After 400 years, mathematicians find a new class of solid shapes - <AUTHOR> http://theconversation.com/after-400-years-mathematicians-find-a-new-class-of-solid-shapes-23217 <comment><USER2> 1\. The original article: [http://theconversation.com/after-400-years- mathematicians-fi...](http://theconversation.com/after-400-years- mathematicians-find-a-new-class-of-solid-shapes-23217)

2\. It actually looks more like a redefinition than a new discovery: "It may be confusing because Goldberg called them polyhedra, a perfectly sensible name to a graph theorist, but to a geometer, __polyhedra require planar faces __ "

<comment><USER3> Indeed. A better title may be "After 400 years, a debate over a definition begins among mathematicians."

<comment><USER4> I don't think that's quite right. They narrowed the definition to strict polyhedral, which hadn't been done before. Then showed that they existed.

"Schein and his colleague James Gayed have described that a fourth class of convex polyhedra, which given Goldberg's influence they want to call Goldberg polyhedra, even at the cost of confusing others. "

<comment><USER4> Hey! There are in fact infinite solution. Each regular face of an icosahedron for instance can be 'inflated' to form a slight dome, made out of smaller regular polygons.

Then, recurse!

<comment><USER5> > convex

<comment><USER4> Each surface polygon is flat. They can be 'inflated' via the OPs technique without violating the bound of an enclosing sphere, right? Each recursive expansion has an inflation factor that scales. Hm. But the sphereical section bounding each polygon doesn't scale, it becomes 'flatter' as you recurse. So there's a limit.

<comment><USER6> Actually, not. The definition of convex is that given a point A and a point B and a line between A and B, all points on the line AB are in the interior space of the solid.

Inflating two adjacent surfaces creates a valley along the pre-existing edge between the two of them and fails the above definition.

<comment><USER4> Yet that's what the OP describe. Remember, the edge was a "mountain" to begin with, you have some wiggle room. That's the observation that the whole paper is based upon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's hard to know whether or not this is interesting, since the article is very vague and the paper is behind a paywall: [http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/02/04/1310939111](http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/02/04/1310939111)

The claim that Goldberg polyhedra are not really polyhedra is especially puzzling. Presumably the paper explains this better!

<comment><USER8> (Non-mathematician here.) Seems the fuss is about getting the faces of the Goldberg polyhedra to be planar.

There's an article at sciencenews.org [1] which has a bit better explanation I think.

It seems "Goldberg polyhedra" as commonly understood encompasses a bunch of shapes which wouldn't normally qualify as polyhedra because some of their faces don't have all of their vertices in the same plane (i.e. the "hexagons" in the picture at the article would not really be flat)

This is what the paper is calling "dihedral angle discrepancy" \- a dihedral angle being the angle between two planes.

From the abstract[1], the claim of the paper is to have found a subset of Goldberg "polyhedra" where the planarity of faces is guaranteed.

The resulting shapes also have all edges the same length, but the faces are not necessarily equiangular.

As far as I can tell, they're claiming that only one each of tetrahedral and octahedral Goldberg (or Goldberg-like?) polyhedra exhibits equal edges and planar faces, but that there are infinite icosahedral variations with these properties.

The supplementary info for this paper[2] has more details about their methodology, which seems to included use of molecular modelling software and iterative methods, as well as a few pictures.

[1] [https://www.sciencenews.org/article/goldberg-variations- new-...](https://www.sciencenews.org/article/goldberg-variations-new-shapes- molecular-cages)

[2] [http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/02/04/1310939111](http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/02/04/1310939111)

[3] [http://www.pnas.org/content/suppl/2014/02/05/1310939111.DCSu...](http://www.pnas.org/content/suppl/2014/02/05/1310939111.DCSupplemental)

<comment><USER7> Thanks for the link to the sciencenews piece. That's much more helpful. So it's a new class of equilateral convex polyhedra with icosahedral symmetry, which is interesting because the familiar "geodesic dome" polyhedra are not equilateral.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Perhaps this submission will get more love than when I submitted it 2 days ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7244254](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7244254)

<comment><USER10> Well, I submitted this news 4 days ago and my post also did not receive any love ...

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7238523](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7238523)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> From 2007, this is a better article on the same topic. Sorry it is a PDF, it wasn't easy to find an online version.

[http://match.pmf.kg.ac.rs/electronic_versions/Match59/n3/mat...](http://match.pmf.kg.ac.rs/electronic_versions/Match59/n3/match59n3_585-594.pdf)

"Our results show that these Extended Goldberg polyhedra are a kind of novel geometrical objects of icosahedral symmetry and are considered to explain some viral capsids. "

Which is the interesting application of the math.

<comment><USER12> Interesting. The "Extended Goldberg polyhedra" paper doesn't make explicit whether they are talking about _planar_ ("proper") polyhedra, but maybe they are...?

Is the "Extended Goldberg polyhedra" prior publication of the same result as today's news?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Anyone else stumble on that "nasablueshit" typo?

<comment><USER14> Indeed. For the curious, it should be NASA Blueshift [1]

[1] [http://astrophysics.gsfc.nasa.gov/outreach/podcast/wordpress...](http://astrophysics.gsfc.nasa.gov/outreach/podcast/wordpress/index.php/about/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> What about Johnson solids? They were enumerated only about 50 years ago.</comment>


Strive for Balance - <AUTHOR> http://www.penzba.co.uk/StriveForBalance.html

<comment><USER2> I agree, though I would be even more prescriptive: when people hear of a new idea they should _first_ try to understand the upside (the value created if the idea takes off). _Then_ , think through obstacles/problems and put them in perspective with the upside. If the upside is deemed minor, it could be better to see if the core idea can be mutated into something more valuable before looking at obstacles/problems with the current idea.

(The split between "idea upside" and "obstacles/problems" that I've made is somewhat artificial -- you can say that a small upside is a problem -- but I think it's helpful.)

(EDIT: "idea" -> "idea upside")

</comment><comment><USER3> That's really neat to see it so well expressed.

Less is more :)

</comment><comment><USER4> it sounds to me like the people who find problems might already have found a balance, and are canceling out anything that might disrupt it.</comment>


A List of Lost Formats - <AUTHOR> http://www.experimentaljetset.com/archive/lostformats.html

<comment><USER2> Well, quite interesting.

However, these are not format (in the sens "file format") but more storage media, the title is not really right.

It's really sad that the picture are only "black shadow" representation (I was hoping that it'd be replaced by a true pict of the medium on :hover.

A few of these mediums are in fact not lost yet (DVD ? Memory Stick ? Smart Card ? CD ? Holographic Data Storage [this one can't be lost, it does not exist yet !!]).

Interesting data would have beginning/end date of manufacturing. And sorting the list would not have hurt.

Finally a few of the storage have way too many data available (18 track tape => no data at all, you kidding me right ? what's the point ?) and the dimensions and capacity does not always use the same units.

tl;dr: The idea is really interesting, but they should come back when they'll have something better to present. This article has really been botched.

<comment><USER3> Experimental Jetset is a pretty well known graphic design studio (at least in the design world) so this project is probably best viewed through an aesthetic lens.

There's always the Computer History Museum if you're interested in such gory details: <http://www.computerhistory.org>

<comment><USER4> _this project is probably best viewed through an aesthetic lens_

In other words, it's a bit technically clueless.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Two or maybe three weeks ago I read here|slashdot|reddit (can't remember) talks about uses of magnetic tapes: they are still being used for large scale backups. Not outdated (unless you take the point they have a successor, which I am not sure is valid for those using MT)

<comment><USER6> I attended an interesting event in Silicon Valley last week where storage media was one of the topics. The view there was that tape is going to finally die and be replaced by disk. Essentially we'll use disk for long term storage and flash where we'd use disk today.

<comment><USER7> Was there any discussion about longevity of storage of disk vs tape? I remember a claim that DAT tape had an expected lifetime of 100 years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> They're missing the not-so-famous Avatar Shark Drive, which had 250MB disks (built with metal plates, like mini hard drives). I used to own two of them. Ran fine under Windows 2000, and they were quite fast too. Great for backups.

</comment><comment><USER9> I don't see how the compact disk belongs on a list of lost formats . . . or the DVD for that matter.

<comment><USER10> I guess they mean lost in the sense that it has an immediate successor available for its intended use, e.g. BD replacing DVD.

<comment><AUTHOR> More than likely, the inclusion of modern formats is a preliminary act.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Mis-titled. A great number of these are still operational. They are just used less often or are harder to find. Obsolete or "lost" is not synonymous with "no longer leading edge".

</comment><comment><USER11> I was always pissed that Sony didn't let Minidisc become the new floppy disk alternative.... it was perfect.

I know you could get data drives for them - but they were uncommon in the extreme.

Plus, every TV show and movie that wanted to show someone stealing data, because they looked cool.

(it was a magneto-optical disk in a hard case, pocket sized.

</comment><comment><USER11> What about: Punchcards, magnetic wire, wax cylinder, paper tape, piano scrolls, all kinds of film...the polaroid....

</comment><comment><USER12> Add to the list:

Laserdisc, Kodak APS, MS/MS Duo, CF/CFII, SD/MMC, XD, T-Flash, M2

</comment><comment><USER13> Anyone remember the cauzin strip reader?

</comment><comment><USER14> MOD and DVD-RAM are still in use.

</comment><comment><USER15> Vinyl LPs are far from being dead, there's a huge (albeit a niche) market.</comment>


VeriSign hit by hackers - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/02/us-hacking-verisign-idUSTRE8110Z820120202 <comment><USER2> _"Oh my God," said Stewart Baker, former assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and before that the top lawyer at the National Security Agency. "That could allow people to imitate almost any company on the Net."_

Does anyone else feel this line is more suited to a Hollywood movie than a Reuters release?

<comment><USER3> I found it refreshing -- an official didn't try to downplay the issue. The reporter likely included the comment verbatim for that very reason, as in, "OMG, this is super serial."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't understand why we trust lone authentication services. They are single points of failure. SSL Certificates should be validated by a _collection_ of independent certificate authorities. If not all of the authorities agree on the certificate, that's a sign there is hacking going on - or a sign that not all of the services have synchronized the certificate.

If we do it this way, a hacker who wants to try to imitate a site can't get away with compromising just one certificate authority. They'd have to compromise __all __of them, which (if there are enough) would be nearly impossible.

<comment><USER5> Well, how do you distribute trust? Do you have a quorum or something?

Consider this ... what if I wanted to introduce doubt that X is really verified, and thereby hurt their business. How can you avoid me doing stuff like that? Besides harsh laws of course.

<comment><USER6> > _Well, how do you distribute trust? Do you have a quorum or something?_

Basically, yes.

> _Consider this ... what if I wanted to introduce doubt that X is really > verified, and thereby hurt their business. How can you avoid me doing stuff > like that? Besides harsh laws of course._

By not trusting _you_.

Right now, what happens is the browser and/or OS vendor determines a set of certificate authorities to declare "trusted", and all certificates they issue are simply assumed to be valid.

Instead, we could require, say, three signatures, each from different authorities, to invoke the normal "this is a secure connection to a properly- identified website" behavior.

But each of those authorities was still determined by the vendor to be trustworthy. It's still going to be the likes of e.g. VeriSign, Comodo, StartSSL, etc.. It's not going to be _you_.

<comment><USER5> But what if Verisign really doesn't like Bank of America, can they cast doubt on their websites now?

<comment><USER6> No, but if they could and did, their business would come to an abrupt end when browsers stopped trusting them anyway.

<comment><USER5> What if everyone did it to some company

<comment><USER6> That is in no way different than the current situation. If all of the dozens of trusted certificate authorities the world over has decided that they shouldn't provide certs for company X, you should probably be looking to company X for the problem, rather than the authorities.

In any case, users have always had the option of modifying the trust infrastructure or even ignoring it entirely.

<comment><USER5> Let me rephrase. What if every cert authority might do it to some company (different companies for different cert authorities)

How would you even know if they did?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Another day, another APT reported by some company integral to the technological infrastructure of the US (and the world in this case). When will we take real, substantive action on this issue?

<comment><USER8> _When will we take real, substantive action on this issue?_

Got any new ideas? (seriously)

<comment><USER7> Perhaps some kind of cyber-warfare non-proliferation treaty akin to START. Nation states agree to not launch APTs against eachother, and pledge to prosecute any of their citizens that launch such attacks independently.

<comment><USER8> What would you do when there are still targeted attacks launched via compromised systems from random unrelated countries used as proxies?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As an aside, registrar interactions with Verisign have several security layers involved to prevent someone from accessing and changing domain dns (we deal with this as a registrar). Of course those methods are only as secure as the particular registrar defenses are. As are the nameservers used in any particular domain.

</comment><comment><USER10> The reuters article provides no details about the security breach, so I did some digging. The most I could find was VeriSign's original SEC filing at [http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1014473/0001193125112...](http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1014473/000119312511285850/d219781d10q.htm)

From the filing: _We experienced security breaches in the corporate network in 2010 which were not sufficiently reported to Management._

 _In 2010, the Company faced several successful attacks against its corporate network in which access was gained to information on a small portion of our computers and servers. We have investigated and do not believe these attacks breached the servers that support our Domain Name System ("DNS") network. Information stored on the compromised corporate systems was exfiltrated. The Company's information security group was aware of the attacks shortly after the time of their occurrence and the group implemented remedial measures designed to mitigate the attacks and to detect and thwart similar additional attacks. However, given the nature of such attacks, we cannot assure that our remedial actions will be sufficient to thwart future attacks or prevent the future loss of information. In addition, although the Company is unaware of any situation in which possibly exfiltrated information has been used, we are unable to assure that such information was not or could not be used in the future._

 _The occurrences of the attacks were not sufficiently reported to the Company's management at the time they occurred for the purpose of assessing any disclosure requirements. Management was informed of the incident in September 2011 and, following the review, the Company's management concluded that our disclosure controls and procedures are effective. However, the Company has implemented reporting line and escalation organization changes, procedures and processes to strengthen the Company's disclosure controls and procedures in this area. See Item 4 "Controls and Procedures" in Part I of this report._

It's interesting to note that the SEC issued guidelines on the reporting of security breaches on October 13th, 2011 ( [http://www.sec.gov/divisions/corpfin/guidance/cfguidance- top...](http://www.sec.gov/divisions/corpfin/guidance/cfguidance-topic2.htm) ) and VeriSign's SEC filing was released about two weeks later on October 28th, 2011. It could be the case that the security breach wasn't actually a major one, but because the SEC guidelines were so new they thought it prudent to mention even a minor security breach.

From this filing, there's no way to know the severity of the breach, which is why I think it's unfair for reuters to make this seem like a bigger deal than it might actually be. (They mention the RSA security breach which _was_ a huge deal, and they suggest the attack was done by a "nation-state".) It reads like an article written by Nancy Grace.

Of course it _could_ be the case that this was a major attack carried out by China, but it could also be a mundane attack on a public web server that wouldn't have made the news if not for the timing of the recent SEC guidelines. There's just no way to know from the information available.

<comment><USER9> You said:

"I think it's unfair for reuters to make this seem like a bigger deal than it might actually be"

The filing says:

"the Company faced several successful attacks against its corporate network in which access was gained to information on a small portion of our computers and servers"

The headline was:

"Key Internet operator VeriSign hit by hackers"

This wasn't the lead story on the nightly news. It was a Reuters article with a fair headline for what happened. The mere fact that they reported it in their filings but didn't disclose it to company management is a problem right there.

<comment><USER11> This delightful fear-mongering quote from a former DHSer is in the article:

"Oh my God," said Stewart Baker, former assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and before that the top lawyer at the National Security Agency. "That could allow people to imitate almost any company on the Net."

The point is that this was a small attack that affected a very small part of the company that they don't believe has any lasting implications to their business. You get an article with quotes like that from such a small attack, and it makes you raise an eyebrow.

<comment><USER12> Heh, isn't that what the RSA breach was at first, too?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Am I the only that wonders if Symantec is the right company to be in control of verisign???

To me it seems that there would be a little bit of a conflict of interest around owning an antivirus company and the tool that tells you a site is who they say they are.

I know this sounds a little crazy, but think about it before you downvote me.

</comment><comment><USER14> This article doesn't have much details on what the actually attack involved. Anyone have actual details. I would assume that VeriSign has a very segregated network and a breach somewhere would have a hard time propagating to their more important things like their CA signing server and .com stuff.

<comment><USER8> The (reported) fact that they were hacked repeatedly in 2010 and the CTO at that time (claims he) didn't learn of it until Reuters called him for a comment doesn't exactly paint a reassuring picture.

I bet Symantec is a little irritated that they bought the VeriSign^TM CA business in 2010. Are they going to want their money back?

If they can't prove there was no compromise of the private keys, will Symantec reissue the 30 year VeriSign root certs?

EDIT: The SEC filing is here (keyword "breach") [https://investor.verisign.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1193125...](https://investor.verisign.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1193125-11-285850&CIK=1014473)

Interesting how the filing mentions the threat to their DNS business. Perhaps the potential risk to the root CA is no longer considered relevant since they've sold it?

<comment><USER15> _I bet Symantec is a little irritated that they bought the VeriSign^TM CA business in 2010. Are they going to want their money back?_

Whatever security problems Verisign has had, Symantec's are far worse.</comment></comment></comment>


Jack Dorsey on Square, How it Works & Why it Disrupts - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2009/12/01/jack-dorsey-on-square-why-it-is-disruptive/

<comment><USER2> Here's what I don't get about this: the physical swipe is already obsolete.

You can just type in a credit card number, address, CCV, and expiration date _once_ into say the Apple Store and then buy stuff from them with one click from that point on. The same is true for Amazon and Paypal and lots of other cos. And you can do it on your iPhone today.

So there is no reason why you can't just have a Paypal app on your iPhone which has two fields: email of the person you want to pay and amount to send. Type that in and everything is done on the server. No hardware dongle or physical proximity needed, you can deploy everything in software.

Starbucks or the like could have a simple mobile web site ordering interface. Maybe use some geolocation to determine when you're in a store, but otherwise use their existing corp website and ecommerce backend.

Some might argue that the dongle gives more security -- but it's weird that you would want MORE transactional security (physical card swipe) when you can see the person than when they are ordering over the web.

that said...I guess this might have some advantages for people _receiving_ payments, as a swipe is quicker than getting your customers to input their info. Also might be faster for payers who buy a lot of stuff online from different merchants and don't save their cc info with them. I guess one would have to know how cheap mobile credit card swipers are today.

<comment> tsetse-fly Swiping is not obsolete. I don't know why you're trying to compare a virtual retailer like Amazon to shops that have an actual physical presence. The way they process payments is entirely different.

Not everyone has a smartphone. Why would Starbucks want to deal with accepting payments via mobile-geolocation _and_ plastic for everyone else? It would just confuse the cashier. Swiping is uniform and only takes a few seconds.

Square fills the mobile payments processing niche where you need to be able to accept plastic when you're not in front of a register. Plumbers, repairmen of all sorts, traveling salesmen, people selling items at fairs/festivals, etc. These people aren't currently able to accept credit cards with real-time processing. That's the problem Square solves.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I think this technology is awesome and has a lot of potential, but I don't know if it is easily defensible against the giants like motorola and verifone.

How easily can these companies come up with software and a headphone jack that does the same thing? Most importantly they got a huge distribution channel with all those nokia phone and point of payment device users currently using their existing product.

So if these companies do come out with a product that copies square they can quickly roll it out faster to a market they already have an establish presence in.

This device has huge potential in emerging markets FYI.

Also, in the end I think one of larger companies will buy Square out after a couple of years.

</comment><comment><USER4> The technology isn't the problem, the finances is the problem. Credit card companies are loaning money. If people don't pay, then they get mad. If sketchy people on the street are using this device and then the consumer says, "I got ripped off" and refuses to pay then the credit card companies are going to put an end to this pretty fast.

Paypal had the same issue. They got around it eventually, but there were still barriers to using paypal. How are these guys going to keep out the riff raff?

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm curious as to how Square will handle chargebacks and disputes. Also, any details on their fee structure?</comment>


Books by dictators - <AUTHOR> http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/04/08/bad_politics_worse_prose?page=full <comment><USER2> If there's a lesson here, it's the dangers of overconfidence.

Most people, it is said, have a novel inside them. But for most people, that novel is shit. Your average person will start writing that novel, realise how shit it is, and give up. But if you're an all-powerful god-king, you're probably gonna finish and publish that novel without ever realising that you suck at writing.

<comment><AUTHOR> That idea is from my favorite Christopher Hitchens quote:

        Everybody does have a book in them, but
        in most cases that's where it should stay.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I find myself wishing for a leather bound set of dictator books, translated into English of course.

</comment><comment><USER4> Don't forget Mussolini's novel _The Cardinal's Mistress_! In fairness, he did have experience in newspapers, so it is possible he wrote some of it himself.

Mao wrote poetry. A friend who claimed to know such things told me that this poetry was pretty bad.

</comment><comment><USER5> Had no idea Stalin wrote poetry. His poem listed in the article would fit right in with the shitty paintings by Hitler.

<comment><USER6> Hitler also wrote Mein Kampf.

<comment><USER5> Kind of surprised they didn't include him, really. Haven't read Mein Kampf, but Hitler's paintings are about as far as bad taste can get.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I liked the tavern poetry.</comment>


99.999% certainty humans are driving global warming - <AUTHOR> http://theconversation.com/99-999-certainty-humans-are-driving-global-warming-new-study-29911

<comment><USER2> Is anyone else skeptical of the approach taken in the OP's cited analysis? I believe in anthropomorphic global warming in the sense that human generated CO2 is going to affect the climate. But I'm not sure that I would go as far as to say that humans are "driving" global warming with "certainty". The reasons I say this are that the global circulation models used by climate scientists are tweaked and tweaked until they match up with historical climate figures, but seem to have trouble with predicting the future well. Less violent tornados, less hurricane activity, puzzling ice melting behavior, and a hiatus in global temperature increase have made me doubt the accuracy of the models (and the interpretation of their predictions). I'm not saying that I doubt that global warming is a problem, just that the models seem to be incomplete or that the problem of detailed climate modeling is somehow too chaotic to be computationally tractable. The questions that I feel are important, the size of the global warming problem and how it should be addressed are not the point of the OP citation [Kokic, et. al].

Given the failures of climate model predictions (not the ability to tune models to historical data) it seems that we should have at least a modicum of skepticism for the way they are used in this paper. I don't have the energy myself to go over another climate paper in detail, but from looking over it quickly it appears that the basic argument is:

(1) Pick a time interval that includes time before significant human contribution to greenhouse gases (GHGs). In this case the 20th century. (2) Pick a number of interesting time intervals (3) Pick a model for GW. (3) Adjust the coefficients on the model to completely exclude contribution of GHGs. (4) Run simulations (including bootstraps on top of bootstraps) (5) Conclude that out of 100,000 runs of the simulation only 1 run would account for the climate behavior actually observed for the intervals. (6) Conclude that there is 99.999% certainty that humans are driving global warming.

I am not surprised that current GW models (built on the historical record) don't reflect historical behavior when GHGs are taken out of the equation. The paper just doesn't provide enough detail and justification for me to be comfortable with the 99.999% number. From now on people will be quoting this five 9's certainty, but is it really 99.999% or is it 99.9% or 99%?

The whole point of this paper seems to be to win some sort of straw-man argument. Of course, there are people that believe that human GHGs play no part in climate, but is it really important to provide Chris Mathews with the 99.999% number instead of the 99% number to use when mocking Republicans? This distorts any intelligent discussion about energy and climate.

There are large number of assumptions and seemingly arbitrary choices made by the authors of the paper in question. There is the possibility (at least at the 0.0001% level) that their programs have bugs or unjustified assumptions or simplifications that affect the conclusions. In my opinion, and take this with a grain of salt since I am not expert in this area, this paper is one where the data, statistics, and simulation programs should be opened up to examination by outside researchers.</comment>


Tandberg attempts to patent x264 open source algorithm - <AUTHOR> http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/archives/589

<comment><USER3> Tandberg was acquired earlier this year by Cisco, if anyone has any Cisco contacts it might be worth bringing this to their attention as Cisco may not be aware of this as it happened prior to their acquisition.

Cisco HR peeps have been quite active in the UK developer community recruiting for Tandberg recently, I'll forward this to one of them to see if can get some attention.

<comment><USER4> I work for TANDBERG (now a part of Cisco) and I've dropped a note to Lars, the "inventor" in the patent. I certainly would like to hear the other side of the story and will share it if I get it.

<comment><USER5> What "other side" is there, if it's a step-by-step description of x264?

<comment><USER6> Well apparently one side is the mob

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If the implementation was indeed taken, it might be a dangerous mishap/black eye against their community reputation. It appears that Tandberg relies heavily on Opensource for at least one of their other products. Gstreamer and Tandberg video: [http://gstconf.ubicast.tv/videos/case-study-tandberg-and- gst...](http://gstconf.ubicast.tv/videos/case-study-tandberg-and-gstreamer/) It appears (given they were invited to a gstreamer conference) that they have been getting along with that project so maybe this was a one-of mistake?

edit: make myself clearer

</comment><comment><USER8> "35 U.S.C. 102 Conditions for patentability; novelty and loss of right to patent. A person shall be entitled to a patent unless (a)the invention was known or used by others in this country, or patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country, before the invention thereof by the applicant for patent, or ... (f) he did not himself invent the subject matter sought to be patented"

Even if Tandberg were granted a patent because the USPTO missed the information provided in the post, it would not stand in court.

Such information should be communicated to the USPTO to have them kill the application during examination.

Case closed.

<comment><USER9> Were it granted, the patent would still be a threat, even if it wouldn't hold in court. Organizations that can't afford the legal fees to retaliate against a patent suit are often forced to settle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Norwegian news site digi.no picked up this story and have a statement from Tandberg. Tandberg claims that their invention is different from what's in x264 and that they invented it before x264 the referred code.

Google translated link: [http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&h...](http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.digi.no%2F856986%2Fanklager- tandberg-for-video-patentjuks&act=url)

</comment><comment><USER11> It's unfortunate this wasn't noticed seven weeks ago. The application was published August 7. The public comment period runs for two months afterward.

</comment><comment><USER12> That is freaking bizarre, curious about the follow up on this. I think someone is about to loos his job

<comment><USER13> No need - lying on a patent application is perjury.

And it's a federal court - remember not to drop the soap in the shower!

<comment><USER14> This waste of carbon isn't worthy of scrubbing Knuth's toilet, and I'm all for drumming him out of tech for life. But our neglect of security in prisons isn't funny.

<comment><USER15> But software patents are bad so this one guy deserves all the blame! Not his bosses who pressured him to do it, not the system that set up a framework for claiming ownership of ideas... no, this is _all_ his fault, and it's worse than murder! Death penalty!!!

</sarcasm>

<comment><USER16> Stab him with parenthesis! Smash his fingers in a Turing machine!

<comment><USER17> Samurai swords are not cutlery. Reserve parenthesis for seppuku!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Another prove that software patents should be abolished.

<comment><USER15> By similar logic, copyright should be abolished because someone plagiarised their final English paper?

People will always abuse any system, but that doesn't mean the system should be taken away from everyone else. I don't like software patents, but this is not a software patent issue. It's an "intellectual dishonesty" issue -- taking credit for someone else's work.

<comment><USER19> The problem is that it was worth Tandberg's effort to put together and submit this fraudulent patent application. Enough applications like this get granted, and later go unchallenged or get upheld, that Tandberg had a reasonable expectation that they would get a patent to extort money out of somebody or scare competitors out of competing with them.

Software patents need to be harder to get, easier to overturn, and there need to be steep incentives to not submit invalid applications.

<comment><USER14> We need USPTO to somehow bear consequences for the harm they're doing to the industry. Reviewed applications are counted towards the "production" of an examiner but approvals later overturned by a court are not counted against them. As long as they only have incentive to rubber-stamp basically anything or risk dismissal, that's what they'll do.

<comment><USER20> USPTO seems overwhelmed. I would rather see penalties for patent owners where their ability to create new patents is slowed or revoked if any of the patents they own are invalidated.

<comment><USER21> I suspect that the USPTO is more interesting in collecting fees than they are in vetting patent applications.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I dislike the patent system, and I also dislike dishonesty - but could it have been possible that the person accused might have stumbled across the same solution independently?

<comment><USER23> If the person came up with the solution on his own, wouldn't he patent it in full including the missing piece that the author checked in only later? Without that piece, the solution does not work.

<comment><USER24> No, it works -- that was just an extra optimization.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I would imagine that this patent could be easily invalidated using prior art argument, the only down side is all the wasted effort and legal fees to fight the battle.

</comment><comment><USER25> The norwegian link clearly states that they have documented their algorithm 7 months before it was released from x264. If this is true, there is definately nothing to see here...

<comment><USER26> They _claim_ to have documented it internally. Garrett-Glaser has publicly documented his case. Any blind faith in the accuracy of Tandberg's response is not shared by me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." - Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution

<comment><USER28> This is a pandering quote which everyone already knows and not really a useful comment at all.

<comment><USER19> I don't see how the quote was relevant given that there is already plenty of evidence that will defeat the patent application, but it seems like very few people actually know the constitutional basis for intellectual property laws.

Even here on HN, I've seen posts from people who think patents are intended as a reward for inventors, rather than an incentive to invent. Under US law, inventors and writers do not automatically _deserve_ exclusive rights - <USER2> rights are granted only as a means to encourage progress.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Given that there was the possibility of a 'three-strikes' provision for copyright abusers in ACTA, there should at least be a discussion about penalties for patent owners that makes it so the owner can no longer file any patents if a certain number of patents are invalidated.

<comment><USER29> I love it - but the patent-anything crew (IBM, Intel, etc.) would throw all their money at that. Maybe at least a percentage of total patents after the first 10 invalid ones, or something similar?</comment></comment>


Numerically Controlled Oscillators - <AUTHOR> http://0au.de/2015/07/numerically-controlled-oscillators

<comment><USER2> Regarding quick oscillators, compare Marvin Minsky's method for circles by shifts only:

 _«Here is an elegant way to draw almost circles on a point-plotting display:_

NEW X = OLD X – epsilon * OLD Y

NEW Y = OLD Y + epsilon * NEW(!) X

 _This makes a very round ellipse centered at the origin with its size determined by the initial point. epsilon determines the angular velocity of the circulating point, and slightly affects the eccentricity. If epsilon is a power of 2, then we don 't even need multiplication, let alone square roots, sines, and cosines! The "circle" will be perfectly stable because the points soon become periodic._

 _The circle algorithm was invented by mistake when I tried to save one register in a display hack! Ben Gurley had an amazing display hack using only about six or seven instructions, and it was a great wonder. But it was basically line-oriented. It occurred to me that it would be exciting to have curves, and I was trying to get a curve display hack with minimal instructions.»_

("Item 149 (Minsky): Circle Algorithm" in HAKMEM, Programming Hacks. MIT AI Memo 239, Feb. 29, 1972)

Remarkably, this approach was also used for sine and cosine computations in the Sinclair Scientific pocket calculator (1974): [http://files.righto.com/calculator/sinclair_scientific_simul...](http://files.righto.com/calculator/sinclair_scientific_simulator.html)

For a fun application using oscillators based on this algorithm see the "Minskytron" (by Marvin Minsky, early 1960s), [http://www.masswerk.at/minskytron/](http://www.masswerk.at/minskytron/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Back when 8 bit micros were the "big" machines :-) Hal Chamberlin wrote a book called "The Musical Applications of Digital Microprocessors" which discusses this sort of frequency synthesis in detail. Recommended if you can find a used copy somewhere.

<comment><AUTHOR> It seems the title is just: "Musical Applications of Microprocessors"

[http://www.amazon.com/Musical-Applications- Microprocessors-H...](http://www.amazon.com/Musical-Applications- Microprocessors-Hal-Chamberlin/dp/0810457687/)

<comment><USER3> That is the one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Might get a kick out of comparing this software algo which works at Hz to KHz with DDS synthesis hardware which works at MHz to GHz.

Typical example, an AD9851, low performance, but simple, cheap, and runs up thru VHF frequencies.

[http://www.analog.com/media/en/technical- documentation/data-...](http://www.analog.com/media/en/technical- documentation/data-sheets/AD9851.pdf)

(start reading around page 12)

<comment><USER5> Got a kick out of reading this in the datasheet: "Both versions of the AD9851 evaluation boards are designed to interface to the parallel printer port of a PC. The operating software (C++) runs under Microsoft® Windows® (Windows 3.1 and Windows 95); Windows NT® not supported ...."

<comment><USER4> Well, it is over a decade old. I think I need to cross it off "cheap" also as its now impacted the far side of the price bathtub curve and costs a bit more than newer competitors. At least it is a relatively simple chip.</comment></comment></comment>


Wdt.io is shutting down at 2018-05-22 - <AUTHOR> https://wdt.io/about <comment><USER2> That's really sad news, their service was very reliable and always the fastest to send alerts (compared to Pingdom and StatusCake). Also their pricing was usage based - no oversized plan to choose from. Will miss them.

Anybody around here can recommend a good alternative?</comment>


Outschooling - <AUTHOR> https://avc.com/2019/05/outschooling/ <comment><USER2> I think EdTech forgets that student success has much less to do with schooling(home or otherwise). This is why education has bounced from trend to trend over the last 50 years. Because we constantly think we've found a silver bullet, but then after a decade or so, we realize it was once again correlation.

If you really look at the data, student outcomes essentially boil down to parents and the students themselves. We've see this with how standardized testing has gone over so poorly. The truth is that, outside of gaming the test system with essentially test prep style cramming, schools really have not been able to make any real meaningful changes to student outcomes.

Absolutely, schools can move the needle a bit in either direction, but outside of edge cases, I feel as though it may be a challenge to show the kind of outcome data that makes any EdTech product a must have in US education.

<comment><USER3> If by "student outcomes essentially boil down to parents and the students themselves" what you mean is "largely boil down to structural societal factors out of individuals' hands, such as poverty, pollution, homelessness, unemployment, neighborhood crime, state-supported violence, lack of access to nutritious food, ...

Then sure.

<comment><USER2> I do. But those are all things still end up with parents and the students.

If you have a single mother that works odd hours and can't do basic algebra, it's very unlikely you'll excel as a student. That isn't a judgement of anyone, that is just a fact based on the data we have.

How to prevent that situation is a different discussion, but does illustrate that resources may be better used fixing the root of the problem as opposed to putting all the effort and responsibility on education.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> My wife are secular homeschoolers and have homeschooled our 3 kids: 10,8,5 for 5 years. We use outschool regularly, its a great platform to introduce random topics. I would invest in it honestly. AMA I guess

<comment><USER5> What were the primary motivations for homeschooling? Cultural? Political? Quality? Access?

Also how do you go about socializing them? I've been considering it myself

<comment><USER4> My wife was from a very competitive school district which forced overachievement and I got beat up by bullies in a small town school. Besides the personal anecdotes,

1\. we felt like time was passing too quickly and wanted to have them around, we wanted to be together basically.

2\. with 3 kids my wife hasnt been able to work (her line of work is not well paying), so it made sense to start homeschooling vs private schooling.

3\. I have issues with what public schools are now, hyper focused on testing, lack of critical thinking, no outdoor time.

The "socializing" concern is a farce imo. Granted we live in area with plenty of groups. Maybe a solo kid way out in the sticks will have problems. Our kids also regularly play with kids 2-5 years older or younger so things are different. Our kids have activities with other homeschool kids 4 days a week.

The schedule looks like this:

M: Outdoor Nature camp: think building fire with bow drills, axes, skinning animals, foraging for wild plants

T: Academic day at home then occasional horseback riding

W: Academic day at home, private music lessons, then playdate at friends house

TH: Homeschool meetup group: think art, music, dance, karate, extracurricular classes with a group of 100 kids and 10 teachers

FRI: another Homeschool meetup group: with various classes and open play

SAT: Climbing, iceskating, skiing, biking, something outdoors

Our life is a mellower version of "Captain Fantastic"

<comment><USER6> I was homeschooled for 8 years and this schedule sounds very familiar, except it was surfing and working a part time job for me. School does not need to take 8 hours to be effective.

As far as socialization, I've been asked this a hundred times: "so...like...how do you talk to people when you're at home?" Now, I understand they mean well. But for someone who just implied their superior social capabilities, they sure seem rude and unsocialized. ;)

<comment><USER7> It's also worth pointing out that the social environment within most schools is far from ideal.

<comment><USER8> Most schools are just like jails: you are forced to be there, and forced to be there with people who don't want to be there either. A good recipe for disaster as soon as the group becomes large enough. And don't expect the guardians/educators to do anything when someone picks up on you.

<comment><USER9> > And don't expect the guardians/educators to do anything when someone picks > up on you.

Well that's not entirely fair. I know of several situations (including my own) where students were punished for fighting when attacked by other students. You can't say that's not "doing something", I guess.

<comment><USER10> It's "doing something," but it's doing something stupid, which isn't better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The one I would be interested in would be "home-after-schooling". I would love to have more resources to help support K-8 students learn how to do original research for science fairs, MOOCs for non-math subjects and programming. Basically Khan Academy type courses that can enable teaching economics, literature, philosophy to a 12 year old. The interesting non-math stuff for Khan Academy doesn't start until 9-12th grade.

I'd be curious as to why there is not an option to watch a recorded version with Outschool.

<comment><USER12> It's a matter of focus. We'd love there to be more self-study content available for kids also. But MOOCs have a famously low completion rate and it's hard to stay motivated without interaction. So we're focused on connecting learners and teachers and having them interact over video chat.

<comment><USER13> _> low completion rate_

Most people who sign up don't actually want a certificate and aren't trying to complete. They are interested in the subject, watching some videos, move on. When you have class sizes with 1000-30,000 students, it's OK if 90% don't complete the certificate since many more did than in a brick and mortar school, yet it cost much less per student to deliver the class.

In online classes where you need to pay to get the certificate, it's been found that paid students have the same completion rate as brick and mortar university students.

[https://www.afr.com/news/policy/education/fee-payments- lift-...](https://www.afr.com/news/policy/education/fee-payments-lift-mooc- completion-rates-20150409-1mhw76)

 _> Students in massive open online courses (MOOC) who pay a modest amount for a "verified certificate" are just as likely finish their course as regular university students, according to a new large-scale study of online education._

<comment><USER14> This. Low completion rate of those who enrolled for free is, in a way, actually a positive indicator because it shows a lot more people getting a chance to "taste" a subject. Many decide it isn't for them or they learned what they wanted and are not interested in the certificate at the end. Something not possible with in-class courses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Interesting blog post and theory.

A core counter argument to their base premise is that learning effectively is done in person, as part of a social group, in a physical space dedicated to learning, with hands on practice. It certainly seems to be the core takeaways of Waldorf/Montessori/constructionist/etc. approaches.

 _> When our kids were in school and struggled with a class/teacher/subject, we would get them a tutor to come to our home in the evenings._

In other words, there's a reason they paid the tutor to come in person, and not tutor over Skype or the phone.

The author speaks of their intent being to open up access to education, and replace the "outdated tech" of physical schools and classrooms. I need to be convinced that successful execution of this plan (and its inevitable percolation into policy if it makes financial sense - which I have no doubt it does, for a VC to take interest in it) won't result in a two tiered system, with students from poorer families getting free, public education over video lessons, and students from wealthier family being able to attend private, more expensive, in person schooling.

<comment><USER16> > In other words, there's a reason they paid the tutor to come in person, and > not tutor over Skype or the phone.

I'll refrain from posting the ages and names of his kids in the interest of privacy (you can figure it out with very light Googling), but his older children are in their late twenties, meaning they are nearly my age. When I was in high school "Skype tutoring" wasn't a thing, because reliable video chat didn't exist, and very little of my schoolwork used a computer for more than web processing. Isn't it a lot more likely that the sentence you are referencing is referring to that experience than evidence "in person" was the reason he paid for a tutor to come in person?

<comment><USER15> I buy that it would be a combination of both factors. I don't buy that it would be exclusively due to the lack of Skype (I assumed his kids had grown up in the last decade or so, but fair enough) because I myself have been paid tens of thousands of dollars tutoring students of fairly wealthy family when I was in grad school and not once was I asked to do it over Skype.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Homeschooling seems like an ideal solution for those with a parent at home to improve their children's academic learning. But it's concerning that those actively involved parents are removed from the public school system.

<comment><USER18> > _it 's concerning that those actively involved parents are removed from the > public school system._

As someone who was homeschooled: it's _extremely_ scary. I've missed out on social experiences and also on actual education and consider myself generally worse-off for it.

Consider: Texas permits homeschooling and has effectively zero oversight. How many homeschooling families are also anti-vaxxers or feed into anti-government paranoia? Especially consider the bitterness of such parents whose taxes pay into the school system but those same taxes aren't utilized for homeschooling families: so it's literally the government taking money to pay for a service for all citizens -- except you, you're not getting what you paid for.

<comment><USER19> I don't think this is a problem with homeschooling as much as with a subset of homeschoolers - particularly religious fundamentalists and anarchist types.

My wife and I homeschool, but we have our kids pushing well beyond their grade level in every subject. She had a teaching license up until a couple of years ago (they do expire after a while) and taught for several years before we had kids. Then, once they arrived, she decided this was a natural fit. Meanwhile, they're also plugged in with a local co-op with more than thirty kids that they meet up with several times a week.

Homeschooling can be used to keep kids out of the system and deny them a good education, but it can also be the platform for an elite education like no other. There's a reason the wealthiest families in American pay for private tutors and elite schools with tiny class sizes. Nothing beats one on one from a capable instructor.

As my kids grow older, they'll get one-on-one training in the arts, foreign language, and various extra-curricular skills like swimming, dance, etc. from instructors that we hire to assist them. They'll walk away from this better equipped than any of their peers in traditional school.

Honestly, if there is anything wrong with homeschooling itself, it's that it is only available to middle and upper class families.

<comment><USER18> You present one well-honored experience. I present a stark contrast to it.

> _My wife and I homeschool, but we have our kids pushing well beyond their > grade level in every subject._

My parents told themselves the same thing. I apparently had top percentile test scores in several early years, particularly in math. Despite that, my parents completely failed to provide an education after choosing to homeschool.

> _She had a teaching license up until a couple of years ago (they do expire > after a while) and taught for several years before we had kids._

Neat! Not that it really matters, but I am curious: what did she teach?

> _they 're also plugged in with a local co-op with more than thirty kids that > they meet up with several times a week._

That's also something my parents told themselves and others. Despite that, it wasn't exactly an honest statement. We met with other church members about once every week for about a month. Then about once every quarter of a year for about a year. Then basically never, while my parents fell deep into paranoia.

> _it can also be the platform for an elite education like no other._

Yes, it _can_. But my experience brings with me a _very_ skeptical mind.

> _There 's a reason the wealthiest families in American pay for private > tutors and elite schools with tiny class sizes. Nothing beats one on one > from a capable instructor._

While you're right in that there's a reason for private tutors and elite schools, I think you're wrong about your conclusion for the wealthy. I think wealthy parents don't want their children to _associate_ with poor people who can't afford to hire their own private lessons. I think that's also a despicably-elitist action.

> _They 'll walk away from this better equipped than any of their peers in > traditional school._

It's almost as if you're parroting the same things my parents said. Indeed, I walked away better equipped for computers than pretty much anyone I know. But that's more of a byproduct of spending years in front of a computer than anything that my parents actively tried to teach. Where I gained knowledge about computers there's also loss of other opportunities and knowledge.

> _Honestly, if there is anything wrong with homeschooling itself, it 's that > it is only available to middle and upper class families. _

You are wrong. I consider myself middle class. Almost all of my family are somewhere between poor and destitute.

<comment><USER20> Sorry you had such a bad time of it.

I know some people who were homeschooled as kids (unschooled, in one case), and they turned out to be exceptional people. It seems pretty clear from interacting with them that their attitudes and abilities are a direct result of their schooling (and having parents who would be willing to school their kids in that way).

But I'm sure homeschooling can also turn out very badly if the parents aren't fully committed to doing it well.

<comment><USER21> Survivorship bias? By definition, you are not likely to meet all the kids who failed miserably with homeschooling. Instead, you are more likely to interact socially or at work with the ones that did great. Therefore, your observation is likely to be biased.

<comment><USER20> Yeah, fair. I haven't taken a broad sample of homeschooled kids.

But I do think there's some signal in the fact that I'm dealing with the success cases of public and home schooling, and the homeschooled ones stand out as exceptional in that population.

What kinds of conclusions can reasonably be drawn from that, though, I don't know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Students can also access "real time group classes taught largely by very experienced K12 teachers" by... going to school.

<comment><USER23> I completed grades 1, 2, 3, and 5 in the USSR, right before its breaking apart. (I skipped grade 4 not because I was exceptionally smart, but because of the conversion from 10- to 11-year system.)

I went to an average public school, not like a specialized math-heavy school, which also existed.

Then I moved to the U.S. and started 6th grade, decent public school in a major city.

I went to ESL class instead of regular English. Some of the history stuff was new to me. I struggled with integrating and being bullied, though not too badly.

But as far as math and science goes, I was _coasting_ up until 9th grade, when I started high school.

In 8th grade, I was added to the "gifted" program, which basically meant I spent one period a week hanging out with the other gifted kids doing I don't even remember what.

I've been told that while USSR designed its cirruculum to be passable by 80% of the students, in the U.S. it's designed to be passable by close to 100%. Which means that even if your child is smart, they'll be dragging along with the least capable 20% of the school population, doing busywork and being bored, wasting their time instead of learning all they could be at the most capable time of their life.

(Russia's current education system has been stripped and crippled, so it's on par or worse than U.S. now.)

</comment></comment><comment> master-litty I interviewed with Outschool a few months ago, happy to see them here!

They're a wonderful team. I've never seen a group of people with so much positive chemistry before; I've started asking more culture-centered questions in my interviews since then, now that I think about it.

I think it's the best kind of team to front an educational endeavour and it's one big reason I believe in them. It's easier to have a healthy classroom environment if the providing workplace is healthy too.

<comment><USER24> And perhaps related to this post, there was a YC "ad" a few links above this post saying:

> Outschool (YC W16) Is Hiring a Senior Software Engineer in SF

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20048401](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20048401)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_of_the_Air](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_of_the_Air)

</comment><comment><USER6> In the late 90's my parents homeschooled me. We had a subscription to a teaching service that broadcast lessons on Satellite at 2am. My parents set the VCR to record each night and then we played the tape back for "class". Everything was awful. To this day, my understanding of elementary science is a little worse than one would expect because my mom didn't enjoy teaching science.

I'm so glad for advanced services making more forms of schooling possible for people.

Just to throw some ice on some of the heat in the comments...

\- homeschooling isn't for everyone, but it works wonderfully for some. My sister hated it and I loved it. People are different and need different approaches to learning.

\- some people who homeschool are religious, and some of them are "fundamentalist". But most of the people I encountered were simply "religious." There's a difference. ;)

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm slightly torn on models like this. On the one hand, the cost savings and potential to improve outcomes by scaling the impact of the best classes is obviously wildly important. At the same time, it does seem like there is hard to quantify value in the social aspects of a traditional school. As I write this, however, I realize that there are plenty of private and parochial schools where the class sizes are so small that you could probably replicate the social value pretty easily, since you wouldn't need too many students in the same place to do things like "class trips".

</comment><comment><USER26> >...students in the US who need to learn things like Algebra, European History, Biology, etc...

HN, what's your take on the above? Do you believe that there is any particular curriculum of subjects that students "need" to have studied to be prepared for doing well in the world they will be living in?

<comment><USER27> economics, law, financial planning, accounting, cooking, how to repair things, business writing, estimation

That's all. No, we mostly don't teach this stuff anymore.

For those going the college route, obviously the STEM prerequisites must be satisfied. This means AP Biology, AP Chemistry, AP Physics C (both halves), and AP Calculus BC.

<comment><USER26> Thanks for responding. I wanted to contest the word "need" \- given that the best majority of students aren't taught (in a schooling setting) even 1 of the subjects you mentioned, and we still live in an arguably quite civilized modern society, would you agree that they don't actually "need" to be taught?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Hiring a high school student to tutor a kid in math is not a "1%er" solution. Maybe 50%er?

</comment><comment><USER29> This sounds to me like an American problem

</comment><comment><USER30> I think this is going to be very controversial on the typical HN crowd: maybe too European, or too socialist. However here it goes.

Some ten years ago I was convinced that private schools had a right to exist, but that they should never impact the funding of public schools, not even indirectly.

Then I discovered that homeschooling was a thing in the US.

Now I tend to believe that private schools should not be allowed to exist. School is far too important as a social mixer and a way to educate well- rounded citizens to leave it to the whims of parents. Parents already have a large enough impact on their kids, to let them take over 100% of their time.

I also strongly believe that parents whose beliefs prevent their kids from getting the medical care they deserve (from refusing transfusions, to refusing vaccines) should get a hard look from social services.

In general I don't believe that parenthood trumps some things that as a society we consider basic human rights. I think most people would agree with me when it comes down to issues like violence, exploitation and child labor, but I think this should extend to the access to healthcare and to a secular education.

<comment><USER31> My children receive a secular homeschool education. They score well on standardized tests, interact well with their peers in extracurricular activities, and have healthy and meaningful relationships with other children and adults in their lives.

I recognize that there are some in the homeschool "community" who are ruining their children (imho). For the sake of freedom, I accept that there are terrible people in the world who should not have reproduced, but for me to have rights they must have them too.

<comment><USER30> I'm sure your kids are great, as you are probably well educated and wealthier than the average. Have you ever asked yourself what is the effect of removing your kids for public schools on the less fortunate?

Let me put it another way: most children who have some medical doctor in their extended family don't really need to be visited regularly by a pediatrician. That doesn't really imply that most people who refuse to take their kids to a doctor are in their right mind to do so: a lot of them have some weird belief that might put their kids life at risk. And even if they weren't a majority, but a tiny minority, the law needs to protect that tiny minority even if that means being a bit overbearing on people who have doctors in their families.

<comment><USER32> The less fortunate are the ones bullying other children, holding back the curriculum so that no child is left behind, putting someone else's child in harms way because of some undefined benefit to other's with worse parents isn't a fix. Fix the socio economic problems first so those kids have better parents. Don't put my kid in with them thinking its going to socialize other kids better rather than what normally happens is they get harassed and bullied by those who are hostile and the teachers have no power or are apathetic to confront.

It creates greater harm putting good kids in with the bad then it does for the unfortunate but angry, hostile children. Same as it does putting a prisoner in for a non-violent crime with a bunch of felons, they're likely to come out a worse, more hardened criminal. You have this theory that it brings the other kids up, maybe slightly, but often it just brings everyone overall down. Collectivist mentality should be what's the greatest good.

<comment><USER30> Except that most of the research that has been done on this subject shows exactly the opposite: social mixing in schools has a great positive effect on the less fortunate and almost negligible effect on the more fortunate (we're talking here about a situation where the composition of a class reflects that of society as a whole, not some extreme example like throwing a wealthy kid in a inner city class).

Also societies that have good public schools (that are universally attended) like Finland, tend to have much less socioeconomic inequality in the following generations. That is: school is the solution to social inequality, not viceversa.

<comment><USER32> Most research? What research? By research do you mean an opinion piece you read once? Most research says homeschoolers perform massively better on average then public school kids do. So what research addresses that, if kids perform not as well in public school.

[https://www.dailyinfographic.com/homeschooling-by-the- number...](https://www.dailyinfographic.com/homeschooling-by-the-numbers- infographic)

<comment><USER30> It is well known that school results are mostly explained by socioeconomic status (I read somewhere up to 75% of the variance can be explained that way). So if you don't take into account other factors that graph doesn't prove anything other than people who can afford private schools and homescholing are on average richer. My guess is that the rest of the data can be explained by smaller class sizes and better resources.

If you want more research this [0] article has a good bibliography on the effects of socioeconomic diversity in schools

[0] [https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article...](https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1023&context=mjlr_caveat)

<comment><USER33> Socioeconomic status doesn't explain why parents with only high school degrees who homeschool in the US will still have kids performing at the top of public school kids' scores, while strong parental involvement does. Over and over the only truly meaningful external factor in student performance is parental involvement, of which homeschooling is highly indicative.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Unless this results in better education outcomes spread across the entire population in the red states, this is effectively a bid to support the Republican agenda. This will follow the same pattern as standardized testing: those with the means will pursue the best investments. Those without will be left behind. And so the cycle of inequality worsens. This is "greed is good" politics.

Think about it. If they were serious about education, why are they not investing, Koch-style, in local politics? Why are they not funding candidates who will advocate for stronger school systems, better transportation, school lunches, etc?

This has nothing to do with kids. This has everything to do with extracting as much money as possible from the most anxious, which is incidentally the rapidly vanishing elbow of middle class in the ever-steepening power law curve of wealth distribution in the US.

<comment><USER30> Thanks for pointing this out. I, too have the impression that most of the commenters here are completely oblivious to the effects of their choices on society at large. The fact that I have been accused multiple times of not having children is evidence of an appeal to emotion: "You can only understand this if you think about your own family".

<comment><USER27> The accusation of not having children is the polite one, assuming no malice. The worse ones are that you would exempt your own children (the rest of us get to sacrifice ours), or that you wouldn't exempt your children (due to not caring about them).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I think public school system provides a good return for dollars spent. It has the scale that is difficult to match with other schooling methods. This is my experience from shuffling between private preschools. I think other schooling methods are appropriate if your circumstance forces you (e.g. bad public school system.)

You can always opt out of the crazy things that happen at public schools. After school, you can homeschool your kids. This way you can get the positives of both systems.

Education is complicated. We need to avoid comparing and optimization. It's idiotic to make a personal stance in education.</comment>


"C#, it's just not portable" - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastchicken.co.nz/2011/09/15/c-its-just-not-portable/

<comment><USER2> You _can_ use C# everywhere, but in practice it just seems like a huge effort to avoid learning a new language to me.

I have nothing against the language (writing C# is half of my day job), but all of these bridges are second-class citizens and built and maintained at the mercy of third parties just to interface with your target platform. Apple will never release updates for MonoMac or MonoTouch. Google isn't going to release C# Android SDKs or documentation. Mono for Linux always trails the Windows version and has significant community resistance, and Microsoft isn't going to integrate and maintain these bridges.

You're also always losing something in the translation too, be it idiomatic style of the target API or C#, or being totally cut off from new native features, or severely restricting what community support or documentation is available to you. Any way you cut it, it's a second class experience. Worse, some of the bridges aren't free. You get to pay $400 for the privilege of not learning a little bit of Java or ObjC to get MonoTouch for Android or iOS.

C# is good, but it's not so good that I refuse to learn other tools.

<comment><USER3> While I fully agree with the losing something in translation. I don't agree that people are trying to skip learning things. It is a do I want to do 100% of my software development 3 times because I need a java version for one platform, Objective-C for the second and C# for the third.

Oddly enough it seems like C++ is the only language all three platforms support natively.

<comment><USER2> Mono for iOS and Android and MonoMac for OSX all have different API calls for their respective platforms. GTK# is its own thing too. You might avoid a total rewrite from scratch, but the UI is going to need significant tailoring to each platform still. And it's not like Java, ObjC, and C# are radically different from one another.

Does keeping C# as a constant really solve this problem? (I honestly don't know, I've never done a multiplatform product like this)

<comment><USER4> Welp, here's an example. My project Flatland[1] is intended to be a 2D games library, providing graphics, audio, input, content loading, and a few other bits. My target platforms are Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, and WP7.

With a properly architected solution (and I like to think mine comes close) with sufficient abstraction, I literally _can_ write a game once--with allowances for fundamental platform differences, i.e. "is this a touch device? then show on-screen controls, but wire them to the same backend logic"--and deploy it everywhere. I can't do that with a Java engine on Android and an Obj-C (ugh) engine on iOS, because there is no reasonable lingua franca. C#, on the other hand, works fairly well everywhere. The platform-specific bits are small, clearly delineated, and shouldn't take long to do (it's Windows- only for now).

[1] - <http://bitbucket.org/eropple/flatland>

<comment><USER2> You also get the luxury of ignoring many of the native UI paradigms with games.

<comment><USER4> That's true. I don't have to deal with native UI libraries. Instead, I also have to deal with disparate interfaces to graphics, audio, sound, the file system (if it's accessible at all), the content loading paradigm for the platform (relevant esp. for Windows Phone 7), timing differences between the platforms, and a number of other issues. I have to develop and code to lowest- common-denominator interfaces that contain a lot of hidden gotchas and limitations, and make the presented interface work _identically_ on all platforms.

I'd take re-coding my UI layer over having to write near-identical code for XNA and OpenGL, then writing near-identical code for OpenAL, XNA, and Core Audio, then writing widely divergent input code for XNA and whatever not-well- standardized gamepad layers I can repurpose or build for Linux and OS X and the different touch frameworks...

Having to write all of this stuff is arguably on par, if not more complex and difficult, than reimplementing a UI layer. It's not a "luxury" at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Just like most languages, you can take some subset of C# and run it in many places. And, like most languages, there is some corner of the language that doesn't work on one platform or another. And most importantly, just like most languages, you end up depending on various libraries which may or may not be tied to hardware which makes significant parts of non-trivial applications non-portable.

People don't make games in C# because it's C#. They make games using C# and XNA, or Unity, or some other framework. They don't make web apps in C#, but rather in (whatever flavor of) ASP.NET. And it turns out that these frameworks are the important bits.

So when you choose to write something in C#, you are probably going to be choosing a framework that ties you down to a platform, and that's where the cross-platform nature of the language kind of becomes irrelevant.

That's my experience, at least.

If Clojure takes off on other runtimes, it will have this issue too. The JVM is it's "home" platform, and most Clojure software depends on JVM libraries, like how the vast majority of the C# software written thus far depends on Microsoft (and therefore Windows) libraries.

<comment><USER6> >>If Clojure takes off on other runtimes, it will have this issue too. The JVM is it's "home" platform, and most Clojure software depends on JVM libraries, like how the vast majority of the C# software written thus far depends on Microsoft (and therefore Windows) libraries.

There is a small difference.

The Clojure/JVM runtime is ported to _quite_ a lot of operating systems, where it runs quite well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> C# is a good production language. It lets twiddle you your bits almost as well as C when you need to, provides a decent OO model, and has been piling on more functional and dynamic features as the years go by. However, as someone who has had to port a .Net C# app from windows to Linux, I can witness with sincerity that C# is NOT very portable.

First of all, a lot of the C# APIs are written with windows in mind. An example is system mutexes. These just don't exist on Linux, and the mono implementation to emulate them is very buggy. Another example is the process counter API. Although much of this same information is available on Linux via the Proc table, Mono provides no equivalent API because it would be a lot of work to make one that works on all the Unix variants. There are many such examples of C#'s windows-centric API not being ported well in Mono.

A bigger problem with Mono is that it just wasn't stable for us. The more standard library features we used, the more it would core dump on Linux even though it would never crash on windows. We ended up re-implementing a lot of functionality available in the standard library ourselves before the program stabilized on mono, which further incriminates the Mono stack. As a final note, we tried multiple versions of Mono, including 2.4, 2.6, and 2.10, and none of them worked well for us.

If you want to write a fairly performant cross-platform app, the JVM is still a much better place to play in right now than .Net, even though I like C# the language a lot more than I do Java. You can also go the route of combining your favorite scripting language with C for the CPU-intensive parts.

</comment><comment><USER8> These days it seems like much of a language's benefit to developers comes from its libraries rather than from the elegance of its syntax or the ease of implementing an algorithm. The big question is, how much of the "standard" libraries are supported on these devices? I remember writing a C# application using Winforms back mid-last-decade and assuming that portability would be a cinch...right up until I realized that Winforms weren't supported by Mono yet and I was supposed to use Glade# or some such nonsense. C#'s mindshare mostly comes from Windows GUI developers, and telling these folks that they can use their pet language only if they relearn all the libraries isn't going to be much of a win, I don't think.

</comment><comment><USER9> You could make the same argument about C, which exists on much more platforms than C#.

But writing in C does not make a program portable. Neither does writing it in C#.

So yes, C# compiler might be portable, but programs written in C# are not.

So yes, C# compiler might be portable, but C# programs are not.

</comment><comment><USER10> C# as a system language running on Mono is actually usable. But the thing is, I've never seen an IDE worse than MonoDevelop. Writing C# without Visual Studio, a large part of the benefit of the language just disappears.

I would only use C# for window jobs, although I sincerely think it's a beautiful language.

</comment><comment><USER11> I am currently writing an "enterprise" style application and backend framework (WCF, Fluent NHibernate, Castle, json-emitting webservices, etc) based on C# and Mono. I'd like to hear more stories of others doing the same. Mono has all the functionality I need, the only possible worry that I have is that of the default GC (and I don't know if the newer GC is stable enough).

</comment><comment><USER12> Is anybody using Mono on Linux for ASP.NET MVC3 apps in production?

If so, is it stable, fast?

I wonder how it compares speed and stability wise to the Java Play Framework.

I am currently using Play (and it's great!) but I much prefer C# as a language to Java ...

</comment><comment><USER13> Interesting. I always thought the Vita was running Android since it supports Android apps.

<comment><USER14> Are you sure about this. Reading their press release leads me to believe it's the other way around, that by developing for the Vita SDK, you can cross compile to Android if you choose.

 _Supporting C# as the programming language, PS Suite SDK can run programs developed in C# on virtual machine equipped on both PS Certified devices and PS Vita. By supporting development for multiple devices and by adopting libraries to create a variety of content not only limited to games, PS Suite SDK will not only help developers save their cost in creating new content but also allow them to efficiently create their content on one SDK and without having to create on several different SDKs.

Through PS Suite SDK, SCE will provide to game developers and publishers the potential to further expand their business opportunities to Android based portable devices._

[http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sony-computer- entert...](http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sony-computer- entertainment-to-offer-software-development-kit-for-playstationsuite-starting- this-november-129854503.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I feel like there is too much attention paid these days to who badmouthed your precious programming language, or whether your language has the appropriate amount of respect, or whatever. I'm a C# dev, sometimes. People have been hating on it (and its devs) for years, but it just doesn't matter. Get over it and use whatever language or other dev tool you want.

<comment><USER16> Usually, hate-ons are perpetuated by those who lack the skills to make shit happen. Or, at least, that's been my experience. They're usually more concerned with Being Right On The Internet than anything else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> You might be able to write C# and target different platforms, but I've yet to be convinced that a codebase can be shared across platforms as easily as some other languages/platforms.

<comment><USER18> We run non-trivial, large, unmodified .NET 4 C# ASP.NET MVC web apps (compiled on Windows) on Mac Mini Servers on OS X with Mono and Apache. Never had a single problem. It's almost creepy how well it works.

<comment><USER19> That's interesting. Why do you do this?

<comment><USER18> Well, it's complicated, but the main reason is that since our premises are just around the corner from one of the biggest Apple Stores in the world, we can replace any of our servers literally within minutes if they fail. This makes me sleep a lot easier at night.

Also the savings on the electricity bill are not negligeable either.

<comment><USER20> >> our premises are just around the corner from one of the biggest Apple Stores in the world, we can replace any of our servers literally within minutes if they fail

I sure hope you don't have a server failure outside of business hours :-)

<comment><USER18> I think we're prepared for that too. First, we have a few currently unused previous generation Mac Minis lying around that could be used temporarily. Second, since everything we need (Apache and PostgreSQL, minus Mono) comes preinstalled with OS X Server, these machines can easily take over each other's tasks temporarily, e.g. the database server can become a web server too until we can get a replacement. It's not ideal but it'd do during off-peak hours. Fortunately, the Apple Store is open even on Sundays so even in the worst case scenario we could get a replacement within 12 hours max, which is not necessarily the case with, say for example, Dell servers.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Iterating Faster with PDB and Flask - <AUTHOR> http://blog.kyri.com/post/38936522754/iterating-faster-with-pdb-and-flask

<comment><USER2> Maybe I'm missing something really obvious, but I don't understand where Flask fits into the picture. The article seems to introduce the first few steps of how you can debug _any_ Python with pdb, not just Flask applications.

</comment><comment><USER3> Try "pudb" instead of "pdb" if you want a fullscreen debugger.

<http://pypi.python.org/pypi/pudb>

Also, agreed with tomlu -- this will work for any python app (as long as it doesn't do strange things to stdout -- nose and daemons are probably the most common examples of things that do change stdout).

</comment><comment><USER4> I tend to use pdb like this a lot. I write about as much of a piece of code as is obvious and then have it drop into pdb. I can then look around and play around with what I could do next.</comment>


Secret Perl Operators - <AUTHOR> http://www.catonmat.net/blog/secret-perl-operators/

<comment><USER2> Many of these don't pass muster as Modern Perl development, or any professional software development. As a code reviewer, I'd reject everything but <=> and @{[ ... ]} as being too cryptic. <=> passes because it's the standard way to compare numbers in sort routines, and @{[ ... ]} passes because it's the standard way to interpolate lists and function call return values into strings.

}{ Useful for one-liners, but has no use in production code.

=()= In production code, I'd prefer to see the match results assigned to a named array, and the array used in a scalar context to get the length. Alternatively, I'd accept a comment explaining why there is an assignment to an anonymous array. It had better not call =()= an operator, though.

~~ You can force scalar context using the scalar keyword, which is much clearer.

~- You can type $x-1, which is much clearer and works for numbers <= 0 too.

-+- I didn't know "3.99" was an integer... in any case, would probably use printf or sprintf for formatting numbers for display, using explicit formats rather than relying on whatever -+- spits out.

0+ Again, I would use printf or sprintf in most cases where 0+ might be used.

<comment><USER3> _}{ Useful for one-liners, but has no use in production code._

What about production one-liners? Let us not underestimate the power of a well-applied one-liner.

<comment><USER4> I wouldn't underestimate the power of a one-liner.

That's why I'd avoid using one!

 _With great power comes great responsibility_ \- and it's hard to cram the responsibility part into one line as contrasted with a clear, well-behaved subroutine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Oh Perl, will you never stop being a source of witty fun?

</comment><comment><USER6> It's official, Haskell's boob combinator, (.) . (.), has competition. From the Goatse operator.

</comment><comment><USER7> Alternate title: "8 Reasons Not to Use Perl". Why do people who use Perl get such a kick out of junk like this.

<comment><USER5> Perl is designed around linguistic concepts. You may as well ask "why do people who use language get such a kick out of junk like this:poetry, rhymes, prose, novels, etc.?"

<comment><USER7> I don't think it is but to go along with the metaphor, those things you list are methods of conveying stories and emotions. A programming language is a method for conveying instructions to a _machine_. Theses would be 8 reasons not to use any human<->machine language. The Perl biosphere just seems to produce non-sense like this as a matter of routine. To me posts like this are about on par with pictures of cats.

<comment><USER8> > A programming language is a method for conveying instructions to a > _machine_.

The preface of SICP disagrees (see <http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/front/node3.html> ), with a quote many, many programmers can quote in spirit if not to the letter.

<comment><USER9> These operators sound even worse for people to read; perhaps that's why they're obscure.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: would you use this git hosting service? - <AUTHOR>

Every now and then there's a thread about git hosting, and there are always a few people that apparently fall in the following niche:
* need just the server, w/o issue tracker, collaboration, pull reqs, etc
 * have a lot of private repositories
 * happy to use the command line for everything
The usual answer for them is "it's 5min to set up if you already have your VPS". Fair enough. But the point comes up often enough that it might be a convenience pain point worthy of solving.
So: http://gitbox.dobarkod.hr/ - unlimited private git hosting for freelancers
It's just a temporary landing page for explaining the value proposition and gauging the interest. Would you use it? If so, please vote with your e-mail address ;-)
Note: the killer feature here is hassle-free unlimited backed up repos for a single user. For multiple users, there's already Codeplane (good discussion is here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2674417).
I don't believe this would be in competition with Codeplane - more with the cheap hosting with ssh access that people can use as git servers (but then they have to manage them at least a bit).
PS. I know name clashes with Gitbox for Mac: if I go on and implement the service, I'm probably going to change the name. <comment><AUTHOR> Clickable link: <http://gitbox.dobarkod.hr/></comment>


Ask HN: What is the most reliable storage media? - <AUTHOR> I have hundreds GBs of ebooks, pdf, video tutorials, scripts, software installers, OS ISO, photos... I just find it is really difficult for me to figure out an easy and reliable way to backup them.<p>What do you use to backup data? <comment><USER2> Online backup. MS OneDrive if you need to access your files and view them via web interface. Amazon Glacier for long-term storage.</comment>


Royal Mail issues stamps honoring classic British computer games - <AUTHOR> https://boingboing.net/2020/01/08/royal-mail-issues-stamps-honor.html <comment><USER2> Nothing by Ultimate Play The Game? Not a brilliant series of choices, apart from Elite, I wonder what the criteria were?

Actually I take it partially back. Lemmings and Wipeout are well worthy.

<comment><USER3> No Manic Miner or Jet Set Willy?

<comment><USER2> Yes, absolutely.</comment></comment></comment>


1,000 True Fans (2008) - <AUTHOR> http://kk.org/thetechnium/1000-true-fans/ <comment><USER2> An oldie but a goodie.

As a creator who is about halfway to building her thousand true fans, I gotta say that Kickstarter and Patreon have both made it a hell of a lot easier to survive on the way to pumping out enough product to get $100 every year from each True Fan. Patreon especially.

<comment><USER3> Could I ask what do you do?

<comment><USER4> Maybe they are too polite to say, but I had a quick look at the profile and followed some links to the home page[0] and Patreon page[1]. Also really enjoyed reading the first chapter of Decrypting Rita!

Best of luck with your work.

[0] - [http://egypt.urnash.com/](http://egypt.urnash.com/) [1] - [https://www.patreon.com/egypturnash?ty=h](https://www.patreon.com/egypturnash?ty=h)

<comment><USER2> Actually I'm just terrible at coming back to discussions here to see that people have replied to my comments. _grin_ Thanks for picking up the slack on that question; glad you enjoyed the comic!

Right now I'm mostly mooning about with a bad case of seasonal depression, and sssslllloooowwwwllllyyyy working on the beginning of my next two comics. And the kickstarter for the last volume of Rita.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The threshold of this obsessive "True Fan" is too high; having even one such fan would be an incredible achievement.

Though the underlying idea is sound: you don't need to be a mainstream star to make a living. You just need to be loved enough, valuable enough to enough people. You needn't to appeal to everyone. Instead, find Your People, find your niche.

</comment><comment><USER6> I've heard this same concept before and it comes across to me as a bit of a fallacy. I may have misunderstood the idea but to me the argument misses the point. In order to have 1000 true fans, how many "regular" fans must one have?

The article even says, "ONLY" 1,000 true fans which seems to be a way of making the idea within reach of the everyday layman/procastinating wantrepreuner.

I would argue that to get 1,000 true fans your work has to be brilliant to a point of gaining a kind of religious zeal within a small number of a much larger audience.

This is just my opinion though.

<comment><USER7> As an animé fan I was surprised how low the "Manabi Line" is. Less than 3000 sales is about break-even, and that's for a production that was the work of many people (the Japanese model is (generalizing broadly) to sell more expensive products to dedicated fans; CDs can be around $30 (but are often "deluxe" versions with lots of special features) and in the case of animé a single DVD can be $60 and a series will be spread across 4 or more volumes).

So I think there is a sustainable business model where, rather than trying to go mass-market, you sell a specialized product to a much smaller number of very dedicated fans.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is an excellent model for building any lifestyle business, not just for artists.

If you knew how much money your favorite customers made, and asked for just one day of their income to support you, it becomes trivially easy to work out a definition of sustainability for your business.

For SAAS businesses, the number of "true fans" that are therefore required could be ridiculously low. 100? Maybe 10!</comment>


Cities benefit from open dockless data - <AUTHOR> https://blog.mapbox.com/cities-benefit-from-open-dockless-data-bfe610b0568e <comment><USER2> either you pay for docks, or you pay for digital active devices to pinpoint dropped bikes. Its cost. So, this is a cost shifting debate.

I use docked schemes in my home city. I obviously realize the pain of the walk to and from a dock is a problem, but at scale it feels like the benefit of docked bikes outweighs the consequences of community damage from undocked bike litter.

So, yes. if you cost the locate the bike and drive to making it less like dumped shopping trolleys its good, but then you accepted the cost exists: the profit model for many bike schemes is to try and cost shift out of this, and not care.

Avoid litter: use docked bikes.</comment>


FiveMetrics for AWS - <AUTHOR> http://fivemetrics.io <comment><AUTHOR>
       We are developing a AWS Analytics product that focus on cool data visualizations. FiveMetrics provides a fully automated dashboard view of your AWS services.
       We are looking for beta testers to test it for free and give us feedback about the product. If you'd like to try it, just hit https://fivemetrics.io/ , click on become a beta tester. As soon as you fill the form, you will receive an email with a password to try it. Just is case you are wondering about security, FiveMetrics only requires a read-only AWS key/secret to give you the best view experience.
       Tks a lot. Alessandro.</comment>


20,000 North Koreans 'disappear' from gulag - <AUTHOR> http://www.independent.ie/world-news/asia-pacific/20000-north-koreans-disappear-from-gulag-29557499.html

<comment><USER2> > "Through this vast system of unlawful imprisonment, the North Korean regime > isolates, banishes, punishes and executes those suspected of being disloyal > to the regime," the report states.

I wish it was more clear. That statement just leaves me with more questions. How is it unlawful? Is it unlawful due to UN membership agreements of some sort? Due to some other treaty they are part of? Unlawful based on their own laws that they then ignore?

I'm not implying I think it's legal, just that a statement such as that, in a paper of one nation describing the actions of another, and read from a third, leaves a lot open for interpretation.

<comment><USER3> I believe the sense here is: the imprisonment is based on the whims and arbitrary power of the regime, without basis in settled laws and due process.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The core ideology of leftism in action...barbaric.</comment>