Ask HN: help/advice with marketing a physical product? - <AUTHOR>

I and my co-founders are working on a side project called AutoMicroFarm [0]. AutoMicroFarm is solar panels for your food: an automated farm system that enables gardeners to grow 90% of their food with a system that replaces time, effort, and agricultural expertise with design, technology, and software. We have a pretty good idea about how to develop and iterate our prototypes (we are following WikiSpeed's/OSE's Extreme Manufacture model [1]), and we know with a strong degree of certainty about what we want.
However, I keep reading entrepreneurship advice to begin marketing before starting to build the product, to make what (presumably many) people want, etc. We are following the "running lean" book [2] to clarify the top three problems our product is solving, and we have a list of interested people who gave us their emails/twitters to interview, as well as some other thought leaders in this space whom we would like to interview.
My problem is that I don't feel I have a firm grasp on asking these people the right questions. The questions I really want answered are:
* Are you interested in producing the vast majority (up to 90%) of your own food if it was convenient?
* If so, are you willing to spend a few hours a week doing it? (I assume that if the person is a gardener, he is already putting in at least a few hours a week into the garden).
* Are you willing to pay one to two years' worth of groceries for it (since that is how long it takes to pay for itself)? This would come out to $1600-$3200 per adult.
* Is the open-source aspect of the product appealing to you? Will you be tinkering with and modifying the system to your advantage, or just using it according to instructions?
Somehow, I don't think just asking those questions to the people I'm interviewing point-blank will yield honest answers we're looking for. How to best approach this customer need discovery/affirmation? If the problem interview is not a good customer discovery/marketing tool for physical products, what is a better process to find out if we AutoMicroFarmers are building something many people want, and not just us?
[0] http://automicrofarm.com
[1] http://www.wikispeed.com/the-process
[2] http://www.runningleanhq.com <comment><USER2> >> * Are you willing to pay one to two years' worth of groceries for it (since that is how long it takes to pay for itself)? This would come out to $1600-$3200 per adult.

This is a poor positioning for something which does not check the "Calories" box on your prospects mental inventories but rather something which checks the "Moral obligation" box. (My feelings on the wisdom of that to the contrary, people do not garden to save money on food, they garden to demonstrate that they are _better_ than people who save money on food.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Patrick, I believe you're right that the vast majority of gardeners in US don't garden for food... I'm hoping to find the homesteaders/homesteader wannabe's in that group who are trying to be self-sufficient, food-wise.

Can you explain what you mean by checking the "Calories" box?

<comment><USER3> I'm not patio11, but since I had much the same thought: People's motivation for buying this isn't "I want food." It's going to be something more like "I want to be able to say that I make my own food."

Think about how Harley-Davidson position their bikes. They don't say, "Hey, here's a way to get around" — instead, their positioning is more along the lines of "ZOMG it's a Harley! How COOL would you look driving this thing, huh?" They're primarily checking off the "Feel like James Dean" box on their customers' wishlists, not the "transportation" box.

Similarly, an easy-home-gardening product is checking the "Feel good about yourself" box, not the "nutrition" box. The nutrition is just a nice gimme. So in that way it doesn't make sense to position it against grocery stores. Most grocery stores are not selling "Feel good about yourself." (A few are, like Whole Foods, but they're also way more expensive than the normal ones, and they also don't make a big deal about the price comparison, because those other guys aren't selling moral superiority at all.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah, I get it. Would you (or anyone else) have any suggestions as to what questions would trigger the "feel-good" lever?

<comment><USER4> _Actively remove_ all references to the concept of saving money on staple foods. In the USA, conspicuously trying to save money on staple foods is a signifier of poverty. Almost nobody is proud of it. Many people try to actively hide the fact that they're doing it.

Promote the ability to grow some kind of food that's unusual enough to tell your friends about. If, for example, I were able to harvest fresh heirloom tomatoes in Maine in January and feed them to my dinner guests, that would be both good for my ego and good for your marketing. A more realistic example, perhaps, is the fad for backyard chickens: Raising chickens is fun because, every time you serve someone an omelet or a quiche, you get to start a conversation about the chickens. And the eggs make great gifts. Play up the odd and potentially fashionable.

Is there something particularly tasty that your system is uniquely good at growing? Is there something particularly hard to grow that your system makes easier?

Are the plants fun to look at? Would you show the garden to your friends?

Can kids run it? Perhaps it's an educational experience. Pitch it to school groups, community centers, local parks, science museums, children's museums, et cetera.

Can one start small and grow into a full system? "Feed your whole family on a 20-by-20-foot lot" is actually not such a great sales pitch. You ask for too much commitment. I've tried hobbies before. Most of them don't last and I end up selling the starter kit on Craigslist three years later. Worse, if you convince me that replacing 100% of my grocery bill is the victory condition, when I only manage to replace 37% of my grocery bill I will feel like a failure, which is just perverse. What you want, instead, is for me to successfully grow four plants, swell with pride, and tell all my friends that gardening is awesome.

So a better pitch IMHO would be "try this thing on a small garden and enjoy the nice fresh [insert delicious thing here]; then, if you like it, you can expand it bit by bit, until you wake up one year and find that your 20-by-20 foot garden is producing more food than your family of four can eat in a year, with almost no effort and at a cost of pennies a day."

Congratulations on being smart and realistic enough to try and find your market before you invest any more time or money. Good luck!

EDIT: Ooh, here's a fun one: Take a hint from the local county fair and _gamify_ this. Build a social network. Turn it into a competition to see who can grow the most pounds of food in a given area, or something. It's like Farmville with _real farms_.

<comment><USER5> "In the USA, conspicuously trying to save money on staple foods is a signifier of poverty. Almost nobody is proud of it."

We're totally not typical in that we garden to save money and have good foo, and we aren't shy about saving money (couponing, etc.).

But, let me point out that--in addition to the motivation being possibly misguided, there's the other elephant in the room: customers worried about saving money on staple foods often have way less money than those who have other motivations.

Perhaps you can try an angle that's not vanity, and not frugality, but more taste and convenience. Yeah, you wouldn't think of a garden as convenient, but it's actually really cool to just step outside and grab some lettuce for the salad, or some fruit, etc. Also, I can't overstate how much better (usually) our homegrown food tastes. And of course, there's probably some psychology in there that helps convince me since I grew it myself. Use that to your advantage. Don't forget how evocative taste and smell is; how easily these senses can be linked to feelings and memories.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup, it seems the convenience angle is probably our best foot to put forward, so to speak.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Drop the part about open-source. Now. For a non-technical market, this word has no meaning and it will only add to confusion.

I agree with Patrick completely. I don't have a large sample size but my friends who actually care about growing their vegetables are definitely not doing it to save money. They are highly paid people and the monetary value of their time investment in gardening dwarfs the cost of equipment they use. Heck, they can easily afford to have food from Whole Foods delivered to them every morning. For them, it's more of a lifestyle statement. You will do well as long as price is not crazy (3000$ is cheap if it saves them even 2 hours a week) and you make it easier for them to grow their food.

I think your pitch should include a part where you suggest that your product will cut down their gardening time by say 50%. Your target audience will be able to relate to that.

Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback! I actually don't have the phrase "open-source" in my questions. Instead, I ask: "Would you likely be tinkering with and modifying the system to your advantage? If so, would you be willing to share your improvements with others online?"

I think the angle I can pitch is the reduction/elimination of the unpleasant gardening tasks such as weeding and watering. A 50% gardening time reduction is definitely feasible; although I find myself spending more time than I need to examining various plants and observing the fish.

<comment><USER7> I wonder if you could pitch it as "Stop big corporations from controlling your food supply" angle? That's sort an advantage of open source and/or open hardware.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> My SO is a active with Eagle Street Farm <http://rooftopfarms.org/> and works with their partner CSA as well.

Perceived value is in fact an important part of CSA participation. As is the community aspect.

I'd recommend you speak with people active in the local food movement to see what gets them excited about your product. They may think of uses/benefits you're not anticipating, especially when it comes to community/shared gardening.

Annie at Eagle Street would be an awesome person to talk to.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd love to talk to Annie. Would you mind emailing me at andrew at automicrofarm dot com so I can establish a connection to her through you?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Talk to Mormons, Mennonites and new urbanists. They are likely your market.

</comment><comment><USER10> Different perspective:

I am an environmental studies major and I have serious health issues. I willingly pay a premium for food to keep me out of the ER. I am hardly the only one. I met one guy online who grew a garden to have control over food quality for his wife, going so far as to test the soil and amend the soil to get the nutrient content he wanted. It did make a difference with her health issue.

You could market this as environmentally sustainable for people concerned about that issue. You could also market it as something that lets you grow your own organic health foods.

As for the small spice thing, that is a great place to start. Organic spices are quite expensive. You can briefly note it will pay for itself over time but frame that as a "bonus". The appeal for people willing to buy organic is that this the freshest possible spice, picked from the vine mere seconds before adding it to your recipe. Having it in your kitchen means it is fresher than anything you coukd bring in from the back yard.

I have known people who grew their own cilantro to use it as an alternative treatment. These are the type of people who would buy something like this. You would be in the business of making it easier to be a control freak defending themselves from living in a toxic world and also in the business of making the world less toxic by letting people grow their own locally, eliminating transport pollution, eliminating chemical fertilizer, etc.

<comment><USER7> _Having it in your kitchen means it is fresher than anything you coukd bring in from the back yard._

That's a great idea. I can just imagine the picture of a kitchen with one of these things, and a boiling pot with someone reaching over to pick a herb about to put it in the pot, with a tag line of "Can't get any fresher"</comment></comment>


The Unintended Negative Consequences of LEDs - <AUTHOR> http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/06/led-astray/

<comment><USER2> The issue was already discovered a month ago and it's not 'consequences' but one single consequence. Also the statement

> None of the proposed solutions are foolproof

is just simply wrong. Traffic lights will be upgraded with little heating systems (coil/wires) and everything will be fine.

<comment><USER3> If so, will they still be cheaper to operate? I can buy that they'll still use less energy on net, but that isn't the only concern here.

<comment><USER4> If the heating element is thermostat-driven, and not on all the time, then yes.

<comment><USER5> Hopefully not a thermostat but rather a proximity or a frost sensor.

<comment><USER6> No, use a thermostat. It is much simpler, less prone to errors, you only need one per light housing, and the energy cost required to keep the shrouds above 34 degrees is quite insignificant.

<comment><USER7> You could probably get away with having one per block; aren't most traffic lights all connected? Or have I just been watching too many movies where hackers take over streetlights?

<comment><USER6> Putting one per light housing means it gets added at the manufacturer and you don't need to do any additional wiring or setup at installation time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This article got written because economists have a limited vocabulary for talking about design.

If you build a machine to solve a problem, and the machine doesn't act the way you want it to, that's a _bug_. Fixing bugs is easier than starting over would be. Bugs that make you wonder are called _design flaws_.

You don't get _unintended consequences_ until your system works, and things change in your environment (or maybe with your users) because of the way it works. Unintended consequences are hard to fix because they only show up in systems that are already doing what you want.

</comment><comment><USER9> There is a good point in the comments that isn't made in the article. Unlike a traffic light outage due to power failure, the ice buildup may only affect one of the signals, so the conventional rule to treat a dark traffic signal as a four way stop fails. One person may see a green light, while another driver on a perpendicular course stops at the affected light, but then enters the intersection because he expects the other driver to stop.

<comment><USER10> You should never enter an intersection "expecting" another driver to stop under those kind of circumstances. After watching the driving abilities of the average American, I would actually wait at the intersection until no cars are in sight to continue on.

<comment><USER11> Congratulations, you are officially qualified to drive in Massachusetts. ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Maybe they should sell led traffic bulbs with resistive wires to generate heat, like the rear-windshield defroster. They could be switched on during snow. Still saves a ton of money/energy.

<comment><USER13> i'm sure they will, they probably just haven't had the time to produce and sell a solution yet. it hasn't been long since they discovered the problem.

<comment><USER14> It's a well known and solved problem, most areas are not willing to pay extra to have it installed when it's only a problem for a few days a year or even decade.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This seems silly. "Heating up the LEDs would help defeat the purpose of saving energy". Not if you only heat them when they need heated, which I imagine is trivial to detect. Even then you've got a bulb that runs at the same energy usage during the winter as the rest, and then at a lower rate for 10 months per year.

<comment><USER16> Not even "during the winter". You only need to run the heater during active snow or ice precipitation. That's what, a few dozen hours a year in most areas?

<comment><USER15> Yeah I was just thinking temperature detection or just a schedule would be very cheap and easy to implement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> De-icing system for traffic signals patent:

[http://www.google.com/patents?id=8dJ_AAAAEBAJ&printsec=a...](http://www.google.com/patents?id=8dJ_AAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&zoom=4&source=gbs_overview_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=&f=false)

</comment><comment><USER18> It seems strange that all the "solutions"---heating coils, diodes, whatever--- seem to presume that the basic form factor of the light system would remain unchanged. But wouldn't it be easier to solve if you just rethought the shape of things? Instead of a three-light assembly with hoods over each light (where snow can build up on top of the hood for the next lower light), just reshape the traffic signal as a box with the lights on the back, the four sides opaque (to block glare and peripheral view), and the front side transparent plastic of some variety? There are surely engineering issues there too (like preventing glare off the clear plastic), but it seems like a more stable system, no worries about snow accumulation, and it's probably cheaper to manufacture too.

<comment><USER19> sunk costs. infrastructure changes would cost an order of magnitude more than a tweak.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Upvoted for the linked article (PDF) about horses/manure in the 1800s->1905

[http://www.uctc.net/access/30/Access%2030%20-%2002%20-%20Hor...](http://www.uctc.net/access/30/Access%2030%20-%2002%20-%20Horse%20Power.pdf)

well worth reading for it's analysis of all the problems with horses that the CAR solved (and, as always, it created new ones) -- like piles of manure 40-60 feet high in cities! Now that problem's limited to D.C.!!

</comment><comment><USER21> This is really funny maybe U.S. infrastructure decision makers should buy european technology, because a simple combination of sensors(temperature and or light)/heating coils would solve all of these problems pretty easily.</comment>


Reverse engineering the Mac 'breathing' LED - <AUTHOR> http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2010/08/26/reverse-engineering-the-mac-breathing-led-2 <comment><USER2> And the product that they were reverse engineered for, the iCufflinks

<http://www.adafruit.com/icufflinks>

Quite appealing if you ask me, if a bit bulky for cufflinks :)

<comment><USER3> Does the "made in North America" thing really adds any value to that item?

<comment><USER4> No, but it's good marketing. Nothing wrong with that.

Funny story: At the end of the 19th century Great Britain pushed for all products to be branded with their country of origin, not to market their products better but for protectionism – to make it easier for customers to recognize real or perceived knock-offs.

That works if those other countries really make inferior products but it backfires when other countries make products of equal or better quality. "Made in Germany" (for example) then becomes a mark of quality, not inferiority.

<comment><USER3> Yes, that was normal in Italy too during fascism. Protectionism has always been a great popularistic argument and that's why I am surprised to see it on a geeky product like that. One would think that the user of battery powered cufflinks wouldn't care about that.

<comment><USER5> I'm not sure why you think geeks unilaterally oppose protectionism (or that we'd even call it protectionism). Seems like a broad, inaccurate generalization.

Personally, I like keeping money in the local economy when it makes sense to.

<comment><USER3> Because hackers are usually curious people, with many interests; chances are they study some economics and found that this kind of 'protectionism' doesn't make much sense.

But yes, you're right, it's quite an assumption. On a parallel (OT) note, I have no idea whether there is a political bias amongst geeks. I've read some pool from NSF a few years ago and it was quite impressive how scientists tend to be left wing/liberal, why engineers tend to be right wing/conservative. So politically speaking there's probably two kinds of geeks but how about two kind of hackers?

<comment><USER5> _> ... this kind of 'protectionism' doesn't make much sense._

This is obviously open to some debate; your condescending declarations of certainty are grating and rude.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I suspect the waveform is so non-sinusoidal because the eye is approximately log-sensitive. So if you want something to look sinusoidal, you should really physically output exp(sin(w*t)+c), which looks approximately like the output on the scope.

<comment><USER7> Exactly right.

A couple years ago someone asked me to build him a product that would simulate sunrise: basically just gradually fade up a few high-power LEDs. The _only_ thing I found that worked was a very gradual logarithmic-type fade. Even so, I had to prolong the curve at the low end. It turns out that human vision can detect small changes at low light levels, but at high brightness it takes a big step change to register.

Probably old-hat to trained lighting engineers, but I learned a lot doing such a seemingly simple project.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The LED or SIL (Status Indicator Light), is controlled by the Mac's SMC. You can fiddle with how it operates by setting the relevant keys using IOKit.

<http://www.parhelia.ch/blog/statics/k3_keys.html> gives details on some of the Mac's LSx SMC keys.

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm pretty sure Apple has a patent on this.

Here's some code! [http://osx-launchpad.blogspot.com/2010/11/breathing-led- effe...](http://osx-launchpad.blogspot.com/2010/11/breathing-led-effect-with- launchpad.html)

edit: <http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6658577.html>

<comment><USER10> IANAL, but the patent, as I read it, if for a "A sleep mode indicator apparatus for a laptop computer, said apparatus indicating to users that said laptop computer being in sleep mode" or "A status indicator apparatus for an electronic device, said apparatus indicating to users of said computer a certain status". Since the cuff links doesn't communicate any kind of state, I don't think the patent applied. Copyright for the design sounds more plausible, as they're clearly designed to look like something from a Mac.

<comment><USER11> > Since the cuff links doesn't communicate any kind of state

They could be connected to brain-wave analyzers so they could indicate _you_ are asleep.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Must be nice to have an oscilliscope.

<comment><USER13> If you're doing simple digital work, you can get a hell of a lot of functionality for a lot less.

I'm a _huge_ fan of the Saleae Logic (<http://www.saleae.com/logic>). It does 8 lines of digital scoping @ 24 Mhz PLUS protocol decoding (I2C/SPI/CAN/Serial) for under $150. That's 5% of the cost of a Tek or Agilent scope. And the GUI is lightyears better than those other companies.

<comment><USER14> Looks very nice, and seems made by people smart enough to make the software multi-platform (Linux/Mac/Windows) and ship to (most of) Europe without customs hassles.

Haven't fiddled with hardware lately, but I'm tempted to get one for old times sake (today came across the logic probe I made with a LED, resistor, plastic pen and sewing needle back in my student days ;-).

<comment><USER13> A nice touch is that you can download and play with the GUI (using faked waveforms) to check it out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Or the digital way: on the Commodore 64 disk drive (the 1541), you'd flip a bit of a certain memory-mapped location to switch the LED on or off. Doing this a variable amount of times per second would result in a smoothly fading led. Not sure if anyone ever made a sinusoidal fade, but there were demo's with the LED following the beat of the music.

<comment><USER16> Something like PWM?

I bet Macs don't generate analog voltages to fade the LED, it would be expensive.

<comment><USER17> LEDs also don't change brightness with voltage, they do with amperage and usually have an optimal amperage for the LED's design. Brightness can be controlled many ways, the most common way is to use Pulse Width Modulation. It's also a common power saving technique.

<http://www.reuk.co.uk/LED-Dimmer-Circuit.htm>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Cool; I suppose you could get the same results with a webcam and a little image processing.

<comment><USER13> You would need a frame rate 2x the fastest PWM cycle. Nyquist-Shannon and etc...

<comment><USER19> Hmm why can't you construct the signal amplitude from webcam image? You don't have to capture it as digital signal...

<comment><USER18> Yeah, it's not necessarily to perfectly reconstruct the LED's signal, only the average amplitude over a relatively long period of time. Like, just sample the color of a certain pixel on each frame.

<comment><USER13> If the LED being used has a perfectly linear current-to-brightness curve then sure, it's possible. Most high-brightness LEDs, however, do not.

<comment><USER20> But you could just map the current-to-brightness curve of your own LED and reconstruct the necessary PWM signal using that. Actually that'd be a good way to go anyway, since that curve may differ from the one on Apple's LED.

<comment><USER21> Generating a PWM signal based on a particular LED's characteristics is similar to designing the gain of an amplifier circuit around a particular BJT's beta. It's just not done. That's also the whole reason behind controlling LED brightness through PWM. By PWMing the drive current, you can ensure that the LED is being driven far into its conducting region, and therefore not relying on controlling dimness by varying current around the LED's "knee" (which literally is different for just about every LED in existence, even same part numbers). This way you also avoid other stuff like wavelength shifts that tend to occur near the knee.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Wanted: Strawman proposals for new collections architecture - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/lampepfl/dotty/issues/818 <comment><USER2> First thing that came to my mind was Paul Phillips' rant :) Now's the time to do it right sir!

</comment><comment><USER3> What about collaborating with Clojure's collections?

<comment><USER4> At a high level that sounds like a good idea. In practice it would almost certainly die the death of a thousand cuts. There are a _lot_ of semantic differences between the two languages, and for this sort of thing, every last one of them will matter at some point.</comment></comment>


The Best Way to Find Aliens: Look for Their Solar Power Plants - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/10/the-best-way-to-find-aliens-look-for-their-solar-power-plants/263217/ <comment><USER2> >A civilization that built a Dyson Sphere would have to go to great lengths to avoid detection, either by getting rid of its waste heat in some novel way, or by building massive radiators that give off heat so cool that it would be undetectable against the cosmic microwave background, the faint afterglow of the Big Bang.

So if a civilization were to completely mask itself in the EM spectrum, the only way to detect them would be to look for gravitational distortions assuming those can't be masked. A civilization might do this either to hide from others or because the maximum efficiency of their energy extraction system would occur when their waste heat matched the background ration. So a really advanced (and paranoid or efficient) civilization would be indistinguishable from dark matter.

This brings up another interesting hypothesis: dark matter is actually the computronium of all of the alien civilizations in the universe that have achieved a technological singularity. Unfortunately, this hypothesis can't be tested until humanity gets to the same level.

<comment><USER3> >>A civilization might do this either to hide from others

Why would they try to hide this from others? Are we trying to hide our satellites, or our probes that we are sending out?

<comment><USER4> One civilization could be at war with another and trying to hide their sources of energy.

<comment><USER3> It looks really naive that civilizations so advanced to blot out an entire star for its energy can't even find a way to co exist in such a vast universe.

But looking at how fellow humans behave with each other. I would say that is definitely a possibility.

<comment><USER5> Show me a future prediction that said we'd be using our advanced contraptions primarily for viewing porn.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Larry Niven, "Bigger Than Worlds" (1974)

      ...assuming that the galaxy's most advanced civilizations are protoplasmic. But
      beings whose chemistry is based on molten copper, say, would want a hotter
      environment. They might have evolved faster, in temperatures where chemistry and
      biochemistry would move far faster. There might be a lot more of them than of
      us. And their red-hot Dyson spheres would look deceptively like red giant or
      supergiant stars. One wonders.

<comment><USER7> Speaking of Larry Niven, my impression after reading Ringworld (in addition to "holy shit that was good") was that Dyson Spheres were kind of a non-workable, and that a species who'd advanced far enough to actually make one could probably just colonize another system anyway.

<comment><USER6> A swarm-Dyson sphere, which is the only kind that can be realistically built, is incremental. You just keep building habitats in orbit around the sun, until eventually you capture all the sunlight.

<comment><USER8> Clearly a solid Dyson sphere is not orbiting its host star, and could eventually drift into the star. However, might it be possible to harvest enough energy from the star to power a propulsion system that keeps the sphere in place?

<comment><USER9> Won't gravity stop this from happening? Seriously, the shell of the sphere will be balanced on the outskirts of a gravity well right? So if it moves this will move the center of the gravity well and both the star and sphere should fall back towards the center.

<comment><USER8> According to Newtonian gravity, an object inside a sphere experiences zero net gravity from the sphere, and vice versa.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere#Dyson_shell>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> guard-of-terra It's interesting, but a bit like trying to detect a large and advanced by looking for products of horse manure decomposing in huge heaps. I think it was Mendeleev who thought that getting rid of horse shit will be the main problem of ever-growing cities in XX century.

The need for energy is definite, but the amount and character of such need is debatable. Maybe civilizations shrink and don't use so much energy? Maybe they mine million of stars at once? Maybe they get their energy out of thin vacuum?

</comment><comment><USER10> Build your Dyson sphere with large gaps in the galactic plane. Then observers at most other stars in your galaxy will see your star, and then you don't have to either build a giant sphere or come up with exotic heat management systems to avoid detection.

<comment><USER11> The main problem is that the galactic plane is not really a plane :)

Suppose your star is located exactly in the plane, and its axis is orthogonal to the galactic plane. Then, defining "up" and "down" as the opposing directions in that star's axis, you would still have a lot of stars "up" and "down" the plane.

So, even if you only have only one disk orbiting the star, with a high enough orbital inclination, that's still visible from a lot of stars.

And of course, there would still exist a plane containing the disk's orbit, from where the disk eclipses the star.

Even more, the disk itself would still be detectable from other planes, because it's hotter than the background.

Then, if your civilization wants to keep hidden its existance, you still need to develop some kind of stealth tech for the sphere. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> >the sun beams a total of 120,000 terrawatts per day onto our planet. That's 10,000 times the amount that flows through our industrial civilization.

Should be "terrawatts", not "terrawatts per day". (I stopped reading there. There 100s of 1000s of people who know enough physics never to make such a mistake. I'll read one of them instead.)

<comment><USER13> "terawatts", not "terawatts".

<comment><USER14> '"terawatts", not "terrawatts"', not '"terawatts", not "terawatts"'.

<comment><USER15> Although 'terrawatts' is a rather charming play on the word, considering the context...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The issue I have with Dyson Sphere's is in 1960 the idea of the singularity hadn't really been floated. I think it is far more likely that civilizations either die or upload.

<comment><USER17> It is not clear to me how that is a contradiction. An uploaded civilization may still desire more computational power, and unless there's an infinite computation escape hatch in physics (and there is currently not even a trace of such a thing), that's going to involve getting more energy from the star. On an exponential growth curve, even improving your civilization's energy efficiency by a factor of a hundred quadrillion still only buys you a blip on the scale on cosmic time scales before you start wanting to expand again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Is it just me, or is there someone else who thinks theories like these are so naive it borders the ridiculous?

Isn't it too pretentious to think that, not only other similar civilizations _do_ exist (which is a stretch already), but also predict their infra- structure necessities _and_ what kind of solution they are going to come up with?

I known I'm nobody and Mr. Dyson is a Nobel-prize grade genius, but come on... this is (much) more fiction than science.

PS: Let the downvotes commence.

<comment><USER6> If they want to affect the environment, or perform computations, they have to use energy. If they have to use energy, they have to get energy from somewhere. Hydrocarbons don't last for more than a couple centuries. Heavy- element fission will get you another century. Light-element fusion will get you another ten thousand years.

Whither comes the energy for a million year civilization? Should they _ignore_ their star? Just let all that power go streaming by?

(Dyson won theHeineman Prize, Harvey Prize, Wolf Prize, Templeton Prize, Pomeranchuk Prize, Fermi Award, and the Poincare Prize; but did not win a Nobel.)

<comment><USER18> Maybe you proved my point. Just look at how many _if_ s this theory depends upon.

1\. That a civilization similar to ours exists 2\. That such civilization exists in the same time frame as us 3\. That such civilization's demands on energy are similar to ours 4\. That such civilization expands enough to face energy shortcomings 5\. That the best source of energy such civilization finds is a nearby star 6\. That they arrive to the same conclusion as Mr. Dyson about the best way to harness the power from this star (the biggest pretension by far in my opinion) 7\. That they manage to build it

A very interesting chain of propositions, but really? I find amusing that are people willing to take this more seriously than a simple imagination/future prediction exercise.

We can't even reliably predict how _our own civilization_ will look like in a matter of _decades_. Now imagine how naive is to think we can predict which problems hypothetical begins similar to us are going to face, let alone predict a particular the solution they are going to come up with.

<comment><USER6> Son, you don't have to start jumping up and down and gibbering excitedly about the singularity. This ain't hard.

All life uses energy. All civilizations will always use energy, because they are made of life forms. (biological or silicon-- who cares)

If civilizations grow steadily, then their need for energy will grow steadily. If they don't flame out, then they'll need to expand beyond their host planet, and intercept more solar energy, until eventually all sunlight is captured, and you've got a Dyson sphere.

If civilizations grow until they hit a threshold, then stay steady-state for the rest of the universe's lifespan, then we'll only be able to detect them if the threshold is pretty big-- if they just stay on their planet, then they'll be hard to spot, without really big space telescopes.

<comment><USER18> Thanks, but again, you're explaining me the reasoning behind it (I _get_ it, otherwise I wouldn't be arguing it), and losing the point about why I say it's pretentious in the first place.

Intelligence and wisdom are different qualities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Let's be realistic. A civilization so advanced as to be able to capture the entire energy of a star, probably also has energy alternatives, and probably wouldn't want to attract the attention of lesser beings (like us) by trapping a star's output in a detectable way.

<comment><USER20> Why wouldn't they want to attract the attention of lesser beings?

<comment><USER19> > Why wouldn't they want to attract the attention of lesser beings?

Because they might attract the attention of greater beings.

<comment><USER3> >>Because they might attract the attention of greater beings.

As a life form we don't seem to be taking any precautions to 'hide' from others.

Why are assuming others would like to 'hide'?

<comment><USER21> It could very well be that the only civilizations that still exist are the ones that are good at hiding. All the others (even if they are the big majority) might have been destroyed after giving a signal of life/existence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> It is equally likely an advanced civilization would have found out ways to engineer/create energy unlike how we imagine it. It might even seem irrational to us, magical, impossible even.

</comment><comment><USER23> Solar power? I'm pretty sure they'd be using nuclear fusion.

<comment><USER6> You're not thinking very big, or in terribly deep timescales. There's not a lot of easy-to-access hydrogen in the solar system, and most of it is at the bottom of steep gravity wells. (The gas giants)

On the other hand, if you put your solar collector well inside Mercury's orbit, where the solar flux is dramatically higher, then you get plenty of power, without having to maintain and fuel a reactor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> About time they started looking for Dyson Spheres!</comment>


New York City, Here We Come - Minus - <AUTHOR> http://blog.min.us/2011/07/19/new-york-city-here-we-come/

<comment><AUTHOR> A little background info, I grew up in NY and attended college in the Boston area and am now back to focus on Minus fulltime.

<http://Min.us> is a simple and easy way to share files and photos and it was launched few months ago as a hobby project. We're now pursuing the idea fulltime and looking to grow the team as well so def contact us if you're interested and in the NYC area.

We will also prob do some cool activities in the NYC area soon, stay tuned!! Cheers :)

firstname.lastname@example.com <http://min.us/u/john></comment>


There is no heaven: Hawking - <AUTHOR> http://www.inquisitr.com/107250/hawking-heaven-a-fairy-story-for-people-afraid-of-the-dark/

<comment><USER2> Why is every little burp that comes out of SH's speech synthesizer news? It's not like this is a groundbreaking new discovery: religion is unscientific and arbitrary, film at eleven. To be fair, I like this statement better than his baseless assumptions about the morals and motivations of alien life, but still...</comment>


YouTube announces support for videos shot in 4K (4096 x 3072) - <AUTHOR> http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2010/07/whats-bigger-than-1080p-4k-video-comes.html

<comment><USER2> It might "officially" be 4K, but it's so heavily compressed that there are visible 8x8 blocks in the images, so it might as well be 8 times smaller - i.e. it has an effective resolution of 512x384

Take a look: <http://imgur.com/YFsGb.png> (I didn't change the image at all, except to crop it. I used mplayer to play it directly to png, and I made it a png so it's not jpeg artifacts.)

For comparison here is the 1080 version: <http://imgur.com/wkClm.png>

Interestingly the png of the 1080 is twice as large as the 4k version! Even though the 4k "officially" has twice the resolution in both directions (i.e. 4 times as many pixels).

</comment><comment><USER3> High density or "retina display" monitors should be on their way soon, I've seen a 15 inch prototype display, not sure the resolution, but it was gorgeous. It will be interesting to see how web standards evolve to work well with these resolutions.

</comment><comment><USER4> Check their example videos:

<http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=5BF9E09ECEC8F88F>

It seems since about 720p quality bottleneck is more in codec artefacts than in the resolution.

So for overall effects it would be probably better to give additional bandwidth to less lossy codec / settings than just to pure resolution (their first video "Life in the garden" has 28 MB in 720p and 91 MB in 4k resolution).

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't have the gear to watch real 4k video properly, but watching the first video ( [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0m1XmvBey8&feature=PlayL...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0m1XmvBey8&feature=PlayList&p=5BF9E09ECEC8F88F&playnext_from=PL&index=0) ), I wouldn't consider it 'real' 4k. I bumped the res to 'original' and saw highly visible encoding artifacts on a 1080p monitor. Artifacts that I absolutely would not expect to see on 4k source RED footage, never mind 2k. It's a nice marketing number, but like buying a camera by megapixels and ignoring lens quality, it's not truly indicative of quality.

</comment><comment><USER6> And yet they still limit videos to 10 minutes for some reason.

<comment><USER7> The 10 minute limit is to make uploading episodes of TV shows more annoying [1]. It has never been a technical limitation.

[1] [http://youtube- global.blogspot.com/2006/03/your-15-minutes-o...](http://youtube- global.blogspot.com/2006/03/your-15-minutes-of-fameummmmake-that-10.html)

<comment><USER8> Unless you join their premium program, the link for which, sadly, is broken.

<http://www.youtube.com/premium_register>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Now we just need monitors, rather than projectors, that can actually display 4K content at its native resolution. Every LCD panel I've seen tops out at 2560x1600.

<comment><USER10> They don't make them anymore :-( <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_T220/T221_LCD_monitors>

_native resolution of 3840×2400 pixels (WQUXGA) on a screen with a diagonal of 22.2 inch (564 mm). This works out as over 9.2 million pixels, with pixel density of 204 pixels per inch (80 dpcm, 0.1245 mm pixel pitch)_

<comment><USER11> Yeah they do: [http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/562026-REG/Astro_Desig...](http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/562026-REG/Astro_Design_Inc_DM_3400_DM_3400_56_Professional_4K.html)

They cost a fortune though, like $50k+. Such hi-res monitors are only used for radiography and film at present.

<comment><USER12> That has a 4K resolution, but it's 56"--that's only ~91 DPI.

<comment><USER5> While true, you're not holding the display a foot from your face like you would a cellphone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Can't wait to see my first 4K cat video.

<comment><USER14> This has real applications. Take a 4K video of your cat, send it to some mechanical Turks, and they'll tell you if your cat has fleas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Pure marketing stunt. Most Blurays are probably higher quality even if they are "only" 1080p. But they have bitrates hovering somewhere between 10 to 20 Mbps, while YouTube apparently uses <1Mbps even for 4k.

Incidentally it could be interesting to see some kind of visual quality vs bitrate vs resoltion -chart, ie what would be the optimal resolution for some bitrate.

</comment><comment><USER16> So at "4096p" the number refers to the horizontal res but at 720/1080, it's the vertical? Oddly inconsistent.

</comment><comment><USER17> How can you possibly monetize this? 5 times the bandwidth/storage (rough guess) and all the extra information is wasted. It seems like a weird play.

Unless the idea is that when people have 4k displays, YouTube will have a tiny expensive back catalog.

<comment><USER18> YouTube wouldn't be what it is if they kept wondering how they'd monetize free video on the web. First they experiment, then they expand, then they take over. Even if money does not follow directly, it will eventually make its way into Google's core product: Adsense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> So if I'm understanding this correctly, its a move to populate the site with high rez videos, so in a few years (or more) when monitor resolutions catch up, the site will be full of high rez content to watch?

</comment><comment><USER2> Every time they have more disk space or bandwidth, they find a way to use it.

<comment><USER20> I'm certain they have the disk space. I'm not certain they have the bandwidth (or at least the correct buffering algorithm).</comment></comment>


1st all-in-one subscription mgmt/payment service for SaaS firms - <AUTHOR> http://saasy.com/

<comment><USER2> Anyone have experience with this service?</comment>


Tell HN: Happy 1K Day - <AUTHOR>

This is the 1024th day for many people who heard about Hacker News when it first launched. Pretty amazing that it's been so long, and the site is better than ever IMHO. <comment><USER2> And congrats to you too Staunch for your 1K day on Hacker news :-)

</comment><comment><USER3> I am 24 days past my 512 day... Just saying.

</comment><comment><USER4> I've been here 1025 days. Time flies.</comment>


C++ type casting with example for C developers - <AUTHOR> http://www.vishalchovatiya.com/cpp-type-casting-with-example-for-c-developers/ <comment><USER2> I can't think of a dynamic_cast scenario I've seen that was not indicative if an improper class design; typically that the base class doesn't have proper virtual methods defined, or there's a missing ABC interface, or the inheritance is just inappropriate.

It's also brutally slow in most compilers.

After that consideration, C-casts are mostly fine. static_cast/reinterpret_cast are more explicit but the syntax is bizarrely verbose.

But I'm way more annoyed by dynamic_cast than C-casts whenever it they come up.

<comment><USER3> What do you think of the following:

      class AInterface { /*...*/ };
      class BInterface : public AInterface { /*...*/ };
      class CInterface : public BInterface { /*...*/ };

      class AImpl : public AInterface { /*...*/ };
      class BImpl : public BInterface { /*...*/ };
      class CImpl : public CInterface { /*...*/ };

In this use case, assume going from AInterface to CInterface implies stronger and stronger guarantees that the implementations provide. Also assume LSP as satisfied.

Now, you are given an AInterface* object and want to know whether it has a certain guarantee or not. A dynamic cast answers this with minimal space overhead.

Yes, there is certainly run time overhead in the dynamic cast, and you could just have a virtual method that returns some encoding of the guarantees (e.g. as an enum), but the dynamic_cast is still pareto-optimal in terms of space.

Change my mind?

<comment><USER2> I would argue that much like Go's aversion to deep inheritance hierarchies, this interface hierarchy would be annoying to use in practice.

If A, B, and C are different families of functionality then ditch the inheritance and use separate interfaces for each family of functionality.

The cascading dynamic_cast logic required is a code smell that this could be made simpler.

<comment><USER4> > this interface hierarchy would be annoying to use in practice

No doubt, but it happens, and sometimes because the refactoring you might prefer to do can't be done or can't be done right away.

For example, in Java you might have a subclass of Principal where you store additional metadata and have additional methods, then you might have code like:

      public static Something princOk(Principal p, Stuff stuff)
        throws MyPrincipalException
      {
        if (p instanceof MyPrincipal)
          return princOk((MyPrincipal)p, stuff);
        return princOk(MyPrincipal(p), stuff);
      }

Why would you do this? Well... because many JDK and third-party interfaces take Principal object arguments that you could reuse... if only you could decorate those objects with the additional metadata that you wanted, and... with subclassing you get to.

In Java you might say "use Subject", but it's not that easy, and anyways, JAAS is a terrible terrible thing that should have been ripped out when applets were ripped out.

<comment><USER2> In C++, you can use templates to pattern match/duck type interfaces at compile time.

So "template<typename PrincType> void princOk(PrincType& p, Stuff& stuff) {p.doThing(stuff); }" would map properly as long as doThing was implemented in all the different classes. You don't actually need an interface or base class for it to work.

The rest of the dynamic mapping is faster by calling switch() on an enum class member and than static_cast rather than relying on dynamic_cast.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There's another, not in the C++ language but in the C++ standard library, called bit_cast: [https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/numeric/bit_cast](https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/numeric/bit_cast)

It essentially just calls memcpy after some basic checking. It's similar to reinterpret_cast in spirit but more powerful. You can convert for example a float array into a char array (I don't think any of the four standard casts will allow you to convert a whole array at a time). Compilers like clang will generally recognize memcpy as __builtin_memcpy which sometimes generates no instructions at all.

<comment><USER6> I suggested an underlying_cast function that converts a typed-enum to its underlying type. It's quite useful for things like sending typed enums to streams.

<comment><USER7> That's just static_cast<std::underlying_type_t<EnumType>>(value), right?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm sure this will be controversial, but my attitude towards C++ type casting is much, much simpler.

1\. I only use static_cast, the other three C++-specific casts are, in my opinion, somewhere between useless and harmful.

2\. The only meaningful reason to prefer static_cast over C-style casts is easy greppability. If you find you don't benefit from this difference, C-style casts are just fine.

These are obviously highly opinionated personal rules that serve me well in the subset of C++ I prefer to use. Your mileage can and very likely will vary substantially.

<comment><USER9> Now that `mutable` exists const_cast should indeed be avoided.

But `reinterpret_cast` has quite a bit of use, particularly in FFI scenarios. For example when using JNI there is no void* type in Java, so you are forced to store the pointer in a jlong. But you also need to be super duper sure that no conversion happens, it's _just_ a really tiny 8-byte allocation. So you reinterpret_cast back & forth. My JNI code is littered with variants of reinterpret_cast<jlong>( T* ) & reinterpret_cast< T* >(jlong) - and it is neither useless nor harmful.

reinterpret_cast is also quite useful when writing custom allocators. More niche usage there, of course, but still far from useless or harmful.

> 2\. The only meaningful reason to prefer static_cast over C-style casts is > easy greppability. If you find you don't benefit from this difference, > C-style casts are just fine.

If you do actually think that static_cast is the only useful cast then this is super wrong advice. C-style casts are "compiler guesses if it's static_cast or reinterpret_cast, and const-ness is completely ignored." They are not a shortened alias for static_cast.

<comment><USER10> Agreed. But triggered by a thing written there: a pointer in a jlong? Is there any guarantee these things are the same size? Works on one platform, cool, maybe that's enough. But doesn't sound portable.

<comment><USER11> jlong is always 64 bits.

I would be interested in knowing more details about platforms where your pointers are wider than 64 bits. Not impossible, but certainly pathological.

<comment><USER10> Complex pointers (object/method pointers) can sometimes exceed that?

Anyway, I see the issue, you're stuck having to do something and that's a pretty good solution. Maybe add an assert somewhere to the effect that sizeof(jlong) >= sizeof(pointer) which is free on your platform.

<comment><USER9> > Complex pointers (object/method pointers) can sometimes exceed that?

They can't. void* / intptr_t is a fixed-size, and at least on all platforms I run on that size is always 32-bit or 64-bit. Both of which fit perfectly fine in the always-64-bit jlong.

If you're thinking of std::mem_fn or similar note that they are defined to return an undefined _object_ not a pointer. So of course those can be larger than the size of a pointer, since they aren't a pointer.

But sure toss in a static_assert(sizeof(jlong) >= sizeof(void*)) if you want.

<comment><USER10> I guess I was thinking of virtual function pointer. Its larger than a regular function pointer, which is not necessarily the same size as a data pointer. But if you're dealing with object pointers only, all good!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This article spends a ton of time explaining very rudimentary things and then completely glosses over what it intends to convey.

C-style casts aren't evil, but they are powerful. They can also be used in places where more than one C++ cast would be required. C developers are very likely to use the C style because it mostly gets the job done the first try.

C developers working on C++ code are not likely to be swayed much by anything that doesn't make a strong case for having 4 different cast operators and this article doesn't manage to do that.

<comment><USER13> I agree, the article tells how but not why.

I think there are two main reasons to prefer the C++ style casts.

1\. The C style cast does too much. Some of the conversion it does are pretty safe, some are dangerous. The C++ casts try to differentiate the relatively safe casts from the dangerous casts. Any code with reinterpret_cast is worth taking extra time to scrutinize.

2\. The second is that C style casts are hard to search for (Type). By giving names to these operations, you can more quickly search code for problematic areas.

3\. Incorrect aliasing is a big deal. In the C and C++ standards it is undefined behavior, which means you lose the ability to reason about your program. Making the operations that can trigger this stand out is a good thing.

</comment></comment><comment> munk-a I default to blacklisting all js and I feel like this website is a great example of an utterly unnecessary usage of front end scripting and the no-js experience is... well, just a blank screen with a wobbly needle.

<comment><USER14> It has a jarring and useless full-screen white curtain up animation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This might be off topic, and certainly unimportant, but I never liked underscores in language keywords. For example if your C++ style guide calls for camelCase identifiers these look jarring. Any reason why the designer didn't just introduce three keywords "cast" "dynamic" "reinterpret" instead? Note that "static" and "const" are already keywords.

</comment><comment><USER15> I use c style casts everywhere and I've stopped using every other style. Why? Because my projects are my own and I know what everything does and what everything should be. I used the other style in a couple c++ based projects and then never again. Wouldn't touch them unless a team made me.

<comment><USER16> _I know what everything does and what everything should be_

I used to be like that, but turns out after 5 years not looking at a piece of code you don't know anything anymore (well at least I don't) and then change something only to have something else blow up because, hey, C-style casts ftw right, less typing and less caring.

The other casts at least offer some protection against that at compile-time. There's already enough loopholes in C++ that I'd rather have the least worries possible so now I just do the right thing and use the right cast. Heck I might even add a bunch of static_asserts for casts of which I know they'll only be ok if both types are the same size and layout for instance. Plus at the same time they serve as documentation of what I meant when writing he cast. Saved me a bunch of times already.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Best books to transition from development to product management? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> One of the best things about being a Product Manager is that you don't need a particular background. But in your case, you have an advantage over people because you speak the engineer's language.

I would recommend these two books because they really give you the preparation you need to learn about the tactical part of PM and the soft skills required to excel at your job.

The Ultimate Product Management Guide: which you can download for free here [https://bit.ly/31YhGUu](https://bit.ly/31YhGUu)

The Making of a Manager [https://bit.ly/2ZOo4eb](https://bit.ly/2ZOo4eb)

</comment><comment><USER3> I would recommend Escaping the Build Trap - [https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/escaping-the- build/9781...](https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/escaping-the- build/9781491973783/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Shipping Greatness

[https://www.amazon.com/Shipping-Greatness-Practical- launchin...](https://www.amazon.com/Shipping-Greatness-Practical-launching- outstanding/dp/1449336574)</comment>


United Airlines sued me last year for creating Skiplagged (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3ux82r/united_airlines_sued_me_last_year_for_creating/ <comment><AUTHOR> I wonder if anything changed since then. Any experiences?</comment>


In Bay Area, even six-figure salaries are "low income" - <AUTHOR> http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/04/22/in-costly-bay-area-even-six-figure-salaries-are-considered-low-income/ <comment><USER2> This map shows average salary for tech job positions in USA: [https://jobsquery.it/map](https://jobsquery.it/map)

The difference in favor of bay area is obvious</comment>


100 Ivy League Business and Entrepreneurship Course for Free - <AUTHOR> http://www.energybyte.com/blog/100-ivy-league-business-entrepreneurship-courses-you-can-take-for-free

<comment><USER2> The original comprehensive list is found here:

[http://www.bschool.com/blog/2008/brain-trust-100-ivy- league-...](http://www.bschool.com/blog/2008/brain-trust-100-ivy-league- business-entrepreneurship-courses-you-can-take-for-free/)

This is great.</comment>


New Covid Cases Soar in Denmark, Surpassing No-Lockdown Sweden - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-10/new-covid-cases-soar-in-denmark-surpassing-no-lockdown-sweden <comment><USER2> This should surprise no one, but the article feels a little bit disingenuous. It's comparing Norway and Denmark to Sweden to make Sweden look a lot worse. But when comparing it to a bunch of other nearby countries Sweden is probably middle of the pack. In addition, it sounds like the spike is rather minor (Denmark sees a daily increase of 317 cases). It doesn't seem that bad yet, but I can't tell because the article leaves out information that's pertinent. How many cases was that before? What percentage of people are testing positive now? What group is testing positive (for example, is the increase in all age groups or in younger people who are less likely to have a bad outcome)?

In hindsight, it's probably likely that Sweden chose the best path (although faltering along the way not locking down older people as well as they should have).

Everyone was criticizing the US when the numbers started to go up, but a lot of other countries coming out of lock down are seeing the same thing. It's just not possible to come out of lock down without a vaccine and not see an increase in cases. But you really need to stop using that as your metric for success. Cases is a leading indicator, but you need to see who's getting sick, what's happening in the hospitals, and what percentage is testing positive.

The news can't help but pour fuel on the fire by highlighting every time the cases spike anywhere without actually doing real journalism and giving any other information. Just cases go up, time to panic.

</comment><comment><USER3> Per capita death rates:

[https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-covid-deaths-per- mi...](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-covid-deaths-per- million-7-day- average?time=2020-07-09..2020-09-06&country=BEL~CAN~FRA~DEU~ITA~ESP~SWE~GBR~DNK)

It will be interesting to see if Sweden's marathon approach beats the sprinters.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd say Sweden is the sprinter in your analogy?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How did you cope with the loss of a partner? - <AUTHOR> Lost my wife and best friend due to child birth issues.
Baby is ok with friends and family support.
I am in a daze. Lost my drive and focus. Can not relate to anyone. Miss her physical presence.
Suggestions? <comment><USER2> _Meta: Vouching for this solely because seeing it prefixed with [dead] seemed.. inappropriate. Continue to flag if considered inappropriate for the site, obviously._</comment>


15-24 month life for HP netbooks? - <AUTHOR> http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/news/netbook-failure-rate-disappoints-major-user

<comment><USER2> summary: user buys ridiculously cheap hardware, is offended when it dies shortly after warranty runs out.

I guess I can see that... I mean, if consumers complain about things choking when they are shortly out of warranty, it's more likely companies will put more effort into preventing such a thing. but, on the other hand, considering the price point and target market, I would not expect a netbook to last as long as a real laptop. Expecting your Chevy Corsica to last like a Toyota Camrey is just irrational. (which isn't to say you shouldn't complain and put pressure on Chevy to do better if you do get stuck with a Corsica)

It would be interesting to see more MBTF statistics for netbooks, though, if such things exist. I imagine getting such statistics beyond the warranty period is really, really difficult, just 'cause I imagine that for most users of cheap netbooks, well, if it fails and it's out of warranty, it's garbage. just counting repairs would not give you a fair number.

<comment><USER3> Well, MTBF could be tested manufacturer-side too. I'm not sure why HP/Lenovo/et. al. have not come out and said "After exhaustive testing, we've shown our netbooks last the wear-equivalent of X years of average usage, which is Y years/months more than that of competitors Z, A, and B."

My feeling is that they consider netbooks disposable and their "real" notebooks to be the focus of QC.

<comment><USER2> manufacturer mbtf testing, well, I would not in any way trust a manufacturers numbers compared to the numbers of a rival manufacturer. there are far too many small, subtle things you can do to inflate your MBTF numbers.

Even if they were trying to be honest, testing wear (where wear might be mostly, say, how often the damned thing gets dropped) is really hard. On average, how many times a year does a laptop get dropped? and is that number the same as the times a netbook gets dropped? is there something about it's size/shape (or, unknowably at product launch-time, the demographics of the buyers) that cause netbooks to get dropped more or less?</comment></comment></comment>


John Barnes: I Hate Snark (2011) - <AUTHOR> http://thatjohnbarnes.blogspot.com/2011/12/i-hate-snark.html <comment><AUTHOR> He defines Snark:

> Snark is a dishonest reduction expressed with knowningness.

Which builds on a definition of knowingness he gives a bit earlier:

> Knowingness, of course, is not knowledge—indeed, is the rebuttal of > knowledge. Knowledge was what squares had, or thought they had, and they > thought that it was the secret of life. Knowingness is a celebration of the > conceit that what the squares knew, or thought they knew, was worthless.</comment>


HTML Instant Messaging System - <AUTHOR> I'm attempting to make an instant messaging system of sorts for me and my friend to be able to communicate fairly quickly/easily. I'm fairly certain I'd have to use html, but I'd rather use javascript or batch to make a program. If I were to use HTML, however, how might I be able to compile the html code as well as the resources (storing passwords) into one .html file? Also I'm not sure how I'd get the two computers to be able to communicate.
The question is titled html instant messaging because I was thinking about coding it as a .html file that I could just send to my friends, so it would be like a shortcut to a webpage of sorts, rather than having to install it. The only problem with this is that I think both users would have to be online for one to message the other (if this is remotely possible). If not, then I was thinking of having it act similarly to a batch or cmd file, which I would like more, because I'm used to using batch more than html.
Where I'm At:
I've taught myself batch coding, as well as some javascript, and I'm attempting to learn html. I know very few ins and outs as far as how html works, though. I'm much more familiar with javascript and batch, but as far as those two are concerned, I've been coding batch since I was about 9, and javascript since I was about 12. What years I do have under my belt, however, are somewhat botched, because I stop every now and again and forget about it for a while. <comment><USER2> [http://fintank.ru:8080/](http://fintank.ru:8080/) \- simple web instant messenger written in c++</comment>


Do we understand ethics well enough to build "Friendly artificial intelligence"? - <AUTHOR> https://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2011/03/25/this-weeks-finds-week-313/

<comment><USER2> As an AI researcher, I think obstacles like "not having your robot fall over all the damn time" are a little more immediate than robots having a nuanced understanding of ethics. I can understand why this stuff is fun to think about and debate, but it's just not relevant at all to where AI is going to be for the next 50 (or 100, or probably 200) years.

<comment><USER3> I really think the stability of your robot is a completely separate issue. George W. Bush and Barack Obama both use flying robots with missiles to hunt down and kill people they don't like. Don't you think that perhaps, as these flying robots gain more and more autonomy, that discussions of ethics are actually important, and important _now_? 50 years is a long, long time in computer science.

I'm surprised that you are so pessimistic about your research that you think ethics won't even be relevant in year 2205. Holy cow you must think AI is hard.

<comment><USER4> _George W. Bush and Barack Obama both use flying robots with missiles to hunt down and kill people they don't like._

This is a very good point. It's always good to be reminded that we're already living in the future.

That said, I _feel_ like aothman is discussing real artificial _intelligence_ , that is, an entity capable of making a _conscious_ decision that it wants to, in this case, fire the missiles. If I had to guess, if predator drones gain the ability to "decide" for themselves whether or not to fire their missiles, it will be built on a system of complex rules, and not because they're "intelligent". Pota _y_ to, Pota _h_ to? Maybe. I'm not an AI researcher and I don't even come close to understanding _human_ intelligence, but I feel like even if it is just a complex system of rules, it's at a much deeper level than we'll be able to simulate soon.

<comment><USER5> > It's always good to be reminded that we're already living in the future.

This is not a new phenomenon; the first use of autonomous killer robots was in 1943, in the form of acoustically guided torpedoes.

<comment><USER6> Well heck, if we're going to stretch the analogy why not a mouse trap?

<comment><USER7> Because nobody has ever been killed by a misguided mousetrap?

<comment><USER6> Bear trap, then.

<comment><USER5> They don't move around of their own accord, attempting to close with the target. Guided weapons do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Best suggestion of the article is that we scorn AI researchers who do not have a credible claim that their designs will maintain a basic agreed-on value system after a billion self-managed iterations and upgrades by the AI.

This is a fascinating and broad-ranging criticism of AI, and it's interesting to me because the author is clearly considering 'what happens if we are successful?'.

Definitely worth a read.

<comment><USER9> That's a pretty high bar that would be pretty controversial if you applied it to other fields.

For example, should we scorn genetics researchers who do not have a credible claim that their organisms will remain harmless after a billion generations of evolution and recombination? That's more or less what many of the anti-GMO arguments boil down to, that we ought to require genetically-modified organisms to be provably safe, both as they exist now, _and_ in all possible future ways they could evolve and interact with other organisms. (And since that bar is very hard to reach, therefore, their arguments go, we should be careful about funding such research to begin with, and definitely shouldn't let any of its results out into the wild, e.g. into crops.)

If anything, the argument there is stronger, because evolving biological organisms that can pose a threat to humans actually exist, whereas evolving machines that can pose a threat to humans are sci-fi, and likely to remain so for a very long time. Why regulate the latter one more stringently?

<comment><USER10> The search space of biological organisms been well explored. It's unlikely that one will develop which is vastly more dangerous than the ones which already exist. The same cannot be said for robots/AI.

<comment><USER11> > The search space of biological organisms been well explored.

Not at all true. The space of possible biological organisms is searched in a _highly_ nonuniform manner by evolution, and the human search strategy is fundamentally different. It's overwhelmingly likely that there competitive human-constructible organisms which could never be produced by evolution in the past 4 billion years.

<comment><USER10> This is true if you are discussing creating organisms which are highly different from existing ones. _delirium was discussing genetic modifications which are simply tweaks to existing organisms.

There is no reason to believe that golden rice will evolve in any significantly different manner than ordinary rice. In contrast, AI will evolve via a mechanism which is unprecedented.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Haha, it's impossible.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely. The goal is to make AI more powerful than humans is it not? We're not going to be able to control it, no way no how.

</comment><comment><USER13> The thing is, fully autonomous AIs will most likely be tested on a simulated world (maybe at a smaller scale) before they have any kind of real world influence.

Real world resources are finite, and real world processes with real world materials take a certain finite amount of time. The singularity therefore ignores the realities of physics. It would even be possible to add artificial constraints on the total resource use and rate of resource use.

</comment><comment><USER14> So I'm not a person that actively writes AI software, but I am a knowledgable supporter. I'm all for the Singularity, rights for future non-human intelligences, etc, et. al.

So I _always_ take issues with these kinds of esoteric debates about how to engineer ethics into an intelligence that can learn and become conscious.

Haven't any of these yahoos ever had kids or owned a pet dog?

You don't "engineer ethics" into your son or daughter. You teach them through examples of good behavior, punish them when they misbehave, and reward them when they succeed. Over the course of a few years, given a good environment, the end result is a new young intelligence that knows how to behave well and get along with others. That intelligence often goes on to bootstrap itself up into adulthood and eventually goes on to create later iterations of itself. If it was raised well, then the new ones tend to get raised well too. We call them "grandkids".

So lets assume in 10-20 years something descended from IBM's Blue Brain (simulating cat cortexes) leads to something that is analogous in intellectual range from a dog to an elephant.

Most people will agree that dogs and elephants are pretty damn smart. Dogs are able to perceive human emotional states, understand some language, do work for people, and fit nicely into our social structure. Elephants aren't that close with people, but are highly intelligent, have active internal emotional states, and even grieve for their dead. In some societies, people and elephants have worked together for thousands of years.

In both these cases, we have a long history of working with other intelligences of varying scales for thousands of years. In general, if you don't mistreat them they turn out to be socialized pretty well. Its only when you mistreat them that they learn to fear and hate you. The same is true for people.

So as @aothman said in another comment in this thread, AI researchers are just trying to get their projects to not fall over. There's no thought of "engineering ethics". This problem is going to be solved one little bit at a time. Artificial neural architectures are going to more and more sophisticated over time. But there is a key difference between the underlying architecture and how you go about training these new minds.

If you raise them well, then most of these angels-on-a-pin discussions are just that, meaningless.

<comment><USER6> Dogs are actually an interesting example because I think they _are_ engineered (by evolution) to be "good", or rather, to be obedient. The only reason you can train a dog, and the reason that dogs were ever successfully domesticated in the first place, is that they have an inbuilt desire to be cooperative and to submit to the authority of a more powerful "dog". The dog is happy when you're happy with it, and sad when you're angry at it. Making it obedient is thus a fairly simple matter. Try that with just about any other animal (especially any other large carnivore which could seriously hurt you if it wanted to) and you'll be out of luck.

Humans are actually similar -- we have _some_ sort of an innate ethical sense, though human ethics is a lot more complicated than dog ethics. We're smart enough to realise that our own short-term best interests may be served by acting in a non-ethical manner, and we've evolved all sorts of defence mechanisms to cope with this fact, including the moral outrage and desire for revenge which we feel when we see someone behaving non-ethically.

So in conclusion, while you can't necessarily engineer ethics into a mind, you can hard-wire in the structures necessary to _care_ about ethics. Humans and dogs both have some sort of ethical sense wired in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I don't think we understand debugging well enough to start building "friendly A.I.", much less in robot form.

<comment><USER16> A true AGI will solve robotics itself, whether it is already instantiated in a robot or not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> no. and the likelihood of someone building a friendly AI first when that is harder than building an unfriendly AI seems minuscule. cya humanity, sucked while it lasted anyway.

<comment><USER18> If you believe that, the rational thing to do is to support Friendly-AI research. SIAI.org

<comment><USER19> ...wonders if this is an SIAI affiliated human that I know...

I should say something clever to the fatalist OP to avoid downmod... something about hardware requirements for agi likely being high (imho) and that we have a few decades to work on the really hard problem and we haven't yet worked on hard problems for a few decades since maturing as an information processing species.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> No. Not close yet...</comment>


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<comment><AUTHOR> They are saying that it is NOT for sale. They "might" have a contest because I have twittered and FB'd about wanting it. I have to have it. Hacker News please help me get one!</comment>