Carp: a statically typed lisp, without a GC, for high performance applications - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/eriksvedang/Carp <comment><USER3> Is there an explanation of the memory allocation used? There seem to be a GC ([https://github.com/eriksvedang/Carp/blob/master/src/gc.c](https://github.com/eriksvedang/Carp/blob/master/src/gc.c)), maybe used in the compiler only, coupled with lifetime analysis ([https://github.com/eriksvedang/Carp/blob/8665a7f9a19d9347cc0...](https://github.com/eriksvedang/Carp/blob/8665a7f9a19d9347cc0f5785cee946fc25d1f645/lisp/calculate_lifetimes.carp)), which as far as I know is used once ([https://github.com/eriksvedang/Carp/blob/6107e619d4f632acace...](https://github.com/eriksvedang/Carp/blob/6107e619d4f632acacef9c9d2cf808e06353158c/lisp/builder.carp#L177)) in the compiler. This analysis seems tied to the manual "reset!" special form which apparently frees any existing data bound to a symbol. So, what happens when lifetime analysis cannot determine lifetime? what about stack-allocation? What should I worry about when programming in Carp w.r.t. memory?

<comment><USER4> As far as I understand from listening to Erik talk about Carp, there is an interactive interpreter which does use GC. In contrast, the compiler generates GC-free code.

<comment><USER5> > In contrast, the compiler generates GC-free code.

Yes, but the question was _how_ it does that. Does it reject code where it cannot reliably detect lifetimes? Or does it generate code that just does not deallocate (i.e., that leaks) objects whose lifetime the compiler can't determine? Both of these are "GC-free"...

<comment><USER4> The compiler does lifetime analysis, and there is a "reference borrowing" concept like in Rust.

<comment><USER6> So it rejects code for which it can't prove lifetimes. Why not just say so? There's an uncomfortable degree of beating around the bush in this thread.

<comment><USER7> Curious if semantics of this subdomain of "allowed/legal" programs will be easy to understand, or will it be "try and see on case-by-case basis if your code compiles". Still, this way or the other, probably user will have to gradually learn and build intuition, as with learning any other aspect of any programming language.

Also: will be/is the lifetime-checking done in the same way in the interpreter, even though it uses GC? Otherwise, those are in effect two, I think significantly different dialects of the language.

<comment><USER8> It will require roughly the same amount of practice as when learning Rust, so a pretty significant learning effort I'm afraid.

I'll try to do as much checking as possible in the interpreter so that the transition from interpreted to compiled code is smooth. Right now there is none though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I understand this is marked as "a research project", so any answer here is possible and must be accepted; that said I'd really love to learn at least about plans with respect to the following questions:

• Regarding FFI, is it possible to pass pointers to carp functions/closures as arguments to external dynamically loaded functions? are those features available in REPL?

• What's the story/approach regarding structs inheritance vs. composition? also custom types and implicit type casting?

• What are the plans regarding multithreading/parallelism? Esp. interesting with respect to memory handling.

At its current state of claims, the language sounds awesomely close to the "holy grail" for me at first glance — though with a fair bit of vagueness and uncertainty.

<comment><USER8> 1\. Yes, and yes!

2\. No plans for inheritance at the moment, probably some kind of interfaces but that's not a top priority right now. Custom types are limited to structs, I will add union types soon

3\. This has not been decided yet, I want to do more research before settling on any particular solution. It will be a high priority though, since I want to use it for the games I write

Thanks, Erik

<comment><USER9> Could you pretty, pretty please allow for an option to have automatic parentheses insertion, similar to how javascript will insert semicolons, making them optional? This is almost exactly the language that I've been planning for the last six months, and if you would be so kind as to implement that one feature, it would save me a lot of reinventing the wheel.

I was originally envisioning having the compiler being able to infer parentheses based on code indentation.

Also have you considered compile time AST evaluation and simplification?

<comment><USER10> If you don't want the parenthesis then why not use reverse polish notation?

<comment><USER11> unless you're thinking of something that I'm not thinking of? RPN only solves this when the operators are known and used exclusively in operator context and can be relied on as implied close-parens

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Looks like just what I have been trying to find, since I am incapable of writing my own. I did start with 'Learn C * Build Your Own Lisp' book [1], and I will finish it for educational purposes; it is a great, short book to work through, and should help with grokking Carp.

The closest I have come to finding something similar for livecoding visuals and audio, or games is Extempore [2], which has xtlang, a Scheme, with manual memory management and types. The only two criticisms I have, and they are small, are the build and number of dependencies, and how to distribute standalone executeables. In all fairness there are binaries now available for all platforms, but standalones are still problematic.

I curse Fluxus [3] for starting me down this crazy road many years ago in search of the best creative coding environment. Shame it is not refreshed every so often, because the interface is brilliant.

I'll have to look over Carp this weekend more closely. I am intrigued how it is like Rust's semantics. And if it is manual memory management all the way, then I guess that is where it differs from Rust's safety features?

Now I don't have to try Clojure again! I don't like the JVM, and prefer going to C.

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

[2] [http://extempore.moso.com.au/](http://extempore.moso.com.au/)

[3] [http://www.pawfal.org/fluxus/](http://www.pawfal.org/fluxus/)

<comment><USER13> You should have a look at Hypergiant library for Chicken Scheme. It compiles to C as well. [https://github.com/AlexCharlton/Hypergiant](https://github.com/AlexCharlton/Hypergiant)

<comment><USER12> I did. I'll have to revisit it. I gave it up, since I work on Windows and Linux mainly, and I think I couldn't get one or more of the dependencies working on Windows, and I gave up. I really like Chicken, but with Chez Scheme having gone opensource, I use it now when I am working in a Scheme.

I've also looked at Lobster, which is now statically typed by default, not optional.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I saw this a month or two ago and submitted a pull request that I still need to fix up to have it accepted. My original intention was to benchmark a bit against SBCL, but I got sidetracked with the pull request, then lost time and then forgot about it. I need to get back to it and see about getting it submitted.

Anyway, it sounds neat, but even after playing with it a bit, I'm not sure how necessary it is.

SBCL (and supposedly the commercial Common Lisps) are pretty fast nowadays. Not C fast, but I can usually get about 1/2 - 1/3 C speed and 4-8x faster than Python without doing anything special.

For example, I made an animation app ([https://github.com/jl2/qt-fft- viz](https://github.com/jl2/qt-fft-viz)) that reads an MP3 and generates an animation while it plays back, and I get 90+ fps. It's not a big graphics/CPU intense video game, but it's doing a lot of FFT calculations and some basic graphics.

So, not to diminish the Carp project, but I think regular old Common Lisp is faster than most people think, is better supported, has more libraries, and works on more platforms and operating systems.

<comment><USER4> I believe one major motivation behind Carp is the lack garbage collection. Or rather, avoiding GC pauses. So, maybe you could benchmark Carp vs SBCL in that area?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Interesting.

> Carp borrows its looks from Clojure but the runtime semantics are much > closer to those of ML or Rust.

> – > [https://github.com/eriksvedang/Carp/blob/c762e9ff07544b40c8d...](https://github.com/eriksvedang/Carp/blob/c762e9ff07544b40c8db2c32584f1d1f6e9ea92e/LANGUAGE.md)

</comment><comment><USER16> To the author: please, please, please port (or reuse) LuaJIT's C-header parser for FFI; it's the best FFI interface specification method if seen among JNI, Python, V8 and even C# (because you can just use the C header, with support for typedefs, unions and packing).

It really looks like a great language!

<comment><USER8> Interesting, thanks a lot for the tip!

<comment><USER17> Also check out Pixie's - towards the end of [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AjhFZVfB9c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AjhFZVfB9c). It's a really interesting technique, and for a Lisp too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is fantastic. AFAIK there are no Lisps our there that are designed with games in mind which is a huge shame because I often think how perfect it'd be for game dev (Arcadia and Nightmod spring to mind but imo they're shoehorns. Good ones, but still).

<comment><USER19> There are a couple of high-performance, low-latency lisps, either with a low- latency GC or refcounted or compiling to C as Carp does.

ECL (also typed), Vicare, Larceny, Ypsilon, the new guile, Gambit-C, Chicken, Chez, Bigloo, stalin, Corman CL, or fast typed CL: sbcl, franz, lispworks and few more.

Or the ones compiling to LLVM or JVM or .NET. Most prominent Clojure with a very unlispy syntax.

<comment><USER19> And note that you simply get a low-latency GC with libgc (Boehm-Weiser) by using the incremental GC with GC_enable_incremental() and SMP with parallel marking phases -DPARALLEL_MARK. [http://www.hboehm.info/gc/scale.html](http://www.hboehm.info/gc/scale.html) This is no voodoo nobody ever managed to do, even if most blog posts for popular not-invented-here languages state the opposite.

Of course libgc is pretty simple and slow, good for foreign code (i.e. ffi's needed in games), slower than Cheney-2 finger copying allocators which I got down to 10ms, compared to 100-300ms for mark-sweep. But copying collectors need 2x memory, so not usable for small devices such as phones. And a bit complicated for foreign memory, which prefers conservative mark & sweep.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Hmm I actually like the fact that the arguments of a function are defined using square brackets. It just reminds me of Clojure, especially the "defn" macro, which sounds pleasant to me.

I wonder what Lispers would say about that since I heard that not having a homoiconic syntax might cause some troubles at metaprogramming(macro) level.

<comment><USER3> It is homoiconic, because the data structures used to describe code are also data structure provided by the language. However, brackets mean that you pass arguments as arrays instead of lists: there is little reason except aesthetics to have this distinction in source code. I prefer parenthesis everywhere, but some people really dislike that.

<comment><USER21> Yes, it's still homoiconic.

I think vectors for argument lists is mainly a usability affordance. Which gives you aesthetics for free. (If you happen to find it more aesthetic.)

> _Common LISP and Scheme are not simple in this sense, in their use of parens > because the use of parentheses in those languages is overloaded. Parens wrap > calls. They wrap grouping. They wrap data structures. And that overloading > is a form of complexity by the definition I gave you._ > ([https://github.com/matthiasn/talk- > transcripts/blob/master/Hi...](https://github.com/matthiasn/talk- > transcripts/blob/master/Hickey_Rich/SimpleMadeEasy.md))

Elsewhere, he critiques Clojure's use of vectors for argument lists. Because a vector implies order, so every caller must put arguments in the right order. (To decomplect, you'd use maps instead of vectors. But vectors win you brevity. Many notice that with longer argument lists, maps increasingly become more attractive than long argument lists.)

<comment><USER3> Take C:

        struct {
           int x;
        } ...;

        int foo () {
            return 0;
        }

Should braces in both cases represent the same internal data structures? Probably not, the first one is for structure members and the other one for a block of statements. But in Lisp, characters are used to parse the same kind of data, which means they are same structure in all contexts. The Lisp reader has a simple approach to parsing, you don't generally change the readtable's binding based on which form you are reading (but strings, comments and code are not read the same way). Using different characters for semantics has its limit.

In Clojure, take [a b] out of context. Which element is evaluated, a, b, none or both? The fact that it is a vector does not help you, because it could be a binding, an argument list or a vector constructor.

Also, _how_ something is stored inside the AST has nothing to do with its meaning at runtime. Argument lists could be passed using the stack, but you don't actually write a stack inside the source code. The fact that they are written as vectors or lists does not matter either, you still have to know the semantics. And semantics is almost never context-free.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> That's brilliant... I'd always assumed lisps were so tightly bound to the GC that any other memory model was infeasible.

<comment><USER23> you might enjoy this classic then: [http://www.pipeline.com/~hbaker1/LinearLisp.html](http://www.pipeline.com/~hbaker1/LinearLisp.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> This looks amazing and very close to a project I've been working on myself - <USER2> clojure-ish lisp-1 with Rust style memory management. Very cool work!

</comment><comment><USER25> I'm fishing for a pun in there but just can't catch a big one.

</comment><comment><USER26> Is there a compiled binary for Windows yet??

</comment><comment><USER27> Are all those round brackets necessary? I understand the goal is Lisp like syntax. But while reading the OpenGL sample, I found the enclosing brackets quite unintuitive. Since this is still supposed to be new language may be "statically typed Lisp with python-like blocks" will appeal to a larger audience?

<comment><USER28> One of the nice things about s-expressions ("all those round brackets") is that they're well suited to meta-programming.

For example, you can automatically convert back and forth between s-expressions and something else, like i-expressions [http://srfi.schemers.org/srfi-49/srfi-49.html](http://srfi.schemers.org/srfi-49/srfi-49.html)</comment></comment>


How to SSH into your servers using Github team membership via OAuth2 + 2FA - old-gregg https://gravitational.com/blog/replace-static-ssh-keys-with-github-oauth/ <comment><AUTHOR> Given a relative ease of stealing oauth tokens out of a browser, should one be reliant on them for server logins?</comment>


FreeBSD 7.2 released - <AUTHOR> http://www.freebsd.org/releases/7.2R/announce.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Release notes: <http://www.freebsd.org/releases/7.2R/relnotes.html>

</comment><comment><USER2> Anyone who cares about FreeBSD already knows this, or will find out on their own. Since there isn't anything surprising or groundbreaking about this release, all this story is doing is taking up a valuable slot on the front page.

<comment><USER3> I'd much rather know about something like this than "are you male or female" or what Warren Buffet thinks (both of them are in the top ten at the moment). This story is about as pure as "hacker news" gets.

<comment><USER2> I'm with you about those other stories, but I disagree with your general premise. Where do we draw the line for posting release notes? There are probably enough applications that this community cares about to constantly occupy 3 or 4 slots on the front page.

<comment><USER4> While I agree with your point, some releases are more groundbreaking than others (it's not everyday we get a new FreeBSD); So shouldn't the voting system take over at that point? There has to be a reason this ranks so highly here...

<comment><USER2> Yes, there is a reason, and I suspect it is because Paul uses FreeBSD and there is an associated cult with what Paul does. As I said before, there's nothing groundbreaking about this release. I agree with you in that I would be happy to see significant releases here. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> According to <http://www.paulgraham.com/mac.html>, Paul uses a Mac. And this release fixed a major boot issue on 2 machines for me, so I figured someone else might want to know.

<comment><USER2> Last time I checked, the hardware has nothing to do with the operating system. I don't know explicitly what Paul runs now, but I know he has run FreeBSD in the past. I also know that the very article you linked to mentions the fact that Macs can run FreeBSD as an important point.

<comment><AUTHOR> <http://waferbaby.com/setup/2009/03/14/paul-graham></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


VR could seize its moment – if the big players would cooperate - <AUTHOR> https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-05-07-vr-could-seize-its-moment-if-the-big-players-would-cooperate-opinion <comment><USER2> The big problem with this is that everyone agrees that standards are important, but nobody can seem to agree on which standards to adopt.

The author tends to push pretty hard on Oculus for being a different platform from SteamVR. Would they be okay if Valve were forced to give up their technology stack and conform to Oculus' technology stack, storefronts and all?

No, I doubt it.

I argue the inverse to be true. It's far too early to worry about standardization, when we don't even know what works yet. Forcing PC VR vendors to conform to other vendors' standards will only stifle innovation.

It's not all doom and gloom, though. This might not be great for PC VR, but VR itself is doing better. Between the Oculus Quest and PSVR, the VR industry is growing just fine.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well the fact that it's possible to hack around the Oculus exclusivity, makes me think that it's less of an innovation thing and more of a platform lock-in thing. Off course Oculus doesn't have much choice I guess, because Valve is already dominating the gaming market and can leverage this to get VR users on their platform, but I wish the link between the hardware and the store platform wasn't so tightly coupled.

I guess you could also argue that the only reason VR took of is because the big players saw it as a chance to own the platform side of things. We'll see what happens, I just hope that Facebook doesn't end up owning the whole thing, because I trust Facebook as far as I can throw them.

<comment><USER2> In the specific case of Oculus, yes, you're right. The SteamVR technology and Oculus technology were largely developed in parallel, so it's not surprising that they're interoperable with some software hacks.

That doesn't mean that others aren't working on different technology.

I think the only real threat to Facebook in the VR space is Sony. Valve really isn't pushing their platform that hard, and the other players just don't matter. I really hope they don't just give up on PC VR because their "if you build it, they will come" approach isn't working out.

Like I said, VR itself isn't under threat. It's mainly PC VR that's suffering.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> VR seems to me like something to could easily disappear again if there isn't something that keeps pushing it forward (tech doesn't automatically progress, see: putting a man on the moon) and I really want it to succeed. I hope there is enough will to push it into the mainstream so that the ecosystem that is now developing still exist when I manage to save up for a HMD.</comment>


Pricing/billing strategy, monthly vs. annual?  - <AUTHOR>

Using a freemium model, but deliberating on whether to use annual or monthly reoccurring billing for the upgrades.
In doing so, it would divide the annual limitations by 12, limiting the amount of content needed to populate the platform (which is based on community).
On the other side, is it true that monthly plans can increase user acquisition? I understand that they may, but in the case that a user values the product enough to keep upgrading each month, wouldn't they just as well enroll annually?
I see the pros and cons to both sides, what do you all think? (keeping in mind sustainability as well)
Thanks! <comment><USER2> Please consider having an annual payment option ( discounted or not ) as well as a monthly one.

If its a service I've decided I want and I sign up for it, I generally want to pay once and then not think about it again for a year.

From the standpoint of a B2B purchase, the overhead of a book keeper or accountant having to keep track of lots of monthly subscriptions to services , which are usually in dollars and have to be converted to a local currency is an extra annoyance.

People wanting to pay you an annual subscription up front are essentially showing you that they are fans of your service and aren't typically as price sensitive as the monthly subscribers. Why not make it easy for them to give you money ?

</comment><comment><USER3> Monthly billing tends to be superior because it reduces the "just one more" barrier by a factor of twelve. You do need to have a mean customer lifetime of at least a year for this to be significant.

Big, heavily bureaucratic institutions with weird cycles and policies may be different.

<comment><AUTHOR> By a factor of twelve? Wow, I had no idea. Thanks very much for your input! I have decided to incorporate the monthly option. Will be sure to share the results!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks everyone for you input. I've decided to offer both (monthly and discounted annual). I will let you know the results!

</comment><comment><USER4> what about monthly and discounted annual? this way you give the incentive to pay annually but leave the option for monthly commitment.

<comment><USER5> Agreed with this idea. The problem some users may have is, even if they like the service, and would renew continuously anyway, many don't like the idea of commitment. If people could, they would choose month-to-month renting (I know I do) over a 1 year lease and constant 1 year renewals (as an example). Especially if there is no price advantage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Split test that!

<comment><USER7> and tell us the results...</comment></comment>


Minnesota clarifies: Free online ed is OK - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/college-inc/post/minnesota-clarifies-free-online-ed-is-ok/2012/10/19/456a0a3e-1a37-11e2-aa6f-3b636fecb829_blog.html "Obviously, our office encourages lifelong learning and wants Minnesotans to take advantage of educational materials available on the Internet, particularly if they're free," said Larry Pogemiller, director of the office. "No Minnesotan should hesitate to take advantage of free, online offerings from Coursera."<p>Props to the people in charge there for reacting swiftly.  Nice to see. <comment><USER2> _"Obviously, our office encourages lifelong learning and wants Minnesotans to take advantage of educational materials available on the Internet, particularly if they're free," said Larry Pogemiller, director of the office. "No Minnesotan should hesitate to take advantage of free, online offerings from Coursera."_

Larry Pogemiller needs to go. Earlier today, he said Coursera-affiliated universities needed to register (and, pay up) "to prevent people from wasting their time." Riiiight. /s

Pogemiller only backed down from being a Government-sponsored bully when the press picked it up, and when asked, was surprised that Coursera didn't just roll over and pay up. Words fail me for how out-of-touch this guy is. He should be nowhere near the wheels of government.

Minnesota, do the right thing and reprimand Larry Pogemiller. A very public firing would not be a step too far.

UPDATE: Downvoted? Larry, is that you?

UPDATE 2: Wow, I've never had a post that goes up and down in votes like this one.

This wasn't an innocent mistake, a clerical error, a misunderstanding of the law, etc. He _literally_ saw nothing wrong with his office's actions until confronted by the press. How many other times has he misused the long arm of the law that _didn't_ get picked up by the press? People in positions of power like Larry Pogemiller _must_ be reprimanded when they abuse their position. Every. Time. The public vests power in these people, and they must, MUST be publicly held accountable when they abuse that trust.

If someone doesn't want the responsibility of maintaining the public's trust, they need to find work in the private sector.

<comment><USER3> > UPDATE: Downvoted? Larry, is that you?

You are being down voted (rightly so) because it was George Roedler who said the things you are complaining about. Larry Pogemiller is the guy higher up who stepped in to correct that.

<comment><USER2> Here's the paragraph immediately following the part I quoted above[1]:

 _But [Larry Pogemiller's] office was talking tough earlier on Friday, saying it would tell Coursera-affiliated schools that they were out of compliance with state law -- and possibly even take up the matter with the schools' accreditation bodies and the federal government._

Are you suggesting his office is out of control, that it's "gone rogue", and thus Larry Pogemiller is (somehow) not responsible? Who do you think is responsible?

[1] [http://www.twincities.com/technology/ci_21813203/minnesota-e...](http://www.twincities.com/technology/ci_21813203/minnesota- eases-restrictions-online-education-following-internet-dust)

<comment><USER3> It's very simple. Coursera appears to be required to register, according to the law as written. The department within the Minnesota Office of Higher Education that handles registration and licensing informed them of this.

When people inquired, the manager of that department, George Roedler, responded, restating what the law says and the rationale behind the law.

Later, the person at the top of the Minnesota Office of Higher Education, Larry Pogemiller, decided that this was a case where the law should not be applied as written, due to changing circumstances, and so stopped enforcement and said he would work to get the law modified.

No one has "gone rogue" or is out of control. They all appear to have done their jobs correctly. Roedler applied the law, as written and as interpreted by the OHE, as is his job. Pogemiller changed OHE policy, as is his job.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Doesn't that suggest the state _can_ ban online courses if there is profit involved? That the state's power to "protect consumers" extends as far as their exposure to pure speech?

 _The law's intent is to protect Minnesota students from wasting their money on degrees from substandard institutions, Roedler says._

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/college- inc/post/minneso...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/college- inc/post/minnesota-clarifies-free-online-ed-is- ok/2012/10/19/456a0a3e-1a37-11e2-aa6f-3b636fecb829_blog.html)

<comment><USER5> Speech for money is not pure speech, obviously.

<comment><USER4> Obvious to whom? It's an ideological division whether money changes anything. The progressive left says yes, the classical liberal thinks no.

An analogy is publishing for profit. Is there any discussion of "regulating" books and newspapers, using the profit "issue" as a wedge to insert censorship? The free press has been indisputably "pure speech" for centuries, yet money was always involved (before the internet). MN argues control over educational courses to "protect consumers" from "wasting money"; by identical reasoning, they could protect readers from wasting money on the wrong books.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Thanks for the submission of the blog post hosted by a major newspaper. I hope this gets as many eyeballs as the two less carefully edited blog posts that mistakenly said "Minnesota Gives Coursera the Boot" or, worse still, "Free Online Education Is Now Illegal in Minnesota." So many of these tempests in teapots arise overnight in the relevant time zones, without enough taking time to check facts and verify conditions on the ground. As I look at the active stories view of HN

<http://news.ycombinator.com/active>

much attention is being devoted to ideas about Minnesota that are obsolete. Cooler local heads have prevailed, and the Legislature will clarify the law, if need be, after the general election as state legislators begin new terms of office. Have a good night, everyone.

</comment><comment><USER7> Oh, so Minnesota doesn't want to repudiate the entirety of the 1st amendment to the constitution? Thanks, we weren't sure of that before.

<comment><USER8> I disliked the apparent banning of free online education, and think that would be wrong. But I don't think any of the so-called Constitutional guarantees are absolute. In practice they're violated all the time, strictly speaking. But they're allowed legally when the courts and legislatures feel there is some other greater concern, especialy in exceptional or edge cases. Can't yell fire in a crowded theatre, can't own a machine gun, not allowed to practice a religion that involves sacrificing animals (but farms allowed to do it, go figure), "separation of Church and State" principle but they'll cite the Judeo-Christian God in government documents and speeches and subsidize the income of state-approved religions (via income tax exemption), etc. "What the big print giveth the fine print taketh away."

But yeah they may have backed down because they sensed either a political backlash brewing or a legal challenge coming their way, either of which would be painful.

<comment><USER9> _not allowed to practice a religion that involves sacrificing animals (but farms allowed to do it, go figure)_

Citation please. Note that [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_Lukumi_Babalu_Aye_v._...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_Lukumi_Babalu_Aye_v._City_of_Hialeah) suggests that animal sacrifice is protected under the Constitution.

<comment><USER8> I know for a fact there are animal cruelty laws on the books in many jurisdictions. If you go to the cops and courts and say, "but it's part of my religion, we do animal sacrifice" you then are at the mercy of the courts to decide which law takes precedence. the Constititional law saying the government shall not interfere with the establishment of any religion, or, the ability of states and local jurisdictions to enact laws regulating what citizens can and cannot do. If any given Constitutional clause or amendment was somehow always and without exception enforced, US society would be very different because individuals could make excuses left and right to excuse otherwise illegal behaviors as being protected by the Constitution. That doesn't happen. Therefore no provision (or most of them anyway) is absolute, either in a literal sense or in spirit. Heck look at the clause that says Congress must declare war -- yet the government has engaged in hundreds of military adventures across the world, without a declaration of war ever being made or even requested, by the Executive branch. The Constitution is truly "just words on paper" and the government effectively just does whatever it can get away with. That's what the historical record suggests anyway.

<comment><USER9> I am not debating the fact that the Constitution as interpreted is not the Constitution as written.

However you made a very specific claim that flies in the face of what I understand the interpretation to be. I would be interested in a citation. (I've already given a citation of the Supreme Court ruling in favor of animal sacrifice on grounds of religious freedom.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I was hoping this would be the outcome. I could not believe that anyone would seriously try and enforce this statute.

As a Minnesotan I still suffer the shame of electing Jesse Ventura, but at least we're not the state that said "no" to free education - yet.

<comment><USER11> Well, Jesse Ventura did exactly what he said he would. We just forgot to ask him about the other things he would do. His election does show how a once a year big money tax (vehicle registration) will irritate the heck out of people. It also goes to show that the big two parties are not invulnerable in state-wide elections.

I am actually more embarrassed we elected (I have moved since) Amy Klobuchar. Sen Amy Klobuchar seems to be a media company rep (check all the bills discussed on HN and who co-sponsored them).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Thank you everyone who invested so much time and energy creating this tempest in a teapot all over the Internet instead of waiting five minutes for the responsible parties to sort out the right thing to do in a novel situation.

<comment><USER12> Who's to say it would have gone this way without all the press attention? The statement I read was very vague:

> "Obviously, our office encourages lifelong learning and wants Minnesotans to > take advantage of educational materials available on the Internet, > particularly if they're free,"

Nothing here is a denial that they did try to get Coursera to pay.

> "When the legislature convenes in January, my intent is to work with the > Governor and Legislature to appropriately update the statute to meet modern- > day circumstances," said Pogemiller. "Until that time, I see no reason for > our office to require registration of free, not-for-credit offerings."

I read this as: "We can't ask them to pay now, but will try to find a way in the future to change the law so it _does_ apply"

<comment><USER5> Really, why you don't read that as "we will update the statute so that it does not compel us to send a bill to Coursera"?

I don't want mid level bureaucrats ignoring laws because they don't care for them.</comment></comment></comment>


"In-browser and email notifications as you near the 300 GB per month limit" - <AUTHOR> http://customer.comcast.com/help-and-support/internet/data-usage-plans-expansion-exceed-allowance <comment><USER2> That's ridiculous.

I remember about six years ago, I got a notification from them for using too much data. When I spoke with them, I said I needed more data (we get everything over the internet, there are several of us here, and I also work from home). I needed to know what my cap was. They wouldn't say. They just said that I had gone over it and if I went over this non-specific cap again, I would be banned from service for a year.

Fine, then how can I buy more bandwidth at the same price? Can I just buy a second account and double my bandwidth? Whatever that cap might be? Nope. What options do I have? Nothing. Sorry, we can't help you.

When I moved, a Comcast person came by to offer me service and told me about their business offering. That is what I use. I have never had a problem with it. Granted, it is much more expensive, but at least I can generally do what I want.

I pay about $180/mo for 75Mbps down and 15Mbps up and generally use a couple terabytes per month.

Gosh, you're so unreasonable! Why do you need so much bandwidth?

It's ridiculous that anyone would ask that question in this day, but they do. And they ask it accusingly. How _dare_ you use a lot of bandwidth. What kind of monster are you for wanting to use internet services? JUSTIFY YOURSELF!

First, we use Netflix. That is 2-4gb per hour per stream. With four people living here, that's an average of maybe two hours per person per day or 750gb/mo.

Second, we use a remote backup service across six machines and that comes out to between 50-500gb/mo.

Third, we consume a lot of podcasts, video podcasts (easily 1-2gb per episode), streaming music, streaming radio, youtube, live-streams on twitch.tv, two of us are constantly VPNed into work on at least one box, VOIP (often with video), video games, and countless other things. Multiplied by the several people that live here.

As more content is available over the internet and in better quality, this consumption will only increase.

To live with 75Gb/mo per person in the modern age when you get all of your entertainment and work and communication over the internet is ridiculous. And charging obscene overage charges is abusive.

Especially after we have all already dispensed with the "but bandwidth is a precious limited resource, like oil!" nonsense.

<comment><USER3> Off topic but $180 is cheap. We pay $450/m for 50/15 from Time Warner for our business class cable which is a backup to our fiber which is 50/50 which we pay $1500/m which is a Time Warner owned fiber but our service is with another provider.

As for the bandwidth is precious, the cable loops are shared. It took over 6 months to get our fiber provisioned so we were on cable for those 6 months. We did notice a huge drop in bandwidth around 6pm at our office. We correlated to people getting home.

One thing I realized with last mile connectivity/bandwidth is that our city/neighbors were partially to blame. We talked to Verizon about FIOS, they said they would run us a line if we could get city to allow them to dig up the roads. They said they've been trying to do it but the city won't grant them permits. The city blocks them because people complain about noise and construction. Without having an alternative we have no leverage to negotiate pricing.

<comment><USER4> The reason this happens is because of how ISP business models work and specifically over-subscription. I'm not defending comcast, quite the contrary, but you're going to hit this problem with every ISP, because of over- subscription.

Consider the following:

1) you have to build out a certain type of network to provide a good experience, and this includes a minimum bandwidth allotment that is quite high.

2) because "normal" bandwidth usage is extremely bursty there is no reason (almost) to ever upgrade the bandwidth to the edge nodes.

3) bandwidth to edge nodes is constrained, even for incumbents. There's 2 cases, non-incumbents have to buy it from a monopoly, which is expensive. The other case is incumbents. They can get it cheap, until they hit a specific point (the bandwidth initial buildout that was done decades ago). When they hit that point it takes a massive investment to increase it.

4) the reason people go over bandwidth limits is peer to peer traffic. This unfortunately has two properties. Firstly, it's a consistent download, not bursty. Second it doesn't go out of their network (if it's a large network that is), meaning anyone that does this creates a constant traffic flow in TWO points of their network, and every component in between. This means that the bandwidth needed to support p2p is a factor more than the bandwidth your client actually reports to you, and exponentially more than needed to support browsing (even youtube).

5) If some ISP decides against this (they're small for example, in which case it all goes over cheap transit or even peering) that brings them extra costs, but not extra customers (because only the expensive customers like you, which can't be supported by the infrastructure, will switch over)

6) Most customers refuse to pay more. (e.g. switch to the business account)

7) Nobody is ever going to pay for a network that can support exponentially increasing bandwidth. It's not possible, for obvious reasons. When you're as big as comcast is, the investment for a 5% upgrade would require ridiculous amounts of capital, so they don't want to.

(replacing the current infrastructure with fiber MAY fix this, however the people who control the current infrastructure like Comcast have an interest in blocking that for obvious reasons. However there are problems with fiber too, the root of the problem is the constant light -> electrical -> light conversions that are necessary at lots and lots of points and make the capital investments quite high)

<comment><USER2> The tax-payers have subsidized massive broadband expansion that never happened. Many of the players pocketed the savings and just never followed up with their end of that deal.

Also, network congestion has nothing to do with bandwidth limits (data caps, really). If you are transferring large amounts of data at 3am on a Tuesday when the rest of the network usage is almost non-existent, then you are not impacting anything. If you are doing it at 8pm on a Friday night, you probably are contributing to network congestion. So, why apply the concept of a limited resource (data) across the board?

We are done with the lie from telecoms that data is somehow a precious resource. It is an artificial constraint used to justify both lack of infrastructure investment and jacking up prices on customers. This is no longer a point of contention as it is finally known industry-wide and covered by the press (finally) as of a couple years ago.

Think of data caps in relation to a freeway. That freeway can carry a certain number of cars at one time. That is the only constraint. Cars that are driving at 2am when the freeway is empty are not eating into tomorrow's rush-hour- drive freeway traffic capacity. It is a constant. Likewise, it is not your 300gb of data per month that is impacting the network. It is when you are transferring that data.

And, finally, since the telecoms claim that "only two percent of users use a lot of bandwidth" and that something like 95% of users do nothing but check their email and watch one or two youtube videos a week, then there should be PLENTY of bandwidth left over for these bandwidth hogs. The solution is simple if that is the reality (which it isn't): Make email the highest priority in your traffic shaping. That way, those horrible people consuming a ton of bandwidth are not impacting the flow of those 12 kilobyte messages passing by here and there.

Oh, and finally, people do not go over their bandwidth limits because of p2p traffic. They go over it because it is 2014 and Netflix movies run several gigabytes per hour and people consume a lot of movies/tv shows every month and multiple people live in a single home. They go over it because they listen to lots of podcasts or watch video podcasts which run a gigabyte an hour. They watch streaming online networks, listen to streaming music, use remote online backup services, use VOIP, watch youtube, watch twitch.tv, stream to twitch.tv.

Youtube and Netflix account for just over 50% of traffic. P2P accounts for 10%.

<comment><USER4> > The tax-payers have subsidized massive broadband expansion that never > happened. Many of the players pocketed the savings and just never followed > up with their end of that deal.

All I can say is that subsidies -believe it or not- do not exempt anyone from mathematics. If you are unable to see that packets travel more than one "freeway" there is nothing to say at all.

Hell, even freeways don't work like that. Believe it or not, cars on a freeway come from somewhere and go somewhere. This affects the capacity of the freeway for obvious reasons. If people did on freeways what they do with p2p, random any-to-any travelling, there would be no possible way to keep freeways uncongested, and yet there'd be loads and loads of "free" space. And yes, we would all be talking about making more intense users pay more, or get them off the roads alltogether. Hell, we're doing that now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> They also use the HTML injection (which I assume is why this was posted to HN) for the "five strikes" "Copyright Alerts" bullshit too; if you have an allegation flung against you, all of your HTML will have a Comcast popup injected into it until the account owner logs in and acknowledges that they were bad.

As an aside, check out the "Flexible Data Option" linked from that page for some other laughs - a $5 discount to drop your quota from 300 GB to 5, and also your overages suddenly become five times more expensive ($1/GB vs. $.20/GB). That's some nice math.

<comment><USER6> To be fair, the "Flexible-Data Option" seems to only be available on the "Economy Plus" plan, which is their $20/m @ 3Mbps option. Still an annoyingly small quota, though.

<comment><USER7> This is scary. What the hell are they using to move bits around, avian carriers? In Poland I can get _20Mbps for $3 /m_ (and no data limit!), not the other way around.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> ...Okay? You just linked to a random corporate policy FAQ page; I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be thinking here.

Is your point that 300GB/month is not enough for your needs? Well, I agree, which is why I haven't signed up for 300GB/month service. If I _had_ signed up for a service like that, I think I'd really appreciate that they offer flexible and customizable notifications and are up front about where the limit is and what happens if you cross it (you pay $10/50GB overage, no additional throttling). You hear so many horror stories about folks being suddenly threatened with nebulous consequences for crossing invisible lines, and apparently XFINITY doesn't do that, so good on them!

<comment><USER8> I finished reading the comment thread, and I now think maybe you're complaining about the "in-browser notifications." That was clear as mud, thanks. I know Hacker News is pretty strict about headlines, but there's a comment thread right here. This HN habit of linking to random pages with an interesting tidbit in paragraph 5, and leaving it to us to figure out why we're supposed to get huffy, is tiresome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I am kind of shocked that, on HN, most of the comments are talking about the 300GB limit rather than the HTTP and SMTP (or IMAP/POP3) injection...

<comment><USER2> Because they have been doing the injections for at least a couple years now and it was widely covered in the press when it started.

There's nothing, therefore, for people to do in this thread beyond devise their own discussions around what element of the old-news that they are most interested in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> That's odd. According to the terms of service for my Comcast service in Denver, the "bandwidth limit has been temporarily suspended". Over the last 6 months I have used between 350GB and 600GB of traffic each month and I have never received any sort of notice.

In fact, I could have gotten 40mbps DSL for $35 (special deal) but they had a 250GB/month cap and the only option to have no cap was a $175/mo for the same speed (but a dedicated link).

So I'm using Comcast specifically because the lack of a limit on bandwidth.

<comment><USER11> "This information applies only to customers in Huntsville and Mobile, AL; Atlanta; Augusta and Savannah, GA; Central Kentucky; Maine; Jackson, MS; Knoxville and Memphis, TN; and Charleston, SC"

These are the only markets with caps right now. Which is up from 2012, when there were only two.

<comment><USER12> Portland, OR also has caps. I remember trying to research this about a year ago when I was running into the then 250GB cap with Comcast. None of these lists seem to include my region, but I was still receiving warnings, and could see a maxed out bandwidth usage meter when logging into the Comcast account management site.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I was surprised to see a notification injected into the HTML of the page I was browsing when my parents' went over their limit in December. Never seen it before.

ISP = Rogers in Toronto.

</comment><comment><USER14> Wow, I was reading this thinking how great it is, but the comments here are the opposite.

Up here in Northern Canada, a 100Mbps plan has a 250GB cap for $140/mo and a 50Mbps plan has a 150GB cap for $110/mo.

Overage charges? $5/GB !

People up here that are getting multi-thousand dollar overage bills are thinking about a class action lawsuit against the sole telco because they believe it's intentionally over-counting data used to drive up revenue....

<comment><USER15> I feel your pain... $10 for extra 50G sounds so much reasonable than what we are paying...

btw if you are with Rogers, I believe they can give you unlimited data for $30/month, or $10 if you are also using their TV and home phone.

<comment><USER14> There is no Rogers here, and no such thing as unlimited.

The great North.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> If an ISP can give you "in-browser notifications", you don't have an internet service. You're just hooked up to a corporate intranet.

This is why commercial services need regulation. Intercepting and tampering with your data should be illegal, and not just a little bit.

A country where mail fraud is a major crime but this is considered normal business has completely forgotten its fundamental values and principles.

<comment><USER17> Haven't you heard? ISPs are "information services". Not some sort of socialized public utility, i.e. a "common carrier" of bits.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm so happy I live in Sweden =) About $33/mo for 100/10 mbit no cap. $42/mo for 100/100\. For $150/mo I could get 1/1Gbit with no cap. (Above are prices for fiber connections. DSL connections are generally more expensive, but no where near the prices you are discussing.)

It's kind of crazy that there isn't more competition between ISPs in the u.s.

</comment><comment><USER19> $52/month (plus tax) for 300 GB/month here in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada from Teksavvy.com.

35 mbps / 3 mbps - [http://teksavvy.com/en/residential/internet/cable/cable-35](http://teksavvy.com/en/residential/internet/cable/cable-35)

Want more?

$90 bux for 150 mbps / 10 mbps:

[http://teksavvy.com/en/residential/internet/cable/cable-150](http://teksavvy.com/en/residential/internet/cable/cable-150)

<comment><USER19> Oh, forgot to mention: It's 50 cents per GB for overages.

I feel sorry for my friends that have a Rogers/Bell/Telus connection. But then again I don't: because they're too lazy to switch but keep complaining about their huge bill.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> 50GB free for 3 months a year and then $10 per 50GB over... how very reasonable. The typical ISP in Australia "shapes" down to between 128-512kpbs. I've thankfully never experienced it, but I dread the day.

If the topic here is HTML injection, that's pretty creepy. What else are they using that technology for? Surely the cost isn't justifiable purely for excess usage notifications.

<comment><USER21> _50GB free for 3 months a year_

So you are allowed 3 hits of 50GB or in excess of 50GB a year?

Is that what you meant? 3 violations?

<comment><USER22> Yes, in Nashville you get 3 50gb overages you can use them all at once or spread out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Just for reference, 6 Mbit/sec (ADSL) is 1500 GiB/mo, five times that.

Stop patronizing the cable monopolies. They sell only the illusion of bandwidth.

<comment><USER24> Your house probably has a 100A main line, at 110V, that's 11kw. Do you use 7920KWh per month? No?

The power companies are only selling the illusion of electricity!

<comment><USER25> ISPs have kind of painted themselves into a corner with flat rate pricing sold on the basis of peak bandwidth. They can't afford to let people saturate their connections, but any change to the pricing (like caps) makes customers feel like they're getting less for their money.

<comment><USER26> I wish we all had unlimited lines and paid by the gigabyte. It would honestly probably be cheaper for most people and makes more sense as at the network levels everyone pays by bandwidth consumed anyways.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The most ridiculous.

</comment><comment><USER28> This kind of seems fine to me. What do others think?

<comment><USER29> If you find notice for unpaid ticket stapled to the postcard granny send you inside the envelope will this be fine too?</comment></comment>


The Risks Digest - <AUTHOR> http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/ <comment><USER2> "Hackers from the Dutch intelligence service AIVD have provided the FBI with crucial information about Russian interference with the American elections."

I call total balony on this. Attempting to give it some credence by accrediting the source to AIVD. How sad to see Risks Digest reduced to repeating neocon waffle.

[http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/30/54#subj1](http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/30/54#subj1)

<comment><USER3> On the other hand at the risk of pointing out the obvious Risks Digest is exactly that. It's a digest of postings on comp.risks which is open to the world. And here is the link which is in English from a Dutch newspaper if you'd like to engage with the specifics of the story. [https://www.volkskrant.nl/tech/dutch-agencies-provide- crucia...](https://www.volkskrant.nl/tech/dutch-agencies-provide-crucial- intel-about-russia-s-interference-in-us-elections~a4561913/)

<comment><USER2> > if you'd like to engage with the specifics of the story ..

The main stream media arrogantly assumed The Presidency would be a shoe-in for Clinton. Trump was good-for-ratings but no-one seriously expected him to actually win. This Russians-influenced-the-election narrative is a ruse thought up by the media to excuse their failure to present the correct candidate to the American electorate.

What would be interesting to know is just who is leaking against both 'Hillary' and Trump and what their motives are. I suspect the leaks are coming from factions in the Washington establishment and elements of the state security apparatus. The Golden Shower dossier being a prime example, also provided by a foreign intelligence organization. Incidentally, the same people who provided evidence of Saddam Hussein's non-existent weapons of mass destruction. This Russian hackers story and similar, part of a conspiracy to get Trump deposed, nothing short of a palace coup prosecuted against an elected President.

<comment><USER4> > The Golden Shower dossier

Wasn't it originally a 4chan invention?

<comment><USER5> The so called "dossier" was a series of memos produced for a company called Fusion GPS that does things like opposition research, for both parties, using ex-journalists and intelligence agents.

If you are so far out of the loop as to think it originated with 4chan, I'm not sure where to start, but perhaps it might be edifying to read Glenn Simpson's testimony to the Senate.

One place it's available is [https://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/documents/politics/read- th...](https://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/documents/politics/read-the-full- transcript-of-glenn-simpsons-senate-testimony/2700/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I guess I shouldn't be surprised that this thread took a political tone very quickly, given that the recent issues of the digest contains reports and speculations of a political nature. It makes sense that people's attention would get consumed by these more recent speculations. After all the digest covers risks that reside in the intersection between politics and technology, meatspace and cyberspace.

However, I would like to try to gently nudge this thread more towards the technological side of that intersection. A long time interest of mine has been technological failure: things like nuclear reactor meltdowns, airplane crashes, bridge collapses, and so forth.

For example, jhere is a link to a piece of the digest that covers exactly this kind of stuff:

[http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/1/1#subj4.1](http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/1/1#subj4.1)

Sure, it's from '84, but as a software engineer I empathize with all of these (mostly) software related failures, as I have to deal with similar failures on a daily basis -- though thankfully they don't involve and fatalities or injury.

Furthermore I find this digest to be very helpful as an archive of safety related issues over a large span of the history of our field, than of current risks which you can find trending on HN and reddit. I suspect the former is much more instructive since most of that stuff happened before many of us were born -- thus giving us the opportunity to learn from the past with an open mind and free of bias. For example the first few years of the digest covered the SDI which was apparently a hot topic among software engineers in those days, while as present it is (to me) a vague and distant notion barely perceptible -- like a fading transmission.

The digest is heavy with the residue of a rich history, and I hope that we (as in humanity) can give a bit more focus to the past, since it will help us make a bit more sense out of the present.

Other fun things:

John McCarthy of lisp fame was apparently a contributor back in the day: [http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/1/7#subj1](http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/1/7#subj1)

Richard Stallman made an appearance in 1990: [http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/10/20#subj5](http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/10/20#subj5)

As did Bernie Cosell (form Coders at Work by Siebel): [http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/10/20#subj6](http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/10/20#subj6)

And Leslie Lamport, (LaTeX, PAXOS, Turing Award): [http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/10/44#subj1](http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/10/44#subj1)

Julian Assange in 1995 talking about LoadDog (the wikileaks guy): [http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/17/59#subj9](http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/17/59#subj9)

Doug McIlroy in 2005 (of Unix pipes fame): [http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/24/57#subj7](http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/24/57#subj7)

Anyway, hope software engineers on this board will find this historical resource useful, and apologies if anyone got trolled by it.</comment>


CEO tests "crazy" genetic therapy on herself - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/04/ceo-tests-crazy-genetic-therapy-on-herself-claims-it-added-20-years-of-life/ <comment><USER2> Reminds me of the scientist who drank bacteria to prove that it caused stomache ulsers (and was treatable). Too bad it's just not that easily testable.

Unfortunately, we are still within measurement error and it's possible that telomere length has nothing to do with lifespan and might be a cancer problem. We may know if she makes it to 100, but this kind of work needs a control group and large sample size and is probably unethical in humans. Those who choose this might die sooner of risky behavior or already have other problems that reduce their lifespan that they would want to offset.

</comment><comment><USER3> Quite a lot of scientists did/still do this. Heck, there's even a trope about it on TV Tropes:

[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ProfessorGuineaPi...](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ProfessorGuineaPig)

But I suspect it's slightly rarer for CEOs of science based companies to try this stuff out of themselves. Could be interesting to see what happens.

</comment><comment><USER4> I guess we'll eventually find out if this is an elaborate marketing stunt for a horror movie.

<comment><USER5> She could just as easily die early from cancer or another condition therefore rendering the results of her hopeful data point nil.

Additionally, if she does survive there is a question of credibility given the non-scientific nature of the experiment:

> Fossell, the anti-aging entrepreneur, says even if Parrish were to somehow > succeed in slowing the aging of her body, an outcome he rated as unlikely, > the experiment would have no impact because of how it was carried out. "The > problem is that no one is going to believe them," he says. "The credibility > will be zero even if they are right on the money."

[https://www.technologyreview.com/s/542371/a-tale-of-do-it- yo...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/542371/a-tale-of-do-it-yourself- gene-therapy/)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is parallel entrepreneurship even possible? - <AUTHOR> I have bunch of ideas at production (around 5) which I'm having hard time to sacrifice one to focus on another. Spendings are not so much, perhaps 100$ per project per month. I'd like to expand the ideas, but in my gut, I feel like I'm making a wrong approach. Am I shooting my self on the feet trying to run many ideas in parallel? I truly like them all. Any related "call from experience" guidance would be helpful. Thank you. <comment><USER2> Yes, some advice from my own experiences, don't do it, pick something and focus. You can always come back to an idea if the one you chose bombs. Being distracted means your full focus isn't making one thing excellent, and so you will continually be behind, or fail to meet the goals quick enough. Also, in the end, you will burn yourself out on all the ideas and be bummed.

I tried this before, with only 3 ideas and that was 2 too many. Sadly I ignored a mentor who told me to focus on one, and he even told me which one, and while I put more effort there, I missed a huge opportunity to get his and some other influencers support because I was distracted trying to do too much. In the end, I mostly was successful on the one idea, but it could've been far more than what I did had I listened and focused. And the other 2 ideas went almost no where except to distract me, take my money and worse my time . I was an idiot, don't be me.

Also, I want to preface this with, you can invest in multiple projects but you cannot successfully start multiple companies at once with great success. Are there exceptions to the rule, yes, but one note, they generally start with decent personal or family wealth and can hire people to focus immediately. Are you an exception? I dunno, but my guess with all respect is no, I am not either.

Pick the idea that you feel most connected too and that has opportunity there and focus and shelve the others (for now). If it doesn't work out go back and reevaluate, that would be my advice.

<comment><AUTHOR> I wouldn't call you had things wrong, I can remind you it's just really difficult to get out of this (as I'm in your past situation). Things holding me back are fear of missing out, daydreaming and believing in created brand value. I certainly agree "focus" is underrated. It's ugly and hard to shift, but I understand that's the hard work. Maybe already lost quite a time too, I should start pushing it to that direction. Thank you for sharing your experience.</comment></comment>


Top Five Best Hackers of All Time - <AUTHOR> http://www.marvquin.com/blog/top-five-5-best-criminal-computer-hackers-all-time

<comment><USER2> Doh, when I saw "hacker" in the title, I assumed "skilled programmer"...

<comment> mark-t You would be looking for [http://www.marvquin.com/blog/top-five-5-best-non- criminal-ha...](http://www.marvquin.com/blog/top-five-5-best-non-criminal- hackers-all-time) . Well, maybe. Also not a great list.

<comment><USER3> That list is pretty close to who I'd pick, actually. Except that Shimomura would not make mine - I'd place several others, notably Jamie Zawinski and Guy Steele, above him.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is more like the "Top Five Best-Known Hackers of All Time". Surely, the real top 5 (with all due respect to RTM), whoever they are, never saw the inside of a courtroom.

</comment><comment><USER5> _"... Mitnick then embarked on a two and a half year coast to coast hacking spree ..."_

Mitnick is a good choice for #1 cracker (why do people persist with the 'h' & not the 'cr' ~ <http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html#what_is> ). Mitnick is probably the best known ( <http://www.takedown.com/bio/mitnick.html> ) but his special area of exploitation is _"primarily human"_ and focus of his book _"Art of Deception"_. This makes him an exceptionally effective cracker, exploiting both man and machine.

While some are good with machines, Mitnick is good with machines & humans cracks ~ <http://www.kevinmitnick.com>

</comment><comment><USER6> Top N lists will hopefully not be part of web 3.0 :-P

<comment><USER7> What are the top N things from web2.0 that you _don't_ want to see in web3.0? ;-)

<comment><USER6> I wish I could upmod more than once sometimes :-P

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> These are just computer vandals, none have created anything interesting.

The article title is like a 'list of the best arsonists'. Not classy.

<comment><USER9> Robert Morris helped create this site, and I consider it interesting.

<comment><USER8> Acknowledged. But the article doesn't mention Morris as the creator of a social news site for startups, merely a person who caused vast amounts of damage for his own selfish interests. As does Robert's wikipedia entry.

Robert, if you're reading this, do you still (post-sentencing) regret creating the worm?

<comment><USER10> Selfish interests? He didn't even release it intentionally.

<comment><USER8> Morris has previously stated the worm was intentionally released to gauge the size of the Internet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> In case some haven't noticed yet, Robert Morris of Y Combinator is #4 on that list. Pretty cool.

<comment><USER11> It is awesome. Who hasn't dreamed of being featured on _the_ MarvQuin.com Blog? ;-)</comment></comment>


Sonos requires access to your location to install a Sonos system - <AUTHOR> https://faq.sonos.com/permissions <comment><USER2> The Logitech Media Server (Slimserver) is still being developed [1] and coupled with Chromecast Audios (through squeeze2cast [2]) or Picoreplayer [3] works as a great multi-room system for me. Spotify integration is available through a third-party plug-in, Spotty [4]. Someone is even developing a great Material design skin for the web interface that is mobile compatible (and works great in a Hermit web app) [5]. Control apps exist for Android and iOS (iPeng [6]).

[1] [https://github.com/Logitech/slimserver](https://github.com/Logitech/slimserver) [2] [https://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?104614-Announc...](https://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?104614-Announce- CastBridge-integrate-Chromecast-players-with-LMS-\(squeeze2cast\)) [3] [https://www.picoreplayer.org/](https://www.picoreplayer.org/) [4] [https://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?111217-Announc...](https://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?111217-Announce- Spotty-3-x-Spotify-Podcasts-on-your-Squeezebox) [5] [https://github.com/CDrummond/lms-material](https://github.com/CDrummond/lms- material) [6] [http://penguinlovesmusic.de/](http://penguinlovesmusic.de/)

<comment><USER3> I can enthusiastically support LMS, piCorePlayer, and iPeng.

I have players scattered around the house:

\- touchscreen players with great graphical displays built with Raspberry Pi 3B's, IQAudio Pi-DAC+, and the official Pi 7" touchscreen. Nice bamboo stands too, but they're hard to find these days. \- a headless player in an awkward location built with a pi-zero-w and the IQAudio Pi-DACZero \- a playerless head with a Pi 3B and a 7" touch screen (the UI's divorced from the player, this one manages the PiZero from a less awkward location).

Everything supported out of the box by piCorePlayer.

All are plugged into various speakers w/ integrated amps (I'm an AudioEngine fan).

They play in sync throughout the house, or can be independent.

I run the LMS server from a FreeNAS jail, LMS is in the FreeBSD ports tree and/but I have a newer version in my ports overlay: [https://github.com/hartzell/freebsd- ports/tree/master/audio/...](https://github.com/hartzell/freebsd- ports/tree/master/audio/logitechmediaserver).

Things occasionally hiccup, e.g. the spotify client dies periodically ([https://github.com/michaelherger/spotty/issues/18](https://github.com/michaelherger/spotty/issues/18)).

Happy to help anyone who's interested in getting things setup.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> In the minority but still can not convince myself to buy a device with (mandatory) cloud storage, facial / voice recognition, voice assistant, etc. Moreover and to my surprise without even forcing myself, low pressure point so far. The closest I got was to buy a _smart_ scale for body composition but as I didn't want to investigate which of them could provide me all the features I wanted _offline_ I realized it wasn't a device I really needed after all. Dodged another bullet I guess :).

</comment><comment><USER5> About 6 years ago I bought a Sonos Connect as a gift for my father. This was the first and only smart home device I had bought at the time and I wasn't really thinking about the privacy implications at the time. Years have passed and he was not using so he gave it back to me. I was surprised by the permissions required to setup a device, and appalled by the lack of support for streaming from a Linux system. They could've made it so simple by have the server run a web app. They also made it so hard to play local music. Luckily there's BubbleUPNP so that works, otherwise it's totally not worth it if you have a local music library and do not want to pay for Deezer or Spotify; Chromecast Audio works just as well and it's 10x cheaper - the only thing missing is Gapless playback via DLNA. However, Chromecasts also require location during setup. I wish there was a non-Google privacy-friendly alternative for Chromecast.

<comment><USER6> There is an alternative. The raspberry pi! check it out: [http://rpimusicplayer.com/](http://rpimusicplayer.com/)

<comment><USER7> Does it have Spotify, Soundcloud etc integration?

<comment><USER5> You can try to set it up using a fork of mpd. I've tried it a few years ago but it didn't work that well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I was recently given a webcam by a friend to use while I was away on vacation. The app wouldn't let me set it up until it had correctly identified my physical location. On top of that there was some glitch that prevented the app from doing it and it kept defeating itself.

Backed right out of that one. It's incredible how people would just agree to anything an app asks them to do. If most people didn't proceed past this point, the manufacturer wouldn't be getting away with collecting that data.

How is someone's physical location data required to setup a webcam? So anyway. Same crap.

<comment><USER9> It's not necessarily the same crap, I agree with the webcam but when using devices that operate over radio frequencies you do need to know where they live (loosely) in order to correctly configure the device to their locale.

<comment><USER10> This was a really really bad excuse.

There are many better ways to do this, for example why not ask users which country they are on? Or, I don't know, maybe let the app figure it out based on the phones configuration?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> As an open source alternative, one could use snapcast ([https://github.com/badaix/snapcast](https://github.com/badaix/snapcast)) which works quite nicely and can be integrated in multiple ways.

</comment><comment><USER12> I was automatically redirected to the version in Spanish[] that says that location access is optional. But if I go to the English version[], it says it is mandatory. I wonder if 1) the Spanish version of the documentation is not up to date or 2) they don't do this in the European market.

[] [https://support.sonos.com/s/article/3092?language=es](https://support.sonos.com/s/article/3092?language=es)

[] [https://support.sonos.com/s/article/3092?language=en](https://support.sonos.com/s/article/3092?language=en)

<comment><USER13> Seems that, while it may be optional (e.g. for Android devices), you simply will not be able to set up your speakers if you disable it:

"This allows Sonos to detect your nearby speakers during the Setup process. If you leave this disabled, you will not be able to setup your speakers."

The iOS explanation that it's only used to auto-fill a zipcode is insane and presumably inaccurate, given the Android permission's description.

<comment><USER14> IOS apps are not allowed to require location access, they must perform some kind of function if they do not have it. Enforcement is pretty random of course, either they were hit or they purposely avoided breaking the rules.

<comment><USER15> It seems like the rules aren't so strict when it's regarding Wi-Fi/Bluetooth device discovery, since you definitely could derive a location from nearby Wi- Fi access points and Bluetooth devices (that's why this permission behavior changed in iOS 13/Android 10), but the alternative to device discovery is… for a lot of devices, probably nothing.

Putting the blame for this on Apple/Google doesn't excuse Sonos's sleazy data collection here, of course.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Slightly OT, but Sonos is a nightmare. The software keeps getting worse and worse and has mandatory updates constantly (every 2 weeks or so?) When the system wants to update you can't do anything, not play music, not anything.

"Updates" deprecate hardware that used to work fine, and... adds advertising for new hardware!!

<comment><USER17> Audio equipment that can display advertising? I think I'll pass.

<comment><USER18> I think they meant an ad in the Sonos app. After an update of the app, it displayed an ad and discount code for a new Sonos product. I have had Sonos since 2017 and have had this ad only once. Sonos does not introduce ads in playback of music. Music services like Spotify or Soundcloud may play ads if you have a free account with them, just like your average radio station.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I am shopping for speakers. I was heavily leaning towards Sonos. Not anymore.

<comment><USER20> Every Bluetooth speaker system management app has to ask for the location permission on Android. Bluetooth scans and location permission are tied together.

<comment><USER21> Why every Bluetooth speaker system needs separate Management app ?

<comment><USER20> Because it pretty much isn't possible to not to if you want any features on your speaker.

<comment><USER22> Features like what? I have four different Bluetooth speakers and none of them have an app. You just pair them to a phone and play.

<comment><USER20> Equalizer configuration, auto-off time, indicator light control, firmware updates, the amount of configuration options across many different Bluetooth devices, seemingly simple or not is not necessarily small. I've got personal experience reverse-engineering a few OEM apps out there.

<comment><USER22> None of that is stuff I would ever mess with anyway so I gues that's why I never noticed it missing. It seems like an app might be nice to have if you like configuring things, but it shouldn't be required.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Isn't this because that permission is tied to looking for bluetooth beacons or nfc? So if you appear on that to find your speakers anything else might find you too and track you.

This isn't sonos' fault.

<comment><USER24> > Gathering the approximate location of your Sonos system allows us to auto- > populate your registration postal code and predetermine the radio locale for > your system so it is configured as soon as you are done setting up your > system.

<comment><USER25> So, "saving you two clicks"?

<comment><USER26> They only quoted half the section ignoring the actual important bit the location access allows them to do:

> Location access is required to detect your nearby speakers during setup and > your mobile device's WiFi network information.

<comment><USER27> Yep, there exist databases of the geolocation of nearly every Wifi AP in the world. If you have the MAC address of nearby APs, you can lookup where you are trivially.

[https://www.skyhook.com/](https://www.skyhook.com/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> As horrible as this is, note that this one is _mostly_ on Google.

In particular, they force this on Android in order to map MAC address from any Bluetooth devices to physical locations. This allows then to track people even when they turn off GPS.

(If you work for Samsung etc and are wondering why I don't buy your wireless headphones, this is the reason. Feel free to show this to your boss)

</comment><comment><USER28> I think hardware companies realize more and more that hardware doesnt create recurring revenue. The best way to extract revenue from customers? add software! Peloton bikes? check- you can have a local only profile, but if you want to really work out you gotta subscribe! Sonos? check- we cant have this perfectly good soundbar functioning into perpetuity, software to the rescue!

<comment><USER9> You are very cynical but this was actually Sonos's original marketing pitch. Since day one, they haven't been secret about it.

The idea is that they release one set of GOOD speakers and improve it through software, which they have. In fact my speakers sound better than when I first bought them due to the new functionality they've added.

<comment><USER28> Cynical where appropriate. Not everyone deprecates hardware with software...

<comment><USER9> Right, but if that's their business model and you don't agree with it, then perhaps don't buy their products.

Depreciate is also a matter of opinion, my speakers work better than they did when I first purchased them. So for me they haven't been depreciated with software.

<comment><USER28> I do vote with the wallet where I can for sure. If you were able to build or do something to enhance you speakers you are in the minority of users of consumer hardware. If Sonos/brand x has done that, GREAT! but what happens when they get tired of doing that and add some arbitrary line in the sand where the latest version of the app will not support your speakers. The best case scenario here is that you have a device that can be frozen in time to support the devices of that period. The worst case is you have to recycle or likely landfill that device. Sorry that is an awful scenario any way you slice it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> This is why I have started to develop a fascination with vintage sound gear: no gimmicks, just sound from speakers.

<comment><USER30> To add to that, old speakers have very good dynamic range. New ones have crappy mids and strong bass so you get loudness but overall sound is skinny

<comment><USER22> New studio monitors are usually pretty neutral.

<comment><USER30> Studio monitors are a different game (and are pricier for a reason). I was talking about consumer speakers.

<comment><USER22> Places like Monoprice have some good choices for under $200 / pair. Maybe they are more expensive, but I think they aren't unreasonable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I was confused by the title, since I set up a Sonos (Ikea) speaker recently and denied its location services request. Reading the article, it looks like the location access is required if you're on Android.

<comment><USER32> It says you can enter "your" zip manually

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Freudian slip or what? In the German version it says: Via unfairly collecting you location... (Durch das Erfassen der unfähren Position)

Unfähre = unfairly Ungefähr = approximately

</comment><comment><USER34> The Sonos-based cheap IKEA speakers require an internet connection and a Sonos account in the first place or you can't use them.

They were cheap and allowed me to setup multi-room audio for listening to audio books / podcasts, but I hate gear that require internet access to setup/work.

</comment><comment><USER24> Sonos has history on this kind of thing: [https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/04/10/sonos_privacy_compl...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/04/10/sonos_privacy_complaint_ico/)

</comment><comment><USER9> I don't see what the problem is? Sonos have clearly stated why they require that access.

It's the same argument that Apple had recently where users were unable to fully switch off location settings on their device through switching applications off manually. It was because they needed to check where the individual was globally to ensure the Ultra Wideband technology was not being used in countries where it was illegal to do so.

They say on the article you have posted that it is only required for setup, which makes sense. After which time you can then switch it off.

Posting an article where an app asks for location permissions is completely useless unless you provide an argument for why they shouldn't do so given their reasoning for requiring it.

<comment><USER35> Surely the solution is to turn off Ultra Wideband technology until you provide your location: not to force you to divulge your location and then "switch it off" after you've done so...

The original article seems not to link to the actual wording of their reasoning (and I couldn't find it with a quick browse), but I'm guessing they require a location to ensure that they are licensed to give you the specific content in your area. My opinion: have it fail if they need a location to serve the content and don't have the location. Personally, I think it's pretty stupid anyway since it's hardly impossible to spoof the location on these devices. At some level, you are required to trust the consumer that they are telling the truth. Given that, why not just ask the costumer what country they are in and cut off the service for customers who are obviously lying? Put in your terms of service that you can use it through TOR or other anonymising services that will obfuscate the route of the packets being sent.

I mean, I can think of half a dozen other potential solutions to the problem. They picked _one_ and don't want to think of any other solution. I think it is fair for consumers to judge them on their lack of flexibility on this issue.

<comment><USER9> The idea with Ultra Wide Band is that it is meant to be always on, much like WiFi or Bluetooth if you choose to have it on listening all the time. So if the user wants to have Ultra Wide Band on all the time are you saying that they should ask the user to provide their location, then just assume that they will never leave their country? How do you detect if they have left the country to a location where Ultra Wide Band is restricted? The wording is right there in the article in the title. "Gathering the approximate location of your Sonos system allows us to auto-populate your registration postal code and predetermine the radio locale for your system so it is configured as soon as you are done setting up your system."

You're right, you could do that however in the context of user experience you might choose to remove that from the application such that the user is able to register their devices faster. And if you really only need and use that information during the setup as they said, then what's the problem?

With regards to spoofing, if it is correct that they need the locale in order to know whether they can serve that location. And they implement a location check to satisfy that, then if the end user spoofs the location, surely Sonos don't care because they've done their due diligence. If you choose to spoof the location that's a different story, Sonos if they could would provide the service to everyone its the licensing companies that tell where they can.

My opinion, if you are required to obtain the location of the user as part of the setup process due to determining the radio locale. And you do so only during the setup process as you have stipulated on your website, then I don't think its that big of a deal. Either way I'd have to provide my location using a drop down menu and for the end user its just one part of the overall setup process that is done for you.

<comment><USER35> Just to be clear, there is a huge difference between saying I'm in Japan (which I am happy to shout out to anybody) and saying exactly where I am to a precision of a few meters. What I'm saying is that they need to provide tools that allows the user to specify the former (which I'm pretty sure they can determine without even asking their user's device) without specifying the latter. The reason they want the latter is because they can easily get it and once they have it, it is valuable for other reasons.

For Ultra Wide Band it's even easier because the actual phone manufacturer has control over the dang thing. Got an active SIM connection in an allowed country? Good to go. Even building your GPS system such that it can determine if it is in a UWB allowed country without divulding _where_ it is would be absolutely trivial. I really can go on and on with potential solutions that do not divulge a user's positions. They just don't care about the user's privacy. That's the entire point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> My parents bought me a smart meat thermometer that connects to a cell phone app that does stuff. It requires location, file system, phone, contact, email, and sms privileges to pair with the thermometer.

Nah.

</comment><comment><USER37> It might frighten some, but I think this is legal. I for instance sell a product, but to unlock its feature set you first need to upload a picture of your family back to my company via the app.

<comment><USER38> > I for instance sell a product, but to unlock its feature set you first need > to upload a picture of your family back to my company via the app.

That would really make me refund your product.

<comment><USER37> That's entirely possible. Keep in mind you only qualify for a refund by filling out our refund form and attaching a personal nude pic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Doesn't an IP-Geo lookup give them a good enough guess? Enough to know your zip and local radio stations?

<comment><USER26> > Location access is required to detect your nearby speakers during setup and > your mobile device's WiFi network information.

They scan the area for Sonos speakers to setup. That BT scan and Wifi info requires location permissions in Android because it can be used as a pretty accurate location sensor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Seems it can be disabled on iOS but not on Android. At least according to the German version of their terms.

<comment><USER41> "To access the hardware identifiers of nearby external devices via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi scans, your app must now have the ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION or ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION permission"

[https://developer.android.com/about/versions/marshmallow/and...](https://developer.android.com/about/versions/marshmallow/android-6.0-changes.html#behavior- hardware-id)

<comment><USER27> Yep, there exist databases of the geolocation of nearly every Wifi AP in the world. If you have the MAC address of nearby APs, you can lookup where you are trivially.

[https://www.skyhook.com/](https://www.skyhook.com/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Same as the new Bose 700 requiring app installation, account registration, cloud activation..

</comment><comment><USER43> Grammofon is an alternative I believe

</comment><comment><USER44> Well, does it actually matter? Even if they're tracking you, are you that important for it to be a problem?

<comment><USER24> If you reply to this comment with your name full and postal address, I'll consider your question a serious one.

And before you say "but one is private and the other is public", you have no guarantees as to how Sonos will use the data or how securely they will keep it.

<comment><USER44> It's probably collected en masse for analytics or something and is not really comparable to publishing personal information on Hacker News.</comment></comment></comment>


Relentless Competition Drives Down Ethernet Switch Costs - <AUTHOR> https://www.nextplatform.com/2019/03/22/relentless-competition-drives-down-ethernet-switch-costs/ <comment><USER2> Weird headline. Could have just called it public funded technology improvement help reduce costs of switches...

<comment><USER3> The article doesn't make that claim. Is that really the case?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I am looking for some cheap 16/24 port 10Gbit RJ-45 switch for my house. Any recommendations?

<comment><USER5> Cheap compared to what? I've been looking at a 4-port SFP+ switch from Mikrotik but they have a 16 SFP+ port switch for $399. Their SFP+ RJ-45 module is $65 If you fill all the ports, that's $1,439 total but my understanding is these modules are relatively hot, you may want to enhance the cooling.

CRS317-1G-16S+RM [https://mikrotik.com/product/crs317_1g_16s_rm](https://mikrotik.com/product/crs317_1g_16s_rm)

S+RJ10 [https://mikrotik.com/product/s_rj10](https://mikrotik.com/product/s_rj10)

Edit: Googling "10Gbit RJ-45 switch" turns up a blog article from last year with another option if you really only want RJ45, Netgear ProSAFE 16-port 10-Gigabit Smart Managed Switch (XS716T) ~$1,300. There's also a 28-port model for a little over $2,000.

[https://nascompares.com/2018/01/19/cheapest-10gbe- switches/](https://nascompares.com/2018/01/19/cheapest-10gbe-switches/)

<comment><USER4> Cheap compared to nothing, I just meant that I don't need those switches to be enterprise grade (in terms of throughput), just home enthusiast grade :)

<comment><USER5> I saw a YouTube review of one of the smaller Mikrotik switches and they found if you used the router features the throughput dropped significantly (like over 8Gbps as a "dumb" switch down to 3Gbps with some routing enabled), the same could be true for the larger ones.

The Netgear's spec PDF includes some more detail about the hardware, the XS716T has 600 MHz Cortex-A9 Single Core, 512MB RAM 8MB SPI + 256MB NAND FLASH, but I'm not knowledgeable enough to make a comparison or have a sense of whether that's enough. I can see that the MikroTik has a 800MHz dual core Marvell Prestera 98DX8216 (a 32-bit ARMv7 processor) with 1GB RAM and 16GB flash storage. Of course, the software running on that hardware is also crucial; many Android phones have better hardware specs than iPhones yet the iPhones soundly out-perform them at many tasks.

[https://www.netgear.com/images/datasheet/switches/SmartSwitc...](https://www.netgear.com/images/datasheet/switches/SmartSwitches/XS708T_XS712Tv2_XS716T_XS728T_XS748T_DS.pdf)

<comment><USER6> At that kind of task, the "main" CPU isn't that relevant: It's hopelessly underpowered to actually handle the traffic anyways, so the more important question for performance is what the data plane hardware can do without getting help from the CPU.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>