Non shuffled card deck results in 1.5 million casino loss - <AUTHOR> http://www.philly.com/philly/news/new_jersey/20120904_A_C__s_Golden_Nugget_in_legal_war_with__1_5_million_winners.html <comment><USER3> When the AP ran this story a couple of weeks ago ([http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Unshuffled-cards-a- cos...](http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Unshuffled-cards-a-costly- headache-for-NJ-casinos-3801123.php)), I thought it was hilarious because casinos do extra work at the baccarat and mini-baccarat tables to encourage exactly this kind superstitious magical betting. And then they have the gall to act all surprised when it works!

In Vegas, they'll often distribute little pads of paper and pencils you can use to take notes on past hands, and mini-baccarat tables often have electronic signs showing the player/banker/tie outcome of several past hands.

(This is funny because the game is memory-less.)

The folks who manage the games must have discovered that when they encouraged players to bet superstitiously, players stayed for longer and bet more.

How deliciously ironic for a casino to encourage people to try to find patterns and bet on them, and then lose and sue after they finding a pattern that worked!

<comment><USER4> There is a joke that casinos have a saying for people who come up with systems to beat the house: "Welcome."

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Let's look at it from a business perspective:

When a casino has an unexpectedly large payout, and they can't prove that it was the result of cheating by the customer or an employee, there is only one reasonable thing to do: pay up, and advertise the win loudly and widely.

If you're in the business of suing your customers, there are several results: 1\. You stop having so many customers. 2\. Even if successful in court, you don't make back anywhere near what you lost. (Customers don't have much money, in general. You already know the ones who do -- you call them whales.) 3\. The regulatory commission looks at you more carefully.

<comment><USER6> Heh, having spent much of my youth in Las Vegas I can tell you that if a casino has an unexpectedly large payout then someone is going to have a really really bad day. And that someone will do anything they can to deflect the repercussions. See the comment about the same issue at the Taj casino, 9 people got fired.

The only way to avoid getting fired is to both prove that the people who won cheated and that their cheat was something you could not have protected against.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The Casino made a mistake and wants its money back. Seems totally reasonable to me. I'm sure if a gambler makes a mistake playing a game, they get any of their losses back from the Casino. Such a gentlemanly society we live in!

<comment><USER8> </sarcasm>

I never really did mean to bet my car, can I have it back, please!

"Why sure, of course you can. Our mistake :D!"

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> How is the casino able to sue the gamblers? I would think they would have to sue the card manufacturers for delivering a product that wasn't prepared as agreed, which caused material losses.

Who at the casino thought that suing their customers was a good idea?

<comment><USER10> It's important to note that in America, you can sue anybody for pretty much anything. The question of whether you can win is entirely irrelevant if you have the resources necessary to batter your targets into submission.

My first business lawyer gave me that advice early on and it was sobering to think through the implications of that.

<comment><USER11> This is one of the main reasons I think that all money spent on lawyers should go into an account that both sides get to draw upon equally to pay legal expenses. You simply cannot have a system capable of meting out justice if money can skew "justice" in your favor.

<comment><USER12> That's an interesting idea. I'll have to think more about what negatives might be involved (simple example: someone badgers you with an expensive to refute claim but uses a cheap lawyer to file the claim, though I guess this is just as possible in the status quo).

The best solution is if free access representation was high quality.

A simple way of doing that might be to give parties the option of their choice of n randomly selected representatives drawn from any practicing lawyer, funded via a fraction of punitive damages redirected to a fund locked to that purpose.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm reminded of those stories that seem to come up every so often about the casinos denying slots players jackpots [1][2][3].

On a semi-related note...

I've been wondering with more and more Casino games going digital, is there anything requiring the systems to use realistic odds?

The last time I was in a Casino I had great success (15x return in 90 minutes) essentially betting against the field of players on a large video roulette machine. I was curious and simply bet opposite whenever the board became particularly "unbalanced". The idea being that the machine had some kind of of average return to maintain and that it would avoid big bets (relative to what it was earning) in light of that.

1: [http://gizmodo.com/5867314/57-million-winner-loses-prize- aft...](http://gizmodo.com/5867314/57-million-winner-loses-prize-after-casino- argues-slot-machine-software-glitch)

2: <http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_14795166>

3: [http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=3772215&page=1#.UE...](http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=3772215&page=1#.UEYofYrnClg)

<comment><USER14> Yes, there is a very formal and rigid system for validating the odds on all gaming machines.

In almost every regulated gaming jurisdiction (let's leave US Indian Casinos out of this for the time being), a third-party lab is hired to evaluate the code, look for backdoors, and verify the odds that are specified with the PAR (Probability and Accounting Report) of the machine being tested.

In the case of your roulette machine, that code was verified to make sure the random number generator created a valid distribution of numbers. If you had won a large enough jackpot (as those players did in your links), the gaming board technician would have been called in to verify the game's program code against a known verified version of the system as signed off by the third- party lab. When the checksums don't match...no jackpot. That's why every slot says MALFUNCTION VOIDS ALL PAYS.

That being said, there can still be bugs in the program code. When a machine is listed as paying a max of $2500 and a player wins $1,597,244.10, there's definitely a bug. Casinos, since they own the place, will err on _their_ side and send you home without the jackpot. That's just the way it is. The manufacturer will get an earful and probably lose their positions on the casino floor until the bug is fixed.

Oh and look at your second link. The jackpot was "42 million". Wanna bet it was $42,949,672.95? (Hint: What is 4294967295 in hexadecimal?)

<comment><USER13> Thanks.

One thing I'm still not clear on. In the case of a machine that suggests it is simulating something physical, are the machines required to implement realistic odds or just accurate to what's official stated?

Do virtual card games have to maintain a proper virtual deck? Do virtual slots that suggest 20x20x20 reels have to implement 8000:1 odds?

<comment><USER14> In general, yes. When you're simulating a traditional physical gaming device (a pair of dice, deck of cards, roulette wheel, lotto balls, coin flip), it must match the real device.

From what I recall, card games are a very special animal in the eyes of the gaming board. When you simulate dealing from a deck, there _must_ be a deck of 52 cards in memory. You cannot just pick random numbers from 1 to 52. I believe every hand must have a freshly shuffled "deck" as well.

The way video poker machines manipulate their odds is through the payout. Watch veteran players when they approach a machine. They'll note that some machines offer slightly different payouts for lower wins, and that's where the odds grind out. You can't change the probability of a full house, but you can change how much is paid back.

Slot reels are a loophole. Because you can't see the entire reel, how do you _know_ it only has 20 stops? What if it has 20,000? This concept (known as the _Telnaes_ patent, US #4448419) enabled virtual reels and much much larger payouts than the 8000:1 jackpots before this invention.

Later on, the invention of bonus games and etc kind of ripped up the virtual reel idea. But the math operates on this principle as far as the PAR sheets are concerned (i.e a certain set of stops on the reels starts a bonus game with another known set of odds).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The most serious claim in this article, that hasn't been mentioned in the comments so far is that although a Judge ordered the Casino to cash the remaining chips, and the Casino has claimed it won't appeal, they will only cash the chips if the gamblers drop ALL other charges. Is that even legal? To impose a condition on an order from a judge? This seems to me far more dodgy than the allegations of avoiding betting limits.

<comment><USER16> I've heard from a Vegas lawyer that basically all of the serious law firms there do some amount of business with each of the casino chains. This is intentional on the casinos part, and gives the law firms a very simple conflict of interest claim when someone wants to sue a casino.

Combine this with the fact that Nevada doesn't allow out of state lawyers (and passing the Nevada Bar requires a considerable investment in time), and as a consequence the only counsel you can get to sue a casino amounts to the sort of low-budget lawyer you might see advertising on a billboard.

If I had enough money and brass, I'd hire a bunch of promising attorneys from out of state, relocate them to vegas, get them certified in Nevada, and then create a firm specializing in suing casinos. I'm sure there's a fortune to be made (if you don't get bought/killed by organized crime)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> >The gamblers unlawfully took advantage of the Golden Nugget when they caught on to the pattern and increased their bets from as little as $10 to $5,000

I don't understand why a casino feels like it's legally entitled to a profit even when it fails to perform the simplest possible action to maintain an edge: shuffle the cards!

<comment><USER18> A comparable situation might be a misprinted price tag at a car dealership, which they are not required to honor as long as it's corrected when discovered.

<comment><USER19> The problem is that the car dealership would indeed be required to honor the misprinted price tag if it was discovered _after they completed the sale._ This situation is like, a car dealership misprints the price tags; the salespeople spend hours selling cars; and then the dealership turns around and sues the people who bought cars and drove away. It's not going to be a winner.

(N.B., no analogy is really going to help us too much here, because the outcome will depend on the specifics of state law regarding malfunctioning gambling machines and any agreements made by those particular gamblers to get into that particular casino. So anyone who tells you they have any idea what will happen is either a gambling law expert or making it up. I just thought the car dealership thing was an interesting example.)

<comment><USER18> I agree the analogy breaks down.

My point was mostly that mistakes are often forgiven in business.

Whichever way the legal ruling goes, once the gamblers discovered the mistake, they were, in my mind, cheating by exploiting it.

Imagine the opposite scenario. By my understanding, a deck full of face cards benefits the gambler in blackjack. If a dealer notices that his cards are missing say, the jack of diamonds, it would be wrong of him to keep dealing knowing that the house had a better advantage that intended. Surely players losing money in such a situation would want their money back.

Again, the analogy isn't perfect, but I can see the casino's point of view... even if the decision to sue customers is short-sighted.

<comment><USER20> The analogy is beyond not perfect -- it is completely broken. The "opposite" scenario you bring up requires actually breaking the game. The deck was not broken at all in this case, it was just in an unfavorable ordering to the house: an ordering that is still perfectly possible. Regardless of being very unlikely to happen, having the ordering these players dealt with over and over, it is still _possible_. Realize that if even one of the decks had been shuffled, then the players' strategy would have failed and they would have probably lost it all again. The players did not _know_ all the decks would be unshuffled, they saw a pattern and took their chances. That is in fact the whole reason you play a luck based game -- for the off chance that luck falls in your favor.

It is enlightening that you cannot come up with the "opposite" scenario without actually breaking the game. Here allow me to come up with the opposite scenario for you: an ordering that does not favor the player, which by the way, happens basically EVERY HAND. That's why the house basically always wins, because these games are designed to have the odds against the player. By shuffling the cards the house is actually ensuring a higher likelihood of unfavorable outcomes.

That is what is so upsetting about these cases to me: the fundamental reasoning this all comes down to is that people are "not supposed" to win these games, thus winning must be cheating. If you design a game with the odds against the player, then spend tons of money outsourcing the randomization of cards to guarantee no card counting etc, and then encourage superstitious playing to keep people hooked and losing more money -- then on top of all this the player still wins, sue them?

Please.

<comment><USER18> I think we are at an impasse, because I feel the game _was_ broken when the decks were not shuffled. A fair game requires a random (in the sense of unpredictable) deck. No, it wasn't guaranteed, but it was certain enough for me to call it broken.

<comment><USER20> I hope you can at least understand how it would be more broken by actually having different cards, because again, even after shuffling the events that took place here are still possible. No amount of shuffling or not shuffling can change how many face cards in a deck.

With regard to it being "certain enough", consider whether you would have done the same thing as these people. I can tell you that had I sat at that table, I would have _not_ continued betting higher and higher with the possibility that the next deck is not in my favor and thus possibly losing everything. It of course looks certain in retrospect knowing the whole story of how they were actually unshuffled -- but when you are actually at the table, without this knowledge -- it is again just a chance. You have no idea how many decks come from what company or anything thats going on to result in this. For all you know it might have just been two decks that had the same order due to some weird malfunction. I am sure in the history of gambling lots of people have thought they've seen a pattern recur, bet a lot on it, and LOST -- again, to the favor of the casino.

In other words, consider it from a game theory perspective -- the casino's "long term" winnings _absolutely rely_ on this kind of behavior from patrons. If patrons were to think to themselves "uh oh, something is fishy and this might be unfair, better stop betting" every time they thought they had spotted a pattern or had a system, then the casino would lose tons of money, since they are 99.99% of the time wrong. Casino's winnings fundamentally rely on greediness. That's the basic point I'm trying to make: you can't have it both ways, you can either have greedy patrons who almost always lose everything because of it, or weird bizarro-world patrons that are looking out for the casino.

<comment><USER18> I think you are right about the retrospect aspect. No one who thought they had detected a pattern (which wasn't later confirmed in the news) would then offer to return the money because they cheated. So I suppose my comment that the gamblers were cheating once they detected the pattern is only really valid in retrospect.

That said, I still don't think I could keep the winnings knowing, in retrospect, that I had won them unfairly, but I think you are right about the casinos needing to sometimes suck it up and take a loss if that's the game they're going to play.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I don't understand:

        Since the cards were never shuffled at the plant - <USER2>
        casino doesn't shuffle them again - the same patterns
        kept repeating in game 802

The casino doesn't shuffle the cards? That doesn't sound right. I've indulged in a little card counting and shuffle tracking, and I've never been at a table where the cards don't get shuffled.

Can someone explain?

<comment><USER22> Each game likely used a fresh, unopened deck of cards. If each deck is non- shuffled then each time a fresh deck is opened you will see the same cards in the same order. Assuming the casino arranged for their vendor to pre-shuffle the decks it seems reasonable, if not a bit lazy, to not do a shuffle at the table. If I were the casino I'd be suing the vendor, not the gamblers.

<comment><USER23> They're suing both the card manufacturer and the gamblers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The gamblers took advantage of the information they had available to them.

And this reminds me of someone else who figured out a pattern and cashed in:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Larson>

<comment><USER25> That's quite the story - too bad it ends on such a downer...!

</comment></comment><comment> guard-of-terra I don't see how abducting people the next day isn't a criminal offence. But I also don't see anyone caring. Weird.

<comment><USER16> If not a crime the DA will pursue it could very well be at least a tort, which is why the casino was offering them their money in exchange for dropping further claims (such as kidnapping).

<comment><USER26> Aren't the players entitle to the money and to restitution for their kidnap?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Summary if tl;dr

"Someone in Kansas City allegedly had forgotten to turn on the automatic shuffler before the cards got shipped out. Since the cards were never shuffled at the plant - the casino doesn't shuffle them again - the same patterns kept repeating in game 802. The players noticed, kept on betting and upped their wagers."

</comment><comment><USER27> I think the real question here is: if the non-shuffled deck had somehow worked in the Casino's favor and caused an otherwise-virtually-impossible losing streak for the customers, would the casino now be scurrying to reimburse them all for their losses?

</comment><comment><USER28> The most surprising thing to me is that the casino let the betting go on for over 2.5 hours.

</comment><comment><USER29>
        "They saw a pattern and didn't know how long it would last," said Feldman, whose clients are Asian and speak little or no English.

Ha- they must speak "Asian" :p

</comment><comment><USER30> I've never bought a deck of cards that was pre-shuffled. I thought casinos had machines that did that for them.

<comment><USER31> Baccarat is a special case. The cards are only used once, and then disposed of. They don't use shuffle machines because cards never go back into the shoe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Is there a reason why casinos are not shuffling decks in-house before sending them to the tables?</comment>


Miles per Gallon - <AUTHOR> http://www.solipsys.co.uk/new/MilesPerGallon.html?HN_20150507 <comment><USER2> The illustration at the bottom of this[0] xkcd "what if?" illustrates this pretty well.

[0]: [http://what-if.xkcd.com/11/](http://what-if.xkcd.com/11/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I've been meaning to add that link at the bottom of the page with a short piece of text for context - I'll do that soon.

Thanks.

 _Edit: Done that now. Not sure why this comment got a downvote, though._

 _Extra Edit: Hmm, now been re-upvoted. Bizarre, but thanks for the votes! I know that they 're not actually worth anything, but they do indicate that what I've done is appreciated, and considered to be of value._

<comment><USER3> Vote cancellation is weird.

I wonder if posts that have no genuine reason to be downvoted (like yours) get more votes if they add a comment to the effect "Not sure why this comment got a downvote" since multiple people will try and correct the erroneous downvote with no idea whether anyone else already has.

Edit: Ha! Thanks for the downvote.

<comment><AUTHOR> It is odd. When there's a strange downvote people might then make more upvotes because they can see it was downvoted, but can't see when it's been corrected, because the scores are no longer visible. But voting is weird anyway. I don't take it personally, and I don't want to complain, but I genuinely get confused when there are downvotes I don't understand, and I want explanations purely so I can decide either that I was right and to hell with it, or I was wrong and I need to reconsider things.

With just a downvote I don't get the chance to learn.

Still, there we are.

<comment><USER4> Conversely, if people could just upvote outright but to downvote would need to provide a minimum 10 character reason that was made public, would this break of improve the system?

<comment><USER5> You're describing something like Slashdot's moderation system, and we all know how well _that_ worked out.

<comment><USER6> At +5, It is the best moderation system ever published. Immune to brigades, and reader-tunable to their individual preference level for jokes and flames.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I will never understand why Americans keep using miles per gallon instead of liters per 100 km. Miles per gallon is only good if you want to advertise your car ("look, with this car you can travel 50 miles with one gallon whereas with that one you can only travel 40 miles").

But you never do that in real life, you never fill your car with say, two gallons and say "now I'll travel 80 miles".

Instead you always know the distance between two points and you want to know how much will that travel cost you. So you think like this: "distance from point A to point B is 250km, my car uses 6 liters per 100 km so I'll use 15 liters, 1 liter price is 2€ so it'll cost me 30€". Easy as pie and you can't do that with miles per gallon.

<comment><USER8> The thing about mpg that is problematic is that it obfuscates the savings in going from a 10-20 mpg vehicle to a 20-30 mpg vehicle (and exaggerates the benefits of a 50 mpg vehicle).

15 mpg -> 25 mpg is a much bigger step than 25 mpg -> 35 mpg (a savings of 2.6 gallons per 100 miles vs a savings of 1.15 gallons per 100 miles). The jump from 35 mpg to 50 mpg only saves 0.85 gallons per 100 miles.

For everything else it just introduces some trivial difference in the arithmetic.

<comment><USER9> > The thing about mpg that is problematic is that it obfuscates the savings in > going from a 10-20 mpg vehicle to a 20-30 mpg vehicle (and exaggerates the > benefits of a 50 mpg vehicle).

I think the EPA's estimated-fuel-cost-per-year (based on standardized assumption), which I believe is part of the standard rating disclosure for new vehicles just like MPG is, addresses for most consumers that _better_ than MPG or gal/100mi, and for the subset of consumers for whom it _isn 't_ better -- i.e., the ones that have good numbers on their own usage patterns that they are going to calculate out from to get a personalized estimate -- MPG and gal/100mi are exactly equal in utility.

<comment><USER8> I haven't shopped for a new car so didn't realize that they had changed the labeling. The motivation for the cost estimates is clear enough from their literature:

[http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/label/learn-more-gasoline- lab...](http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/label/learn-more-gasoline- label.shtml#you-save-spend-more)

(If you have a tiny screen, make sure to scroll down to the "MPG Illusion" plot.)

Edit: You conclude: " i.e., the ones that have good numbers on their own usage patterns that they are going to calculate out from to get a personalized estimate -- MPG and gal/100mi are exactly equal in utility.".

What else did you take "For everything else it just introduces some trivial difference in the arithmetic." to mean?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> As a car nut, this actually seems pretty reasonable; if you take that diameter and divide it by (fuel injector duty cycle at cruise rpm, times number of injectors), the resulting diameter should be pretty close to the car's injector outlet effective diameter!

<comment><USER11> Hi, I actually work in fuel system analysis.

The one issue with the blog post that nobody seems to realize or point out. Is that fuel consumption is measured, and calculated internally as kilograms per kilometer. The change to volumetric units is done for the benefit of the population.

This comes into play because namely, thermal expansion. Normally even in return less engines fuel is used to cool injector heads, as well as some body block parts (depending on engine design), as hotter fuel more readily reacts, and is already being routed to the warmed parts of the engine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This kind of calculation is trivial with GNU units:

        You have: 30 mpg
        You want: 1/(mm^2)
                * 12.754311
                / 0.078404861

It does reciprocal conversion automatically (12.75 mm^-2 corresponds to 0.0784 mm^2).

Note also that there are approximately 3.785 liters in a gallon, not 4.5461 as stated in the original article.

<comment><USER9> > Note also that there are approximately 3.785 liters in a gallon, not 4.5461 > as stated in the original article.

"gallon" is a unit of volume in several systems of measures, most notably the US Customary system and the Imperial system (these systems are often incorrectly conflated because many of the units are the same, and where the units are different many of the _names_ are still the same.) The size of the gallon is not the same in those systems:

      3.785 l/gal(US)
      4.5461 l/gal(Imperial)

<comment><USER12> Thanks, that makes a lot more sense.

      You have: 30 miles/imperialgallon
      You want: 1/(mm^2)
      	* 10.620186
      	/ 0.094160312

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If you start with mass per distance (kg/km), and you divide by fuel density (mass per volume, kg/L or g/mL), you get area (ca or m^2).

If you start with distance per volume (km/L) and cancel the matching units, you get inverse area (ca^-1 or m^-2).

This doesn't make sense until you realize it is the conversion factor between volumetric flow rate and volumetric flux, and is the number you need to associate volumetric fuel consumption rate (volume per time) with speed (distance per time), which is exactly what you're doing when you think of the fuel supply as a continuous trough.

This is a simplification. Different vehicle speeds will be more or less efficient. Volumetric flow rate is an integral of the volumetric flux over an area. So the area is the average aperture size. If your vehicle had a mass- ignoring, initially-empty reserve tank of infinite size, scooping up fuel from an infinitely long trough with the specified cross sectional area, it could go an infinite distance. You need the tank because different speeds may require more or less fuel flux. You need to travel at a more efficient speed before you can go to a less efficient speed.

</comment><comment> mark-r You could do even better if the tube were carrying electricity instead of gas. Maybe it would have enough power to carry a whole bunch of people at once? Hey, I think I'm on to something!

<comment><USER14> (0.1 mm^2 is half the cross-section of AWG 24, getting close to hair thin.)

I don't think you're correct here. For round numbers, let's take a 100 kW engine (134 hp), and suppose we feed 100 V. At full power, we'd be running 1000 Amps down that wire. Even at 1 kV it would take 100 A.

Better get a superconductor. Or a much thicker power cable.

<comment><USER15> He was using the wire AWG as a way to visualize the size for those of us that are familiar with human hair, but unfamiliar with visualizing things that are fractions of a mm thick.

He was not saying anything about replacing the amazing energy density of gasoline with electricity over a copper wire.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Incidentally, the volume of air required to ideally burn a litre of gasoline is also quite large.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline#Energy_content](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline#Energy_content)

 _1 kg of fuel reacts with 3.51 kg of oxygen to produce 3.09 kg of carbon dioxide and 1.42 kg of water_

Scaling that to the standard density of 0.755kg/L, that means 2.65kg of oxygen for 1L of gasoline. Assuming the typical 20% oxygen content of air at standard temperature and pressure, that is over 9000L of air.

So the air consumption of a car with fuel consumption of 0.1mm^2 is 0.0009m^2 or 900mm^2.

Edit: 900mm^2, not 900000.

<comment><USER17> If one needs 9000L of air to burn 1L of fuel, that would be 9000 _(0.1mm^2) not (9000_ 0.1mm)^2. 900mm^2 is much saner don't you think. I doubt the car would be able to scoop 900000mm^2 as it is 0,9m2. Can you imagine that amount of air fed into engine? Me neither.

<comment><USER16> Yes, you're right - I somehow thought 1L was 1m^3, when it should be 1L = 0.001m^3.

<comment><USER18> It's not a strange assumption to make, given how the prefix system works for true SI units. The litre/liter is defined as a decimeter cubed, or 0,1 m^3. It is a metric unit, but not SI. Still, it is allowed within the SI system...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Of course, you'd probably do a little better than that, because at no point would your car be carrying all of that gas. But the trough would have to get wider when you went uphill or had to get going at a light.

<comment><USER20> Instead of scooping up the fuel, you could think of it as laying out the fuel in a line behind the car. All the fuel starts off in the fuel tank, and slowly drains out of the car. Fuel efficiency is how large the hole is that the fuel drains out of. In reality, it gets turned into a gas and blows away, but the effect is much the same.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> For comparison, what would be the radius of a continuous cylindrical battery that powers the Tesla Model S? Assume, perhaps, that the battery has the same energy density as a typical AA battery.

<comment><USER22> The Model S has an EPA rating of ~237.5 Wh/km. I also see that the Model S has a volumetric energy density of ~700Wh/l.

Cancelling, I get ~0.34 mm^2.

Another question would be the mass per unit length. At 250 Wh/kg, that works out to ~0.95g/m. For comparison, the 30mpg car works out to ~0.057g/m.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Using liters/100 km, it's a tad easier, we just have to get the orders of magnitude right

\- liter = (100 mm)^3 = 1e6 mm^3

\- 100 km = 1e8 mm

So, 10L/100 km is 0.1 mm^2.

(Note that we want low values, and this is on the high side for European cars - the usual advertised numbers for sedans are half of that, with reality somewhere in between.)

</comment><comment><USER23> How big of a solar panel would you have to stick on top of an electric car to keep it going forever (ignoring the extra weight/wind resistance)?

<comment><USER5> I suppose it depends on your definition of "car", but they've been doing this for many years in the World Solar Challenge. GM's Sunraycer drove across Australia in 1987 on solar power alone: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunraycer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunraycer).

<comment><USER23> Yeah, I meant more like a Tesla or Chevy Volt.</comment></comment></comment>


Things Your Resume Doesn't Tell Prospective Employers - <AUTHOR> http://blog.mightyspring.com/post/56894506039/4-things-your-resume-doesnt-tell-prospective-employers

<comment><USER2> It looks like this site would prevent the awkward questions- 'where do you see yourself in 5 years?' and 'what appeals to you about this job?'

<comment><AUTHOR> Founder here. That's certainly our goal: to improve communication between employers and potential employees. The tools we primarily use today (resumes, traditional job descriptions) are pretty poor frameworks for communicating the finer points of 'fit'.</comment></comment>


Startup Quote: Michael Arrington, Founder, TechCrunch - <AUTHOR> http://startupquote.com/post/7556874181

<comment><AUTHOR> Customer research produces bland products. We're producing a piece of art.

\- Michael Arrington (@arrington)

<http://startupquote.com/post/7556874181></comment>


Show HN: McFly, a smart Bash history search CLI in Rust with a neural network - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/cantino/mcfly <comment><USER2> TIL I can use ctrl+R to search bash history! This is going to save me a lot of time going forward!

<comment><USER3> This is actually a general feature of the GNU readline library, which a lot of programmes including bash use. For instance, a lot of REPLs like ghci use it.

[https://linux.die.net/man/3/readline](https://linux.die.net/man/3/readline)

[https://tiswww.cwru.edu/php/chet/readline/rltop.html](https://tiswww.cwru.edu/php/chet/readline/rltop.html)

<comment><USER4> As does my favorite underappreciated Unix CLI tool, units(1).

      $ units --verbose
      You have: 1 mile * 20 pounds force
      You want: joule
              1 mile * 20 pounds force = 143174.38 joule
              1 mile * 20 pounds force = (1 / 6.98449e-06) joule

<comment><USER3> I had no idea of that command. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I did virtually the same thing in about 1991. Was really into NNs back then. Apparently that was the dark ages for NNs.

<comment><USER6> I learned about them too back then. Programmed simple neurons in BASIC. 1993 a friend of mine wrote back-propagation networks in C on his Amiga.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> For zsh, zaw[1]'s history is insanely useful. I don't really think a neural network is needed. Usually I get to the exact line I wanted with a few keystrokes.

[1]: [https://github.com/zsh-users/zaw](https://github.com/zsh-users/zaw)

</comment><comment><USER8> Would it be much work to make this work with other shells? Personally I use fish, and would love to give this a spin with fzf.

<comment><AUTHOR> It shouldn't be too hard if someone wants to work on it. [https://github.com/cantino/mcfly/issues/3](https://github.com/cantino/mcfly/issues/3)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Also, my first Rust project!

<comment><USER9> This is such a cool project! Plus a pretty awesome example of using Rust for CLI's. I'm curious about the neural network though. Is that also written in Rust? Or are you embedding something else?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! It is written in Rust. It's a very simple NN with one hidden layer and back propagation.

<comment><USER9> Just saw the implementation. It's goes a little over my head unfortunately, but I am curious about the affects of it. Did you compare the non-neural net version with the neural net version? If so what differences did you find?

<comment><AUTHOR> I found that the neural network does a little better than a simple linear regression function for weighting the parameters. I train it on a few months of my own shell history to predict, based on the last commands, what I'll type next.

<comment><USER10> are the default weights I see in the code the result of your own local training?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> How does this compare with fzf?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think fzf is just for finding files?

<comment><USER12> no, fzf also does history, it uses `fc`. I think it should be doable to integrate fzf with McFly.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good to know, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Cool project and well executed. My only complaints are:

1\. The GUI should display at the bottom of the screen rather than at the top. I found myself constantly having to jump my eyes from the bottom of the terminal where my command was, to the top of the screen.

2\. Show the full commands in the search results. Maybe they could be wrapped? Long commands with changes towards the end of the string get chopped off making it hard to know the differences between them in the display.

</comment><comment><USER14> Nifty! Is the neural network constantly being adjusted from the user's own patterns of history re-use?

This also reminds me of one of my dream features for a shell: full dataflow input/output/provenance histories, on a per-file(-version) basis.

For example: show all the commands a certain file has been read from, show the command(s) that wrote to a file, show true steps by which a certain file was constructed from predecessor files/commands, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good question. At the moment it's static. I plan to make it do online learning at some point where it updates the weights as you use it.

<comment><USER10> this is a really nice example of a simple, practical, "non-deep" NN. I'm wondering, are there any good learning resources you could recommend to start a project like this?

It makes me want to try a personal project that makes use of a tiny light- weight NN as well. I see giant AlphaGo neural nets mentioned so frequently that I forgot they could be lean :)

<comment><AUTHOR> I read some tutorials on back propagation for this, but if you want to get into ML in general, I highly recommend fast.ai and Andrew Ng's free Stanford ML course.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Is there any reason that you hardcoded the model? I think its the right decision for a small model, I was just sort of surprised.

<comment><AUTHOR> You can retrain it once you have a bunch of data with the train command. But I'll probably make it do online learning at some point too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Great name

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> neat application! I was curious if the Rust community has existing machine learning/neural net libraries and found this:

[http://www.arewelearningyet.com/](http://www.arewelearningyet.com/)

thought I'd share in case you/others wanted to avoid coding their own or experiment quickly with other types of models.

</comment><comment><USER18> It's fantastic and very useful! Good work!!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks :)</comment></comment>


Side Projects from Companies That Generated Viral Traffic - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/p/894455f22264/edit <comment><USER2> FYI, Medium is now showing a non-discardable signup/login wall to your mobile (iOS) visitors. Basically they removed the close/discard "X" choice. Obviously one can use incognito mode, but it's probably reducing your readership.

(I don't mean to fault you, I just figured that you don't know and might want to. HTH.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh wow, didn't know that, thanks for letting me know!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> In a world where marketing channels like SEM, FB ads, etc. are getting more and more saturated, side projects can be an interesting way to build a direct connection with your users.</comment>


OpenSource framework for creating crossplatform games and applications. - <AUTHOR> http://polycode.org

<comment><USER2> I'm glad there are still efforts to make cross-platform frameworks that don't just sit on top of HTML+CSS+JS.</comment>


Do you have a funding opps for Covid-19 projects? where? - <AUTHOR> i was giving feedback to a pioneer project that i was looking with help "finding investment" for a respirator project. at first, i thought that he didn't even bother to google around and his website was on spanish so i also assumed a language barrier. as courtesy, i thought i'd look up some opps for this person because i see them all over twitter (or what it seemed like). thought "will be so easy and quick"
hours later and now writing this post. great.
anyway, turns out its really hard to find. either that or my high self didn't realize how to use google better... however, all the searches for "venture capital" or "funding" or "investment" + "covid-19" (and variations) yielded endless pages of media and consulting coverages, reports and predictions.
so i couldn't really find anything besides a bunch of software discounts and stats aggregation website...
i am high. but this does not make sense. where is all the funding opps? wait now i am questioning if they exist because its fundamentally anti-capitalism to be altruistic (oh no). <comment><USER2> I know many people in the field working "pro bono". How about this ?

Unfortunately, there is also significant increase in scams related to everything-covid.

You can publish your respirator project, get credibility and get public feedback/offers.</comment>


The Art of the Propagator (2008) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/gjs/6.945/readings/art.pdf <comment><USER2> In Higher-order Perl ([http://hop.perl.plover.com/book](http://hop.perl.plover.com/book)), MJD introduces local propagation networks, and says of them:

> If you've ever seen a discussion of local propagation networks before, > you've probably seen the Fahrenheit-Celsius converter example. There's a > good reason for this: It's one of the few examples for which local > propagation actually works.

([http://hop.perl.plover.com/book/pdf/09DeclarativeProgramming...](http://hop.perl.plover.com/book/pdf/09DeclarativeProgramming.pdf), logical p. 487, Section 9.2.2). Since I value his opinion, that makes me sceptical about developments in propagators; but, then again, Sussman certainly knows what he's talking about! Was MJD's opinion never true, or is it no longer true, or does it remain true (but presumably with caveats)? EDIT: Or, alternately, am I misunderstanding the relationship between this paper and the networks that MJD discusses?

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't know enough about propagator systems to know if there is a mismatch between what MJD and GJS are talking about. I do know that GJS's propagator model does more than the simple Farenheit-Celsius conversion problems (this example is actually in SICP chapter 3, but not in this paper), such as tracking the reasons why cells hold the data they do and withstanding logical contradictions.</comment></comment>


Dependency Graph Nightmares in Python - <AUTHOR> http://justcramer.com/2013/01/29/dependency-graphs-and-package-versioning/

<comment><USER2> One of my favorite parts about Twisted is its API deprecation policy. When an API breaks like that, it's a bug. We do time based releases (like ubuntu), and in practice you should get at the very least six months, usually a year, to fix things: and that's only when we actually change APIs, which is rare.

If an API is just imperfect, stuff just gets added around it, eg getPage has been superseded by Agent for a while but it still works fine.

People may think this is a property of boring software that has jumped the shark. Maybe that's true. Maybe that's a good thing too.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's pretty much a given that moving from one major release to another is going to break things. Since you're using Django as an example then I should point out that this is why Django spent half of it's life in a pre-1.0 state where there were major changes from the .91, .95, and .96 branches which broke every _minor_ version up until 1.0 before it was officially released. Remember when the admin used to be tied to each model instead of decoupled? I sure do - [https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/releases/1.0-porting-g...](https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/releases/1.0-porting- guide/)

I'm half surprised you didn't just create a requests-1.0 branch and then give the third party libraries time to upgrade instead of pinning to shas. I have several projects that depend on requests<1.0 which will run just fine for some time.

</comment><comment><USER4> Is is somehow possible to have requests v.9 and requests v1 (or any other library w/ different versions at the same time) working on the same project? That would fix these dependency problems.</comment>


Light Field Communication: Short Range Data Transmission to Smartphone Cameras - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2013/07/31/bytelight-illuminates-the-mobile-wallet-using-led-lights/

<comment><USER2> Sounds like someone is reinventing classic IRDA, except this reinvention is even worse than it was.</comment>


Show HN: GoBlog – Free Blogging Platform Written in Go - <AUTHOR> http://github.com/GetGoBlog/GoBlog <comment><USER2> Is this an actual service accepting actual signups? If so, please realize your login form and signup process are not HTTPS and therefore do not even have minimum security.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi,

We just finished working on this a few days ago for the GopherGala hackathon. We will be adding HTTPS soon.

\- Faraz

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hello all, if you like GoBlog and are interested in hiring me, please reach out to me at firstname.lastname@example.com</comment>


The one-armed robot that can lay 1,000 bricks an hour - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com.au/video-the-latest-on-the-one-armed-robot-that-can-lay-1000-bricks-an-hour-2016-9 <comment><USER2> Hm. No mortar. No ability to recover from perturbations (animals, children moving blocks; block flaws/cracks; foundation flaws). No apparent feedback at all. Just a movie showing a brick-placement bot '3D printing' part of a building. And a lot of hype - I didn't understand the entire intro, it sounded like hot-air words strung together.</comment>


Feeling lonely? You've got company - <AUTHOR> https://www.pri.org/stories/2019-10-22/feeling-lonely-you-ve-got-company <comment><USER2> Loneliness and solitude are totally different things. When I say I'm lonely, I mean I'm lacking meaningful connection with other human beings who understand me, accept me and challenge me at the same time.

Solitude is nice, especially for the introverts among us. But loneliness is deadly.</comment>


In memory of Aaron, bulk XML of every federal and state law and court ruling - <AUTHOR> http://webpolicy.org/category/empirical-law/legal-data/ <comment><USER2> Which versions are these? I ask because, to lawyers, pagination matters -- a LOT. Lawyers refer to a case by the book and page number, and refer to parts of a case by the page numbers. It's probably not a great system, but the courts don't have anchors in text for better or worse. Also, what version is it as to corrections? Most courts issue typo changes after the fact. Most are minor, but a few do materially affect the meaning (such as changing the page numbers of the parts of a different case that have been overruled).

Don't get me wrong, it's better than nothing, but to get any buy-in from existing lawyers these issues need to be addressed. I'm concerned that they haven't on the site.

<comment><USER3> > Lawyers refer to a case by the book and page number, and refer to parts of a > case by the page numbers. It's probably not a great system [...]

It's a fantastic system (and a wonderful demonstration of the advantages of immutable graph data structures). You can read cases from a century ago and still find every cited reference. Hyperlinking pales in comparison.

<comment><USER4> It's not really hyperlinking that fails, but the fact that web sites (the ones that don't disappear without a trace that is) don't maintain their structure over time. Many don't even attempt to provide meaningful forwards, instead just dumping you back to the front page. Microsoft and Oracle are particularly egregious offenders.

What we need is a technical mechanism for embedding referenced source documents into a document, in a way that is as easy as hyperlinking to add the references and follow them. Probably also a new fair-use provision in copyright law as well.

<comment><USER5> I think it's fair to say that hyperlinking fails. Sites don't maintaining their structure over time would be the cause of the failure, but the link still doesn't work... Semantics maybe, but eh.

Agreed on having a way to embed documents. Especially in a way that supported some kind of signing. If I could have a reputable third party (web.archive.org or anybody else) sign an embedded snippet of a page and say "Yes, this was actually posted on X website at Y time" that would be fantastic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A few questions come to mind that aren't answered by perusing the site, though I haven't yet looked at the downloadable files.

1) How comprehensive are the court decisions ? For example which Federal Courts are covered and for what time periods ? If there are variations in coverage of state courts what are the high low and typical cases of coverage - both for dates and court levels ?

2) How was the court decision data obtained ? I was under the impression that there were significant obstacles to obtaining much of this data since although statutes are available freely online for many jurisdictions access to court decisions is typically very costly. I once payed several hundred dollars for a months access to NYS court decisions and I believe that service no longer exists, having been replaced by much more expensive long term plans that are out of reach of anyone except law firms or large corporations.

Getting court decisions online for free or at an affordable cost would be of great benefit to anyone needing/wanting to do legal research in the US and would help improve the increasingly dismal state of democracy in this country.

<comment><USER7> When I get a chance to finish the 6GB of the District Courts I'll try and remember to come back and update you all

However, I can say that I extracted my state's cases and it came out to 100k+ so it's certainly more comprehensive than any other free data source (for my state)

EDIT: Downloads went down (Dropbox) right as I posted so I reached out to author to see how to get my hands on the rest of the files

FINAL EDIT: See my note below about him being on vacation and taking a look when he gets back near better internet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is awesome, thank you for sharing these. I was able to get a couple states, but it looks like Dropbox has cut you off.

      Connecting to dl.dropboxusercontent.com
      (dl.dropboxusercontent.com)|184.108.40.206|:443... connected.
      HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 509 Bandwidth Error
      2014-01-08 23:36:42 ERROR 509: Bandwidth Error.

Dropbox limits personal accounts to 20GB per day of public sharing.

[https://www.dropbox.com/help/45/en](https://www.dropbox.com/help/45/en)

<comment><USER7> He said he pays for a pro account, not sure how much they offer but we exceeded that apparently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> A sincere question, is the collation of this material and its publication, /actually/ dedicated to Aaron Swartz (as I see [https://www.google.com/#q=aaron+swartz+site:webpolicy.org&sa...](https://www.google.com/#q=aaron+swartz+site:webpolicy.org&safe=off) shows zero results) or rather, editorializing / opining by the submitter?

<comment><USER10> It was a posted by a brand new account, and this is the only activity on the account. Probably doesn't know the rule about changing titles, and stuck in the Swartz reference to get more people to click.

I'm a little surprised the moderators haven't fixed it yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It looks like Dropbox just shut down the account's transfers. I take it a couple dozen people started mass-downloading each state's data. This would be the ideal use for a torrent network, right?

</comment><comment><USER7> I've emailed Jonathan at his Stanford email to ask him to put it up as a torrent

Will update if I hear back

<comment><USER7> UPDATE

I just heard back and he's on vacation (go figure!).

He says he thought he had a pretty generous amount of traffic but he'll take a look when he can.

<comment><USER12> Torrents are definitely the way to deal with data this size.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> See [http://freelawproject.org/](http://freelawproject.org/) for excellent free/open source legal data.

<comment><USER14> I don't think it provides state law, does it? Or state court decisions? Only federal court opinions, right?

<comment><USER15> Free Law Project does have some state courts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I hope those working on this type of material consider Akoma Ntoso ([http://www.akomantoso.org/](http://www.akomantoso.org/)), currently being standardized as OASIS LegalDocML ([http://www.oasis- open.org/committees/legaldocml](http://www.oasis- open.org/committees/legaldocml)), and maybe OASIS LegalXML ([https://www.oasis-open.org/committees/legalxml- courtfiling](https://www.oasis-open.org/committees/legalxml-courtfiling)).

I think Akoma Ntoso would make bulk access, maybe even piecemeal API access as with other similar works like this, easier for consumption (think NLTK). The Italian Senate (the Senate in Rome) uses it, the Library of Congress has introduced some "data challenges" using it as well, and I think it is the future. Using a common data format / XML schema has its advantages.

</comment><comment><USER16> Is this related to the XML data collected by public.resource.org? E.g. Supreme Court decisions are available in XML here: [https://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/US/](https://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/US/)

<comment><USER14> I don't know, but Public.Resource.Org only has legislation for a few states and territories.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Is there a free or paid service that has this type of data and a api for accessing it?

<comment><USER7> There's CourtListener and I'm sure several others.

[http://freelawproject.org/](http://freelawproject.org/)

I'm building a product and API that would take advantage of the whole collection but it's not ready for primetime yet.

<comment><USER17> Thanks... I ask because I wonder if law firms do any data analysis for all court opinions(Sentiment Analysis), judges, attorneys and outcomes. Also if states have data warehouses to review the application of laws local and federal.

<comment><USER15> The Administrative Office of the US Courts and the Federal Judicial Center collect and publish some statistics, but they're pretty basic. For example, they collect "case type" as a single field with a single value. Most cases have more than one kind of claim, so this is incredibly under-inclusive. Also there aren't codes for lots of kinds of cases.

[http://www.uscourts.gov/FederalCourts/UnderstandingtheFedera...](http://www.uscourts.gov/FederalCourts/UnderstandingtheFederalCourts/AdministrativeOffice.aspx) [http://www.fjc.gov/](http://www.fjc.gov/)

States are a grab bag but generally statistics poor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Not so long ago, this collection would have been priceless. 10-15 years ago there was an article in Wired about efforts to obtain access to case law, which was pretty much locked down by West Publishing and Lexis/Nexis. So a few comments:

1) To make this set usable from a practical point of view you have to know when it starts and finishes. "[E]very federal court ruling" is a bold statement. Federal Reporter Third? All 1000 volumes of F2d? What about the original Federal Reporter? F.Supp.? Not all federal district court decisions are published. Since our federal courts have become criminal courts (starting in the 1980's) most of the written decisions will be at the appellate level. What about "Do Not Publish" opinions? There are thousands of them and they are still useful. Usually only DoJ has copies.

2) Not having everything is not critical to the practical value of the set. In the 1990's a West salesman would tell you that there was no need to buy anything before 500 F2d if you were trying to put together a small federal library. For most states they would try to sell you everything, except perhaps New York, California and few others. The issue is updating. Florida updates (or used to) its appellate decisions on a monthly basis. You could sign up and they would send you a zip file every month. I don't know if all states do this. The problem of recency is a major one. A case could have been decided yesterday but you won't find out about it for a month. You can fix the problem on appeal--theoretically, assuming a client who wants to pay--because judges will not, except in rare cases, revisit older decisions they have made because case law that was not available at the time was dispositive.

3\. The issue of citing to a particular page of a decision in addition to the official citation is not a huge problem. In many states, appellate decisions are relatively short and court rules have provided for the use of just the official citation. Cites to new Westlaw and Lexis cases do not have page numbers. When page numbers are unavailable, you can cite them as ( U.S. )(2014) [my Blue Book syntax is probably a little off here). If you cite an unpublished opinion you normally have to provide the judge and your counterparty a copy of the decision.

4\. FLITE was the U.S. Air Force's effort to computerize case law in the 1980's. Westlaw and Lexis fought ferociously to prevent this database from being released to the public. They were successful. The same is the case with JURIS, a DoJ caselaw database. Now there are several providers (such as Fastcase) which compete with Westlaw and Juris. Access to PACER, the U.S. courts database of case, is limited. Efforts to mass download the database have been frustrated. The courts use PACER as a revenue tool. Also, criminal cases at the district court level are not on PACER (unless this has changed) supposedly to protect informants. So it would be interesting to know how this database was obtained.

5\. Putting aside the practical value of this database, once the extent of the content is established, it could have real value for researchers. Could it be used to spot trends in the law? I wonder what might be shown if tools to measure things like historical market performance were used to analyze the database. You could see all sorts of data points for terms like "Dalkon Shield" or "asbestos" occurring within specific time ranges. There is definitely a "me too" aspect to the law. And while judges make law all the time, they have no control (usually) over the cases brought to them. Do cases involving "terrorists" match the pattern of cases involving "communists"? Or, say in the period 1910-1920, "Germans"? On a practical level, what is the statistical incidence of cases involving the Statute of Frauds? The "ancient document" exception to the hearsay rule? Are criminal conversation causes of action really coming back? If historically the incidence of data points A, then B always led to C can an analysis of such points today of any use in predicting future decisions?

Just a few thoughts.

<comment><USER14> A major part of the work at hand:

> federal and state law

Your entire post is about:

> case law

Suffice to say, those in the biz tend to focus mostly on case law, probably because they know the basics of statutory and common law, case law is not codified, and (all) case law is not offered for free even on horribly designed, practically useless government websites.

But, at least for my purposes, state legislation and statutory codifications (and their regulatory counterparts) are also very important to have bulk access to. Even outdated materials are useful, as once I know a section is relevant (because I can run complicated queries against entire datasets), I can begin research using more arcane methods (such as government websites and printed materials.) My treks through the California Codes and the California Code of Regulations would not have been possible without bulk access (I had to do it myself of course, after the Legislative Counsel got forced by CFAC/FAC and MAPLight.org to release the DB), and there was little case law on the issues I was doing research on (that I knew or know of) to guide me.

Outdated material may not be so useful for practicing lawyers, but its _extremely_ useful for the 99%.

<comment><USER18> Unfortunately, in the U.S.statutory law is of limited utility without the case law which in interpreting it, modifies it. I agree that there are all sorts of forgotten gems to be mined--such as when the U.S. Congress established a church.

<comment><USER14> Unfortunately, the case law is also of limited utility without the statutory/regulatory law underlying it.

<comment><USER18> Statutes play less of a role than you would think. I'm not saying that they are unnecessary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'd love for the title of this post to be accurate, but it's not. Many court rulings are available only in sliced tree format for a modest copying fee from a clerk behind a glass window. Sorry.

</comment><comment><USER19> This is fantastic! Now you need a script to convert the daily slip opinions from the courts and the updated statutes from the legislatures to add them to the databases to keep the content current.

</comment><comment><USER20> Has someone mirrored this?

</comment><comment><USER21> Links are down...</comment>


How to draw/create arrows using pure CSS (cross browser styles) - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRjYbpfBhco&feature=youtu.be

<comment><USER2> got an article I can read?</comment>


Tell HN: Google Effectively Banned Me From Play Store Due To Chargebacks - <AUTHOR>

August of 2011 I was out and when I got home I realized I didn't have my phone.  I checked my email and noticed some purchases that I didn't make.
Initial Story Here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2866422
Long story short... my phone was temporarily lost, and in the mean time some purchases were made totaling $344.97.  I contacted Google who told me to contact Glu Mobile, who eventually told me they would not refund and to call my bank.  So I did, and my bank provided a temporary refund while they did their investigation.  After a month or 2, my bank contacted me and said they sided with me.
Now... this week I decided to buy an App from the Play Store.  Rundouble's app which is $1.60 (or around there) ... I try and purchase using a credit card and using my Wireless account.  Both won't let me.  So I log on to Google Wallet, which informs me they need to verify my account.  It asks me for a valid ID and some other document.
So against my better judgement I send them a copy of my drivers license and a copy of a credit card statement.  No big deal, it said it was just to verify my identity... I had a sneaking suspicion it was because of the chargebacks but thought it would be no big deal after I verified.
I got this email back a few days after:
<comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-- Hello,
Thank you for your email. I've researched your account and found that you've reported some of the charges in your Google Wallet account as fraudulent charges to your card issuing bank. As a result, we have suspended your account to avoid any further unauthorized charges.
Below, I've furnished details of the orders that were reported as  fraudulent charges:
Purchased from: Glu Games Inc. Order date: 2011-08-09 Google order number: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Amount: 139.99 USD
Purchased from: Glu Games Inc. Order date: 2011-08-09 Google order number: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Amount: 139.99 USD
Purchased from: Glu Games Inc. Order date: 2011-08-09 Google order number: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Amount: 64.99 USD
If you are able to confirm that the charges were not fraudulent, please contact your card issuing bank and request that they reverse the chargebacks. Once you have a confirmation from your bank that the chargebacks have been reversed, please reply to this email so that our specialists can reactivate your account.
Thank you for your understanding. </comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>---
So they want me to dispute chargebacks from almost a year ago that were 100% valid.
Amazing... never thought I'd say this but Apple here I come. </comment><comment><USER2> this is not google or android fault's, it's yours, this is why you put pins on your phone. Also if you think that Apple it's better i think you are going to have a bad time.

<comment><AUTHOR> At that time there was no way to put a pin in the settings to stop purchasing... at least with the current os version that was on the phone.</comment></comment>


Why I Brought 12 Square Feet of Cake to Twitter HQ last Friday - <AUTHOR> http://tynan.com/twitter <comment><USER2> _Soon enough one guy gave me instructions on how to file a ticket_

which is all he really needed to do to get the username.

i got @jcs the same way a couple months ago: open a ticket, ignore the auto- reply email telling you twitter doesn't free up unused names, reply again saying you want the username looked into for inactivity. in a couple days they'll email back letting you know whether the account is inactive enough for deletion. if so, they'll delete it and you'll have to quickly change your username to the new one (since they won't directly hand over an account except in the case of trademark infringement).

<comment><USER3> Probably true... but who doesn't love cake? It's a heck of a way to show appreciation for the service if nothing else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> When it comes down to it, this is just attention whoring, isn't it? He did this because it fits his narrative of being the wacky, unconventional guy, who can also advise you on how to pick up women you used to consider out of your league. Barf.

<comment><AUTHOR> I did it because emailing a few times didn't work, I wanted to do something nice in return (preemptively, I guess), and I think doing stuff like this is fun.

<comment><USER5> <http://i.imgur.com/mHyMB.png>

Stop signing your posts, you're only proving his point.

We can move on to doing this kind of analysis with your site if you'd like to persist in pretending you're not one of 1,000 other people on the internet with the same personality blog about how OH SO RANDOM and INTERESTING you are.

<comment><AUTHOR> Why so rude?

It's a habit from writing email all day, not some sinister plot to get people to see my name a lot. I removed the ultra-offensive signature from my post.

I'm not inclined to get into an argument about how original or interesting I am... my ego is big, but not big enough for that. I'm content to gauge those things by the responses of my readers.

<comment><USER5> Call it a personality conflict, but I value quiet, dedicated productivity over relentless self-promotion with nary a sign of some kind of project or productive venture.

<comment><AUTHOR> I can't reply to your last one for some reason, which may be for the best. The multivariate software was called Conversion Doubler, but was renamed (and improved) by the buyer. I'm keeping the new project under wraps for now.

I consider it a personality flaw that I'm compelled to respond to (what I consider to be) unconstructive criticism like this. I'm done responding publicly, but will continue by email if you like.

<comment><USER5> Sent

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Back when I first signed up, I had @jarin. Then later on (like an idiot), I changed it to @jarinudom when I was trying to unify all of my logins. I later realized the error of my ways, only to find out that someone got @jarin, tweeted once, and abandoned it.

About a year of filing tickets later (about once a month, explaining that I used to have the name that I wanted and that it was no longer active), I saw an article on TechCrunch about Twitter deleting the inactive @ericschmidt account so that Eric Schmidt could have it. So I filed one last ticket, linking to the TechCrunch article and saying "Hey, I'm the head of a company too (albeit a much smaller one)!" and things like that, and 5 minutes later I had it.

</comment><comment><USER7> I had a similar experience, except I sent a friendly snail mail letter instead of a cake. A couple days later a Twitter employee transferred the username to me and responded to my support ticket thanking me for the letter.

</comment><comment><USER8> While I love your blog tynan, I have a question for twitter: Since when did it become ok to get someone else's twitter handle just due to inactivity? And if the change occurred in only five minutes, was there any warning to the existing user?

Domain names operate on a principle where you pay for your name every year, and get several warning emails that you will lose your account if you fail to pay.

Edit: read JCS's post, makes sense as long as they clearly state how inactive you must be. That said, could you get kicked off of twitter if you merely use it to "lurk" your friend's protected tweets?

<comment><USER9> See Twitter's inactive account policy here:

[http://support.twitter.com/groups/33-report-a- violation/topi...](http://support.twitter.com/groups/33-report-a- violation/topics/148-policy-information/articles/15362-inactive-account- policy)

In general though it looks like they would like you to have a serious claim to the mark (ie US or Intl registered trademark) before they'll hand it over.

<comment><USER8> thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> _My friend Christophe, who offered to video everything, was there, as was Jerry from The Cake Gallery, a local business that specializes in penis cakes._

Wait, what?

Penis cakes?

<http://thecakegallerysf.com/>

 _3-D Cakes_ _3-Dimensional cakes are popular whether it's a simple Barbie Cake or an elaborate Wedding Cake. Adults Only, X-Rated Cakes or our most provocative creations are adult in nature. Our X-Rated themes range from male and female body parts to any sexual depiction your demented mind can create._

Nice.

<comment><USER11> Pretty funny coincidence that he'd have yet another thing in common with the Larry David/Curb Your Enthusiasm situation he found himself in. There's a whole episode of CYE about penis cakes (Meet The Blacks).

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I don't understand why these cakes were bought by someone who goes on at length about why sugar is bad for you.

<comment><AUTHOR> I know, it's ironic. I chose cakes because everyone besides me likes cake.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This blog looks like a MySpace page.</comment>


What's New for Visual C++ in Visual Studio 2012 RC - <AUTHOR> http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh409293(v=vs.110).aspx

<comment><AUTHOR> Parallel Stacks and Watch look to be much-needed debugging features.</comment>


Amazon China will no longer sell Chinese goods - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/18/tech/amazon-closes-china/index.html <comment><USER2> The title is pretty inaccurate, perhaps they updated it since this was posted?

"Amazon will no longer sell Chinese goods in China"

<comment><AUTHOR> Might be my mistake because I'm pretty sure that the title didn't change since I posted it, sorry about that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Sort of ironic as I always think of Amazon as the most Chinese of the FANG companies</comment>


Ask HN: How facial recognition works in China? - <AUTHOR> What technology specifically is in use? Software architecture, data base, hardware, etc? <comment><USER2> They will be a huge database of people pictures. Facebook/Google/Alibaba/Snap/WeChat that will be forced to provide these together with necessary metadata. Images can be stored in object storage AWS S3 or something like Riak S2 or more custom solutions like Facebook Haystack.

A batch job that processes images and creates a feature map of the face. Where face feature map is points needed to uniquely recognize the face. Some kind of queue Kafka/ZeroMQ/RabbitMQ and image processing using in OpenCV/TensorFlow/PyTorch. Each time models are tweaked batch job will process images to create more accurate "Face ID".

There will be a database that is optimized for search. This can be RDMS like PostgreSQL sharded by face feature. Everything can be heavily cached since feature maps do not change very often. Since the problem is well defined you can risk creating a custom database just for this purpose using something like RocksDB/LevelDB.

You still need a platform that aggregates all these video streams from cameras and process images in real time. You probably want to favour speed over accuracy. Maybe OpenCV and small data centres that are spread across the country to reduce latency and cost.

A large number of human operators will be needed because the system will be a too dumb search for specific cases. They will probably create an analytic platform that also tracks your mobile phone geolocation, read your email, messages to know that you lazy bum that read HN instead of working.

</comment><comment><USER3> The answer is it varies and isn't necessarily disclosed by the individual companies to the general public.

A common approach is that there is a face matching service which opaquely returns results to end users hiding much of the specifics. At this point the recognition by virtually all vendors is being done with a variety of different deep neural networks through a library similar to the popular tensorflow library.

For some insights into the variation between different vendors, the recent FRVT reports may be of interest, though they can be hard to parse through:

[https://www.nist.gov/programs-projects/face-recognition- vend...](https://www.nist.gov/programs-projects/face-recognition-vendor-test- frvt)</comment>


Ask HN: Do React Web Apps Have Poor SEO? - <AUTHOR> I've recently built a web app with React only to hear that they have have bad SEO. Is this true? If so, is there an easy way to correct this? <comment><USER2> Having good keywords and links from other sites is likely a bigger impact on your SEO than using React, whether or not you're using SSR. Performance can reduce page ranking, but we should also (then) be asking, "Do <Framework X> Web Apps Have Poor SEO?"

</comment><comment><USER3> Server side rendering and testing pages through fetch-as-google to make sure they're being picked up by bots. It's not as big of a problem as people make it out to be. There are plenty of fixes but this combination is simple and effective.</comment>