AI made from a sheet of glass can recognise numbers just by looking - <AUTHOR> https://www.newscientist.com/article/2208975-ai-made-from-a-sheet-of-glass-can-recognise-numbers-just-by-looking/ <comment><USER2> They implement a trained dense multilayer neural net wit ReLU activations in silicon photonics. They evaluate it on MNIST.

They use graphene to approximate the ReLUs. The device is a few microns on each side.

The 2D image is first converted to a 1D wavefront by some external means, then launched into the side of the device.

Training happens in digital computer, by simulating the behavior of the device.

Full paper: [https://arxiv.org/pdf/1810.07815.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1810.07815.pdf)

<comment><USER3> I would _love_ a site with summaries like this of academic papers.

<comment><USER4> I'd _pay_ for a site that did this.

<comment><USER2> my venmo user id is ali-rahimi-3

<comment><USER5> This is a really funny reply. Might not be a bad idea at all to make some money explaining scientific articles on Hacker News.

<comment><USER6> There's a ton of people doing it on Youtube. Not so much in short text form.

A daily 3-5 sentence (+ 1 picture?) email summary of an interest scientific paper might be worth pursuing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Surprised nobody has called out the latency aspect: this is a ML solver that can give you the answer in a single picosecond. It could resolve a thousand ML queries before your CPU based solver had its first clock tick on the first byte of the first pixel.

That could have some interesting applications for things that need it. Or scale: a gazillion ML calculations per second. With zero power consumption. From a piece of glass.

<comment><USER8> Well it is a very simple solver, you can't change it after it's synthesized and it's not true it uses no power - you need strong enough incoming light. That's your power source. It's probably safe to assume that each layer removes some power in a mutiplicative fashion, therefore it's only so much you can do in a single glass step before the beam dissipates.

And as far as timing goes - 1 cm of glass delays by ~50 picoseconds. That corresponds to around 20 gigahertz. Fast, but not mind blowingly fast.

<comment><USER7> An OCR that could read 20B freehand characters per second using the power of an LED is not mind blowing?

<comment><USER8> Well it's MNIST - most basic and classic OCR benchmark out there. Also, no info on how much light power is actually necessary, though I'm sure it's exponential in the number of layers. And another thing I forgot to write is: how are you going to interface with this thing?

<comment><USER7> Nothing traditional. But who knows, there's probably a ceramics researcher somewhere with some new comms or storage technology asking the converse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Blimey, this is really stretching the definition of AI, surely? It's a piece of glass that has been designed by a lot of trial and error to perform one specific task. It sounds like humans were analysing the fitness and making the modifications. I wouldn't call it "unpowered AI" any more than I'd call a coin sorter that.

<comment><USER10> Because it uses glas as a substrate and light as a information carrier?

Most of what we call "AI" today also uses prelearned weights for their neural networks and in many use cases these weights are not touched after deployment.

I don't see why a neural network encoded in glas should not be an AI while the same neural network on a computer is one — either you have to call both AI or neither.

<comment><USER11> Most of what we call AI can learn and update to an extent, in order to be able to match a wider verity if I puts or to improve accuracy on existing inputs, this is a hardcoded solution. If this counts as AI, then every bit of software ever written also counts as AI, which makes the term even more meaningless and marketing buzzwordy than it already is.

I suppose the question is, if an AI has learned and you export that final learned state to use in a now-hardcoded classifier, is that classifier still AI (or part of the overall AI) or is it simply the output? I can imagine arguments on both sides. If you accept that as AI, then sure, this fits the bill!

<comment><USER12> > Most of what we call AI can learn and update to an extent

Most of what we call AI are hardcoded solutions once in production. There may be ongoing offline improvements being made, but once the improvements are established the production AI is replaced with a point-in-time snapshot of the AI undergoing offline training. Self-learning in production causes all kinds of problems, but most significantly it's a security issue since it gives an attacker the ability to manipulate behavior by curating examples.

<comment><USER13> The AI generates the solutions. The solutions are not AI.

<comment><USER14> AI is gradient descent?

<comment><USER15> It's comical how little people understand about machine learning, no one calls an ODE solver artificial intelligence but gradient descent on an interesting equation is somehow now A.I.

<comment><USER11> Machine learning is just the lay-persons statistics, or something to that effect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> To be clear, it doesn't seem like New Scientist realised this, but they haven't _actually made_ a glass block that does this. They've just simulated one.

<comment><USER17> Yea, the part of the article where they described the training procedure as if they were re-arranging impurities in a physical piece of glass beggared belief.

<comment><USER18> They've simulated a physical system using digital hardware and software that would operate like a read-only optical neural network analog if it existed in a physical substrate.

I suppose the next stage is to develop another digital analog of a physical system which can decide for readers if the original digital analog of a physical system is "real AI".

Presumably with sufficient training it would be able to read and assess New Scientist articles about its own development.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> What would be the practical applications of something like this?

\+ Can you embed it in a mirror to portray information if a face is recognized?

\+ Or can you make glass semitransparent when something is recognized?

\+ What about windows that blur anything that looks like a face? Preferably keeping other objects the same. A bit of an autoencoder where only certain objects are blurred.

\+ Can the amount of light shining on it lead to different results? Then you can show a little movie by shining more and more light through the glass using it in reverse.

It's a simple embodiment but I guess there are thousands of applications we haven't thought of yet. Really cool train of thought!

<comment><USER20> Optical networking switch was my first thought.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> This sounds like they've rediscovered the digital sundial and are running it in reverse.

Light goes into face A of a digital sundial predominantly from a particular angle and comes out face B patterned like a number. Presumably if you shined light in the pattern of a number on face B, you'd get light coming out of face A predominantly at a particular angle.

<comment><USER22> Except the if you ran a digital sundial in reverse it would only recognize one particular image of a number. From TFA it seems to be able to recognize multiple handwritten images.

<comment><USER21> > _Except the if you ran a digital sundial in reverse it would only recognize > one particular image of a number._

Only because the sundials are purpose-built for producing clear digits. This would produce blurry messes that, if you squint hard, would look a bit more like one digit than like the others. But the principle doesn't appear to be different.

This doesn't "recognize" anything. It's just a complex waveguide. You can see it in their ray path diagrams.

<comment><USER22> > This doesn't "recognize" anything. It's just a complex waveguide. You can > see it in their ray path diagrams.

I don't see how your first and second statements are mutually exclusive.

<comment><USER21> Well, this plate doesn't choose which output is the correct one. Something else has to look and decide which number-correspondent-band is the maximal/correct one. But I don't want to argue that specific distinction. If you want to call the waveguide a recognizer, I'm ok with you doing that.

The whole presentation of this article is very "woo". They say bullshit like "the glass learned to bend the light". This is clearly stupid and false. The system DESIGNING the glass learned how to construct the glass such that the light bended appropriately. The glass hasn't learned shit.

<comment><USER23> Picking which of the 10 bands is the brightest has got to be trivial, so much more so than directly recognising eg. '4', so it does seem to do what it says.

> The system DESIGNING the glass learned how to construct the glass such that > the light bended appropriately

With a bit of rephrasing you could say exactly the same about a neural network surely. The learning was embodied in the glass, so depending on definitions, the glass was 'taught' something. It 'learnt' something.

I kind of see what you're saying, but it does seem to be discounting something actually interesting and new (in my experience).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I am bothered by this use of the word 'intelligence '. To my mind, intelligence is a comparative term, like height, weight, etc. if the universe consisted of one individual, how could you say tall or short without some reference to a norm or population. Further, the idea of multiple individuals implies separate copies of a specific thing/person that can communicate . So how can we talk about the intelligence of a piece of glass? Humans been fascinated for a long time with animals and automatons that can mimic human behaviors- is a poodle that walks more intelligent than a beagle that does not? Is a mechanical Turk in a box intelligent? I wonder how long it will be before someone discovers the artificial intelligence embodied in mechanical clocks - they convert the stored energy of a spring into a sequence of numbers

</comment><comment><USER25> Here's the original paper: [https://www.osapublishing.org/DirectPDFAccess/3863EB7E-DF76-...](https://www.osapublishing.org/DirectPDFAccess/3863EB7E-DF76-25C4-A4F982F0B75C96CE_415059/prj-7-8-823.pdf?da=1&id=415059&seq=0)

<comment><USER25> If the link above doesn't work, try this: [https://www.osapublishing.org/prj/fulltext.cfm?uri=prj-7-8-8...](https://www.osapublishing.org/prj/fulltext.cfm?uri=prj-7-8-823&id=415059)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Related Science paper from last summer "All-Optical Machine Learning Using Diffractive Deep Neural Networks" [https://arxiv.org/pdf/1804.08711.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1804.08711.pdf) and [https://science.sciencemag.org/content/361/6406/1004](https://science.sciencemag.org/content/361/6406/1004)

</comment><comment><USER27> I wonder if one can create a similar auditory transfer function that is attuned to a specific voice.... basically evolve a sound cavity of specific shape

<comment><USER28> You could have a large capture cavity initialy that has various rods of materials that would sympathise with certain frequency ranges. Those rods run into their own chamber's - seperating the frequencies.

Problem is with voice, it's the cadence, content and variations in the tones that help discern an individual. For that you need to factor in a variable amount of past data as you can't just take a snapshot - think taking a picture of a single frame in a movie and knowing what the entire movie is about.

However, you could make something that needs a certain set of frequencies, so with that something that could identify males or females by the sound of the voice and the general rule of male voices being lower in frequency. That would be a start. Though even that simple task, you start to see exceptions.

But if you can flowchart it and have ways to handle the logic, who knows what is possible and impossible.

<comment><USER7> Zero power "OK Google" trigger

<comment><USER28> Probably a cheat, but a piezo disc setup would give you zero power audio capture and with others to power basic processing, you would be able to do something, though may find yourself shouting during testing, though a capture cone to focus the audio onto the piezo would help immensely. Though I'd seriously have to sit down and work out what surface area of pezios and vibration levels and as such power you could produce. Though could mitigate that with some larger capacitors to capture all the passive sound and low level power the piezo's will capture/produce during the day. Triggering processor to check for your keyword and instigate an action.

Not analogue, but certainly would be Zero power.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> This is why what we now call AI isn't AI.

We now have the computing power to use a huge training set to set the parameters of a function. But after that it is like this glass.

I really like this as example. It shows how a function reads numbers by visualising the trained function.

But companies (Darpa for example) are already making the next step to AI: creating a realtime feedback loop to update the trained function.

The outcome of that will be scary AI as far as I'm concerned.

</comment><comment><USER30> I wonder could you do something like this with liquid crystal to enable some learning.

<comment><USER18> This is essentially a kind of continuous 3D holography - unlike conventional holography, which is a 2D transform that represents 3D light paths.

And that's _very_ interesting. This is the first application of what could be a very very powerful new technology.

So far as I know addressable super-high resolution 2D holographic displays are still a lab curiosity. There are some obvious technical problems with adding depth, but as soon as you have a 3D addressable light matrix that can be reconfigured dynamically, you have a whole new base for physical computing.

<comment><USER31> Would that be competition for IBM TrueNorth [0] (if made from some kind of rewriteable material to be able to reprogram it)?

[0] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TrueNorth](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TrueNorth)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> It's a special kind of lens or prism, and "headline-grade buzzword choices" notwithstanding, this is yet another _very interesting_ result out of the University of Wisconsin - Madison.

As others have stated here, this construction is due to machine learning whether or not the device itself has a capability to adapt further.

<comment><USER28> Indeed, certainly not AI as we know it and "Analogue computer" or in this case would be more apt, even "optical computer" would be more palatable than "AI".

Makes you wonder what kind of spin a "Hello World" program would glean from some journalistic minds.

<comment><USER33> "Talking computer greets humans…but who's in charge?"

<comment><USER28> That so nails it I found myself clicking your profile and expecting some media outlet reference [chuckle]. Which means I've either gone full cynic, or the lines between parody and news have blurred so much that I'm seeing double. Though I can still enjoy a chuckle and thank you for that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> This is huge.

Number system convertor using light and glass - core logic

Alphabets to ascii code convertor - Application 1 ASCII code to binary convertor - Application 2

Imagine, if convertors are placed on top of one another.

Source of light need not be a problem as we can stack lenses to power it up.

Based on reading other's comments, I can see they are comparing it to an AI.

Its a problem solver using light and stacked glass. It uses structure from an AI. Neural networks filters data. you can use a digital(electronic) device or purely electrical

Input - Processing - Output - Conventional computation engine, it doesn't say it should be electrical / mechanical. First computer was a mechanical device.

This uses light!

Here is another application.

How can a blind person tell whether it is day or night ? give a light bending device that will focus light on the person's palm. If it heats up, its day.

Use a stacked light bending layers to get a yes/no answer.

</comment><comment><USER35> I cut a circular hole in some paper. It's now an AI.

<comment><USER36> if your goal is to detect round objects, then yes it is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> They must be restricted to linear models, right? So this is basically an implementation of logistic regression? Doing nonlinear operations optically is much trickier, and almost definitely active instead of passive.

EDIT: Actually they describe some nonlinear material inclusions in the paper, interesting.

</comment><comment><USER7> You could cast thousands of these into space with lenses on them and they would have just enough power to send a signal when they detect an extraterrestrial planet or something.

</comment><comment><USER7> Power free, kinda. Still needs light though. Begs the question whether this would be more efficient or a solar powered tpu with the same amount of light.

</comment><comment><USER36> it is very surprising how many people here resent the idea of an analog solution. this is an irrational mental block - anything that is not digital cannot be "intelligent". i wonder what is the reason - age, education? is this what CS does to people? to me, for example, having a neural network in a piece of glass is genius.

</comment><comment><USER38> Not that this thing isn't cool, but if my house has a window then is this AI too? I can now see through it and tell if there's a cat sitting on the lawn or not.

</comment><comment><USER39> ASIC here ASIC there I got an ASIC for you!

</comment><comment><USER40> I might be wrong, but I believe the glass is the output of an AI program, trained by observing multiple manually corrected iterations of glass making, to arrange impurities while making glass, for object recognition. The glass and impurities themselves aren't the AI here, the program that can repeatedly be used in mass production to make object-recognizing glass, is the AI

<comment><USER41> This looks like any of the "build your first neural net" tutorials online that do the same task. The only difference is that training this one was a lot more work.</comment></comment>


Listening to Quantum Radio - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2019-03-quantum-radio.html <comment><USER2> [https://arxiv.org/abs/1901.07267](https://arxiv.org/abs/1901.07267)

</comment><comment><USER3> > The usual solution to a weak radio signal is to find a bigger signal, for > instance, by picking a different radio station or by moving to the other > side of the room.

The former solution is as sustainable as repairing your car by taking the bus.

</comment><comment><USER3> This reads like technology for a noiseless receiver. It is not a usable radio yet ("this circuit could enable sensing of radio frequency radiation with quantum resolution" [0]).

[0] non-paywalled pre-print version of the paper: [https://arxiv.org/pdf/1901.07267.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1901.07267.pdf) (thanks to Da Schneib in the comments section on phys.org for the link)

<comment><USER4> It's actually not technology for a noiseless receiver. It's technology for detecting megahertz photons at quantum resolution. You'll still have noise!

Bloody clever experiment; thanks very much for the link! When I get all grouchy for how terrible current year is, that paper saves 2019 for me.</comment></comment>


I am a time-traveler from the future, here to beg you to stop what you are doing - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1lfobc/i_am_a_timetraveler_from_the_future_here_to_beg/ <comment><USER2> I am slightly more pro Bitcoin, but it is still a great read.</comment>


C# still better than F# - <AUTHOR> http://blog.angeloflogic.com/2014/05/c-still-better-than-f.html

<comment><USER2> > F#'s pattern matching for example would be put to good use in log analysis.

No, it would not. It was not intended for text analysis. Even regexps would be better at this than pattern matching.

> I like the ability of C# to define arbitrarily complex cyclic data > structures with clean code.

It's difficult to be concise when one writes C# in F#. It's like in the old saying that "good programmer can write in Fortran in any language".

The author apparently didn't grasp what functional programming is about.

</comment><comment><USER3> This looks more like _flame war_ starter, than post with any essential argumentation. __tl;dr __- "I've tried to write C# code in F# and I think that writing it in C# is better."

</comment><comment><USER4> I like how there aren't any code examples or real proof one way or the other in this blog post.</comment>


Task – a Sweet.js macro for CSP in JavaScript - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/srikumarks/cspjs

<comment><USER2> It looks there is already another CSP implementation in Javascript by James Long (@longster) [http://jlongster.com/Taming-the-Asynchronous-Beast-with- CSP-...](http://jlongster.com/Taming-the-Asynchronous-Beast-with-CSP-in- JavaScript) [https://github.com/jlongster/js- csp](https://github.com/jlongster/js-csp)

He did a talk on it at ReactConf here: [http://conf.reactjs.com/schedule.html#communicating-with- cha...](http://conf.reactjs.com/schedule.html#communicating-with-channels)

The difference seems to be that James' was strongly influenced by the Clojure CSP implementation in core.async. It's not clear what this implementation was influenced by.</comment>


Stream Processing with a Spreadsheet [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://hirzels.com/martin/papers/ecoop14-activesheets.pdf

<comment><USER2> I'm one of the authors of that paper, it's a pleasant surprise to see this here. Feel free to ask any questions!

<comment><USER3> Is ActiveSheets actually available somewhere? Probably my #1 complaint about CS papers in general is that they present something interesting and fancy that you usually can't get your hands on.

Did you investigate using LibreOffice Calc instead of Excel?

<comment><USER4> we didn't look specifically at libreoffice, but we considered a number of other free or online spreadsheet offerings. excel is attractive because there's a widely installed user base. we are however considering integrations with other spreadsheet offerings. we hope to have a free activesheets service available for trial.</comment></comment></comment>


Comment Period for TSA Proposed Nude Body Scanner Rule Ends; 97% Opposed - <AUTHOR> http://tsaoutofourpants.wordpress.com/2013/06/25/jonathan-corbett-publishes-comment-for-tsas-proposed-nude-body-scanner-rule/ <comment><AUTHOR> Happy to report this major victory to you guys. The TSA for years has cited badly worded and poorly conducted opinion polls to show that America is ambivalent towards the nude body scanners and pat-downs. This is a clear blow to any argument of a public mandate.

<comment><USER2> But they aren't going to remove them because wealthy people with connections have a vested interest in selling Rapiscanners to airports.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Whatever the rationale for body scanners they aren't an effective means to detect explosives for the simple reason that they don't see inside the body. There are already plenty of cases, in Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan to name two, of bombers hiding explosives in their anal canal.

</comment><comment><USER4> The headline seems to be misleading: it's 97% _of the last 100 comments_.

</comment><comment><USER5> Why are we outraged about the body scanners, again? They don't show the TSA agents any pictures of you, just "yes" or "no". They don't delay lines anymore, either, you step in, the thing spins around, you step out, and in like 2 seconds, you get the "yes" or "no".

(There were reasonable complaints about backscatter x-ray machines, but those are gone now and only millimeter-wave units are in airports. So there's no nudity and no ionizing radiation anymore.)

I dunno, I'm just not outraged. The machines seem pretty nice, to be perfectly honest.

<comment><USER6> Regarding convenience, just travel internationally and you will see just how "convenient" and "enjoyable" the USA is to get in and out compared to other countries.

As for the machines and process themselves, there are plenty other complains that are far more important than speed, convenience or how much the UI shows. Sadly, usually and kind of ironically the only TSA agent that treats me as anything else than a piece of meat is the guy doing a pat-down, and that guy has me literally by the balls.

<comment><USER7> I travel internationally and do not notice a stark difference between the security checkpoint procedures in the USA and in other countries. The only difference I can recall is having to stop for a few seconds in the millimeter scanner instead of just walking through a traditional gate, but this is hardly a major difference. Can you mention anything else?

<comment><USER8> I mainly use Narita these days. It doesn't have any scanners at all except for metal detectors (or didn't; I haven't flown for a couple of years). Security checkpoints are very quick and efficient. The staff seem very competent and quick. Lines are usually short, but even when they're long, things move along very quickly, so there's really no sense of security as being anything more than a minor bottleneck. [This is sort of how security was a long time ago in the U.S.]

In the U.S. airports I usually use, O'hare, JFK, and sometimes other airports for stopovers, things are slow and chaotic. The lines are _always_ huge and move slowly, the required scanner procedure very slow, other rules slow things down (everybody's taking off and putting on their shoes and belts, and despite exhortations to do it in advance, this really bogs things down), and the staff seem to often be inattentive and inefficient.

Where exactly the main problem is, I'm not entirely sure, but I do know that I dread going through security in the U.S. these days...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There are so many potential jokes about the 3%, I can't even think where to start</comment>


Skype lands in Nokia's Ovi Store - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10463172-1.html <comment><USER2> Why did it take so long to get the app listed? Because it was finished only a few weeks ago. I know, I installed it the day it came out.

Very nice, by the way, though lacking video chat last I checked :(</comment>


How we Autoscale Heroku - <AUTHOR> http://n8.tumblr.com/post/11575735846/how-to-auto-scale-heroku

<comment><USER2> You might want to look into using girl_friday instead of delayed job. girl_friday doesn't require an extra background worker.

<comment><USER3> we also use ryan @ heroku's queue_classic instead of dj. doesn't poll every second like dj; uses postgres pub/sub.</comment></comment>


Microsoft rumored to have put in a bid for Linden Labs makers of Second Life - <AUTHOR> http://www.techeye.net/internet/microsoft-to-buy-second-life

<comment><USER2> Wow, only two years late on this one. Way to go, Microsoft.

Not that a tweet from... somebody, (Who precisely, is @tizzers?) citing an anonymous source is exactly reputable.

<comment><AUTHOR> Some of the comments say that @tizzers has provided reputable insider info about Linden before.

Techeye also claim they get a current employee to corroborate, though I have no idea how trustworthy that is.</comment></comment>


When a crow dies, the other crows investigate the cause of death (2015) - <AUTHOR> http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/10/151003-animals-science-crows-birds-culture-brains/ <comment><USER2> A VERY timely article for me. About a month ago here in Silicon Valley, I noticed that a crow had been violently torn apart and the pieces scattered all over my backyard lawn. I assume the killer was a raccoon--another improbably intelligent animal. How those fat, little ninjas do what they do is beyond me, but one had apparently caught a crow. A few hours after I noticed the carnage, I grabbed a paper grocery bag and some rubber gloves and went outside to collect the crow parts.

As soon as I touched the first piece (a large, black, detached wing), a dozen crows appeared out of nowhere flying in tight circles over my head (about the height of the roof of my 2-story house) and shrieking. They must have been standing watch for hours waiting to see what would happen. Within a minute or so, their numbers had doubled, swarming like bees and screeching. They went so berserk that I thought for sure they would swoop down and peck at me like Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds", but they didn't. They stayed up there and screeched the whole time I was cleaning up (maybe ten minutes).

I took the bag over to the recycling bin on the side of the house. Property is expensive, so the houses are close together leaving only a narrow slit of sky above me. The crows followed me and flew back and forth right above the gap, still screeching at me. _I_ hadn't killed the bird, but they were acting like an angry mob blaming the wrong guy.

I was already aware of the studies showing that crows recognize individual people and can bear grudges for years. I was afraid that's what I was going to end up with, but after that event, they never bothered me again, and I see crows around my house frequently. Maybe they DID know that I wasn't the killer, but they had some other agenda. From my perspective, they (and raccoons) are essentially alien intelligences living among us that I always underestimate and still don't understand.

<comment><USER3> [They stayed up there and screeched the whole time I was cleaning up (maybe ten minutes).]

I probably would have went inside and left the remains to nature. I commend your bravery. It seems like a squad of crows could do some real damage to a person.

Also, I can confirm that raccoons are very intelligent. They're basically like dogs but with more "street smarts". I learned this after trying to get one to leave my attic.

Also, a side note about Raccoons: be sure not to expose yourself to their droppings (for example, if one is living in your attic, don't go and clean up their droppings without proper protection). They can apparently contain some airborne parasite which can kill you in days if inhaled.

<comment><USER4> \- It seems like a squad of crows could do some real damage to a person

Sorry but you've lost the plot on this one. Seen way to many movies.

Single birds might become territorial when they have young and you might lose a eye. But thats it.

I'd watch less TV/'current affairs'/crows are smart stories if I was you.

Alcohol, tobacco and mental issues.... now those are scarry killers.

<comment><USER5> I would consider losing an eye real damage to my person.

<comment><USER6> Apparently you need to watch less movies about blindness being bad...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> So fascinating!

There is a young girl in Seattle who made friends with the local crows by feeding them, they soon were bringing her regular gifts in exchange for her snacks - [http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31604026](http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31604026)

I tried to do the same thing in my backyard for about three weeks until one day my wife caught me putting little pieces of bread on our porch railing. She asked what I was doing and I explained making friends with the crows (what else?!). She asked me to stop so I did.

My only hope is that they attack her now and not me, with some level of understanding that she was the one who ruined all the fun...

<comment><USER8> To put the story you linked in context, it's less "little girl feeds a couple of crows" and more "large scale feeding operation" that pisses of the neighbors: [http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Neighbors-sue-to- stop...](http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Neighbors-sue-to-stop-Seattle- s-bird-feeding-6438345.php)

<comment><USER9> Well, that's one interpretation, and the city and health department have made statements disagreeing with it. We'll see what the courts say eventually, it's scheduled to go to trial in August 2016. [http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Crow-feeding- Seattle-...](http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Crow-feeding-Seattle- family-fights-neighbors-6577852.php)

<comment><USER10> I think this says a lot : "A petition signed by 51 neighbors filed a petition with the city of Seattle failed to prompt action."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I believe ravens and crows are very similar, this is a personal (long, and not the great) story about a raven I messed around with in Yosemite National Park:

When I was up on north dome (not to be confused with half dome) there was a group of raven's hanging out on the rocks watching us eat our late lunch. I had an apple core that I tossed to the side and watched as a raven warily tried to approach it. I walked over and grabbed the apple core before the raven could grab it so I could entertain myself teasing the raven for a bit before we started down the mountain. I started by putting my arm back ready to throw the apple and as I did that I noticed the raven kneel a bit as if getting ready to launch itself. I thought this was interesting as it showed it was anticipating me throwing the object based on my arm motion. As I relaxed my arm the bird also relaxed.

I tried grabbing a rock and again watched it brace itself to launch from the rock then tried switching the apple core and the rock behind my back and tossing the rock hoping the bird would dart after it thinking it was the core. The bird didn't do as I expected and instead just watched me carefully never motioning for the rocks.

I tore a piece of the apple from the core behind my back and tossed it just as I had with the rocks and before the piece of apple even left my hand the raven leaped from the rock in its direction.

This blew my mind. Not sure how the raven knew it was a chunk of apple and not a rock.

I messed around with that particular raven for a good 10-15 minutes tossing various things in its direction, testing its reactions and trying to mess with its little raven mind. All I managed to do however was be impressed at its level of experience in dealing with Yosemite tourists such as myself.

<comment><USER12> You realize you're not supposed to toss around garbage in the national park?

<comment><USER3> Here's a different perspective, which I will admit in advance is kind of ridiculous, but it makes me think...

Why are humans not considered to be a part of nature? I think it's because we consider ourselves to be more intelligent than other animals/organisms and therefore assume it to be our responsibility to actively protect nature. However, this is based on our own moral standards, which were created by us, likely as a result of our ability to empathize.

A human eating an apple and discarding the core seems pretty natural to me (though it's not, by definition). If this has an impact on the wildlife population, then perhaps it was "meant to be".

Going out of our way to preserve nature seems more unnatural. Nature should have no expectation of our intelligence, so perhaps the human-caused destruction of the world is itself natural.

Then again, perhaps our increased intelligence is natural, so going out of our way to preserve nature is natural.

As you can see, I basically have no point here. It's just an interesting thought train that I felt like expressing.

Of course, this argument could be extended to just about anything that a human does, including pumping oil directly into the ocean, which is why I'm not actually trying to argue this point.

I guess what I am saying is that if humans are left unregulated, nature seems to find a way to restore sanity. An example of this is the over prescription of antibiotics which has led to a decrease in their overall effectiveness. It seems like nature will always win in the end.

<comment><USER13> Unregulated humans have lead to the extinction of hundreds (thousands?) of species. Largely by hunting, but also unintentionally by destroying habitats. It's also a safety hazard: when you feed wild animals, they learn to associate humans with food and are more willing to approach humans, which places humans in danger. Aside from animal welfare, garbage is just disgusting. If one person sees an apple core, perhaps they'll assume it's OK to leave their Doritos bag, and someone else a beer bottle, and now the area is spoiled for everyone. Not to mention health hazards for both humans and animals from rotting food.

<comment><USER14> > If one person sees an apple core, perhaps they'll assume it's OK to leave > their Doritos bag

Let me nuance that a little bit: They don't _actually_ believe it's OK, they're really just lazy and inconsiderate. If they were _actually_ unaware of the difference between food and plastic packaging, the problem would be solving itself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've been very involved with the carrion crows near my house. I feed them with peanuts. At first they wouldn't even come near the food. Now they salute, ask for food, do fly bys and they get extremely close to me. I have observed them long hours.

What most amazes me is how they communicate. They group and start talking complex things using low volume sounds. Maybe they discuss how to stash my peanuts, or what side they will use to approach me, or who will stay back and watch for dangers.

They also do long distance talking. At the mornings mainly, the group will remain silent while a designated one will song loud. You can hear distant groups responding. Sometimes this long distance chat start group movements to where I can't follow them.

Crow are intelligent, amazing animals. I encourage everyone to look at them more often, they do look at us all the time.

</comment><comment><USER16> This whole article is pretty interesting, but the last paragraph is worth quoting:

 _For instance, in 2008 Marzluff had researchers in caveman masks capture crows while others in a control mask—Dick Cheney—let the birds be. Afterward the birds ignored the harmless Cheneys but scolded and chased the cavemen, and did so for years.

Poor birds! Probably thought they could trust a Crow-Magnon._

Dick Cheney masks! Probably thought they could trust a _Crow-Magnon_. I have faith in the world again.

<comment><USER17> Seems like crows are prime for weaponization (maybe expressing my inner Dick Cheney here). Just don a mask and attack a few crows near your target, leaving some witnesses.

Has it ever been done before? A quick Google search didn't uncover anything.

<comment><USER18> Sound like high risk for low reward, even if they don't figure out that the other people aren't involved which they might.

At first I thought you ment like this: [http://cyberneticzoo.com/bionics/1940-project- pigeon-1948-pr...](http://cyberneticzoo.com/bionics/1940-project- pigeon-1948-project-orcon-b-f-skinner-american/)

<comment><USER17> Hilarious! Reminded me of [https://archive.google.com/pigeonrank/](https://archive.google.com/pigeonrank/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> If you find this interesting, you should really look into the intelligence of crows. They've been observed to remember human faces, wait on traffic lights, plan, and a whole bunch of things that are very impressive.

And don't even get me started on _jackdaws_.

<comment><USER20> Corvids (crows, ravens, magpies, jackdaws) are pretty bright. Some of them also have quite a bit of voice control. Like parrots, they can speak human words if trained.

[https://youtu.be/rIX_6TBeph0](https://youtu.be/rIX_6TBeph0)

<comment><USER21> Is there any evidence this isn't fake?

<comment><USER20> He does sound a little like a voice synthesiser, but I think that's mostly because both birds and computers speak English poorly. Here's another example: [https://youtu.be/AfsnHVaScjg](https://youtu.be/AfsnHVaScjg)

<comment><USER22> Re: voice synth, I think that's just an artifact of how birds vocal chords (or whatever gizmo they've got in there) work. The timbre of the voice is going to be different than that of a primate.

EDIT: you can even hear it in their natural calls, they have a buzzing, saw- like texture in the upper-mid and high range.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> For last 2 years, I am suffering from depression. I decided to isolate myself, which I knew was wrong. My parents were worried about my situation since I am living with them. I live in a village where this sort of behavior is condemned, and people are very hardworking(they are either farmers, fishermen, construction workers/helpers). What I noticed was, whenever I go outside of my house a bunch of crows will gather around and caw at me, until I disappear from their site. But they wont follow me in the streets. Some times more than 30 crows will gather near the trees, and kinda shout at me. (I always felt like they were yelling at me, to get a life :) )

So I decided to give a try to get more disciplined. From past to months I wake up at 5 am for gym, and have a routine life. Now none of the crows notice me :).

My explanation: These crows can sense how people live and behave. And they found out I was very odd in the community. :) :)

<comment><USER24> An alternate explanation: The crows were cawing encouragements :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> The image of the researcher wearing a mask and holding a dead crow is absolutely terrifying:

[http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/10/03/00/2D0746BE0000057...](http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/10/03/00/2D0746BE00000578-3258227-image-a-35_1443829916200.jpg)

<comment><USER26> Looks like something straight out of True Detective

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> So here's a story for the books. I live in Sri Lanka and we have massive numbers of crows always flying around in the urban areas causing quite the racket too. They are exceptionally intelligent and have been witnessed hitching bus rides regularly from one town to another. But the story I have happened at a school water polo match.

The location the match was being played at had a standard pool and a shallow junior pool right next to each other. During the match a wild attempt to score a goal missed the side and the ball smashed full force into a crow who was drinking water from the junior pool. This of course resulted in the poor crow's death. But what was amazing was that within a few minutes, every other crow in the vicinity had surrounded the dying crow and then decided that they would attack the spectators and the players. We had to clear the entire stadium and pool for a good half an hour till they allowed us to return (although they left their dead comrade behind who had to be cleared away by a hapless cleaning staff member).

One less impressive story but still relevant to the article. We had an antique air rifle at home that needed repairs. My uncle who did such repairs said he'd come along and look into it. That evening there were plenty of crows around as usual. Most of them were in the trees two houses away. I assume these were crows who had forever lived in urban areas and probably never been shot at let alone seen a gun. They've lived through plenty of fireworks and don't seem all that bothered by them whenever they do go off. But when I brought the gun out to show to my uncle, the ruckus caused was utterly deafening. And just like that, silence. Every single crow had scattered from the area. How they recognised an object like that and so instantly is a question and memory that has stuck around with me forever.

Amazing creatures who annoy me with their never ending din and tendencies to somehow make a mess of any garbage bag left out in the open, but they'll always have my absolute respect for their intelligence.

<comment><USER28>
        > I assume these were crows who had forever lived
        > in urban areas and probably never been shot at
        > let alone seen a gun.

Easy explanation for this that's probably correct:

\- Your assumption that crows don't range outside the urban area is false.

\- It would have only taken one crow in the group to be familiar with a gun

\- That single individual recognizing it and flying off in a panic triggers the rest to fly off, a behavior typical of herd/flock animals.

<comment><USER27> My assumption might be false. It doesn't necessarily have to be false. Our urban area is fairly large.

I agree it would take just one crow to be familiar with a gun. But at the same time, there was no displaying of the gun. The crows weren't in the immediate vicinity. They were mostly on the trees two houses away. The recognition that I had brought out a dangerous object took just a few seconds from the moment I stepped through the door. Even if my assumption is wrong about their past, the fact that some crow(s) took the sight of the gun in so quickly is still pretty darn amazing

<comment><USER29> Birds can see small objects from very far distances. Small objects from a mile or more. An eagle for example can be nearly out of your range of sight but can easily see rodents. Once the crows saw the object they would raise an alarm which is why the whole group squawked and left.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Fascinating study. It really triggers questions around how animals' memory work - short term vs long-term, trauma vs joy, etc. I have a 2-year French shepherd (Beauceron) who, while being smart, has a very limited long-term memory. I am almost convinced that he cannot make the difference between waiting for me 5 minutes and 5 hours. At the same time, his trauma or joy memory works incredibly well: he perfectly remembers people he only saw 2/3 times when he was 2 months or objects that hurt him. I always feel like animals are trapped between an absolute lack of time and space consciousness and an incredibly sharp conscious of feeling

<comment><USER31> What you are talking about are two different things: memories, and sense of time. Most things aside humans, as much as I'm aware of, live in the here and now. So 5 minutes and 5 hours do not make a difference when waiting for something that is NOT here NOW.

Alas, humans are different. And thus we suffer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Mockingbirds also remember faces. They will attack if they think you are a predator. I had one who decided my daily walk was a threat - maybe I walked too close to its nest - and came straight at my face. Scary as hell. That bird then swooped to attack every time I went outdoors. To Kill a Mockingbird indeed.

<comment><USER33> Magpies as well. They aim for the face/eyes. Usually if you come too close to their nest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> So is the full collective noun "A Murder Investigation of Crows"?

<comment><USER35> A murder of crows investigating a murder of crow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> My wife and I picked up a seemingly injured young crow from our yard before the neighborhood cats (or buses) found it, and we took it to a local wounded bird shelter. The crow's family(?) crowed incessantly whenever we walked outside for a few months afterward. They would even start when we were several blocks away, coming home from farther out, and would follow us to our door. (The young crow apparently had a head injury, and we never heard back from the place on its recovery.)

</comment><comment><USER37> A couple of years ago, near dusk, I heard a hell of a bird ruckus and went out to the front porch to have a look. What I saw blew me away: a young coyote was making haste down the middle of the street, ears down and tail between its legs being pursued by a very noisy aggressive murder of crows. They literally chased him out of the neighborhood.

<comment><USER31> This can happen to people as well. I've heard stories about people throwing rocks at ravens in parks, where the ravens at later events responded by crapping on the person from up high, or throwing small rocks and twigs on him as they flew by.

Never forgive, never forget.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Quote from the Quran 5:31 [1] "Then Allah sent a crow, who scratched the ground, to show him how to hide the dead body of his brother. 'Woe to me!' said he. 'Was I not even able to be as this raven, and to hide the shame of my brother?' Then he became full of regrets."

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

</comment><comment><USER39> This may sound weird, but in the country (rural Virginia) we already kind of knew this.

If you had a farm and crows get in your crops, the solution was to shoot a crow and leave it. The rest of the crows would stay and circle, but they would leave the crops alone.

* Not advocating violence against animals. Just sharing that tidbit.

<comment><USER40> Yep. I was taught that if you wanted to shoot crows, to do it away from your house - because they are vindictive little creatures and don't forget.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> On my way to work one morning I came across a raven funeral. I didn't know that's what it was at the time. All the ravens (Australian) were gathered broadly in a disk amongst the trees, there were about 20 of them, all quiet and quite still. I had a choice of routes, either through them or around them to the right, I chose the latter as I didn't want to disturb whatever they were doing.

</comment><comment><USER42> Crows also seem to be doing analogies [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/crows- understand-a...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/crows-understand- analogies/)

Douglas Hofstadter says that thinking is all about making analogies, so that is all pretty remarkable.

[https://www.amazon.com/Surfaces-Essences-Analogy-Fuel- Thinki...](https://www.amazon.com/Surfaces-Essences-Analogy-Fuel- Thinking/dp/0465018475)

</comment><comment><USER43> To be fair, I also have unfavorable reactions when faced with mask-wearing people holding dead crows. ;)

</comment><comment><USER44> The notorious Doritos shop lifting sea gull of Aberdeen [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kqy9hxhUxK0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kqy9hxhUxK0) And another in South Shield, who favours Greggs - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4QXyUjQCgE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4QXyUjQCgE)

</comment><comment><USER45> Scientists? Or WITCHES!?!?!?

Seriously though, the human behavior study on this is as fascinating as the animal one, and would be really hard to explain in a Salem courthouse.

And the picture of the masked scientist holding a dead crow? Add that to the library of images that my subconscious will use to manufacture nightmares.

Edgar Allen Poe would be proud if he could see this masterpiece of creepiness.

</comment><comment><USER46> My dog has been on a killing spree this summer, sometimes catching 2 birds in a week :(.

It's amazing how the birds react when she catches one. They all go nuts, and more fly in and start squawking.

I worry they'll call in a hawk to carry her away lol.

<comment><USER47> Growing up, I had a cat who got attacked by a hawk. He came running in one day with deep talon scratches on his back.

My mom took him to the vet, who cleaned up the wounds and said that it was probably a juvenile who was overconfident in what he could grab. An adult wouldn't have tried.

The mental image of this teenager hawk swooping down, grabbing a fatass 15-pound cat, and struggling to pick it up while Mom looks down and shakes her head makes me smile.

<comment><USER48> I've seen an adult hawk predate a small dog before. The dog was likely killed by the impact of the hawk, though I couldn't be sure because the hawk carried the limp body away before the owner could take any action.

Here's another example:

[http://www.wrdw.com/home/headlines/Hawk-flies-away-with- fami...](http://www.wrdw.com/home/headlines/Hawk-flies-away-with-family-pet-- 220580101.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Holy crap the photo of the volunteer in the mask is terrifying.

<comment><USER50> Nightmare material right there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Probably a ridiculous claim, but I think ants have a ant death detection system too. After being invaded, putting dead ants on the path they used to reach the food drawers made them backtrack immediately and stop using that trail altogether.

<comment><USER52> They do in fact have a death detection system.

[http://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2009/04/01/102601823/he...](http://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2009/04/01/102601823/hey- im-dead-the-story-of-the-very-lively-ant)

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> "...Afterward the birds ignored the harmless Cheneys" No such a thing as a harmless Dick Cheney.

<comment><USER54> Indeed. This research is part of Dick Cheney's sinister plot to regain power using an army of crows trained to hate everyone but him...

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> By the way, when there are crows around, do not stare or point at other birds' nests if you spot any among the tree branches. Crows are _very_ good at reading human gestures. If they see a bunch of humans staring and pointing at something, they will understand that there is something of interest in that direction, and will inevitably find and destroy the nests.

</comment><comment><USER56> I've always liked this one about the raven and bald eagle: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0w9q125TSI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0w9q125TSI)

BTW - I once read somewhere that its its illegal to keep native birds (like crows, robins etc).

</comment><comment><USER57> > Each volunteer was either holding a dead crow, standing near a dead red- > tailed hawk—a crow predator—or standing near a dead red-tailed hawk holding > the dead crow.

I had to reread this about 5 times to make sense of it. Am I just tired from a long work day or is that a poorly phrase sentence?

<comment><USER58> holding a dead crow, standing near a dead hawk, or doing both at once.

<comment><USER33> It's not clear whether the volunteer or the hawk is holding the dead crow in the last case.

<comment><USER33> Why was I down voted? Read the sentence again. Both meanings are syntactically correct. When I first read the article I took the 3rd case to be that the hawk was holding the dead crow, with the human standing nearby.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I seem to have found a video of a magpie funeral. They're also corvids, like crows and ravens.

[https://youtu.be/60Zg9sGnQf8](https://youtu.be/60Zg9sGnQf8)

<comment><USER59> I am not an ornithologist, but my first impression is that it isn't a "funeral". Birds do occasionally hit stuff and this seems more like a response to a possibly unconscious bird. Poke it, yell a bunch, maybe it'll come to. When the bird is actually dead the instinctive response is prolonged?

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Very interesting. I'd love to know how many calls were made to the local police station reporting people in creepy masks standing around with dead crows.

</comment><comment><USER61> That mask is super creepy.

<comment><USER62> That picture is straight out of an indie horror movie.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> > For instance, in 2008 Marzluff had researchers in caveman masks capture > crows while others in a control mask—Dick Cheney—let the birds be. Afterward > the birds ignored the harmless Cheneys but scolded and chased the cavemen, > and did so for years.

I feel like they should have swapped the masks around for this one.

</comment><comment><USER64> Ravens played a role in norse mythology, serving as "shamanic helping spirits" who scout for the god Odin. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huginn_and_Muninn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huginn_and_Muninn)

</comment><comment><USER65> Growing up with a large garden out in the country, we always had a lot of trouble with crows picking newly-sprouted corn. They'd go right along the row and pluck out the seedlings to eat the kernel at the root. At least, they would, until my father would manage to get one with the shotgun and then hang it up from the scarecrow. After that, there wouldn't be a crow in sight for months.

They are smart creatures.

</comment><comment><USER66> More anecdata - there were a bunch of crows who were harassing my elderly outdoor cat. So I grabbed my BB gun and shot one from my bedroom window. The two other companions flew off, but when I went to go dispose of the body, 6 more birds flew over to see what I was doing. Cawing at me the whole time.

I didn't want to kill the damn thing. But, our whole street was crow free for at least 2 years.

</comment><comment><USER67> Gulls behave similarly, being 'attracted' to predators that have caught a gull and circling in order to learn about their behaviour.

[https://web.stanford.edu/group/stanfordbirds/text/essays/Gul...](https://web.stanford.edu/group/stanfordbirds/text/essays/Gulls_Are_Attracted.html)

</comment><comment><USER68> I saw a crow get hit by a car right in front of me with a thump because it moved too slow from a mid street meal. Instantly probably 6 or so crows started shrieking and came over to the incident. It was quite sad because it seemed they could tell that something terrible had happened.

</comment><comment><USER69> Reminds of this video where a crow and a feral kitten are friends. The crow even feeds the kitten!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fAGzY9rnaA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fAGzY9rnaA)

</comment><comment><USER70> I've rescued several injured crows and every time I've been followed closely by at least two other crows as I brought the crow to my car. Amazingly intelligent and social creatures.

</comment><comment><USER71> Are there any academics here who could shed light on who is considered more intelligent - a Crow or a Raven?

I am aware Ravens are known to mimic sounds more than Crows, unless I am mistaken.

</comment><comment><USER72> Reminds me of this video:

Epic Cat Fight w/ Two Birds

[http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WQd9kuXpUYU](http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WQd9kuXpUYU)

</comment><comment><USER14> So, does this mean we should change the collective noun to "a murder- investigation of crows"?

</comment><comment><USER73> I see you liked the article I linked on reddit yesterday :D

</comment><comment><USER74> Gives new meaning to the word "scarecrow"

</comment><comment><USER75> ...for the watch

</comment><comment><USER76> Murders investigating murders.

</comment><comment> obj-g That pun at the end.

</comment><comment><USER77> It should have 2015 in name.

<comment><USER78> Not sure why you are getting downvoted, the article is indeed dated Oct. 2015. See the URL and/or do a search in Google News.

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> In some regions, they also burn the body to make sure they don't come back from the dead.</comment>


Ask HN: There is room for innovation in a blogging platform? - <AUTHOR>

I was thinking about the features provided by the usual blogging platforms  and how they have innovated throught the years. It looked really strange when I saw that there aren't any real improvements to the final user.
Don't get me wrong, I think that WordPress, by exemple, is an awesome product, but that there is a lack of features that could be pretty useful for the users and an excess of boring administrative stuff.
I'm launching today a page to validate my hypothesis that people will like something new in this area. Do you think that there is room for innovation here?
Some features I'm working on:
* Every blog has yours own API which will allow a user to "get connected" to it (to the user point of view, it'll be only a button to get connected, every technical detail will be hidden).
* Better sign method: The idea behind Mozilla Persona is awesome and I really want to make use of it.
The idea is to make it free and open source.
Any kind of feedback will be appreciated!
If you got interested, this is my landing page: http://barapps.co/rlie <comment><USER3> Here is an idea.

\- Create a blogging API. \- The API should give people al of the basic functionality a blog has (post, comments, social, users, etc.). \- CReate a front end that will allow developers and designers to use the API in the blog template to fill it in with content. Example:

        <title>{% site.com/api/get/blog.title %}</title>

         {% site.com/api/get/blog.post/uniqueId %}

And so on.

What is hard to deal with blogging is not the platforms there are, but a lack of standarization. Providing a simple API that people can use to create blog around it could prove to be beneficial and profitable.

<comment><AUTHOR> Your feedback was really important to make me think about which kind of user I should focus initially.

First, I was thinking how to get attention of the regular user, but you made me think about how it could be a lot more useful to developers and designers in a first moment.

Your idea is awesome, I'm very grateful for your help!

<comment><USER3> No problem. If you build it and it grows, then you have to hire me as a engineer. :)

In all seriousness, the trick to this kind of platform is the following. You have to make it very, very easy to work with. Using confusing API calls will just make people run away from it. I've seen a lot of APIs that are over engineerd with wacky syntax. Try and keep it as simple as possible, as if the developer was writing HTML itself.

The only problem with wordpress is the platform itself. In order to build something with it, you are accepting a lot of engineering overhead from past versions. This technical baggage makes it a pain to work it, though not as bad as joomla. By going with the API route, you can change the back end as much as you'd like, but the developers would just see the same API calls. Its like an interface in OOP programming.

The last API I did for a client took calls like this:

host/category/products/product/id/get

to this:

host/get/id

See how easier it is to develop with that? You dont need to know what category the product belongs to, because that data is passed as a JSON string to you. Once you get it, on your side you just go through the results and display it accordingly.

Same with a blog API. I dont need to know the title, just the post ID. So do host/get/id and then in the front end do {% post.title %} {% post.author %}{% post.date_published %} {% post.content %}

and so on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> As a WordPress Developer I see lots of innovation going on the WP platform. I think for new blogging platform to get any kind of momentum it has to differentiate in meaningful ways. In terms of features, it's hard to beat WordPress.

The API connectivity you speak is very doable in WordPress (take a look at Kickpress which turns WordPress into an API, or the JSON api plugin). I think you're on the ball in terms of the importance of a more connective experience.

WordPress is incredibly flexible and every day use-cases where people would have said 'WordPress is not the right tool for this job' people are starting to say 'actually WordPress can do this'. (Checkout projects like wp types/pods/buddypress/p2 etc)

I'd love to see more innovation going into WordPress. Right now I think it could be made a lot easier to use for beginners. I'm not really keen on the backend in that respects. Personally, I'm making tools that will make for smarter themes and more personable apps for WordPress.

There's also lots of blogging platforms that take a more minimalist approach if that's the direction you want to go in. Then you have to contend with established platforms like tumblr and posterous. And that market is also cornered by services like google plus and facebook which tap right into social networks which is very attractive to users craving connectivity with their network.

Last but not least, I'm assuming you'd want to develop something that makes money. In that case you need to really figure out a product that people will pay for. Personally, if I had to do that, I'd pick a niche I understand

Themeforce for example built a saas using WordPress( rather than building something from scratch) as the platform for restaurant owners. It's very customized so most people of their clients might not even realize it's WordPress and frankly it wouldn't matter to them either. I think their example is a great lesson: most endusers aren't going to care that much about the tool, they are going to care what results it gives them, the cost and how easy it is to use.

Right now I don't think your USP as it's coming across at the moment is exciting, new or radical. 2cts

<comment><AUTHOR> It's good to know the point of view of another WP developer, so thank you for your feedback!

I've also worked with WordPress and, as I said, it's really a very nice product, but it's not as user friendly as it should be and it probably won't change in any near future, because its user base already is used to work with it as it is.

My experience with WordPress showed me that for both, users and developers, it could be really easier to work with.

I made some experiments with some of my clients who use WP, and the Pareto's principle was king here, I mean, 80% of all the actions made use of 20% of the features.

I agree with you when you say that there are a lot of big players working on a minimalist approach. But I really think that there are a lot of users who really want to own their data. If you make a fast search about people incentivizing another's to get their own blog with their own domain, you'll see that maybe there's some market here.

I've never heard of KickPress, so I'll study it, but I got really impressed with HappyTables!

Thanks again for you comments. They're pretty useful!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Well, ask if people are satisfied with their own blog CMS, and they'll probably say "no". I had to use something as obscure as Blogofile to satisfy my needs.

## Technically

I think some competition for Jekyll is sorely missed, and no one who isn't a nerd even knows about static blogging. Granted, it's also been a royal pain for me, when it comes to pushing automated tweets, whenever I update my blog, so there are a lot of problems to be solved. I still haven't bothered to write something in Python that tweets based on my RSS activity. (ifttt hasn't worked optimally for me.)

Nevertheless, it's liberating to be able to simply create a Markdown file and write a post like this:

        ---
        title: Something Something Paul Graham
        date:  2012/09/30 23:00:00
        ---
        That Paul Graham might have a point.

Run Blogofile's Amazon S3 uploader with one command, and boom, uploaded. As a bonus, I can back up my blog really easily using version/change control, since all files are static.

There are a lot of steps here too complicated for the average user, but all it takes is a moderately simple Mac app, and most people are golden - <USER2> now that everyone has Dropbox to store their files.

It seems that there is a tendency for people who want to revolutionize blogging and social media to reinvent RSS. I doubt that's the way forward.

\---

## Socially

If I were to suggest an idea for a Wordpress-like platform, it would be a reinvention of the blogroll. When people don't have the reach to attract advertizers, they can instead link to other users on the same platform and vice versa for exposure.

I would find a way to gauge the reach of blogs, and allow customers to find bloggers with similar reach to collaborate with for a mutually beneficial exposure that attracts traffic. I imagine a business model could be built on this alone, but it would probably be much easier, if people were on the same platform, say, Tumblr or Wordpress.

Tumblr really revolutionized blogging by adding a community layer onto their platform to make it a social experience that married Wordpress blogging and Twitter.

</comment><comment><USER6> I think there is room for innovation in blogging platforms, and as a general rule, I would not make any feature that was not supported by a well-thought out API.

My basis for saying that there is room for innovation is that I have worked on a number of big websites, and I have never been able to use out-of-the-box blogging for any of them, the features had to be too integrated and specialized.

One way to think about the market is to keep in mind that what people mean by "blogging" may be slowly evolving.

If I were implementing a blogging platform, I would use Drupal because that's what I'm most familar with. I think extending Wordpress is also an idea you should consider. However, it be best to ignore the underlying platform, and just think about and write the API. After you have defined that, pick a platform or framework and implement it.

</comment><comment><USER7> There is definitely room for innovation in the blog tools/publishing/server space, the big question for you to be comfortable with is whether or not the space is big enough for another player.

I launched a new blogging platform in the early 2000's and despite some really cool new approaches to how things got done, it was really hard to turn these innovations into a winning business. I think there's probably enough room for 1-2 players of any size, and currently, Wordpress, Tumblr and a few others are doing a great job serving the market. Don't hear me as saying you don't have a chance, just hear me as saying that even if you do bring some compelling innovations to the market, it will be a real fight for you to win appreciable marketshare, and even then, you'll have to figure out how to make money from it.

<comment><AUTHOR> First of all, thanks for your feedback!

It's really important to know the experiences of people that already worked on this area, I'll consider everything that you've said.

How it's important to me to store my thoughts and my work on my own server, I though that improving the process of blogging and bringing some social features (taking care with noise problems) would be nice to everyone.

It's really a naive approach, I know, because as you also have said, Tumblr is very powerful now and it's free.

Probably I won't get attention of the usual Tumblr user in the beginning, so I'll bet on the developers and designers, with a simple to use app for their clients and easy to work and customize (as orangethirty brilliantly suggested).

What you think about it?

Thanks again!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> My opinion is that the features you are working on are not really specific for a new blogging platform. If you want to test these features in the blogosphere, I would recommend building a WordPress plugin to test the waters without having to reinvent the rest. If that interest you, you can also distribute a template with the plugin included and make a demo (or use it for your own blog) to show it off.

That way, you would be able to focus on what's important to you.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a very interesting point!

I'm focused to make all the process easier (and the WP admin panel is full of boring stuff, in my opinion), so maybe the creation of the whole product could be a natural evolution of the plugin instead of a new product.

The plugin could also help me to attract users, adding some functionalities to WordPress blogs and making available an option to move to my product, with even more features.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Betteridge say's no and I agree - by this point it's not that it's hard to make a blog and push content to it - the sheer number of Tumblr and Posterous blogs attests to that, it's that blogging is, well, work. I'd argue that the hard part is no longer the publishing part but the actual sitting down, writing, editing, proofreading, reviewing, fact-checking, link-checking part.

<comment><USER10> "Can Betteridge's law be applied to literally every question, even when it's a real question and not an article headline?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> "Every blog has yours own API which allow a user to 'get connected' to it (to the user point of view, it'll be only a button to get connected, every technical detail will be hidden)"

How is that different from RSS?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's different because it's a powerful approach, I think.

Doing this, I'll make every blog open to a lot of different applications to interact with it's content.

By example, a user will be able to comment on an article published on a blog he "follows" from his own page.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Go for it! Theres more than one way to skin a cat, and at the end of the day you only need one person blogging to be considered a website</comment>


Ask HN: Why is Deep learning winning Genetic algorithms? - real-hacker Both can be seen as strategies of searching for a solution in an optimization problem. Why does deep learning (gradient descent) work better? Is it because of the randomness in GA? And are there any problems more suitable for GA, where deep learning fails? <comment><AUTHOR> I feel that it's because of the initial hype. You get more eyes on the problem, which generally creates more interest as people publish their results. As much of the results (that get reported) are in computer vision that generates more interest from the less technical, and you get that critical mass where projects like Twitter and Facebook start growing simply because it's being talked about so much.

The GA and Symbolic fields seem to be languishing only because relatively speaking no one is talking about them. Also by now it's probably easier to get funding for "deep learning".</comment>


Simple iOS Key Value Observing (KVO) Explained - <AUTHOR> http://blog.herlein.com/2012/01/simple-ios-key-value-observing-kvo-explained/

<comment><USER2> This explanation is good to start with but the reader has to read a much more in depth explanation afterwards because the example given by the author is flawed:

He is registering an observer without using a context. If you remove the observer without specifying a context then bad things can happen if two observers do the same. For this reason there is a new method for this in 10.7 and this fact should have been mentioned because so many people have wasted so many hours debugging KVO.

<comment><USER3> I have used KVO for quite some times and I've never had to add a context to it. This could be because I don't see the benefit of adding such context.

Would you have any example to show the use of context? I've always wondered why I should use context so this would not only educate me but others that are like me: clueless about context ;)

<comment><USER4> "…by specifying a context every time and using one that's not only unique to your object but also to the file containing your subclass you can ensure that the message sent to you is actually for you and you avoid potentially stepping on the toes of your super class."

<http://zearfoss.wordpress.com/2011/11/29/a-cool-kvo-trick/>

<comment><USER3> I get it now.

You also could use [object class] instead of an arbitrary static pointer.

I never had issue with a class and a subclass using the same observer keypath. Whenever I use it I always call super to make sure everything underneath is called. But that's a good thing to know for sure, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Another tip I would add is that messages sent to observeValueForKeyPath:ofObject:change:context: may not occur on the main thread.

For example, if you have multiple operations in an NSOperationQueue (like web service requests), and one of those operations updates a property on the object being observed, the observing method is called on that operation's thread. This can cause issues if the observing method needs to update the GUI. In this case, you'd need to use GCD to make sure the contents of the listening method execute on main thread (or alternatively, make sure the object's property is updated on the main thread).

</comment><comment><USER6> It's a very minimal explanation. But it's good that more people know about KVO, it can really simplify your code. It becomes even nicer when you use something like BlocksKit, because then you don't have to do the annoying checks in the observer method: [http://dizzytechnology.com/data/BlocksKit/Categories/NSObjec...](http://dizzytechnology.com/data/BlocksKit/Categories/NSObject+BlockObservation.html)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the elaborations. It sounds like 10.7/iOS5 solves some of the issues brought up at here).</comment>


Show HN: AWS usage optimizer project – currently seeing 35% billing reductions - <AUTHOR> Hey, I've spent the coronavirus time hacking together a billing optimizer for AWS. My first tests have shown 35% reduction in billing by careful selection of dynamic and static instances.
I'm looking for 10 companies to analyze their logs to see if these savings will generalize.
If you are interested, please email me at firstname.lastname@example.com
Link: www.usage.ai
Demo: https://www.loom.com/share/2a6f1c8e4c214914a1cdd88c6fdec4ac <comment><AUTHOR> Hi everyone, Kaveh here. I'm the main developer of this project. If you have any questions, please feel free to send me an email or comment here :)</comment>


Linux plus CP/M plus assembly equals LASM - <AUTHOR> http://www.insentricity.com/a.cl/259/linux-plus-cpm-plus-assembly-equals-lasm <comment><USER2> A brief discussion on the differences in syntax would've been nice, so we can see exactly how different they are (my guess is, not that much.)

Microsoft M80 can be found easily enough through a Google search, but not LASM since there seem to be at least 3 other assemblers sharing the same name...

Interesting to note that the executable for M80 is around 20KB, while a statically-linked Windows "Hello world" in C compiled with default settings is already 40KB.

</comment><comment><USER3> Holy business logic batman! [https://github.com/FozzTexx/lasm/blob/master/lasm](https://github.com/FozzTexx/lasm/blob/master/lasm)

I wish this was cleaned up a bit more to make it easier to see what's going on.

</comment><comment><USER4> The AS Macroassembler by Alfred Arnold (1992) still compiles on the unpopular OS I'm using, with a quick edit to sysdefs.h.</comment>