FlacheQL- fast client-side caching on super/subset queries for GraphQL - <AUTHOR> Current solutions for client-side caching in GraphQL are slow, heavy, and often come with a lot of functionality that may be undesirable if you are looking for a caching-only package that aims to decrease loading time. We are excited to release FlacheQL 2.0, a 'smart' client-side caching solution.
FlacheQL 2.0 returns subsets from cached data based on the query's parameters. For example, if you send a query to the Yelp GraphQL endpoint for 20 businesses, and then you send one for 15 businesses, as long as the parameters match, FlacheQL 2.0 will return that subset directly from the cache. Additionally, if you were to query for 20 businesses and then subsequently 25 businesses, FlacheQL 2.0 will retrieve the set of 20 from the cache, restructure the query so that it only pings the server for the remaining 5, and stitch the two responses back together to send the response to the client. This reduces the load on your server from GraphQL resolvers, and speeds up loading time in your application. This new release also includes cache persistence via IndexedDB and TTL cache expiration.
We have seen a substantial decrease in page load times relative to other caching libraries. Check out the demo app if you're curious to see how we stack up against Apollo—we have query timers on there for comparison purposes. Check it out here: http://www.flacheql.io.
We'd love to hear your feedback about our library, available on npm. This is a work in progress so please feel free to contribute or raise issues as you see fit. You can also download the nom package, and star the repository here: https://github.com/FlacheQL/FlacheQL. Thanks! <comment><USER2> I was just reading about some updates to URQL (another GraphQL client alternative to Apollo) from Formidable Labs. I'm happy to see more activity in this space after spending the last week wrestling with Apollo's API...

Will check this out later today, the partial fulfillment of outbound queries with cached data sounds interesting and I'm wondering how you might have implemented it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Down to check it out some good alternatives. Is it compatible with PWA since it uses local IndexedDB?</comment>


Google Chrome now supports native web push - <AUTHOR> https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=571056&can=1&q=notification&colspec=ID%20Pri%20M%20Stars%20ReleaseBlock%20Cr%20Status%20Owner%20Summary%20OS%20Modified <comment><USER2> I thought this was implemented a while ago: [https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2015/03/push- notif...](https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2015/03/push- notifications-on-the-open-web?hl=en)

The link tells that this was implemented in Chrome 42.

</comment><comment><USER3> This looks like native desktop notifications.</comment>


Obviously Correct: implications for language design - <AUTHOR> http://blog.ezyang.com/2011/10/obviously-correct/

<comment><USER2> The article suggests that static typing precludes duck typing. However, duck typing can work just fine at compile time. Duck typing simply means typing based on the ability to use particular methods or access particular properties. That just means the type system needs sufficient expressiveness to say that a function takes anything for which a particular method or property exists.

Haskell's typeclasses, for instance, support a form of duck typing. Go can do something similar with its interfaces.

Duck typing does not imply dynamic runtime typing; static duck typing seems just as useful.

<comment><USER3> also known as structural typing: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_type_system>

<comment><USER2> Exactly the term I wanted, thanks! Just didn't manage to remember it.

Structural typing allows the creation of functions which only require their inputs to have the specific methods or properties needed to perform the given function, rather than an exact type. Effectively, this creates a minimal supertype for each function, such that the function can accept any subtype of that minimal supertype.

<comment><USER4> The common bias against structural typing is that there might be types with the same structure but subtly different semantics, e.g. coordinate systems. Same structural type, different semantic:

      struct carthesian_coords { int x; int y; }
      struct polar_coords      { int r; int theta; }

<comment><USER2> Most of the structural typing systems I've seen count the names of fields as part of the type, not just the types of the fields. So, those two structs would have incompatible types in such a system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It seems to me that much software can use a layered approach to get the best out of both systems. For example, in LedgerSMB, we use a highly engineered database on PostgreSQL, which means we can make the code "obviously correct" with regard to a number of invalid data bugs. We can then assign security to API operations declaratively using SQL roles. This makes the code obviously correct for certain classes of security issues and helps to mitigate other classes of security issues (for example SQL injection).

One of the key things to understand though is that "obviously correct" is always relative. There are, in fact, ways to circumvent these measures, and understanding where the problem areas lie. This means that most of the code may be "obviously correct" and some may be a bit less so. Knowing where that code is allows one to spend review time there.

The application above is written in Perl. However we are moving to Moose because it gives us a better ability to declare data constraints there.

I guess I'd call it "declaratively correct" instead of "obviously correct."

</comment><comment><USER6> Nice set of qualities that make aspects of code obviously correct, but he forgot tests.

Like static typing, they are not perfect. They only catch certain classes of errors. But, when you have them, you have the assurance that the code behaves as it does in the test when the same conditions occur in production.

<comment><USER7> Disagree. Intuitively, the difference is that an "obviously correct" methodology changes the _way_ you write code, whereas tests don't. Tests have to be run; the mere existence of a test doesn't mean your code is correct. But, crucially, the things a test checks don't generalize.

This isn't a perfect dividing line. If you add hooks for DI because you need to inject a mock, arguably that's changing the way you code (this is the schtick of TDD, after all!) Arguably, you have to "run the typechecker" in order to see if you actually have well typed code, and for a sufficiently powerful type checker this might be like running a program anyway. But hopefully the basic gist of the argument is there.

<comment><USER8> _But, crucially, the things a test checks don't generalize._

I think this is the most important thing to note. When I say

        Example test_fac1: (factorial 3) = 6.
        Proof. reflexivity.

This is completely different from the statement

        Theorem eq_fac : forall (n : nat),
           fac n = prod 1 n

Tests are simply a mathematical proof of a relation on a specific subset of the domain and codomain of the function. Types, in the broad sense, are constrained proofs over the properties of all elements in the domain and codomain.

Types are useful -- they're perhaps the greatest success of formality in software engineering ever. However, they're not complete and completeness is _hard_. Types succeed because they provide a lot of benefit for very little pain (the constraints you discuss in your post). Your assertion is simply reinforced when we look at the other classes of correctness that we could guarantee. We could write fixpoint definitions for all functions which require structural recursion. We could push all side effects to typed lambda calculus sugar.

Fundamentally, we could _prove_ our code correct. But that's a pain in the ass. And it _still_ doesn't work. Tests complement proofs -- they ensure that our own conception of the definition fits our expectations. We could do all the work to formally prove our conjectures, but if our definitions were wrong the conclusions would be useless.

What I'm saying is that all of these things should work together -- and the result is a balancing act. We want additional guarantees that our programs are correct, but it requires us to program differently because only certain types of programs have the properties that we wish to exploit. The benefit is that we _do_ have this additional information, so I agree that we should _use it_.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> >What all of these "obviously correct" methodologies ask you do is to sacrifice varying degrees of expressiveness at their altar.

In the case of static types, this is simply untrue. Embedding dynamic types into static type systems is a triviality. With compiled code, there is generally a substantial speed up at runtime assocaited with a good static type scheme.

See, e.g., [http://suereth.blogspot.com/2010/07/monkey-patching-duck- typ...](http://suereth.blogspot.com/2010/07/monkey-patching-duck-typing-and- type.html)

<comment><USER7> I think this is missing the point. On a practical level, most of these "obviously correct" methodologies have escape hatches: i.e. FFIs for memory safety. On a theoretical level, by embedding dynamic types in a statically typed language, you have a stratification where code written in the host typing is "clear of typing bugs", but code written in the embedded typing is less sound. You _need_ to distinguish between these two layers.

<comment><USER9> The point made in the OP is that expressiveness is sacrificed by having these safety features. This is simply not the case with static typing, because of the ease with which dynamic typing is embedded in a static type system.

"code written in the embedded typing is less sound" - Well the point maybe is that static typing did not bring quite the safety some thought it did: it only promised that these functions must return, if they do return, a value of a given type. The ability to model dynamic typing inside static typing shows just how weak this guarantee can be. More generally, it show there is no expressiveness sacrifice.

<comment><USER7> I think the crux of the issue here is "triviality."

I claim that it is nontrivial to embed dynamic types in a statically typed language. Usually this is due to the need to add lots of explicit coercions in order to interface with all of the code is actually statically typed. I can embed a dynamically typed programming language in my statically typed language, with its own libraries, but that's hardly "trivial".

Difficulty matters. Otherwise I can claim that I can bypass memory safety by writing a simulator for x86 in a memory safe language, and, well, the code that runs might violate memory safety (in some alternate sense), and thus, there is no expressiveness sacrifice!

<comment><USER9> "lots of explicit coercions" - even without recourse to generics, the overhead tends to be small. Really, try it. There's no need to write intepreters, let alone architecture simulators.

I tend to think the attraction of dynamic typing is the ability to run incomplete or ill-typed programs. If we have type inference, there is no real advantage in terms of conciseness.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > CPython was never explicitly engineered for performance, whereas the JVM had > decades of work poured into it.

* Often IO latency and throughput is such that fast CPU processing doesn't really matter. IO is the bottleneck and Python is often fast enough.

* Look @ speed and improvements in PyPy (keeping in mind their team size and budget) in just recent years vs JVM's man hours over the years. Just because there were decades of performance poured into it, doesn't make something proportionally better.

<comment><USER7> Interestingly enough, I was talking to Quora engineers about the problems they were facing scaling their website, and there was no doubt about it: CPU was one of the big problems. Yes, yes, I know, don't overengineer your systems in the beginning, but I really get the sense that if software needs to scale, it is going to need to scale in all dimensions, including CPU.

I'll note that the "JVM has had more hours poured into it" argument is meant to give PyPy the benefit of the doubt!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Quora's move from Python to Scala is a 'clear indicator' of the 'fact' that type safety is better? That's just a weak and clearly incomplete line of reasoning.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, my pre-readers jumped on that too.</comment></comment>


We need a Wikipedia for data (2008) - <AUTHOR> https://backchannel.org/blog/wikipedia-for-data <comment><USER2> See [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Main_Page](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Main_Page)

White pages, Stock data, Movie/TV/Schedules, realtime sports scores, etc. have a lot of commercial value and are for sale.</comment>


The dirty little secrets of transitioning away from Parse - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@suniltom/the-dirty-little-secrets-of-transitioning-away-from-parse-15522e2ce42d#65fe.d7kgi9lsl <comment><AUTHOR> Shocking to read that Parse migration guide basically says that there's no support for Analytics or Push notifications for existing Parse customers. They're on their own.</comment>


Ask HN: How do I get out of this self-imposed career rut? - <AUTHOR> This is hard to even talk about.
I'm a software engineer. I've been doing this job for 20 years. I actually started programming when I was very young, about 35 years ago. By all measures, I should be very advanced career-wise, but I'm being held back by imposter syndrome, low self esteem and social anxiety.
I feel like I'm unable to progress beyond the "Senior Software Engineer" level. Whenever I look at job ads for principle or lead roles, I can't help but think that I don't have the leadership experience or confidence to even make it worth applying.
I'm also a generalist, and while I have an uncommonly wide background (everything from front end to firmware, network engineering, system administration and security) that does mean that I'm not really an expert in anything.
I just started looking for a new job, and while I'm talking to companies like Amazon and Google, I'm finding it hard to really sell myself.
How do I get out of this rut and progress my career to a level commensurate with my experience? <comment><USER2> Finding myself in a similar situation, I don't have a whole lot of suggestions or advice. But I can say that you aren't alone. Thank you for bringing this up. It's helpful to know that I'm not only one that is in this kind of situation.

Genuinely interested in hearing others suggestions.

Especially, curious to hear from folks about breaking into the management side. Seems that there isn't a real middle ground they either want you exclusively as a developer, or to have had several years of management experience.

</comment><comment><USER3> Are you sure you want that job? I'm running into a similar situation. I keep thinking maybe I should start my own business. The problem is, the reason I've coded for so long is I like coding and I'm pretty good at it. Also, my kids are pretty young too. So, I'm not sure which way to go on things. It also could be I'm pretty unhappy where I work so maybe I need a new coding job.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Are you sure you want that job?

Yes, I want to have more impact and be able to use my experience to give more value to the companies I work for. It's hard to do that in a lower level position where all you can do is offer feedback rather than make decisions.

Increasingly, it seems like the Senior Software Engineer role has less value, with requirements like "5+ years' experience".</comment></comment>


How to Measure the Wisdom of a Crowd - <AUTHOR> http://news.discovery.com/human/group-intelligence-wisdom-crowd.html

<comment><USER2> I heard this story on NPR. The guy said that even though there were results to the study, they _didn't_ have a way to measure group intelligence effectively yet.

So the first part of the statement, 'The "intelligence" of a group can be measured, according to a new study, and it has little to do with the brain power of its individual members,' they say is true, but the second part is false.

Something that annoyed me about the study though is that they indicated that a sign of intelligence was taking in everyone's input and making a balanced decision. I'm sure a "group of intelligent people" came up with that one.

<comment><USER3> It does seem that those criteria would naturally lead to a team with equal participation being judged as more intelligent.

What appeals to me most about this article is the idea that a team's performance can be measured somewhat objectively. What remains to be seen is whether the team with the highest performance on the artificial tests yielded better performance in real-world scenarios.

If it's possible to put together a good team based on simple tests, it would be beneficial to every organization.

<comment><USER2> I agree that if it worked, it would be useful.</comment></comment></comment>


What Was Said at the Uber Dinner - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nicole-campbell/what-was-said-at-the-uber_b_6198250.html <comment><USER2> At first I was reeled in and started to see a different perspective on a pretty controversial story and then right towards the end, BAM! Nicole (author of the article) hits us with this important nugget:

 _I will admit that I am friends with Emil. We were both White House Fellows serving in different departments during the first year of the Obama administration where we both quit our jobs to take civil service positions to improve our country._

You would think someone commenting on such an important and controversial story in tech like this would fully disclose that she is in-fact friends with Emil and worked with him right at the beginning of the article? Seems like a big conflict of interest here and changes the tone from "see this from another perspective" to "I am defending my friend, so everything I write is going to be heavily biased"

I feel as though even Nicole's account is sensationalist in itself. This line right here: _At that point, I wanted to grab Emil. I kind of knew what Ben was up to._ \- A journalist asking questions at an event for journalists? Who would have thought such a thing would happen?

Nicole then goes on to confirm what the previous lines of text confirmed that this is an emotional and personal response defending her friend:

 _I am upset that Ben sensationalized what happened at that dinner._

I am not trying to say that the original story by Ben wasn't sensationalist, but it wasn't a fabricated lie either. Emil said what he said, this article even confirms that. I have no issue with Nicole rallying to the defense of a friend, I would do the same, but I would at least disclose the fact before, not after.

<comment><USER3> _Seems like a big conflict of interest here and changes the tone from "see this from another perspective" to "I am defending my friend, so everything I write is going to be heavily biased"_

Why? She is probably one of three or four people on the planet qualified to speak to what actually happened there. The idea that she should recuse herself from publicly posting an account of what she saw first-hand just because she's friends with the subject of the controversy doesn't hold water in my opinion. In fact, since pretty much every article that has come out (all by people who were not themselves in attendance) has had the goal of making attacks against the company and its executives, perhaps a friend of an executive who can offer a personal insight into what happened is the best person of all to write an account of what really happened.

It seems that the public at large is more than happy to be spoon-fed facts from Pando Daily, Gawker, and BuzzFeed who carelessly level poorly-researched personal attacks heavily-weighted with personal opinions and biases passed off as "journalism" without actually asking themselves the simple question- "What has my own personal experience been?" I for one like Uber and Lyft, and use both regularly. Never have I or anybody I know experienced any serious problem after having used them several hundred times, despite the constant onslaught of accusations that females are at risk using it.

Compare that to the taxi industry. In fact, just last week, after learning that I needed to pay for my ride with a card for expense reasons, refused to let me out of the cab and tried to drive me to an atm against my will and I had to call the police to make him stop the car. This is a true story. Happened last time I took a cab. Despite the fact that it is a law where I live that cabs MUST take a credit card.

I'm certainly not suggesting that it is okay to spy on people with the intent of blackmailing or evening the score (and I suspect most everyone would agree with that). I'm just suggesting that we be fair in our criticism. Blogs have a very real incentive to get the most page views that they can and are more than happy to do so at anybody's expense. I've seen that happen enough to know not to take anything I read on the internet at face-value.

<comment><USER4> Disclosing the friendship up front isn't a recusal. It's simple honesty.

<comment><USER3> Well then in that case, can we ask the likes of Pando and Gawker to disclose at the beginning of their accounts that they were not actually at the dinner and all information is based on second-hand accounts?

Maybe if they are feeling extra generous admit that they have a vendetta and personal bias against Uber because the CEO made a reference to "boobs" in an interview? Something that most people in the real world, I have to tell you, probably don't actually care about.

<comment><USER5> Uh, news stories are based on accounts. Are you saying every news story should start "I wasn't there, but a reliable source told me'?

Because that would get tiresome very quickly.

<comment><USER3> Uh, no, it was a rhetorical question. I'm saying that if we want to make some special case that the author must disclose that she knows the subject of her article before describing what she witnessed first-hand, then we should maybe recognize the fact that all other people reporting on this topic with so much certainty as to what happened weren't actually there. If you read pretty much any Pando article you will find that all citations to past articles seemingly supporting the main thesis are actually other poorly-researched stories written by other Pando authors. After all, how reliable is a source who is a writer for BuzzFeed?

Here's one example of sensationalist headlines masquerading as journalism from a cursory scan of the front page (yes, he is citing a BuzzFeed article that is apparently citing an internal memo that despite some crafty sensationalist language, is doing nothing more than outlining plans to hire an internal research department). Is this somebody who has a less-biased view of the situation that the HuffPo author?

[http://pando.com/news/uber-sought-to-hire-opposition- researc...](http://pando.com/news/uber-sought-to-hire-opposition-researcher- to-weaponize-facts/)

<comment><USER5> Nicole Campbell is not a journalist, so yes, very different standards apply to her when she is given a voice in a newspaper.

She has no career to lose and so must be far more open about her relationship. It's bizarre that HuffPo thought it was even appropriate to publish the story given that relationship, in traditional newspapers you would expect it to appear in the letters section not as an article.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If what she reports is how things developed, I think things look bleak for public discourse. It's as if we'll all have to censor our thoughts before pronouncing them. Sure, we can learn to think before we speak and have a lot of internal monologues, but, in the end it's the same. We internalize the thoughts and process them internally without being able to think out loud.

I think it's a shame one cannot think out loud for fear things will be taken literally. Yes, we can mask things by 'anonymizing' the conversations, so instead of using a real person as an example, just say someone or 'journalists'. but it's a shame people's dinner conversations or even pub conversations will be taken as their official edicts and sanctioned pronouncements --when lots of times there is boasting, bravado, nervousness and other times there are threats and other unsavory conduct. However, it's unfair to see it all as the latter kind.

<comment><USER7> _It 's as if we'll all have to censor our thoughts before pronouncing them._

You know, this really isn't a problem for people who don't have thoughts about silencing critics by intimidating their families.

<comment><USER8> From the previous discussion PandoDaily is a ValleyWag-type gossip site. If someone was writing about your own personal relationships, would you ever think you "might be justified" in doing the same?

<comment><USER9> What do you mean "ValleyWag-type gossip site"? ValleyWag was actually calling out Valley companies for the misogynistic shit they should be called out for, while everyone else was sitting quietly on the side.

<comment><USER6> I can't speak for the OP. What I think the OP is saying is that some outlets thrive on being sensational --one thrives on Hollywood sensationalism, this one may thrive on valley sensationalism --it just so happens to coincide with a social issue in this case, but that may just be coincidental --that is, do they take on all social issues whether they drive page views or not, whether they create outrage or not?

In other words, they both serve their own brand of red meat to their audiences.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Here is Michael Wolff's account of what happened at the dinner, whom Ben Smith, BuzzFeed's editor in chief, accompanied as a guest:

[http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/columnist/wolff/2014/11/...](http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/columnist/wolff/2014/11/19/behind- the-scenes-uber-buzzfeed-fracas/19269737/)

<comment><USER11> And many others: [http://dailycaller.com/2014/11/20/buzzfeeds-ben-smith- plays-...](http://dailycaller.com/2014/11/20/buzzfeeds-ben-smith-plays-dumb- about-company-investors-how-would-we-even-know/)

I'm not refuting any ethical questions that were being thrown around, but I would never trust Buzzfeed to do any honest and serious journalism. These are the same people that created the most annoying clickbait lists, sponsored news and their whole design seems to be centered around getting as many ad impressions as possible. Sensationalizing a story for their own benefits is not beyond them.

<comment><USER3> Not sure why you are getting down-voted. I agree 100%. If we are going to discuss conflicts of interest, we should start with the fact that BuzzFeed's entire business model centers on getting the most page views in the shortest period of time they possibly can.

<comment><USER12> Yeah, we should probably collectively start referring to those sites as online tabloids so that people don't confuse them with high quality news organizations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It seems like everyone considers this the most important question:

Should we, or should we not, have a witchhunt because of what this guy said over dinner?

I think this is the wrong question to ask. I've seen quite enough internet witchhunts over the last few years, and have come to the conclusion that they are always harmful, because they are never proportionate. You can't have justice if your mechanism of justice isn't proportionate.

<comment><USER14> It's an easy diversion to label any criticism a "witchhunt".

It's a witchhunt if it's merely an accusation without evidence. In this case, Emil Micheal publicly confirmed the veracity of the Buzzfeed report and apologized. In another example that was labelled a witchhunt, Brendan Eich was on public record as supporting an anti-gay proposal.

It's not a witchhunt if the people in question are attacked over what they do or say and not over unproven allegations.

As for proportionate, that's quite subjective. It's not a coincidence that the subjects tend to be fundamental issues of ethics and ideology over which opinions vary wildly.

<comment><USER13> People shouldn't be attacked for what they say.

My idea of free speech is a society where people are not afraid to speak their mind. Absence of government censorship is only a small part of it. It was good enough long ago, when governments were the only powerful groups that could scare you into silence, but today it's no longer enough.

<comment><USER15> >People shouldn't be attacked for what they say.

> My idea of free speech is a society where people are not afraid to speak > their mind.

Aren't the people doing the 'attacking' (assuming you're being metaphorical and I've not missed an account of a physical assault), also simply speaking their mind?

Edit: Just a note that this isn't specific to this case, but the general notion that you can say what you want without being criticized seems to actually limit the speech of others.

<comment><USER13> I suppose I'm just wishing for a society that would disapprove of political witchhunts the same way it disapproves of Eich's support of Prop 8.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> So, a coalition for responsible journalism, staffed by company journalists with the job of responding to negative articles that affect the corporate bottom line. You know, I am not sure that is a coalition for responsible journalism. Perhaps their slogan could be: _" This is about ethics in tech journalism"_.

Also, given the article is by someone who overheard an Uber executive suggest that Uber should pay people a million dollars to say nice things about them and disparage opponents, I must admit I am somewhat skeptical of the tone the article is taking.

Furthermore, given that Uber came out with an immediate apology and did not in any way claim that anything said by the journalist was false, I will treat a report by a professional politician who is both a friend and a colleague of Emil, with a grain of salt so large that Sisyphus couldn't roll it.

<comment><USER17> "BuzzFeed itself — a financial play as much as Uber is — has key investors who are investors in Uber's main competitor, Lyft. Those investors are, too, investors in PandoDaily. Does this have any bearing at all on the cost of tea in China? I don't know. But I know that little in this world is what it seems."

That's directly from the end of the linked article in Applecore's post. I haven't been following this "scandal" particularly closely, but from what I have read, I haven't seen many people talking about this.

If the identity of the author of the OP article causes you to take said article with a grain of salt, does a financial connection between Lyft and BuzzFeed produce another, similarly sized grain of salt?

<comment><USER16> About as big as the one created by the relationship between Uber and Buzzfeed via Chris Dixon, perhaps slightly bigger, but they sort of balance. edited to add - those two are much smaller grains though. As far as I am aware, the journalist has investments in neither and investors tend to have their fingers in lots of pies.

<comment><USER18> The bigger conflict of interest, and seemingly the lesser reported connection, is between Buzzfeed and Sidecar. Buzzfeed's Executive Chairman Ken Lehrer (listed second on their team page[1] after CEO Jonah Peretti) was a seed investor in Sidecar[2][3]. He would unequivocally benefit from Uber's downfall. And he seems pretty outraged by this story – he's only tweeted 113 times since 2012, but the last 13 of them have been on this issue.[4]

I have no idea how Buzzfeed works internally, so I don't know if their Exec. Chairman's connections could influence their reporting, but I feel like it's a significant enough conflict that it should have been disclosed.

[1]: [http://www.buzzfeed.com/about/team](http://www.buzzfeed.com/about/team)

[2]: [http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/side- cr](http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/side-cr)

[3]: [http://lererhippeau.com/companies/](http://lererhippeau.com/companies/)

[4]: [https://twitter.com/kenlerer](https://twitter.com/kenlerer)

<comment><USER16> It seems evident that Emil did suggest setting up a rather Orwellian coalition for responsible journalism that would be nothing of the sort. Even the nicer account details that rather well, amusingly blind to the fact that her version still sounds shady as hell. Now given that this was said to a reporter at dinner, the fact it came to be published represents normality and you do not really need to go digging through the investor list of the news organization involved to see why it got published. If buzzfeed hadn't carried it, someone else would.

edit - remember, this is the half-heard sympathetic version:

 _" The last comment that I heard was when Emil hypothesized about creating a coalition for responsible journalism. Ben said that would likely fail because companies have no expertise in journalism. Emil flippantly said he could hire professional journalists for $1 million to get the expertise to make sure that they could respond when negative articles come out."_

 _" I heard a mention of a Sarah Lacy and overheard Emil say that he felt terrible that by writing an article, Sarah had actually suggested that people choose less safe alternatives based on a charge of sexism that was really a personal attack on the CEO with no basis in fact. Emil then said that Sarah wouldn't like it if someone wrote false things about her or published an article that was factually wrong because we all have done things in our private lives we are not proud of."_

Even this version still sounds much like a plan for a well funded astro-turf operation with an implicit threat to go after journalists, specifically Sarah Lacy, no matter how flippantly, casually or politely it was said.

<comment><AUTHOR> Given the article, it sounds like he was baited into giving a sound bite that could be taken out of context, by a reporter at an off the record dinner. Given the full context, it sounds like they were discussing how a company COULD deal with reporters who write biased attack pieces (in this context it sounds like the reporter in question wrote an attack piece and didn't disclose a conflict of interest).

That might actually make for an interesting dinner conversation. What could a company do to protect itself from attack pieces written as actual journalism. It's bias masquerading as fact. A possible solution to that might be to investigate that bias and expose it (if someone writes an article for a company who has a major investor also invested in a competitor - maybe the public SHOULD know that, even if it's not disclosed because the writer isn't really a journalist but is pretending to be one on a blog). In fact, that shouldn't be too contentious of a position.

The problem was that 1) the quote makes it seem like the Uber Exec somehow advocated actually doing that (it sounds like he didn't), and 2) It requires knowing the context (that it's with regards to unethical bloggers who write biased attack pieces because of a conflict of interest they don't mention and not applied to ALL journalists). It's a complex point that requires context. The buzzfeed writer intentionally misrepresented that for clicks, but that's what buzzfeed does.

<comment><USER16> If it takes context to know what was said and you are saying that we do not know the context, how on earth are you making the claim that you know it was intentionally misrepresented, or in fact misrepresented at all?

For one thing, the response from Uber has not given the indication that this story was misrepresented, but rather has reinforced its reliability:

\---

 _" I wanted to apologize to you directly — I am sorry. I was at an event and was venting, but what I said was never intended to describe actions that would ever be undertaken by me or my company toward you or anyone else. I was definitively wrong and I feel terrible about any distress I have caused you. Again, I am sorry."_

\---

 _" The remarks attributed to me at a private dinner — borne out of frustration during an informal debate over what I feel is sensationalistic media coverage of the company I am proud to work for — do not reflect my actual views and have no relation to the company's views or approach. They were wrong no matter the circumstance and I regret them."_

\---

There is no indication there that the reporting was false and those quotes are direct from Emil.

<comment><AUTHOR> It takes context to know that 1) It was an off the record event and 2) that previous attack pieces were levied at his company and a reporter baited him into giving quotes that would sound incendiary without any of the context (i.e. answering the hypothetical question "how could a company stop biased attack articles).

The writer neither acknowledges his own conflict of interest nor does he give any indication that it's an answer to a hypothetical question. The real answer is that the uber exec isn't going to do anything about the attack pieces because they haven't done anything about them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Who ever would have guessed that Buzzfeed is not the paragon of sober, responsible journalism that we all thought it was? Next up: 24 things only people who have had their character assassinated by Buzzfeed will understand.

</comment><comment><USER20> Imagine if Uber CEO made a comment like Elon Musk did about the "D" in P85D and having "velcro on the sides of his pants." The media would be ALL OVER that.

Based on what I've read, Uber CEO sounds like a douchebag. But I'm not really sure, never met the guy or seen him in person, it's all from stuff read online.

But clearly the media loves to hate this guy.

</comment><comment><USER21> About the article - too little, too late. About Uber - not a big taxi user, but their idea is intriguing. About the Fourth Estate - sensationalism and some of the other sins of the press (e.g. coziness to govt, biz) have been around a while. Remember the Maine, mushroom clouds, Fox and MSNBC, and so far no real antidote save critical thinking - which isn't easy when untainted facts are scarce.

</comment><comment><USER22> Why would anyone invite a BuzzFeed editor to an off-the-record dinner, and not expect a sensationalist click-bait article to come of it?

</comment><comment><USER23> Wow. This whole controversy is interesting only because of how completely trivial it is. Really? This is what people are upset about? _A comment at dinner?_

And yet, in spite of it's complete triviality, it's important. Lots of people will scan their newsfeed and make the connection between Uber and "evil" \-- and that matters.

</comment><comment><USER8> dang, want to consider re-blocking Buzzfeed as a source? From the actual quotes in the first article it was obviously never a serious plan as the title insinuated it was. Now we have this. Someone's name's been trashed here on Hacker News and they didn't do anything wrong.

</comment><comment><USER24> Amazing how money can buy you press to defend yourself.

</comment><comment><USER25> I am happy to see a first-hand account of this that backs up my understanding of what actually happened (and am shocked to see it published on HuffPo). Sadly, this won't get nearly the attention that the original did, because it's more fun to scream about sexism and threats against children. I'm guessing that, unlike the target of their story, neither Ben nor Sarah will get a single letter from the Senate asking why they abused their position in the media and sensationalized this event to the point of absurdity. Sadder still, Sarah Lacy will have better ad revenue for the month than she's probably ever had - from what essentially was a fabrication.

This whole thing was disgusting, as was HN's wholesale acceptance of Sarah Lacy's nonsense as fact. I expected better.</comment>


Roger Penrose Says Physics Is Wrong, From String Theory to Quantum Mechanics - <AUTHOR> http://discovermagazine.com/2009/sep/06-discover-interview-roger-penrose-says-physics-is-wrong-string-theory-quantum-mechanics <comment><USER2> Of course it's wrong; all scientific theories are provisional approximations, and the conflicts between quantum mechanics and general relativity are well known.

The hard part is proposing an alternative theory that fits all the known evidence. Quantum mechanics and general relativity both match a ton of observations; anything that is going to replace them will need to _at least_ match the same set of evidence _at least_ as well.

Put another way--when one theory replaces another, it must be fully contain the previous theory. General relativity, when applied to everyday human experience (i.e. not super fast, super big, super heavy), produces Newton's law of gravity.

Personally I think the next step in scientific understanding is in information theory. It has the possibility of unifying chaos theory, computer science, physics, and biology. I think this is how we'll develop an description of consciousness for example. We've already seen some preliminary reports that information theory can reproduce gravitation theory for instance.

<http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/24975/>

<comment><USER3> You seem to be engaging more with the headline writer than with Penrose. They're both, perhaps, wrong, but Penrose is wrong in a far more interesting way.

Penrose doesn't just think quantum mechanics is wrong in the sense that it can't quite be lined up with general relativity, he thinks that quantum mechanics and consciousness are the same problem and that we can't understand one without the other. Now, to me this smacks a bit of the old argument:

1\. I don't understand baseball

2\. I don't understand women

3\. Therefore, women and baseball must be related somehow

but he has slightly better reasons than that for believing what he does.

Consciousness and quantum mechanics are both fascinating problems to understand; personally I don't think they're the same problem but I don't mind if some smart folks want to think carefully about the possibility that they are.

If consciousness is a property of quantum mechanics then this ought to be at least partially measurable. All you have to do is to construct an intelligent non-quantum computer and ask it "Hey, are you conscious?" Of course this doesn't really help you, because what if the computer just _thinks_ it's conscious but doesn't have _real_ consciousness the way we do? What would this even mean? What is it like to be an intelligent but non-conscious mind? In my own opinion the question is meaningless which is why I think consciousness is some kind of inevitable emergent property of intelligent systems; but of course there's thousands of philosophers out there tackling this very question so I won't pretend to have any original thoughts on it.

<comment><USER4> I don't understand why some researchers are so quick to blame our failure to understand consciousness on the fact that consciousness is a quantum phenomenon. I was under the impression that we're still nowhere near fully understanding the brain even from a classical perspective.

<comment><USER5> Okay, so, let me try to enumerate these.

(1) The hardest part of quantum mechanics to understand is intimately tied to our nature as subjects. Quantum mechanics is an entirely deterministic theory about waves in superpositions which even explains how, why, and when it disappears and averages out into classical probabilities. Except it doesn't tell you why we don't see your television as 50% in your bedroom and 50% in your living room. For that we start to invent things like many universes, half of which have a TV in your bedroom and half of which have a TV in your living room -- or Penrose's idea that perhaps some magical interaction not yet observed forces something as large as a TV to "make up its mind" due to its gravitational warpings. It's _just_ the fact that your _subjective experience_ doesn't see this TV as half in one place, and half in another, where the wavefunction description fails. The rest is clean, deterministic, and precise.

(2) The second hardest part of consciousness to understand is something we basically take for granted in the hardest part of quantum mechanics. Compatibilist theories of free will make you feel warm and fuzzy but they don't really feel like they address the fundamental mystery: How can a deterministic system be said to "choose" something when that's a fuzzy airy- fairy notion and the actual outcome was written down in the book of history 13.7 billion years ago, full stop? Why do we feel like we've got a million options open when in fact this is false, false, utterly false, moronically- out-of-touch-with-reality crazy false? But in quantum mechanics, the idea that a quantum system has many options open, and can even "sniff around" over the whole space, and that it might make a difference if it does or not -- these things are very acceptable even if you take a deterministic approach to wavefunction collapse. You could maybe in principle go from "warm and fuzzy but I don't get it" to "weird and fuzzy but I think I get it," if the brain is intrinsically quantum.

(3) The hardest problem of consciousness -- how we reconcile our touchy-feely alive experience of red with a machine's cold unemotional ones and zeros -- is very easy to solve by saying "we aren't a machine; subjectivity is something more than a program." In fact, since programs can carry out programs, if consciousness is mechanical we might well ask, how do you know that your brain isn't a different conscious process which happens to be carrying out your own conscious process, and might someday soon get bored and kill you out of its own boredom and desire to live authentically? (This absurdity is also at the heart of Searle's Chinese Rooom argument.) The problem is that machines are such a good model that we have no idea what to replace them with. If quantum systems could really feel in a way that machines really can't, this would solve the problem neatly.

(4) One minor problem in consciousness is about how I'm able to hear things as I am seeing them -- multithreading would suggest that we have multiple consciousnesses doing the separate tasks separately; multitasking would suggest that we switch between these things so fast that it gives an illusion that they all come together, but I can't really do both at once. Quantum mechanics offers a tantalizing hint; for example, in a superconductor, two electrons of opposite momentum "get together" to form a larger particle called a Cooper pair. (You're advised not to think too hard about how they "stay together" with opposite momenta, because It's All Just An Excitation Anyways.) That larger particle can even do something which electrons never can -- it can form a Bose-Einstein condensate: it can conduct current without resistance.

(5) Everybody who watches Star Trek wonders what would happen if someone accidentally forgot to dematerialize you before re-materializing you down on the planet -- which one would be the right "you"? Quantum systems cannot be cloned in this way. The closest we can get is to identically prepare a system -- i.e. take another baby with the same genetic code and give it all of the same life experiences, and kill the ones who don't make the same choices in the same order. Without one of those, you can't clone an arbitrary unknown system into two copies without measuring it and thus forcing it into a classical state. If consciousness is quantum, then the classical state is dead. But if consciousness is just a program, then we're faced with a much scarier situation: in the transporter, you will actually die, but that's okay, because we'll create an impostor who will sleep with your wife for you -- in other words, it's okay because _we'll never know the difference_ , and _you'll be dead_.

<comment><USER6> Just in case you are serious, or people believe you're serious:

1) Quantum mechanics operates on the quantum level. Macro objects, while composed of countless quantum systems, and thus are the result of the quantum systems of probabilistic particles and waves collapsing and such, are just that: the _result_ of the quantum systems. This isn't subjective experience; it's an underlying behavior baring forth a different level of behavior. Just as it's possible, but doesn't make sense to describe Tetris in terms of electrons flowing through copper and semiconductors, one can describe the quantum behavior of what the TV is constructed of, but that wouldn't relate a bit to the meaningful object you watch shows on.

2) Probability on the quantum scale has nothing to do with the brain making choices; even if understanding quantum mechanics turns out to be essential to understanding consciousness, the brain can't _change the laws of physics_ ; it can't decide that certain waveforms will collapse in a way that appeals to it. By the same token, if you're a rational thinker, you'd understand that yes, if one develops an accurate enough model of the universe, the base stuff it's made of, you can predict the future. That's literally what science is; developing models which will predict how certain systems behave in a given condition. However going back to bullet 1, the concept of "free will" has nothing to do meaningfully with the base stuff of the universe. It's technically possible to be described in such terms, but that's not where decisions happen.

3) Again, going back to rationality; humans are part of the same deterministic system, operating under the same deterministic rules as everything else that exists. Sure subjectivity _feels_ different than what we imagine a computer's (non)experience to be, but that's just a result of the conscious process (and the fact that most people don't empathize with machines).

4) I honestly don't even understand what you're trying to say here :\

5) This has nothing to do with anything at all but... _you_ aren't the atoms that comprise you. _You_ aren't even the -cells- that comprise you. "Seven years from now your body will be made of entirely different cells than it is now" and all that.

<comment><USER7> 1) The problem that quantum mechanics has with consciousness is that you can connect macro objects (a cat) with the quantum effects on the quantum level (detector), so that we should actually observe quantum effects on macro objects. That's why Schrödinger's Cat is a paradox.

2) You can't really predict the future of a non-trivial closed system from within the closed system itself - no matter how you would "calculate" the future, you would never be able to include the state of your calculator/computer into the prediction (perfect compression does not exist). I.e., if I make a machine that predicts the future, I know the future, I can act to change it, so the future is different... and the machine does not predict the future, really.

In a way, the universe is the computer that is calculating its own future all the time.

<comment><USER8> > In a way, the universe is the computer that is calculating its own future > all the time.

Reminds me of this book:

[http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Universe-Quantum- Computer-...](http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Universe-Quantum-Computer- Scientist/dp/1400040922)

> Is the universe actually a giant quantum computer? According to Seth > Lloyd—Professor of Quantum-Mechanical Engineering at MIT and originator of > the first technologically feasible design for a working quantum computer—the > answer is yes. This wonderfully accessible book illuminates the professional > and personal paths that led him to this remarkable conclusion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Is it true that you were bad at math as a kid?" "I was unbelievably slow... I always got lost... I was at least twice as slow as anybody else. Eventually I would do very well. You see, if I could do it that way, I would get very high marks."

Speaking as someone who still struggles with math, and was generally the dumbest kid in the most advanced classes, it's a huge relief to hear that someone as brilliant as Penrose experienced the same difficulties.

<comment><USER3> I don't know how old you are, but I'm pretty sure Penrose overtook you by the time he was your age.

<comment><USER9> Haha, that's an understatement, I'm sure he was light years ahead of me as early as 10. It's just inspiring to know that one can struggle with some of the basics and rebound to do great things.

<comment><USER10> I always felt I was slower than the other kids, but later I realised I was attempting to structure and understand the information whereas they were just regurgitating it. Once I did understand the information I could apply it far better than the others in class, and extend my understanding into new areas. That's just one reason someone may be "slower".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> A rather depressing interview. I enjoyed a lot of the explanations of Physics in *The Emperor's New Mind", but even there I could see big holes in his arguments about consciousness. For example, he talks about how its impossible to make an algorithm tile a grid in a certain way, but I had a screensaver which in fact did what he was saying was impossible. Here I just feel sort of sad and lost.

I think my least favorite line was probably this: "The trouble is, what can you do with it? Nothing. You want a physical theory that describes the world that we see around us." If you're going to use that to reject theories about the reality of the wave function, astronomers in the Renaissance would have been equally justified in rejecting the heliocentric system on account of it being at odds with what they saw around them, or Greek astronomers rejecting the notion that the world was round.

<comment><USER12> > astronomers in the Renaissance would have been equally justified in > rejecting the heliocentric system on account of it being at odds with what > they saw around them

False. Sights observed through a telescope were also part of "what they saw around them." A true theory accounts for _all_ the evidence (and if it's not ultimately reducible to or based on something you can get from the five senses, it's not evidence).

<comment><USER11> Telescopes don't show you that (contrary to what your inner ear is telling you) its the Earth that moves rather than the sun. At best they tell you that Jupiter has things orbiting it.

<comment> T-hawk Telescopes show that Venus displays phases like the moon while Mars and Jupiter don't, which is important evidence for heliocentrism and the order of the planets relative to Earth.

Telescopes also show that Jupiter's satellites experience eclipses, which isn't direct heliocentric evidence, but does tell you that Jupiter and its moons shine by reflected sunlight rather than intrinsic luminosity.

Telescopes also show sunspots, leading towards the discovery that the Sun is an active body, and to some notion of its size and mass. Telescopes can also show Venus transiting the Sun giving you a great idea of their sizes, which happened in 1639. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit_of_Venus#First_scientif...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit_of_Venus#First_scientific_observation)

The switch to heliocentrism didn't happen overnight or as the result of a single observation or event, but telescopes brought in many different streams of evidence for it.

<comment><USER13> Telescopes also show that Mars does loops as it pans across our sky

<comment><USER14> That can be seen with the naked eye.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> If anyone is interested in the earlier Hacker News discussion of this article, it is here:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=925539>

</comment><comment><USER16> This quite an old article.

> From the September 2009 issue; published online October 6, 2009

</comment><comment><USER17> Due to the inconsistency between quantum and relativity, I'm more inclined to believe that the problem is with relativity. The idea that physics is fundamentally non-deterministic satisfies me philosophically. If physics were deterministic, than I should be able to theoretically build a computer, input the state of the universe, and then be able to know what will happen in your life (assuming I don't tell anyone the computer output, because that would perturb the dynamics). I find that prospect far more unsettling than having to account for a superposition of states until I obtain more information in the future.

<comment><USER18> You would never be able to predict future states of the universe, simply because you cannot represent such states within the universe they represent. Without the ability to predict, the universe is effectively non-deterministic (literally, no one within it can determine its future states).

<comment><USER17> You make a good point. In my earlier post, replace "universe" with "solar system." Then, I can represent the states of the solar system in some subset of the universe, and I'll place this computer sufficiently far from the solar system so it doesn't interfere. Now I should be able to predict what happens on earth, unless you think that variables outside of our solar system significantly affect activities on earth, right?

<comment><USER19> 1) Don't underestimate the butterfly effect. 2) We can already predict the future to a certain extent. 3) What you wish the universe was like is irrelevant. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wishful_thinking>

<comment><USER17> Re 2: There should be an obvious qualitative difference between being able to predict where a ball will land if I throw it, and predicting who the passengers riding a particular train in 15 years will be.

Re 3: I was commenting on Roger Penrose's assumption that quantum must be "wrong" because it's "unintuitive" by expressing my opinion that I think quantum is more intuitive than deterministic theories. Indeed, Dr. Penrose and I are both using "wishful thinking," as did Einstein when he hypothesized that the speed of light is "constant in a vacuum." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light#Special_relativi...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light#Special_relativity)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Of course by this definition of wrong, Newtonian mechanics is wrong, which didn't stop me from taking a 400 level course on it.

<comment><USER21> Roger Penrose has fundamental thoughts about the physics and AI, not simply callling them wrong wrong in the sense of falsifibility..Read his books.

<comment><USER22> I don't think the aidenn0 is talking about falsifiability, but accuracy. As in, Newtonian mechanics is not 100% accurate, but it works well enough for macro-level calculations.

Like Asimov said, "when people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together." - <http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm>

<comment><USER23> That is what aidenn0 seems to be talking about, but that's not what Penrose is talking about. Penrose is very clear that the predictions of QM are extremely accurate. His contention is that the implications of QM cannot be true (that there must be parallel worlds or "it doesn't matter what's really happening in a superposition of states, just that the predictions are accurate"), therefore QM as it is today cannot be a part of any single unified theory.

<comment><USER24> So basically equation helps you to make your measurement more accurate. (on some scales) what happens underneath is known but can't be accurately measured because it interferes with physical process. (wich comes to no suprise because the measurmenst are done from whitin the universe while it's "running", and that is why your measurment will have effect on future state of universe, )

Seems like Penrose is claiming that different interpretations of this measurement interference are not necessary. thats what i get from article. at least.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Not much content in this article. Read his books to get a feeling for the breadth and depth of his thought.

<comment><USER26> Are any of his book suitable as casual on-the-tram reading? Could you recommend one of his books? Thanks.

<comment><USER27> I wouldn't say any of his books are exactly casual reading. The Large the Small and the Human Mind is probably the most casual in that it merely requires thinking and even then some of that is done for you the responses from Abner Shimony, Nancy Cartwright, and Stephen Hawking (contributing authors). The others require active engagement to work through. Especially Road to Reality - there is nothing casual about that one.

<comment><USER28> I started reading Road to Reality very casually– bought the book one day, next day I was in a Starbucks enjoying it and my tea. 10 minutes later one of the employees takes a break and the only table open is next to mine near the back. After a few minutes of sighing, stretching, and looking at the door to see if any new customers were coming in he turned to ask what I was reading. The next 30 minutes was the first and only time I have ever had a discussion about particle physics with a barista.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Note this: "I was unbelievably slow ... we had to do this mental arithmetic ... I was struggling away to do these tests ... I was at least twice as slow as anybody else."

</comment><comment><USER30> Personally I like the article, and I agree with his concluding paragraph that there must be coherence preservation somewhere.

You need to look at one of the pillars of quantum mechanics he mentioned, where the observables of a system are only the probability, and this is due to 'decoherence' from a measurement. What he's trying to point out is that the coherence in the system must be preserved somehow, otherwise where could it go? It seems that this is very central to the difference between quantum mechanics and general relativity, and that the tiny connections to marry these two are yet to be found. His position is clearly 'it's in the details' not 'we must change everything' of string theory.

This argument reminds me very much of Thorne–Hawking–Preskill bet about information paradox.

PS: fascinating development in quantum weak measurement, where trading off measurement accuracy provides a window into coherence of a system.

</comment><comment><USER31> We have so much more to understand about brain functioning in our current paradigm, and no pressing reason to try to build a new physics to help neuroscience. The theory of mind/experience of consciousness is an output of the brain, not part of its architecture.

</comment><comment><USER32> Penrose's idea about the relationship between Consciousness and Quantum Mechanics was used by Neal Stephenson in his SciFi tome, Anathem. Very interesting concept, mediocre book.

</comment><comment><USER33> I agree!

</comment><comment><USER34> It's so sad to see old age claim a great mind.

<comment><USER12> I don't understand what you mean. His intellect certainly shines through in the interview, especially in the latter part where he talks about physics.

<comment><USER11> Really? I thought that the parts about physics were really disappointingly fuzzy. Especially: "physicists have to say, well, somehow your consciousness takes one route or the other route without your knowing it." I think that its sort of shocking that he could fail to understand the arguments of his opponents so badly as to end up saying something so ridiculous.

<comment><USER35> I have a generally negative opinion of Roger Penrose's ideas, but let's be fair: the fuzziness here was probably inevitable, given the popular nature of the magazine interviewing him. If you judged scientists harshly for sounding like handwavy simpletons in condensed interviews for reporters, you would end up drastically underestimating most scientists who have ever had such an interview.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> > And yet the 78-year-old Penrose—now an emeritus professor at the > Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford—seems to live the humble life > of a researcher just getting started in his career. His small office is > cramped with the belongings of the six other professors with whom he shares > it, and at the end of the day you might find him rushing off to pick up his > 9-year-old son from school.

Wonder if that's his kid? If I were feeling particularly sour today, I'd look up how much extra risk of birth defects etc using 69 year old sperm (rather than a more normal 30-40s) entails.

<comment><USER37> You might want to start by looking up the way sperm is being produced. It will help you clear the confusion with the link between the mother's age and birth defects.

<comment><USER38> Age of the father does have an effect, actually. [http://www.webmd.com/infertility-and- reproduction/news/20030...](http://www.webmd.com/infertility-and- reproduction/news/20030701/dad-age-down-syndrome)

 _edit:_ Also, as someone who's had to use sperm donation to conceive...

> Wonder if that's his kid?

is pretty offensive. It's his kid, whether he's the _genetic_ father or not.

<comment><USER39> Although citation is needed, if I remember correctly, because of lacking healthy young Japanese men after WWII, ageing fathers' sperm contributed to at least as much to newborn malformations as the nuclear fallout.

But the thread also tells you about the euphemism under the guise of 'ego' in the article, and how society today is structured (ie. power of the old vs. youth in our times). At his age, he should clearly let go, by all standards, even if it so difficult. To quote a famous speech from another control freak who at least knew all about this, luckily Nature has provisions because it "clears out the old, to make room for the new. Right now the new is you. But you won't always be."

<comment><USER40> It's interesting that you mention the Japanese, because when I looked into it awhile ago, I could find no evidence of any increase in birth defects following the bombing. I could swear that we had pictures of deformed children in a textbook as a kid, so I started Googling it, but the only things I turned up said "no statistically significant increase".</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Hotline Miami 2 banned – critics label it "most violent" video game ever - <AUTHOR> http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/technology-science/technology/hotline-miami-2-rape-scene-4985256

<comment><AUTHOR> The game is cross-platform and should be released soon on Steam, where allowed.

[http://store.steampowered.com/app/274170/](http://store.steampowered.com/app/274170/)</comment>


Ron Paul: I'm worried that the government might kill Edward Snowden with a drone - <AUTHOR> http://washingtonexaminer.com/article/2531662

<comment><USER2> The US Government killing Snowden would be political suicide and only give the anti-surveillance movement teeth. (I'm not even sure that there is even a "movement" right now, but it would certainly become one if this were to happen.)

Ron and Rand Paul are just milking the NSA situation for all it's worth right now.

<comment><AUTHOR> When you've been warning the public about the government's overreaching spying programs for decades and a leak of this magnitude happens I think it's appropriate to milk it a bit.

<comment><USER2> At least he voted Nay on the Patriot Act :)

Not that it mattered... only 66 nays in House (63d, 2r, 1i) and 1 in Senate (1d).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> How many American people does the USA kill a day/month/year?

Drone attacks happen in the US too, but I think kills using the electric chair also count. I believe that these figures reveal the face behind the mask of the friendly Government.</comment>


Ask HN: Website advice on Drilling Down fast... - <AUTHOR>

The problem I have is I want to drill down very fast for the user in a web based environment.
Exp:
I have an organization I need to find located in Daytona Beach, Florida, USA.
If I gave the user a list or a map of countries they can look at, what is the fastest possible method to get to Daytona Beach?
I could go USA -> Florida -> Daytona Beach -> Organization. While doing so I create a new page each time.  This example can be seen at craigslist.com because thats how they do their drill down.
I was sort of thinking like a list on the very left of the screen. The user clicks on the country and a new list gets generated via javascript to the very right of it of states.  They then click on a State and a new list then again gets generated to the very right of that with cities. etc...
I would love to hear more ideas.  I want the fastest user interaction drill down with it being extremely simple for the user.
So, what do you think? <comment><USER2> Check out <http://tiddlywiki.com> \- They do dynamic display of content very quickly, very well. You should be able to learn from their approach.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. Not truly what I was looking for but it it def nice.</comment></comment>


Show HN: I collect 136 remote design jobs at GitHub, Chili Piper, Mondo, others - <AUTHOR> Hey HN!
During the period from January 13 to 19, I collected 136 jobs from popular job boards like Glassdoor, Flex Jobs, We Work Remotely, and others, as well as from Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit.
It takes about 3 hours a day to visit 78 sources that I prepared in advance. Here they are!
UX/UI Design Jobs – https://meerkad.com/remote-ux-ui-design-jobs
Product Design Jobs – https://meerkad.com/remote-product-design-jobs
Graphic Design Jobs – https://meerkad.com/remote-graphic-design-jobs
All Design Jobs - https://meerkad.com/remote-design-jobs
### Pros
Let's be honest, standard job boards - sucks! Look at the main differences between this list and those job boards that you could see:
- On average, five job openings for designers per week are published on each job board. I collect them manually and publish hundreds of vacancies during the same time in one place;
- No need to view all the job boards, I already did it for you;
- No need to register on all job boards;
- Job boards refer to each other. I collect direct links to the CV submission page. <comment><USER2> What's the difference with RemoteOK?

<comment><AUTHOR> The main differences are that most boards only jobs that companies pay them for and the number of jobs posted. RemoteOk has like 5 jobs for designers per week when there are more than 100 jobs available om Meerkad because they are collected from different sources and posted for free.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Simple idealistic idea. I want opinions. - <AUTHOR>

Hi,
Every city and town in the U.S. has unannounced and implicit and subtle ways in which individuals can maintain a good existence through hard economic times.
An example would be the time and place where food not bombs is active. Another would be how a local free clinic near where I live allows a referral program for children who sign up in which the members parents can get a discounted rate at the local "real" hospital if (for example) their child breaks their ankle or something (even if they never go to the free clinic for anything other than just to sign up for the referral!)
So the point is their are subtle and helpful location based nuances that only a handful of people who live in said area may even know about!
I'm thinking it would be cool to have a project where you take 1 small city, say Berkeley, and for a year just research and add these kinds of helpful nuances and organize them (maybe in a wiki-manner). Then if it's a success see if you can take what is learned and apply it to other cities/communities.
Ok...that's all. <comment><AUTHOR> Btw.. I set up a wiki awhile ago for the idea in case I decide to run with it. Helpknow.org

There is nothing there.

</comment><comment><USER2> Interesting. Sort of like a coupon site, but for civic services rather than cheap TVs?

<comment><AUTHOR> It wouldn't be a coupon site. Just a database. I don't know how you could make money off this.</comment></comment>