California Pollution: Made in China? - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2010/12/01/california-pollution-made-in-china/?mg=blogs-wsj&url=http%253A%252F%252Fblogs.wsj.com%252Fchinarealtime%252F2010%252F12%252F01%252Fcalifornia-pollution-made-in-china <comment><USER2> As we learn more about how global systems are connected, it's going to be fascinating to watch the geopolitics work themselves out.

So far a number of signs point to many effects of pollution occurring oceans away from the polluter. This won't be fun to work out, because much of international relations is based around well-defined borders in the proximity of the landmass of the country itself. But winds and waves know no limits.....

EDIT: e.g. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch), [http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100809/full/news.2010.396.ht...](http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100809/full/news.2010.396.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> NOTE: 2010 article

</comment><comment><USER4> There was a science fiction short story I read about someone who was an officer in the pollution control agency in some random city in the USA. This officer was tracking down an illegal vehicle (it was petrol powered, and being picked up by city-wide microphones). It turns out the owner of the vehicle was the head honcho of the pollution control agency, who had seen the pollution from China reaching the Eastern seaboard of the USA and decided it was game over: no point complying with pollution regulations when the pollution from China was going to kill everyone anyway.

From memory the story was called "The Breath of the Dragon". I think it was in an Isaac Asimov "Analog" magazine.

</comment><comment><USER5> Flag this post, because HN is nowhere near mature enough to have an intelligent conversation about this topic.

</comment><comment><USER6> What a terrible article...

It claims there is 'A lot' of pollution coming from China specifically and ending up in California.

The way they deduced this 'fact' is that 208Pb levels spiked at the same times in both China and California. That tells you absolutely nothing.

<comment><USER7> This comment is not accurate. Both locations measured were in California. The correlation to Asia is the timing of the spikes and dust storms in Asia.

Not a climate scientist, so I don't know how good of an argument that is, but if you're going to post a strongly worded response you best characterize the opposing arguments correctly.

<comment><USER8> The correlation is the ratio of the lead isotopes, which is specific for that Asien region. Lead from other sources has a different isotope ratio. (Don't have data right now so I don't know how specific it is.) (Of course, mixing has to be taken into account when backtracking.)

It is actually a pretty good argument. However, it only applies to PM2.5 lead itself, since different materials can behave very differently (chemistry etc). Also, how and where the lead came from the metal ores and coal into the air is not part of the research.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> In other news - China Global Warming: Made in America?

</comment><comment><USER10> How ironic that CA made such swift and strangling economic regulations that all the factories moved to china or shut down.

Now we have no control of the egregious pollution that China produces and the world (including CA) is far worse off because of it.

Why can't politicians and activists just have a little foresight for a change? This kind of thing always seems to happen. Unintended consequences will always happen, but when people warned of this years ago and the powers that be did not listen... SMH

<comment><USER11> I'm not sure how the situation you describe isn't a catch-22.

You state that if CA regulates their factories, for example: requiring that they meet strict pollution standards, they will move. When they move, CA no longer has jurisdiction over the excrement they shoot into the air.

So you state that CA should just not regulate their factories.

This doesn't sound like a solution at all.

<comment><USER12> The solution is to tax goods originating in places with inferior environmental (or labor, or human rights, or whatever you care about) standards to the degree that the difference in regulatory costs is moot.

<comment><USER10> Good luck telling voters that everything at Walmart now costs twice as much. Our economy and infrastructure is now dependent on cheap goods from China. Peoples perceived standards of living have gone up because we buy all this cheap garbage.

What career politician is going to do this?

<comment><USER12> I'm not saying people would accept this. Most people are selfish, craven, and ignorant. What I am saying is it is immoral to require standards of production for your own citizens, but allow free trade with nations that lack such standards.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


NYC finance vs. Silicon Valley startup scene 	  - <AUTHOR> http://www.nuclearphynance.com/Show%20Post.aspx?PostIDKey=106111

<comment><USER2> "Finance is safe in that it provides the certainty of getting rich within ten years (unless the industry changes in some on a fundamental level in some unlikely way)"

\--Hmmm.. . I wonder how is it working for him now, if he is 'rich' yet. Remember, this post was done in 2007.

</comment><comment><USER3> The funny thing is that I'm a math guy - actually doing more math programming finally - but I also realize that "quants" are utterly bankrupt. Paul Krugman is right - Obama has made serious error in trying to restart the finance machine.

That doesn't mean we won't go up that hill again - just that if we do, the end _after that_ will make even the present circumstances look cheery.

<comment><USER4> _"I also realize that "quants" are utterly bankrupt. Paul Krugman is right - Obama has made serious error in trying to restart the finance machine."_

I think you're painting things with a very broad brush. While it's certainly true that there's a financial crisis of global proportions, it's also true that there's a whole world out there outside of the U.S., and that world is not under Obama's influence.

Are quants bankrupt? Well, maybe in NYC. But NYC has not been the world's financial capital for a few years now. London has. And Shanghai is emerging pretty fast...

A friend of mine who's a grad student at a top 5 math department in the U.S. was invited to join D.E. Shaw recently. Another friend just finished her MSc at MIT and will take a quant position in an investment fund... in East Asia ;-) Circumstances don't look cheery for sure, but just because the U.S. is depressed, it doesn't mean other parts of the world are equally depressed.

<comment><USER5> I think you are factually wrong on a few points.

1) Though Obama is the legal president of the United States only, it is trivial to see that his actions influence people in other countries.

2) It's hard to define "world's financial capital", but, by most accounts, New York is still the front-runner. See [http://news.google.com/news?um=1&ned=us&hl=en&q=...](http://news.google.com/news?um=1&ned=us&hl=en&q=%22financial+capital%22+world%27s)

3) The concept of decoupled economies is false. The US is actually doing better than a lot of countries that proponents of the theory had expected to fare well. See [http://norris.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/10/no-shelter-in- thi...](http://norris.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/10/no-shelter-in-this-storm/)

<comment><USER4> My replies:

1) Obviously. But whatever laws are passed in the U.S. are not going to be enforced outside the U.S. (of course). The president of the U.S. can exercize his influence abroad but he can't exactly force other countries to do what he wants, unless he threatens with penalties (not limited to military action), which would help denigrate the image of the U.S. abroad even more. Obama's administration can pass whatever laws it wants. Financial institutions will always find a loophole to be exploited. Regulatory arbitrage works wonders...

2) Defining "world's capital" is admittedly a childish game. One possible definition of _world's financial capital_ would be to count the number of hedge funds in London and the number of hedge funds in NYC.

3) Of course the concept of decoupled economies is false. What I was trying to argue is that the correlation between the American economy and other countries' economies is not 100%.

America is still a great country, obviously. Just don't expect the post-WW2 status to last forever. Things change.

<comment><USER5> Okay, I think I understand what you're saying. It certainly is easy to project the geopolitical status quo infinitely into the future, and just as certainly that is wrong. But I think financial centers shift slowly -- we've only really seen three (London, New York, and Amsterdam) in as many centuries. Moreover, the traditions and rules of the predecessors are often carried over to the successors, and we can probably expect this continuity to be even stronger in the future, given the greater degree of global interconnectedness.

So I guess what I'm saying is that it will be some time before we seen a financial industry like that of the turn of the 21st century, no matter where you look.

<comment><USER4> _"So I guess what I'm saying is that it will be some time before we seen a financial industry like that of the turn of the 21st century, no matter where you look."_

I agree. And, honestly, that could be a wonderful thing. Now that the _New Gilded Age_ seems to be over, maybe people can cool their heads off and get back to reality...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is an old thread from around Nov 2007

<comment><AUTHOR> Back in Nov 2007 things were already looking quite gloomy. For instance, Bear Stearns started to implode in June 2007.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Wow,

It makes me think of someone who once said "I used to feel sorry for myself because I had no shoes, until I saw a man who had no feet" but in an opposite kind of way.

Actually working half-time at an average programmers' salary sounds great - assuming my current gig goes through. But it also sounds _so_ much better than what these boobs were doing, during the "good times". Awesome.

</comment><comment><USER4> _"While I, too, fell under the spell of Paul Graham, I refuse to drink any more of his kool aide until he comes out with his magic language he's been promising us for the last half decade or more. Yes, interpreted languages with compilers and fancy debuggers are great. That doesn't mean it has to have a bunch of parenthesis, or that you should waste your life with horrible crap like Common Lisp. "_

I have the impression that this kind of comment will make some people's blood boil...

<comment><AUTHOR> And I am certain this comment will make some people's blood boil even faster:

 _"If you want to start your own company, you don't even really need an idea, as long as you can do stuff. I have done so myself (and am pretty happy doing it). YC is, of course, almost completely retarded; anyone with a job and a bit of ingenuity can provide a deeper pool of funding than that, and the "connections" are worth zilch, based on their track record. Just save some money."_</comment></comment>


The F.A.A. says it will take a "fresh look" at the use of iPads on planes. - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/disruptions-time-to-review-f-a-a-policy-on-gadgets/ Likely bowing to public pressure, the F.A.A. has agreed to take a fresh look at the use of e-readers and iPads on planes during taxi, takeoff and landing. <comment><USER2> Great article, and it's cool that you came here to post it yourself, but it looks like you accidentally released an unfinished draft. Emphasis mine:

"The last time this testing was done was 2006, _check_ long before iPads and most e-readers existed."

"Of 50 incidents in the most recent report _get link check_ from last year, few had anything to do with cockpit interference."

You also said, " _buy_ the end of 2012".

It's neat to see the behind-the-scenes shorthand used in story drafts.

<comment><USER3> Also the story is not just about iPads. It's about all the personal electronics items. Kindles, laptopns and phones included.

<comment><USER4> Cellphones excluded.

<comment><USER5> So, since the tablets are clearly gaining 4g... then what?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Does anyone else wonder why they need to actually fly the devices instead of just extrapolating from the electromagnetic interference test results required by the FCC?

It feels as if they believe in voodoo rather than physics. Is there a reason they require device specific tests?

<comment><USER7> _Is there a reason they require device specific tests?_

It's the "unknowns" not accounted for in the models that are the (potential) issue. If you have time read through this Ars Technica thread where a bunch of these questions are hashed out: [http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=116333...](http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=1163338)

For those without the time, I'll highlight one post from page 5:

"Unintentional radiators.

The reason they ask you to power down ALL electronics, and not just turn off radios, is that the oscillators (the clock that runs all digital devices) on the circuit board can act as miniature radios, in and of themselves, via clock signals on circuit traces. They emit at the clock frequency, and in some cases many higher level harmonics of those frequencies.

As I've stated several times, it's actually pretty easy to mitigate against _known_ frequencies and signalling techniques...it's the ones you don't know about that are the problem. EMI can be downright spooky.

As an example: I was once testing a medical device (for the Medical Device Directive) that was required to failsafe, since it would literally be touching a patient (it was a combination pulseoximeter and a few other things all rolled into one.

There were numerous tests for both emissions and immunity, and things were going along ducky until we noticed two separate failure modes that weren't considered failsafe. At the time, we were testing ESD immunity up to 20kV. It would pass one time, and not another. We thought maybe we had a bad unit, so we got a few more from the manufacturer. That entire week we kept trying to figure out how to make the failure repeatable, without luck. My coworker and I went in over the weekend, and could simply not make any of the units fail at all, with the exact same test.

That's what triggered our thought process...what else could be causing the issue during the work week but not on a weekend?

Other immunity tests! Turns out, a dozen or so meters away, a different device was undergoing a different test...that wasn't required for the MDD. It was a conducted immunity test (it may have been Electric Fast Transients, can't recall) but the actual test signal was leaking out of that lab, and into our lab, via AC lines in the building. Our chief engineer submitted a proposal to add whatever test it was to the MDD, but I don't know whatever became of that.

I've seen simple clocks inside electronic gear cause CPUs to go haywire...in effect a single system interfering with itself. I've also seen extremely low power, yet very high frequency harmonics invade and corrupt function of another device, several meters away."

<comment><USER8> Why then do they not have people remove the batteries from their watches? Can't they also be unintentional radiators?

<comment><USER7> _Why then do they not have people remove the batteries from their watches? Can't they also be unintentional radiators?_

what spa942 said.

From the linked thread:

"The low power in a digital watch is certainly a factor but the main thing that keeps them from interfering is very low operating frequency. In older, simpler watches this was 32 kHz! Only one octave above the audible range. In more modern multifunction watches with stopwatches that go to 0.01 seconds (as if anyone can push a button that precisely, but never mind that) they do have to be clocked faster, but they are still clocked as slowly as possible, to save power.... typically 1 MHz or less.

The RF from these things is all but undetectable unless you put a pickup directly against the watch. "

<comment><USER9> Yet both examples still have to go through FCC testing. Anything digital with a clock over 9 kHz has to go through unintentional radiator testing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm kind of amused by the number of comments on this thread that amount to "all the devices that meet the standard are still required to be tested in situ? lol wat!?". Yet, this is the same place that advocates heavy test driven development practices, which include testing your code against libraries that meet standards, testing that the libraries actually do the right thing when you use them, and personally verifying that sites work on all browsers, even if automated compliance checkers approve them. Isn't the FAA essentially doing the same thing here?

<comment><USER11> I wouldn't compare this to TDD - the devices would have been built to 'test' specs the FAA puts out, testing via an FAA process would be a regular, repeatable things manufacturers could perform regularly, for a fee perhaps.

And... clients/bosses complain when testing takes a long time, which is what we're doing here to the FAA.

Given how many flights happen, with a variety of devices, you might think that with some extra devices and controlled test procedures, the FAA would be able to gather 'real world' test data (their devices, their tests, real flights, etc.) and make conclusions over the past 3-5 years.

MAYBE... then issue guidelines (or even paid-for device approval processes). Would Apple pay a few million to get an 'FAA-approved' sticker for iPads and iPhones? If there were specified guidelines and a testing procedure, more companies might work in that direction. I'd imagine there _are_ guidelines, but not being in that industry, I don't know how easy to access they are. If there were public knowledge, I'd imagine device manufacturers already promoting "meets FAA guidelines for xyz", but since we don't see that, I have to assume they're not easily accessible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I presume more people than just me keep their phones or devices on at all times during the flight. Therefore, due to extensive end-user testing. We have deemed all devices safe to use.

<comment><USER7> _Therefore, due to extensive end-user testing. We have deemed all devices safe to use._

Not at all: [http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=22383605#p22383...](http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=22383605#p22383605)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> It really seems to me that all this regulation about personal devices is just more theatre. Or some kind of psychological strategy to emphasize to the passengers who is in control.

If a cell phone or an iPod could _really_ cause harmful interference with the avionics, they would not be allowed at all.

<comment><USER14> If a high beam headlight could really cause harmful interference with the vision of approaching car drivers, they would not be allowed at all. Right?

Here's a sampling of interference events: <http://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/docs/rpsts/ped.pdf> (edit: only some of them are about EMI interference)

Instruments acting up won't automatically cause a crash. But they may contribute to the accident (ref AF447)

<http://www.cvel.clemson.edu/pdf/nasa-rp1374.pdf> \- some examples of what lack of EMI shielding can do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> How about we just take the empirical test. I know I often forget to turn off my iphone on the plane (1 out of 5 times I fly). I'm not alone, and there are 100+ people on the plane. Odds are _very_ good that we have thousands of hours of real world tests with a dozen phones turned on.

If this were actually a serious problem for the plane, there would already be a sensor for this. "Sir, there's something emitting radiation in your pants".

<comment><USER16> My cousin's ex-husband is a pilot for Southwest. He says he never turns his phone off because it doesn't matter and is a stupid rule.

<comment><USER15> There is one good reason to turn off your phone however: the phone searching for new cell towers drains the battery quickly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> What if they put _all_ the iPads on a flight, and there was still no interference? Could they all be approved after that flight?

(Of course, it's a gamble, since a single bad device could ruin the certification for all of them, but I think it's a smart gamble.)

<comment><USER17> That wouldn't account for destructive interference.

<comment><USER18> By the same token, testing them individually doesn't account for constructive interference.

Clearly we need to test all possible permutations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This entire argument is just stupidity. Nobody disputes that there have ALREADY been tens of thousands of these electronic devices left on in the past year with no noticeable interference. No expert (and your friend that heard someone say they saw some interference once doesn't count) seriously believes there is any way these could cause significant interference.

But the government has to mandate the most expensive testing program known to man because nobody in a position of decision making is allowed to consider any reasons why an iPad might be different than a raygun or a Van de Graaff generator or a live tiger.

</comment><comment><USER20> I find this funny because if you are a private pilot, there's this: <http://www.flightprep.com/rootpage.php?page=iChart>

If the FAA is fine with me sitting in the left seat with an iPad strapped to my knee, within a foot of the avionics, it's baffling that there would be an issue with passenger flights.

<comment><USER21> a) How many passengers are in your plane? I doubt this would be approved for Part 121 or Part 135 travel.

b) If something goes wrong with your avionics, you can turn off the iPad. If something goes wrong on an airliner, the pilot can't quite as easily figure out whose iPad is causing the trouble.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> > For example, if the airline wanted to get approval for the iPad, it would > have to test the first iPad, iPad 2 and the new iPad, each on a separate > flight, with no passengers on the plane.

I still think that could be a great differentiator. "Virgin: We don't care when you use your Kindle. Or your iPad". Too bad it's too expensive.

Also...having to do dedicated test flights seems very inefficient. What if they just _bought_ 100 iPads and gave them to everyone on randomly selected flights? They'd let the passengers use them for an hour (enough to watch three episodes of _The Office_ ), take them back for another hour, and compare the radio quality. It'd be great -- they'd get some serious stress testing, have relatively low fixed costs, and it'd make the customers happy. (They could even give the iPads away afterwards to rewards customers as gifts.)

Hmm, I guess it'd be not so cool if the devices actually _did_ cause the planes to crash.

<comment><USER23> They cannot test them on a live plane with live people. Imagine if something did go wrong, and it crashed the plane. What official wants to say "Oops".

Performing the tests would be insanely bad PR. An official has to approach someone going on a flight and say "we think this device will crash the plane, but We're not sure, would you mind playing with it during theft flight so we can see if the plane you're on falls out of the sky?". Panic would ensue.

<comment><USER24> In the UK I often fly Ryanair who due to falling under the Irish Aviation Authority have been allowing the use of electronic devices while the fasten seat-belt light is of (although, not phones) for several years.

<comment><USER25> Does _of_ mean _on_ or _off_?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Guys, look, this is what test pilots are for. They get paid the big bucks, because they occasionally fall out of the sky. The electronic emissions on a 767 are already more complex than any simulation could ever predict. If they were going to fall out of the sky because of emissions, it would have happened already, without a single phone on board.

Now, that's with hundreds of channels running right next to each other in cable bundles. You're talking about tiny emissions from tiny devices, a couple layers of shielding away. There's no way they can anticipate every combination of everything else involved, but I'm pretty sure those cable bundles pose a far greater problem on every flight, every day, than your cell phone ever will. And I'm pretty certain vast numbers of passengers have left their cell phones on during take off and landing, and there's no, zero, zip incidents of a plane falling out of the sky because of it.

</comment><comment><USER26> There must be a smarter way of doing it than have 1 flight and 1 device. Surely they could take 10 devices and if there was no interference thats 10 cleared and if there was an interference, they could then break up the that batch into separate flights.

I'm sure there are also other ways to make this more efficient?

<comment><USER27> This is assuming that when you put those devices in the same area, there will be no interaction between them, no amplification, no cancelling out, etc.

A better question to ask would be probably: should they test multiple devices in addition to single samples in order to catch more interaction patterns?

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> "Any device maker who doesn't contribute financially to the testing won't be added to the new updated list of approved electronics devices on planes."

Really? Your suggestion is that someone checks specific models against a special approved list that has nothing to do with the actual EMI standards met by the device?

</comment><comment><USER29> I actually kind of like that there's no phones--it keeps the people around you from talking your ear off for hours while you're trapped next to them.

But I believe it really is a "Because I said so" kind of deal.

</comment><comment><USER11> A linked article:

[http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/25/disruptions- tests-c...](http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/25/disruptions-tests-cast- doubt-on-fcc-rules-on-kindle-and-ipad-html/)

mentions some measured electronic emissions from kindle and other devices (razor, recorder). In some ways it doesn't matter what might actually be allowed. If an attendant tells you to shut it off, and you don't, you're in violation of their rules. If I took a razor on and started shaving during takeoff, I'm betting I'd be told to shut that off.

</comment><comment><USER30> Oh my god. _Rolls eyes_. I believe that the ban on electronic devices during take off, taxi and landing is completely unnecessary and founded on paranoia. I think the ban should be overturned as much as the next person.

BUT. Do you really have to claim that you're off to buy a STACK of magazines to read in this time? Are you that incapable of sitting unstimulated in your seat for a few minutes each time you fly?

</comment><comment><USER31> Pilots themselves now are receiving iPads from their employers to use for flight checklists and so forth. There's a whole market for flight related apps.

So that's probably another factor in why the FAA is finally moving on this issue, since passengers would complain if they couldn't use iPads but the crew could.

</comment><comment><USER32> I think the real driver here is software based avionics, a glass cockpit on your iPad.

[http://www.padgadget.com/2011/08/07/aspen-avionics-brings- th...](http://www.padgadget.com/2011/08/07/aspen-avionics-brings-the-ipad-to- the-cockpit/)

</comment><comment><USER33> Weird, almost every time I have flown I see people using iPads and smartphones on the plane without any issues.

They do ask people to turn them off during take off and landing , but this is only a fairly small segment of the journey anyway.

</comment><comment><USER34> Can't we just start a kickstarter project to buy out all the seating on the required number of flights to test each of these devices?

</comment><comment><USER35> Why is the first officer sitting on the left?

</comment><comment><USER36> I feel like I'm missing something. He needs a "stack of magazines" to read during taxiing, take-off, and landing?

To my knowledge, I'm not a slow reader, nor do I have an unusual amount of patience (quite the contrary), but I can't imagine making it through a magazine, much less a stack of them, during the time I usually spend unable to use electronics on a plane.

<comment><USER2> You must not be from New York. At LGA or JFK, it's quite common to sit on the runway for 45-60 minutes when taking off, or to be held in a holding pattern for at least as long when landing.

<comment><USER36> No, west coast, my reference points are mostly SJC/SFO/PDX/SEA/TPE. An hour between doors closing and taking off is largely unthinkable. I'm not even sure it took an hour when I had to go through ORD in really crappy weather a few years ago.

I've heard the occasional story about long tarmac waits in New York, but didn't realize that 45-60 minutes could be anywhere near typical. Is Newark any better, or basically in the same boat?

<comment><USER37> Consider yourself blessed. NY airports are a nightmare. Same with LAX, ORD, ATL, DEN, and most other major hubs. (DFW seems to be a sole exception to the hubs-are-sucky axiom; I've rarely has anything but pleasant experiences from that airport, and I think I've connected through it over 100 times in the last 12 months).

Of all of these hubs, I hold a special pocket of hatred in my heart for my hometown airport, LAX. It's not the biggest or most crowded airport in the country, but it seems to be the worst run. Security lines take at least 45 minutes a pop, even if there are only about 10 people in line. Pre-takeoff delays on the tarmac routinely run 60 minutes or longer. Etc. It's about as well-managed as a DMV, and every bit as infuriating.

SFO tends to suck, too. I'm actually surprised you haven't had worse experiences there. It's routinely rated as one of the worst airports in the country for delays. (SJC, by comparison, ranges from painless to downright pleasant).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> excuse-me So logically either: There is a danger from these devices but 1, nobody has ever switched on an iPad/phone/ebook reader/tamogochi/iPod on a flight in the US - ever. Or 2, planes crash all the time but the government keeps it secret.

Alternatively an ebook reader doesn't emit enough RF to crash a 737.

On a recent Alaskan airlines flight you were allowed to use the $5 in flight WiFi - but Bluetooth devices were banned. That's some pretty specific interference!

<comment><USER38> One wonders why the terrorists don't just buy a GNU Radio and a dish, and start dropping airplanes like flies.

<comment><USER14> The airplanes wouldn't drop like flies, but you could probably make a plane divert in bad weather by jamming the NAV frequencies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Can't wait until the day I get to overhear everyone's phone calls on the plane. It will really break up the monotony of crying babies.

<comment><USER40> People used to complain about that actually. I remember hearing a radio debate on why phones should be allowed back in like 2005, and the counter arguments I can recall were:

• People hate having to listen to 1-sided conversations

• The phones were confusing the network - they would switch to a new cell tower every 15-30 seconds.

Both valid arguments if you ask me. Not sure if these complaints were drawn from reality or hypothetical problems - was there a period of time when you could actually use your phone on a plane? I'm pretty young so I don't remember back to the first cell phones.

<comment> excuse-me Would it be overly cynical of me to suspect that the original ban had something to do with the $5 charge for the seat back phone and the new policy has something to do with the $5 seat back wifi?

<comment><USER14> How about acknowledging that the rules may be overreaching, yet be thankful that the airline industry likes to err on the side of safety?

<comment><USER41> The risk of dying in an airliner crash in the US is now literally too small to measure. I think we can afford to loosen up a bit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> This article would've made my life easier two years ago while I spent an entire day discussing the matter with my ex-Fiancée.</comment>


Who, What, Why? Starting Off on the Right Foot - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@pgscandeias/who-what-why-starting-off-on-the-right-foot-239ceaa32b07 <comment><AUTHOR> OP here. I wrote a bit about why I begin my engagements with software teams by asking "Who is involved?", "What is the desired outcome?" and "Why are we doing it?". They're such basic questions, and when teams answer them quickly, it's a great start. But when they don't, it's very useful to pinpoint what's missing and then work from there.</comment>


Docker plugins complete the puzzle - <AUTHOR> https://clusterhq.com/2015/07/01/docker-plugins-complete-the-puzzle/

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, Luke here. Just wanted to reiterate huge thanks to everyone who made the Docker plugins project possible!

</comment><comment><USER2> It's really great to hear this is all happening now!

</comment><comment><USER3> cool stuff</comment>


A.I. Is Learning from Many Humans - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/16/technology/ai-humans.html <comment><USER2> Not exactly on topic but after skimming the article and then the comments, there seems to be — albeit a very understandable — misunderstanding of what is being done in the field and how the public views and uses terminology.

People hear or read the words Machine Learning and assign a HAL like technology to it.

It's definitely hard to explain an idea like SVM, it's applications, and how it works/what it does without a background in some linear algebra.

And then to broach more complicated topics like temporal real time neural networks in computer vision for something like anomaly detection.

From my conversations with people because it's something that isn't understood there is almost a cognitive dissonance. One of which expects so much now, but at the same time denies the future application space when the conversation becomes more personal. "Why aren't self driving cars a thing yet..." and then "A machine couldn't do what I do."

It's worrying that there will definitely be regulation coming to the field, where the people writing the laws and the people the writers represent have a hard time understanding what they are trying to regulate. Add in the fact that the tech itself is somewhat cheap and will only get less expensive. You only have to look as far as the Deep Fakes fiasco on Reddit. The guy creating fakes of celebrities being superimposed on porn is a self proclaimed amateur and was able to accomplish a quite a bit at home with Keras.

Edit:

I do want to mention that a lot of the papers I've read recently on real time anomaly detection rely on automated labeling and not having human labelers.

It's only important to have human readable labels if a human has to interpret directly.

<comment><USER3> > It's definitely hard to explain an idea like SVM, it's applications, and how > it works/what it does without a background in some linear algebra.

I don't actually think this is the case. The basic idea is that you can represent data as points in n-dimensional space and draw decision boundaries in that space. I think most people should at least be able to understand this geometrically for n=2/3 and then accept that it possibly extrapolates to n > 3.

<comment><USER4> What is a "decision boundary?" What does it mean to represent data as a point in space? Why would the number of dimensions of space matter? How does any of that relate to AI or machine learning?

<comment><USER5> Those details matter a lot, you're right. However, pictures help a lot imho, and I bet my parents could get the jist of this:

[https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main- qimg-968b9df8608f76d41586a0...](https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main- qimg-968b9df8608f76d41586a0c257381821)

<comment><USER4> Is that teaching a computer to distinguish between males and females based on height and weight?

<comment><USER3> More or less, yes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Each time I read an article about this I am convinced that any person contributing to this kind of learning algorithm should have the opportunity for equity in the outcome. (perhaps in addition to the wage for doing the task)

If I'm a delivery driver roaming all about town with my camera on my dashboard which is tagging street signs and speed limits and other data, do I get a residual if that data is used to make billions of dollars? Do I even get paid .02/mile to collect it, or am I forced in order to have the gig in the first place?

A morally straightforward way to make a more equitable future would be to acknowledge how important it was to collect and classify all of this data, and provide the humans that are doing that work with some part of the insane returns of scale that will (and already have been) achieved by these organizations. Sure, you contributed a really really small amount to the overall algorithm, but that really small amount generates billions / trillions of profit, so maybe it scales, and it will scale over time after training is done.

I hope we see efforts to do this kind of thing.

</comment><comment><USER7> Yes, we need lots of correctly tagged data.

Waymo released a tagged data set for self-driving:

[https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/21/waymo-releases-a-self- driv...](https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/21/waymo-releases-a-self-driving-open- data-set-for-free-use-by-the-research-community/)

The FT article is a little better:

[https://www.ft.com/content/2eed925a-c3cf-11e9-a8e9-296ca6651...](https://www.ft.com/content/2eed925a-c3cf-11e9-a8e9-296ca66511c9)

"Its data, collected using cameras and sensors on Waymo vehicles in a variety of environments and road conditions, include 1,000 high-resolution driving scenes that have been "painstakingly labelled" to indicate the presence of 12m objects such as pedestrians, cyclists and signage."

<comment><USER8> Interesting that FT adds that first bit to copy/paste.

<comment><USER7> Ugh. Forgot to remove that. Didn't see it on my iPhone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think the lack of engineers in the US government is becoming a bigger liability every year. Here science is changing the globe at an ever increasing pace and our congresspeople are baffled and confused by the word "encryption."

<comment><USER10> I completely agree. One cannot pass fair laws on topics one doesn't understand. It's even worse if understanding is based on input from a consultant or lobbyist!

There aren't many reasons an engineer would want to jump into the political fray besides altruism. It's like choosing to join the largest, most corrupt, bureaucratic, change-averse, and valueless company that ever existed. For lawyers, that probably sounds like a dream come true.

My perspective as an engineer: Yes, there are huge important problems I would like to help solve. No, I don't think I'm willing or capable of solving that class of problems in a system like that.

<comment><USER11> Incentivize engineers/technologists to join the government, that's what China has been pushing for the past 3 decades. Partner with the FAANG companies, have them sponsor their employees to go on a paid sabbatical wherein they can contribute to technology solutions within government. I know some form of this was happening under Obama.

<comment><USER12> I would totally be willing to do this, however I fear the actual implementation would be more of the same:

\- Terrible consultants, middlemen, and lifers making progress too hard or impossible.

\- Constantly changing or unclear requirements

\- Making penny-wise, pound-foolish decisions for political reasons or budgeting idiosyncracies

\- Resistance from lawmakers since it would give more government influence to people from states that lean towards some of other party (put more bluntly, Republicans don't want to give a bunch of liberal or left-leaning people from California, Washington, and New York more influence)

\- The government only seeing the value in surveillance/military software that people are likely to refuse to work on. Not sponsoring software that actually directly helps people domestically

What I think we need instead is something like the US Digital Service, along with some other government programs, rolled into a Department of Technology that will hopefully have a completely different culture, payscale, etc. compared to the rest of the government. And maybe even something like jury duty, but for software people, engineers, scientists, etc. so it's more representative of the general public and not the old-school government culture.

<comment><USER13> > _Terrible consultants, middlemen, and lifers making progress too hard or > impossible._

Can you elaborate on this? I hear lots of criticism around inept and ill- intentioned consultants and "govvies" alike, but I think a lot of it is a bit unfairly harsh. There are certainly some adverse incentives (chiefly that it's easy enough to coast along with minimal effort in these jobs if you're inclined), but I'd say the slight majority of individuals in this space are qualified, capable, and motivated to improve the world via good work—technical or otherwise. Slowly but surely, projects get done and positive change is made.

> _Not sponsoring software that actually directly helps people domestically_

This really isn't true. Every US agency has technology initiatives, some more effective than others. See the work that the Department of Veterans Affairs does, as one example. The US government also spends ~$750B on grants annually, much of which goes to fundamental research as well as tech projects. If you really want to dig in, there's an API to access data on every item of spending (e.g. contract awards, grants): [https://www.usaspending.gov/#/](https://www.usaspending.gov/#/)

<comment><USER12> >Terrible consultants, middlemen, and lifers making progress too hard or impossible.

I can mostly only echo hearsay, however I have been tangentially involved in government-focused projects. The big issue I see with the government getting involved in tech is that they don't know what they really want, they don't know how to filter out bullshit/upsells, and they'll frequently overpay for things they don't need and underpay for things that would be very helpful.

I'm not one of those people who wants to defund the government or privatize everything, however I do think the government incentive structure needs to be redesigned and become less cushy while simultaneously becoming more lucrative, accompanied by a huge culture change. The government isn't inherently inefficient, it's only like that because we let it be, one has only to look at other countries (see: Estonia, China) to see how much more effective we could be here.

Regarding actual spending, I want to measure that by its effectiveness, not by the total amount spent. The government could blow all its money on tech initiatives and EMR upgrades and have nothing to show for it, and I wouldn't call that helping people domestically. To address your examples, a lot of those grants are for defense contractors (which only indirectly helps people, at best, and is itself a pretty corrupt old-boys industry). Others are for things like direct academic research though, which I do think is decently well run in general, but isn't really a direct government relationship to tech.

<comment><USER13> > _The big issue I see with the government getting involved in tech is that > they don 't know what they really want, they don't know how to filter out > bullshit/upsells, and they'll frequently overpay for things they don't need > and underpay for things that would be very helpful._

These are good points (as were your original ones). Thanks for the thoughtful reply—I'm just trying to push back slightly on the "government/contractors are all incompetent" narrative where I see it, since I don't think that's the root of the problem (the DMV area is the most highly education region of the US, as one counterpoint). Discussion around incentive structures is a lot more productive.

I didn't give very specific examples with grants, but I just wanted to draw attention to that as an often overlooked and major source of government spending. The federal grants process does have multiple stages of project performance monitoring/evaluation, though that process itself could be made more efficient. Also, sometimes grants do directly support software projects with public benefits. Just as a single example, Stanford DeepDive (now Snorkel) is a system for knowledge base construction that has been used to fight human trafficking, among other things: [http://deepdive.stanford.edu/showcase/apps](http://deepdive.stanford.edu/showcase/apps)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20733878](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20733878)

</comment><comment><USER15> Learning or Remembering? or Classifying? lol

</comment><comment><USER16> The AI isn't "learning" anything. It's being supplied with more observations so that it can better approximate whatever "curve" that is being fit to the data.

<comment><USER17> do you think humans do something differently?

<comment><USER18> I do. I think humans are pretty bad at fitting data to curves consistently, but we're pretty good at learning to fit data to curves. AI doesn't work until you tell it which data to use and what output you expect, and then it functions quite consistently. Humans are also capable of trying new things and hypothesizing results.

The gap is certainly closing, but it's nowhere near where it needs to be to replace the need for humans. Maybe we'll get there soon, but it won't happen without some new approaches IMO.

Then again, I'm no longer active in the research aspect of the field, so it's hard to gauge how close we might be.

<comment><USER17> "AI doesn't work until you tell it which data to use and what output you expect, and then it functions quite consistently." -> you mean supervised ML, not AI.

Unsupervised ML is different. From what I can tell (I work in ML and have extensive biology experience), human brains use a combination of approaches that combine unsupervised and supervised learning and oneshot learning and it's not clear that a true "learning AI" requires more technology than what we have today. I think that's an open question in the field but nobody is really addressing it head-on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I always wondered how an AI would enslave humans to teach it more things :-)

<comment><USER20> Tangential: this could have been a better premise for _The Matrix_ , rather than the battery thing. It would make a great story, if it hasn't been written already.

In a sense babies do this, i.e. they are cute and smile to engage parents and other adults so they engage with them, which increases rate of learning.

<comment><USER21> about the battery thing: [https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/19817/was- executiv...](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/19817/was-executive- meddling-the-cause-of-humans-as-batteries-in-the-matrix)

the original idea makes much more sense in the context of the story, it's basically my head-canon now.

<comment><USER20> Oh boy, Matrix theories do run deep. My favorite is the Matrix in a Matrix theory ([https://matrix.fandom.com/wiki/Matrix_in_a_Matrix_theory](https://matrix.fandom.com/wiki/Matrix_in_a_Matrix_theory)), I really wish they would pursue this in Matrix 4 (just announced). It's matrices all the way up!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Also, [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20717961](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20717961)

<comment><USER23> No conversation there though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I hope A.I. is smart enough to learn only from smart people. The are not so many of them though...

</comment><comment><USER25> ...A PRIORI ==> MULTIVERSE ==> UNIVERSE ==> HUMAN ==> AI ==> A POSTERIORI...

</comment><comment><USER26> AI's key innovation has been the proper marketing of outsourced low-wage labor to investors. Still waiting on those self-driving cars, though... weren't they supposed to be taking me to the airport last year?

<comment> what-the-grump Stop offending the to be blockchain millionaires.</comment></comment>


The 'braided stream' analogy for human evolution - <AUTHOR> http://johnhawks.net/weblog/topics/news/finlayson-braided-stream-2013.html <comment><USER2> Or perhaps, from our CS perspective, a DAG analogy - human varieties from any instant in time could feed genetic material forward to any future ones.</comment>


Efficient lock-free durable sets - <AUTHOR> https://blog.acolyer.org/2019/12/02/efficient-lock-free-durable-sets/ <comment><USER2> I kept having this sense of deja-vu as I read the article. This is essentially how the persistent store of the Apple Newton worked. Pretty neat.

Our stuff supported vanilla battery-backed RAM, and we also supported memory- mapped flash (which has implications for how you represent the object state, since you can only flip bits in one direction without an expensive and destructive erase operation).

Recovery after a crash was essentially a read pass of the whole device, which was fine for the storage capacities of the day, at memory-bus speeds.

</comment><comment><USER3> The summary misses out on some key details that are most likely in the paper but are really needed to evaluate this.

How do you ensure that two nodes are not initialised at the same place?

<comment><USER4> Lock-free data structures tend to use the compare-and-swap atomic operation as a primitive: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compare-and- swap](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compare-and-swap)

You provide three values to a CAS operation: the memory address you want to change, the value you _expect_ to be there and the new value you _want_ to be there. If the expected value is not what is at that memory address, the CAS fails; presumably, the expected value is not there because another thread's CAS succeeded before you. You now need to do try again (and maybe do some more work before doing so).

You can see this in Section 3.3, "The insert operation": [https://arxiv.org/abs/1909.02852](https://arxiv.org/abs/1909.02852)

I think this answers your question: algorithms for data structures like this one use primitives like CAS to ensure that the data structure remains valid even when multiple threads are modifying it, and all without mutual exclusion mechanisms likes locks and mutexes.</comment></comment>


Shitter: Toilet Paper of Tweets - <AUTHOR> http://www.getshitter.com/

<comment><USER2> Twitter's ToS requires third parties to respect deleted tweets, etc.

Trying to decide whether the disposable nature of this product meets that requirement...

</comment><comment><USER3> But does it support pull-to-refresh?

<comment><USER4> I'll only consider it when they implement infinite scrolling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Pricing before I have to authorize the app would be nice. Sure, I can change permissions later, but I'd rather not have to.

<comment><USER6> That's a really valid point delinka, hadn't considered it. Thanks for the feedback.

<comment><USER7> I haven't signed in yet, because there is no information on the web site at all. It seems unlikely that you'd ship to Europe, for example?

In any case, why not make it any timeline, not just the user's? It would make for a great gift, for example.

<comment><USER6> We do actually ship to Europe - we ship everywhere.

The only downside is our rates are unfortunately nothing like Amazon's. We'd love to get our shipping costs down and are open to suggestion!

<comment><USER7> The ultimate toy would be a printer that prints the feed live to the toilepaper...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Like it! One quick usability fix - can you make it so that when you click "tweets", "timeline", "favourites" etc, the relevant radio button is selected? :)

You just need to update the ID in the <label> tags to the relevant radio button id, e.g. feed_feed_type_tweets, feed_feed_type_timeline, feed_feed_type_favorites etc.

<comment><USER6> Excellent suggestion - and blatantly obvious in hindsight!

Thank you!

David

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Now rest room breaks are going to be way longer... there was a project sometime back trying to do the same with SOPA/PIPA bill text :)

[http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/26659043/print-the- sopa-...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/26659043/print-the-sopa-and- pipa-bills-on-toilet-paper)

<comment><USER6> Meow - I love this =]

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I don't want to be a killjoy but this seems like a wasteful novelty. Are the tweets at least printed on recycled paper?

<comment><USER11> Well, the content is definitely recycled.

<comment><USER12> +1

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Come back when it's realtime. (I only wipe myself with recent happenings.)

[http://hackaday.com/2011/09/27/toilet-paper-printer-made- fro...](http://hackaday.com/2011/09/27/toilet-paper-printer-made-from-scrap- parts/)

<comment><USER14> Now there's an idea! An appliance you load with regular TP which has a button you press to get a pre-configured number of one- or two-ply 4.5"x3.7" sheets, printed with very latest tweets. Connected via WiFi. Configured via an internal web server. What kind of hardware do you need to print on TP?

<comment><USER15> Doable but expensive. A wifi version would need at least:

wifi chip plus antenna - $30

microcontroller + associated bits - $8-15 or so

stepper motor drivers (you need two) - $8 or so

stepper motors - $6 min

printhead and ink - $12, replaceable

Battery and charging circuitry

And that's not counting manufacturing and profit. Would you pay $70+ for printed toilet paper? If a couple people would, I'm willing to design the device, sell a couple, and open source it.

<comment><USER16> I would, if it didn't mean a.) having to wait ages to get a piece of paper, then the next one... b.) any ink rubbing off on fingers or elsewhere.

<comment><USER15> Speed is traded off for resolution. The thicker the paper, the more it would absorb the ink, and the less would rub off. I would not recommend this for thin (2 layer) paper.

If you are actually interested in doing this, I'd be up for doing the project. I actually have the motors, motor drivers, microcontroller, and inkjet cartridge full of red ink already. I also have a 3d printer for mechanical prototyping, and a good supply of toilet paper. If you are interested in working on this with me, email me at kliment.yanev at gmail.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> How quickly will the toilet rolls be shipped? Would it be in time for April Fool's?

</comment><comment><USER18> This combined with the little printer ( <http://bergcloud.com/littleprinter/> ) and I'm in.

</comment><comment><USER19> This is truly revolutionary. Or at least revolving.

</comment><comment><USER20> $35 for four rolls of @horse_ebooks is... extremely tempting.

</comment><comment><USER21> This needs QR codes for the links in tweets ;). Nice work!

</comment><comment><USER22> How do you deal with the copyright issues of printing and selling other peoples tweets?

<comment><USER6> Twitter's TOS covers this (believe me we checked with the lawyers!).

Cheers,

David

<comment><USER23> It covers a third party (not the user and not twitter) selling someone's tweets?

Who wants to buy my e-book collecting celebrity tweets?

<comment><USER6> /like

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is hilarious, but if you could replace photo links with inlined photos, I'd be more likely to buy. Nothing beats soiling photos of my friends, family, and favorite food.

</comment><comment><USER25> Obligatory Penny Arcade: <http://art.penny- arcade.com/photos/283628430_FxJSk-L-2.jpg>

</comment><comment><USER26> Any chance you'll do a Pintrest version soon? Love this idea/concept.

The age of dadaism is upon us with memes and the Internet. <33

<comment><USER27> yes I love that the art of dada/surrealism has now just bled into everyday reality--more and more, faster and faster! it's like my dream come true :) :)

Even just the complete mainstream-ization of meme culture is doing such a wonderful service of warping the minds of humanity!

may the lulz continue ad infinitum!!!

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> When I read this I assumed it was a Twitter app optimized for on-the-toilet reading...

</comment><comment><USER29> Brilliant idea indeed! I would like to see it more customized though, especially to print #tag results... Later to choose your paper depending on your mood.

</comment><comment><USER30> This is brilliant! I checked twice to make sure it wasn't april fools day. Of course it probably slows people down during the wipe phase :-)

<comment><USER31> Honestly, I'd love to wipe my ass with shit people say.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Love this.

Also glad HN allows us to focus on the company or story rather than who wrote it or broke it first :)

</comment><comment><USER33> Tempted to start a poll about the future of this idea... Sounds like a fad (a disgusting one IMO)

</comment><comment><USER34> I wonder how much it costs?

<comment><USER14> $35 for four rolls. Kinda steep, but then, it's the thought that counts.

Note that you are not restricted to using just your own tweets.

<comment><USER35> So, Tweeting is free, but it will cost me 0.25 cents every time I wipe?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> This just made my day. Kudos - or to say it with Dr. Sheldon Cooper: "Bazinga!"

</comment><comment><USER37> 4 days too early?

</comment><comment><USER6> Thanks for the link Tyson, you beat me to it.

Obviously this is fairly tongue in cheek, but we're reasonably pleased we monetized Twitter in a way that avoided advertising.

Hope the HN community enjoys!

<comment><USER38> How do you create the TP. In house or outsource?

<comment><USER6> We found a printer to work with, though that is what took the longest. Went all over the world and then managed to find one under our noses.

<comment><USER39> How did it smell?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> So, this is an iPhone replacement? (my preferred way to read tweets on the toilet)

</comment><comment><USER41> +1 on having seeing the pricing first. I wonder how you are going to keep up with orders :)

</comment><comment><USER42> I laughed, but I would definitely change the name of the product to something that you could mention in public/polite company.

</comment><comment><USER43> I always joked about creating a twitter account named "shittr" where I would tweet a message describing every bowel movement I had.</comment>


Twitter Web has been down for over 20 mins. Are you affected? - <AUTHOR> I can confirm that Twitter for the web (mobile works for some) has been out for users in Nigeria and Ghana for quite a long time (over 20 mins). Are you affected too? What is your location? <comment><USER2> According to the Guardian, Twitter confirmed the worldwide outage by tweeting from their @support account. Realising the issue, they had to email the tweet so that news agencies could actually see it.

[http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jan/19/twitter- do...](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jan/19/twitter-down-over- web-and-mobile)

<comment><USER3> Haha! This was awesome!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Twitter is quite a critical infrastructure to have a single point of failure.

I just logged back into my APP.NET account [https://alpha.app.net/](https://alpha.app.net/)

I know it's wishful thinking to assume this could revive it but I wish Dalton would email everyone to inform them there is still a way they can argue with strangers online. :)

Jokes aside, most people have zero ways to interact with people they had been in constant touch with via Twitter now that it is down.

Crazy!

</comment><comment><USER4> It is down for me here in Germany as well.

Just posting the status link [http://status.twitter.com/](http://status.twitter.com/) They are aware.

</comment><comment><USER5> Down in italy as well... but strangely not for everyone O_o

</comment><comment><USER6> Appears to be working here (West coast, USA)

</comment><comment><USER3> Down from Pakistan as well.

</comment><comment><USER7> UK down.

</comment><comment><USER8> Switzerland: Down as well.

</comment><comment><USER9> down also in France

</comment><comment><USER10> India (south): Up

</comment><comment><USER11> Tunisia: Down.

</comment><comment><USER12> Germany too.

</comment><comment><USER13> Turkey too.</comment>


Show HN: Dataset of HN posts and metadata hosted on Kaggle - <AUTHOR> https://www.kaggle.com/antgoldbloom/d/antgoldbloom/hacker-news-posts/what-kind-of-posts-attract-upvotes <comment><AUTHOR> For fun, I did a simple analysis of what kind of posts attract upvotes: [https://www.kaggle.com/antgoldbloom/d/antgoldbloom/hacker- ne...](https://www.kaggle.com/antgoldbloom/d/antgoldbloom/hacker-news- posts/what-kind-of-posts-attract-upvotes).

My conclusion is that the ultimate HN post is Sam Altman posting about Rust at midday ET on Sunday.</comment>


A Framework for Intelligence and Cortical Function Based on Grid Cells - <AUTHOR> https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/10/13/442418 <comment><USER3> Grid cells is, according a learned colleague of mine, an epiphenomenon. If so, this is not a viable path, as it is really just the grandmother cell theory in disguise.

I like Hawkin's work. I think he has good instincts, and he was probably the first to hammer home the point that all the brain does is make predictions and there are a small number of evolutionary mechanisms at work in the brain. Still, that doesn't make him right here.

<comment><USER4> I am not sure that he's the first to note that the brain is a predictive machine, or to notice that models of state or the environment can be formulated entirely in terms of predictions[0].

Personally, I find that idea very convincing, because we already know how to learn to predict (reinforcement learning), and we can use the same framework to _optimize_ an agent's behavior to maximize against these predictions. There is some evidence that the brain uses something like temporal difference methods to learn.

The hard parts are: how to do this in a stable and efficient matter, and how to build up our representation to go from relatively simple goals (e.g., survive and collect resources) to more abstract goals (e.g., translate a poem in such a way that the original's charm is preserved[1]). That is, you want to have a system that is capable of climbing up Maslow's hierarchy (or something like it) and actually proceeds to do so based on emergent properties of the system itself.

Proposing and investigating new ways of constructing learning systems so that there is a continuum between primal drives and complex abstract goals is hard, and even if grid cells are an epiphenomena, then it is worth studying them to see how they might develop from simpler rules. If Hawkins' team can make something useful, then that can still be beneficial by allowing for more powerful and flexible AI, even if it's not a theory of everything.

\---

0\. See for example: [http://web.eecs.umich.edu/~baveja/Papers/psr.pdf](http://web.eecs.umich.edu/~baveja/Papers/psr.pdf) (Littman, Sutton, and Singh), which describes and analyzes the equivalence between belief-state based representations and state representation based on predictions.

<comment><USER3> You have a point that the grandmother cell theory appeared first. Got people thinking. Then the grandmother cell theory people themselves came out and said 'hey, we were wrong - we think it is sparse coding'

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_explanations_of_th...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_explanations_of_the_%22grandmother%22_cell)

Something similar could happen here. But then, it won't be grid cells as they are. Will it be that location is coded in every sparse representation? I don't know...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Numenta also put out a video recently explaining this new theory [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNRZD9YJCdI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNRZD9YJCdI)

</comment><comment><USER6> Ah the new paper from Hawkins et al.

Thanks, OP this will be Sunday morning reading at its finest.

The ideas from his 2007 book have stuck with me and it will be very interesting to see where the state of their art is.

<comment><USER7> What "ideas from his 2007 book" are those? I read the book and my conclusion was that there was nothing new in it. (Sorry if this bursts someone's bubble)

<comment><USER8> I don't think there was much new in it, but (intentionally or not) it was a pretty good layman's introduction to the preceding decade or so of thought about predictive behavior in neural systems. Of course, Hawkins tended to imply that it was all his own ideas, but if you ignore that it's a pretty good overview.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Related: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18214707](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18214707)

</comment><comment><USER10> Despite being mentioned everywhere, the term "object" is never really formally defined at all.

What does the brain even consider an "object"? The paper is fundamentally flawed by missing this definition, since their idea is entirely reliant on the definition of an object.

Are there some common things in the physical world that constitute the basic atomic building blocks of objects according to the brain? If so, this needs to specified, otherwise all of this theory is totally vague...

How is the statement that "the cortex is capturing the relative positions of objects" in the slightest bit novel at all? Obviously mammals are capable of navigation, hunting, etc etc. Basically any interaction with your environment requires immediately knowing where all objects are, so obviously this is critically encoded within our learned representations of the world.

<comment><USER11> Object is a set of features at location. According to this video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVGQeFFjhEk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVGQeFFjhEk)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is way beyond what I can understand, but got me thinking: if a complex neocortex finally gets emulated and trained (current ML techniques) to a human level, how hard do you think it would be to implant primary directives?

Robot brains in Asimov's SF stories were designed mathematically, and they were mathematically proved incapable of defying the three laws. Our robots would be less certain, as its design would include too much randomness to manipulate with absolute certainty. OTOH, even Asimovian robots could defy the three laws if they knew enough philosophy.

<comment><USER13> IMO, any intelligence smart enough to interpret the three laws is smart enough to have have an interpretation in a way you didn't expect.

The three laws are an interesting thought experiment, but not an interesting solution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> So the memory palace is literally how functions are organized across the neocortex, neat. Well done, ancient Greece

</comment><comment><USER15> I highly recommend checking out "On Intelligence" by Jeff Hawkins [1] - <USER2> amazing book where the author of this paper elaborates on his theory (as of 2004).

Also, I'm currently reading "I Am a Strange Loop" by Douglas Hofstadter [2], it's relevant to this topic and super fascinating. I bet you'll enjoy reading it!

[1] [https://www.audible.com/pd/On-Intelligence- Audiobook/B002V8L...](https://www.audible.com/pd/On-Intelligence- Audiobook/B002V8LKTE)

[2] [https://www.audible.com/pd/I-Am-a-Strange-Loop- Audiobook/B07...](https://www.audible.com/pd/I-Am-a-Strange-Loop- Audiobook/B07HJ9NHHM)

<comment><USER16> Thanks for linking to "I am a strange loop", I'm a big fan of Doug H

I've been waiting for it to be released on Audible for years. They just added it

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I just skimmed the paper and there are literally 0 (zero) equations in there, is this normal for these kinds of papers?

<comment><USER18> I'd say it is normal. Generally you wouldn't find equations describing some proposed model, instead you would find "equations" describing the statistical observations. This paper, however, isn't empirical. It instead proposes a theoretical framework, based on the earlier studies. It argues (hopefully soundly) from the premises of the quoted studies to the conclusions it reaches. The point of the research isn't to present this is exactly how this behaves in mathematical terms, or even suggest a mathematical model for how it could work. Instead it presents a semi-formal description of how it could work, so someone can come up with an experiment trying to establish if it really does work that way. Once some evidence is obtained, you go from there to the more mathematical models.

Its hard to formalise things especially in fields were you're far removed from the maths. So rather than spending a ton of time making a model that is probably fundamentally wrong, you make an approximation in informal language. Scientific discovery is in my mind is always a balancing act between verifying propositions (which don't really _mean_ anything) and sharing thoughts (which don't really _prove_ anything).

In cognitive neuroscience semi-formal descriptions are great. In comp-sci, give me the equation already!</comment></comment>


The Trouble with Politicians Sharing Passwords - <AUTHOR> https://www.troyhunt.com/the-trouble-with-politicians-sharing-passwords/ <comment><USER2> It's a question of education / culture.

I run an SMB and as such, have a personal access to manage the company's account on the French govt taxes website.

My accounting firm does this for me. The govt website has this perfectly covered, with delegation and dedicated roles for accountants, other company officials, etc.

Yet when we first set this up the first thing my accountant told me was: just give me your credentials so I can log in as you. I said no, I don't think so. Instead, tell me your account # so that I can authorize it on my account. And he said "I don't even have an account. I do this with all my other clients".

In the end he set up his own account and we did it the right way, but it took time, and it was absolutely not obvious to him that sharing personal "admin" login information was a very bad idea.

I don't think there's a technological solution to this problem, unless maybe if delegation can be made to happen automatically (how???) and if there are biometric sensors that make sharing login information impossible (but that would annoy people more, not help them).

<comment><USER3> > I don't think there's a technological solution to this problem

Lol of course there is.

1: IP alerts - new IP? email alert.

2: 2FA - should be standard, requiring a physical device to login

3: Deterrents; seems slightly fishy? You need to login to the account by proving you are the owner.

With AI it's not so difficult to detect if it's a genuine login (browser fingerprinting, UA strings, version numbers, OS versions etc).

<comment><USER2> Those would only help limit login sharing; they're not solutions to the problem of making account delegation easier to do (and to understand).

<comment><USER4> I think from most people's perspective all those things do is make login sharing harder. I'm working with a non-profit to set up a website and social media accounts, and I've explained the concept of everyone having their own login to a shared account 3 times, and I think maybe 1 person gets it. (And maybe I suck at explaining it, but I have plenty of teaching experience and usually get compliments on explaining technical stuff in a non-jargony way).

If these same people had the obstacle of having to add another person's phone to 2FA as well as share the password, they still wouldn't look very long at alternatives to the way they log in. There's a fundamental assumption that there's a way to log in, and other people just have to do that. Very hard to help them realize that everyone should authenticate as individuals, and you can authorize individuals to access the group's resources.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Good points raised and I largely agree, but just look at the article, several pages explaining passwords and security, along with screen shots (which I think must be equivalent to having maths equations in your document in terms of their power to make eyes glaze over), and a call to "reach out to your IT department".

Do MP's even have an IT department? I thought they were responsible for their own offices, and on quite a tight budget.

"Have these people never heard of delegation permission?"

You know what, probably not. Nor have I, and I'm a dev, though I don't use exchange, and of course I do understand the concept.

"But we do need to call out credential sharing in this fashion for what it is and it's precisely what I highlighted in that original tweet - lack of education."

The actual problem here is that security is just too hard for users, the implementations are too complex or onerous, and even perhaps undesirable to them if the intent is just to "track them, make them accountable (in reality, blame them when things go wrong)", etc.

</comment><comment><USER6> Honestly, these replies feel completely unhelfpul. This is exactly how MPs offices have _always_ worked, staff open and respond to letters with little oversight. Now they do the same with email.

Yes, in 2017 we can do a lot better and use delegated access, but adoption of those features doesn't happen overnight. Delegation of access was probably not even a thing when Dorries was first elected?

So the question really is: who is responsible for ensuring that MPs are up to speed with new security measures? Why aren't they dealing with this?

I think we should be lobbying MPs to ensure that they have the support they need to keep up to speed with best security practice, not vilifying them for trying to muddle through the best they can. It sounds like a recipe for disaster to try and get them all to do it themselves.

\---

On a tangential note:

> It's alarming to read that Nadine believes criticism of her approach is due > to her gender because if ever there was a construct that's entirely gender- > unbiased, it's access controls! Giving other people your credentials in a > situation such as hers is a bad idea regardless of gender, race, sexuality > and any other personal attribute someone may feel discriminated by.

Completely misses the point. Of course security is gender-unbiased, but that doesn't mean she isn't getting a harder time of it simply because she is female. Such bias happens a lot.

To be honest, I think the actual truth is that the papers enjoy reporting on whatever Nadine Dorries says. So yeah, I don't doubt that another MP would have received less flak for saying the same thing, simply because it wouldn't have been reported as widely.

(That doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about security issues, but don't discount the abuse women get just because you happen to disagree with them on a particular point.)

<comment><USER7>
        This is exactly how MPs offices have always worked, staff
        open and respond to letters with little oversight. Now they
        do the same with email.

This isn't just the email password, nor is it just the password to the "letters from the public" email. The original offense was "downloading porn on a work computer", indicating that this is the core network account, AD or LDAP. And _that_ means that it's granting access to _everything_ , every email and every file. These interns don't need access to every email she sends to another MP. These interns don't need access to the drafts of upcoming legislation. These interns don't need to know what kind of cat pictures she likes. What do you want to bet that the whole "Using personal email for official communications" fiasco over here started when someone said "I need an email that the interns can't read and they won't give me two user accounts"?

<comment><USER8> > What do you want to bet that the whole "Using personal email for official > communications" fiasco over here started when someone said "I need an email > that the interns can't read and they won't give me two user accounts"?

Possible, but I also guess the reason was along the likes of "I want to be able to send and receive 100MB powerpoint slide decks, but central IT has a 5MB cap"... this one is something I regularly hit with clients back in ye olde freelance time. Record low was a client with 1MB attachment cap and 100MB of quota.

<comment><USER9> IT is directly responsible for a lot of those things. In some places, it seems like IT departments try to make their own lives easier by ensuring the infrastructure is so ridiculously constrained that nobody wants to use it (no users = no things broken by users that need fixing!). Users instead will make due in creative ways, which make organizations vulnerable (and people unhappy).

<comment><USER10> Of course they'll say it's for security reasons... and indeed, the most secure network is one that no one uses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The ICO tweeted: [https://twitter.com/ICOnews/status/937654177571983362](https://twitter.com/ICOnews/status/937654177571983362)

"We're aware of reports that MPs share logins and passwords and are making enquiries of the relevant parliamentary authorities. We would remind MPs and others of their obligations under the Data Protection Act to keep personal data secure."

</comment><comment><USER11> This is also an issue in the medical field. e-prescribe lets doctors order medications directly from the EHR, including—in some states—controlled substances. The software ensures it's the doctor by requiring the password to be entered. The doctor gets tired of typing the same password 50 times a day—compounded by a login sequence that is not most user-friendly—and the result is that the staff enters the order on behalf of the doctor.

(I should note this is being improved, with more and more doctors getting comfortable with documenting things themselves and therefore being logged when they need to order something.)

This is just to say that usability / UX is a very important component to security, or insecure workarounds flourish. As software makers, we need to make it _easiest_ for the user to do the right thing from a security perspective, not just merely _possible_.

<comment><USER12> Troy talks about the importance of UX in his post about FaceID, if anyone is interested. [0]

[0][https://www.troyhunt.com/face-id-touch-id-pins-no-id-and- pra...](https://www.troyhunt.com/face-id-touch-id-pins-no-id-and-pragmatic- security/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> In some cases this sharing of passwords has turned out to be rather convenient. Like when you get accused because logs show that you did something wrong, you have this "Oh, I don't recall doing that - must have been one of the 15 people who regularly access the systems with my credentials" defense. We had at least one case where police officer played this card after being accused of checking records he had no legitimate reason to check.

Especially when facing criminal charges (or public scrutiny), this kind of tricks can actually work. Especially if you manage to show that this was widespread in organization and management has not taken steps to stop this bad practice.

<comment><USER14> > Especially when facing criminal charges (or public scrutiny), this kind of > tricks can actually work.

Alternative: the trick might be using someone else's credentials because you know they, not you, will take the blame.

Without knowledge of the real behaviour of espionage and interfering with foreign governments/other political parties in your own nation/police officers who never take bribes, I would presume there are people who get themselves hired by their opponents specifically to undermine them in this way.

Can you imagine how few people would believe a politician protesting their innocence if it was discovered that someone has used that politician's email account to chat with a 9-year old? Especially if the person sending the emails claimed to be that politician (bonus points if the politician shares their phone as well as their password, they might have selfies nobody else has seen)? When the 9-year old could never be found (because they never really existed, but again _imagine_ how that will go down as an excuse)?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Does Twitter support credential delegation? How about Facebook? Reddit? Instagram? Medium? Other random CMSes the MP might push content to, for op eds, newsletters, etc?

All these systems start with the assumption that the "author" is a single account. Delegation is an edge-case they may or may not support, and they might all support it differently.

Using a single PC, you don't have to use any of the special-case logic. You're back on the happy path: you do everything the same way you always do, and it all just works. There's also a lock on the resource: if someone else is at the PC, you can't be making conflicting responses to the same correspondence.

<comment><USER16> >Does Twitter support credential delegation? How about Facebook? Reddit? Instagram? Medium? Other random CMSes the MP might push content to, for op eds, newsletters, etc?

Yes, you can find this special delegation by looking up the specific OAuth API. OAuth access usually limits what the other can do, some providers give you access to logs and you can limit and review scopes on each access token.

<comment><USER17> This isn't delegation of access to other people, this is delegation of identity to applications. Someone with your API token is still you -- just with restricted permissions.

Until one can go into their Twitter account and create completely separate sub-accounts below their own with different emails and passwords people are going to share credentials.

<comment><USER16> You can delegate to applications which other people are using, I don't see why that should be a problem. Plus an API token is more trackable than just sharing your password.

It would be an improvement over current.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> He mentions but does not address one of the main problems: sharing passwords is actually ADVANTAGEOUS to the politicians because it provides plausible deniability. Troy says "this is exactly the problem" (which is true), but provides no proposed recourse.

Looking at other industries, the problem goes away when people are held responsible for activities performed under their credentials even if they DID share them to other users. But it is _particularly_ difficult in politics to hold people accountable for their actions.

<comment><USER19> I don't think that Troy Hunt can reasonably be expected to address the issue of "plausible deniability". He points out that is an issue, I believe it's on the organization (in this case parliament) to find a solution.

Personally, I'm all for the position that if you shared your password with someone then you are wholly and completely responsible for their actions. That is, the porn downloaded with your account is your porn, regardless of who actually was using your login to view porn.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I think this tweet captures my sentiment about the situation pretty well:

> I don't blame her, I blame the I.T dept for not managing this risk > adequately. It isn't up to her to have to defend this. She has a valid > business need and I.t needs to meet this need and be secure also. I. T is > the group that should be explaining themselves, not her

If it were an isolated individual incident then going against the user might be reasonable but in this case sharing passwords seems to be common usage pattern, and imho their IT dept should have certain degree of awareness about what their users are doing and working to proactively correct bad practices. And no, its not enough just to push new versions of software that has some helpful new features; you need also to get your users to use them, which won't happen by itself.

In particular the response of the IT dept (I guess?) seems bit tone deaf:

> We're aware of reports that MPs share logins and passwords and are making > enquiries of the relevant parliamentary authorities. We would remind MPs and > others of their obligations under the Data Protection Act to keep personal > data secure.

It contains a implication of punishment ("making enquiries to authorities"), and does in no way acknowledge the needs why the users are sharing passwords. A better response would have been something like

"We're aware of reports that MPs share logins and passwords and are working to improve to systems so that it can be avoided in future. If you have been sharing logins, please contact us so that we can work together to make sure your needs are covered. In the meanwhile, here are some useful tools that can help you [link to delegation and collaboration docs]"

<comment><USER21> In the defense of IT everywhere, I once was a "sole" IT department at a reasonable size non-profit. I tried hard to force security but if the top of the org chart refuses, there isn't much you can do but just keep trying. A lot of the office even knew the CEO's password which he used for everything.

Google Apps had a nice feature at the time that lets you see the strength of your users' passwords. If you sorted it from weakest to strongest, you literally had our org chart. Talking to other people who work with security, this doesn't seem to be all that uncommon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> There is real value in plausible deniability if you a politician. Could be almost considered best practice by some.

<comment><USER23> At least as long as the defense isn't reversed: It's your account. You are responsible for what happens in your name.*

IT security practices would get better very fast if that was the case.

* If you think your account was hacked then report it and it can be checked.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Of course it's bad security practice. Nobody cares about the security implications. It's a necessary functionality and productivity hack.

Managing access to resources is almost always a joke. Most systems do not give you ACLs to manage access to an account. When they do, the functionality is locked down to admins. When that isn't the case, the user interface is invisible or totally unintuitive.

Basically, if the option is A) spend six months and half a million dollars to upgrade everything and train people, or B) only allow one person to check a single account, or C) share passwords, the choice is simple.

<comment><USER25> > Nobody cares about the security implications.

Assuming he's innocent for a moment, I'm going to bet Damian Green cares...

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Users have no expectation of privacy. That's IT security policy mantra wherever it is legal. Everything a government official does is public at some level. So that part of Hunt's argument is bunk.

From a security point of view, An elected official isn't some clerk. If she decides to delegate duties to her staff, that's her decision and responsibility.

I've had this argument with people before. IT dogma like this makes life more efficient. In the paper world, guess what? Mail was opened by staff. Time sheets were completed by secretaries. Staff were delegated authority to sign off on stuff up to a threshold. When I started working in IT, my director had a protocol where his secretary could sign off on certain transactions up to a high dollar figure without his presence. Problems weren't very common.

An IT credential isn't sacrosanct, and for the 90th percentile executive, there's no reason to not allow this type of behavior where delegation isn't possible.

I always thought it was funny when Apple did enterprise briefings, one of their success stories was how a major company wrote an iOS app to allow managers to approve routine bullshit. The quote from some SVP at the client was something like "This app took 3 hours off my workday, and I can eat dinner with my kids." That's the ultimate illustration of stupid security culture and the micromanagement it brings along for the ride.

<comment><USER19> IT credentials should be treated as sacrosanct. Your credentials represent you and are, in many cases, indelibly tied to those credentials. Providing those credentials to others is the most coarse grained method of delegating _all_ of your abilities under that credential.

In this case we're talking about pornography and, apparently, rather pedestrian pornography at that. I have no doubt that this will end with people chuckling at each other and that will be the end of it.

Should someone mail out state secrets with these credentials the tone of these stories will be very different. This attitude of "sharing credentials makes my job easier" will meet with far less indulgent attitudes. Heads may very well roll and making it more difficult to pinpoint an individual will not be so easily tolerated.

Bottom line, sharing the credentials represents very real risk. Perhaps members of parliament do nothing of consequence with their email and that is why this has been allowed to go on for so long.

<comment><USER26> That argument is bunk.

Any competent organization in government protects state secrets with a multi- factor credential that's protects against reuse, some sort of network isolation, and serious criminal penalties for violation of those rules.

Outside of the enterprise, people do this all of the time with limited powers of attorney and other mechanisms. When I had an assistant, I delegated to her the ability to pay my AMEX. If people are commonly sharing credentials, it's a sign that IT or the business doesn't have its shit together, just like most random Visa/MasterCard issuing banks don't with respect to delegation of access.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Credential sharing is common, most see it as a way to achieve an end, rather than as a security hole that could screw them over in the future.

If your not very technical, and your intern needs to respond to your emails, schedule your calendar, and handle other tasks I'd be surprised if most don't just fork over their login details rather than go and ask Jerry in IT to make an account with all these special permissions for an Intern or staffer that'll be gone in a few months to a year.

<comment><AUTHOR> Which would be inadvisable but understandable, were it not for the code of conduct that stipulates that you do not share passwords.

It might be a common thing to do, but this matter needs at a minimum a reiteration of the rules and better documentation of the correct alternatives, and probably also a certain amount of punitive measures.

<comment><USER28> Biometrics solves this particular sharing problem; the politican can´t easily share their iris or fingerprint

In my experience, 2factorA with cell phones also prevents executives from sharing passwords. They won´t leave their phone behind. However biometrics is faster to use and easier to understand for most people. 2FA can be socially engineered by calling the politican/exec and asking for the code they just got "for support". That won´t fly with a fingerprint.

<comment><USER27> A gummy bear works just fine to copy a fingerprint. You can only go so far too, piss off a politician or even a lower level boss, and IT may find all their computers in the dumpster, replaced with new PCs that said person bought to get the job done, rather than fight IT to get their work done.

For most people, a computer is a means to an end. If it doesn't accomplish that task, the computer belongs in the trash.

<comment><USER28> > A gummy bear works just fine to copy a fingerprint.

No longer. You may be pleased to learn that there is new technology that is better than that. Google "liveness detection" to learn more.

> For most people, a computer is a means to an end. If it doesn't accomplish > that task, the computer belongs in the trash.

If I interpret your hyperbole nicely, you mean that security which is difficult to use will upset users. Indeed this is so, therefore security needs to be implemented in such a way that it is easy to use in a secure fashion. apple touchID is a good real-life example of which you may be aware. Enforcing complex text passwords which must be changed every N days is a counter-example which does not achieve the desired effect and also upsets users. Biometrics are, when implemented well, very easy to use and far more secure than text passwords. Therefore they should be considered, before "throwing the computer in the dumpster", as you said.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> There's the concept of "plausible deniability", which we see on display nearly everyday by a certain member of the US federal government.

Indeed, it happened very recently over the weekend, when his lawyer claimed it was he who was tweeting, not his boss!

Furthermore, we've seen this regularly from his twitter account: Sometimes the tweets will be word salad only slightly more intelligible than "covfefe", other times they'll be much more intelligible (though not necessarily intelligent).

Which has always led me to wonder: Who is actually tweeting?

Is it the person we ostensibly voted for? Or someone completely different?

Because to me, when a person's words high in government are supposed to be their words, they have a inherent responsibility to them. If someone else is using their account to blurt out ideas which could have world changing repercussions, and that someone isn't the person the electorate chose to represent them, then we don't have a true representative government system any longer. At that point, we might as well not have elections any longer, because the people we are trusting to govern aren't doing their damn job. In fact, they are abdicating that responsibility, and one should think that such an act would be subject to sanctions, up to and including being treated as a treasonous act.

This goes well beyond "plausible deniability", in my opinion. In the case of national government, it is something that can easily lead to war, due to misunderstanding or just malfeasance on the part of bad actors. That this is being seen as normal, that "everyone else is doing it", in any other time would have the populace at their doorsteps with pitchforks and torches, demanding change.

The fact that this isn't happening, despite everything we has seen, continue to see, and will see in the future, is both maddening and disheartening.

We are in dangerous times. This may sound like hyperbole, but it isn't. I'm not the only one who thinks or believes this. Many are attempting to scream it from the rooftops, but are derided as being overly dramatic, or crazy, or any number of other epithets. Others continue with the whole "let's way and see, 2018 will be the year, or 2020 - things will change".

I fear that we don't have long to stop this madness if something isn't done soon.

</comment><comment> FLUX-YOU So if they didn't know about delegated access, what else do they not know about?

It's great that email and Sharepoint has this feature, but what happens when anonymous contractor #028345 is building something and doesn't know how to write delegated access securely into their program? What happens when this contractor solution becomes critical to MP daily work? That's going to make them roll back to credential sharing.

And to turn the viewpoint around, what if you are an IT guy/gal who didn't know about this? Does it mean you should be summarily fired because not being able to offer delegated access as a solution? And because you couldn't offer that solution, MPs ended up sharing creds as a result.

Do politicians deserve the absolute best IT people the world has to offer to minimize the chance of not knowing something or doing something insecurely? If so, why are all of us not immediately tearing down all political IT infrastructure that isn't secure because ultimately this is the security of the country you and your family live in!

</comment><comment><USER30> Those tweets are absolutely terrifying. Not because the persons are practicing bad security, but because they don't understand why it's bad. I work with plenty of people who reuse passwords/have weak passwords, but they acknowledge that it's just because they are too lazy to do the right thing. That's scary. What's scarier is when people in positions where they are responsible for creating policies that impact security, encryption, privacy are fundamentally blind to why you'd even want security, traceability, and privacy.

</comment><comment><USER31> I very much appreciate Troys approach to criticism. It gives the other party a fair rebuke but also treats them as the fallible humans they are. People make mistakes, and I feel like out society should be a little more lenient sometimes, especially on issues which can be corrected, like this one.

Granted there are definitely times when a person really ought to have known better ahead of time.

In any case I wish we could see more leadership of this nature.

</comment><comment><USER32> I liked the linked document from the NCSC. They give practical advice on password expiry which I would love to adhere to...were I not having to follow PCIDSS that mandates that we set expiry to 90 days and has length and conplexity requirements. PCIDSS is a bad standard</comment>


Goldman Sachs drops Annual Reviews moves towards continuous evaluation - <AUTHOR> https://grosum.com/blog.do?method=openBlogBody&id=Goldman_Sachs_drops_Annual_Reviews_moves_towards_continuous_evaluation <comment><AUTHOR> Goldman Sachs added to the growing list of Giants to overhaul the Employee Performance Evaluation System and take alternate path.</comment>