Now legal in the U.S.: Jailbreaking your iPhone, ripping a DVD for education - <AUTHOR> http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/07/26/now-legal-in-the-u-s-jailbreaking-your-iphone-ripping-a-dvd-for-educational-purposes/ <comment> matthew-wegner At first I wondered if modchips would now be legal, and CrunchGear and others are just focusing on jailbreaking iPhones because it's topical to their audience.

But, no, the wording really is zeroed in on handsets:

 _Computer programs that enable wireless telephone handsets to execute software applications, where circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of enabling interoperability of such applications, when they have been lawfully obtained, with computer programs on the telephone handset._

In fact, it sounds like it's legal to jailbreak an iPhone but _not_ an iPod touch...

<comment><USER2> "In fact, it sounds like it's legal to jailbreak an iPhone but not an iPod touch..."

Perhaps one could extend the scope of this to the iPod touch by considering the case of one with a bluetooth headset and VoIP software running. The iPod touch may be much less well known as a telephone, but like the iPhone it is a product with many possible uses. Talk on it and have someone try to prove it isn't a phone.

<comment><USER3> Be shown that there isn't a SIM card in it, and try to explain the difference to a judge / jury.

<comment><USER4> Verizon and Sprint phones don't have a SIM card and they're still phones, ask anyone ;).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It would now be perfectly legal for T-Mobile to offer a service where you walk into any T-Mobile store and they unlock your iPhone for you, to use on their network.

<comment><USER6> There's a T-Mobile store in Queens, NY that was already doing this a week ago, they had a huge banner outside that said something to the extent of 'We sell and unlock iPhones.' I remember pointing it out to a friend and wondering how it was legal but I guess now it makes sense.

If anyone wants to check it out, it's at the corner of 74th and Broadway in Jackson Heights.

<comment><USER7> Is there a list somewhere of the countries in which an unlocked iPhone will work with a prepaid sim?

I read on Fred Wilson's blog that it works in the UK (and presumably the rest of Western Europe). I am specifically wondering about Australia and Japan.

Can I buy an iPhone 4 in the USA, get it unlocked in Queens, and use it in Australia with a sim?

Edit - I'm mostly wondering if the radio in the US version of the phone supports the networks in .au and .jp.

<comment><USER8> Any carrier unlocked iPhone will work with all the carriers in South Africa. The frequencies available are GSM 900/1800 and UMTS/HSDPA 2100 and all the carriers offer micro-SIMs if asked.

In fact, that's true for the rest of Africa too, where you're pretty much guaranteed to find at least one GSM 900/1800 network wherever you go and in many cases a UMTS/HSDPA 2100 3G network as well, though the coverage might not be as comprehensive as it is in South Africa.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The awesome EFF can use some donations: <https://w2.eff.org/donate/index.php>

<comment><USER10> They have awesome swag too, I love my EFF cap:

[https://secure.eff.org/site/Ecommerce/267350841?VIEW_PRODUCT...](https://secure.eff.org/site/Ecommerce/267350841?VIEW_PRODUCT=true&product_id=1041&store_id=2441)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Correct me if I'm wrong, but this doesn't stop Apple from refusing to service your jailbroken iPhone does it? Big news and all, but it seems to me the issue was that Apple would make a fuss and void your warranty, not that people were getting arrested.

<comment><USER12> It's very, very easy to reset your iPhone to it's default state, you simply plug it in to your computer, and click "Restore" in iTunes. Apple doesn't have to know anything :-) I think you would have to be very silly to send a jailbroken iPhone to Apple to be serviced if Apple claim it's "illegal" to do so.

<comment><USER13> A step that depends on ITunes still depends on Apple's forbearance -- if they really wanted to stop this, they could have ITunes either (a) phone home reporting each 'restore' of an iPhone, and its previous state, by its unique ID; (b) leave a small notation in the 'restored' state about its previous state.

It'd simply be the digital equivalent of the stickers that indicate if a unit has been opened or exposed to moisture.

<comment><USER14> Thing is, Apple's shareholders would like Apple to stay in business for a while.

Apple's "it's a crime" talk is to scare casual users away from jailbreaking to get pirated software. But they know that experienced users, the ones that write the apps that draw the inexperienced users to the platform, want to jailbreak. And, those users want a warranty. And, they don't want to piss off those users, many of whom have hardware-review blogs.

So my guess is that Apple is not going to void warranties for jailbreaking. If they start doing that, it's going to be really good for Android and really bad for Apple.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I wonder if this means the activities of the "iPhone Dev Team" are now truly legal? (Not that I know whether they were before)

If so, the Google Voice angle gives me a horrible idea: imagine if Google snatched up those iPhone jailbreak devs. Google could distribute a jailbreak program to get a true Google Voice app on the iPhone. The downside being that their war with Apple would immediately go nuclear.

<comment><USER16> The first problem is that while jailbreaking is now legal, it is also legal for Apple to push a change that happens to break jailbroken phones. Apple doing this could create liability and/or negative publicity for any company that had sold such services on a wide scale.

The second problem is that lawyers will be trying to find a way to create the old result, and are likely to succeed. For instance Apple's restrictions against jailbreaking are almost certainly in their shrinkwrap license contract. Therefore the fact that they can't throw the copyright book at you, doesn't mean that you're necessarily legally in the clear to do it.

<comment><USER17> I think that the company that this would create liability and/or negative publicity for would be apple.

<comment><USER16> Apple has proven willing to brick jailbroken phones in the past. They didn't suffer any liability, and didn't get very much negative publicity. And it did wonders for maintaining the wall around the walled garden they are trying to create with the app store.

Given this, I see nothing to suggest that they won't do it again. And any company who suggests otherwise is taking a definite risk.

<comment><USER18> _Apple has proven willing to brick jailbroken phones in the past._

Have they?

The famous case of "bricking" back in 2007 was not related to a jailbreak, but was a botched unlock tool[1] that corrupted data in the baseband firmware. The corruption then led to problems with an update. Apple issued a warning when the update was released saying it would affect unlocked phones, and I can't imagine this is out of malice so much as it is out of Apple's pre-release testing activities revealing problems.

If it were an intentional attack against people who had jailbroken phones, why did it only affect those who used that particular flavor of unlock software?

With a jailbreak being simply a software modification, when has strictly a jailbreak (not an unlock) led to a bricked phone? At worst, a software update from Apple will just lead to the phone being restored back to non-jailbroken state.

<http://code.google.com/p/iphone-elite/wiki/iPhoneBrick>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> "Defeating a lawfully obtained DVD's encryption for the sole purpose of short, fair use in an educational setting OR FOR CRITICISM." Sure, I'm going to blog about this movie. Lemme in.

Seriously, "lawfully obtained" should be the only qualifier needed.

<comment><USER19> Next thing I want: to make it ILLEGAL to manufacture any DVD or player that FORCES consumers to watch previews.

I'm serious. I just sat through 10 minutes of previews the other night for movies like "Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel." If I don't have a legal right to skip that, music execs shouldn't have the legal right to stop me from playing high-decibel polka music on their front lawns.

<comment><USER20> My understanding is generally that you can get out of it just before it starts playing (by pressing the menu button, I think?) but once it starts playing it uses the same flag for the anti-piracy warning (or something like that), which prevents getting out of it. This issue does not appear on computers, of course, only DVD players.

Of course, this could have changed in newer DVDs or DVD players; though I haven't encountered any disk which has absolutely no way of getting out of the previews, but I tend not to watch many movies.

Also, I think that I have to point out that you are entirely free to mute the DVD and go off somewhere else until the previews are done, if you're unable to find any other way out of them; "FORCES" is a bit of a strong word, given that you were not (I assume) physically prevented from leaving. This is, of course, not an acceptable solution, but it does eliminate the discomfort of sitting through previews.

<comment><USER21> There are some discs that make it mandatory to watch something first. One example that kills me is the 2-3 minute long schpeal that plays in front of "Elmo's World" DVDs telling us about all the great things Seasame Street does around the world. On some discs, you can fast forward (not skip). On others, it is mandatory to watch the entire thing. This does pose a bit of a problem when your toddler needs his Elmo's World fix and you have to sit and wait...

<comment><USER22> A person that I know who most assuredly isn't me has a policy that the kid doesn't touch original DVDs. That in the process of making non-original DVDs, you can set the DVD to automatically start right at the movie upon insert is just a bonus. (There's an age where setting the DVD to auto-loop is useful too.)

It's just too easy for original DVDs to get destroyed. Also, this person has a car DVD player that this person doesn't really trust not to destroy the DVD on a particularly hard bump. (Ironically, this person's DVD player finds it easier to play the burned DVD copies; the player refuses to play about 10% of the original DVDs this person has put in it.)

<comment><USER23> Upvoted for consistently referring to yourself in the third person.

<comment><USER24> I'd say he's actually inconsistently referring to himself in the third and first persons.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Does anyone know what caused clause 4? It seems pretty specific to something. A means to legally allow play of DRM'd games without having to pierce the work firewall? Is there a history behind this?

>>>

(4) Video games accessible on personal computers and protected by technological protection measures that control access to lawfully obtained works, when circumvention is accomplished solely for the purpose of good faith testing for, investigating, or correcting security flaws or vulnerabilities, if:

(i) The information derived from the security testing is used primarily to promote the security of the owner or operator of a computer, computer system, or computer network; and

(ii) The information derived from the security testing is used or maintained in a manner that does not facilitate copyright infringement or a violation of applicable law.

<comment><USER21> When I read that and I think Sony BMG's rootkit or SecuROM. Or maybe just examining the security implications of a game install without letting the manufacturer know about it by bypassing a phone-home feature.

Actually, ArsTechnica has a good article up about this too: [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/07/apple- loses-...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/07/apple-loses-big-in- drm-ruling-jailbreaks-are-fair-use.ars)

They specifically mention this clause:

It turns out that the real target here is the DRM itself, specifically two controversial systems called SecuROM and SafeDisc. Professor Alex Halderman, a longtime security researcher in this area, begged the Library to let him investigate these kinds of invasive DRM without legal worries.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> What I want to know is: if Apple knowingly brick your jailbroken phone now, are they breaking the law? Or is jailbreaking still at your own risk? (I assume the latter)

<comment><USER27> I'd assume it's at your own risk, and I'd assume jailbreaking voids your warrenty. It's perfectly common for things to be legal but void your warrenty (e.g. It's legal for me to intentionally hit my iPhone with a hammer, but that voids my warrenty)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Does this mean that watching DVDs on Linux is finally legal as long as it's for education or criticism?

<comment><USER29> It looks like the exemption is pretty narrow: ripping DVDs for the purposes of extracting a short excerpt that meets fair-use criteria, for use in another, larger work of commentary or criticism. Essentially, it's now okay to rip a Disney movie for the purposes of grabbing a clip for use in your video podcast discussing representation of gender in Disney movies or something.

There's more general interoperability language in the DMCA though, so it's possible that if the creator of a Linux DVD player were prosecuted, they'd be acquitted. Falling under one of the Copyright Office's explicit exceptions is safer but I don't believe exhaustive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> It was already legal under the DMCA (at least, according to the spirit of the law). Apple and the RIAA just wanted you to believe otherwise. The language has simply been clarified so overzealous companies can't easily scare consumers.

</comment><comment><USER31> <http://www.copyright.gov/1201/>

Looks like it's more than just education and criticism:

> (i) Educational uses by college and university professors and by college and > university film and media studies students; > (ii) Documentary filmmaking; > > (iii) Noncommercial videos.

Looks like so long as you're looking to use a clip, and your use would qualify as fair use, you can rip a DVD. That can't be what the librarian meant to write though, that would actually encourage people to make backups and then further copy a fair use bit into a different work.

</comment><comment><USER32> What made this illegal before?

<comment><USER33> DMCA. Circumventing a DRM system for any reason is illegal under DMCA.

<comment><USER29> I don't think that's _entirely_ true. The DMCA has a bunch of exceptions for things like "interoperability" and "research" that are somewhat vaguely defined, which someone who was subject to a DMCA suit could use as a defense. This rulemaking process carves out a subset of those where the Copyright Office has determined that the activity _definitely_ falls under those exceptions. But unless I'm mistaken, I think it's possible to argue other uses as well--- but you'd have to argue in court why your use was primarily for interoperability purposes. The advantage of doing things that the Copyright Office already declared to fall under those exceptions is that you wouldn't have to argue that point at all, because the issue was already decided.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Apple may not like the ruling, but the funny thing is that this may actually cause an increase in the sales of iPhone.

<comment><USER34> Apple may actually be fine with it. They may have had a contract clause with AT&T that required them to defend the exclusivity clause in any legal action, possibly including this sort of thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Why would it not make sense now to use this as an amicable excuse to axe the AT&T deal from apple's end saying it's clearly no longer legal to do so and just getting on with the business of competing on the basis of product instead of who has the better team of lawyers?

</comment><comment><USER36> Now it is legal to do what everyone was doing already--to hack our own stuff. It is fascinating to see how laws catch up to the norm. Just wonder why it was illegal in the first place?

</comment><comment><USER37> Good news for Apple or bad news for them? It would definitely help the IPhone ecosystem but breaks Apple's control.

</comment><comment><USER38> Does anyone have info on the other DMCA exceptions that were granted? My googlefu only reveals Apple stories.

<comment><USER39> Rulemaking on Exemptions from Prohibition on Circumvention of Technological Measures that Control Access to Copyrighted Works: <http://www.copyright.gov/1201/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Does this open up 3rd party support of jail-broken phones as a legitimate business?

</comment><comment><USER41> I use an iPhone 3G on T-Mobile (because I'm boycotting AT&T). I wasn't aware that jailbreaking was illegal–I thought Apple was trying to make it so, but it wasn't yet (under the DMCA).

Either way, this is great.</comment>


Apache Solr 6.3.0 released - <AUTHOR> http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/www-announce/201611.mbox/%3CCAOOKt51%3D9nAzaUXJZgE5M04JyoZYeD7WdWvan3jAE%3Dz0UD49BA%40mail.gmail.com%3E <comment><USER2> After spending a week evaluating if we are to pick Solr or Elastic, here are some of the more interesting conclusions:

\- Solr comes with optional security config; Elastic charges for Shield. At the time of the evaluation, Shield pricing wasn't online (and there were hints online it starts at 1600/year and goes upwards from there).

\- Elastic can have a 'split brain' from time to time, and some data can be lost.

\- Elastic is more user friendly, but that comes at a price of installing Kibana + other software. Solr is all-in-one.

\- Both will let you shoot yourself in the foot with dynamic fields and schema, but if you go the hardcoded schema way, solr is easier to setup.

\- Solr has DataImportHandler, which makes configuring the entire DB import from an existing database, 2 minutes job once you know what you are doing. The import seemed to be doing 50k records / second, and it can also do partial syncs if things have changed.

\- Performance wise, they are both overkill if one is staying away from managed schemas and provide decently beefed-up VMs. But Solr+DataImportHandler, gives you one more option (aside from zookeeper) for cheap scaling. If you have mostly read heavy instances, you can put separate VMs behind a load balancer to ensure near 100% uptime and robustness, with the minimal fuss of clicking a button once a month to add the deltas to the separate VMs.

<comment><USER3> I read this as basically a Win to Solr?

<comment><USER2> They are very very close. The differences are minute at this point. Unless you are doing some heavy relational algebra, it will be hard to distinguish real world results for simple queries.

In the end I chose Solr because it comes with 'ecosystem' of semi-related projects that you can pull on (spark, ambari, etc etc).

On a sidenote, I'm personally more comfortable with forkable sourcebases, than singular companies with paid plugins. I've been too long in this industry and have seen all kinds of dirty tricks pulled off.

<comment><USER4> For us the authentication options might tip it. Also the ecosystem point is important; we're using Spark/Avro/..

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Good (and fair) article on comparison ... [https://dzone.com/articles/10-reasons-to-choose-apache- solr-...](https://dzone.com/articles/10-reasons-to-choose-apache-solr-over- elasticsearc)

</comment><comment><USER6> Is there anything like Kibana for Solr?

<comment><USER7> Yes, a port called banana: [https://github.com/LucidWorks/banana](https://github.com/LucidWorks/banana)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Another interesting use case for Solr is to use it as a prebuilt backend with a REST API for a data based web service/dashboard. We have had quite a bit of luck doing this and getting our service up and running was quite a bit faster than trying to build out our own APIs.

</comment><comment> brian-armstrong I'd be curious to see the distribution of Solr vs Elasticsearch in production. Anyone know how you would gather that statistic?

<comment><USER9> Elasticsearch is more popular than Solr nowdays.

<comment><USER10> Is that in absolute install number (see my other thread's comment), in % of growth number (from 0-base for ES as of only a several years ago), or the excitement for early features of ElasticSearch that have been disabled or rolled-back over the last couple of years.

I am somewhat biased because I am a - recent - Solr committer. But I also did try to do a very balanced comparison presentation two years ago: [http://www.slideshare.net/arafalov/solr-vs-elasticsearch- cas...](http://www.slideshare.net/arafalov/solr-vs-elasticsearch-case-by-case) (kind of popular, 49k views...).

Solr - still - is more flexible than Elasticsearch by several degrees of magnitude. But Elasticsearch has a better vertical integration story, especially for analytics. And size (it IS small), because it does not ship OOTB with documentation (online), full examples (any?), Admin UI (plugin), rich-text extraction (plugin), data import mechanism (with rivers gone), etc.

If you don't need those, the choice is much more close. And many people do not need those. The problem is that most of the people don't know what they need and don't need when they do the evaluation, so they look at the most surface parameters.

Solr 6 has good startup scripts, (overly) comprehensive examples, REST APIs, well maintained 700 pages manual, etc. Some of these features are a bit harder to discover due to legacy information also being very visible. But it is there.

<comment><USER8> As a commiter, are there plans to improve the SOLR SQL interface and add features to make it more in line with standard SQL? Also, any plans on adding search syntax to the SQL?

<comment><USER10> Not by me, but the SQL interface is the bleeding edge of Solr. If the last time you looked was a month ago, look again. The feature set probably doubled since. And, for this, don't rely on documentation, it is not complete yet. Rather, check the Lucene Solr Revolution 2016 slides/videos and search Jira for SQL keyword. And if you have solid use cases, feel free to create a feature-request Jira or even help to test and/or develop it.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Make my app Open Source or keep in a private repo? - <AUTHOR> I am trying to determine whether to get a private github account (or another repository method) for the app suite I have begun building. What are some questions I should establish to build out this project, architecture, etc., and how do I determine if I want my project to be open source? Thanks in advance. <comment><USER2> Is there a specific reason why you would want to open source it?

Just my personal opinion: users don't care if your app is open sourced or not (Unless there's a clear reason for it to be open sourced, for example providing transparency in cases user privacy is critical)

<comment><AUTHOR> Exactly what I'm trying to establish myself: what are the implications of starting a project that is "free and open source?" Community involvement, participation... What did projects have in mind when they went that route, and what was the reality of it? For what projects is open source beneficial, and which projects should be kept proprietary: I don't think it's just a questions of monetization and profit, but I'm not sure. Are there some industries for which the accompanying software should be open source? Thanks for starting the parlez.

<comment><USER2> If you're wondering about this question, then it is very likely that you shouldn't make it open source.

Like I said it only makes sense when you feel the need to make it open source. Some of the reasons I could think of:

1\. Your app has features that are very privacy sensitive, so you want to let your users know there's nothing fishy going on. 2\. You're not building the app because you want users, but as a learning experience. Hey maybe you can even use your public code as your resume (Then again, this can backfire if your code is not exquisite) 3\. Marketing stunt (This won't work in most cases, so if you're thinking of this don't do it) 4\. Your app has server aspect and you can't afford to run it anymore so thinking of shutting it down, but you want to do your users a favor.

Community involvement and participation will NOT come just because you open sourced it. In fact you should assume it won't happen. This is true for even extremely successful open source projects. It's only less than 1% of people who contribute and 99% of freeloaders.</comment></comment></comment>


SHOW HN: Data Prep on SQL Data Sources, Upload Files to RedShift - <AUTHOR> http://www.veroanalytics.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hey Everyone, We just released Vero Designer 2.0. Honestly, I think this is an actual MVP vs 1.0. Useful things you can do with Vero:

1\. Build complex reports from SQL data sources. SQL knowledge not necessary

2\. Wrangle files and import to a local Derby DB or upload to Amazon RedShift

3\. Blend data between many sources including RDBMS, CSV Files, and Hive

4\. Export blended results as materialized tables

5\. Reusable metadata across all of your sources. App gets smarter with each use.

Would love feedback, since this is our real MVP product.

www.veroanalytics.com

Thanks!</comment>


Extreme Programming Failures Explained - <AUTHOR> http://codewright.blogspot.com/2009/06/we-have-met-enemy.html

<comment><USER2> In short: "Extreme programming fails because it requires trust."

Disagree!

<comment><AUTHOR> Boiling it down to one word doesn't do the problem justice. Do you trust your developers with your code? Do you trust them follow code standards? Do you trust them with business secrets? Do you trust them with your house keys? Those are all different levels of trust. How do you implement a process with people who don't trust you or otherwise undermine attempts at change? Knowing what you're up against is more than half the battle.

<comment><USER2> How do you develop with developers you don't trust? I think that's the wrong question.</comment></comment></comment>


The Singularity is not coming - <AUTHOR> http://cognitivesocialweb.com/home/2012/8/10/the-singularity-is-not-coming.html <comment><USER2> I think a good model for "the singularity" is a long straight highway. Stand in the middle and look down its length, and it appears to converge to a singularity in the distance. But when you actually drive there, you see it's just more highway.

Basically I believe it's an issue of cultural time perspective. We can't imagine the tools that will be in use in 2112. But, they won't seem so strange to the people of 2111.

<comment><USER3> I like your highway analogy. Mainly I think the singularity argument suffers from an acute case of perception bias in favour of recent advancements; just as picking any arbitrary point in time and asking a scientist of that era what they thought the most important scientific advancements were.

> We can't imagine the tools that will be in use in 2112.

Pretty much just the hall-filling computers of the Priests of the Temples of Syrinx. Guitar-smashing jerks.

<comment><USER4> I think it's an example of ruthless extrapolation.

[http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2012-06-27/ruthless- ex...](http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2012-06-27/ruthless- extrapolation)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The author completely misses the point of these arguments.

This is not about science increasing the rate of scientific progress. It's about computation improving the rate of computational progress. Particularly, the "Singularity" is about that happening in a world where strong AI exists.

And I'm not even going to harp on the fact that the number of computations per second that we perform on this planet _has_ been undoubtedly exponential at least for a while, because that's not the real point.

The real point is that like the author says, human creativity is still the driving force in computational advances, and human creativity can't be sped up by periodically doubling clock rates or core counts.

If it could? Those doublings would happen even quicker, and the exponential growth we've seen so far would be nothing.

This does, of course, require that you believe that strong AI is possible at all, and that the entire process of creativity could eventually be put into software. If you don't believe in that in the first place, then there's no point having the argument at all - you don't argue the details of a nuclear chain reaction with someone that doesn't believe in neutrons.

<comment><USER6> _It's about computation improving the rate of computational progress_

But computation doesn't improve the rate of computational progress. That's achieved by improvements in manufacturing. Computation does help _a little_ , giving us better tools for chip design. But mainly it's manufacturing.

The only way for computational progress to exponentiate, past the limit of Moore's Law, is to use more physical resources - computers get literally bigger.

And so expensive that only the five richest crowned heads of Europe can afford them!

<comment><USER7> _But computation doesn't improve the rate of computational progress._

As long as it's people developing computing devices, that holds. But when you have a machine that is capable of improving its own software, you get a self reinforcing loop where computation improves the rate of computational progress.

<comment> loup-vaillant Intelligence doesn't even have to feed on itself. Imagine a human-level hardware designing AI. As long as Moore's law applies, it can double its computational power every 18 _subjective_ months. From our point of view, that's 18 months, then 9, then 4.5…

If Moore's law where unlimited, such an AI would have infinite computational power in 36 months, with absolutely no increase in actual intelligence. But of course Moore's law is limited. Still, we could expect quite a bit of progress from a mere AI hardware designer.

<comment><USER8> This assertion is groundless. Why would Moore's law accelerate? In fact, Moore's law is currently decelerating and gains are increasingly harder to find. Further, Moore's law says nothing about computational speed, but only the density of transistors. These two are related but not identical.

Edit: also, from my understanding, the gains in transistor density largely depend on new discoveries in physics. Before a computer can aid in accelerating Moore's law it would need to be sufficiently advanced to generate new discoveries in physics, but at this point you'd have a computer smart enough that it Moore's law wouldn't matter much. Seems like putting the cart before the horse to me.

<comment> loup-vaillant Transistor count and computational are so tightly correlated that's nitpick.

Now I did not assume "Moore's law" would accelerate. I assumed it would stay _constant_. The key point comes from the fact the AI (or AI hive) would trivially benefit from hardware speed-ups.

And yes, Moore's law won't really count, compared to the rest we will be able to do. I was just trying to be as conservative as possible. (Though Moore's law still holding until strong AI is quite wild).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The information revolution must be accelerating the speed of scientific discoveries. In the past scientists would make paradigm shifting discoveries that would be forgotten or that would be confined to a specific region. It would take other scientists centuries to rediscover them and build on top.

Many discoveries come about by improving on and combining previous discoveries, so what needs to be improved to speed up science is better access, categorization and distribution of discoveries. And this is where I think a human-level AI would have an advantage over a human. Even if the AI is unable to retain more things in memory than a human it could clone itself and have an army of scientist AIs in charge of analyzing each new discovery and seeing how it might fit in with all other discoveries. Depending how resource- hungry the AI is we might be able have millions of brains working on every potential far-fetched hypothesis to see if it leads anywhere. It would be an industrialization of science.

That seems like it would have to lead to faster discoveries.

<comment><AUTHOR> You raise a very interesting point.

But I'm under the feeling that reality is much more complex: access to more information can as well inhibit creativity as it can inspire new discoveries.

I can't say I fully the relationship between the creative scientific process and information exchange/consumption, but I'm pretty sure that past a certain point, the more papers you read the less likely you are to come up with something new. At a macro scale, communication is definitely a driver of progress, but at a micro scale?...

<comment><USER7> _I'm pretty sure that past a certain point, the more papers you read the less likely you are to come up with something new_

Do you have any evidence this is a property of optimizing systems in general, as opposed to simply a limitation of human capabilities?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This seems like arguing with a door. The whole concept of the singularity is absurd. Taking your time to construct arguments of why such absurdity would happen slow instead of fast, if it happened. Is just like trying to come up with scientific explanations why unicorn poop couldn't be technically as magical as rainbows. Reminds me of those nerdy arguments we all had, debating whether superman's clothes would burn upon re-entry on the atmosphere. Fun times, but useless.

Proponents of singularity have a broken understanding of "intelligence". We already have computers that perform plenty of intellectual tasks better than humans. Even learning itself, or coding and reprogramming itself. But this is not "intelligent" yet according to them. They'll only be satisfied when "intelligent" means mimicking a human being for no other reason other than mimicking a human being's sake. They don't want an intelligent computer, nor actual practical solutions to real problems. What they really want is a really complex fart app.

<comment><USER11> That is like claiming the universe is more intelligent than we are because we could never hope to calculate one millisecond of what the universe does if we all had IQs of 200 and 15 billion years with pencil and paper.

What computers do is not intellectual. Intelligence is probably just a stochastic random process of clawing one's way up a hill, but even with enormous computational power, it took the solar system 4.5 billion years of not-well-directed effort to produce us... (and to produce whatever creature that blotch was on the curiosity camera :). Only once we existed could the universe, through us, produce the works of art, literature, culture, and scientific knowledge that we've accumulated very rapidly.

<comment><USER10> That's obviously subject to whatever your definition of "intelligence" is. The only reason why you can even disagree, is because we don't have an objective definition. So we could argue forever and not get anywhere.

But what matters, is that at the end of the day. For almost any practical and objective definition of "human intelligence" that you might write down. I can write a computer program that will follow those specs and execute it better than a human being. Today. Fact is, humans are nothing but machines and our computers are already better than us in most tasks. Talking about the point which "computers overtake human intelligence" is dismissing the hundreds of different sub-fields in AI research which already got way past that point. Not only with better processing (as you imply), but also with better algorithms than us.

Or we might stick with our current subjective and useless definitions of the word. And keep dreaming about how would it be when we get to somewhere undefined.

<comment><USER12> I don't get your argument at all. As in, I'm not sure what you're trying to argue. If you agree that computers will soon be capable of everything a human brain does, and that the brain is just a machine that could eventually be copied and improved, how could there _not_ be tremendous and unpredictable changes to the world when it happens?

If humans create artificial minds that are able to operate on their own, what we decide are the important problems to work on could end up becoming a moot point. You can't really negotiate with someone who's a lot smarter than you (not more than a chimpanzee can negotiate with humans).

If you're criticizing philosophers and researchers for "dreaming" about these ideas, you might want to have a look at some of the thoughts around what would happen if we created self-improving, human-level artificial intelligence. The consequences are potentially catastrophic to human existence, and hence justifies some effort even if you think it is completely unlikely. And whether it is unlikely or not is subject to strong debate. Have a look at

<http://singularity.org/research/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Great article.

I've always found the concept of singularity naive.

Greatest discoveries haven't been done by the most intelligent persons.

Science isn't just a question of intelligence or will, it's also a question of timing, luck and duration.

Everything has a limit. Ants have limits. We have limits. And the supposed "all mighty AI" will have limits if it ever exists.

<comment><USER11> And yet, what are ants to us? Limits of an AI may be incomprehensible to us, and the point of singularity is not that intelligence might increase without bound, but that it will reach our level and appear be increasing at an exponentially beyond us. (Any increase in intelligence beyond our level may be obvious but unquantifiable, so the question of exponential vs simply "beyond us" may be unanswerable.)

Logistics curves are a favorite concept on HN relating to resource usage, so imagine that intelligence follows a logistic curve, and humanity is way above ants, but still very close to the bottom. Once an AI gains the ability to iteratively improve its own mind, first software, and then hardware, it could accelerate up the curve and the separation between our intelligence and AI, if measured, would be approximately exponential until it's so far ahead of us it doesn't matter whether there's a hard limit (logistic curve) or not (true exponential curve).

<comment><USER13> Sorry, I think my point wasn't properly explained.

My point is that intelligence isn't everything.

An AI may become more "intelligent" than a human being, but it doesn't mean any singularity will happen. It does not mean it can self-improve. It does not mean it can find solutions we did not think of.

It's a bit hyperbolic to say "we don't know what greater intelligence can do" and conclude "it will therefore do incredible things".

And to bounce on your answer, are we more intelligent than ants? Does it even make sense to say "we're more intelligent than ants"? Our differences with ants go far beyond intelligence.

<comment><USER11> An AI would be able to self-improve its software (unless artificially limited, and it's not clear to me whether that would be effective), and with enough initial robotic and sensory capabilities it would be able to self-improve its hardware, both computational aspects and robotic aspects.

The only reasons it wouldn't are if it didn't put effort into it (too busy watching Lost), or if intelligence cannot really be improved.

Humans might do the equivalent of rewriting software through thinking. But it's a more limited and slow process than could be accomplished with full read/write access to software running an AI that's completely malleable and rewritable in moments.

There's plenty of evidence that intelligence can be improved. Working memory is important. We have very limited working memory. We are frequently distracted by emotions. If an AI can operate at roughly equivalent speeds with greater working memory, and if it's not distracted by emotions, it may miss some of the "finer" points of life, but I can't imagine it not leapfrogging ahead of meager human progress.

Maybe it's not possible. Like the thing at the beginning of Fire Upon the Deep, if it is possible, we won't really know if it is until it exists. If it's got the temperment of a class 2 perversion or the Blight, we're toast. If it's a Power that finds us amusing or irrelevant, we might be okay.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Also, Ray Kurzweil is not known just for his imagination. Some of his research has enabled groundbreaking technologies. For example, he is one of the creators of speech recognition technology (Nuance, which spun out of Kurzweil's company, allegedly powers Siri). I had heard of Kurzweil long before I knew anything about the singularity.

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed. However, a number of researchers have had arguably more impact that he did on NN research (such as LeCun), and these people are completely unheard of outside of the NN community. I can't imagine Kurzweil becoming the media star that he is without his singularity books.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Okay, here's the thing. It's certainly possible that strong AI could exist. Pretty much the only way of finding out is by attempting to build it. If it's possible, we'll be able to build it eventually. If not, we won't. If the magical singularity happens, it'll flow naturally from the strong AI. And if it doesn't, it doesn't. And, well, if we get strong AI but no singularity, great, we still get strong AI and we can use it to do some very clever shit that makes the sort of things the AI community are doing now seem primitive.

Given this, I'm not sure why singularity promoters give that much of a shit whether people believe it. I'm certainly skeptical of it. Given I pretty much use a 40 year old text editor to write in a language that's about 20 years old and is just about approaching the discoveries that the Lispies made back in the 50s, I'm not sure what progress we're talking about. I write code that basically instructs a computer with pretty much the same level of semantic complexity as one does when giving instructions to a particularly stupid child.

But perhaps I've got this wrong. Perhaps the singularity will happen. I don't understand why the singularity promoters are so angry about people who are skeptical of their claims. While I was doing the rounds on Wikipedia a while back, I found this image...

[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Singularity_Deniers_...](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Singularity_Deniers_Dystopia_Holocaust_Denial_LOW_RESOLUTION.png)

Have a look at the image description before I cleaned it up:

[https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Singula...](https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Singularity_Deniers_Dystopia_Holocaust_Denial_LOW_RESOLUTION.png&diff=69988810&oldid=57242687)

Apparently, if someone tells me that a super-intelligent AI will create a brain many hundreds of times better than our own and then allow us to live forever and my reaction isn't an immediate "oh my god, you are so, so right!" then I'm a 'singularity denier', equivalent in status to a holocaust denier. If the singularity idea is pretty much bound to happen as a result of emergent technological progress or whatever, why is my doxastic consent such an important requirement for it coming about?

I freely admit I'm probably not as smart a guy as Ray Kurzweil. But let's not forget: the history of bizarre cults shows us that smart people can believe some very stupid things.

<comment> loup-vaillant > _Given this, I'm not sure why singularity promoters give that much of a shit > whether people believe it._

In my case that would be because the default scenario for a technological singularity is Eternal Doom. By default, if AI researchers do not pay _extreme_ attention, the first smarter-than-human AI will have different goals than we do, and recognize us as a threat to those goals and eliminate us all. Or squash us like bugs without even paying much attention. Or use our constituent atoms to maximize its goals. Or keep us drugged and lobotomised in soft cages, so that we're safe and happy. Or something.

And of course, we won't be able to stop it, because it will outsmart us at every turn (we can do the same to chimps).

This is why this singularity thing is at least worth looking into. Being able to nuke away our civilization is bad enough, but this could be even worse. Or it could turn our world into a paradise.

And of course, with more believers, there will be more donors to the organizations working on this, more researchers working on it… So belief does count, to some extent. (On the other hand, becoming angry at non-believers like a crusader is unlikely to spur positive reactions. By cleaning up this image description, you actually helped our cause.)

<comment><USER16> It's not the first smarter than human AI that is the threat. It's the first self-improving AI that people have to worry about. It can start out at a much lower than human intelligence (whatever that means) but as long it can keep improving it could turn into the nightmare scenario.

The safeguards need to be built into the self improving AI, no matter how 'dumb' it starts out as.

<comment> loup-vaillant Well, _any_ path that lead to superhuman intelligence is dangerous. Self- improving AI may be the likeliest, but it's not the only one. Think Upload, brain-computer interfaces, or computing overhang, for instance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I think the advocates of the singularity see it as coming from an explosion of the possibilities of technology rather than an explosion of science in general. Kurzweil himself mentions how to the average research scientist, science appears slow and linear (with jumps most coming when a scientist gets a different set of tools to work with).

 _> Let's have a hypothetical AI that researches artificial intelligence, and that constantly rewrites its own code to incorporate its finding into its own intelligence._

No,

A hypothetical General AI would double the amount of circuits involved in it's processes to double its intelligence and go from Monkey-brain-sized to human brain sized. Repeat as necessary. The intelligence _algorithm_ running on those circuits doesn't have to improve (though we'd hope it would at least a little).

Of course, you would need an initial intelligent parallel algorithm. That might indeed be hard or impossible. But his argument in itself doesn't proving anything about this.

Sure, even with flexible general AI, some problems would remain hard but a lot of things aren't the Knap-sack problem. In fact there's no evidence the massive success of human intelligence has had much to do with tackling NP- complete problems. Instead, flexibility and pattern finding set human apart from both other animals and the most powerful artifact we can so-far create.

Just consider, Moore's Law continued at least for a fair period driven by humans whose innate intelligence didn't increase at all.

<comment><USER18> You don't understand intelligence. Doubling the circuits doubles the _speed_ of the intelligence, but it has no effect on it's _quality_.

You are assuming the existence of not just an intelligent parallel algorithm but an _infinitely scalable_ one (i.e. one that could actually take advantage of more circuits)! Because without that, you don't need to double the circuits - you could just give them more time.

Concepts that are beyond a particular intelligence will still be beyond it, even if the speed is increased.

People have a really hard time admitting that some people are truly fundamentally smarter than others. It's not just that they can think faster - they can think things that other people simply can not, even if they worked really hard at it.

I'm sure you've heard the saying "I didn't think of that". That's exactly it, even if it thinks faster, it will still never "think of that".

<comment><USER8> This is actually under debate. There is disagreement among neuroscientists whether intelligence is a result of brain modularity (specific regions of the brains optimized for certain tasks), or due to brain size alone. All that said, I'm skeptical of the singularity since it assumes that a recursive process can continually improve intelligence without significant diminishing returns. The problem with this thinking is that it fails to take into account evolution. All this research into AI is based on the assumption that "intelligence" should be like human intelligence. But human intelligence has had several billion years to evolve and is highly optimized for our environment (actually our environment from several tens of thousands of years ago when we were hunter gatherers). It seems naive to me to assume that we are not nearing a local optimum in what is possible with human intelligence. I don't believe a singularity is possible because by recursively improving "intelligence" you will near the local optimum of that form of intelligence but that does not mean you can continue improving that intelligence indefinitely.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> _Rather use your imagination, the one thing that makes you a beautiful unique snowflake. Intelligence and hard work should be merely at the service of our imagination. Think outside of the box. Break out. Shake the axioms._

Honest question: can't this process of "thinking outside the box" be reduced to a logical process? Wouldn't a system which has ability to identify axioms, also have the ability to vary those axioms and try out alternatives?

In other words, why shouldn't better logical ability lead to better imagination?

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm not that much worried about whether or not there's an asymptote of diminishing returns for self-improving intelligence. I'm quite a bit worried about just how far away a genuinely self-improving intelligent system will move from the level of human capacity before it starts hitting the wall.

I think Kurzweil is mostly the one who keeps going on about literal unending exponential growth. Vinge's original singularity idea was more about things just becoming irreversibly incomprehensible for regular humans, since ultimately limited or not, self-improving intelligences are going to end operating on a level very distant from human thought.

</comment><comment><USER21> This is a reasonably plausible argument for progress within fields and paradigm shifts; but consider between fields, and the rate of new field creation. To use the given examples, Newtonian physics, quantum physics and Information Theory began in 1687, 1930 and 1948. That seems quite accelerating (of course you'd need more complete stats to demonstrate this properly).

BTW: I disagree that intelligence and imagination are separate. I think intelligence necessarily includes imagination, so AI would include artificial "imagination" too.

I'd like progress to continue rather than to stagnate; and since progress has historically continued, that seems the way to bet. Those pundits predicting stagnation have historically been wrong. However, I find it curious that Kurzweil does not address the _availability_ of innovations/discoveries (and the difficulty in finding them), in contrast to the compelling case he makes for historical progress. Are potential discoveries infinite? Is their density uniform, or do they become less likely as you go along because they are limited in supply (the assumption of the article)?

How would one sensibly model the supply of potential discoveries, since it is intrinsically unknown? Perhaps a mathematical model of computation might help, of computable functions and Kolomogorov/Solomonoff program length to compute them. Using this model, the search space of functions increases exponentially with program length - but at what rate would the number of "interesting" computable functions increase? And with what density (with respect to the search space, i.e. how hard they are to find)?

<comment><AUTHOR> While I agree with you that the rate of paradigm shift increases over time, I argue that their average impact/scope decreases. Newtonian physics opened more room for technological progress than quantum mechanics, etc. Earliest inventions have the most impact (the invention of the scientific method having the most impact of all?).

So my point is that if you look at paradigm shift rate not in volume but in impact, you'd get a linear rate.

For this reason, an AI given imagination and exploding resources would still only make linear progress.

<comment><USER22> Transistors couldn't have been designed without understanding Quantum Mechanics. Bye, bye modern computers.

<comment><AUTHOR> And quantum mechanics could not have been thought up without newtonian mechanics...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Linear increases in science can drive exponential increases in what's possible.

I remember computers of 30 and 40 years ago. Today everyone in the world has free access to supercomputers that translate languages and search petabytes of data (aka Google). We didn't need to revolutionize basic physics to get here from punched cards.

Expect a similar revolution in the next 30 to 40 years.

</comment><comment><USER24> Thanks for this article. I've always been fascinated by singularity, and even though I don't know too much about it, I'm excited to see the people who fully support your position to create some great conversation on this topic.

</comment><comment><USER25> I don't understand why people believe they will be immortal if the singularity ever occurs.

Humans came from microbes, yet we couldn't care less about them. A super intelligent being would see us the same way.

</comment><comment><USER26> The Problem with his model is, that he assumes that he ignores the "shoulder of giants" effect in his model, since he assumes that a later researcher has the same number of points as the earlier, but only hard problems to solve. ( Perhaps I will extend his model a bit later.)

</comment><comment><USER27> What does that mean "it's not coming". Isn't pretty much everything "coming" eventually?

<comment><AUTHOR> If the Singularity is defined as intelligence explosion following the creation of strong AI, and if intelligence explosion is impossible, then the Singularity is not coming, even in the far future. Progress will just carry on linearly.

<comment><USER27> Saying something is impossible, even in the far future, is just stupid. If you think about it, humans are only familiar with an infinitely small sliver of what's out there in the universe. We're taking the little knowledge we have, and saying AI intelligence explosion is impossible. That's like a baby saying he's stood up before, and walking is just impossible.

Just seems silly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> The singularity may not be coming, however, there are still huge questions and challenges looming ahead. Individual humans don't seem to be able to resist the thirst for power, and society as a whole seems too passive to stop them... We just watch as it unfolds, hoping we'll get cool gimmicks in the process. That's insane.

" _Whenever a man chooses his purpose and his commitment in all clearness and in all sincerity, whatever that purpose may be, it is impossible for him to prefer another. It is true in the sense that we do not believe in progress. Progress implies amelioration; but man is always the same, facing a situation which is always changing, and choice remains always a choice in the situation. The moral problem has not changed since the time when it was a choice between slavery and anti-slavery._ "

\-- Jean Paul Sartre

It's all just a bunch of tools! We could use them to be good to each other, or to just keep doing what we did; moving from scarcity of resources and horsepower and intellect, to artificial scarcity based on greed and control. Technology just amplifies the impact of our choices on us, others and our environment; but it doesn't make them for us.

</comment><comment><USER29> Just another naysayer. At least he's not one of those "but H+ is unethical/against god's will" guys.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am in fact refusing to argue in the realm of opinion, and that is why I am proposing a valid mathematical model to support my hypothesis.

But I suppose you did not read past the title? Sorry for hurting your faith in the Singularity...</comment></comment>


A student loan crisis is an underemployment catastrophe - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@eric_seufert/the-student-loan-crisis-is-really-an-underemployment-catastrophe-96181e937a10 <comment><USER2> It would be great if the scope of this article wasn't just limited to the US.</comment>


Interview with Stephen Wolfram on AI and the Future - <AUTHOR> https://gigaom.com/2015/07/27/interview-with-stephen-wolfram-on-ai-and-the-future/

<comment><USER2> The most interesting part of this interview is the discussion of what happens when human agency is further removed from an individual bot. If a bot has no owner, do we start viewing it as an animistic entity with rights and responsibilities? Or, do we return to a world of individual as opposed to corporate responsibility? with decentralized currency and homomorphic encryption, seems like we are pretty close to this world right now. Very exciting.

<comment><USER3> I think there will be no such thing as no owner. In worst cases, it will be the state that compensates for damages. Kind of like if you drive into a hole in a road you can seek damage compensation from municipality. There will be some kind of laws that would instantiate agency of some sort to regulate and make sure there are no wondering "entities" without owners and they would be responsible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What I wonder is that considering that computation is universal, would it be easier to achieve human-like understanding of the environment using hierarchical models without any use of neural networks?

Can we achieve such mathematical breakthrough without making use of neuroscience or related biological fields?

<comment><USER5> If you accept that computation is universal, then yes, you could definitely achieve human-like understanding through means that are completely different from the actual human wet-ware.

It might not be very efficient... but it's certainly possible. If the universe is isomorphic to a Turing machine, then the human brain certainly is. If that is so, then it is possible in principle to create a human-like machine with any other Turing-complete machine. It just might take you a billion years to simulate one second of human brain activity.

<comment><USER6> It's not obvious that either the universe or the human brain are isomorphic to a Turing machine.

There's an epistemological tendency to assume the universe is isomorphic to the most complex mechanical model available at the time.

Historically, those models seem to be reliably wrong; the universe always turns out to be more complicated and subtle than we imagine it is.

<comment><USER3> You don't need to replicate human brain to achieve human brain-like behavior.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Mycroft Mark II: The Open Voice Assistant - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/aiforeveryone/1141563865 <comment><USER2> So they're finally switching from Google STT to Mozilla Deepspeech, but that project includes no pre-learned models IIRC. So where is MyCroft getting its data from? Or is Mozilla releasing models in 2018?

<comment><USER3> Mozilla has released a v0.1.0 American Englisch model, check the releases GitHub page of Deep Speech.</comment></comment>


Context is the new battleground between Android and iOS - <AUTHOR> http://scobleizer.com/2012/09/12/context-is-the-new-battleground-between-android-and-ios/ <comment><USER2> "1. Android lets developers have access to the dialer so that app developers can watch who calls you and who you call."

Is this actually true?</comment>


React's DOM Diff Algorithm - <AUTHOR> http://facebook.github.io/react/docs/reconciliation.html

<comment><USER2> I wrote a very simple DOM diff'er a while ago in Ruby for a somewhat similar usage (diff'ing the same pages over and over with probably a small number of changes each time) [https://github.com/conorh/rdomdiff](https://github.com/conorh/rdomdiff). It works in a similar way to their diff, although definitely not as well as theirs works - for my needs I was able to ignore sibling nodes moving around. I made the tradeoff that once I hit enough changes I would stop the diff and treat the page as a completely new change.</comment>


Fukushima: Is it really the new Chernobyl? - <AUTHOR> http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=is-fukushima-really-as-bad-as-chern-2011-04-12

<comment><USER2> I want to emphasize that this is not news because reality hasn't changed. The way reality is measured has changed.

The IAEA reported Japan changed from rating each individual reactor (1,2,3) a 5. They combined them together and finally rated the event a 7. Reuters reported the environmental impact is only 10% of Chernobyl.

P.S. The cherry blossoms are especially beautiful this year.

<comment><USER3> The _atmospheric release_ is reported to be 10% of Chernobyl. Nothing has been said about the release in the sea, which we all know has been huge.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Anyone else find the INES scale: <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:INES_en.svg>

Uncomfortably reminiscent of this: [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hsas- chart_with_heade...](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hsas- chart_with_header.svg) ?

I find the lack of metric troubling.

For example, the best descriptions I can find list the INES level 6 as a "significant" release and level 7 as "major" release plus long term countermeasures. But, it's not clear if (1) the long term effects are part of the upgrade to "major" release, or (2) does "major" mean higher levels of radioactivity in a given time and that on top of that, there are long term effects?

Would love if anyone has a more specific set of criteria.

<comment><USER5> FTA: "The cumulative release of radioactive material now equals at least 1.8 million terabecquerels - enough to merit the 7 designation on the INES scale."

"All told 14 million terabecquerels of radioactive material are estimated to have escaped during what remains the world's worst nuclear accident [in Chernobyl]."

The INES scale is more than simply a measure of radioactive isotope quantities released, likely taking into account the distribution of the radioactive contamination due to weather, form of emission and various physical effects, as well as the exposed population.

<comment><USER4> Fair enough. However the only mention of release in terabecquerels reaching a 7 is media quotes. I can't find this anywhere in INES literature.

Furthermore, the dose rate @ distance from reactor matters lot of than the total release.

[edit: typo... does->dose]

<comment><USER5> It does seem true that there is either some level of subjective judgment in determining the level of severity, or that the factors involved may be considered by the IAEA (perhaps due to pressure from the nuclear power industry) to be too morbid to have a public debate about. This quote from an article referenced in the Wiki entry worries me: "Each country has an INES National Officer who liaises with an IAEA reporting centre to disseminate information in consistent language." [http://www.world-nuclear- news.org/RS_Event_scale_revised_for...](http://www.world-nuclear- news.org/RS_Event_scale_revised_for_further_clarity_0510081.html)

Who knows how much independence these national INES representatives have from their countries' nuclear industry, and how strongly public interest is considered by these people.

There is also some mention in the same article that the INES scale is intended to be logarithmic, with each successive level representing ten-fold increase in severity, but it is not made clear how the various factors are weighted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Whatever the scale used, I don't think it will actually have the same health or environmental impact as Chernobyl did. It seems like it will have the same public perception, though.

</comment><comment><USER7> It's more like Three Mile Island, in that its scale and the damage it caused is likely to be overstated for many years to come.

<comment><USER5> The last paragraph tells me this is significantly more consequential than the TMI incident:

"Ultimately, Fukushima will resemble Chernobyl in another way: final containment will likely be achieved by entombing in it concrete and surrounding it with an exclusion zone to prevent visits by humans."

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> My friend sent this to me:

> _Here's a good "calm down" piece. I think the author is right... the > eventual environmental impact of Fukushima will be less than all of the > chemical pollution caused by the earthquake and tsunami. Not to say it still > isn't scary._

<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/12/fukushima_ffs/>

<comment><USER2> I don't agree with this article. Level 7 on the INES scale indicates "health and environmental effects." The scariest part of this event was the potential extent of the disaster. But reality got in the way again, and thankfully the worst case scenario hasn't come to be.

I got an e-mail from someone right after the tsunami. He summed up the whole situation in one word: "Terrible."</comment></comment>


Visualizing fissile materials - <AUTHOR> http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2014/11/14/visualizing-fissile-materials/

<comment><USER2> It always amazes me how dense materials get as you move through the periodic table. For example, a cup of mercury would weigh about 3kg or 7lb!</comment>


Do you think this mental health app could help people? - <AUTHOR> https://www.appxiety.co.uk/ <comment><AUTHOR> We created this as a way to connect people, so nobody would have to suffer alone. Now, more than ever, this seems to be something that could really help individuals.</comment>


Joyce K. Reynolds, co-editor of RFCs, has died - <AUTHOR> https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ietf/e9UDzTAAWSlXA2g9bhMbv1SHTx4 <comment><USER2> Very sad.

Jon Postel has RFC 2468: [http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2468](http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2468)

It would be nice if Joyce got something similar, although I guess it's trickier now.

Joyce is mentioned in RFC 1336: [http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1336](http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1336)

Her section of that is nice, she worked on stuff we've all used a lot.

               Ms. Reynolds has contributed
               to the development of the DARPA Experimental Multimedia Mail
               System, the Post Office Protocol, the Telnet Protocol, and
               the Telnet Option Specifications.  She helped update the File
               Transfer Protocol.  Her current technical interests include:
               internet protocols, internet management, technical
               researching, writing, and editing, Internet security
               policies, X.500 directory services and Telnet Options.

This is what she said in 1992 for that RFC.

               It has been interesting thirteen years in my professional
               life to participate in the Internet world, from the
               transition from the TENEX to TOPs-20 machines in 1979 to
               surviving the NCP to TCP transition in 1980.  Celebrating the
               achievement of the ISI 1000 Hour Club where one of our TOPs-
               20 machines set a record for staying up and running for 1000
               consecutive hours without crashing, to watching the cellular
               split of the ARPANET into the Milnet and Internet sides, and
               surviving the advent.  All in all, my most memorable times
               are the people who have contributed to the research and
               development of the Internet.  Lots of hard, intense work,
               coupled with creative, exciting fun.  As for the future,
               there is much discussion and enthusiasm about the next steps
               in the evolution of the Internet.  I'm looking forward.

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

<comment><USER2> This wikipedia article about TOPS-20 and TENEX gives some idea about what they were working with at the time.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOPS-20](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOPS-20)

>>In the 1960s, BBN was involved in a number of LISP-based artificial intelligence projects for DARPA, many of which had very large (for the era) memory requirements. One solution to this problem was to add paging software to the LISP language, allowing it to write out unused portions of memory to disk for later recall if needed. One such system had been developed for the PDP-1 at MIT by Daniel Murphy before he joined BBN. Early DEC machines were based on an 18-bit word, allowing addresses to encode for a 262-kword memory. The machines were based on expensive core memory and included nowhere near the required amount. The pager used the most significant bits of the address to index a table of blocks on a magnetic drum that acted as the pager's backing store, and the software would fetch the pages if needed and then re-write the address to point to the proper area of RAM.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> As someone who has lived through the times where the only real source of good information were the RFC's, this sucks.

Much respect to her and all of the people who worked together. I've often thought that the RFC process was one of the coolest things about our field. Other people think it is open source, I dunno. All those people coming together to work together to make stuff actually work, as in really work, not I wish it worked, but actually work. There were a lot of competing interests that people set aside to get stuff done.

<comment><USER4> Truth. For me, coming across the RFCs was better than finding a treasure chest. So much knowledge. And better, so much wisdom about systems design.

<comment><USER3> You might like Mike Padlipsky's Elements of Networking Style.

Out of print but so worth a read.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Joyce and Jon were two of the nicest people you could meet. They both left us way too early it seems.</comment>


Secrets of the Magus (1993) - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1993/04/05/1993_04_05_054_TNY_CARDS_000362341?currentPage=all

<comment><AUTHOR> The documentary _Deceptive Practices: The Mysteries and Mentors of Ricky Jay_ was also just released.

<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2654360/>

[http://movies.nytimes.com/2013/04/17/movies/deceptive- practi...](http://movies.nytimes.com/2013/04/17/movies/deceptive-practice-the- mysteries-and-mentors-of-ricky-jay.html)

</comment><comment><USER2> "People ask me why I don't do lectures at magic conventions, and I say, 'Because I'm still learning.' Meanwhile, you've got people who have been doing magic for ten months and they are actually out there pontificating. It's absurd"

This.

<comment><USER3> > "The Advanced Beginner stage is the last one in which the skill acquirer has > no understanding of the big picture. As such, it's the last phase in which > the acquirer might confuse himself with an Expert."

It shows that Expert Beginner syndrome ([http://www.daedtech.com/how- developers-stop-learning-rise-of...](http://www.daedtech.com/how-developers- stop-learning-rise-of-the-expert-beginner) ) and associated Dunning-Kruger effects isn't peculiar to software development, but is a general part of human nature and flourishes wherever it is allowed to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> One of the greatest profile essays of all time, by one of the greatest profilers.

"A small riot ensued."

</comment><comment><USER5> I am always fascinated by portraits of mastery and, particularly, of masters in obscure fields. There's a lot to learn from these stories. There are universal lessons hiding beneath the candy coatings of idiosyncrasy and eccentricity.

The (relatively) recent documentary _Jiro Dreams of Sushi_ is thematically similar to this portrait of Ricky Jay. To watch it is to realize how a true master is no longer shaped by his craft and his field, but indeed, shapes them.

</comment><comment><USER6> This is superbly entertaining.</comment>


Where did "Aboriginal Linux" come from?  Our story so far - <AUTHOR> http://landley.net/aboriginal/history.html <comment><USER2> It's more about the organizational problems than the software.

QNX has the "minimal system" thing down. QNX is a POSIX microkernel for embedded applications. There's a standard distro for development purposes, but you can easily build your own, and that's what's normally done for embedded devices.

A boot image for QNX contains the QNX kernel, its associated user process "proc", and any other user space programs you'd like to have around at boot- up, such as drivers. (All QNX device drivers are user space programs.) File systems and networking are also optional programs. You can put user programs into the boot image as well. If you have a system with a disk, "diskboot" is usually included to bring up a system with more programs and daemons, but that's optional. If you're doing a car stereo or an industrial controller, you'd probably just put the application program in the boot image and avoid any elaborate startup process.

(While QNX is a neat technology, the company is totally screwed up now. In the last 12 years, they went open source, closed source, open source, and back to closed source again. They were acquired twice, once by Harmon (mostly a car stereo company) and then by RIM (the Blackberry people). The end result is that the old point of sale and industrial control customers became fed up and abandoned the system. Nevertheless, QNX is worth understanding to see what a usable microkernel system looks like.)

<comment><USER3> Well I went through some of the same stuff as Rob, but with fewer side projects, and there are several issues, and QNX was one possible route, as you point out dying. I would look at eg Genode for something to work on in that kind of model instead, open source L4 based.

The big problem is GNU, that turned Linux into a bloated userspace, with often broken development processes which are only gradually being fixed. The whole busybox is, apart from the multicall binary thing, just about writing smaller tools. The hard solution is to rewrite userspace, which got us uClibc and later the far superior Musl libc. The easy solution is to use the BSDs, which basically just provide the core system without insane bloat, and with cross compiling and the core userspace already built in.

<comment><USER4> Meh. Your bloat is my usability. It's the difference between Emacs and vi: vi is smaller, also less usable, according to me, and I'm the only one whose opinions I trust in this matter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I loved this line: "shrinking teams get paralyzed by knowledge transfers: everybody spends all their time trying to learn what the departing engineers know".

</comment><comment><USER6>
      Back then I didn't know that the "Cathedral" in the original Cathedral and the Bazaar paper was specifically referring to the GNU project

Huh, I didn't know this either. I always thought it referred to IBM or MS or something.

<comment><AUTHOR> I thought he was trolling, but holy crap:

 _" In contrast to the cathedral-building style of the Emacs C core and most other GNU tools.."_ \-- [http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/cathedral- bazaar/cathedral-...](http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/cathedral- bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/ar01s03.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's very interesting to read about Rob's experiences. I had a similar (ish) experience working at a startup that was in way over its head making hardware. I got out earlier than he did (I only lasted a few months). My only advice is that if you're working at a startup and you don't have confidence in the management, definitely get out.

I also worked at a very well-run company (Laurel Networks) that also sold an appliance running embedded Linux in the early 2000s. We basically shipped a modified Red Hat 9. I was on the OS team. Our main concern was making sure no unnecessary ports were exposed or services running. We didn't have quite the same focus on creating the absolute minimum OS image size since our product included a hard disk. We had similar concerns with providing a seamless (and secure) upgrade path.

I think disk size is not that important in embedded Linux any more. If you're shipping a router that has its OS on a read-only compact flash card, you'll struggle to even find a CF card under 32 MB these days. They just don't manufacture them. So there's not much incentive to squeeze things on to a floppy disk any more. Microcontrollers still exist out there, but they don't run Linux (or usually any OS)-- usually they're just a "for" loop on bare metal.

On the other hand, minimizing the amount of code you're running is as important as ever. The more code you're running, the bigger the attack surface is. I hope that the Toybox project gains some traction out there as an option for folks that need it.

</comment><comment><USER8> I found the discussion of how side-projects kill main projects interesting.</comment>


Facebook launches Facebook Chat - <AUTHOR> http://www.facebook.com

<comment><USER2> It's pretty sweet, but I don't spend enough time inside Facebook for it to be really useful. I guess this is now an incentive to log in more regularly!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is way cool...</comment>


The Tyranny of Convenience - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/16/opinion/sunday/tyranny-convenience.html <comment><USER2> _An unwelcome consequence of living in a world where everything is "easy" is that the only skill that matters is the ability to multitask. At the extreme, we don't actually do anything; we only arrange what will be done, which is a flimsy basis for a life._

There is no shortage of hard problems left to solve. If everything in your life looks uneasily easy, raise your eyes to something harder before gamifying your routine with deliberate refusal to use a microwave oven.

Before big government-funded science programs started in the 20th century, people born into affluent families were greatly over-represented in the sciences, because you can't theorize or research if all day is spent on routine chores. The same goes for composers, mathematicians, and authors.

I find it kind of sad if people liberated from routine chores choose to use their new leisure time exclusively on TV and Facebook. But I'm certainly not going to tell them that they should wash clothes by hand to break out of the entertainment rut. That's a waste of a life too, admittedly one with a lengthier historical pedigree than binge-watching.

Even if you lack the inclination or the skills to advance the frontiers of art, mathematics, or science, there are plenty of rewarding activities that are orthogonal to convenience technologies. Hiking, biking, fishing, birdwatching, learning to sing or play an instrument, woodworking, cooking food that a microwave simply _can 't_ make, playing sports, gardening... I _do_ think that people suffer physically and mentally if the only parts of their bodies they use are their fingers and their eyes. A sedentary life spent entirely looking at electronic displays isn't good. (Even reading paper books _all the time_ without using the rest of your body isn't great, and I say that as a serious bookworm.) The best way to fill excessive time freed by convenience technologies is to take up leisure activities that use the rest of yourself, not throw away labor saving machines and start beating rugs like your ancestors (or ancestors' servants).

<comment><USER3> My contrarian impulse leads me to ask whether for a small portion of people, having a short period of time in which they wash clothes by hand, and afterwards go back to the more convenient and efficient way of doing it might have some benefit by resetting something.

But I'm guessing the answer is "probably not, and if so, probably for exceedingly few people. If something like that was a good idea, washing clothes probably wouldn't be the ideal form of it."

<comment><USER4> Clothes washing machines do seem to be one of the unmitigated "goods". Machines use less water, less energy, are gentler on clothes. Reportedly, manual clothes washing is also very hard on the body- physically laborious combined with scalding water and caustic chemicals. There was some article here on HN a little while ago in which the authors were surprised that women of decades past voted the clothes washing machine as the single greatest invention & engine of their emancipation, instead of planes or semiconductors or medicine or-

By all means though, gardening, cooking food, human-powered travel, repairing & making things of all kinds, etc I do believe can have great value.

<comment><USER5> I don't think machine washes are gentler on clothes. Maybe gentler than the traditional whack-against-a-river-rock technique, but certainly hand-washing is generally less physically abusive than a machine wash, in my experience.

<comment><USER6> Americans still inexplicably prefer the top-loading washing machine, rather than the front-loading type that dominates the market in nearly every other developed country. The agitator in a top-loader makes mincemeat out of delicate items, versus the much more gentle lift-and-drop action of a front- loader.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> >Convenience seems to make our decisions for us, trumping what we like to imagine are our true preferences.

It's a good dystopian trope, and one of the more uncomfortably plausible ones. A streamlined pipeline from cradle to creche to college to a cycle of job->transit->housing->transit until you're too expensive to keep around anymore.

It's probably where we'll end up. The constant message in society today is, "you're on your own," and the constant message from other people is, "go away." It hurts, but that's dystopia for you.

<comment><USER8> Yes this very true. I used to volunteer at a suicide prevention center before my twins were born. I dealt with a ton of college grads who couldn't find jobs, and were depressed, suicidal and deep in debt. They said they felt alone, and their parents just thought they were lazy.

Society has become a dystopia with a hall of mirrors and flashing lights for many kids. They feel more alone then ever, even with all the social media. I have a strong suspicion though social media is making it worse, since you are constantly bombarded with beautiful and successful people (or people faking it).

<comment><USER9> Not just kids. All of us.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I never quite thought I'd be linking this here, but in Ted Kaczynski's Manifesto[1] he wrote, amongst many other things (plenty certainly to be found controversial), that there exists an intrinsic need for humans to undergo a 'power process' that allows us to exert power over people or processes in order to fend off purposelessness (the Manifesto is separated into numerical subsections, he makes this point in the section entitled 'DISRUPTION OF THE POWER PROCESS IN MODERN SOCIETY' which is paragraph 59). The entire thing is worth reading, for historical significance alone.

[1] [http://editions-hache.com/essais/pdf/kaczynski2.pdf](http://editions- hache.com/essais/pdf/kaczynski2.pdf)

<comment><USER11> _Industrial Society and Its Future_ isn't a good moral justification for mailing bombs to people, but it's still an interesting set of ideas that's difficult to refute.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The author seems to be trying to make an issue where there isn't any.

The many conveniences I enjoy in my life allow me to circumvent rote tasks that offer no enrichment and no sense of accomplishment. What do I do with my free time? Difficult activities that give me a sense of accomplishment and enrichment.

To tack on the concern that people are falling back to "screen time" to fill the time left by convenience is a problem more to do with people not led to explore other facets of the world they're not familiar with, or a sense of inability from being coddled while raised.

<comment><USER13> I think he's making a good point but arguments it poorly.

A better argument would be not that "it makes us less human" etc, but that it teaches people to be lazy and avoid problem solving. It's the "there's an app for that" attitude. The calculator attitude, the GPS attitude. You're trained to avoid any difficulty, and I can imagine a person trained to only use ready solutions will just give up if he can't buy/download/solve it in browser. It's not just about being washed away on a remote island or emergency events like wars. It's also loss of resourcefulness.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Especially when it comes to products, consumer convenience often seems to be at odds with consumer well-being.

Take everything from McDonalds's fast food, to Facebook's engagement optimization, to overprescribing of antibiotics and painkillers. The products that sell the most, are the ones that cripple the users ability to independently operate, and keep them coming back for more.

<comment><USER4> _consumer convenience often seems to be at odds with consumer well-being_

I've begun to think that's intrinsic, not anything nefarious.

We long for convenience, laziness, sugar, etc. We're meant to want them, but never get much of them. As far as we can tell, our minds & bodies run best on a diet of exertion, activity, and whole foods, which are the very opposites of the things we crave.

I keep thinking about TDR's Strenuous Life.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> > Struggle is not always a problem. Sometimes struggle is a solution. It can > be the solution to the question of who you are.

I'm convinced that people derive meaning from restrictions they have to overcome. In the land of perfect convenience, everything would be instantly possible, and nothing would be valuable, so nothing would be worth doing. What would make people tick?

In this vision, convenience merges with powerlessness, leaving no options. At some point, we could observe that making things easier doesn't benefit society by freeing up time, but harms it by removing meaning.

As a believer in a transhumanist future, this possibility concerns me.

<comment><USER16> It's interesting on Star Trek how they avoid that with various challenges for the crew, including holodeck malfunctions. But you have to wonder how people back on cozy planet Earth outside of the highly motivated Starfleet types are able to stay away from the total convenience and immersion of holodecks, replicators and transporters.

<comment><USER17> I believe it was Scott Adams who said that "the holodeck will be Mankind's last invention", and it's a hard point to argue with.

<comment><USER15> Virtual reality exists now. Perhaps the exit is in it, and within rules and restrictions which people would apply to themselves to have something to do.

People grind for something as inconsequential as Steam achievements.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I saw "WALL-E" as a sobering critique on the "progression" of civilization.

Maybe walking to the well to get water is an inefficient, time consuming task when you could just use plumbing. But maybe the ones performing this routine throughout their entire life would have healthier blood pressure, or less risk for osteoporosis, because of more frequent physical activity.

<comment><USER5> Also cleaner water, increased lifestyle mobility, less infrastructure maintenance overhead.

Incidentally there is a famous Chinese morality animation about three monks fetching water [https://youtu.be/Z802JqJ2A7A?t=30s](https://youtu.be/Z802JqJ2A7A?t=30s)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> >> _But though it remains easy to get music free, no one really does it anymore. Why? Because the introduction of the iTunes store in 2003 made buying music even more convenient than illegally downloading it. Convenient beat out free._

Does the author talk to his students? "Getting music free" is more prevalent than ever. Many just go to YouTube to get their music.

<comment><USER20> Aren't you just saying that free plus convenient beat out convenient?

<comment><USER19> I'm saying the prof is out of touch with reality when he says "But though it remains easy to get music free, no one really does it anymore".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Once upon a time the accepted tradeoff was between quality and cost. Now it is between quality, cost, and convenience. This is why things like bottled water can cost more than fuel. It's also why Apple can charge a premium for it's products (the convenience of "it just works"). People will pay a huge premium for convenience and are also willing to almost ignore quality in some cases (e.g. food).

It seems that if you want to be successful in today's market you have to prioritise convenience. Just consider how many startups are based on the idea of making something 'easier' as opposed to 'possible'.

Unfortunately, convenience is killing us.

</comment><comment><USER22> The article confuses a variety of perspectives.

First, how do I, an individual, use convenience in my life, without getting drawn down bad paths? I commute by a McDonalds on the way home, when I'm hungry and exhausted. Perhaps I make alternatives easy (yummy leftovers I can pop in the microwave), perhaps I fortify myself to resist temptation (eat an apple at my desk so that cheeseburger doesn't seem as tempting), perhaps I remind myself that cooking with my spouse is part of the fun and imagine her smiling as I wield that frying pan.

Second, and different, how do I as a benevolent dictator manage convenience for those I'm responsible for? For instance, as a teacher, I want to make certain things easy (access to the right texts and helpful videos) and other things (problem sets) just the right amount of "difficult" to keep students engaged, learning, and successful.

We actually know how to do this, in general. Intensive care units are there to make everything "easy" for really sick people, but few people get trapped forever in the ICU.

The "tyranny of convenience" is a sexy title, but people always are drawn to what's easier, even before the washing machine arrived. There's probably a general cycle - we go nuts on the easy alternative, and then discover that there's more to life. E.g. "slow food", custom-configured PCs, "back to the land", etc.

</comment><comment><USER23> Wow. Karl Marx the prophet all up in this op. If only the author would recognize that.

Not saying Marx's solutions are best. But he certainly was relevant in describing the problems.

</comment><comment><USER24> Convenience also weighs in to make it hard for people to push back on things, by design. "Oh, creating an account is one click; to cancel your service you have to call, wait, listen to a spiel, etc." Or: "What's this extra $1.25 on my monthly bill? Well I could spend time inquiring but I guess I won't bother." I am much more worried about these abuses of convenience.

</comment><comment><USER25> give me convenience or give me death

<comment><USER26> But only if you doing the killing for me

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> We don't wear bulletproof vests because it's inconvenient while we wear seatbelts and bike helmets.

</comment><comment><USER13> It's a bit subtle, but Frank Herbert's Dune universe is based on the premise that spoiling convenience is outlawed, and punished by death:

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>---

 _In Terminology of the Imperium, the glossary of 1965 's Dune, Frank Herbert provides the following definition:

Jihad, Butlerian: (see also Great Revolt) — the crusade against computers, thinking machines, and conscious robots begun in 201 B.G. and concluded in 108 B.G. Its chief commandment remains in the O.C. Bible as "Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind."

Herbert refers to the Jihad many times in the entire Dune series, but did not give much detail on how he imagined the actual conflict.[4] In God Emperor of Dune (1981), Leto II Atreides indicates that the Jihad had been a semi- religious social upheaval initiated by humans who felt repulsed by how guided and controlled they had become by machines:

"The target of the Jihad was a machine-attitude as much as the machines," Leto said. "Humans had set those machines to usurp our sense of beauty, our necessary selfdom out of which we make living judgments. Naturally, the machines were destroyed."[5]

In the series, Herbert illustrates how the Jihad leads to many profound and long-lasting effects on the socio-political and technological development of humanity. The known universe is purged of all forms of thinking machines, resulting in not only a ban on the re-creation of similar devices (which remains in effect throughout the periods described in the original six Dune novels), but also a great technological reversal for humanity. The chief commandment from the Orange Catholic Bible, "Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind", holds sway, as do the anti-artificial intelligence laws in which the penalty for owning an AI device or developing technology resembling the human mind is immediate death. This leads to the rise of a new feudalistic galactic empire which lasts for over ten thousand years, until the rise of the God Emperor Leto II in 10,217 A.G.[6]

To replace the analytical powers of computers without violating the commandment of the O.C. Bible, "human computers" known as Mentats are developed and perfected, their mental abilities ultimately honed to the point where they become superior to those of the ancient thinking machines. Similarly specialized groups of humans which arise after the Jihad include the Bene Gesserit, a matriarchal order with advanced mental and physical abilities, and the Spacing Guild, whose prescience makes safe and instantaneous space travel possible. Fringe societies such as the Ixians and Bene Tleilax eventually begin to develop mechanical and biological technology that, if not actually transgressing the commandments of the Jihad, at least come extremely close. Prohibitions spawned by the Jihad also include artificial insemination, as explained in Dune Messiah (1969) when Paul Atreides negotiates with the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam, who is appalled by Paul's suggestion that he impregnate his consort Princess Irulan in this manner.[7]

Herbert's death in 1986[8] left his vision of the actual events of the Butlerian Jihad unexplored and open to speculation.[4]_

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

</comment><comment><USER28> The author is correct. Maybe he should start by stopping the use of a computer to write articles and columns. I mean what is more convenient that typing an article into a word processor that makes it easy to edit and change words and checks for grammar and spelling mistakes. Also, did he use Google to look up any facts? How awful!

Once Tim Wu goes out cuts papyrus, pounds the papyrus into paper. Gets a feather from a bird and fashions a quill with that, then makes ink, and rewrites his column until he gets it perfect, then hand copies his column and walks to my house and delivers it to me, then I will take him seriously.

Until then, by response is "bug off hypocrite!"

<comment><USER16> You criticize society from within society, not from some cave in the desert. Well, maybe if you can leave a scroll for future generations to misinterpret. Also, just because you find some things wrong with society doesn't mean you want to ditch all of it.</comment></comment>