How AI automation could boost employment: The role of demand - <AUTHOR> https://bitsandatoms.co/how-ai-automation-could-boost-employment-the-role-of-demand/ <comment><USER2> "If demand for a particular good or service is highly elastic and AI does not completely automate the production of that good or service, then technical change would create jobs rather destroy them."

This is the fundamental problem with this article IMO. It assumes that human labour will be required to fill the gaps in an automated production cycle. But the ultimate premise of automation is that there are no gaps.

If you look at something like car production, first we automate the factory line, which creates more demand for cars, so we need more designers, etc. But ultimately the design becomes automated. Well, maybe we need more factory managers or other high level executives. Leaving aside that the number of those roles is inherently limited, even those roles could eventually be automated.

<comment><USER3> The premise is no gaps, but the reality is that some gaps are more difficult to close than others. Some gaps will continue as demand increases.

<comment><USER4> Car manufacturing is actually a great example of that, with Elon Musk saying "Yes, excessive automation at Tesla was a mistake." Manufacturing and "pick and place" are ongoing areas of research - for now, humans are unrivaled in them.

[https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/13/elon-musk-admits-humans- are-...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/13/elon-musk-admits-humans-are- sometimes-superior-to-robots.html)

<comment><USER5> The great thing about computers is that they do what you tell them to do. The bad thing about computers is that they do what you tell them to do.

The world is very complex, and it's often hard for the programmer or even the person training the AI to foresee every corner case of a complex system. The good thing about humans is that they can react on very small data, by knowing things from experience. They can think about what they're doing.

If we make advances toward a general AI this gap could close. Except in the media hype cycle I haven't seen any evidence that we're any closer than 50 years ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I always viewed the singularity-utopia / terminator-dystopia with a certain disbelief. In the end what drives all the progress and innovation is the demand. There will be new demands once the old ones are met.

Saddlers, Water-Carriers, Coal delivery men all went out of business, but productivity, income, quality of life is up compared to then and no one wants to have those jobs back.

Disruption will occur, but most of humanity will profit. If you want to help, concentrate on helping those that need to make a transition, instead of spreading fear of progress. Because then you'll just increase the amount of people in need to transition and reduce the available capital to help them out.

<comment><USER7> The problem with this line of thinking is that the cost of the transition is pushed onto the employee. Automation is a huge gain for the company while the employees whose work got automated need to pick up new skills themselves on their own time and cost. No one in their right mind wants to spend their senior years getting retrained and then having to compete with new grads. Ask yourself - would your boss be willing to hire a 60 year old programmer that spend most of his life doing something completely unrelated?

<comment><USER8> Problem with that line of thinking is that it doesn't seem to lead to anywhere. Or am I missing something?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> AI actually significantly effective in practical business would be strongly deflationary and put a lot of people out of work. The deflation would hurt people who have loans on real assets.

Then the good news is, the Fed just prints enough money to counter the deflation, and with the cheap money can hire people, if not for anything very practical then for things that are fun, e.g., high end home decorating, art, pure math and science, far out projects in computing, gorgeous roads, bridges, buildings, gardens. Then also for more things that are practical, e.g., medical research, curing cancer.

<comment><USER8> Why would AI cause deflation?

<comment><USER9> Everything the AI driven robots do will get done for less money, maybe a lot less. AI used for ad targeting will let advertisers get more for their money, spend less on ads per dollar of revenue, make advertising more efficient and, thus, lower the costs. E.g., some of the old print publishers learned a very hard lesson the hard way, "paid full tuition", about how much computing, and in particular, early Google style ad targeting, could be for ads.

If an AI controlled farm tractor can plow, fertilize, seed, cultivate, and harvest the corn or wheat crop on the North 40 acres, or the south 2000 acres, the farmer can do other things, corn and wheat prices can fall, will fall due to competition, etc.

Again, automation has made big, huge improvements in economic productivity, e.g., let what used to be mostly for royalty at huge prices available to nearly everyone at low to essentially free prices. So the old prices have fallen enormously, and that's definitely _deflation_.

E.g., we got our first electronic digital computers by people putting together vacuum tubes, resistors, capacitors, inductors. "If you have to ask what it costs, you can't afford it." So, maybe the price would ruin a few $million. Now, with massive automation of microelectronics, hurry up, buy before the price goes down farther, can get the processor in my startup's first server, and AMD FX-8350, 64 bit addressing, 8 cores, standard clock speed 4.0 GHz, quantity 1, retail, for less than $100, with money now worth ballpark only 10% of then. So, automation has produced several factors of 10 less in cost. Similarly for agriculture versus food gathering, ocean sailing versus oars, steam ships versus sailing ships, light from electricity versus whale oil, coal gas, kerosene, candles.

Apparently some applied math called AI has helped reduce some costs. Deflation.

<comment><USER8> If advertising costs go down because of AI, then advertising prices will go down too. That money then goes somewhere else entirely, but anyhow gets spent.

If there seems to be more money around for various causes than before, that looks to the market as if money supply has increased. Which definitely will cause inflation.

Business seems to be getting more profitable because of that applied math, so investing in it seems smart. True deflation would see value of money to shoot up so quickly, that you are better of if you just stuff cash under your mattress.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Alright, but not a very good title.

The article basically says that it could reduce employment for certain industries depending on the market it's automating. Whereas reading the title made me think it was going to be an article solely focusing on the positives of AI on employment.

And it doesn't even go into whether the boost that does come is better. It's very possible that a dozen or so low paying part time jobs are worse than having one high paying job.

<comment><USER11> That's not what the article says.

Its thesis is that automation of an industry first increases employment in it, and finally decreases it.

This is because early stages of automation reduce very high costs to a manageable level, increasing demand and increasing employment despite increased efficiency.

Later stages of automation reduce already low costs, so demand does not increase much and the efficiency gains translate to reduced employment.

<comment><USER12> It's also possible to reach market saturation regardless of price point. Even if a meal costs less than 1 cent and even if that's all anyone eats, you're going to have a really tough time getting fast food sales to exceed around 3-4 meals per day for every person on the planet. How many mattresses can a person use? How many pairs of scissors do you keep in your home, and how often do you replace them? How many haircuts would you get per month if they were free? How many root canals? Lowering prices may increase demand, but at some point, the concept of demand increase becomes ludicrous.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I have yet to see a single example of "AI automation" causing anyone to lose their jobs. In fact, I have yet to see a convincing example of "AI automation" of anything.

Please HN school me if there is an obvious example I am overlooking.

<comment><USER14> Ask any reporter. Or translator. Quite a few menial functions in soliciting/law/... (to give a stupid example: tax prep)

Now you might say, "that's not AI" that's

* crowdsourcing/ranking (facebook/reddit/youtube/twitter... any "feed" website)

* search/curation/quality scoring algorithms (google/all news curation websites/...)

* news/entertainment/stock market/weather rewriting/collecting/reporting/... algorithms

* specifically designed and implemented algorithms (ie. tax prep)

But all of these are in some ways very primitive AI algorithms (or you might say they're all advanced heuristic-enhanced breadth-first-search algorithms, including AI algorithms ... certainly true). And about the specific algorithms, these days they all use some form of AI (at the very least for expense classification).

The initial phases of AI will actually involve more jobs. Why ? The short of it is that what used to be middle management is much easier to automate than "individual contributor" roles.

Or, far, far more eloquent: [http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm](http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm)

But in the end AI will kill most jobs.

<comment><USER13> I guess pagerank counts as machine learning; totally not AI though.

Maybe translators is a good example. Machine translations actually are pretty crude, and IMO they got worse when they started using "advanced" stuff like dweeb learning; KNN was better. KNN is usually better, as it just uses the data, rather han a model of the data.

The other examples are not even in the ballpark. They're just algorithms.

See, when you say "in the end AI will kill most jobs" -people keep saying that, and it keeps not happening. I mean, you might be totally right, but it sure as hell isn't happening real fast or in any obvious way. If I look at the 8086 world of the late 1980s, it isn't super different from now. What awesome human superpower do I have thanks to 'AI?'

<comment><USER14> > What awesome human superpower do I have thanks to 'AI?'

Ok, let's name a few:

You can filter through 400 hours of video every minute (youtube's upload rate) and find, perhaps not THE most interesting videos to you, but at least videos interesting enough to watch a lot (Youtube).

Those videos can be subtitled. Again not perfect (not that human translators of videos were -on average- very good)

They can collect not just bucketloads, but absurd amounts of news and facts and write short summaries of what happened (ie. most of the newspaper articles you read these days)

You can instruct machines to do things just by asking them (alexa, cortana, google).

You can talk, over the phone, to thousands of people at once (using google cloud or amazon service, or you could hire a few machine learning engineers and give them a year to write stuff)

You can "program" robots to walk, crawl, and twirl pencils without so much as knowing what a feedback loop is.

You can generate infinite amounts (and lengths) of well-composed music.

You can generate infinite amounts of beautiful paintings or even pictures (and even video, really) of whatever you want in whatever style you want.

You can program a car to drive itself (getting a basic DNN algorithm up is not even that hard).

You can have a drone fly itself through dense foliage and not hit stuff, and more generally many tricks with drone flying that no human, or human programmed non-learning algorithm can do (and yet we still insist on model- based autopilots)

You can watch incredible amounts of timeseries and find things acting weird (very useful that one)

...

[https://www.reddit.com/r/machinelearning](https://www.reddit.com/r/machinelearning)

Good luck doing any of the above by hand.

<comment><USER13> Let's list them

Video filter: not AI, doesn't work as a video filter (aka searching youtube isn't actually searching video content), also nobody but NSA cares

Video subtitle: granted; pretty cool on the rare occasion it works in a usable way

News summaries: no, you can't do that

Talking machines: HMM existed in useful form in the 80s

Programming robots with 'AI' -no you absolutely cannot do this; anyone who tries to sell you this is a charlatan

Generating 'well composed' music/art: total nonsense -name one such piece of music or art. FWIIW LZW also generates canned music, and isn't 'AI'

Programming car to drive itself: no, you can't do this, despite the best efforts of Waymo's PR department to assert otherwise.

Drone flight; collision avoidance tasks & etc: nope total nonsense

"Watching timeseries:" this improves people's lives in what way? I'm aware of algorithms like SAX and so on; I'm also aware that moving average crossover is used a lot more often than ML based TS anomaly detection.

You have a big fat nothing burger above. 'AI' hasn't changed anyone's life in an appreciable way. The things you list above are ... very far from the singularity of mass unemployment that people seem to envision. Most of them actually seem to create more jobs. Most of the things you cite above visibly do not exist in the physical world, outside of PR press releases. The only stuff which does work, basically all it does is increase the level of totalitarian surveillance possible.

<comment><USER14> > Video filter: not AI, doesn't work as a video filter (aka searching youtube > isn't actually searching video content), also nobody but NSA cares

This video seems to disagree: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzTbptEdKhY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzTbptEdKhY)

(youtube is not ONLY using video content, not even mostly, but it is using it)

> Talking machines: HMM existed in useful form in the 80s

HMMs are machine learning. Sure it's statistical learning, but come on. And I would further argue that wavenet is a hell of a lot better.

> Programming robots with 'AI' -no you absolutely cannot do this; anyone who > tries to sell you this is a charlatan

Meaning it hasn't been productionized yet (and therefore it's very hard to do atm) yes. True. But it's also been shown to be possible:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUZUr7jxoqM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUZUr7jxoqM)

etc ...

> You have a big fat nothing burger above. 'AI' hasn't changed anyone's life > in an appreciable way.

I don't agree, obviously.

> The things you list above are ... very far from the singularity of mass > unemployment that people seem to envision. Most of them actually seem to > create more jobs.

I said exactly that didn't I ?

<comment><USER13> A lot of things that people "show to be possible" really haven't been shown to be possible; autonomous vehicles being the most obvious elephant in the room.

Your argument seems to be "we have gradient boosting and HMM and they are useful for things" which I certainly don't disagree with; I mostly make my living using such tools.

What I do disagree with is the idea that it meaningfully increases human power over nature, or changes people's day to day lives. A list of things which meaningfully increased human power over nature: flight, radio, computers, networked computers, electrification, antibiotics, the microchip, nuclear power, the green revolution, steam engines; maybe even stuff like Pagerank/sparse SVD.

The subject known as 'AI' seems to be down around ... I dunno, electric lawn mowers in its impact on human life. You can assert that the difference is gonna be real big one of these days; people made such assertions as far back as the 1960s, but so far, it totally hasn't made much of a difference. Yet your prediction, completely without any basis in the corporeal world, is that AI will eventually eliminate most jobs. Why do you think this?

<comment><USER14> Well I've driven in a Waymo car, and I've driven around Mountain View on the street with Waymo cars.

It's probably only fair to warn you that it'll be quite hard to convince me they don't really drive autonomously.

> without any basis in the corporeal world, is that AI will eventually > eliminate most jobs. Why do you think this?

Waymo + Tesla + ... + [http://mentalfloss.com/article/61541/most-common-job- each-st...](http://mentalfloss.com/article/61541/most-common-job-each-state) seems to me like asking for trouble.

(Europe's map looks similar btw)

<comment><USER13> You realize Waymo uses remote pilots, right?

[https://www.wired.com/story/phantom- teleops/](https://www.wired.com/story/phantom-teleops/)

Disclosure; I attempted to patent this idea before they were public with it, because I know the autonomous claims are baloney, and there was an obvious way to look like it wasnt baloney.

I also just spent two weeks driving an Audi A-8 around Germany; most advanced 'autonomous' technology there is in a production car supposedly.

<comment><USER14> I would expect nothing less, actually. This seems a very reasonable to provide an "out" for the AI.

Are you really going to assert that autonomous control doesn't exist unless there is no option at all for it to call for help ?

Your link says it itself:

"This is a backup system for moments when the car isn't sure what to do, so it comes to a safe stop on its own and calls for help."

The article likens it to elevators. Because elevators _all of them_ "have operators". Really. Behind a phone line. Would you really argue elevators don't move by themselves at the direction of a customer, but only move at the oversight of a remote operator ? Because that's one of those things that's technically true ... and yet so wrong it's almost ridiculous.

Now of course self-driving tech isn't quite up to elevator level of reliability _yet_.

Also I'd like to point out that even under those circumstances, people would still lose their jobs. Because it'll allow 1000 trucks to be controlled by, first 200, then 100, then 10, then 1 drivers. Even if 80% lose their jobs, truck driver will stop being a significant percentage of employment, and if it was one company it is now the biggest employer in more than 70% of all US states.

As in, I hear you, and very interesting article, but it doesn't seem to change anything in the discussion.

<comment><USER13> You're really persistent in your beliefs, I'll give you that.

I suppose I am too; filling out those patent forms was a lot of work.

Query: why do you think the military doesn't have any autonomous ground (or air) vehicles? Military virtually always has the most advanced tech; unlimited budget -lots of motivation for supply lines which run themselves and can't be shot at, lots of reasons not to expose expensive soldiers to fire, and very little care for stuff like safety. Yet, somehow they have no such things. I wonder why that is?

<comment><USER14> They don't have remote control supply lines either, and those we can certainly make, which you seem to agree with ... so I must say I don't know.

I have consulted for the military, and frankly I was amazed that there seems to be no correlation between intelligence and rank. Especially some lieutenants were incredibly smart but several colonels ... I wouldn't trust them with tying their own shoelaces. This resulted in extremely smart and well organized groups trying to work with complete morons.

And I must say, that results in a pretty stupid whole. The damage the idiot groups inflict is not compensated by the better parts of the organization. Not in logistics. Not in radar operation (where I consulted). Not in organizing the cafeteria. It seems to me that it is utterly impossible to get fired for incompetence in the military. So they keep working with total idiots, even promote them.

What I'm saying is that it's the military. They have awe-inspiring gear. They have some very smart people (they pay consultants in some areas very well, so the truly do have incredible people that are such a pleasure and inspiration to work with). They also have some incredible idiots at every point on the rank ladder. And occasionally they decide on policies so incredibly stupid they are equally awe-inspiring, because the idiots do much more damage than smart ones can fix.

I don't believe it is reasonably possible to predict what the military will do. Especially when it comes to policy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The article does not go far enough in expanding the scope of consequences. When consumers start buying more stuff at lower prices, they are diverting money that would probably be spent on other things. Hence there is no net change in consumer spending, only a shift in where they spend their money.

Automation always results in labor cost reduction for the one implementing the automation. If it did not, they wouldn't do it.

<comment><USER16> That's a misunderstanding. For each unity of a good, production costs go down, as do labor time. But because the goods are cheaper, more people may want to buy them, or people may want more of them, so the total labor time goes up.

That effect become known by the name of Jevon's paradox. If you want to, wikipedia has a large and well explained article. It has been spotted on practice enough times so that one should not question its existence. It's also the reason why software development salaries have kept increasing while the tooling allows for larger and larger productivity.

That said, it only happens some of the time, when demand has the correct properties.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> So how do you measure demand's price elasticity in a market before the entry of a technology? Asking for a friend...

<comment><USER18> The hardest part would be understanding how much people will adjust their long term behaviors. Grandma might continue wearing that one pair of clothes out of habit. But the younger generation will more quickly adapt to the new norm.</comment></comment>


Why the Obamacare Website Sucks - <AUTHOR> https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2013/10/21/Obamacare-website <comment><USER2> Not impressed. E.g. his knock on the Strategic Defense Initiative ("Star Wars" per its detractors) is on a architectural strawman constructed by its enemies, the people involved planned on sane, somewhat independent defense in depth systems, where one failure of any sort would hopefully be compensated for by the other systems. E.g. "Brilliant Pebbles" were entirely unnetworked except for the necessary "GO!" signal, each would look at its view of the the attack and decide which booster it should try to take out.

And it ignores its stunning political success: the Soviets, after Brezhnev pretty much bankrupted the country with a return to Stalinist repression and all the money spent on the military, especially the 3 complete armies of armor on down supplied to North Vietnam (one used up piecemeal, one destroyed in the first post-"peace" attack, the final succeeded because the Democrats stopped supplying the South with ammo), and the Strategic Rocket Forces.

The latter of which SDI was going to entirely obsolete in one "generation"; faced with the expense of replacing all that investment, and the loss of first strike capability (you have to count on your enemies defenses working somewhat, _and you can 't pick which warheads make it_), threw in the towel. We won the decades long Protracted Conflict/Cold War "without firing a shot", one of the greatest diplomatic successes in history. But it's an _Idée fixe_ among the ignorant like Bray that it was an impossible failure, heck, he doesn't even consider people like me to be sane, "the foaming-at-the-mouth right wing".

Oh, yeah, the embedded systems contractors who do this sort of work have a _much_ higher rate of success, and frequently not one you can fake in peacetime, either that fly-by-wire plane flies or crashes. The success of e.g. the F-16, F-117, F-18, B-2, F-22 speak for themselves. And the ABM Standard Missile 3 and it's supporting AEGIS system sure seem to be able to blow up things....

So if he's this stunningly ignorant or biased about a proven governmental success, how much is the rest of his judgement to be trusted?

Like this ludicrous analysis, either massively ignorant of the basic facts, or trying to protect the political and civil service types responsible for this mess. Seeing as how those masters of the universe in the HHS's CMMS decided to handle the integration job of coordinating 50+ contractors, including integration testing per the AP. And made it impossible for them to succeed: per the NYT " _In the last 10 months alone, government documents show, officials modified hardware and software requirements for the exchange seven times._ " ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6583327](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6583327)), those changes continued through the last week before the launch, and full testing obviously was delayed until that last week.

<comment><USER3> "So if he's this stunningly ignorant or biased about a proven governmental success, how much is the rest of his judgement to be trusted?"

This is Tim "XML" Bray. So, yeah.

<comment><USER2> XML???

I rest my case ^_^!

Seriously, I know an equivalent S-expression system wouldn't have been accepted, but it's nonetheless an over-complicated nothingburger to us Lispers.

More seriously, XML is a micro level thing, it says _nothing_ about his high macro level political and systems development knowledge (proven to be sorely lacking as I demonstrate), goodwill (ditto), or expertise ( _seems_ to be sorely lacking, but that could be politics interfering).

To make one point perhaps more clear, he's talking about a inextricably political thing and can't help but to totally denigrate the other side _on false grounds_. Doesn't even have the self-discipline to hide it. So he impeaches his comments, showing he's not to be taken any more seriously than any random Joe programmer on the street. Or rather, even less seriously.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I love that definition. Enterprise Software means "Doing It Wrong". So many management folks just roll over and play dead when an IT guy says "This is an Enterprise class package" not realizing that the IT guy has just said "I don't have a clue what I am doing. Sadly, business schools try to teach managers how to make hard decisions, but in the IT realm, they seem to forget everything they have learned.

And it's not as if there are no examples of how to manage technology projects around. Look at an aircraft manufacturer or NASA and see how much they rely on incremental change followed by lots of testing.

</comment><comment><USER5> > "The chances that the most elite squad imaginable of Googlers, Facebookers, > NSA geeks, and Government-of-China attack hackers all laid end to end could > have made this work at startup? Zero."

Yes they could. Look, one of my good friends works at Duke, and they're constantly pulling from legacy, disparate, the most xml you've ever seen, medical systems all the time. The amount of J2EE -0.35 code would make you cry. Sure this is definitely on a larger scale, but it can be done. By scale I mean the amount of disparate systems, not the comical amount of traffic the site got.

Healthcare.gov is an oversized wizard sign up form. Sure there could be bugs later in the process, but signing up a user shouldn't have these problems.

I'm hoping that as a developers everybody can see that.

No way of knowing the amount of people that are signed up? No, that's either some crap the government is feeding us, or a sign that this is an over engineered pile of dog turd.

> "Could Healthcare.gov work? Sure. It probably will, eventually." Eventually > is a good word, but throwing more programmers at the problem will only make > it worse.

<comment><USER2> All correct points. And I myself have interacted with lots of older (pre-J2EE) systems, they tend to be characterized by stability and sanity, however weird. Grok the formats, write adapter code, you can get the job done as long as you don't exceed their duty cycles.

You're right, those going on the record are feeding us crap, although the site is a _bit_ more complicated because it wants to confirm identity to reduce fraud (although a lot of that was punted; this is a separate system done by another contractor using Oracle's identity system; CMMS panicked and proposed to replace it 3 days after launch), it _must_ get FICO scores (from Experian as it turns out) because that's a part of insurance policy pricing, and it and only it (or a subsystem below it) is the only allowed source for all sites' subsidy calculations, which are utterly important for Obamacare to work (otherwise a lot of less wealthy people and families simply won't be able to pay for policies, since there's only one gold-plated type now legal, the old major medical ones are outlawed come Jan. 1).

Except perhaps for getting the FICO scores, all of the above is being observed to frequently fail, as is the interfacing to the insurance companies (which ought to be _de novo_ ), they're getting self-evidently bogus data including multiple enrollment and cancellations of the same person.

Who know's who's responsible for the latter, but CMMS is unquestionably responsible for making sure that worked.

" _I 'm hoping that as a developers everybody can see that._"

For far too many, like Mr. Bray, revolutionary truth beats bourgeois truth ... pity that attitude is slamming into the brick wall of reality, that computers do _exactly_ what we tell them to do, not what we want them to do. Which of course is delaying any steps that would get this fixed in time, e.g. the White House and CMMS have been consumed with the launch mess for 3 solid weeks and hope to have a plan come Thursday, vs. e.g. the White House realizing CMMS as the integrator, including integration testing per the AP, and HHS/CMMS as requirements specifier are part of the problem, not part of the solution to any likely fix before things get really ugly.

And as you note, ignoring the lessons of _The Mythical Man Month_ " and throwing more programmers at it, calling it a " _tech 'surge'_" (an odd call out to Bush competency or a precursor to blaming it all on Bush? :-)</comment></comment>


Clinical Trial on a Public Blockchain - <AUTHOR> https://email@example.com/the-worlds-first-clinical-trial-in-production-on-the-blockchain-has-just-been-announced-by-the-e05b73557dd0 <comment><USER2> The authors of this article don't seem to understand that "Blockchain technology" don't prevent people from simply entering fake data. Many of the things discussed in this article, for example informed consent forms, can be easily bypassed by simply either fabricating consent forms or entering data with fake dates.

At the end of the day, the hard part with clinical trial security isn't securing the data/documents (the FDA as a centralized trusted authority does quite a good job); the hard part is ensuring that the data entered actually matches reality. Blockchain technology doesn't help at all with that problem. Blockchain technology is only really useful when you don't have a centralized trusted authority like the FDA. However, in most legal scenarios (like clinical trials), a trusted centralized authority is readily and cheaply available and thus blockchain technology is worse than useless: it only adds additional cost and complexity with minimal benefit.

PS: I highly recommend people check out [https://clinicaltrials.gov/](https://clinicaltrials.gov/) It's the US's public repository of clinical trials that contains details about many clinical trials and results. That one website probably contains a good fraction of our total human knowledge of what drugs/procedures do.

<comment><USER3> Published hashes can prevent people from entering fake data _at a later time_ though, which is quite interesting. (It has nothing to do with blockchain though.)

<comment><USER2> That problem is already solved though by the FDA (and clinicaltrials.gov). Once you submit your documents to the trusted authority you can't modify them without it being super obvious.

<comment><USER4> This is only done after all data has been collected an analysed (from multiple clinical trials!) and when a company is looking for market authorization. So clearly if anyone wants to alter their data, they would do this prior to submitting their study dossier to the FDA. This has happened time and time again....

It is therefore crucial to make sure data cannot be altered AS SOON AS IT IS COLLECTED. At this point, one would not yet know how to alter the data and if that would steer results in the 'right' direction (researchers are blinded for instance).

So I definitely see value in creating a cryptographic hash of a data point, and immediately registering it in some immutable database (which could be blockchain, or a different solution I suppose)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you read their academic paper linked at the bottom, they actually undermine their entire system in a laughably silly way:

> For each user, a pair of private-public keys were provided > ([https://msdn.microsoft.com/fr- > fr/library/windows/desktop/aa3...](https://msdn.microsoft.com/fr- > fr/library/windows/desktop/aa387460\(v=vs.85\).aspx)). These are asymmetric > cryptographic data that enable authentication on Blockchain. These were > randomly attached in one-to-one correspondence to the user's emails. We > focused on Blockchain's usage in the time-stamping and archiving logic. We > did not let users create or use their own Blockchain authentication setup > (i.e., if a user owned a Bitcoin account, the key and Bitcoin address were > not allowed to be used). This restriction was related not to the Blockchain > complexity but rather to maintain a simple and common email-focused > authentication process. Other ways for authentication include the physical > devices USB keys or cell phone fingerprints, but this would have been > outside the focus of our protocol-related problematics.

So basically, we didn't want users to have to bother with this whole private key thing, so we'll hold on to those private keys for them. In other words, they have full control of whats written on the blockchain and users just trust them - which is the exact thing blockchains are trying to get rid of.

[https://f1000research.com/articles/6-66/v5?source=post_page-...](https://f1000research.com/articles/6-66/v5?source=post_page</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>---)

<comment><USER6> Except very few want to manage their keys and are more than happy to have a custodian.

Blockchain doesn't solve human behavior, or much of anything IRL.

<comment><USER7> >Blockchain doesn't solve human behavior, or much of anything IRL.

Blockchain solves a very select few problems, which are important, but not _every_ problem.

Imagine if I told you I could turn on your coffee machine with a SQL database. Why the hell would you care?

When you think blockchain, think database. When you think database, think Excel. Can your problem be solved with Excel, and your stakeholders made happy with it? If the answer is yes, YOU DON'T NEED BLOCKCHAIN.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Why use that tech - "But, but, but, but it's blockchain!" (I don't have a smiley for beating head against wall.) Sounds like almost all blockchain projects - doesn't solve any of their problems ... but it's blockchain ... fashionable amongst the ignorant. The only practical purpose for blockchain is to gain project funding.

How about [https://blog.smartdec.net/you-do-not-need-blockchain- eight-p...](https://blog.smartdec.net/you-do-not-need-blockchain-eight- popular-use-cases-and-why-they-do-not-work-f2ecc6cc2129)

<comment><USER9> That fact that you can prove to all stakeholders that the data about a triall is complete, hasn't been altered is very powerful when you have many parties and many documents, where you still need to provide proofs in the future.

This solution allows you to prove it on an individual document level, all the way up till dossier or clinical trial level. Meaning you can prove that not a single document has been added, edited or deleted in ten years time for instance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Clinical trials are all about collecting trustworthy data that demonstrate safety and efficacy. Large trials can collected over a million data points.

I personally see a lot of value in creating cryptographic hashes of these data points and documents, and registering them in an immutable database. This would prove that the data/document is not altered at a later time, and increases its trustworthiness.

However, I see quite a few commenters here who do not see that value. For you I have the following question:

"How would you prove that a data point or document has not been altered"?

(No, this cannot be done by the FDA or Clinicaltrials.gov)

Please bear in mind that researchers could indeed use fake data in these cryptographic hashes. But at the moment it is collected, they would have no idea what they should alter because they are double-blinded. The results and implications only become clear when analysing the data after de-blinding. So proving the validity prior to analysis is where the value lays.</comment>


What the Negative Price of Oil Is Telling Us - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/21/upshot/virus-deflation-negative-oil-prices.html <comment><USER2> Don't submit this crap here.</comment>


Graph databases and Python - <AUTHOR> http://de.slideshare.net/MaxKlymyshyn/odessapy2013-pdf <comment><USER3> Does anyone have a good list of books, tutorials, howtos and whatnot about graph databases in general, preferably with python examples (but any language is good really...)?

I've used graphdbs in the past but a nice collection of patterns and best practices would be nice - upping my game on this topic is a current interest of mine!

<comment><USER4> [http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920028246.do](http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920028246.do)

This is a good book for a quick intro to graph dbs for anyone interested.

<comment><USER5> The book is free for download at [http://graphdatabases.com/](http://graphdatabases.com/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Could anyone explain to me what it means "native" versus "non-native" graph processing in that slide show? Ditto for "native" versus "non-native" graph storage. I simply have no idea what I'm supposed to picture when I see that.

Also, on the neo4j.org page, the claim that "graph data model['s] expressiveness supersedes the relational model" seems a little bit spurious, seeing as, as I understand it, the relational model and graph data are both anchored in first-order predicate logic, and therefore should be able to do the same things essentially (although Codd-style RDBMS with a little bit more fuss regarding the necessary schemas).

<comment><USER7> _Could anyone explain to me what it means "native" versus "non-native" graph processing in that slide show?_

One of the leading native graph processing engines is GraphLab ([http://graphlab.org/);](http://graphlab.org/\);) however, the creator of GraphLab, Dr. Joey Gonzalez, is now focused on GraphX, which is essentially GraphLab built on Spark ([http://spark.incubator.apache.org](http://spark.incubator.apache.org)), which is a non-native analytics platform.

Building a graph-processing engine on a general processing system like Spark makes pre-processing and post-processing much easier.

See "Introduction to GraphX - Presented by Joseph Gonzalez, Reynold Xin - <USER2> Berkeley AmpLab 2013" ([http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKEn9C5bRck](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKEn9C5bRck))

Also, a bunch of advancements in graph processing are coming down the pipe, which will be released in a few months (see [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6786563](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6786563)).

 _Ditto for "native" versus "non-native" graph storage._

See this post by Dr. Matthias Broecheler, the creator of Titan ([https://github.com/thinkaurelius/titan/wiki](https://github.com/thinkaurelius/titan/wiki))...

"A Letter Regarding Native Graph Databases" ([http://thinkaurelius.com/2013/11/01/a-letter-regarding- nativ...](http://thinkaurelius.com/2013/11/01/a-letter-regarding-native-graph- databases/))

<comment><USER6> So essentially, it's totally meaningless marketing bullshit? As much as I favor memory optimizations, I think that merely trying to linearize the access patterns is completely futile in the case of graph databases. On that level of brute-force approach to speeding things up, you'll most likely gain more performance by using lower-latency memory modules, or simply by using different data structures to accommodate for your specific cache line sizes and latencies, then by trying to linearize generic graphs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I just joined a project using neo4j. They're using the latest version so we've had to build our own python tooling. It's still very immature but hopefully we'll get it into an opensourcable state.

Modelling in graphs is new to me so I was wondering if anyone had any tips or pointers.

<comment><USER7> It shouldn't take too much to update Bulbs/Neo4j to Neo4j 2.0 -- add the Gremlin Plugin on Neo4j Server (which isn't installed by default anymore) or swap out the Bulbs built-in Gremlin scripts for Cypher equivalents, if Cypher will let you do everything you need...

Bulbs Python Client: [https://github.com/espeed/bulbs](https://github.com/espeed/bulbs)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm working on a project that requires a tree datastructure (basically a graph but with only single-direction parent-child relationships) and the number of nodes will stay under a thousand. I could have chosen a graph database, but for my level of complexity I just used postgres and a table that has foriegn- key relationships to itself.

Then I made a rails front end using the acts-as-sane-tree gem, which is designed to use this postgres data model and recursive queries: [https://github.com/chrisroberts/acts_as_sane_tree](https://github.com/chrisroberts/acts_as_sane_tree)

<comment><USER10> Have you looked at the ltree extension for postgres? [http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.3/static/ltree.html](http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.3/static/ltree.html)

It's quite fast.

<comment><USER9> No, looks cool though. That would impact deployability to heroku though, yes?

<comment><USER10> It's on their list of approved extensions [https://postgres.heroku.com/blog/past/2012/8/2/announcing_su...](https://postgres.heroku.com/blog/past/2012/8/2/announcing_support_for_17_new_postgres_extensions_including_dblink/)

You should be able to say:

        CREATE EXTENSION ltree;

In the database you want it in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I had a look into python client library for neo4j a year ago, and couldn't find a way to perform multiple graph writes in a single transaction, because the only API available was the http one. Has that changed since ?

<comment><USER7> You can use client-side or server-side Gremlin scripts for this...

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/16759606/is-there-a- equiv...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/16759606/is-there-a-equivalent- to-commit-in-bulbs-framework-for-neo4j/16764036#16764036)

Here's how to use server-side Gremlin scripts in Python with Rexster, which is TinkerPop's open-source server that runs multiple graph databases, including Neo4j...

[https://groups.google.com/d/topic/gremlin- users/Up3JQUwrq-A/...](https://groups.google.com/d/topic/gremlin- users/Up3JQUwrq-A/discussion)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Page 10 "Я из Одессы я просто бухаю." translation: I'm from Odessa I just drink. Meaning his drinking a lot of "Vodka" ^_^

<comment><USER13> This is local meme - when someone asking question and you will look stupid in case you don't have answer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Many things in the graphdb space are broken.

Tinkerpop people are pushing too hard Gremlin DSL/API/whatever which is AFAIK only useful in some situation somewhat complex and more or less a nice way to write some common queries. But in simple situations any language with the raw Graph API can do the job. And there is still no drivers for Python in Rexster. I tried, but it was too complicated. Rexster itself is too complicated.

Neo4J with their own query language made things even more complicated. Instead of a "Graph that can be queried with your preferred language" you get a "Graph that can be queried with something that looks like SQL but is not"

ArangoDB is nice for people that want to do JavaScript full stack. Which is not the case of people doing Python.

Also, there is nobody marketing graphdbs just saying "it solve the general problem". period.

The only thing that may hold you back from using graphdbs are performances but in _a lot of situtations_ you don't care especially in situations where you want to be flexible and to move fast. That's where GraphDBs shine a lot. Of course there is also the graph/tree problem solving space but this is taken for granted.

GraphDB actors market a lot the _specialized database_ aspect of graphdbs, nonetheless graphdbs are good even for solving generic webdev problems.

Also if you are looking for a Graph Database server that does just that, and where you can query the graph in Python 2.7 (or Scheme) have a look at: [https://github.com/python-graph-lovestory/Java- GraphitiDB](https://github.com/python-graph-lovestory/Java-GraphitiDB)

<comment><USER14> please explain the downvote.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The last graph database that I used for a large project was Virtuoso, which wasn't mentioned in the slides. It's worth a look:

[http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/doc/dav/wiki/Main/](http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/doc/dav/wiki/Main/)

</comment><comment><USER16> graph-tool is a Python library for graph handling:

[http://jugad2.blogspot.com/2013/01/graph-tool-python- module-...](http://jugad2.blogspot.com/2013/01/graph-tool-python-module-for- graph.html)

</comment><comment><USER17> For interactive neo4j examples see:

[http://blog.neo4j.org/2013/10/the-first-graphgist- challenge-...](http://blog.neo4j.org/2013/10/the-first-graphgist-challenge- completed.html?m=1)

</comment><comment><USER10> The one thing I thought was missing from the python tooling for Neo4J was that because *.cyp files are so new they aren't yet handled by the standard documentation toolchain.

</comment><comment><USER18> Tried neo4j , and I find it handy using python and py2neo . Since my laptop is limited in memory , I couldn't visualize graphs properly from web interface.

</comment><comment><USER19> What is the secret ingredient of graph databases? The presentation linked from the presentation mentions physical addresses instead of IDs. I get that that would be a speedup, but I would expect it to be more like a constant factor?

Then maybe you can save all links from a node in the node, so you can get all the links with one read access. Fine. But as soon as you get to the second or third level, I would expect the magic to be gone. Say every node has 100 links. OK, so the first 100 links you get in constant time c. But to get the second level, you already need 100 requests (one for each node and it's attached link list). So 100c time. For the third level you need 10000 reads, 10000c time. The next level would be 1000000 requests.

Just saying I'd expect things to get ugly with a graph database pretty fast, too (not as fast as with a relational db, but still).

I haven't really coded a big graph based app, but my expectation would be that get really good performance, a hand coded solution would always be required. For example trying to squeeze as much of the relevant data into memory in a compressed way. Am I wrong?

Oh and also I am not sure how good relational DBs are at query optimization. Just because the visible model is "one row per link" doesn't mean the db couldn't do some intelligent caching internally.

<comment><USER20> Data models that use deep "JOIN"s are _way_ faster on a graph database. You're right about branching factor- if you always traverse all relations, any database will be slow. In most cases, however, you don't.</comment></comment>


Warning signs: Global semiconductor sales drop 14.5% in 1H19 - <AUTHOR> https://www.digitimes.com/news/a20190806PR204.html <comment><USER2> I wonder how much of the drop is attributable to memory industry. As some headline said: boom and bust is business as usual for memory. Though I don't feel bad for them, as they have been involved in one price fixing scandal after another.

</comment><comment><USER3> Another obvious indicator on the path towards the nigh-oncoming recession or just a blip on the radar?

Personally I believe a recession is coming. I believe what we're seeing now are disparate pieces of information stacking up. Sales down here. Instability over there.

There's so much kindling laying around. It just needs a spark.

<comment><USER4> I too believe a recession is on it's way, but I have zero idea whether it is tomorrow or a decade from now. Everything feels overhyped and full of scammy cash, nothing feels sustainable, and we didn't learn much from 2008. But my feeling can't help anyone or anything.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Please don't editorialize titles.

<comment><USER6> Seems like every day now there's a blatant "Huge Recession Incoming! Brace Yourselves!" type story floating to the top.

<comment><USER7> To be fair, nearly every day information surfaces that indicate that a recession is imminent/already here. Trade war fallout, Fed wavering on raising rates, yield curve inversion, poor performance 2019H1 for so many key companies.

The economy is always a reliable source of news. And the mixed signals between employment, wages, and corporate performance makes it interesting.

<comment><USER8> It has been that way for as long as I can determine. There are always bad signs. Sometimes the doom is hours away, sometimes it is years away and in a completely different area. I have no idea how to tell the difference and I don't believe anyone else does either.

There are things you should do to prepare yourself. There are things you can do to prevent doom. They are all things you should be doing anyway even if God told you things would be alright for many more years.

<comment><USER7> Between 2014 and 2018 or so, the mainstream economic outlook was really good. Unemployment feel below 5%, consumer confidence finally turned positive, economists were complaining about Yellen's continued doveishness towards interest rates when economic indicators showed things were strong, then the tax cuts and associated bonuses and reinvestment.

Brexit happened in mid 2016, the US trade wars start up in late 2017, consumer confidence fell off a cliff last year, etc.

Yeah, there's segments where doom and gloom is perennial. But mainstream reporting tend to report based on fundamentals such as employment, wages, corporate profits, etc.

<comment><USER8> Look outside the mainstream and you would have seen the people warning about the crash to come then. Nothing came of it as it turns out, but many crashes are not seen in the mainstream press in advance either so that doesn't mean much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Measuring by dollar amount isn't helping. Silicon prices fluctuates wildly and easily more than the 15% we're seeing here.

</comment><comment><USER10> Wild guess:

A) People hanging on to both phones and PCs longer as Moore's slows down. Maybe also cars, because of higher quality over time.

And less so, but perhaps a contributor:

B) Big cloud providers are better at getting high utilization out of the same number of CPUs. So, as load moves from on-prem to cloud, overall footprint drops.

<comment><USER11> 2/3 of my home pcs are more than 5 years old, all are reliable and performant for my purposes.</comment></comment>


Open-Source API Libraries for AVR Microcontrollers - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/puranjaymohan/AVRLIB <comment><AUTHOR> I am working on APIs for AVR Microcontroller which provides functions to interface peripherals like LCD, GPIO, UART etc. I want collaborators to work on this project and test this on different microcontrollers.</comment>


HN Bug: Case sensitive login - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/HackerNews/HN/issues/50

<comment><USER3> It's not the case that all usernames are lower case. User names are case sensitive, but the system prevents you from registering with a name that differs from another only in case. That seems a reasonable choice.

Your browser insists on capitalizing something when you don't ask for it. That's not the fault of HN. I agree that the UI could pander to the foibles of your system, but it's not a bug.

By the way, you have a typo. You say:

        If I try to register a user with the name "eDeNt"
        I get the error "That username is taken.  Please
        choose another."

But then you say:

        If I try to visit the user page
           https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=edenT
        I get an error.

Note that you didn't test the same username you attempted to register.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi,

If you can't register Colinwright, does it matter what case representation you use to log in?

You're quite right that one shouldn't capitulate to every user-generated bug. But I'm sure I'm not the only person in the world with an Android phone which insists on capitalising text fields. At some point one has to say "it's not our problem - but will our users benefit if we make this change?"

It's not a typo - I was trying to show two different places where there was apparent case sensitivity.

Thanks for the feedback.

Terence

<comment><USER3>
      > If you can't register Colinwright, does it matter
      > what case representation you use to log in?

Maybe not, but maybe yes. It adds to the difficulty of hacking into an account if you have to get the capitalization right, but I'm fairly sure you will argue that it's not enough security to offset the frustration of not being able to log in with differing capitalizations.

      > You're quite right that one shouldn't capitulate to
      > every user-generated bug. But I'm sure I'm not the
      > only person in the world with an Android phone which
      > insists on capitalising text fields.  At some point
      > one has to say "it's not our problem - but will our
      > users benefit if we make this change?"

True, but does it deserve to be called a bug?

      > It's not a typo - I was trying to show two different
      > places where there was apparent case sensitivity.

That wasn't at all clear to me. I'd've thought your point was that you tried to register a name only to be told it was taken, and then provide evidence that it was, in fact, not taken. Your reasoning is unclear on that point - <USER2> might consider re-phrasing what you've said.

I take your point that it's an annoyance, but my experience is that it won't be changed. I do, by the way, sympathize, because I have similar problems on other sites.</comment></comment></comment>


What features of Java have been dropped in Scala? - <AUTHOR> http://www.javacodegeeks.com/2011/08/what-features-of-java-have-been-dropped.html

<comment><USER3> _"Why do we have a special syntax for arrays in the language while collections are implemented in on top of the language? And isn't a bit irritating to convert them from one to another all the time?"_

Perhaps it's just me, but I do not convert collections to arrays "all the time". I can't remember the last time I did so. It seems that the author has some bad experiences with certain libraries, but he shouldn't assume that it is part of the standard java experience.

I also don't see why this:

        for(int idx = 0; idx < names.length; ++idx)
           System.out.println(names[idx] + ": " + ages[idx]);
        }

is "surprisingly tough to implement cleanly" compared to:

        names zip ages foreach {p => println(p._1 + ": " + p._2)}

The second syntax may be clear to Scala programmers, but I think the Java version can be understood by most programmers

<comment><USER4> I'd write the scala example as

      names zip ages foreach { (name, age) =>
        println(name + ": " + age)
      }

which, imho, is a little easier on the eyes.

[edit: fix syntax]

<comment><USER5> How does Scala figure out the precedence on that? And in general what does `word1 word2 ... wordN` mean?

<comment><USER6> It goes something like:

      a b c d e f g

becomes:

      a.b(c).d(e).f(g)

<comment><USER7> I've never tried Scala so I'm speaking from ignorance here, but that looks awfully hard to parse for a human reader. I much prefer Haskell's:

         zipWith (\x y->  x ++ " : " ++ show y) names ages

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I like break and continue. Do we really have to jump through hoops to avoid them just because some grandfather stated "goto considered harmful" sometime in the last century?

<comment><USER9> You mean Dijkstra [1]? The guy who figured out shortest-path-first routing algorithm, semaphores, reverse polish notation?

The reason GOTO considered harmful (read the paper) was to assist in formally verifying the semantics of programs. Essentially, GOTO constructs fork environments in the formal analysis, and make things really difficult to work with.

They also make informal reasoning more difficult unless you apply restrictions on how you structure your program.

Know your history before you insult the people who came up with principles.

[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Edsger_W._Dij...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Edsger_W._Dijkstra)

<comment><USER10> The article suggests as a replacement for break "but generally extracting a loop to a separate method/function (or at least putting it at the end of existing method) and using return instead will do the trick"

return (from anywhere but the end of a function) is just as damaging to formal verifiability as continue, break or goto.

<comment><USER9> Ehhh.

Continue, break, return at least are well-formed with respect to the local environment.

GOTO has no such restrictions (well, in older languages allowing arbitrary GOTOs)... that's why its considered harmful.

The single-return principle is used for flowcharts & formal analysis ease.

It'd be mildly interesting to do a retrospective of compilation & static analysis algorithms to see what more current research turns up with respect to the single-return rule's use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Odd. I typically prefer the

      foreach(x in list)
        if(unusual_condition(x))
            continue
        x2=perform_data_transformation(x);
        x3=perform_data_transformation(x2);

to

      foreach(x in list)
        if(!unusual_condition(x))
           x2=perform_data_transformation(x);
           x3=perform_data_transformation(x2);

Because

1) reduced nesting in the first,

2) makes it more clear that unusual condition should simply be skipped.

Is this a personal style thing, or should is it generally preferred to do the second option?

<comment><USER12> I usually prefer:

      foreach(x in list.reject(unusual_condition(_)))
        x2=perform_data_transformation(x);
        x3=perform_data_transformation(x2);

I find collections and their functional methods are great for clear expression of intent[1]

[1] [http://metaphysicaldeveloper.wordpress.com/2009/05/02/closur...](http://metaphysicaldeveloper.wordpress.com/2009/05/02/closures- collections-and-some-functional-programming/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Scala does have 'break' just not 'continue'.

<http://www.scala-lang.org/node/257>

I think this makes sense. Both encourage bad habits but continue is very easy to emulate and break is not always easy to emulate.

edit - <USER2>

</comment><comment><USER14> Stopped reading after the silly break&continue rant.

This guy cannot be a good programmer.

<comment><USER15> I agree regarding the rant. I want an explanation of why I no longer need those constructs in Scala, not just a hand-wavy "they're bad, stop using them". Currently I need them, telling me that I do not is not going to sway me to your cause!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> To me, the odd thing is that it doesn't mention the one thing Scala drops for which I haven't a workaround: static final fields. Now, from a pure coding standpoint, I don't actually need a static final field. However, Android requires such creatures if you want to create a new Parcelable, Android's lightweight alternative to Serializable.

</comment><comment><USER17> Wait, Scala doesn't have switch? So every collection of nested if-statements has to be an O(n) rather than O(1) decision?

</comment><comment><USER18> How does Scala drop these from the JVM?

<comment><USER6> Java and the JVM are not the same thing. Java is a programming language. The JVM is a stack-based virtual machine that executes Java bytecode. Java bytecode is what Java compiles into (ie. the contents of .class files).

As it happens, the JVM can't tell if a .class file was generated from compiling Java code, or handwritten, or generated from another programming language altogether. As long as the class file is valid, the JVM will run it. In the case of Scala, "continue" isn't in the language, so bytecode that performs the operation is never generated by scalac. In fact, "break" and "continue" don't even have any meaning at the JVM level. Java bytecode works at the level of gotos and conditional branches.</comment></comment>


GoPro shows its vulnerability after horrific Q3 earnings - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/03/gopro-trading-halted-as-company-misses-revenue-expectations-by-23/ <comment><USER2> So, I'm starting a VR project that's going to need 180-degree (or thereabouts) stereoscopic video. Ready to spend money on cameras and actually get started.

"Cool! This should be straightforward, everyone uses GoPro cameras for that, so a I'll need to buy two GoPros!" was my immediate thought. All ready to give GoPro my money.

Oh, but they dropped stereo genlock after the 3+..... wait what?!?! VR filmmaking is one of those things that people are heavily experimenting with. Why would they purposely drop this segment when it's only just starting to pick up? This is a segment not filled by their ultra-expensive 360 rigs.

So off to eBay I go. Hmmmm.... do I need a 3, a 3+, a 3+ Black? A 2? Is there a 2 Pro or something? Do I need the 3D kit or the dual-Hero kit? Does it even still work with the latest firmware?

It's so confusing that even some people on eBay honestly weren't sure what they were selling.

There are a few things that could fill this niche, all right now frustratingly in 'pre-order' or 'might be out the end of this year' state. Yet GoPro had this and they just.... dropped it.

Too many different models in the past, just far too confusing.

For the record, I've gone with used GoPro Hero 2s from eBay. Just waiting on the sync cable now. Will see how that works out :)

<comment><USER3> If you're doing any sort of software development requiring cameras GoPro is definitely NOT the way to go. We use Point Grey for our camera equipment. Not only are the cameras very high quality, but their API is a developer's dream.

Unlike GoPro's overreaching application process, $100, or $1k fee, and an extremely limited API/features, these guys practically shove as much documentation and libraries down your throat that they can. I fucking love Point Grey cameras.

[https://www.ptgrey.com/blackfly-usb3-vision- cameras](https://www.ptgrey.com/blackfly-usb3-vision-cameras)

<comment><USER4> Thank you for this. GoPros have been challenging and we're looking for alternatives for the next camera rig we build. One nice thing about GoPro cameras that I think I would miss with these is their built in WiFi. It's perfect for ad-hoc field laptop scenarios.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I try not to generalize personal experience to a company's stock price. But in GoPro's case I'm picturing a bunch of folks like me who bought one, and then swore to never again buy anything with GoPro's name on it. And those people tell their friends who are considering an "action camera". So you end up with a segment of customers from whom you'll never extract another dime, plus all of the people who might have bought one had they not spoken with current customers. (I'd recommend the Garmin offerings if you're in the market.)

I won't reiterate my complaints with my GoPro camera because I've bitched enough already on HN. The summary is that it is probably one of the most disappointing, and frankly, aggravating pieces of tech I've purchased in the last decade. It's not a matter of "cheap Chinese knock-offs" being almost good enough. It's that what the Chinese are copying wasn't all that good to begin with, so it's not terribly hard to match on quality and then undercut massively on price.

<comment><USER6> GoPro is a poor shape to use with motorbikes; helmet mounts in particular are ludicrous. Any particular reason you didn't consider Drift? Fairly happy with mine, using it as a helmet-cam.

<comment><USER5> _Any particular reason you didn 't consider Drift?_

Because, as I've outlined elsewhere in this thread, I'm an idiot who thought the name brand was a safe bet and didn't do enough research.

That said, most of the time it's mounted to the front crash bar or a saddlebag. Not a big fan of protrusions on my helmet.

<comment><USER6> Drift is mounted on the edge of my helmet, opposite my Cardo Scala Rider intercom system on the other side. There's not much way for it to hit the road first without my shoulder going AWOL, and if it did, it would snap off pretty rapidly.

A key advantage of the Drift and similar systems is the camera sensor can be rotated with respect to the camera body. So it doesn't matter that it's at an angle, close to your shoulder: the picture is still upright owing to one twisting the lens.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> They have a drone?

Oh, they do, but it doesn't ship until the end of November. The Engadget review (dated today) [1] presents a good look at the device and how it compares to the competition -- different trade-offs. Nicer if you're in the GoPro ecosystem, but the competition is a better flyer.

So perhaps the market for rugged cameras is fairly saturated by their own products, and the aerial market has partially sailed while they were working on theirs?

[1] [https://www.engadget.com/2016/11/03/gopro-karma- review/](https://www.engadget.com/2016/11/03/gopro-karma-review/)

<comment><USER8> I think GoPro suffers from two problems.

1\. Many people buy these camera's that never use them, or use them a few times but realize editing videos takes longer than they hoped it would. So after a while of non use, they sell the camera.

2\. They built a good product, one that lasts and is therefore good for the used market. People are comfortable buying a used GoPro because they know it's rugged and well built.

So GoPro's have a good resale value and therefore many people that might normally buy a new one, instead turn to the used market which doesn't help GoPro at all.

<comment><USER9> If only they made crappier products that break more often, at least then their stock shareholders would think it's a good company. This exemplifies everything that's wrong with capitalism and planned obsolescence.

<comment><USER10> Leica cameras have always been quality products and that didn't hurt them at all. A Leica will last forever.

<comment><USER11> Leica is privately owned, which does make it easier to choose less growth. As a public company you need to grow or return enough steady dividends to make it worthwhile for people to keep their money invested in you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Company misses revenue expectations or revenue expectation misses reality? Hmm...

<comment><USER13> For better or worse, it's partially on the company to manage expectations. Amazon does a great job of this, which is why it can get away with minimal profit most quarters.

<comment><USER14> Agreed. Managing expectations into earnings is a large part of a CFO, treasurer, or other investor relations officer's job.

I do admit that it's necessarily hard for GoPro to do this, because they're a high-tech, discretionary consumer product -- the competitor landscape is always shifting and advancing, and a ton of factors affect consumer spending choices. GoPro is not a networking company with ten big and slow-moving clients. Something as simple as gas price hikes (less discretionary budget), or a new wearable product released by a different company (drains from "cool new toy" budget), could affect their sales.

Stocks like GPRO, FIT, etc are really hard to analyze, for these reasons and others.

Then again, I guess you could say that makes the task of managing expectations all the more important.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> What else would you expect? The CEO took his money when the stock hit ~100 [1]. He didn't even wait for the lockup period to expire. The suckers left holding the stock have ridden it to the bottom, expecting it to takeoff any moment now... but if the CEO thought it would reach ~100, wouldn't he have waited?

[1] [http://money.cnn.com/2014/10/02/investing/gopro-charity- shar...](http://money.cnn.com/2014/10/02/investing/gopro-charity-shares/)

</comment><comment><USER16> Go pro is very good at marketing them selves however the cameras are not much better if not worse than many way cheaper competitors.

The drone would be a big hit if Dji didn't just blow the roof of with their incredible mavic pro that came on the market this week. It is by far the best consumer drone available and smaller than the go pro.

<comment><USER17> I've seen both the Mavic and the Karma, and I have to say they hit different use cases.

The GoPro is for when you want a drone that can carry your camera that you can also detach and use with their stabilized handle, which you can then take the GoPro out of completely and use on it's own.

The Mavic is for people who want a smaller drone.

Both are good tech, and I plan on getting both of them within the next year, but the GoPro one is going to be my first of the two.

<comment><USER18> The concept of GoPro Karma is intriguing but based on some early reviews it is a horrible drone. For example see this review by iPhonedo: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xmqthgCvxk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xmqthgCvxk)

Based on this video the price, stability, amount of features and just about everything is worse than my old DJI Phantom 3 Standard.

I wished GoPro Karma would be good but based on reviews I'm not impressed and probably end up going with Mavic Pro even though I just bought GoPro Hero 5.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Who halts the trading? Is it a normal circumstance before earnings reports are released, or does it have something to do with the magnitude of the miss?

<comment><USER20> There are circuit breakers operated by the exchange in case of significant and sustained orderbook imbalance (ie a stock is being hammered)

These are today's on NASDAQ [http://www.nasdaqtrader.com/trader.aspx?id=TradeHalts](http://www.nasdaqtrader.com/trader.aspx?id=TradeHalts)

<comment><USER21> That page lists the reasons as _T1_ (halt pending release of material news), and _T2_ (halt while news is being disseminated). So then it's not a circuit breaker ( _T5_?)?

I wonder how exactly that works. What kind of news does it apply to? Is it common? Can a company ask for a trading halt on its own before it releases bad results?

<comment><USER22> My understanding was that the markets have a duty to provide equal access to information that would determine your decisions.

This is one of the reasons why companies often release their quarterly results after market close. It allows all relevant parties to be able to access the latest information before selling resumes.

If this wasn't the case, then users with the fastest connections would be able to process, and react to the data before others in the market had a chance to do so as well.

<comment><USER23> Wait, isn't that the entire point of high-frequency trading and their low- latency access to markets?

<comment><USER24> 1) HFT is more than just US equities. Many exchanges are open 23 hours a day.

2) Many HFT firms do not specialize in 'news-reading'. That is, they will sit out periods when an expected announcement is coming. You can observe this by looking at the liquidity of a product just prior to an expected relevant news release - there will be very few orders.

3) There are more events than just news events that require speed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Perhaps the chinese clones are denting sales? I own two GoPros but I understand the clones are very nearly as good, for a much lower price.

<comment><USER25> Agree, one can easily study the clone's features, price and customer reviews here:

[https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_1_12?url=search- alia...](https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_1_12?url=search- alias%3Daps&field- keywords=sport+hd+camera&sprefix=sport+hd+cam%2Caps%2C583&crid=25PNMHE1JA0HR)

They use the same SOC, camera sensors. There are tons of HD Videos comparison reviews on Youtube.

<comment><USER26> I am told the GoPro is very similar to the ambarella reference board. Are you saying these are similar? Because that would be very useful.

<comment><USER25> I believe they used the same chip.

Anyway, I got one of the clone after study the youtube video of the output for $50+ to put on my kid's model airplane. It works great. He crashed the airplane a lot. With only $50, I feel better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I interviewed there a few months back and I gotta say I'm not surprised. Granted all of the people I met were really smart and seemed to know what they were doing but at the same time the product direction was...confusing to say the least. They also want to get more services and software going to monetize but it wasn't clear how they were going to monetize any of it just that their software needs to improve and be usable by other cameras not just there's.

It sounded like a cool place to work but I was a bit worried about their next 2-3 years.

</comment><comment><USER28> I almost bought the new Session just a few weeks ago. After seeing these comments, I'm glad I didn't.

The reason I didn't buy is I realized how much they are screwing people by charging crazy prices for essential add-ons. $xx for a basic mount (a piece of plastic), $xx for a bolt to connect to the mount, $xx for a case, $xx for a charging kit, and so on and so on. You thought you were buying a $400 gadget but suddenly your cart total is 2x that.

<comment><USER29> A Xiaomi Yi can do 1080p60 for $90 or less - and works fine. It's about the size of a GoPro. I use it as a helmet cam on my motorcycle.

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

I made my own helmet mount for the Yi:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3w-twe4seQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3w-twe4seQ)

A Mobius ActionCam can do 1080p30 or 720p60 at $75 and it's even smaller - about the size of a matchbox, or keychain dongle. I use it on mini- quadcopters; my son put it on a model rocket. It still works. :)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbh2O4_UWT0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbh2O4_UWT0)

<comment><USER30> Seconding a Yi. Especially with the newer firmwares. (It'll do 2k video capture that upscale reasonably to 4k supposedly, but I use 1080p).

The app is a bit clunky, but the camera is spectacular value compared to the GoPros near the price bracket.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> They went from 86.97 on Oct 4, 2014 to 11.94 now. Isn't looking too good.

<comment><USER5> I remember having an alert set for if GPRO ever bounced up from (let's say) $45. It hit that number and never bounced, it just kept on going down. I consider my GoPro to be my worst tech purchase in the last ten years, but as a mostly technical trader I'll occasionally (though rarely) buy a stock despite my feelings about their offerings. But GPRO demonstrates that, once again, I should stick to companies that sell things I like.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, I bought some as well. Can't win them all. I believed their vision of being a lifestyle company that could weather the whims of the tech market. That may be so, but looks like they never expanded their market, and their user experience didn't evolve to suit consumers.

OTOH, if I bought what I really liked, I would've bought HTC and stagnated. The Re action camera is an excellent value and gets the experience right.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Tom Scott was very positive about the new GoPro Hero5 fwiw: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTx9lYpfWSg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTx9lYpfWSg)

<comment><USER33> Tom Scott's "Things You Might Not Know" series is extraordinary. In a sea of internet tidbits and factbites that you've seen umpteen times before, his videos are almost always new things I've never heard about before; certainly less than 10% would be my guesstimate of things I knew of beforehand. Definitely worth checking out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Still have mine somewhere, just too annoying to charge and doesn't last long, then I need to use their app to get the files etc etc. Just too much hassle for a simple use case.

(Why didn't they use a standard charging cable...)

</comment><comment><USER35> I'm almost positive threads about GoPro are stalked by Xaomi employees. Almost every comment is a plug.

<comment><USER36> Or Xiaomi products are simply better than GoPro's.

I was in the market for a 4K action camera and ended up buying the Yi 4K because the GoPro model only offered interpolated 4K, while the Yi offers full 30FPS 4K.

I won't say the Yi is perfect. The Xiaomi app stopped connecting to the camera after an update (and hasn't connected successfully since), and early firmwares had issues with 4K recording randomly stopping.

But they've since fixed nearly all the stability issues with subsequent firmware releases.

Overall the camera is loads better than anything that GoPro had on the market at the time, and the camera only cost me $250 with accessories (waterproof case, spare battery), plus $70 to DHL for customs and duties.

I'm not a Xiaomi shill, I'm just very pleased with the product I bought.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> the GoPro camera is the best camera I own. I don't need a DSLR, I'm not a serious photographer, I'll use my phone for regular pictures. but I really enjoy having a high quality camera for surfing, snowboarding, scuba diving, and slow mo

but it's so well made, and it's always in the case (so I can put it on a mount) that ot still Looks feels brand new. I bet it will last me 5 more years

<comment><USER38> I agree. It just fail at low light. But now I travel just with the GoPro and my phone. Nothing heavy anymore.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> commodity hardware -> build a brand...

find out maybe works with soda water (red bull) but ppl don't take the $100 overprice hit on commodity camera just for brand feeling...

how many wingsuit enthusiast are there anyways ?!?

<comment><USER40> Speaking of Red Bull, how has someone not come out with a cheaper alternative in the US.

Not talking about other energy drinks. Korea has Hot 6ix, which is way cheaper and goes for the Red Bull taste.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Dnd future doesn't look good. Their star product is not as advanced as the new DJI mavic pro. The new gopro 5 don't have new amazing features (5k, raw recording, much better dynamic range etc.), it's mostly a small bump from the 4 series.

Unless you are a total GoPro fan, there's no reason you would buy the newly released products.

<comment><USER9> Does the Mavic pro have a detachable camera stabilizer? That's the reason I would buy GoPro's drone.

<comment><USER41> The Mavic Pro doesn't have one.

You are right, a gimbal is a very smart addition. Put it on the backpack for skiiing or on a bike to record smooth rides.

My biggest problem however is the lack of "intelligent" flying with GoPro's drone. Most people overestimate their flying skills. It's very easy to have a collision, loose your done. It's also difficult to do subject tracking. Many find themselves with a broken drone after just a week of use. On the other hand, the Mavic Pro has their most advanced visualisation technology + sensors to make your job easy.

If you are confident with the GoPro drone, I would recommend purchasing it from a store with a liberal return/exchange policy. Try it for one week and record a few videos. And then compare with the mavic pro

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Why is not selling enough a bad thing? You make a good product, everyone loves it and don't need another one? This is why I haven't replaced my original Pebble either. I remember Intel hitting this same type of market/stockholder crunch.

Hello: not selling more stuff is A GOOD THING! It means your last generation was really good (well, if people are still using it and not buying another one). It means you can lower factory worker numbers and pay them more.

So a company that makes shitty products you have to refresh is going to do _better_. This cuts to the core of the entire economy of growth and economy of scale problems with our current economy. There needs to be a way to reward companies for making good products that last forever instead of them having to pump out crappy products every two years to stay afloat. (I'm looking at you Pebble Time Round!)

<comment><USER43> If you're going to ask that, you also need to ask why needing to halt trading is a bad thing. "Good" and "bad" are value judgements that change in different contexts.

A large component of stock price is the expectation of profits for share holders in the future. If those expectations change, and the stock price plummets, it's not necessarily good or bad in the sense of a product being good or bad, or a company being good or bad.

<comment><USER44> Well put. If someone can't find happiness in gopro being a successful 100mil company instead of a 1bil company, then we have become unmoored somewhere

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Can anyone recommend a good GoPro model (or similar product) to pick up for use on a helmet? Specifically while cycling. I once had a Contour, but lost it, and never replaced it.

<comment><USER46> The new gopro session is looking good. For a higher quality one, get the hero silver.

If you're looking for mounts, stick the standard mount on your helmet or use a 'wraparound' mount on the handlebars. (Get one of these)[[https://www.amazon.com/Black-Common-Outdoor-Sports- Session/d...](https://www.amazon.com/Black-Common-Outdoor-Sports- Session/dp/B00PLBXUMS/ref=sr_1_5?s=photo&ie=UTF8&qid=1478214431&sr=1-5&keywords=gopro)] You get a ton of accessories for cheap.

<comment><USER47> I second the Session recommendation. There's one button to press and it "just works". The session is lightweight too, so it will create less torque on your head/neck than other cameras.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> I bought a GoPro a couple years ago because I was considering buying the stock as it was about to be listed. Took it on a ski trip. It was one of the worst pieces of consumer electronics I've ever used. Just atrocious. It seems they took every wrong turn possible whenever faced with any design decision. I avoided the stock but should have shorted it.

</comment><comment><USER49> Problem is that the people who want gopros already have them and their drone got destroyed by the dji mavic.

</comment><comment><USER50> GoPro needs additional applications to their camera besides being an action cam. How about adding home security, or baby monitor capability? Otherwise the GoPro camera will sit in the closet for 364 days of the year. What a waste.

</comment><comment><USER51> They have one niche product that is very expensive. It does not offer anything new or extraordinary to the experience other than what it should do: take video. Customers can get a product that is similar for 70% less price (from China _cough_ ). It's no surprise.

<comment><USER52> Is there a valid reason to describe "from China cough"?

I believe GoPro cameras are manufactured in China.

<comment><USER53> Yeah I don't get the derision. On my desk are multiple electronic items (laptop, speakers, mobile phone, mouse, keyboard, external hard drive) that are all either made in or assembled in China.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Meh, I am buying some shares of FitBit and GoPro tomorrow as either could get acquired or bust, but at > 25% discounts i'll take that risk as the potential upside is too good to miss. Purely speculation on my part

<comment><USER38> And their new product looks great. For the first time I lust to upgrade my Hero 3+.

<comment><USER54> everyone has a hobby -- i trade stocks and have done pretty good for myself. They both picked up a few percentage points from their after-earnings lows. Either they get bought, go kaput, or soar again a-la AMD in their most recent restructuring (selling HQ and leasing it back, paying down debt,etc.); either way I win: I win because this is fun, and I win if the shares rise.

<comment><USER55> Something tells me you aren't going to feel like you've won when you're out thousands of dollars.

It's not hard to make money in a bull market. Getting out before it turns sour is the trick.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> The New Iphone 7 with iP67 water-resistance rating will negatively affect GoPro sales. People will likely bring their iPhone to the beach/lake if they trust it doesn't get damaged by an accidental water splash.

<comment><USER57> Water resistance seems like only one of many advantages a GoPro has. I would never consider doing with what my phone what I've seen many people do when they are tossing around a GoPro.

<comment><USER56> This it true for extreme situations, but I do believe with the new iPhone, people we be less likely to use a GoPro, if even just 10-20% less it does affect the bottom line.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> It's too bad they didn't capitalize on the opportunities to partner with Facebook for live video. And their API is a joke. If they would open it up, developers might make something that would drive sales.

</comment><comment><USER59> Huh, the title in the URL is less sensationalized than the actual headline: "gopro-trading-halted-as-company-misses-revenue-expectations-by-23"

</comment><comment><USER60> Anyone have any experience with the Nikon KeyMission action cameras?

</comment><comment><USER61> Crama drone was a massive flop. DJI have simply smeared them. The latest camera releases are not innovative at up. They are desperately trying to catch up!

</comment><comment><USER62> It's gotta be tough going from ,,, to ,,

</comment><comment><USER63> This coming Monday's low, in my humble opinion, not investment advice, is the best time to buy GPRO.</comment>


Percentage Clock - A Better Way to Gauge Time - <AUTHOR> http://myownpla.net/post/10015108892/percentage-clock

<comment><USER2> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch_Internet_Time> Basically the same thing, except the day is divided up into 1000 parts instead of 100.

</comment><comment><USER3> So instead of (roughly) 24 time zones there would be 100? Maybe you divide by four and have 25 to match current boundaries.

</comment><comment><USER4> I prefer to tack the fractional portion onto the date.

2011-09-09.9275

<comment><USER5> It's called "ISO 8601". Personally, I use the period to demarcate all differences when writing somewhere for myself: 2011.09.10.02.13.21

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Real men use unix timestamps.</comment>