Invisible Bike Helmet Inflates Before Impact - <AUTHOR> http://www.core77.com/blog/object_culture/invisible_bike_helmet_inflates_before_impact__17690.asp <comment><USER4> I've had two serious motorcycle incidents where a helmet protected me.

One: I fell off at slow speeds going round a corner, there was oil on the road, no ones fault, banged my head quite hard but was otherwise fine.

Two: On a motorway at ~65MPH a fucking prick threw a coke can out of his car which quickly decelerated and hit my visor. The visor cracked but maintained it's integrity and saved at least my nose and at most my life.

Please wear a full helmet, there are a lot of pricks in the world.

PS: I'm swearing in this post so you get the idea that 15 years later I still get really angry at this idiot.

<comment><USER5> I can sympathise.

15 years ago while cruising along a country road at 65 mph, I very clearly remember seeing, for a flash of a second, the point of a beak of a small bird as it hit my visor right in front of my left eye.

Without a visor (or helmet), I would have been blinded for sure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I like it but I would feel uneasy knowing that it is not just a stupid foam helmet but an airbag and a bunch of gyros. Just reminding that the more complex the system is the more places something can go wrong.

<comment><USER7> that's why i wear my (normal) bike helmet whenever i get into a car.

<comment><USER6> I agree. This is perhaps close to being a luddite. The difference lies in the fact that the airbag, for the car, didn't replace any already simpler and proven security measure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Has to be very hard to separate signal from noise on the deployment of the air bag. Those dummies were in very controlled environments and the helmet deployed at very low rates of acceleration change. In the hit from behind demonstration, you can see the rider's head experienced only around 1g of acceleration and little jerk.

It would get annoying as hell when this thing senses similar accelerations from non-car-hitting-you movements like bending over to roll up a pant leg or changing positions. Prankster friends would have a heyday too.

Dainese has an has an impressive motorcycle airbag suit - <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mo9Vlt5tGwY>

tl;dr - That thing would go off all that time if they made it sensitive enough to work.

<comment><USER9> The same problem was with early car airbags. The issue is long resolved.

<comment><USER10> It may be the same problem, but I wouldn't count on the same resolution. A car airbag deploys _after_ the car has crashed into something but _before_ that has a chance to injure the passenger, whereas in a bicycle accident the first impact could be with the cyclist's head.

(Perhaps you can make airbag-helmets that inflate when the bike hits something, which will do for the case where you hit something in the road and get thrown off, or where a car collides with the bike. Not so good for tree branches and such, though.)

<comment><USER9> Yes, I'm pretty certain the rig uses some kind of accelerometers to detect the threshold event. Any fall from the seat is typically preceded by a kick. And yes, you can certainly can still "hit the ceiling", but it's not clear if such mode of injury is common among cyclists.

By any measure, it sure beats riding without helmet.

<comment><USER10> > it sure beats riding without helmet.

Obviously an airbag helmet will be safer (but more inconvenient) than no helmet. Presumably it will be less safe (but maybe more convenient and better looking) than an ordinary helmet.

It needs to beat _both_ to succeed: that is, either some people who currently use helmets need to be convinced that the loss in safety from using an airbag helmet is small enough to be outweighed by the gain in convenience or looks or whatever, or some people who currently don't use helmets need to be convinced that the gain in safety from using an airbag helmet is large enough not to be outweighed by the loss in convenience or looks or whatever.

This seems pretty difficult to me, especially as I bet the convenience gain isn't very big: I bet an effective airbag helmet needs to fit you about as well as an ordinary helmet, and it'll need to be put on with about as much care.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm always fascinated by people's opinions about helmets. In New Zealand, where I'm from, helmets are required by law, and in my experience everybody wears helmets while cycling - it's just an accepted part of riding a bike there. Here in Europe, though, people ride with or without them and it's quite odd. Sure, they look cool without a helmet, but I just can't help but cringe when I imagine them having a nasty spill.

The one thing I'd disagree with about this helmet is its invisibility - <USER2> doesn't encourage other people to wear one. I don't know whether that's marketing advice or safety advice, but having everybody wear visible helmets sets a strong example.

<comment><USER12> I'm one of the cool-looking europeans :) I've started to bike recently and decided not to wear a helmet after reading few articles that suggested there is practically no evidence at all that bike helmets help you in any way. But most convincing was data from Australia - before they started forcing everyone to wear helmets, there were on average 7 deaths/year caused by incidents involving bikers. After the helmets were made mandatory, the mortality rate was reduced to 6/year, yet the number of regular bikers was reduced by 30%!! If anything, this suggests that helmets may worsen your chances to stay alive.

And if you think about it, if you're flying with 20-30km/h towards a tree, no helmet is going to save you. Even if the head is protected, your neck will break. With lower speeds I guess you still have time to try to fall in such a way so the head is somewhat protected. Btw, I'm not avoiding helmets so I can look cool. It's just one more gear to carry and worry about. And I may still get a helmet if start riding more cross-country. Right now I'm riding on road and unpredictable falls look more unlikely.

<comment><USER13> > After the helmets were made mandatory, the mortality rate was reduced to > 6/year, yet the number of regular bikers was reduced by 30%!! If anything, > this suggests that helmets may worsen your chances to stay alive.

What if the majority of the bikers who stopped biking were less experienced and thus more dangerous on average? This seems likely because the more committed people are likely to be more experienced, and those who don't have a helmet handy on some particular ride and so don't ride are also likely to be less experienced.

<comment><USER12> Well, that makes the anti-helmet case even stronger. If the most dangerous riders from the pool were in the 30% that stopped biking and if the helmets were actually helpful, wouldn't it make sense for the reduction in mortality rate to be bigger than 30% as opposed to the actual 17%?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Tested at 20km/h; IIRC that's how normal bike helmets are tested too.

My problem is, I'd bet that crashes causing serious harm happen way faster than that: 20km/h is the average speed of a champion marathon runner, and no one runs with an helmet. My 2nd guess as to why is that if helmets were effective when it matters, at higher speeds, they would look very similar to a motorcycle helmet, and be impractical.

So, facing the choice between something that does its job, and something ineffective but slightly less impractical, lawmakers try to make the latter mandatory. It reminds me of the TSA "security" policies...

<comment><USER15> Marathon runners aren't generally dodging the mirrors of automobiles driven by inattentive people.

Do you really believe bicycle helmets are completely ineffective? I'm going to have to call [citation needed] on that, because having at some hard padded thing on my head seems like it should at least help somewhat. Concussions, etc.

<comment><USER14> I don't believe it's _completely_ ineffective; it can certainly save your scalp from some road rash, and I'm sure you can find a couple of cases where a helmet avoided genuine head trauma.

But I'm not convince that the benefit of helmets for cyclists far exceeds the benefit of the same helmets on pedestrians, or on car passengers. Now, most people agree that there's a comfort/price/benefit compromise, which makes it inappropriate to enforce mandatory helmets onto pedestrians, although it would obviously save some lives. In order to accept that what applies to pedestrians doesn't apply to cyclists, I'd like to get some hard data, not some "gut feeling" from lawmakers who barely read what they vote for.

Also, I could understand that serious head traumas avoided in significant numbers would justify a law: in most civilized countries, the corresponding hospital bills and disability grants are paid by public insurance, i.e. taxpayers; cyclist are therefore accountable in front of them. But if it mostly saves scalps from roadrashes, I don't think that a law is appropriate.

<comment><USER16> There was a study that car drivers would benefit far more than cyclists from wearing bike helmets. Apart from there being 100x as many car drivers - <USER3> were a lot of accidents were the seatbelt saved them but they suffered injuries hitting the dashboard (this may have been before airbags).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I wonder if the designers were influenced by the inflatable collar that Y.T. wore in Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash. I think I'll wait for a suit that inflates like the airbags used by the Mars Pathfinder.

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm curious how noisy it is. It has to inflate _fast_ , so it's rather "bang" than "pffft". I wonder about the implications, given that it's so close to your ears.

</comment><comment><USER19> It's actually interesting. If it really works, we could see it evolve to vest, or pants or anything that protect the crucial area of the body other than the head.

</comment><comment><USER20> All the tests show low speed impacts/crashes, I'm curious as to how well it would work in a high speed impact where your head hits the ground going forward, is it attached firmly enough to stay in place?

Also, how does it know when to inflate? Can it be repacked?

It looks interesting, but I'll stick with my regular helmet for now, even if it isn't stylish.

</comment><comment><USER21> Never going to wear that heavy collar while cycling. Bike helmets are vented, cool. That collar has to be stifling.

And all in the interest of fashion? Ok, then I am Definitely not the target demographic. However, that model wearing that thing that looks like a cervical collar doesn't look very fashionable in my ignorant opinion.

</comment><comment><USER22> reminded. 20+ years ago my friend biker explained to me the advantages of a full-head-face helmet for a biker - it makes for greater chances that your head/face would be relatively intact, even when severed, so they would be able to put it into the coffin with your body and have an "open coffin" ceremony

</comment><comment><USER23> Reminds me of this I saw on a documentary when I was a kid: airbag-based ballistic protection: <http://ip.com/patent/US6412391>

</comment><comment><USER24> Wow. Would buy that right now. I do use a helmet, and while I don't think they are "uncool" or something, I just find them uncomfortable.

</comment><comment><USER25> Pretty cool, I wonder if it could make the diff between doing a high speed banking turn and falling.

<comment><USER26> Helmets don't stop you from falling.

<comment><USER27> They don't stop you from getting hit by cars, either. That's not his point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> A helmet doesn't have to be fashionable to prevent serious brain injury.

<comment><USER29> But more people would wear something that is fashionable so it's worth creating.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> It may protect you from impact, but what about your head sliding across the pavement?

</comment><comment><USER31> Great, more ammo for the helmet-nazis.</comment>


Nuclear Weapons Nerds - <AUTHOR> https://gizmodo.com/meet-the-nuclear-weapons-nerds-1826964319 <comment><USER2> If you're interested in the latest nuclear weapons developments, I highly recommend reading the blog [https://armscontrolwonk.com](https://armscontrolwonk.com) . There's lots of detailed political and technical analysis of the world's nuclear weapons systems there with an effort to track and limit their proliferation. If you've never investigated this type of thing before, you might be surprised at just how much knowledge there is to be had in unclassified "open source" material like this.

<comment><USER3> Your link is broken - I think it's because their TLS configuration doesn't support the non-www hostname. This link works though:

[https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/](https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/)

<comment><USER4> I second their recommendation and add that their podcast is really good and nerdy.

They also put to pragmatic social and geopolitical use a lot of tech in a low- budget way: imaging from Planet Labs, machine learning in inage analysis, etc. And they go through how they pit them to use in detail.

<comment><USER5> I'm also a regular listener to ACW. Where is it covered that they use machine learning?

According to the latest podcast, which goes into this topic in detail, they don't use machine learning at all (but would like to try it): [https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1205801/south- korean...](https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1205801/south-korean- missile-tracking/)

Instead, they're finding missile sites by manually tracking information leaks in various places. E.g. that podcast discusses how they found a secret South Korean site partially from publicly available images (it had a really distinctive design), and from things like browsing the LinkedIn profiles of people known to work there, which would mention that they worked in some nearby town or county.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> No story about nuclear weapons nerds is complete without at least one reference to

[http://www.nuclearweaponarchive.org/](http://www.nuclearweaponarchive.org/)

especially the physics lessons in [http://www.nuclearweaponarchive.org/Nwfaq/Nfaq0.html](http://www.nuclearweaponarchive.org/Nwfaq/Nfaq0.html)

<comment><USER7> don't forget nuclear secrecy or the bulletin of atomic scientists:

[http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/](http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/)

[https://thebulletin.org/](https://thebulletin.org/)

<comment><USER8> Also fun(?) to see how destructive nuclear arms are based on data from Google Maps.

[http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/classic/](http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/classic/)

<comment><USER9> Modern version: [http://www.nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/](http://www.nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/)

(no reason to use classic except in very rare circumstances)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> the book mentioned early on -- The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes -- is one of my favorite pieces of nonfiction. i can't recommend it highly enough, it's totally engrossing.

also, really fantastic photos in this! the copy could use a little work though.

<comment><USER10> Second this. A great read.

Rhodes' layout of the early 20th century physics discoveries that lead to the atomic bomb is engaging all by itself. Who knew it would matter whether your lab benches were made of wood or granite?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> If you're interested in the topic, I highly recommend picking up a copy of John Coster-Mullen's book (discussed in TFA) on Amazon while you can. It's already somewhat hard to find and not commonly carried by libraries. The author is in his 70s and won't be able to continue self publishing forever.

<comment><USER12> Here's a good article on how Coster-Mullen did and probably still does his research.

[https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/12/15/atomic- john](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/12/15/atomic-john)

"The secret of the atomic bomb is how easy they are to make." John Coster- Mullen

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I can recommend Coster-Mullen's book if you're interested in this stuff. Big and bound with a spiral binding it is a remarkable collection of bits of information that do pretty much tell you everything you might want to know about those first two bombs.

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm currently reading "Making of the Atomic Bomb" by Richard Rhodes (Mentioned in the post). It's a thick book and dense with information. I have only read the first two chapters but the book is very engrossing - it seems to be covering all the important people who were part of the making of the Bomb, both directly and indirectly.

Next is "Red Sun: Making of the Hydrogen Bomb" by the same author.

<comment><USER15> Nitpick - I think you probably mean "Dark Sun":

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16889.Dark_Sun](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16889.Dark_Sun)

It's very good - although as a lot of it is about the Soviet bomb project it "Red Sun" is oddly appropriate!

<comment><USER14> Yes, thank you. I meant Dark Sun.

I usually correlate Red with USSR (and a Super Man graphic novel, named "Red Son", about USSR does not help either) hence the confusion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I recommend [https://www.amazon.com/Work-Fields-Bomb-Robert- Tredici/dp/00...](https://www.amazon.com/Work-Fields-Bomb-Robert- Tredici/dp/0060961643)

I have a copy, I treasure it. Extremely well curated collection of historical images, interviews.

<comment><USER17> Also good along those lines, American Ground Zero, How To Photograph an Atomic Bomb, and the classic, 100 Suns.

<comment><USER16> is 100 suns "brighter than 100 suns" by Robert Jungk?

Richard Rhodes is my go-to for the back story, huge books. Not enough photographs.

<comment><USER17> 100 Suns by Michael Light, a book of bomb test photography.

<comment><USER16> New book for Christmas!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I own some beautiful Mexican pottery with uranium glaze.

</comment><comment><USER19> Until recently, this fellow, David Hahn, was a famous nuclear nerd, aka The Radioactive Boy Scout:

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

</comment><comment> S-E-P I've played enough DEFCON to know how this will end :P

</comment><comment><USER20> "The Cold War was over and according to a 2016 survey of American fears by Chapman University, more people feared The Affordable Care Act than the threat of nuclear war."

Every single day my belief that people are amazingly stupid is reinforced.

\---

Somewhat related:

The Russians are looking for their nuclear-propelled cruise missile that they reportedly recently lost.

IIRC that is the same one Putin mentioned in his "state of the union" speech, shortly before his "re-election".

<comment><USER6> > > ...more people feared The Affordable Care Act than the threat of nuclear > war.

> Every single day my belief that people are amazingly stupid is reinforced.

Really?

ACA: Has definite impact on daily lives. Every US resident has had to make at least one decision about their health care in the years since it took effect that was directly affected by the ACA.

Nuclear war: No impact on daily life. US-developed ICBM defenses are critically upsetting the balance of Mutually Assured Destruction, but almost nobody is aware of that. Individual decisions are completely unaffected by nuclear weapons or defenses against them.

Given that reality, it seems perfectly expected and rational that more people will feel threatened by the ACA than nuclear war.

<comment><USER21> Okay, this right here is pretty absurd.

The perspective is so wrong it begs disbelief on some level. An attempt to open doors, to provide access to medicine is not some thing made of fear. You can drive on roads, you can mail a letter, you can see a doctor.

Instantaneous annihilation, or worse, getting irradiated at lethal doses, only to collapse into a heap of boils and sores, wretching and dry heaving until you cough up your ulcerated intestines, actually is something to fear.

But yeah, you know, guns or butter. Nuclear deterents make war generally unrealistic, once you arm yourself with enough bombs. Nevermind the liklihood that that more bombs you have, the closer we all are to one of them going off accidentally.

But you're right, because of nuclear secrecy, and the government classification of military secrets, we're not allowed to know how close we are to having our lives immediately and directly affected, _not by "Nuclear War" but by accidents in pursuit of possessing a deterent_.

Therefore, since we cannot be permitted to know such things, our lives must not be affected by those things, and it's irrational to fear them.

Instead, we should fear the government trying to buy us all dog food, because it would be ridiculously inefficient to allocate funds to supply such things, when so many people don't own dogs. It's clearly a vector to corruption and dog poisoning. Perfectly expected and rational.

<comment><USER6> Its a fact of life in this country that your opinion about the ACA depends a lot on where you get your news and your own interactions with the health care system.

I'm fortunate to live in a populous area of a state that wholeheartedly adopted its own exchange. There are plenty of good choices available. When my employer ran out of money and went out of business a few years ago, I could afford a plan for my family that was far cheaper than COBRA. We got affordable health care through the exchange until I could land a regular job.

But many people don't. There are a growing number of markets that aren't offering ACA plans _at all_. Other markets are seeing 20% y/y growth in their prices. In short, the ACA is failing. You can be mad about that all you want to, but it doesn't change the fact that being afraid of the ACA is totally rational.

<comment><USER21> Skepticism, sure. Disdain, maybe. Fear, pointedly ridiculous.

It's not so much that it's failing, as much as it's been resisted and sabotaged. It's a distraction to think in terms of markets. Not when you can plug a money hose, the size of the military budget, into the supply side of the equation.

To name government subsidies as the ultimate and most fearsome form of corruption, and an abyss which has no known bottom, is to call the size of the U.S. military budget the purest form of corruption known to history.

And indeed, if the U.S. military, backed by its nuclear deterrent is such a thing to be feared, then it is assuredly more fearful than the failure of any medical plan.

Consider that we use nuclear powered aircraft carriers and cruise missiles designed to carry nuclear payloads, such to the effect, that in a conventional war, we smear an industrialized nation like Iraq, wiping maybe 100,000 people off the face of the earth, at a cost of 1,000 enlisted personnel. So take that degree of fear ( _or maybe just the portion of it, that happens to be backed by our global nuclear strike capacity_ ), and point it directly at those who would let an accountant stand between your children and a doctor. What then?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> If you want to play with nukes, work at Pantex.</comment>


Lucene.Net needs your help (or it will die) - <AUTHOR> http://codeclimber.net.nz/archive/2010/11/01/Lucene-Net-needs-your-help-or-it-will-die.aspx?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+Codeclimber+(CodeClimber)

<comment><USER2> I've recently started working with Lucene.net, It's immensly useful but I can understand why they're in trouble. It's not exactly easy to get started, downloading the current branch, get an overview of the state of the project etc etc. I think

if people understood how powerful it really is and it was a little easier to get started it would stand a much better chance of support.

Than being said, it would be nice to have something like lucene refactored to use more of the modern .net features</comment>


Inside Tesla Motors roboticized factory (video) - <AUTHOR> http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/inside-tesla-060512

<comment><USER2> I'd be surprised if they do not end up buying the Solyndra building.

Tesla is an amazing company (well, Elon Musk is, more so) - but how is this factory different from the robot factories of japan/other auto makers? Japan has been using robots forever - how does this differ... is it 100% automated auto making?

Its crazy to think that at Tesla, they were, a few days ago, a regular company... now - their founder is the first private citizen to have built, launched and docked a module with the ISS and have it safely return to earth. Pretty damn cool.</comment>


Lessons from Tinder, the dating app that offends, excludes and pisses people off - <AUTHOR> http://shiporgetoffthepot.com/app-design-lessons-from-tinder/

<comment><USER2> Who exactly is Tinder pissing off? I feel like the author is completely misunderstanding one key thing about Tinder: it isn't really a dating app, it's a "hook up" app. Hook up apps have always offended and pissed people off, but I'd say Tinder is doing the exact opposite. They have managed, and this is why I'm so impressed with them, to make what is essentially used for finding sex almost _classy_. Most women would never sign up for Adult Friend Finder (sorry guys, those ads are lies), and if they did they would certainly make sure no one they knew ever found out about it for fear of being shamed. Yet almost every college aged girl I've talked to has openly signed up for Tinder. The lesson to take away from this, in my opinion, is the subtlety of Tinder. Tinder presents itself as a tame dating app, but it's designed in a way that's used for something else. Because of the way Tinder looks on the outside people are open about using it, even though everyone knows what's on the inside.

<comment><AUTHOR> I would say a combination of people with delicate sensibilities. Bring it up with in conversation with friends(not just the boys but the girls too, your mother and female relitives as well). Also by forcing facebook they are at minimum mildly annoying your averedge spammers(not the expert spammers).

I agree about the college age girl. The upcoming generation might be called the "voyeur" generation posting everything with out shame but the curve of women steeply drops off as you get older.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Is anyone else distracted by the fact that it is _raining on the inside of the screen_?

<comment><USER2> I wonder when modern site design will finally mean aesthetically pleasing but easy to read and quick to load. Here's a mirror[0] that's just that.

[0] [http://www.notehub.org/2014/3/25/you-have-probablly-heard- of...](http://www.notehub.org/2014/3/25/you-have-probablly-heard-of-the-giant- da)</comment></comment>


MemGuard: Secure sensitive information in memory in Go - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/awnumar/memguard <comment><USER2> So, we just finished extricating this from our codebase.

My main issues:

1) The underlying primitives weren't really meant for this use case. They don't guarantee that a copy is flushed to disk, just that the canonical copy remains in RAM.

2) By creating pointers that are ostensibly supposed to be used, that aren't known to the GC, you're opening yourself up to a whole lot of use after free vulnerabilities, and just generally breaking the memory safety of the runtime. The other main area where you deal with raw non-GCed pointers like this is CGo, where you generally marshal into the GCed world as fast as you can for the reasons above.

3) What's the actual threat model here? Is stopping people from reading a core dump worth breaking the memory safety of the runtime?

<comment><USER3> > 3) What's the actual threat model here? Is stopping people from reading a > core dump worth breaking the memory safety of the runtime?

well yeah. that's the point. if you don't want to write an entire application in C to prevent this. if for your application it's not worth it, you live with it.

<comment><USER2> I can't quite follow all of the indefinite pronouns. Can you restate?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Probably not a big deal, but they're reinventing the wheel a bit... Windows has RtlEncryptMemory/CryptProtectMemory for this.

[https://docs.microsoft.com/en- us/windows/win32/api/dpapi/nf-...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en- us/windows/win32/api/dpapi/nf-dpapi-cryptprotectmemory)

<comment> christoph-heiss Not really a cross-platform API, is it?

<comment><USER4> No, but I'm suggesting it's not a bad idea to use it on Windows. That way if there's ever an improvement made to it (imagine better hardware support or something coming along someday), you'd get it automatically.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14173716](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14173716)

Blog post about the project: [https://spacetime.dev/memory-security- go](https://spacetime.dev/memory-security-go)

<comment><USER6> More recent post about the project: [https://spacetime.dev/encrypting-secrets- in-memory](https://spacetime.dev/encrypting-secrets-in-memory)

</comment></comment><comment> java-man I think we need something like this in java runtime.

</comment><comment><USER7> Does anyone know anything similar for C/C++?

<comment><USER8> [https://github.com/jedisct1/libsodium- doc/blob/master/helper...](https://github.com/jedisct1/libsodium- doc/blob/master/helpers/memory_management.md)

<comment><USER7> Had no idea libsodium provided that. Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> How much does it impact performance?

<comment><USER6> There is a memory overhead associated with guarded heap allocations. The time overhead is only applicable when creating or destroying them.

For encrypted data there is virtually no memory overhead but a guarded allocated has to be created to hold the decrypted data when it is needed.

The root encryption key is stored within a special container [0, 1] that has some small but constant CPU overhead as it is continuously mutating the memory associated with the structure in the background. This overhead can be tweaked (or even virtually eliminated) by changing the interval between successive cycles.

[0] [https://spacetime.dev/encrypting-secrets-in- memory](https://spacetime.dev/encrypting-secrets-in-memory)

[1] [https://spacetime.dev/memory-retention- attacks](https://spacetime.dev/memory-retention-attacks)</comment></comment>


Show HN: DataMask Editor – web app for screenshot editing - <AUTHOR> https://datamask.tech/editor/ <comment><AUTHOR> Maker here. I have made DataMask Editor to scratch my own itch performing basic screenshot manipulation tasks when producing images for my blog articles and tutorials. I don't like installing software and believe that most of the desktop apps can be replaced with web applications. Datamask Editor web app is great when I have to switch between Macbook and Windows laptop since editor works exactly the same no matter the OS.

Datamask Editor also compliments my DataMask Pro browser extension. Screenshots taken from the browser extension are automatically opened in the DataMask Editor. See the integration in action: [https://youtu.be/xE8_zwH5jAs](https://youtu.be/xE8_zwH5jAs)</comment>


Juicero's CEO responds - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@Juicero/a-note-from-juiceros-new-ceo-cb23a1462b03 <comment><USER2> When I read about Juicero yesterday[1] I thought the product was worthless. People however do sometimes chase after things which they feel to either make them rich or they have passion about.

But this statement by their CEO:

>> So when I saw this week's headlines about hacking and hand-squeezing Produce Packs, I had a one overriding thought: "We know hacking consumer products is nothing new. But how can we better demonstrate the incredible value we know our connected system delivers?

is not just ridiculous but even mocking their own customer and investors. Squeezing a pack of fruits is hacking? Someone here yesterday mentioned, in a lighter vein, Juicero adding DRM tech to their juicer. With statements like this from their CEO, they might very well make it true.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14148216](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14148216)

<comment><USER3> Even worse >>>The journey from Coca-Cola to carrots to Juicero's rainbow of fruits and vegetables has let me connect my work to my personal mission and passion: solving some of our nation's nutrition and obesity challenges.

By selling a $400 blender which needs $8 for each glass of juice?

<comment><USER4> If you cannot afford food, you can't eat it. /s

<comment><USER5> Let them eat cakes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This should and will probably become a case study on how flawed the startup funding ethos of creating a monopoly for your billion dollar business creates an environment that encourages fraudulent products and services. In fact Juicero can and has easily ticked off all the boxes of a perfect startup model company to the tune of $120MM. The biggest weakness of a water monopoly is being destroyed by foreign conquerors. In all the cases where the primary resource for a startup is individual users, no one has a monopoly and ergo is not immune to negative value perception, ethics concerns, or bad press. Startups even with a 90% market share, huge users bases, and/or great revenue should never be run or funded like they will never face market competition because users will just abandon them and the market segment all together.

</comment><comment><USER7> > The first closed loop food safety system that allows us to remotely disable > Produce Packs if there is, for example, a spinach recall. In these > scenarios, we're able to protect our consumers in real-time.

SV really is the best parody of itself. This guy sounds as credible as a stock photo of a laughing woman eating salad looks.

As a side note: some German article called the issue "Lügenpresse", which is pretty hilarious (it's also the term for "fake news media" before the English term gained traction here; presse == media and presse = press).

</comment><comment><USER8> Pretty weak response. I fail to see how their machine's "consistent pressing" improves on a blender or juicer in the "taste and nutrition" department, and that is the point that sells the $400 machine. Point 3 about the "connected supply chain" is just a boast. On point 1, are people dying left and right from eating recalled food? I'm not convinced there's enough of a problem there to warrant such defenses, especially when it looks a lot more like a market capture tool.

<comment><USER9> If someone wants to corner the juicer market, all they have to do is engineer one that can be completely cleaned in under 30 seconds. The best ones I have seen still take several minutes to fully clean.

<comment><USER8> I had a Breville something-or-other. Using it was such a project because of the washing ritual. After a month or so I gave it to my mother, who I don't think has ever used it. I agree completely.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I was completely unaware of what the response was to.

For those who also have no idea, apparently they are refunding all purchases.

[http://www.theverge.com/2017/4/20/15375940/juicero-full- refu...](http://www.theverge.com/2017/4/20/15375940/juicero-full-refund- customers-ceo-jeff-dunn)

</comment><comment><USER11> This guy is squirming.

And he sounds like a gross used car salesman.

And he epitomizes the startup CEO, delusions of grandeur and all...

</comment><comment><USER12> So basically, it seems like part of their business is metrics and control. Anyone can juice fruit. They don't actually proport any more safety, just the possibility of better response to recalls.

Unless their system can be proven to reduce, as opposed to increase, wastage and spoilage, the entire point is moot.

But I cannot see this ever taking off, so this is moot as well. If you are into raw smoothies, you are probally into knowing where your food comes from and getting it in its natural state.

<comment><USER13> We also have these magical devices called blenders, invented many decades ago, and available for $20 or so. Toss in your preferred mix of fruit, juice, ice cream etc, and hit BLEND.

This product is solving what problem exactly? I had to ask if this was satire, but sadly it is an example of how some people in the tech industry are so helpless they can't even seem to manage feeding themselves.

<comment><USER14> Blender blades produce heat which damages nutrition in juice.

<comment><USER15> Throw in some ice. Juice isn't rocket science, I'm sure you can figure this out if you _really_ apply yourself...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Goodness gracious, get a $50 blender and just toss a bunch of random plants in it. 10 seconds clean up, tastes good, lots of fiber and is filling.

I've realized now why I'll never be a startup billionaire, I'll never be able to come up with a stupid idea nobody needs and doesn't work well and makes the planet and humanity worse off while telling everybody around me I'm making the world a better place.

The video the company produced on how to use the machine is also ridiculous [1]. There's how many steps involved setting up and using the machine? I need an app on a phone and wi-fi to set it up? And after I go through all these steps and get my juice, there's even more steps?

"cut the pack open and empty the pulp into your compost"

"rinse thoroughly"

"keep the packs in a box"

"when you're ready to send them back come to our site for a shipping label"

"burn some dinosaurs on your way to the UPS store to drop off your processed, empty, rinsed juice packs"

This can't possibly be real life.

1 - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-i0UugILBJg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-i0UugILBJg)

</comment><comment><USER17> Proving their machine is literally superfluous is a "hack" now. OK.

</comment><comment> j-walker How long until they pivot and ditch the pressing machine all together and just go to a model of shipping juice packs with an app that scans the code and tells you if there's a recall or not?

<comment><USER18> Or a competitor comes along with a self squeezing pack.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Does anybody else think that "Juicero" sounds like a great name for a company that sells steroids?

</comment><comment><USER20> This guy cannot honestly be as dumb as he presented himself in this article.

I guess if he thinks people will buy his explanation he very well might be.

<comment><USER8> "You won't get this value if you just hand-squeeze our product bags." Of course, if you manually pour boiling water through a Keurig k-cup, you will not get the "value" of the k-cup. But it's a disingenuous response, because the alternative to using the machine with the packs isn't using the packs without the machine, it's using _neither_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> _...Produce Packs, which to be clear, contain nothing but fresh, raw, organic chopped produce, not juice_

...and then posts a video of a disassembled pack of mushy carrot pulp. That was really your best option here?

<comment><USER22> Right, the difference seems minimal. When you start with a whole carrot, or a whole orange, there's the obvious advantage of greatly reduced surface area plus the plant's natural outer layer. Keeps everything fresh.

Blending it into fine pieces removes all that. The bags apparently aren't even vacuum-sealed (there's a "breathing hole"), so everything will be oxidizing and degrading pretty quickly. That's _worse_ than bottled juice.

<comment><USER23> * The bags apparently aren't even vacuum-sealed (there's a "breathing hole")*

Wouldn't the content (at least the liquid part of it) leak through the hole?

But they don't pasteurize the bag's content, so it will spoil a lot faster than, say, juice you buy at a supermarket. They use their fancy QR code to make sure a bag hasn't expired, essentially providing an over-engineered solution to a problem they created in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> So they sell 3 pre-pulverized carrots for $8?

<comment><USER25> You might say that they're a... CHOP SHOP.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> my favorite part was how he explained that they "source organic produce directly from farms".

which I think means, "We buy food"</comment>


America by the Numbers - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/01/07/us/CENSUS.html

<comment><USER2> The lightweight form of "data-driven journalism". Express delta values instead of insight. Use clipart instead of info-graphic visualizations.

<comment><USER3> My long-running objection to this kind of quicky journalism exactly. No detailed attribution, no drill-down availability, no footnotes. I developed facster.com to overcome these and other limitations, the goal being to provide research-quality stats from the government and other sources, make the information searchable, browseable, and joinable. I haven't had the time to do much work on it since 2005, so the most recent abstract I loaded is from 2003. Also in some migration the search index got damaged. A lot of search terms are missing, but I've boosted repairing the search index on my to do list.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> 2.4% of people are in jail? Should add that number to the unemployment figures when bragging about how good the economy is (ops, was) compared to France, Germany or the Scandinavian countries...

<comment><USER5> It didn't say in jail, it said 7.3 millions incarcerated or on probation or parole, which is fairly significantly different.

Most recent statistic I could find (on Wikipedia, I did not drill down to their source) was about 0.75% actually incarcerated. (2.4 million people)

<comment><USER6> _It didn't say in jail_

yeah, but being on probation or parole means you're almost in jail, doesn't it?

<comment><USER7> > yeah, but being on probation or parole means you're almost in jail, doesn't > it

No.

Note that you can end up on probation without ever being in jail.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> in 2007 airport screeners confiscated 1416 guns?!?!

(the 1.1 million knives isn't as perplexing to me 'cuz [in my mind] there's way more ambiguity around what's a "knife" than a gun).

<comment><USER9> I had my spyderco folding knife confiscated. I totally forgot it was in my backpack. Apparently that happens alot.

<comment><USER10> Right, and a lot of people carry small pocket knives on their keychains, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The last table in this one is interesting: [http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2011/tables/11s0005.p...](http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2011/tables/11s0005.pdf)</comment>


Agrarian Justice by Thomas Paine - <AUTHOR> http://www.ssa.gov/history/paine4.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, I should have linked to the short summary first, if a mod wants to delete this comment and edit the link to go to <http://www.ssa.gov/history/tpaine3.html> instead, that would be grand.

The summary for you comment-first clickers:

> In the winter of 1795-96 Thomas Paine wrote his last great pamphlet, > "Agrarian Justice." The pamphlet was first published in French in Paris. An > English edition was brought out in 1797.

> In this pamphlet Paine advocated the creation of a social insurance scheme > for the aged and for young people just starting out in life. The benefits > were to be paid from a national fund accumulated for this purpose. The fund > was to be financed by a 10% tax on inherited property. A tax on inherited > property was used due to Paine's general philosophy of property rights. > Although he based his social insurance scheme on a line of argument that > might sound quaint in the present era, in other respects his plan was quite > modern, recognizing the problem of income security for the elderly, and the > desirability of creating a national fund for this purpose.

</comment><comment><USER2> I've never actually had cause to read Tomas Paine before, but I'm finding I like it very much. Thank you.

(I guess I had some _cause_ , but never enough to warrant any sort of _effect_. Again, thanks for lowering the bar of entry enough that it was truly hard to ignore).</comment>


Show HN: OneOne – Better one on ones with your employees - <AUTHOR> https://www.oneone.io <comment><USER2> My issues with one on ones is not a software issue.

<comment><AUTHOR> what are they?</comment></comment>


Can Tools Make Coding Too Easy? - <AUTHOR> http://www.coderslexicon.com/can-tools-make-coding-too-easy/

<comment><USER2> I agree to a certain extent. If my short stint interviewing with various companies in the last month and a half taught me anything is this: I've been using high-level languages and frameworks for so long, that even though I don't have any problems understanding the low level implementation (pointers, in-memory word alignment/packing, etc) I still struggled somewhat when actually writing the implementation.

It was a humbling experience, knowing that 20 year old me would beat my ass at writing an AVL tree. But at the same time, I can't really say I'd enjoy having to go back and rewrite my own abstract types every time. I guess I'll just try to give myself a refresher every now and then, for exercise's sake.

</comment><comment><USER3> The tools he writes about make writing code easier, but don't help with reading it - they just generate the boilerplate. It's a bit like checking in code after macro expansion - if the programmer didn't want to write all this stuff, why force others to read it?

But I don't think it means we should write more by hand - I would rather write in a concise language that requires knowledge of few less common abstractions, than in something so verbose I keep mixing generated and hand-written code together! As the article says, this mix often obfuscates intended meaning, as it's sometimes hard to tell boilerplate from necessary logic.</comment>


'Algorave' Is the Future of Dance Music (if You're a Nerd) - <AUTHOR> http://www.vice.com/read/algorave-is-the-future-of-dance-music-if-youre-an-html-coder <comment><USER2> Giles Bowkett gave a standing-ovation receiving talk at RubyFringe in 2008 on his Ruby-based algorithmic MIDI generation framework, Archaeopteryx.

[http://www.infoq.com/presentations/archaeopteryx- bowkett](http://www.infoq.com/presentations/archaeopteryx-bowkett)

I cannot recommend this talk enough. First off, he was way ahead of the curve on this, tech-wise. For this article to not mention him is frustrating.

Secondly, Giles was both hilarious and inspiring. His presentation kept people in rapture; 10 minutes into lunch, not one person in the room left.

<comment><USER3> I've met one of the performers in the article; he was doing this (in SuperCollider, largely) back in at least 2004 if not earlier.

Not diminishing how awesome Giles is, but it wasn't original in '08\. It may not have been original in '98.

<comment><USER4> Yes we've been doing it since 2000 ([http://slub.org](http://slub.org)), I haven't actually used supercollider in performance though I don't think, I just used it for a perl.com article once. This is not the future of electronic music, but now we've given it a stupid name people seem to be more interested..

<comment><USER5> Just want to say you were awesome at algorave - wish I was good enough/fast enough in emacs to start doing stuff like this!

<comment><USER4> Thanks, it went pretty well although I wasn't expecting to play solo, was supposed to be working with a live drummer but he had troubles finding the venue.

<comment><USER5> I wondered what had happened to him - was looking forward to seeing him play, would have been an incredible result I reckon. Any chance of that actually happening?

<comment><USER4> Yes, tonight in Sheffield at prism 15 [http://www.prismsheffield.co.uk](http://www.prismsheffield.co.uk)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My favorite line in the whole thing was the final line: _This article was amended to represent the fact that the artists mentioned weren 't creating music with HTML._

<comment><USER7> About 5 of us left incredulous comments in response to the line "live HTML coding" \- you can still see this in the URL I believe.

<comment><USER7> And I see they deleted all of those, including some interesting discussion of the merits of Haskell, Processing, etc. Poor form on Vice's part, in my view.

<comment><USER4> No these comments are still there. It seems vice put their content on different sites, with different sets of facebook comments, so you're probably looking at a different url.

<comment><USER8> Could you please link the URL that gives these comments, or reproduce the comments here? I was curious about them and could not find them.

<comment><USER4> [http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/algorave-is-the-future-of- dan...](http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/algorave-is-the-future-of-dance-music- if-youre-an-html-coder)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is very much an annoying off topic observation, but seeing this title makes me think:

        'Algorave' Is the Future of Dance Music (if You're a True Scotsman)

Why can't we just have it be the future of Dance music, why does it have to be "if you're a Nerd".

<comment><USER10> > Why can't we just have it be the future of Dance music

Because that's a stronger claim -- that it is the future of Dance music for everyone.

> why does it have to be "if you're a Nerd".

Because with that qualification, its a weaker claim -- for the rest of the universe, it may not be the future of dance music.

<comment><USER11> Just nitpicking here, but it's not really a weaker claim. Either it's the future of dance music, or it's not. The future of dance music is the same for everyone.

Or maybe they mean, what nerds think the future of dance music is.

<comment><USER12> I'd go even farther than you are.

By claiming "if you're a nerd", they're creating a class distinction where one group can and does ascertain truth, while the "others" cannot and will not.

So not only is it the future of dance music, but you'll only know if your privilege and knowledge can allow you to. A modern day hermetics of sorts.

But you know, thats just, my opinion man...

<comment><USER13> One possible interpretation is that the scene is completely awesome as long as you're capable of coding and thus being one of the real participants, but that it's less interesting for pure spectators. Thus, for music coders -- "nerds" \-- it is the future, but for non-nerds, there are more appealing alternatives.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> "Sounds wholly or partly characterized by the emission of a succession of repetitive conditionals."

This is a fun play on the words of the 1994 Criminal Justice Act, which criminalized the huge underground rave scene in the UK. (It's 'repetitive beats' in the text of the Act).

Knowing that wouldn't really have changed the article much, but it's not as po-faced a definition as the author might have thought.

<comment><USER15> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti_EP](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti_EP)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This looks very familiar: [http://overtone.github.io/](http://overtone.github.io/)

[http://vimeo.com/groups/82430/videos/21956071](http://vimeo.com/groups/82430/videos/21956071)

<comment><USER17> This one is even better, though it takes a sharp eye to see what's happening without narration:

[http://vimeo.com/groups/82430/videos/70016164](http://vimeo.com/groups/82430/videos/70016164)

That's two players side by side: Andrew Sorensen, and Ben Swift. It is a thoroughly entertaining 20 minute set. Plus reading how they are modifying the code is really neat. I only have a passing familiarity with scheme so I only get the gist of what's happening.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm a nerd, and i love repetitive techno... so this in theory should have been for me, but that youtube link was really hard to listen too.

<comment><USER19> The photos seem to not look like much fun, either...

[http://assets.vice.com/content- images/contentimage/123487/_D...](http://assets.vice.com/content- images/contentimage/123487/_DSC3011_016.jpg)

<comment><USER20> Pictured here: nobody dancing.

<comment><USER5> It wasn't really about the dancing, I don't think anyone attended to dance. The use of the word 'rave' is very tongue in cheek, it was purely a group of people interested in music being live coded coming together to enjoy a performance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Awesome - I live in Sheffield and actually attended this event (though I don't seem to be in any of the photos!)

<comment><USER21> What was the atmosphere like in your opinion?

<comment><USER5> A little awkward I guess, it felt much more like a hacker meeting than a rave. I've been to a lot of experimental music performances in the city and they all have a similar feeling - much less partying and good times and much more introspective in a way, absorbing the music and enjoying it individually. You got a sense that everyone was sort of on the same wavelength even if we didn't interact with each other much.

That said it was REALLY enjoyable for me as part of my dissertation at uni was about generative music and live coding, it was really cool to see it properly in action with a crowd of people enjoying it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> That's cool; I had heard of overtone, but I didn't realize there was any kind of equivalent for Haskell. What's the name of the library?

<comment><USER23> It looks like they're using tidal.

[http://yaxu.org/tidal/](http://yaxu.org/tidal/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I think it'd be cool if this somehow merged with the current club scene to bring more of a 'live' aspect back to electronic music.

<comment><USER25> There's plenty of live aspects in electronic music, see for example Robert Delong, Beardyman, Booka Shade, Pretty Light's current tour, etc.

<comment><USER26> Beardyman isn't strictly electronic, more beatbox but he is amazing. Check him out live in Edinburgh

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qciVXUHTN10](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qciVXUHTN10)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Got no love the first time around [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6795624](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6795624)

Anyways, interesting and fun, not new but so what; new for some people is still good.

</comment><comment><USER28> Nick Collins rides again! He was one of my tutors at uni. We made drum machines and talked about autechre. Interesting guy.

<comment><USER29> Ah yes, i was wondering if that was the same Nick Collins who wrote the awesome books on Handmade Electronic Music :)

I wonder how the author of the article missed that, heh.

Anyway, obviously, this live-coding is not "The Future" any more than anything else is, nor is it 100% new; There have been experiments since the beginning of computer music trying to make live compositions---

NEVERTHELESS, I think this article is great because it documents and celebrates how much technology we've leveraged w/r/t to music. We can now analyze and compose with great effect and detail. I mean, there are over 160 APIs for music on the web alone now: [http://www.programmableweb.com/apitag/music](http://www.programmableweb.com/apitag/music)

Now that understanding of parsing and programming and algorithms is growing, we should expect to see our knowledge reflected in the field of music! Yay!

<comment><USER30> Actually not the same person.

[http://www.nicolascollins.com/texts/nicvsnick666.pdf](http://www.nicolascollins.com/texts/nicvsnick666.pdf)

<comment><USER4> Yes the two nic[k] collinses had a big fight once. [http://www.nicolascollins.com/collinscup.htm](http://www.nicolascollins.com/collinscup.htm)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Alex, referenced in the article, introduced me to live-coding when he wrote [http://www.perl.com/pub/2004/08/31/livecode.html](http://www.perl.com/pub/2004/08/31/livecode.html)

I'm not a huge fan of the "algorave" moniker but I can attest to the experience of the author at such events. It's pretty tepid. There's not much to dance to. The "future" it is not but perhaps an alternate history or sub- culture it perhaps is (or once was... not sure if coverage in Vice lets you keep that status).

That being said I love it. :)

</comment><comment><USER32> URL currently is: www.vice.com/read/algorave-is-the-future-of-dance-music-if- youre-an-html-coder

Article title currently is: 'Algorave' Is the Future of Dance Music (if You're a Nerd)

So html coders are nerds?

<comment><USER33> From the bottom of the article: "This article was amended to represent the fact that the artists mentioned weren't creating music with HTML."

Based on the screenshots, they seem to doing this in Haskell, which is a far cry from HTML. I guess the article authors have no idea about what programming actually consists of, so used "HTML" to mean any kind of code.

<comment><USER4> I think this was more sub ed mangling

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Alright, pretentious techno lover here. This is digital music production without a GUI. Fun idea and all, but it's pure novelty. And to motion that this specifically is "for nerds" implies that there aren't currently plenty of artists in the various realms of electronic music already geeking up a storm. They're just not headlining the shitty surface world of commercialized "EDM". I guess I just want to remind people to respect this art form and to remember to give credit where it's due.

<comment><USER4> Absolutely, credit given here: [http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2013/09/play/algorav...](http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2013/09/play/algorave)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I would love to hear this writer's take on chiptune, since he seemed way too amused that it was a "dance club"-type setting without any of the "dance club" stereotypes. I don't think most chip shows have the live generation like this, but there is a component of live-editing there.

</comment><comment><USER36> Any recommendations on how to inexpensively (free) experiment in making techno music? I downloaded some synth programs on my iPad (HexASound, Synth) to play with. Would something like Algorave, Archaeopteryx, or Overtone be better?

<comment><USER20> Check out SuperCollider [1] and Csound [2] as well.

[1] [http://supercollider.sourceforge.net](http://supercollider.sourceforge.net) [2] [http://www.csounds.com/](http://www.csounds.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Musically yes, code-as-performance no. Indeed, this mainly demonstrates a) what a bad interface text is and b) how heavily some proponents are leaning on using samples of other music. I think it's significant that Autechre (generally acknowledged as the the kings of experimental electronic music) compose mainly within Max and build their live performances around a mix of their own sample library and abstractions of their Max tools to the rather simpler patching of the Nord Modular G2.

</comment><comment><USER37> This is very neat, I will give it a try for sure!</comment>


Ask HN: Any interest in this API as a service? - <AUTHOR>

I put this together to use for a couple of personal projects and thought I'd see if there's any interest in something like this as a pay service.
It's essentially a hosted REST-like API for job scheduling - give it a cron expression or a single time in the future and it notifies the application by HTTP/S callback at the appropriate moment(s).  You can provide an arbitrary payload to be delivered along with the callback containing identifying state.
I'm using it mostly for scheduling test executions and user lifecycle management, but I imagine it could be useful for quite a bit more.
So, is there any demand for this?  If so, perhaps I'll take part in the launch-in-November push going on now.
I threw together a document on the API with more details - comments welcome!
http://job-scheduler.info/ <comment><USER2> Something like this has been posted here a long time ago, but I'm having trouble recalling the name or link. I think there is a demand for this and there will be more and more as more apps move to the cloud.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's what I thought, and I figured this would be a good way for startups to save time that would otherwise be spent finding, deploying and maintaining job scheduling infrastructure.

But, given the lack of interest I wonder if it's just not something most startups think they need?

<comment><USER2> It's more that they don't need it yet. I think you should run with it for a little while and see where it goes. If you can add more value than just cron via REST, you might have something. I don't know what that value is.

<comment><AUTHOR> _I don't know what that value is._

Me either, which is of course part of what I was hoping to get some insight about from the discussion here.

I've some ideas about what _I_ would have been happy to have found when I was starting projects, e.g. a _simple_ hosted API for user lifecycle management, but little evidence so far to support viability as paid services.

Well, I suppose I'll just have to launch them and find out, then.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The real reason my startup was successful: privilege - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/tech-diversity-files/the-real-reason-my-startup-was-successful-privilege-3859b14f4560 <comment><USER2> So sick of this white privilege nonsense. Should you have guilt that the people around you loved and cared for you, encouraged you?

Did wearing hand-me-down clothes prevent others from doing the same? Did your parents having dinner with you stop other parents for doing the same for their kids? Did your parents staying married and (likely) having you while married stop others from making those same choices to their children's advantage? And on and on.

Yes, things happen in nearly everyone's lives that help them and all success takes some measure of luck and bravery, but how many people were in your exact same position and ended up somewhere else?

<comment><USER3> The author doesn't mention guilt. For some reason, every time someone says "privilege," there are people who hear "YOU SHOULD FEEL GUILTY!" even when that's not remotely what's being said. Acknowledging privilege doesn't mean feeling bad about it, it means that when trying to understand why something happened (in this case, why a startup was successful) it's important to remember that not everyone started on even footing.

You can feel guilty about other people having less than you if you really want to, but the author isn't suggesting that.

<comment><USER4> Yes! As the author of this article I was completely thrown off when a handful of people responded to with comments about guilt. I don't feel guilty at all for the privilege I have received, and I really tried hard to not come off as guilty-feeling in the tone of the article.

It is unfortunate that so many people jump immediately to feelings of guilt when considering privilege. A better response would be thankfulness for blessings received that you did not deserve and that not everyone gets. No matter your position in life, there are people who have been given more than you and less than you. I think the only useful response to understanding this reality is to feel thankful for what you _have_ been given and to work to help others who received less.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Author here. I've only had a handful of negative reactions to this article, but pretty much all of them have been from white men. I guess I should have expected that. There is a current of guilt that many feel when contemplating privilege. It makes them uncomfortable and they'd rather lash out or argue it away than deal with it. If you find yourself feeling offended reading the article, here is some context:

1\. Please don't read this as an attempt to speak for all White people. Or all men. No one can do that. We all have unique stories that trace their roots back through history. If I don't know you personally there is a good chance I don't know anything about your story either. I don't presume to speak for anyone but myself.

2\. I am in no way trying to say that my privilege comes purely from being White or that all White people have the same privilege as me. Many aspects of my personal privilege have nothing to do with my skin color. I absolutely benefit from the hard work and smart decisions of people in my family that came before me.

3\. It is hard to argue that statistically a disproportionate number of non- White people get the short end of the stick when it comes to generational wealth and privilege in America, but again, everyone's story is unique. There are plenty of people who are born with way more privilege than me. Not all of them are White.

4\. I think guilt is the wrong response to privilege. Gratefulness is a much better response. Privilege is something given to you, that you did not deserve, and that not everyone gets. You don't feel guilty when someone gives you a beautiful gift, you feel thankful. Maybe even loved. In an ideal world, those with privilege would have such a strong response of gratefulness that it would move them to kindness toward others. It certainly motivates me to work to make the world a better place—not out of guilt, but out of thankfulness for the undeserved blessings in my life.

</comment><comment><USER5> A thoughtful introspective acknowledgement of the combination of factors outside of the founder's own efforts that provide the environment for start-up success.

When we tell our own narrative it is easy to be blind to environmental success factors because we grew up among them and they were always there. As natural as air to breath almost.

<comment><USER6> > When we tell our own narrative it is easy to be blind to environmental > success factors

and environmental failure factors too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's unfortunate how defensive people get whenever the term "privilege" comes up. The author is merely acknowledging the beneficial circumstances of his birth and lack of obstacles to his success, but somehow people manage to read this and think it implies they should feel guilty for their relatively easy lives.

I admit it. I am privileged. I thank the Cosmos everyday for the incredibly wonderful life I live and my biggest fear is of losing it. I support social services that try to raise those people up out of poverty, homelessness, or institutional racism. I don't do that out of guilt, but for a genuine concern for the well-being of my fellow human beings who I rely upon every single day for my own well-being. That fast-food work who serves me meals is working much harder for less income than I am, and I appreciate and respect that.

</comment><comment><USER8> I wouldn't call this "privilege" in the strict sense of that word. I think the "generational wealth" term that Jason uses is more accurate.

This helps illustrate that the basic building block of society/economy is more so the family than the individual.

<comment><USER9> Generational wealth is, itself, a form of privilege, but his account references other aspects of privilege besides generational wealth, including, explicitly, qualifications not being discounted because of Whiteness.

So, I don't see how you can both accept the account as given and say it's merely an issue of generational wealth.

<comment><USER8> Strict definition of "privilege" being a special Right granted to a person, or class of people.

I accept his account, and I applaud him for reaching out to those he feels don't have the same opportunity that he had.

Often this type of thinking leads people to believe that violence today will solve the violence of yesterday.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is there a service to interpret raw genetic data from 23andMe? - <AUTHOR>

Due to an FDA order, 23andMe no longer provides health related reports. However, I still have access to raw genetic data. Is there a service/website where I can share this data (anonymously) to see genetic predisposition to various diseases ? <comment><USER2> You can try Promethease[1]. Before going to the Promethease site you should probably go to the detail page on SNPedia[2], which also has desktop versions available and a feature list[3]

\---

1\. [http://promethease.com/](http://promethease.com/)

2\. [http://www.snpedia.com/index.php/Promethease](http://www.snpedia.com/index.php/Promethease)

3\. [http://www.snpedia.com/index.php/Promethease/Features](http://www.snpedia.com/index.php/Promethease/Features)

<comment><USER3> author of promethease here, happy to answer questions.</comment></comment>


Automatic Chess Board Design - <AUTHOR> https://incoherency.co.uk/blog/stories/automatic-chess-board-design.html <comment><USER2> It's also worth mentioning the DGT Centuar board. Uses lights to indicate moves but is a stand-alone device with no internet connectivity. Maybe DGT will use this tech for a smart board in the future?

[https://www.chesshouse.com/products/dgt-centaur-chess- comput...](https://www.chesshouse.com/products/dgt-centaur-chess-computer)

</comment><comment><USER3> You know those doctors office toys with the matrix of pins that you stick your face into? Imagine one of those as the board where the pieces "emerge" up out of it.

<comment><USER4> How do you make vertically concave pieces?

<comment><USER3> You'll certainly have to get creative with the set design.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Great write up - sad to hear of the Regium scam. Does anyone know who's actually behind it?

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't know, but related: at least some of the faces on their about page were actually plucked straight out of thispersondoesnotexist.com!

<comment><USER6> It was a lot of fun tracking the drama.

Regium spent a fair bit of money (10s of 1000s) in ads on chess.comm, chess24.com and at least one magazine (although some of the ads might not have required full up front payment) and the videos and website would have either cost money or time plus software.

chess.com had live ads read on streams by presenters, the presenters looked and sounded really sceptical it was legit, didn't stop them from taking the money and advertising it to their customers, though.

<comment><USER7> Regium spent a total of $2,000 on ads with Chess.com before it was discovered. We have earmarked that money for later this year to be given away to a charity of choice by the winner of the "Best Swindle" prize. More details coming later this year. But again, it wasn't that much money, and we aren't keeping it. :) \- Chess.com

<comment><USER8> This is why I use Chess.com

<comment><USER7> Thanks :D

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> One solution if inelegant would be to just move pieces out of the way then move them back in place. It should be possible to find a path using this mechanism though I'm not sure how many pieces you'd have to move in the worst case.

</comment><comment><USER10> A video of one bishop moving (burried in the article): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_zU5RWM38c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_zU5RWM38c)

</comment><comment><USER11> Quick note:

> the now-defunct "chessprogramming.wikispaces.com"

It's not defunct, it moved to [https://www.chessprogramming.org](https://www.chessprogramming.org)</comment>


The remarkable accuracy of the Trinity College clock - <AUTHOR> https://theconversation.com/the-remarkable-accuracy-of-the-trinity-college-clock-and-what-makes-it-tick-57195 <comment><USER2> "This remarkable accuracy is normally expected of modern electronic timepieces, but the quartz watch on your wrist is probably only good enough to achieve a few seconds' accuracy a week. The Trinity clock with its various clever compensation systems is a remarkable testament to the importance of sound science and the longevity of good engineering."

The quartz watch wasn't supposed to be more accurate than a tower clock. It was supposed to be more durable with about an equal accuracy. You can make a wristwatch more accurate at the expense of battery life, but you can't really wear a tower clock on your wrist!

</comment><comment><USER3> Or consider the Queens' College sundial:

[http://www.queens.cam.ac.uk/life-at-queens/about-the- college...](http://www.queens.cam.ac.uk/life-at-queens/about-the- college/college-facts/reading-the-dial-in-old-court)

<comment><USER4> The Selwyn sundial (my College, FWIW) is also interesting. Rather than showing solar time, it shows the hours since the last sunset and sunrise:

[https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~fhk1/Sundials/Selwyn/Selwyn.pdf](https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~fhk1/Sundials/Selwyn/Selwyn.pdf)

<comment><USER3> Nice, I haven't seen that one (I was at Churchill, which doesn't have a decent sundial AFAIK, despite Frank King being a Fellow ("Chairman of the British Sundial Society" apparently - he did the Queens' recalibration as well as that Selwyn dial).

Magdalene has a interesting modern dial too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Pretty cool though I still prefer the Corpus clock a few yards down the road [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpus_Clock](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpus_Clock)

<comment><USER4> I enjoy the design of it, but it is worth bearing in mind that:

> The clock is entirely accurate only once every five minutes. The rest of the > time, the pendulum may seem to catch or stop, and the lights may lag or, > then, race to get ahead. According to Taylor, this erratic motion reflects > life's "irregularity".

<comment><USER5> That was done deliberately and must have been quite hard to achieve. He did it to make it more interesting [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NSKCuwnh_U&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NSKCuwnh_U&feature=youtu.be&t=1m59s)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Those interested by this article may enjoying browsing through Hugh Hunt's other pieces - he's done some pretty amazing things in the name of popular engineering! [http://www2.eng.cam.ac.uk/~hemh/](http://www2.eng.cam.ac.uk/~hemh/)

</comment><comment><USER7> "Pigeons can also play havoc with time."

This has to be the best single sentence to take out of context. When I read that, my first thought was, "Especially if you're trying to run NTP over RFC1149."

</comment><comment><USER8> also interesting: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shortt- Synchronome_clock](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shortt-Synchronome_clock)

</comment><comment><USER9> What is keeping the pendulum swinging?

What is the Q-factor of this clock?

<comment><USER10> I just did a quick Google search and found this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jz9nxzgtBaU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jz9nxzgtBaU)

It's wound up like any other old pendulum clock.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Upvoted for pointing me to The Conversation. Great find! Academic results presented in a readable fashion, but by the study authors rather than a Chinese Whispers of journalists ignorant of the topic.</comment>


Japan facing credit card number shortage - <AUTHOR> https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20200821/p2a/00m/0bu/025000c <comment><USER2> What's crazy is that we've had public key encryption for over 40 years, and we're still publishing magic numbers on little pieces of plastic that give whoever sees them the power to take all our money without our consent.

<comment><USER3> Why on earth would we want this?

Right now all of the burden is on the credit card companies. Any fraud is their liability.

If we switch things up, and implement something like passwords or pins, WE get the liability. That's worse than our current situation. And given how badly people get hacked or phished, all it means is that consumers lose.

Right now, those "magic little numbers" work great, and in the case of fraud, we are protected. I don't want the situation to reverse itself and have us the first to suffer from fraud.

<comment><USER4> Fraud results in higher prices for consumers through higher prices and credit card interest/fees.

<comment><USER5> Sure, but this is fundamentally the same deal as insurance: we distribute the cost across the whole population at a constant, low cost rather than ask individuals to take a big hit with low probability.

Unless you can eliminate fraud, those are basically your two choices.

<comment><USER6> > Unless you can eliminate fraud

Which is exactly the purpose of good security measures.

Bad or nonexistent measures and an insurance against fraud slapped on all prices is a local maximum. Good security measures which really push back the fraud and allow prices to drop the insurance premium is obviously a better local maximum.

You also don't have to eliminate 100% of fraud, just make it so rare that you can basically ignore the risk because it happening to you is as unlikely as being struck by lightning (or any other risk of life that people are comfortable to ignore due to it being vanishingly small). The classic credit card fraud with magstripes was the exact opposite of that: there was almost no credit card owner who didn't get hit by it, and while people generally didn't lose money due to reimbursement by the cc companies, they still lost time and nerves over some stupid interruption in their lives that was entirely unnecessary in the first place.

I myself had one of my cards suddenly deactivated by the bank because of alleged fraud (it wasn't even real fraud, just some heuristic going crazy over an actually intended payment). I was on a cruise ship in the Caribbean sea when it happened and all of a sudden couldn't pay my beers with my ship card anymore. Fortunately I had a second card with me that was working so I continued using that, but in order to switch my onboard expenses account over to it I had to spend some time at the customer service desk on the ship, where there was a row of passengers standing at phones, occasionally speaking with someone in various languages, but most of the time they seemed to be waiting in silence for some kind of response. It took me a few minutes of overheard conversation until I realized that these guys were in the same spot that I was, but less well prepared; they didn't have another credit card with them and thus had to call their banks back home in order to get them to unlock their accounts again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Something not clear from the article: The tech already supports longer numbers. Diners, Discover, UnionPay cards already allow up to 19 digits officially. The problem could be in the custom forms which think 4x4 is the right format, but the back-end should "just work" with them.

What I really don't understand is why the article makes it seem like a national problem given the prefix is assigned to the companies, rather than countries as such. (Although companies will get ranges and then assign specific IINs countries normally)

It seems that IINs are undergoing changes anyway and April 2022 is a deadline for everyone to support 8-digit prefixes correctly.

<comment><USER8> I've run into multiple issues already with poorly designed forms on sites that claim to accept Amex that freak out when I enter my 15-digit card number, I would love to see the mess that adding longer numbers would cause.

<comment><USER9> Or forms that accept the 15 digit Amex number, but then freak out when there's a 4 digit cvv :|

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> >the company decided to take makeshift measures such as reusing credit card numbers of discontinued cards after a certain period had passed since cardholders canceled their memberships. However, there are considerable risks of fraudulent usage

What are the risks here, and why aren't they already present by someone generating credit card numbers with a RNG? AFAIK credit card transactions are authenticated by at least expiration date and cvv, so there isn't a risk of reusing credit card numbers.

>and a source close to the credit card industry said, "Increasing the number of digits is the only real way to deal with the problem. There will likely be a shift toward increasing the number of digits in the first half of this decade."

ipv6 deployment all over again

<comment><USER11> What if they switched CC numbers TO IPV6 addresses? Insane or genius?

<comment><USER6> Only slightly more insane than keeping the handy 4x4 format, but extending it from base 10 numbers to base 16, which I would really love to see :D

<comment><USER12> They would need to EOL over-the-phone payments to do this. People have horrible diction and it's hard to tell the difference between b, c, d, and e when a particularly lazy lipped person says these letters (in addition to non- hex letters like g, p, t, and v). Then they use their own ambiguous phonetic system (b as in ball, c as in call, d as in doll will confuse anyone trying to distinguish between the three). Oh and this compounds on ambiguous sounding digits like 13 and 30; 14 and 40; 15, 16, 50 and 60; 17 and 70; 18 and 80; 19 and 90). It can't be done with DTMF digits anymore either.

All in all not a bad direction to go in. I wouldn't really miss phone payments.

<comment><USER13> Why don't we teach schoolchildren the NATO phonetic alphabet? Seems like it wouldn't take that long, and it would be a useful skill for their whole life.

<comment><USER12> We should. There are so many adults who think it's cute to make up their own phonetics not realizing the whole purpose is to reduce ambiguity, not make it fun to spell things aloud.

<comment><USER14> As an adult who tries to remember the NATO phonetic alphabet but can't because I only use it once per month, I don't make up words "for fun" or "to be cute". I do it because I can't remember the NATO word. Compared to just saying the letters, the words I choose certainly _do_ reduce ambiguity, even if using the NATO alphabet would go even further.

<comment><USER15> Some good advice I got from a HAM was to read license plates in your head using the NATO alphabet. Their letters are mostly random so you tend to see each letter at roughly the same frequency and it can be done daily without taking away time from your schedule. Being random also prevents you from just remembering the order of the words and actually associating them with their respective letters.

After doing that for a week or two (I was bike commuting at the time), I had it pretty much memorized.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Assuming the last digit is a checksum and the first six are taken by the routing information, that leaves them 9 digits or a billion possible numbers per credit card issuer. Japan has a population of about 125 million. Are Japanese people cycling their numbers so frequently? Or are they big on ephemeral card numbers?

Is it not possible for an issuer to get a second prefix if they run out of digits?

I also wonder if credit card numbers aren't living on borrowed time anyway. Instead of adding more digits it might make sense to remove the digits entirely and only allow token based transactions. This does assume we figure out a way to do online purchases not using the digits.

<comment><USER17> > Assuming the last digit is a checksum and the first six are taken by the > routing information, that leaves them 9 digits or a billion possible numbers > per credit card issuer. Japan has a population of about 125 million. Are > Japanese people cycling their numbers so frequently? Or are they big on > ephemeral card numbers?

Credit cards - and payment methods generally - are in their Cambrian explosion phase right now in Japan, particularly given the pandemic. Every company, big or small, is pushing their own. I recently had to open a new credit card because the gym I wanted to join only accepts payment via their partnered credit cards. It came with a linked electronic money card (as well as having native integration for a different electronic money format) that has what looks like its own 16 digit credit card number, presumably for internal payment infrastructure reasons, and an offer to apply for a separate linked credit card for shopping in China, three other kinds of linked electronic money cards (one for a supermarket chain, one for a local transport network)...

Every shopping mall is pushing their card. My phone provider offered two olympic tie-in cards and a regular version (that would actually save me money if I could face going through the application). A theatre troupe I follow has a deep partnership with a card issuer and has their own branded cards. Bands have their own cards. Virtually any outfit with a loyalty/membership card is trying to turn it into a credit card. And so people can easily have multiple cards that they never use, because their loyalty card became a credit card but they're still only using it as a loyalty card.

<comment><USER18> Most of these "branded" cards will have an underlying issuing bank/acquirer, not their own identification on the card.

The way that the 16 digits are allocated is defined as per [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payment_card_number#Structure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payment_card_number#Structure)

So of the 16 digits for the majority of cards:

Digit 1-6(8): Scheme and issuer identification Digits 7-15: Account identification Digit 16: Check digit (Luhn algorithm)

So most issuers have 10 digits to "play with" to identify the account.

So Japan is either running out of issuer identifiers, which sounds excessive, or they have been allocating them badly.

<comment><USER17> Sure, but if I have 8 different cards issued by SMBC then that's still 8 cards.

<comment><USER19> Seconding this. I have multiple cards by SMCC, some basically given to me.

There's also a lot of "virtual credit card" offerings right now to pair with peer-to-peer payment apps. I imagine that those need to get cycled through frequently.

8 is not an exageration.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Semi-off-topic, but does anyone know about the "churning" culture in Japan vs the US? What are the numbers? Here in the US you can generally expect sign up bonuses of a few hundred dollars, and a return of around 2% on your transactions, with category bonuses up to 5%. What do people get in Japan? I've just Googled it, and apparently some cards get 1 mile per 100 JPY (approximately 1%) - do some get more than that? What about sign up bonuses?

To give the European perspective, there's much less "churning", available, partly because of laws that limit transaction fees. Sign up bonuses are usually around $50-$150, and many cards have no benefits _and_ an annual fee. Cashback, if you do get it, is usually 1% or less, with exceptions going up to 1.5% or so.

<comment><USER21> In Japan:

For no annual fee card, Signup bonus without paying is around 1000-9000 JPY depending on running campaign. Some cards also offers bonus with paying, rate is vary but around 4-20% and max bonus is around 2000-10000 JPY.

I'm not very familiar but for annual fee card, signup bonus without paying is around 5000-30000 JPY and bonus with paying is similar rate and max is around 10000-100000 JPY.

To get max bonus, you should use cashback sites.

For transaction bonus, 0.5% return is basic (card from bank, gold card, random shop's card), 1.0% is standard for return-oriented card (like Rakuten, d-card), 1.2%-1.5% is top return-oriented card (like Recruit). Most return- oriented card is no annual fee.

* Now 3% is super prominent top return rate by LINE Pay card (that's no annual fee) but it's run by campaign until 2021/05.

Cards for airline is different story, maybe 1mile/100 JPY is good return on annual fee card (I'm not familiar but IMO airline card isn't majority due to less people travel to overseas).

Transaction fee for merchant is rumored below 2% for big player (like 7-11), around 3% is standard for real shops. Old contract may charges much more fee.

Big difference with US is that Most cards is monthly-clear style so less revenue from revolving credit fee. Card issuers trying hard customers to using revolving payment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Beyond assigning IINs more judiciously, credit rating systems could drop the concept of "more accounts = better credit". It would discourage people from opening 7 credit cards to raise scores, when 1 or 2 would do.

<comment><USER23> I have 4 unused cards I keep open just for this, seems a complete waste for every body.

<comment><USER22> Make sure to use them every once in awhile, otherwise the issuer may close them.

<comment><USER24> I have mine with automatic payments on setup on them and a couple reoccuring bills on each so there is consistent activity and is paid in full before the end of the billing period for just this reason.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Can Japan not obtain another country code from Visa/Mastercard (part of the first 6 digits)?

<comment><USER26> I assume that it could work as a temporary solution but the article hints that this problem will likely become global soon. So, instead of moving numbers, it's easier to add some and increase the possible combinations.

<comment><USER27> I think it's better (for Japan) to force it into a global problem than a domestic problem. Then more people will care about fixing it and the issuers will retain international interoperability.

<comment><USER28> No, let's first see how Japan fixes it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> SUrely, there's some inefficiency in how numbers are used... 10 quadrillion for 7.5 billion people isn't enough?

<comment><USER30> The first digits are a header identifying the type of the card, (visa, mastercard...) and probably other characteristics.

The main problem is that in Japan everybody has like 5 credit cards, because every big company has its own financial branch and issues cards (maybe to profit from a "reservoir" effect of the accounts?). So you have a credit card linked to your clothes shop, one from your supermarket, one from Rakuten (Japan's Amazon), etc. You get points when you buy things from the company linked to your card. I don't know how it is in US, but it certainly isn't like that in France for example.

<comment><USER7> "everyone" may be a bit extreme. There seems to be a national goal of going more cashless, but right now they're one of the most cash-based countries: [https://www.statista.com/chart/19868/share-of-cash- payments-...](https://www.statista.com/chart/19868/share-of-cash-payments-in- different-countries/) Japan had 82% cash transactions compared to 14% in South Korea. From personal experience it's relatively normal to find a food place in Tokyo which has no card reader at all.

<comment><USER30> Yeah, lots of credit cards does not mean one can use cashless payment everywhere, paradoxically...

It's more 5 cards than 15, I admit... I edited my comment accordingly. It still seems a lot to me, why not just one?

<comment><USER7> I was going to agree it's a lot... but then realised every one of my grocery gift cards has a PAN attached, which means I'm going through 2-3 numbers a month myself. (Not in Japan) Then again, I expect the shop to recycle those faster than Visa.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Seems like companies not using all of theirs (and defunct or quasi-defunct companies) could sell off unused chunks.

</comment><comment><USER32> This is a ridiculous story.

Japan has a population of 150M.

If you can't give folks a number from SIXTEEN digits - something is wrong with the folks giving out the numbers.

Some answers to the excuses. The 6 digits at front, if a company legit runs out of numbers, ask for another prefix.

The reality. Instead of using the numbers properly (random ID to tie to a user account) they are probably putting some kind of structure into the digits that results in very inefficient use.

These are the 10 digits available PER PREFIX!

1,234,567,890

Even with a check digit you are at a billion numbers PER PREFIX! You can't get 125 million folks into this address space?

Absolutely pitiful.

<comment><USER33> > You can't get 125 million folks into this address space?

I think some people are now using a new card number _per transaction_ , with these disposable card numbers, aren't they?

<comment><USER34> You're talking about services like Google/Apple Pay right? Aren't these credit card numbers rotated by Google/Apple, and they just keep some mapping of userIds, transactionIds, and rotated cardIds?

<comment><USER33> No I think you can genuinely get disposable real credit card numbers.

[https://www.theukdomain.uk/virtual-credit-card-numbers- every...](https://www.theukdomain.uk/virtual-credit-card-numbers-everything- you-need-to-know/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> >In the case that the number of card digits will be increased, it is necessary to discuss within the industry whether the 16-digit cards that already exist should all be changed into new cards as well, or if the two types can exist alongside each other.

This is literally a non issue. Amex cards have 15 digits and a 4 digit CVV I've literally never had any issues with it.

<comment><USER21> AMEX isn't major in Japan so possibly some Visa/Master only systems causes a problem.

<comment><USER35> But they definitely operate in Japan. Doesn't matter if they are major or not.

And the acceptance was great, when I was in Japan I never had to resort to my backup MAsterCard.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Maybe its time to move to a uuid-type card number - prefix with country code to increase the available space even more.

</comment><comment><USER37> Incoming credit card v6 fiasco?

</comment><comment><USER38> Strange that systems have limitations like this. I know, there's always design trade offs.

This is just one of those things that looks like it should be _last_number += 1_

<comment><USER39> I hear that would be insecure, just like SSNs.

<comment><USER38> It doesn't have to literally be incremented, my thinking was just that you can't really run out of numbers.

But then again if they used something like a 32 bit int and don't us sequential numbers, I suppose retrofitting for a 64 bit int might take a decent amount of work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Time to move towards practical pubkey based payment systems like Monero. You can never run out of cryptographic key pairs.

</comment><comment><USER41> I've been saying for years we should switch to credit card numbers which are a nice easy sha512

</comment><comment><USER42> I'd like a unique card number with every transaction, that I set online to exactly the amount I'm spending. And it expires after that one use.

Eliminates risk of 'stealing' a credit card, mostly.

But it would use a butt-ton of numbers. Maybe a UUID?

<comment><USER33> > that I set online to exactly the amount I'm spending

Sounds like it would take longer at checkout though?

<comment><USER42> Lots of my spending is online. Like everybody else, considering Amazon's success.

<comment><USER33> Ok... sounds like it would take longer at _online_ checkout then.

<comment><USER42> Unless somebody wrote an app, or the store cooperated like PayPal, or 100 other things.

Lets try to imagine a better future?

<comment><USER33> Don't you already get this with Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode? You don't need new credit card numbers to do this.

But merchants don't implement it... because it's an extra step and consumers don't like it. The very last thing a merchant wants to do is put an extra step in front of someone _just about_ to buy.

<comment><USER42> Exactly. That's why, a new number for every transaction. No merchant requirement.

<comment><USER33> I don't understand how you think you can get a new number for each transaction without any extra step getting in the way? How does your card issuer know you want a new number and how much to set the limit?

Do you go to an app? That's a separate step. Consumers demonstrably don't want extra steps.

Do you integrate it with the merchant and do it automatically? Then it's no safer as there's no authorisation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> IPv6 for credit cards. This should be fun!

</comment><comment><USER44> Just buy them off Russians ;D

</comment><comment><USER45> blockchain is looking for problems :)

</comment><comment><USER46> I wonder how this became a problem. Your CC number is not just 16 digits long. It's 16, plus expiration, plus the 3-4 extra security digits, plus your name, plus your zip code. That's quite a lot of entropy.

<comment><USER47> That's not true. The number is just the number, though it can be more than 16 digits. The initial six digits identify the card issuer. Expiration and CVC/CCV are security checks, but only work in combination with the number. Name is generally not verified, though is often used in fraud assessment. Address verification is uncommon, and almost unused outside the US.

<comment><USER35> > Address verification is uncommon, and almost unused outside the US.

Billing address verification is extensively used in the UK.</comment></comment></comment>


Why Far-Flung Parts of the Internet Broke Today - <AUTHOR> http://www.renesys.com/2014/09/why-the-internet-broke-today/

<comment><USER2> > Note that this particular routing leak resulted in no new routes and > therefore didn't increase the size of the global routing table.

Which, if you worry about these things, is on your mind nowadays.

</comment><comment><USER3> _" When Atrato briefly returned as a provider at 06:49 UTC, VolumeDrive passed them nearly all the routes it learned from Cogent. Evidently Atrato did not have the circuit breaker on the quantity of routes it would accept from VolumeDrive (MAXPREF), because it in turn announced these routes to the rest of the world."_

Presumably Atrato's upstreams could also have been configured to disregard unreasonable announcements?

</comment><comment><USER4> VolumeDrive - what a surprise. They're a disgrace in the hosting world and I strongly advise anyone against using their services (they don't pay their bills for DC space, equipment, etc, [http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1296858](http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1296858)).

</comment><comment><USER5> Thanks, was meaning to look this up today when my internet came back.</comment>