with joke, or joke like jokay so it rhymes with yoke")</comment></comment></comment>


MRSA superbug's resistance to antibiotics is broken - <AUTHOR> https://www.newscientist.com/article/2080180-mrsa-superbugs-resistance-to-antibiotics-is-broken/ <comment><USER2> MRSA is an arms race. It will just evolve a resistance to this new technique.

The only solution I've heard anything about that "beats" MRSA is the Norway solution:

[http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/QAA400703/Has-Norway-Beaten- MRSA...](http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/QAA400703/Has-Norway-Beaten-MRSA.html)

That's dated, so I'd be interested in hearing what the stats on the effectiveness of their approach are now.

EDIT: It's worth noting that the two philosophies appear to be in stark contrast. The Norway tact is to drastically reduce drug prescription. The American tact is to create more drugs.

</comment><comment><USER3> The newscientist.com link is broken for me, due to "Maintenance in Progress".

Alternate links:

[http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/03/sidekick-chemicals- re...](http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/03/sidekick-chemicals-reverse- antibiotic-resistance-in-microbes/)

[https://www.sciencenews.org/article/molecules-found- counter-...](https://www.sciencenews.org/article/molecules-found-counter- antibiotic-resistance)

<comment><AUTHOR> It was also down for me for a short time, but seems to be back again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> How is this different from all the other claims of an antibiotic that can deal with MRSA?

(Yeah, before sharing this link, I did a quick Google search and skimmed the results and there were claims back to 2014 that various parties have "cracked the superbug".)

</comment><comment><USER5> Hospitals are like evolutionary pressure chambers and any drug that combats MRSA will inevitably lead to its own demise.

The more accessible and effective the drug is, the less time it will buy us.

</comment><comment><USER6> I hope we learn from our mistake to abuse A-bombs (antibiotics) in medicine. There's way more damage from the abuse than just MRSA!

</comment><comment><USER7> For now.

</comment><comment><USER8> ... in mice.

<comment><USER9> Most antibiotics work on one mamial all mamials, this isnt always the case, but usually.

That being said, tests are done on mice to see if it causes harm, as they have a quick turn over rate. Then they usually move to other animals with a slower aging process, but closer physiology

<comment><USER8> I was on mobile and had little time.

This doesn't address biodisponibility and toxicity in humans. Both are critical.

This may be a breakthrough, but we'll have to wait the results of phase III trials before claiming victory.</comment></comment></comment>


Did Kevin Systrom Blow It Selling Instagram For $1 Billion - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/industry-people-are-whispering-that-kevin-systrom-blew-it-selling-instagram-for-1-billion-2013-11

<comment><USER2> Interesting math, really. We didn't have any revenues, so we figured we were worth a $billion dollars. But now that Twitter has IPOd, we're clearly worth a lot more billions of dollars.</comment>


Creating Jobs: A Capitalist Idea - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/07/opinion/a-capitalist-idea.html?_r=1

<comment><USER2> Because smoking, overeating, and generally living an 'unhealthy' lifestyle is always the cause of terminal illness. Oh and by the way, he gets to define what is healthy and unhealthy. He would even go beyond that and say that people who smoke and overeat should, at the very least, experience pain and agony financially, and probably in a physical sense as well. What an asshole.</comment>


The Future of Cities Depends on Public Transit - <AUTHOR> https://blog.remix.com/the-future-of-cities-depends-on-public-transit-13ee70d476df <comment><USER2> Yes, public transit needs more investment. Claiming that the 'future of cities' is reliant on that investment is a bit myopic. The future of cities depends more on sensible planning as to how limited real estate is developed (mixed use, density, etc). Sensible planning can make existing public transit more efficient. Of course, this is why NIMBYism is so destructive and ultimately costly on the wider community.</comment>


Authenticity promotes well-being in life and at work - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/traversmark/2019/11/29/authenticity-promotes-well-being-in-life-and-at-work/ <comment><USER2> This reminds me of the old saying "honesty is the key to a successful relationship. If you can fake that you have made it". At least in work you have to make way too many trade offs in order to survive so you can't be really authentic. Some people are lucky that they fit in perfectly but I don't think that's true for most people.

It's also much easier to be authentic if you are driven by an urge to succeed as measured by the business world or if you have a desire to fit in wherever you are. What can you do if you are wired to be driven by things that have no commercial value or don't fit with the mainstream?

<comment><USER3> Yeah, if I was my real self I would probably get punched. I can fake it most of the time but if I get run down and my real self comes out then everybody hates me.

<comment><USER4> What the 'real you' means can be left up to debate.

Imo trying to live up to our own expectations of ourselves isn't faking it, but we don't always manage to live up to them either.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > This amounted to 51 studies, 75 independent participant samples, and over > 36,500 participant observations. The researchers then tallied the > correlations between these measures.

Meta analysis can be interesting if done well, but a lot of the time it simply reinforces the publication bias / bottom drawer effect, and people who create meta studies are unlikely to closely examine the quality of each individual study.

I intuitively agree with the conclusion but the study itself looks like GIGO

</comment><comment><USER6> This is all fine and well for people whose authentic self is aligned to whatever is socially preferable in their particular work environment. An all- inclusive work environment is not possible in today's highly polarised society.

E.g. an individual expressing their authentic right-wing views at a place like Google with their 'bring your whole self to work' mantra clearly wouldn't work out well.

The real title should be: finding a workplace where you _can_ be authentic promotes well-being in life.

<comment><USER7> I wish I could explain this to people, as a major reason for being homeless in SF. I have many right-wing views and am as authentic as possible, which leads to severe ostracization in most environments. Kicked out of all friend groups post-Trump. I get along with the police, actually thought it'd be funny to apply to a PD last night. Obviously saying that I am ostracized for having right wing views and attitudes is triggering to 90% of people here. I stay because I am non-soy vegan/jain, and also attend a lot of meetups and lay low. I do get kicked out and picked on for frivolous reasons/litmus tested. I am a non-Churchian Christian, really at a loss for where to find leads into a coding job. Before Trump my career was great, now I am lucky to work 8 hours a week of odd jobs. We really need to work on accepting authenticity.

<comment><USER8> I've met people who feel treated like you before. They were usually rather obnoxious in their display of their political opinions. I'm not saying you are, but you might want to stick to living by your views instead of letting everyone know what they are at the earliest opportunity. Just be more diplomatic about it, both sides will benefit without anyone changing their views.

<comment><USER9> You're probably right about the OP, who has managed somehow to alienate his way into homelessness, a rather extreme case.

On the other hand, selection bias. For every "out and proud" right-winger in the valley getting lynched by an angry mob, there's hundreds more conservatives, libertarians and even centrists keeping their heads down and trying to avoid political conversations because they know that being their "authentic selves" in such a situation would be a career-limiting move.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > Authenticity is defined by psychologists as the act of expressing one's true > self,

Can HN give me some concrete or specific examples of expressing one's true self? I must admit the first line from the article has already stumped me.

<comment><USER11> Have you ever had to pretend to be enthusiastic about project decisions you didn't agree with? Have you ever had to mask what you would like to say to prevent conflict with a problematic manager or co-worker? Have you ever had to force yourself to be polite, cheerful, and friendly to a customer who really didn't deserve the courtesy?

Other examples:

[https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2019/04/26/custom...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2019/04/26/customer- service-workers-forced-smile-may-turn-drinking-alcohol/3588408002/)

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

[https://digest.bps.org.uk/2017/02/24/theres-such-a-thing- as-...](https://digest.bps.org.uk/2017/02/24/theres-such-a-thing-as-autism- camouflaging-and-it-might-explain-why-some-people-are-diagnosed-so-late/)

<comment><USER9> When you put it that way, authenticity sounds like a terrible idea. But I don't think authenticity needs to be defined in opposition to professionalism.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Does not bringing up details about you that others might find reprehensible still count as being authentic?

How can you be authentic if others will find you rotten?

</comment><comment><USER13> All the world's a stage n all the men n women in it merely actors? Usually i m polite. Most of the time i am weird. Because i choose to work n hang out with ppl who tolerate my weirdness. Sometimes i dial it back because cost benefit analysis. I mean. Ppl need psychiatric help because their weirdness affect their everyday life, right? Dial it back here n there. And life goes on a bit more pleasantly. Not 16yo anymore. No need to be angry all the time? As teh ancient chinese say. 1 kind of rice feeds 100 kinds of ppl.

</comment><comment><USER14> This seems like it's encouraging Google's "bring your whole self to work" policy, which is wonderful, unless your job is in a toxic environment, or otherwise draining. I dialed back my amount of self brought to work at my previous job, and found that despite my constant dissociation, I was able to function better both at home and in the office.

I'm not recommending that strategy, but it can make a difference for someone in a position they're working on leaving.

<comment><USER15> The key phrase is "working on leaving" which is arguably the most authentic act in such a situation, and is likely to promote well-being in the long run.

An inauthentic act would be to dissociate but have no plans to leave. Sadly that describes most of my co-workers at the moment, and sure enough they're just riding the miserable train to retirement for the most part. Not a route I'd recommend.

<comment><USER14> It's miserable, but if it works and there's other reasons to stay, like job security, it's worth it for some people.

<comment><USER16> I think it also depends on how far you've got to go. Anyone can do 18mths, but doing it for 20 years is sad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> [https://beta.trimread.com/articles/551](https://beta.trimread.com/articles/551)

</comment><comment><USER18> My authentic self typically doesn't want to wake up early and go to work. My authentic self also doesn't want to be homeless.

</comment><comment><USER19> [https://outline.com/qacsGU](https://outline.com/qacsGU)

</comment><comment><USER20> You can certainly not bring your authentic self to HN. Right dang?

<comment><USER21> On the contrary, I wish more people would. But sometimes people take authentic self to mean something like purely individual expression, without regard for the commons or the needs of others. I don't think that can be right.

Most times when commenters here break the site guidelines, it doesn't feel like they're expressing their authentic self at all, but rather that they're avoiding doing that by attacking someone or something. If they would simply share their actual experience, it would be fine. But that's not so easy for most of us.

Most oppositional behaviors are just inversions of conformist behaviors—the same thing, with one bit flipped. Whatever authentic means, that can't be it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Hmmm, authenticity...

You mean sort of like the uh, _direct opposite_ of what Hacker News promotes in its comments sections?

<comment><USER21> What feels authentic to you about making accounts called cuntAIDS, analHooker, and analCunt to post this comment three times? Serious question.</comment></comment>


Tartine Workers Move to Unionize - <AUTHOR> https://missionlocal.org/2020/02/tartine-workers-move-to-unionize/ <comment><USER2> Hell yeah.</comment>


Ask HN: Where do you invest online? - <AUTHOR>

I'm looking into investing into stocks/bonds and potentially an IRA, and was wondering what online broker others are using. Any reason why you picked the one you did? <comment><USER2> Sharebuilder. Super low fees for buying stocks/ETFs, they have good automated investment options, and you can buy partial shares. This means that if you are doing, e.g., $250 a month in a Roth IRA and telling it to buy $1,000 of shares in an index fund ETF every time it hits $1,000 balance, this will result in vanishingly little loss to trading fees and you'll always get that $1,000 invested no matter what the share price is.

It automatically grabs money from my main checking account every week from April to December ($100 a week because the yearly limit on a Roth IRA is $5k) and I top it off when I do my taxes every year. That's also when I take a look at the portfolio and set it to put money towards whatever bit needs rebalancing. About 75% of my money gets invested in index fund ETFs and 25% in funny-money investments. I understand that the math is very much against me if I pick stocks for myself but, hey, I played WoW and enjoy the feeling of seeing pixels move on command, so that 25% is essentially buying myself permission to not touch the other 75% ever. (Ironically, I lucked out on one of my picks -- Chipotle -- and now burritos are a larger contributor to my net worth than anything but bingo cards.)

<comment><USER3> _I understand that the math is very much against me if I pick stocks for myself..._

Don't sell yourself short! If you learn a few things about how to value companies and if you're really disciplined about waiting for great opportunities (with the proper margin of safety) and letting undervalued prices turn rational again, the math is on your side. Picking a good stock is very similar to buying into a good business.

<comment><USER4> This is more or less the opposite of the conventional wisdom on this topic; Malkiel, Bernstein, Swensen, Andrew Tobias all wrote whole books more or less dedicated to the premise that you should invest passively through indexing.

Here's a great Derek Sivers comment:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1157768>

I'm sure a bit of stock picking isn't going to kill you, as long as your portfolio is mostly passive. (Every time this discussion comes up, someone points out Malkiel picks a few stocks for himself).

On the other hand, there is a whole financial industry lined up more or less directly against your interests in picking stocks; they have better research, direct access to company principals, influence over the markets, a drastically lower cost of trading, and the ability to wait out irrational conditions far longer than you can stay liquid.

I'm doing what Sivers suggested; it makes sense to me.

On the other hand, I've been telling a friend of mine to stop investing Apple since, oh, 2006. So, grain of salt.

<comment><USER3> Passive investing through indexing is great. If your investment philosophy is "I want to make decent returns without researching companies or exploring financial statements" then indexing is the right approach.

Note however that the choice between "smart investing" and "hyperactive investing" is a false dilemma. Timing the market and worrying about technical analysis is definitely a way to lose money to traders with quicker access to information and greater ability to profit from arbitrage. Solin's comments on the marketplace of financial experts is right, but indexing isn't the only way to avoid that mess.

Sure, 80% of my portfolio is in a couple of indexes, but that other 20% I don't count as mad money. I don't make blind guesses; I'm very careful about where I put it. So far my strategy of five or six smart trades a year has paid off _very_ well. That's hardly day trading.

I suspect the ratio of 80/20 will get change in favor of active investments as I get more confident.

<comment><USER4> Your 5 trades per year, just curious, how many of them are in any way related to tech?

<comment><USER3> I only hold one tech-related stock directly. It's a semiconductor company where a good friend works, so I have a decent understanding of the business and its prospects. I've made about 400% on it in five years.

<comment><USER4> Interesting. One reason I'm wary of picking stocks is that most of my expertise is in technology; if my field goes south, I don't want my investments tracking it. But you don't have that problem. I'm worried I would; my best picks have always ended up being tech companies.

<comment><USER3> Your concern is valid. You do want to invest in companies you understand, but you don't have to be an expert. (It _helps_ , especially if you're looking for what Peter Lynch calls an edge.) I approach things from the other direction: I wrote my own stock screener that analyzes financial reports and suggests companies which might be dramatically undervalued at their current prices. If a few minutes of research on my own reveal that I don't understand the business or that the numbers are obviously skewed by something which jumps out (the company increased its free cash dramatically by taking out hundreds of millions of dollars of short term financing and that skews the return on invested cash numbers), then I look further.

If I don't understand the company or the industry, or if it's a coinflip either way of being undervalued, I move on.

As a concrete example, I have a pretty good idea of what Apple makes and where it can sell and where it might go in the future, but I don't believe it can keep up the 30% returns on invested cash rate for the next ten years. I don't buy it.

Maybe I'm wrong in that case, but my backtests work even with eyeballing numbers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> check out vanguard mutual finds, funds such as VSCGX, VASGX, VASIX, VSMGX are all very diversely balanced and their past performances weren't too shabby consider how low risk the funds are. if you were looking to take risks and actively buy/sell your positions, then those funds arent for you. but if you are looking to just grow your money conservatively because online savings are pay close to 0%, these funds are the right vehicles for your investment. as with all investments, do your homework and research and never put down what you cannot lose.

</comment><comment><USER6> getcollc.com</comment>


Computerising Mathematical Text - <AUTHOR> http://repository.ubn.ru.nl/bitstream/handle/2066/134655/134655.pdf?sequence=1

<comment><USER2> This reminds me of what Stephen Wolfram was going on about in this blog post:

[http://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2014/08/computational- knowled...](http://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2014/08/computational-knowledge- and-the-future-of-pure-mathematics/)</comment>


Google's Eerie Patent for a Human Memory Device Is Straight Out of Black Mirror - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2015/07/23/google_s_black_mirror_patent_the_company_wants_to_make_a_human_memory_device.html?wpsrc=fol_fb

<comment><AUTHOR> A similar device was dreamt up by novelist Robert J Sawyer in the Neanderthal Parallax, in which a device recorded and stored (privately) every moment of life. This proved extraordinarily useful for solving crimes, because it could be used both as video evidence and as alibi.

In the wake of a growing surveillance world and abuse of authority, this sounds like a _great_ idea to me. Police officers would be much less likely to harm citizens if they know each citizen (might) has their own recording device. It's already well documented that police departments with body cams have reduced police abuse.

So bring it on, Google! :-]</comment>


The Thinking Ladder -- Wait But Why - <AUTHOR> Shared because this series is interesting, and this chapter is particularly interesting to how we attempt to take in information at Hacker News, that is as "good scientists" rather than, say "sports fans."<p>Of course, I'm mopping it all up without really questioning it - nodding my head and accepting it all as a great metaphorical model of how our brains work. But I'd love to hear nuances that point out improvements to this model (or outright flaws.) <comment><USER2> I've been following the series as well. I think that for any author to attempt an explanation of "everything," the author needs to rely heavily on a single consistent narrative that will undoubtably simplify and linearize the content of the story. I'd say Tim Urban does a good job of acknowledging that at the start of the series.

His series of posts is beginning to remind me of the works of Yuval Noah Harari, as they have similarly ambitious goals of explaining why the world is the way it is by telling a story, and they make sacrifices to get there.</comment>