GravityLight: Generate light with gravity - <AUTHOR> http://gravitylight.org/gravitylight <comment><USER2> There's a lot of reasons why this is cool, but I'm skeptical about it's aims to get rid of kerosene lamps.

Kerosene lamps are made with garbage. They can be replaced in minutes if there's a problem. Fuel costs are high, yes, but capital costs and maintenance are low. Those matter.

To really make this a long term win, you need to make it indestructible and easy to repair with on-hand parts. I hope they can do that.

<comment><USER3> It looks like they are trying to make them in a locally sustainable manner...

>We're doing this in our approach to distributing GravityLight

>We are partnering with local networks of people earning a living by selling products such as GravityLight, rather than disrupting local markets and jobs with free giveaways.

>We're doing this in our manufacturing strategy

>We aim to create jobs and skills in the regions where GravityLight will be sold, firstly by establishing an assembly line in Kenya.

from [http://gravitylight.org/our-approach-3/](http://gravitylight.org/our- approach-3/)

\---

And it looks like they've already run into robustness issues, but they weren't due to cheap plastic components, and it looks like they've modified the system to deal with them...

>GL01 had a protection mechanism that clearly indicated an overload with a red light, and helped reduce damage to the gear teeth by allowing it to run more swiftly, but this did not make it indestructible. An entirely novel way of protecting the system has been designed for GL02. It will allow an overloaded bag to descend to the ground in a safe and controlled manner, repeatedly.

>GL02 suspends the bag from a pulley, which reduces the strain on the cord and the gearing. This also decreases the loading on the drive system and permits a smaller gearbox ratio, which helps to improve efficiency.

from [http://gravitylight.org/coming-soon- gl02/](http://gravitylight.org/coming-soon-gl02/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I implore people to support something far more practical like [http://www.solar-aid.org/](http://www.solar-aid.org/) than this.

Solar lights are many times more thermodynamically efficient, cheaper to make, smaller and much more robust (no moving parts!).

This "lifting weights" thing is a silly gimmick. A lifted weight stores a miniscule amount of energy compared to a battery that's been charged by the sun.

<comment><USER5> Don't both have their places? There are benefits to having a power source that is a) not dependent on a resource that is not available at all times and b) does not require a charging period.

It's sort of like people in the late 19th century saying you shouldn't support the development of automobiles, because boats are much more efficient way to move cargo. While true, it does nothing to address the fact that in some cases the use of a boat makes no sense, such as transporting to a land-locked location.

<comment><USER4> "Don't both have their places?"

It's more that this "invention" has been bouncing around for a while and gets an unwarranted amount of attention for the amount of energy it can provide. Weird to think, but solar isn't "sexy" in the same way.

<comment><USER6> "D'oh, we forgot to charge our solar light earlier today."

"No worries, we'll just use the gravity light for now."

That scenario seems reasonable to me. The point is not the amount of energy the technique provides. The point is the utility people get out of it. And I see a place for both; GravityLight _and_ Solar Aid seem like great projects.

<comment><USER7> I think they would be good in a mine safe room or something, no need to ever replace batteries right. There are a bunch of cases you might not have a charged light.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Years ago there was a similar 'potential energy to electricity' buzz and I was initially quite excited. Then I did the math on how much energy is actually available (even at 100% efficiency) from such a scheme. Spoiler - it's minuscule.

E = mass x 9.81 x height

So a 10kg mass at 2 meters can (@ 100% efficiency) provide 196 joules of energy. A modern cell phone battery has about 25000 joules. To charge said phone would require raising that weight well over 127 times.

<comment><USER9> But this isn't for charging a phone; it's for having light, right now.

<comment><USER10> 1 watt of led light would require 1 Newton at 1 meters per second. Assuming 100 kg is the highest practicable mass, so that's 1000 Newtons -> 1/1000 m/s for each watt. Assuming a height of 2 meters, you could operate a very dim 2 watt led light for 17 minutes. I think that's not practical.

<comment><USER11> Or, using the numbers provided for this actual product which exists, rather than a spherical LED on a frictionless plane, we raise a 12kg mass 1.8m and get a 0.1W LED light for 20 minutes. Do you think THAT's practical?

<comment><USER12> 0.1W LED light is as bright as one of those clip on book reading lights, they only look bright in pictures. It's not quite useless, but you can build a 0.1w for 12 hour solar light with a 12' cord for ~2$ making the whole thing a joke.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Here's what people said about it 3 years ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4889266](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4889266)

<comment><USER14> It's amazing the amount of people who immediately cry hoax. Someone raised a good point about taking money from locals and bringing it to Europe/America/China, but clearly this isn't breaking the law of physics.

<comment><USER15> The original OLPC attempted to ship a pull-cord generator. Trevor Bayliss, of Freeplay radio fame, proposed a generator based on hoisting a weight on a branch of a tree. The principle is sound. As for taking money from locals, I would be surprised if kerosene was produced locally... and even if it was, this is a one-time expense, versus an ongoing outlay.

<comment><USER16> I worked at OLPC. We didn't ship any kinetic charging systems as the most reliable ones had a mean time to failure on the order of ~three full charges. The scheme was cute and captured the imagination of people in the developed west but is fundamentally unsound due to the cost of high precision, reliable manual chargers and their miniscule power output. In addition to yielding only several full charges before the $50 charging unit failed, each charge would require tens of thousands of revolutions of a hand crank. As wonderful as the laptop was I think it would be a very strange thing for a child to do when they could easily play with something more immediate.

In practice most of the laptops are charged like other laptops--- from national power grids. Those that aren't are charged from diesel generators and solar power.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Its cool our energy problems are being solved in two directions at once. We are (slowly) making better energy storage and generation devices. At the same time many of our energy needs go down by the rapid decrease in energy needed to power the electronics. It would be cool to see a graph of the watts/lumen efficiency of light bulbs over the last 50 years and of the joules/operation of CPUs.

<comment><USER18> Manhour/lumen is the only measure I know of that captures all of the elements of economic growth and can be estimated for every culture and back to before the development of spoken language.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Nitpick, I know, but: it's not powered by gravity it's powered by human muscles, so in the end - by food.

<comment><USER20> If we're playing that game:

\- Human muscles get energy from food.

\- Food is or gets its energy from plants.

\- Plants get energy from the Sun.

\- The Sun's energy comes from gravity-forced fusion.

So gravity :)

<comment><USER21> So by your logic fossil fuel is solar energy.

<comment><USER22> It is. Except for geothermal energy brought on by radioactive decay, all energy on earth originally comes from the sun. Fossil fuel is sunlight that was absorbed by plants which then either decomposed into fuel over millions of years, or were eaten by animals which later decomposed into fuel over millions of years. Our cars are powered by very old, stored sunlight.

<comment><USER23> And radioactive elements come from long dead suns, so all energy on earth originally comes from A sun.

<comment><USER24> You are now qualified to take a job as an oil company or nuclear energy lobbyist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The basic idea here is actually a very old approach -- clocks have been powered this way for centuries. But it's very cool and refreshing to see a modern electrical spin on it.

<comment><USER26> Might be fun to make an electric clock that uses gravity, go full circle.

<comment><USER27> Rotor systems like in some automatic watches produce very little energy. Even at 100% efficiency it wouldn't be able to sustain an electronic circuit.

Edit: I was wrong. See below.

<comment><USER28> Seiko Kinetic watches are quartz watches that are powered by movement. That's 30 year old technology.

<comment><USER27> I stand corrected

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Perhaps a bit of a novelty given the rechargeable battery argument others have mentioned. I imagine distributing a bunch of these with batteries and having a central dynamo-powered recharging station that gets shared throughout a community would be even more practical.

The first thing that came to mind when I saw that it lasts 20 minutes would be to use it as a pomodoro timer. Code for 20 minutes, then be forced to take a break, stand up, lift the weight, etc. You get a micro-workout as a small bonus. Again, it's a novelty but sort of a cool one at that.

</comment><comment><USER30> I was rather hoping this would be a hawking radiation method, i.e. actually generating light using gravity

<comment><USER31> You and I both. This isn't even carbon neutral. I mean technically this is burning carbon molecules.

<comment><USER32> burning carbon molecules sourced from photosynthesis. Carbon positive, but the fuel generation is carbon negative, so it balances out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Loads of great social tech ideas including this one on Social Tech Guide ([http://socialtech.org.uk/](http://socialtech.org.uk/)), nominations are open for new ones at the moment if you come across any more..

<comment><USER34> Why downvote this? Seems legit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> A 12kg weight hanging 6 feet in the air seems a little dangerous to me. Definitely less dangerous than a kerosene lamp, but I'd be worried about poorly attached weights falling if someone bumps their head on it.

<comment><USER36> Do you own a TV? It's certainly way more dangerous than that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> This is wonderful. I plan to buy at least one for emergencies, and also to help make them cheaper for others.

<comment><USER38> A battery powered LED torch is far superior for emergencies. The only reason you'd really want to use this is if you _really_ can't afford a solar- rechargable battery. (But for some reason can afford this, which I'd expect to be more expensive.)

<comment><USER39> Although that might be true, battery powered flashlights/torches suffer from the problem of leaky batteries. I've tried to use many flashlights that don't work, only to find the batteries have started to leak acid and ruined the flashlight. Sure, one should check the batteries every year or so, but who really does that? I'm not saying the gravitylight is a good replacement, just that battery powered flashlights do have some drawbacks.

<comment><USER40> This is what lithium primaries are for; they don't leak.

<comment><USER26> And before anyone jumps in and says "lithium batteries self discharge!" Yes, yes they do. But it's really, really small. It discharges quickly initially, but then tapers off to about 1% per month.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> 12kg * 10 m/s^2 * 1 m = 120j. Best 100 w equivalent led is 18 watts, 120j/18w < 10s. Let's say optimistically a next gen led gets 10x efficiency (this might violate laws of physics), you're buying one minute of good light per 1 m lift.

</comment><comment><USER42> For those interested on exactly how to set one up and how it works, there is a great Vimeo video outlining installation and operation:

[https://vimeo.com/128802766](https://vimeo.com/128802766)

</comment><comment><USER43> what is the deep difference between this mechanism and a simple spring / coil?

<comment><USER44> Precisely the same question I have as well. Especially given that the energy you could store in a spring or coil could be much more, and you are not limited by one's lifting capacity or maximum height. Anyone have an idea?

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> You need to lift a 10KG weight about 2 kilometres to get a teaspoon of kerosene's energy, so it's not a great replacement on that front, and having 10KG weights dangling around at variable points between ceiling and floor sounds if anything even more of a liability than a lamp with a naked flame, which does at least stay where its put. Sorry to be negative but it's difficult to conceive of a realistic scenario where decent battery plus solar doesn't knock this into a cocked hat.

<comment><USER46> > You need to lift a 10KG weight about 2 kilometres to get a teaspoon of > kerosene's energy, so it's not a great replacement on that front

This says nothing of light output. If you want light, and most of kerosene's output is heat, your energy calculation is not helpful.

> and having 10KG weights dangling around at variable points between ceiling > and floor sounds if anything even more of a liability than a lamp with a > naked flame

This seems like an incredibly contrived "problem". What's the liability? Somebody may bump into a somewhat heavy object that is moving downwards at a barely perceptible clip? Somebody may tweak their back lifting the weight? That seems lower risk than my housing burning down with me in it.

<comment><USER45> Okay, okay, you are right of course, the light efficiency is very different, although the heat may not be an altogether unwanted by-product in many cases. There are also more efficient ways of getting light from petroleum than sticking a wick in it. But if you do want the benefits of LEDs, there are better ways of getting the energy than lifting sacks to the ceiling. It's still 180 meters for a pair of AA rechargeables.

I genuinely don't think the hazards are at all contrived, and range from the grave if unlikely to the mild but virtually certain. You are surely going to knock your head on this massive hovering, albeit reasonably well lit, object on a regular basis, and it might not be as soft and rounded as the illustration. On the floor, in dark mode, you'll be tripping over it, which doesn't always end comically. Reasonable precautions not withstanding it's not impossible that it could crush or smother something beneath it even at its snail's pace, but more likely it could come down hard through overloading, wear or misuse. It's really not something I'd want in a family home.

It is a nice idea and obviously of the very best intentions but I'm afraid it's simply misguided and efforts would be far better directed towards battery plus solar. Sorry.

<comment><USER47> I would say the hazards of this device sure beat the hazards of kerosene lamps (fire, mostly). [1] lists a series of accidents with kerosene lamps in a three year period in a small town. I think a horse kicking over a kerosene lantern started one of the big Chicago fires. There's even a possibility that a kerosene lamp caused a deadly fire in modern USA [2]. And I'm guessing that fire would be a serious problem in small, dense areas such as the slums (not intended pejoratively) in the third world nations that are likely to have the most use for this.

Solar plus battery might be better than this, but this looks like a whole lot better than a kerosene lamp.

[1] [http://www.thelampworks.com/lw_lamp_accidents.htm](http://www.thelampworks.com/lw_lamp_accidents.htm)

[2] [http://www.chicoer.com/20120322/kerosene-lamp-may-have- cause...](http://www.chicoer.com/20120322/kerosene-lamp-may-have-caused- deadly-browns-valley-fire)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> It looks quite a bit more plausible than the specs in [http://www.howtospotapsychopath.com/2008/03/03/stop-press- pi...](http://www.howtospotapsychopath.com/2008/03/03/stop-press-pixie-dust- unsuitable-for-household-lighting/) , but based on my experience with things like shake/crank torches, the light output would have to be really low to last as long as they claim it does.

</comment><comment><USER49> Doing Good Better - [http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/07/doi...](http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/07/doing- good-better.html)

</comment><comment><USER50> these look interesting... but like all things like this i wonder what the actual costs are of lifting the weight is?</comment>


Show HN: Open-Sourced CodeCademy-Style Tutorials in Atom - <AUTHOR> https://coderoad.github.io <comment><USER2> Interesting new spin on learning code by doing.</comment>


New Colourised Dickens Image Released Ahead of 150th Death Anniversary - <AUTHOR> https://dickensmuseum.com/blogs/news/new-colourised-dickens-image-released-ahead-of-150th-death-anniversary <comment><AUTHOR> [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jun/03/museum- photo-s...](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jun/03/museum-photo-set- colourful-side-charles-dickens-colourised-images-author-tanned)

</comment><comment><USER2> Bloody hell. I could have knocked that up in about 20 minutes in Photoshop.</comment>


Ask HN: TDD-Oriented Resources for Learning iOS/Swift Programming? - <AUTHOR> I'm an experienced software engineer (~15 years, mostly web apps) with an idea for an iOS app. I'm not especially intimidated by a new language, but the ecosystem and iOS frameworks are confounding. What resources do you recommend for jumping in and "doing things right"? <comment><USER2> The big nerd ranch guide is the standard. [https://www.amazon.com/iOS- Programming-Ranch-Guide-Guides/dp...](https://www.amazon.com/iOS-Programming- Ranch-Guide-Guides/dp/0134390733)

It's not TDD but I there aren't many guides that do TDD in general.

<comment><USER3> <strike>While at launch it was a decent book, at this time the book is outdated, you are better off using Apple's book on Swift 2.2 (and soon 3).</strike>

Edit: My bad I was talking about _Swift Programming The Big Nerd Ranch Guide_.

<comment><USER4> The book was released 6 months ago. I am halfway through it. Why do you say it is outdated?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hey I have some time behind the iOS Dev "wheel" (about 12 iOS apps shipped, some better than others :/ ) , I'm between jobs/contracts and just hanging out so if you want someone to bounce questions off of feel free, or even better we can schedule 45 min and I'll give you the walk through of the fora and fauna of iOS SDK's ( it's not that hard after a bit of coaching ) . my email is in my profile . Good luck !

</comment><comment><USER6> How about Swift Koans?

[https://github.com/mokagio/Swift-Koans](https://github.com/mokagio/Swift- Koans)</comment>


San Francisco delays Mission housing over potentially historic laundromat - <AUTHOR> https://sf.curbed.com/2018/2/14/17012606/laundromat-2918-mission-delay-historic-ronen <comment><USER2> For every "historic" place where a president slept overnight, 99 more are these. And people wonder why housing is so expensive in SF.

<comment><USER3> No one wonders</comment></comment>


Understanding AdSense account suspensions due to invalid traffic - <AUTHOR> https://adsense.googleblog.com/2017/03/understanding-account-suspensions-due.html <comment><USER2> We were banned from AdSense in 2010 with no explanation. [https://www.choiceofgames.com/2010/08/were-banned-from- googl...](https://www.choiceofgames.com/2010/08/were-banned-from-google- adsense/)

Over the years, Google has published posts like these, little FAQs that tell you nothing useful.

Just once I wish they'd answer the only question anybody really has: what do I do if I'm innocent? What if Google made a mistake? There's a clear path forward for organizations who admit wrongdoing and promise to change, but no one can help you if you've done nothing wrong.

<comment><USER3> This blog post is a slap in the face. Google should be ashamed.

We had been using AdSense for 10 years and had our account disabled after a competitor used a bot to click on the ads 10k+ times. This particular individual messaged me after doing so and bragged about how our account would be banned.

We forwarded the message to Google, asked them to remove those clicks, and told them we took measures to prevent this individual from doing it again. The next month, we were banned by Google on pay day. We appealed and got an automated denial. When we tried to get information from our Google contacts, we were told to make sure our family wasn't clicking on the ads.

Fortunately, we weren't reliant on AdSense, but it was insulting to be treated like children by this company. I'm glad that I won't have to deal with such an unethical company again, at least until they randomly disable my Google account.

So, to sum up this blog post: your competitors can spend a couple bucks to shut you down permanently, and Google will treat you like a child.

<comment><USER4> I won't generalize here and say all Google support sucks, Google support for both Adwords and AdSense sucks so incredibly bad.

I don't understand how their CORE money making products can be staffed by untrained and in my experience uneducated foreign workers.

I've been an AdWords customer for probably 10 years, I won't say how much money I've spent (on behalf of clients) because it would sound like bragging but you would think with that much I'd get some sort of concierge treatment, or at least some sort of "direct line."

Even basic questions and support tickets don't get answered correctly, or in a timely manner.

The sad part is their marketing is so on point. I get clients that get coupons in the mail all the time looking to sign up, and end up not signing up because they arent willing to deal with a non-English speaking person reading from a "conditional logic support script."

<comment><USER5> Can anyone here provide an example of "good" support from google?

<comment><USER6> Depending on what you mean by support, when one of my youtube videos was falsely copyright claimed, I disputed it and the claim was removed. When another video was falsely flagged as violating a rule, I disputed it and the flag was removed. When someone started repeatedly stealing my videos and uploading them to their own channels, I reported them for copyright infringement, and the first time it took 1 day to be taken down, subsequent claims only took 30 minutes for the takedown.

<comment><USER7> Exactly, they handle things they are legally required to.

<comment><USER6> I'm pretty sure they were not legally required to unflag either of my videos.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "We have found that there are two types of publishers who may have invalid traffic issues with their accounts. The first are publishers who may unintentionally send invalid traffic to their accounts, typically by testing on live ads. For those, we hope that increased transparency into our policies and processes can decrease these unintentional violations and help our publishers play by the rules. The second are publishers who intentionally bypass our rules, ending up with a variety of invalid traffic issues in order to artificially inflate their ad revenue. That's why we work hard to maintain a policy compliant ecosystem for our publishers, advertisers, and users. In short, if you play by the rules, AdSense is here to help you grow your business."

I feel that this a slap in the face to any people who face malicious adsense abuse traffic in an effort to attack their site. Google has once again just brushed this by.

<comment><USER9> This is how you know it's an authentic Google publication. Written as if to address kids and juveniles, it's all your fault and we're not telling you why.

The ultimate insult are the "helpful tips" like "don't ask friends and family to click ads".

<comment><USER10> "We recommend learning how to segment your traffic to help you best understand, monitor, and evaluate the traffic to your site. This may also help you identify sources of invalid traffic."

May, might, could... Google is happy to continue to encourage a whole industry of SEO and Adsense snake oil salesmen.

<comment><USER11> Of course, see AMP for another blatant example.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I lost $100K+ on AdSense due to what I believe is a nasty competitor seeking to get my account disabled. After making the case to Google, they said they would reinstate the account and pay me what was owed. I then suggested measures that we were going to take on our end to prevent competitors from doing that again, and lo and behold, 24 hours later the Google rep tells me I'm not getting paid. No lawyer was willing to take the case, because it's Google.

I literally lost $100,000 because I suggested to Google that we would take proactive measures to prevent fraud. As if having the knowledge to do so meant we were committing fraud.

<comment><USER13> _No lawyer was willing to take the case, because it 's Google._

That seems bizarre. The last account I read of an actual legal action against Google was a small claims procedure for a few thousand, and IIRC the conclusion was that Google basically didn't show up on court day and lost by default. I could understand not working on contingency if a lawyer feels the case isn't clear-cut, but no-one taking a six-figure case? Surely they must have had more than just "It's Google" to put them off if everyone was saying no?

<comment><USER14> Seriously. I'm a lawyer and I'll take the case. Since no one else wants it, let's do it on a contingency basis. (I am a lawyer, but that was not an actual offer -- just an offer to discuss.)

Another would be to file a claim in small claims court for the max allowed there -- say $10k or whatever and see what happens. You could even represent yourself there after doing a few hours research. Judges will practically let you write your briefs in crayon in some jurisdictions.

<comment><USER15> _I 'm a lawyer and I'll take the case._

(Throwaway account because I'm afraid of retribution by Google...)

How would a prospective client get in touch with you?

(Edit: I am not the person you replied to...)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> AdSense team has zero credibility until a proper response and solution is offered to Fark.com

Edit: Fark's post about the incident: [https://www.fark.com/comments/blog673/Fark-NotNewsletter- Goo...](https://www.fark.com/comments/blog673/Fark-NotNewsletter-Google- farked-us-over)

<comment><USER16> Never heard of the case, and I don't think most other people who have used google adsense have either, so they probably have plenty left.

<comment><USER17> Hadn't heard of it either, but it does sounds like the typical Google incorrect algorithm ban followed up by atrocious customer service: [http://www.fark.com/comments/blog673/Fark-NotNewsletter- Goog...](http://www.fark.com/comments/blog673/Fark-NotNewsletter-Google- farked-us-over)

I've definitely talked to other people who tried to monetize with Google, had their ads shut off with no clue why, and were looking for new solutions. So it isn't a rare story. Google is sort of the PayPal of ads in terms of incorrect account freezes and bans that never get resolved.

I don't even bother with their advertising solutions in my mobile apps any more since competitors generally offer better pay for the same clicks with less hassle.

<comment><USER18> Sounds worse. I think you can usually resolve paypal freezes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Based on this, it should be easy to get your competitors' accounts suspended. And as always with Google, there's no appeal process - you just gotta hope your story makes it to the front page of reddit/HN/other.

<comment><USER20> When I did SEO, it was extremely easy to drop a page or entire website off the first page by buying a ton of trash links to them. Even disavowing links in Google's Webmaster tools (a feature they introduced to combat that) did little to restore them. I imagine PPC is even easier (just buy tons of views/clicks) and harder to fix. It's basically a DDoS on your revenue accounts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Much like many of the other commenters in this thread we had our account banned and were never told why. We were not doing anything against the terms of service (and they never accused us of doing so). We didn't have "invalid traffic". We had millions of users and an account rep at Google.

Details: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3803568](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3803568)

Since then we've transitioned completely away from ad based revenue which in my opinion is much better anyway because it aligns our interests better with our users (they are now our customers not our product).

</comment><comment><USER22> I find this suggestion very funny: "Additionally, YouTube publishers should skip ads when viewing their own videos to avoid artificially inflating advertiser costs."

Maybe they should recommend installing an ad-blocker :)

<comment><USER7> It's incredible that there isn't just the most basic "same logged in account" debug mode feature.

<comment><USER23> They somewhat do have a tool (although I don't think it works with YouTube ads). The Google Publisher Toolbar works decent for testing ads on your page (you can click and doesn't count), block ads, and reporting ads.

[https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/2411951?hl=en&ref_...](https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/2411951?hl=en&ref_topic=2414281)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> For a long time now cybercriminals can and will target the ads of people/groups/companies they don't like to make Google flag your account as suspicious and get it closed.

<comment><USER7> Same with YouTube accounts

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Google dominates this space and needs to boost their bottom line.

Account suspensions, especially _soon before the payouts are due_ [1] helps.

Valid or invalid traffic is irrelevant and is not a cause, it's an excuse.

That's why there are no appeals and no answers on specific questions.

Expensive lessons for some to bet their business on someone else's platform.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7672910](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7672910)

</comment><comment><USER26> We had a site that was banned with little explanation. We eventually got it reactivated but never got a good answer as to why. My guess is because the ads did really well and CTRs were crazy good. We had an Adwords account banned at one point too. Totally different site but also really good CTRs and we were able to optimize things to achieve really low CPCs. I think if your Google Adsense/Adwords accounts do well in these areas to an extreme that doesn't appear normal, their automated system bans you. Problem is then getting in touch with someone who can get you unbanned. The run-around is crazy and it can take months and cost you a ton of money.

</comment><comment><USER27> It's a testament to Google's dominance that Adsense can be so opaque and frustrating related to abuse or suspensions and still be mostly unchallenged after a decade. I'd love to see an alternative, but I've seen nothing on the horizon.

<comment><USER15> _I 'd love to see an alternative, but I've seen nothing on the horizon._

I switched from AdSense to another ad network and my revenue doubled overnight.

<comment><USER28> Which network?

<comment><USER29> Please let us know!

<comment><USER15> See my response to kirchhoff.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> "One or more users repeatedly clicking your ads: Don't encourage or ask your friends, family, co-workers, or general users to click on your ad"

Actually it makes sense to use Adsense only if your daily traffic is above a certain level, which will make "friendly" clicks negligible.

</comment><comment><USER30> Given all of the people in this thread complaining about Google stealing their money and these same sorts of stories I've constantly heard over the years, has anyone seriously considered joining forces in a class-action suit against Google?

I personally don't have a dog in this fight, but it also seems like this keeps happening because they haven't been punished for doing it.

<comment><USER31> So it turns out that people lie, and a large number of the people who complain probably do have an idea of why they got banned.

They won't say that, of course.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I've written about this in a recent thread. Google truly needs to face a massive class action lawsuit regarding this.

I hate that sort of thing but they are large enough not to care and the only way they will care (well, at least fake forced care) is if they kicked in the balls very, very hard. The only way for this to happen is a massive class action lawsuit.

It is beyond obvious they have caused untold damage to thousands of businesses who, after deciding to trust their products to create a revenue stream, get cutoff summarily for reasons beyond their control.

This thread has enough people with stories of real (and very unfair) damage that attorneys frequenting HN should take notice.

</comment><comment><USER33> Years ago I put Google's ads on my website. Just before the revenue reached the payout threshold they disabled my account and withheld all the money I had earned up to that point. No detailed explanation, no appeal. While I can't prove anything I was left with the distinct feeling that I was being scammed.

</comment><comment><USER34> I always click ads of companies I don't like. Am I invalid traffic?

Also, would it be possible to hurt a website - eg breitbart - by simply spam clicking their ads? Thats incredibly dangerous :o

</comment><comment><USER35> In 2004, shortly after Google launched Gmail, I put some ads on a friend's website that had about 10 monthly visitors, using my gmail account. The ads didn't really bring in any money, and then we got a notice about "fraudulent clicks" where they took away the $2 we had earned. So we took them down.

12 years later, my account is still blocked from signing up for Google ads.

</comment><comment><USER13> We once spent a small amount of money advertising with Google, just to try it out for a new business.

The referring page with the most "visitors" was literally a bunch of buzzwords in something like 6pt grey on slightly darker grey text. It was like some sort of spoof stereotype of an ad-abusing landing page, which any crude detection algorithm I could imagine would have red-flagged. Various other pages were similarly obviously deceptive.

We wrote off the small amount of money since it wasn't worth legal action to recover it, called it a lesson learned, and none of my businesses has ever given Google a penny in ad spend in the years since.

</comment><comment><USER36> I was also banned from AdSense a few years ago. They kept $30k that I had earned and I got no response. Still banned to this day.

<comment><USER7> Are there any class actions you can join?

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Screw Adsense. I mean it. Google's policies over these matter are more opaque than functioning of NSA and their responses or FAQs are worse than the well rehearsed statements of scandalous politicians.

We found moving to native ads to be significantly more profitable when you have a website that has lot of genuine content. For me adsense = spammy ads.

We were blocked twice by adsense in past (two different companies owning two different web properties) for perfectly legitimate traffic giving no excuse what so ever.

</comment><comment><USER38> This post and comments bring back too many bad memories and horrible experience I had with Google Adsense banning my account, with automated responses. I better build my own product or services , I learnt years ago.

In this post they say, if a user clicks again and again... so don't ask your friend to-do so, what kind of bs is this, how they know if the user was our competitor or some ex friend doing to hurt.... they just go ahead and suspend...

</comment><comment><USER39> Or you could use a performant, standards-based ad exchange with malvertising mitigation and human account managers, like Publir.

<comment><USER40> You should let people know that you have skin in the game. You are one of the founders of the company according to your profile.

<comment><USER41> > You should let people know [...] according to your profile.

They did let people know.

<comment><USER42> I think it should be much closer to where they're plugging their site

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> is it possible (as in, allowed) to have dedicated Google Account just for AdSense? it's very risky to tie this to account where you have Play Developer, GSuite and Cloud attached to it.

</comment><comment><USER44> I hope someone at Google reads this thread and shares it with the relevant team. They really need to provide proper customer service for products where money is involved.

<comment><USER3> Unfortunately, Google has long been aware of the issue, and presumably chooses to do nothing about it. I have suspicions as to why this is, as I'm sure others do. When it comes to HN discussions about AdSense, Google typically gets their resident HN employee to flag threads, talk condescendingly, and accuse others of lying.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Or the third source of bad traffic: Third parties you have no control over heating clicks because of free registration spam, comment spam, generating "legitimate looking" accounts for later credit card fraud, or plain ddos reasons.

And there's no human being to discuss this with, or even get details from.

Note that this blog itself has dozens of suspicious or obvious bot spam comments. If Google can't filter this out, how am I supposed to?

</comment><comment><USER46> Are there any reasonable alternatives to adsense?

</comment><comment><USER47> Oh adsense. I had my account blocked after spending a few thousand for ad generating sites on flippa. No transparency on there end, no ability to appeal, life time block.

On a side note it seems like a good racket, sell people ad generating sites then click on adds a few times after the sale and buy it back at a discount.

</comment><comment><USER48> My situation:

[https://productforums.google.com/forum/?utm_medium=email&utm...](https://productforums.google.com/forum/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer#!msg/adsense/npy8YP3tOhY/1XD2-c_MDgAJ)

</comment><comment><USER49> Around 2004/2005 about a year after Adsense launched some friends and I from Stanford made a fake company and blogged about high CPC adwords content, then made a couple hundred bucks clicking our own links... received payment, never got shut down.

<comment><USER50> Yet in the same time period I ran a website that was legit, made a few hundred bucks, and then when I tried to withdraw that money had my account closed for click fraud. It was only a few hundred bucks but as a poor college student it really sucks for google to essentially mug me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> So Google seems to err on the side of assuming too much traffic is bots, but from what I read in the general ad tech media it seems all other players err on the side of assuming to much traffic is human.

In short, what drives the different approaches?</comment>


Pingly - <AUTHOR> https://pingly.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Pingly is a beautiful communication hub you and your team will love.

Use one app and stay focused with all of your company's messaging in one place

Pingly is also a full-featured email provider that hosts email for you on your domain. Get email for your business or side-project in minutes - for free.</comment>


Government likely to open criminal probe into NSA leaks - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/08/us-usa-security-leaks-idUSBRE95700C20130608 <comment><USER2> If the government hasn't done anything wrong, then they shouldn't have anything to hide from us :)

More seriously, some amount of surveillance is probably necessary, but they need to be a lot more open and transparent about it. Secret laws and secret courts are not the stuff a free society is made of.

<comment><USER3> Apparently, they do. FISA spying has been found unconstitutional since 2011, but they are keeping it a secret:

[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/government-says- secret...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/government-says-secret-court- opinion-law-underlying-prism-program-needs-stay)

This is happening in the "beacon of democracy" of the world.

<comment><USER4> For the record, the only people who see the USA as the "beacon of democracy" are Americans.

I'm not saying this to start a flame war, but to simply point out that the USA is no more democratic than many other Western nations.

(My personal opinion is that the USA is much more of a beacon of imperialism than of democracy. But that's neither here nor there.)

<comment><USER5> s/americans/american government and media(for a lot of us at least)

<comment><USER6> To be fair, those people are exclusively Americans.

Not all Americans think of America as a "beacon of democracy", but pretty much anyone who _does_ is themselves American. Also, rectangles are not squares, though squares are rectangles.

<comment><USER7> Nearly every American __wants__ our country to be a beacon of democracy, however, which is why this type of behavior by our government is so frustrating.

<comment><USER8> Nearly every person wants their country to be a beacon of democracy (and freedom). Except those in power, of course (in America and elsewhere).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> So which is it? Is he "welcoming a debate over spying on Americans" or is he prosecuting the whistleblowers (again) and requesting state privileges to protect themselves against further scrutiny? I don't think the two can really co-exist. And if all of this was "already known" what's there to prosecute then? The amount of double-speak from the Obama administration astonishes me.

<comment><USER9> What's the point of classified information if you don't punish those that leak it?

Don't get me wrong, the treatment of Bradley Manning is absurd, and there shouldn't be any sort of prosecution of the journalists involved (which has been happening recently), so it's fair to complain that they are coming down too hard on whistle-blowers. However, you have to expect some sort of investigation into who did the original leaks.

We can also have the debate about whether they overly classify things and should be more open in the first place, but that's not the same thing.

<comment><USER3> So the whistleblower law is just a "pretend-law"? Whistleblowers are needed for a healthy democracy, unless we have a pretend-democracy at this point, too. How do you uncover dirt on the government if every single act of whistleblowing and investigative journalism on the government is being prosecuted? Not only does that create a very chilling effect, but it also takes out everyone who did it, "before they cause too much damage". And doesn't this begin to resemble a little too much with some of _those_ oppressive regimes?

The government classifies everything it doesn't want the public to know these days, and then tries to arrest everyone who leaks those documents. I think we need to stop thinking about what's legal and what's illegal, and start thinking about what moral and immoral. Many of these laws are immoral.

<comment><USER10> > _So the whistleblower law is just a "pretend-law"?_

Not sure why you used the phrase 'pretend-law' in scare quotes, since the post you responded to said no such thing.

Either way, there isn't really such a thing as _the whistleblower law_ (IANAL). Aside from the first amendment, the closest thing I could find was the Whistleblower Protection Act [1]. It's a young law by any standard (1989), so you'd be hard pressed to argue that we didn't have a functioning democracy in its absence.

Your central point is well received, but you rebutted a partial straw man.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistleblower_Protection_Act](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistleblower_Protection_Act)

<comment><USER11> I found this which explains a variety of protections: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistleblower_protection_in_Uni...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistleblower_protection_in_United_States)

Additionally it would be interesting if the leakers leaked more to get a softer punishment: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turn_state%27s_evidence](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turn_state%27s_evidence)

Also, I have to add, I'm a little ashamed of my country today. But I feel vindicated as a programmer that _we were right_! We knew it all along. Things like this have been reported for years. But no one cared. Finally this is plastered on every major publication and people no longer think it's some conspiracy theory or exaggeration of normal security measures. So now's the real test. What do we do? How do we fix this? Our innate liberties have been trampled and threatened. Have some self-respect and speak your mind at work, people. Tell your boss to fuck off and dig through server logs himself. If you work in the NSA or other secret data labs, go ahead and accidentally take a dump on the floor by the toilet, step in it, and walk back through your offices and out the doors to rejoin normal society.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Greenwald replies to a Twitter user asking "when do we see the full redacted deck?" "@markskogan @nycsouthpaw You won't - it contains very specific technical NSA means for collection - we'd probably be prosecuted if we did." \- [https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/343454484917280770](https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/343454484917280770)

Everyone should be keeping their eye on @ggreenwald's twitter, reveals much about the debate and what's going on with him. He gives bits and pieces of background info..

<comment><USER13> Greenwald of all people should just redact and spill it. He's under no legal bar toward publishing that material (OBVIOUSLY, as he's already published TS) and he can simply redact anything he's that worried about.

By Greenwald's own logic I shouldn't have to "just trust him" either, no? Be transparent, spill the beans! Or is there an ulterior motive?

<comment><USER12> The Guardian as a news outlet could be prosecuted/gone after for releasing certain things. It isn't just him making the decisions. On Twitter he seems to express the desire to release as much as he can without earning himself a Disappearance; I feel that once this is all over, he might just release the docs the Guardian won't publish somehow.

<comment><USER13> Neither the Guardian nor Greenwald are "read in" to the U.S. national security information apparatus. They literally have _no legal requirement_ to avoid publishing what they have.

As far as being Disappeared, even Greenwald can't possibly be _that_ dumb, can he? If he has information that the NSA would want to remove him for, and he hasn't already deleted it, it is _by far_ in NSA's best interests to "disappear him" right now.

If they wouldn't find it politically possible to disappear him now then it wouldn't be politically possible to disappear him then.

Does he just think he's going to string NSA along and that they're simultaneously angry enough to kill him and dumb enough to let him choose to leak it after all?

The very fact that you (and surely many others) feel that Greenwald might release this "super sensitive material" later should be all the reasoning you need to understand why NSA will have to remove him now or not remove him at all.

Obviously I'm saying the latter will happen, but this means that Greenwald is acting like a tinfoil-hat conspiracy nutter. Hell, even if the former will happen Greenwald is acting like a nutter; his logic is _all wrong_ even for the world he thinks he lives in.

Once he releases the information he can pose no further risk to NSA for now, which would make harming him far more politically damaging (as it would be revenge, and not to protect further disclosure).

I don't think he's stringing NSA along at all, I think he's stringing the rest of us along.

<comment><USER12> Check again: The Guardian US is an American LLC. [1]

It would be in their best interest to disappear him ASAP? Maybe that's why The Atlantic's Washington Editor-at-Large just tweeted that he overheard four government officials on a plane (I believe that's where he was) discussing loudly that the leakers and Greenwald should be "disappeared". [2] He recorded the conversation and is getting together an article as we type.

Greenwald has been writing on NSA abuses and other government fraud and corruption for years. He poses a (the biggest) threat ideologically and now he is a source that leakers can release actual classified information through, if they want. He is obviously very thorough with what he has been doing; he had his computer physically rigged (in the sense of software and probably hardware too) to allow for most secure communications by "someone familiar with those matters" who came to his house to do it for him. He's probably in Hong Kong for safety reasons, or at least reasons related to this story. Who else can travel to Hong Kong at will just to leak stuff?

Try reading his actual articles and Twitter posts. He doesn't actually fear disappearing, he fears being sought-after or... I don't know, maybe he doesn't fear anything from acting alone and will release it all himself later! I just interpreted what I have read, "earning [myself] a Disappearance" is not a quote from him at all.

If you care that much about Greenwald, might want to read the Frequently Told Lies list he has compiled [3] so you don't get tripped up. He usually lives in Brazil but pays U.S. taxes as an American citizen (which is what he is, more than most of us). He can not move because the U.S. does not recognize bi- national same-sex partnerships upon immigration.

[1] [http://www.myvisajobs.com/Visa-Sponsor/Guardian- News/1127261...](http://www.myvisajobs.com/Visa-Sponsor/Guardian- News/1127261.htm)

[2] [https://twitter.com/SCClemons/status/343392529913356289](https://twitter.com/SCClemons/status/343392529913356289)

[3] [http://ggsidedocs.blogspot.com.br/2013/01/frequently-told- li...](http://ggsidedocs.blogspot.com.br/2013/01/frequently-told-lies- ftls.html)

<comment><USER13> It doesn't matter that the Guardian is an American LLC.

If you walked up to some dude on the street, who hasn't already agreed to protect NSI, give him a confidential sheet, he's under no legal obligation to protect it (though, see below).

That's one of the surreal effects of our 1st Amendment rights is that for whatever reason J. Random Citizen (and especially the press) are not bound by classification requirements (with the exception of actual national defense information such as war plans, military designs, etc.) unless they've already agreed to be.

So is Greenwald sitting on military secrets? If so he'll never be able to disclose it, so there's no point mentioning it. If not he could disclose it today, if he felt like it.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classified_information_in_the_U...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classified_information_in_the_United_States#Claims_of_U.S._government_misuse_of_the_classification_system)

<comment><USER12> Can you explain the labeling of WikiLeaks as an enemy organization and fears that Assange has? Why don't you tell these things to Greenwald himself on Twitter or in an email?

The release of any secret through a media outlet could be considered a "threat to national security"; James Rosen, the New York Times, AP, and Antiwar.com all know this now that they've all been indicted and some of their phone records have been targeted and seized. Glenn has written extensively on this topic, almost daily. I think he has a better understanding of this issue than most people.

<comment><USER12> The current incarnation of the U.S government has _tortured people_, I doubt they'd have any problem with disobeying their own laws and just going after Greenwald and figuring out the justification later. If you disagree, then we differ there and on more fundamental issues as well, probably.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Not surprising. This is an incredibly opaque administration that's prosecuted more whistleblowers under the espionage act than _every other administration combined_.

The contrast between campaign Obama and president Obama is staggering. One would not be too far off the mark in calling him a liar, as simply an objective observation. I say this as someone who campaigned for him in 2008, which I now regret immensely.

</comment><comment><USER15> It's incredible how the presence of the word "leaks" turns the whole headline from promising to sinister. Why can't they investigate the NSA for once? Isn't that what a democratic country would do?

<comment><USER16> It appears this was justified by a specific law that was passed by the representatives of the people for the people, so why should they investigate the NSA, especially in a democratic country?

<comment><USER17> Are you saying they should investigate Congress instead?

(I noticed that nobody has specified who the "they" is. In a democracy, maybe the "they" is supposed to be "us"?)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> "The law enforcement and security officials, who were not authorized to speak publicly, said the agencies that normally conduct such investigations, including the FBI and Justice Department, were expecting a probe into the leaks to a British and an American newspaper."

So basically the fact the NSA leaker was going to be prosecuted was leaked, how can the the security officials who leaked this piece of information not see the irony ?

<comment><USER19> The government (especially prosecutors/police) routinely leak information to serve their own ends.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The author of the original WaPo story said yesterday that the source was expecting to be caught. "I don't even think [the source] wants to stay masked forever."

Good interview if this is a story you care about.

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/video/thefold/nsa-leak- source-...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/video/thefold/nsa-leak-source- believes-exposure-consequences-inevitable/2013/06/07/fb15c0fe- cf94-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_video.html)

</comment><comment><USER21> anyone else notice there's been none of the usual China-bashing going on ever since this whole thing broke?

which is funny because it should be at an all time high, what with the meeting of the Chinese president Xi and Obama.

maybe they're sharing tips on how best to spy on and kill their own citizens! it is the most important economic and political bilateral relationship in the world, after all.

i kid, i kid.

but seriously, wasn't one of the talking points of the meeting going to be Obama redressing Xi on how the Chinese hack/spy on american companies and citizens' communications?

LOL x 10.

</comment><comment><USER22> 1\. A small group of people violate the privacy of people everywhere around the world.

2\. Another, even smaller group of people violate the privacy of the above group.

3\. The first group says, "Hey, trust us. It's for your own good", and then promptly hunts down the second group for being dirty-stinking-traitor- terrorist criminals.

4\. Profit?

<comment><USER23> Read Top Secret America by Dana Priest. These are among the highest paying government jobs. The strongholds of NSA are in the wealthiest counties in the nation. And we don't even know what they do... I think it's reasonable to call it profiting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Remove the power to classify long term information from the executive branch and put it into the judicial. It is obvious that it is abusing it currently with classifying everything. If they have to compelling interest to classify something that can jump at least the standard for a warrant.

</comment><comment><USER25> This makes me wonder how we have the balls to go into other countries and yell about all their problems with surveillance & censorship when we do it more & arguably, better than all of them combined.

</comment><comment><USER13> I didn't know the WaPo story had been authored by someone working with Assange to make a documentary on WikiLeaks. That would at least explain why "data directly from" was misinterpreted to mean "backdoor direct access" since I doubt she had the training to disambiguate the terms used.

Not that it matters too much anyways, I'm assuming it wasn't an OpEd and therefore she'd still have received the normal editing and source-checking services. But I do wonder if there is any reporting that was done by those who don't hold quite as much of a bias as Poitras and Greenwald, for the same reason I would be suspicious of a history of the Iraq invasion authored by Rumsfeld...

<comment> grey-area There are many reporters working on this, not just Greenwald or Poitras. The most recently released slide directly contradicts the statements by Google and Facebook:

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/08/nsa-prism- server...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/08/nsa-prism-server- collection-facebook-google)

Given that they used the same phrases in their denials, it would seem they have been fed talking points, and are are using a novel interpretation of direct access. For example if Google or FB interpret a real-time mirror as 'not direct access', their statements are technically true, while at the same time being misleading. Doubtless the truth will come to light eventually, but for now we'll have to wait for more information and denials.

<comment><USER18> No, if anything it supports the Google/FB interpretation.

From this slide it appears the distinction between the two types of data collection are between "indirect" on-the-wire intercepts and "direct" where the data's obtained from the company holding it. Given the context it could be referring to FISA obtained documents.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Out of curiosity, has anyone's opinion of Bradley Manning, Julian Assange or Wikileaks changed over the last few days?

From the previous times the topic has come up, my impression is that this community is more or less whether they're doing good work or not.

<comment><USER27> You've get some editing errors that make your comment hard to parse.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I wonder how far in the future we'll have to wait before people like Glenn Greenwald become potential drone strike targets...

<comment><USER19> If he were living in Yemen instead of Brazil it might have already happened.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> What is there to investigate? The criminals has clearly been found thanks to the whistleblowers. The whistle blower is the hero while the criminals are NSA and the government for doing such acts against democracy. A democracy needs to be transparent. Otherwise it is a system that you can put no trust in.

</comment><comment><USER29> US justice system in 'calamitous' collapse

</comment><comment><USER30> I'm just hoping that Greenwald doesn't "get in a car crash."

</comment><comment><USER31> But google, facebook and microsoft all they never heard of PRISM and no such thing exist, why would there be a criminal probe about a work of fiction?

</comment><comment><USER32> This should give a perfect opportunity for mass protests at the trial of whoever did the leak.

</comment><comment><USER33> Is it time to start a petition that asks that this leak not be prosecuted?

</comment><comment><USER34> So much for not looking back and only looking forward

</comment><comment><USER35> This was not a leak. It was a dare.

</comment><comment><USER36> Expected, unless the leaked doc said "ignore court order" or "kill the Presi..." leaking is illegal.

The person that leaked this knew that he /she would be prosecuted, if... Let's hope that he took care not to leave any crumbs as he gave the info to the Guardian</comment>


What Oil at $100 a Barrel Would Mean - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-29/what-oil-at-100-a-barrel-would-mean-for-the-world-economy <comment><USER2> This could be the sort of thing that's intensely painful in the short term but pushes us to adopt strategies that are better choices for the long term.

The last time oil prices surged like that (2007-8), political will to develop and improve transit also surged.

Additionally, high oil prices mean a more competitive market for the renewable and low-emissions energy sources that we'll need to switch to if we want to have any chance at mitigating climate change.

The article says China will be hit particularly hard by this price increase; but they've also got the political will to respond by investing more in developing renewables, as they have been the last 10-15 years already.</comment>


Will We Ever See InfiniBand in Desktop Computers? - <AUTHOR> http://clusterdesign.org/2014/07/will-we-ever-see-infiniband-in-desktop-computers/

<comment><USER2> Why switch to infiniband? Ethernet can go just as fast (not as good of latency) and the cables are cheap and ubiquitous. The only thing stopping higher speeds is cost. I have been watching 10GbE PCI-E cards for the last year or two and they have dramatically dropped in price ($200 from newegg). You can get server motherboards with 2 integrated 10GbE ports for $500 as well. 10GbE does run over cat6 by the way.

<comment><USER3> I think for general-purpose workloads, it's not relevant. However, some of the IB-specific capabilities like RDMA are extremely interesting for clustering use cases. You can dramatically reduce the overhead of moving data around between nodes by bypassing the kernel entirely.

<comment><USER2> I understand that sort of use case, but this article is asking about desktop computers. It almost seems like the author only sees it used in high performance situations so clearly it is better for all situations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> There is no practical or commercial motivation for IB on consumer devices. Sure one may make a case that a home server or a media center can use IB to stream photos and movies to other devices. At this point, we have to stop and think like an average consumer and not an IT professional. And an average consumer prefers no wires forget running copper or fiber. And what benefit would it offer over wireless even if they were to run the cable? None from the consumer perspective. You can stream HD over wireless without any problems.

Sure, we all prefer wired over wireless when available. But not in home, and not by an average consumer.

Intel will integrate IB with their future processors, but they will not be consumer based SKUs.

<comment><USER5> There are niches -- some people (interested parties for sure) even advocate for fiber to the desktop as a cost savings: [http://www.thefoa.org/tech/allfiber.htm](http://www.thefoa.org/tech/allfiber.htm)

But for regular consumers, wireless is the driver. Power users will care about cat 6. The rest is just niche.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> 10GBaseT is cheap. Look at Arista networks. This idea is just not well reasoned. Ethernet had all the "stuff" needed to make it work when you plug it in. IB requires you to do a lot of configuration on the IB switch side, etc.

</comment><comment><USER7> You can do InfiniBand on the desktop, but it necessarily doesn't give the performance you might be expecting. I think I read about this on HN originally...

[http://www.davidhunt.ie/infiniband-at-home-10gb- networking-o...](http://www.davidhunt.ie/infiniband-at-home-10gb-networking- on-the-cheap/)

Edit: From the edit on the follow-up post about getting it working on Ubuntu:

>Note: iperf maxed out at 1.2 gbps, and on the current linux install, I couldnt get netperf client working at all. netserver would work, but only showed a throughput of 25mbps from a Win7 client. HOWEVER, when I set up the raid with 6 old 160G drives, the "hdparm -t /dev/md0p1″ showed 250MB/sec reads, and I got the same from the Win7 machine using samba across the infiniband fabric. This seems to indicate that iperf and netperf are completely unreliable for testing this type of connection. Bear in mind though that I did have netperf running on the previous ubuntu install, but that installation was so messy I don't know what drivers and user-space software was running. I reckon it's the kind of think that may be fixed in the stock Ubuntu install in the near future. For the moment, just go with real-world testing, i.e. copying large files from ramdisk to ramdisk, for example.

</comment><comment><USER8> In visual effects, there is need to transfer around massive data sets. WE have found that 1 Gbps Ethernet just doens't cut it, but right now 10 Gbps Ethernet solution are just too expensive for now, or require specialized cables (fiber optics).

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10-gigabit_Ethernet](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10-gigabit_Ethernet)

I would really like those prices to come down and also to use just regular CAT cables.

Right now it seems that the switch to faster than 1 Gbps networking is just too costly and not easily incremental (because of the switch to optical generally.)

PS. There is 10GBASE-T but I think there is zero adoption or promotion of this substandard: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10-gigabit_Ethernet#10GBASE-T](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10-gigabit_Ethernet#10GBASE-T)

<comment><USER9> 10GBASE-T isn't popular because your cable runs are cut short.

Costs have come down a lot on fiber. A short range SFP is like $120 or so, and short range cables are like $3 per meter.

What a lot of people do as a stopgap is binding ports together, using something like LACP. There's trade-offs of course. A 4 port 1000BASE-T card could be used to boost a few important servers.

<comment> josh-wrale 10GBase-T also entails more power consumption per port and significant latency over other 10GbE standards.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I don't mean to be cynical, but other than for niche clusters in the home, wouldn't such technology be hobbled instantly by incoming bandwidth?

Even in Germany, where the author lives, the top bandwidth appears to be about 50 Mb/s:

[http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2457284,00.asp](http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2457284,00.asp)

Which although it is still much better than the states:

[http://ispspeedindex.netflix.com/results/usa/graph](http://ispspeedindex.netflix.com/results/usa/graph)

They're both well below 1 Gb/s, no?

<comment><USER11> I don't think the use case envisioned here is for home computers with InfiniBand, it's for work stations in corporate environments. Transferring large data sets to local servers is quite common, and can take a (relatively) long time even over Gigabit Ethernet.

<comment><USER10> Corporations can afford to buy pricy network hardware for the people who need it (or they can skimp on engineering resources and congratulate themselves over and over again over how thrifty they're being).

I read desktop to mostly mean consumer, perhaps erroneously?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Interesting. I think it's possible that Infiniband will one day work its way to desktop computers, but there are a lot of players in the game that have to agree to make it work and make it popular.

</comment><comment><USER13> Would you want every workstation to have direct access to the cluster - ok I get for loading data it might be useful but IN that case surely you would have special purpose nodes for that

</comment><comment><USER14> How would Infiniband be so much faster than Ethernet over the same cables? And would a 5x faster Inifiniband be less than 5x as expensive?

<comment><USER11> Going off of the [Wikipedia page]([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infiniband](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infiniband)), I think it's due to the "switched fabric topology" of InfiniBand.

<comment><USER14> Ethernet is mostly switched now (when was the last time you used a hub?), and the topology doesn't change the line speed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> No.</comment>


Why do Americans claim to be more religious than they are? - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/the_hidden_brain/2010/12/walking_santa_talking_christ.single.html <comment><USER2> While I am an atheist myself, I grew up going to a Unitarian church. They held food drives and other charity events, and was a social staple of our community. Religion can give a person's life structure, give them a social support network they might not have otherwise. I have met religious people that quite simply could not get out of bed without it, and as long as they don't become too dogmatic I see no issue with it.

What many atheists seem to miss is this, god doesn't need to be real for religion to have massive benefits for an individual. I will never fault anyone for believing, nor will I fault anyone for playing up their level of belief to be able to participate. I will not overlook the excesses and corruption of large scale organized religions, but on a smaller scale it can be of great benefit for a community.

<comment><USER3> > I have met religious people that quite simply could not get out of bed > without it, and as long as they don't become too dogmatic I see no issue > with it.

Are you not concerned that these people might one day come to the conclusion that their religion isn't real and be left with no reason to get out of bed?

<comment><USER4> That can happen to anybody.

<comment><USER3> Most people who lose their faith don't also lose all their motivation.

<comment><USER5> Agreed. Perhaps the opposite.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> For those hardcore atheists that just can't fathom why someone would believe in Christianity/religion in general, let me ask you are you WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, and Democratic)?

If the answer is yes, I can highly recommend the book The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt. It didn't really change my opinion on religion but it did give me a different view and perspective into why some others do believe in it.

<comment><USER7> What I can't fathom or understand is how someone can look at the universe and say that there was no Creator or Architect of some kind?

If I showed you an incredibly complex software program and told you there was no developer or designer behind it, and that it came into existence randomly and for no reason, you would look at me like I'm crazy.

Or for the artistically inclined, if I showed you the Sistine Chapel and told you there was no artist or creator behind it, you would say I'm insane.

But for some reason people can look at something as remarkable as the universe and say there's no creator.

<comment><USER8> Maybe there is, maybe there isn't. But software and Sistine chapel having creators doesn't provide any proof regarding origins of anything else.

Some people choose to assume things that make themselves feel better, such as after lives and gods. Some people assume the opposite. Some people don't assume anything at all. Either way, it's nobody else's business. Belief = assumption + ego, so I find assumption to be a better word to use when speaking about a political topic.

<comment><USER7> I'm not even bringing feelings or faith into this discussion though.

This is pure logic my friend. It is not rational to "believe" that an object, a thing, a complex structure, can come into existence without being intelligently designed in some manner. That something as intricate and complex as the universe just came to be randomly, for no reason, and with no architect of some sort.

<comment><USER9> Where this line of thinking falls apart is realizing you must, due to the same logic, explain the _architect 's_ coming into existence.

<comment><USER7> All creation has an ultimate source though, does it not? A point of singularity.

This source, or point of singularity, is what religious people refer to as 'God'.

<comment><USER9> > All creation has an ultimate source though, does it not? A point of > singularity.

This is an unsupported assertion. The current answer to "what came before the Big Bang" is "we're not sure, and we're not sure that's even the right terminology".

If everything needs a creator, that "singularity" has to have one, and its creator, and its creator, and so on and so forth for infinity.

<comment><USER7> Name me one thing which has no beginning.

<comment><USER9> We see all sorts of weirdness with time, like delayed choice experiments: [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/quantum-eraser- de...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/quantum-eraser-delayed- choice-experiments/)

The entire concept of time starts to break down in spots, like within a black hole: [https://phys.org/news/2015-09-law-implies-thermodynamic- blac...](https://phys.org/news/2015-09-law-implies-thermodynamic-black- holes.html)

It also breaks down when you start talking about pre-Big Bang cosmology. It's not clear there _is_ such a thing as a "beginning" outside of the universe.

<comment><USER7> What does this even mean?

<comment><USER9> "Time is a weird concept even in our universe at times. It breaks down entirely _outside_ of the known universe."

<comment><USER7> Yes...but what does this mean?

<comment><USER9> That the idea that "things must have a beginning" may not be the case when talking about physics outside the known universe.

Sure, that's hard to wrap your head around, but so's quantum entanglement and the double slit experiment. Doesn't change the fact that the universe works in very, very weird ways sometimes.

Here's Stephen Hawking on the weirdness of all of this: [http://www.hawking.org.uk/the-beginning-of- time.html](http://www.hawking.org.uk/the-beginning-of-time.html)

> Quantum theory introduces a new idea, that of imaginary time. Imaginary time > may sound like science fiction, and it has been brought into Doctor Who. But > nevertheless, it is a genuine scientific concept. One can picture it in the > following way. One can think of ordinary, real, time as a horizontal line. > On the left, one has the past, and on the right, the future. But there's > another kind of time in the vertical direction. This is called imaginary > time, because it is not the kind of time we normally experience. But in a > sense, it is just as real, as what we call real time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's very common, when one lives in a theocracy, to pretend to be religious. That way you don't get shunned by your fellow citizens, and have to deal with all sorts of awkward situations.

The actual levels of religosity can drop a _lot_ before it becomes clear that darn-near everyone is just pretending.

In 2011, membership the Church of Scotland dropped to the point where it was less popular than "No Religion". This got a lot of publicity - and meant that over the next two years the membership nearly _halved_, from 32% to 18%. Because once there's no social requirement to say "Oh yes, I believe in God", all of the people who hadn't been going to church anyway stop saying it.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_Scotland#Position_in...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_Scotland#Position_in_Scottish_society)

</comment><comment><USER11> Because American communities were built around religion with the church being the social congregation area. The average sentiment is that people don't really want to go to church but do so to maintain certain social relationships and keep up appearances. It is far more prevalent in smaller communities.

</comment><comment><USER12> What does it mean to be religious? Is it simply belief or belief and action? I would argue that you aren't really religious unless you actually live by the code of the religion. That would mean a very strict sense of how to navigate the world and your interactions with others and yourself. How many people do this? In my experience - not many, and I don't think this is unique to Americans. Perhaps I'm way off but it seems like the world in the majority is often only pretending to be religious.

<comment><USER13> Some religious codes don't have an obligation to do good works or think philosophically about themselves or navigating the world. Simply believing - _sola fide_ \- defines religiousness for some religious codes, particularly among Protestant religions, which some 46.5% of Americans belong to [0].

0 - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestantism_in_the_United_St...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestantism_in_the_United_States)

<comment><USER12> I understand this idea, but it doesn't really address the fundamental issue or what it REALLY MEANS to say you are religious. Can I really make a valid claim to be religious If my actions are not in accordance with the principals of my religion? Sure I can say I "believe", but then If I truly did, why would I not act it out in my life? I don't think the two are really separate concepts at the most fundamental analysis of it. Say one thing but do another just means you are a hypocrite.

<comment><USER13> Based on your line of thought here, I'm not sure you understand this idea as well as you claim to. You appear to be passionate about this though. I suggest you do some research into the key differences between Catholicism & Orthodox churches and many protestant churches like the Lutheran & Reformed Churches when it comes to _sola fidelis_ vs "faith and works".

I'll say this again: for many protestants (and thus many Americans), simply believing defines being religious.

<comment><USER12> We may be talking past each other to some degree. I'm not debating the ideas of sola fidelis vs "faith and works", this goes beyond that, for those are, to some degree, just interpretations of the original doctrine of Christ. I'm not interested in interpretations and I'm positing the idea that unless you act out the doctrine of Christ in your life, you cannot make a valid claim to be religious (in the Christian sense).

<comment><USER13> Oh, I thought you were making a point related to the article.

 _I 'm not interested in interpretations and I'm positing the idea that unless you act out the doctrine of Christ in your life, you cannot make a valid claim to be religious (in the Christian sense)._

Please find a Lutheran and posit this to them. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> FWIW, this article is from 2010.</comment>


Machine Learning and Likelihood Free Inference in Particle Physics - <AUTHOR> https://figshare.com/articles/NIPS_2016_Keynote_Machine_Learning_Likelihood_Free_Inference_in_Particle_Physics/4291565/1 <comment><USER2> Anyone have a link to an actual paper on this? It seems interesting but this slideshow format is kind of hard to follow for me.

<comment><USER3> Lots of topics and links throughout.

Approximate Bayesian Computation website does a good job of framing what is meant by likelihood free inference. [https://approximatebayesiancomputational.wordpress.com/paper...](https://approximatebayesiancomputational.wordpress.com/papers-2/)

Here's an alternative technique for likelihood free inference: [https://arxiv.org/abs/1506.02169](https://arxiv.org/abs/1506.02169) and a more recent approach [http://beta.briefideas.org/ideas/5c2f74aedbf3618ca180382e393...](http://beta.briefideas.org/ideas/5c2f74aedbf3618ca180382e393c7617)

making machine learning more robust to systematic uncertainties [https://arxiv.org/abs/1611.01046](https://arxiv.org/abs/1611.01046)

A tech report summarizing Goodfellow's NIPS tutorial on GANs [https://arxiv.org/abs/1701.00160](https://arxiv.org/abs/1701.00160)</comment></comment>


Google has quietly released a static analysis framework for Python - <AUTHOR> http://firstname.lastname@example.com <comment><USER3> _it was an intern project from last summer, written from scratch by our intern Yin Wang_

:-)

</comment><comment><USER4> It's Steve Yegge again. Nice to see him not totally gone in the google black hole.

</comment><comment><USER5> awesome! i really hope projects like this gain traction and are actually used by hackers. staunch supporters of statically-typed languages often criticize the lack of IDE/static analysis tool support for dynamic languages like python/js/ruby, citing that it's simply harder to create a good static analysis for dynamically-typed languages. while this is true in theory, in practice type, type inference and local dataflow analyses work pretty darn well, since people aren't just using types willy nilly in these languages --- there's actually a lot of implicit structure

<comment><USER6> Quite. This'll be an awesome addition to the python toolbox when a diagnostic tool is built around it.

Just in case anybody else is new to jython and wants to give Steve's HTML indexing demo a go:

      $ mkdir google-indexer && cd google-indexer
      $ wget http://bugs.jython.org/file756/google-indexer.zip
      $ unzip google-indexer.zip
      $ svn co https://jython.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/jython/trunk/jython
      $ cd jython
      $ patch -p0 < ../google-indexer-patch.diff
      $ tar zxvf ../google-indexer-newfiles.tar.gz
      $ ant jar

And then (following the suggestion in the top of the HtmlDemo class - <USER2> src/org/python/indexer/demos/HtmlDemo.java for how to do this on the whole stdlib)

      $ java -classpath ./dist/jython-dev.jar:./extlibs/antlr-runtime-3.1.3.jar:./extlibs/constantine.jar org.python.indexer.demos.HtmlDemo /usr/lib/python2.4/email

This will produce a set of files in html/. Use a suitable browser to view

      $ google-chrome html/Message.py.html

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Some time ago I looked for something similar and found Pyflakes, which uses Python's compiler module to do some simple checks. This looks more promising. I have patched Pyflakes and I usually use it when refactoring code (check out <http://amix.dk/blog/viewEntry/19361> for more info).

</comment><comment><USER8> There's probably an interesting "summer job" cross-breeding this with Mark Dufour's ShedSkin Python-to-C++ compiler ( <http://shed-skin.blogspot.com/> , <http://code.google.com/p/shedskin/> )

By the way, I see ShedSkin 0.3 is just out this week. Mark has been persistent and seems to have interesting results.

</comment><comment><USER9> "My team at Google also plans to continue work on [the analyzer] on a part- time basis, as it's an important part of a larger project we're doing in this space."

Interesting... I wonder what Unladen Swallow or App Engine could do with type inference and static analysis?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think the larger project has to do with the language-neutral framework that he's advocated for (and is now apparently building). Google's now definitely got static analysis for Python, Javascript through Closure Compiler, and Java through a ton of open software (and probably a bunch of google-specific stuff too). Interesting to see where this goes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> don't projects like pydev (which has been completely OSS for a while now, and is even written in java, like the code Steve attached) already provide this?</comment>


Privacy issues discovered in the BLE implementation of the COVIDSafe Android app - <AUTHOR> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1u5a5ersKBH6eG362atALrzuXo3zuZ70qrGomWVEC27U/edit#heading=h.q4sovraiy4kn <comment><USER2> On the subject of 'privacy issues' it's slightly ironic that a privacy issue in this document is that it's a Google document, which can deanonymize anyone looking at it if they are signed in to a Google account. (Or even potentially signed out).</comment>


Bruce Schneier: The US government is coming for Your code, techies - <AUTHOR> https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/02/14/the_government_is_coming_for_your_code/?mt=1487190219159 <comment><USER2> imagine if they patented the loop for example.

<comment><USER3> A bunch of stupid interview questions would suddenly become very relevant.</comment></comment>