ASP.NET Deployment Needs To Be Fixed - <AUTHOR> http://wekeroad.com/post/4373719917/asp-net-deployment-needs-to-be-fixed <comment><USER2> I am doing some very straightforward asp.net deployment using git, TeamCity, nunit, and powershell.

If the gauntlet of (unit-integration-acceptance) tests (in the master branch, naturally) all pass, the code is deployed to a staging server. Then there are some tests which run against staging. If those tests all pass, then the artifacts for the new version of the site are copied into a new directory (side by side) on the server. finally, a powershell script tells IIS to serve from the new directory.

End result? Deployments are zero-downtime non-events tha happen multiple times daily. Rollbacks are trivial (and rare). Any not-yet-ready for prime time code can be checked into any other git branches.

Database changes? I have a tiny bit of code, called from Application_OnStart that checks to see if it needs to do any CREATE TABLE or ALTER TABLE statements.

Sure, I had to create all of this stuff myself, but it's all crazy simple, reliable, and does just what the project needs.

Maybe someone could make some product to handle all of this, but the flexibility of linking together the best tools for the job wins for now.

Also, it's just easy.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't see how this is "straightforward". You have to have a server that runs TeamCity - which means installing TeamCity and setting up a build config/environment. This is all well and good for most teams - it's needed to keep the team from checking in crap.

But you're using that setup to deploy your code - this is the missing piece to me. Why would you push from your Build Server? It has nothing to do with deployment (in concept).

Moreover you say that "Rollbacks are trivial" - which is hardly the reality for most people. How do you rollback a push from your BuildServer? Manually?

How do you alter your DB Schema? What if your deploy screws up your DB Schema? I guess what I'm asking for is a bit more detail here - you're sort of waving off everything I posted about (and experienced over the last 12 years)...

<comment><USER3> _Why would you push from your Build Server? It has nothing to do with deployment (in concept)._

Your build server has everything to do with deployment. Your build server should be the only place _production_ builds should ever come from. What you seem to be suggesting is replicating a build server for deployment. To me that seems like a violation of SOC and DRY -- but applied to infrastructure rather than code.

Once you break out staging from production, which you should do anyways, I don't think there's any issue left from the things you listed. And the additional benefit is I don't have to learn another framework like Capistrano.

With that said I do think deploying w/ ASP.NET is a pain, but not for the reasons you mentioned. But because getting the configurations working in all the right places is painful, IMO.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think we'll differ here - but it's a nuance really. In .NET your BuildServer has everything to do with deployment by necessity - that's not the case in other frameworks.

It does work, it is convenient, but that's not a Build Server's function _in concept_.

Which things RE deployment did I leave out? I was considering the config as part of the coding...

<comment><USER4> Surely with any compiled language the "build" (or build server) has everything to do with deployment? You have to build it _somewhere_ , either on a build server, on a server elsewhere (AppHarbor style), or on your local machine.

You could cut the build machine out by building locally and pushing the binaries out via git, but that's just really an implementation detail.

<comment><USER5> I would have agreed with Rob, but I have to admit you make a good point.

Rob is nonetheless correct that deployment in ASP.NET is poor. I think you explained one of the reasons why: static languages. It seems like you've convinced yourself that something is convenient because you feel that there's really no other solutions. I think you right and wrong...You are right because it isn't going to change, so deal with it...You are wrong because there are alternatives which have changed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've used NAnt to build/deploy happily for years. I suppose it depends on each project or application's particular context.

I will say this: If there's some kind of requirement where Dev1 will overwrite Dev2's changes on the _target server_ , especially if we're talking about production, then you're probably doing it wrong. We never deploy from a developer's box or ad-hoc copying of files. Anything that needs to be deployed needs to be in source control, and needs to be deployed from the build box. I don't care if someone forgot an ASCX template and it takes a half hour to redo the whole thing.

</comment><comment><USER7> I pretty much agree with MartinCron that it is easy to chain together the tools you need for your particular situation, although I run LINQPad scripts instead of powershell or ruby or xml so I get c# intellisense goodness everywhere (great for Ms.Web.Adminstration and SMO).

I do wonder if some kind of multi-tenant app that holds application versions in assemblies and can roll up or down between them at will is the future though.

</comment><comment><USER8> I reckon the article title isn't really accurate, there isn't anything wrong or broken with asp.net deployment, it's just that there isn't a single, complete sanctioned product from Microsoft. I don't see this as a problem, I think using a bunch of techniques (NAnt, MSBuild, xcopy, PowerShell etc) is ok, gives you lots of flexibility. Not that MS creating such an integrated tool would be a bad thing.

</comment><comment><USER9> You need MSIs and PSExec. It's the best deployment system I've used. The MSI configures your server, alerts you to missing dependencies, ngen's your DLLs and loads them into the GAC. If you tag your MSIs with the build number you've also got easy rollback.

There are a couple gotchas that generally require writing an MSI helper DLL but it's no biggie. The only PITA is that if you precompile during the build stage you have to know the path of the application in advance.

Then you just use a little VBScript to let PSExec work it's magic. Maybe I should put together an MSI that installs all the stuff you need to make it work.

Email me if you want some help setting up an MSI / PSExec based deploy system.

<comment><USER10> The GAC? You actually use the GAC? Successfully? You're the first person I've seen that does that.

<comment><USER9> It's pretty easy, most commercial DLLs are signed, and most open source projects that aren't simply get compiled from source. MSI makes it super simple to add as DLL to the GAC. You do need versioning support in your DLLs but once you have the infrastructure in place it's not a big deal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Didn't really understand what's wrong with msdeploy?

Deploying can't get much easier than clicking a single button in VS.Net... Rolling back IS an issue but it can be mitigated by versioning one's source code and testing the site locally before deploying.

<comment><USER12> I'm sure MSDeploy is nice when it works. Serious emphasis on " _when_ it works". I spent an entire evening trying to get MSDeploy to push something from my local machine to my VPS. Conditions: The VPS is remote and not a member of my home-domain, but the path between them is 100% whitelisted in all intermediate firewalls.

How hard _can_ that be?

Evidently very hard. Despite spending the entire evening trying to get them to communicate and push files, it simply didn't happen. In the end I ended up writing my own deployment-system based on source-control, Samba and rsync in Bash. It was easier, it worked and I know why it works.

If that is easier to get working than a "one click" solution, the authors of said solution better get a bigger button. I can't seem to click this one.

<comment><USER13> I've had similar frustrations with msdeploy. Are you initializing the rsync/Bash from your local machine? What are you running on the server to receivie it?

<comment><USER12> It's all done by a bash-sc ript on an intermediate linux-shell which has access to source-control (perforce) and the server (via smb). I can post the script later if you are interested.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> ASP.NET deployment is broken, but any good dev should be able to come up with his own recipe very easily. I had psexec/rake/albacore/fluentmigrator deployment setup for my asp.net mvc servers and it worked out fine for me. I even did a blog post on it: [http://minhajuddin.com/2011/02/04/deploy-asp-net- mvc-applica...](http://minhajuddin.com/2011/02/04/deploy-asp-net-mvc- applications-using-psexec-and-git/)

<comment><USER12> Agreed. I've setup my own based on SSH, bash, Perforce and rsync.

That said, Rob has a good point about MS owning the entire stack and it's pretty odd how they can't seem to put together a working deployment-process.

Whatever you do: Don't say MSDeploy. It's a joke and getting it working requires more voodoo than cooking together your own ad-hoc stuff, like I did.

One of the comments on the blog made me lighten up though:

        Rails Developer: if only you had a good MVC framework!
        MS: Done
        Rails Developer: if only you had a good View Engine, none of that aspx crap!
        MS: Done
        Rails Developer: If only you had a good pacakage manager like RubyGems!
        MS: Done
        Rails Developer: If only you had a good depolyment tool like Capistrano!
        MS:...

Who knows? It might right around the corner ;)

<comment><USER15> What's the gems-like pkg manager?

<comment><USER16> NuGet[1] is the package manager trezor is talking about.

[1]: <http://nuget.codeplex.com/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> There is too much variance in app configuration, implementation and infrastructure to have a single tool for the job. I'm glad there's a functional gap - it leads to solving your 'issue' with code, making sure you have your own continuous integration process.

Another 'button pushing' solution from Microsoft is the _last_ thing we need. People follow 'best practices' that are not actually pragmatic for the need at hand far too much already.

</comment><comment><USER18> We deploy our releases by switching to a subversion branch on the web server/s - at the same time if necessary.

Rollbacks are easy because we just switch back to a previous 'release' snapshot branch.

Works well enough for us so far.

</comment><comment><USER19> git push appharbor master?

Maybe appharbor should open source their deployment routine because I sure don't have any issues with deploying my apps there and rolling back when I need to.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's an HTTP git receiver - nothing magical there

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> aspnet_compiler and push it over ftp. Some guys are just overreacting drama queens.

<comment><AUTHOR> A very convincing argument.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I agree - it doth stink pretty badly. You either have to roll your own deployment platform (which we did but was expensive and time consuming) or you have to put up with immature half finished tools with a learning curve from hell such as msdeploy.

Just make something that works, doesn't require acres of XML, does configuration properly (web.config transforms don't work on app.config btw which sucks and you cant msdeploy anything related to clickonce).

Batch files + robocopy are more useful at the moment than anything OOB.

</comment><comment><USER22> If anyone can tell me how to have a proper Debug/Release App.Config for an Azure Worker Role? I've tried all sorts of voodoo magic and hand editting ccproj files. It's a joke.

<comment><USER23> Do you mean using the *.config transform system, or something else?

<comment><USER22> Yes. The existing ones don't work inside of the Azure packaging and upload process. At least not when invoked through Visual Studio.</comment></comment></comment>


Why you should come to LambdaConf anyway - <AUTHOR> https://email@example.com/why-you-should-come-to-lambdaconf-anyway-35ff8cd4fb9d#.6j7vn13rg <comment><USER2> Folk seem to be easily declaring this person an obvious racist, but all the quotes I've seen to support this so far are either:

\- The author writing they support _willing_ slavery (which doesn't really seem to be slavery).

\- A quote (that circulated Twitter as evidence of racism) saying that suitability to slavery was 'parsimoniously' linked to race. Which seems to rely on the audience not knowing what 'parsimonious' means.

The author's an idiot and an edgelord (and also a shitty writer, hence the pain of finding quotes in his crap), but from what I've seen so far he's not worse than other people who've spouted 'kill all X' and been supported by other conference organisers.

<comment><USER3> Slavery is about humans being classified as property, with property law applied to slaves, which means that slavery cannot be _willing_ by definition. And past examples of slavery that he uses in support of his claims haven't been willing at all, while at the same time he tries to muddy the waters by classifying student debt as being slavery.

Now you can argue that in the US student debt is slavery, given that declaring bankruptcy on student debt is very hard (due to BAPCPA). This I think is a failure of the US education system, making me glad that I was raised in an European country where the education system is largely subsidized by the state and where public schools are still the best ones. Even so, I'm not interested in arguing that student debt in the US is a form of debt bondage, which is classified as "modern day slavery" by the United Nations and being prohibited by internal law.

The far bigger issue is this logical fallacy that's being used to justify this author's thoughts on the matter: " _if X is at least as worse as Y in my worldview and Y is tolerated, then X should be tolerated as well_ ".

And that's just wrong. For one because it often is an unfair comparisson (student debt vs Afro-Americans born into slavery and completely owned by their masters). But also because tolerance for Y does NOT exempt X from being judged. Couldn't find a name for this logical fallacy, but it should have one ;-)

<comment><USER2> > "if X is at least as worse as Y in my worldview and Y is tolerated, then X > should be tolerated as well"

Has the author argued that people should be classed as property anywhere in their writings?

<comment><USER3> I don't understand your question. That assertion was directed at your argument, not the author's.

<comment><USER2> It's a very simple question, what specially don't you understand?

You seem to think the author made some kind of assertion that people as property is OK, when the author has written the opposite. Is there evidence to support that?

<comment><USER3> No, I haven't made that claim and no, the author has not written the exact opposite, unless we speak a different English (always a possibility given it's not my native tongue).

<comment><USER2> OK. You don't think the author supports slavery either. I'm not sure why we're even discussing this!

The author wrote specifically they believe slavery is a bad thing in their AMA here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4bxf6f/im_curtis_yarv...](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4bxf6f/im_curtis_yarvin_developer_of_urbit_ama/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think Curtis Yarvin's biggest flaw is that he gets carried away. (He shares that flaw with some other guru personalities, like Eliezer Yudkowsky.) He'll write a big post to make programmers less nervous about his presence at LambdaConf, and he'll stick "BTW nerds ruined Detroit" right in the middle of that post, just because he can't resist a tangent. Inviting him to speak was a noble choice, but I feel sympathy for the conference organizers who are probably praying that he doesn't do the same on stage. It's good that he's promising to speak only about programming. I wish this post had followed the same guideline.

<comment><USER5> Agreed, it would have been wiser for his post to just be about LambdaConf and FP.

<comment><USER6> > it would have been wiser for his post to just be about LambdaConf and FP

But the reason for his presence causing LambdaConf problems has nothing to do with FP.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Quite satisfying to see somebody decry the elite's IQism (something both the right and the left are guilty of), insult Trump and his voters, and call the mob out for the chimpanzee-like pleasure they partake in.

        ____

I don't think he can change anybody's mind by telling them he cannot be racist because he doesn't believe intellect makes somebody a better person. (1.) How do we know he's really telling the truth and it's not just sophistry? (2.) Beliefs that are tied to self-esteem are difficult to undo, and a belief in human neurological uniformity (HNU) is often helpful when you do not want to be thought of as racist, yet wish to allow yourself feelings of intellectual superiority.

        ____

I've found it very interesting to watch people come out and say what they really think. For example, the CTO of NPM recently tweeted "This is like when we made Eich quit Mozilla. There are views we have decided are unacceptable and we will ostracize you for having them." [0]

After all of the activism for 'safety' and 'codes of conduct', I did not expect to see people finally admit that it's really about about the right to be employed or have an audience if you are to hold or have held 'bad' beliefs.

Still, it may well be the case that everybody that has been de-platformed or fired over the past decade has deserved it, or that certain people must be purged in order for us to maintain a public square that is acceptable for minorities. Even if it is for the greater good, I still hope that those with political power will come to reflect on their actions and evaluate the harms that they might have inadvertently caused others. Ultimately very few people believe themselves to be evil and deserving of punishment. And if one day a mistake is made and the wrong person is thrown under the bus, a lack of remorse or responsibility will not be seen as endearing.

[0] [https://twitter.com/seldo/status/714272018976284672](https://twitter.com/seldo/status/714272018976284672)

</comment><comment><USER3> TL;DR - racism sprinkled with claims of not being a racist by the author's definition of racism. An article written because the author does not want his political advocacy to affect his carrier, so he thought that more toxic opinions would serve towards that purpose.

The sad thing is that LambdaConf, a super awesome conference organized by super awesome folks, is now destroyed, losing all good will because of this one single act. Which is what happens when you've got tolerant people being taken advantage of and going to the extreme of tolerating intolerance.

<comment><USER5> How is LambdaConf "destroyed"? That seems like pure hyperbole. The conference will go on, and most people won't remember this Moldbug business longer than 15 minutes.

It's also not clear to me what is the "intolerance" that they are tolerating. Can you provide textual evidence for Moldbug being intolerant? In the post, he comes across as tolerant, albeit with a narrative outside the political mainstream.

<comment><USER3> > _most people won 't remember this Moldbug business longer than 15 minutes_

People attending? Maybe they'll forget. But many of the regular speakers or sponsors from FP conferences will not.

On the Scala side I know of at least the Typelevel Summit in Boulder being canceled ([http://goo.gl/2HAVca](http://goo.gl/2HAVca)) and along with sponsors like 47 degrees pulling their sponsorship for LambdaConf ([http://goo.gl/h9WucI](http://goo.gl/h9WucI)). Note that the Typelevel members are community leaders that have contributed to many projects, including Scalaz, Cats, Algebra, Shapeless, Simulacrum, Machinist, Ensime, Spire, etc. And on the Clojure side you've got people like David Nolen of ClojureScript and Om fame saying that LambdaConf is now on the list of conferences he'll never attend.

People follow leaders and if you think this won't have repercussions for LambdaConf, think again.

> _In the post, he comes across as tolerant, albeit with a narrative outside > the political mainstream._

Related to this article, I'm not interested in arguing the fine nuances of his argument or the English language, but when you don't consider other people as being your equal, that's racist by definition. A fact made clear by Moldbug's writing. And the fact that there are people that jump in defense of his narrative highlights the importance of speaking and acting against such beliefs.

<comment> j-pb The point is not about him being a racist or not. As long as he doesn't bring his personal views to a professional setting I don't care about them.

I also don't mind if people don't attend his talks as a form of protest. Heck I probably wouldn't go to them myself.

But demanding somebody be cancelled from a conference because you don't agree with them on something that has nothing to do with the topics of said conference seems to set a bad precedence.

After all that might give others the right to demand people not be permitted to speak because they are communists, gay, hippies, or what else.

As for tolerant people being tricked into allowing intolerance. I'm pretty sure everybody there has a limit on intolerance that they won't tolerate anymore. I firmly believe that everybody has the absolute right for physical protection, so if he had a history of violence there would have been a clear cut line.

However, I don't think that anybody has the right to not be offended, or to be protected from "emotional harm". I expect adults to be able to control themselves enough that this shouldn't be an issue. If all he's done is being an ass, that doesn't justify him being kicked out.

Sticks and stones.

<comment><USER3> > _The point is not about him being a racist or not. As long as he doesn 't > bring his personal views to a professional setting I don't care about them._

You're free to have that belief, but like it or not, being included as a speaker at an important conference gives a person prestige and credence for his ideas and others might not like it.

> _demanding somebody be cancelled from a conference ... because they are > communists, gay, hippies ..._

Right here is the mistake that I think the organizers of LambdaConf did.

You cannot compare gays and hippies with white supremacists, because being gay or hippie does not rob others of their humanity. Communism, in the theoretical sense, wouldn't be guilty of that either.

Now, I've heard somebody making a valid point: another speaker happens to work on military drones, that ultimately have been used to target women and children. Why aren't people outraged about that one?

Well, maybe we should be outraged about that one as well, though the context is different, as military drones, like science in general, can be used for both good and evil. For example the same science that gave us a process for producing nitrogen and synthetic fertilizer is also responsible for gas warfare in WWI. So context matters, I'm not ready yet to condemn the work on military drones as being evil (though it probably is), but I sure am ready to condemn racism, because personally I believe that racism represents the worst of humanity, being the justification given to most wars that ever happened.

> _I don 't think that anybody has the right to not be offended, or to be > protected from "emotional harm"_

First of all we aren't talking about _what is legal_. If we are, then having a belief that somebody shouldn't speak at a conference is perfectly within our right for freedom of expression. And this isn't censorship, but Ostracism, an act which again, is perfectly within our right for freedom of association. People are always free to organize events that accept this person (with LambdaConf choosing this path) and the author can even start his own conferences and communities.

That said, in my country at least, the freedom of speech does not hold for hate speech and you can be prosecuted for causing emotional harm due to hate speech targeting groups based on religion, ethnicity, race or sex. Note that whether the author would escape guilt, that's for a court to decide and I'm not a lawyer, but to me his writings sure sound like hate speech.

And don't get me wrong, if he would be found innocent of hate speech by a court, then I expect for people to uphold his right for freedom of speech, but again, that doesn't mean people can't exercise their own freedom of speech or freedom of association.

<comment> j-pb > included as a speaker at an important conference gives a person prestige and > credence for his ideas

The question is does it give credence to the ideas presented at the conference or does it give credence to all of his ideas?

On a somewhat unrelated note, I find that we place people that give talks at conferences, on a way to high pedestal. It feels like presenting oneself has become more important than writing code.

> Communism, in the theoretical sense, wouldn't be guilty of that either.

Neither does racism "in the theoretical sense" as the author of the article argues. And I'm not buying his argument either, so you simply can't ignore the the fact that communism produced the biggest genocides.

>Why aren't people outraged about that one?

To be honest I actually would be all in to ban a person developing military drones that can be used for "offensive" attacks from the conference.

A person directly developing tools for murder has crossed the line of non- violence I talked about earlier.

> racism ... being the justification ... to most wars ...

So would you ban all religious people because religion has been used as a justification for war over and over again?

To me there is a difference between believing something bad and having the intention to act on it. I don't care about the author as long as he doesn't go out the next day to spit on a black person. And from what I've read the author has this weird "different but equally worth" racism that is somewhat "benign" (as in tumor).

The person developing the drones however is directly ruining peoples lives. Of course he doesn't pull the trigger, but he willingly gives a gun to a psychopath.

> First of all we aren't talking about what is legal.

Why would we? If he had planned on doing something illegal at a conference and then got banned for it there would be zero discussion.

> in my country at least

UK? And I'm pretty sure that you won't be persecuted for causing "emotional harm" but for "disturbing the peace" or "inciting violence" or something similar.

Note that in this case people claim that the emotional harm isn't caused by him giving a racist talk (which would be hate speech and which he's not going to give), but _his mere presence_.

And I think as an adult one should be able to tolerate the presence of another person no matter how much one hates their views.

> people are always free to organize events that accept this person (with > LambdaConf choosing this path) and the author can even start his own > conferences and communities.

>that doesn't mean people can't exercise their own freedom of speech or freedom of association.

Of course people are free to not attend. But then they should accept the vote people cast and stop the brigading.

I am very sure that the people most vocal about this right now would try to stop and ruin any "racist" conference by putting pressure on sponsors and speakers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The thing is that Yarvin's been a huge edgelord with his neoreactionary blogging. And then it turned out people took him as seriously as he hoped to be taken ... and this is now hanging over his startup business like a radioactive anvil.

The ultimate issue is: "don't be a provocateur and then whine when you find out that the people you deliberately pissed off are pissed off at you." [http://philsandifer.tumblr.com/post/141737493541/responses-y...](http://philsandifer.tumblr.com/post/141737493541/responses- you-cant-code-or-buy-your-way-out-of) (and note, that's a somewhat sympathetic post)

</comment><comment><USER9> A tour de force in not-racist-racism, arrogant humility, plain-spoken obscurantism, and selfless egocentrism.

</comment><comment><USER10> Is anyone else wondering about the Maine comment? I thought Lambdaconf was in Colorado this spring.

</comment><comment><USER11> No faith in his claims if he speaks like he writes.

</comment><comment><USER12> > Forget Grandma! Let's get back to the real question. Am I a racist? The > answer is: no. But, I see why you might think so.

Oh boy.</comment>


Two Chinese Video Encoders - <AUTHOR> https://blog.sesse.net/blog/tech/2020-06-28-00-02_two_chinese_video_encoders.html <comment><USER2> There is this for interested [http://www.openhisiipcam.org/](http://www.openhisiipcam.org/) They seem to be targeting $10-20 1080@30 IP camera modules available on aliexpress, you can also get them on ebay with $10 markup.

Lower model/older chipset $80 lan solution [https://www.ebay.com/itm/H-265-H-264-HDMI-Video-Encoder- Vide...](https://www.ebay.com/itm/H-265-H-264-HDMI-Video-Encoder-Video- Converter-For-IPTV-Live-Streaming/352674709762)

$190 wifi one [https://www.ebay.com/itm/Wireless-WIFI-Hi3516A1080p-60fps- En...](https://www.ebay.com/itm/Wireless-WIFI-Hi3516A1080p-60fps-Encoder-RTMP- TS-stream-For-IPTV-Live-Streaming/113623955391)

</comment><comment><USER3> How do you enforce GPL in China? Is it enforceable at all?

> GPL violations are rampant, of course. Both ship Linux with no license text > (even though UHE265-1-Mini comes with a paper manual) and no source in > sight. Both ship FFmpeg, although URayTech has configured it in LGPL mode, > unlike LinkPi, which has a full-on GPL build and links to it from various > proprietary libraries. (URayTech ships busybox; I don't think LinkPi does, > but I could be mistaken.) LinkPi's FFmpeg build also includes FDK-AAC, which > is GPL-incompatible, so the entire shebang is non-redistributable. So both > are bad, but the ENC1 is definitely worse. I've sent a request to support > for source code, but I have zero belief that I'll receive any.

<comment><USER4> It's hard to enforce any kind of IP protection in China. Some years ago I worked for a company that outsourced some PCB layout and manufacturing to a reputed company in China. A few months into production we were made aware of similar devices with identical error codes and messages being sold locally. We had no luck prosecuting it.

Their IP system is strange in that you can file a patent in China even if there is prior art and is being used elsewhere in the world. This means you see interesting incidents - a patent we filed some years ago with apparently little to zero commercial value suddenly popped up in China, filed by some company from Shenzhen. It was apparently a word for word copy of what we had filed, and the diagrams were identical too.

Though there are tall claims about how IP protection has "improved" in China, they have a long way to go and a lot of broken trust to rebuild.</comment></comment>


Fog Creek Compensation (2000) - <AUTHOR> http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000038.html

<comment><USER2> This sounds like the ladder used in the pharmaceutical business which is fine except for the "value" attached to having a PhD and acting like a "scientist". If you don't want to manage, or do project leadership or do the give- seminar/publish/give talks bit, you top out just where PhD's walk in the door. It's a base requirement to do all those things as a starting-up PhD and then the management/fellow/whatever questions start hitting them after 4-8 years.

So you have to deal with people in a positive way that just aren't going to make it to the upper rungs of the ladder. Some, maybe those who read the Peter Principle, won't give you a hard time, but I fear most will resent knowing that they've hit 30 and are basically maxed out.

They're SUPPOSED to accept the challenge and move upwards, and some do, but that'll leave a bunch of dissatisfied people I fear. And these are the set of people at most risk of underemployment and job-loss from outsourcing.

</comment><comment><USER3> At the other end of the formality scale was a company I read about a long time ago. They posted everyone's salary on the bulletin board. If you wanted a raise, you went to the bulletin board and wrote in a new one. I dont remember the company's name. It wasnt in software development. More likely it was some snowshoe manufacturer in Vermont.</comment>


Man in a 'vegetative state' for 12 years, wakes to tell incredible story - <AUTHOR> http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/incredible-story-of-man-who-wakes-after-being-frozen-in-his-body-for-12-years/story-fnixwvgh-1227184009664

<comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8864791](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8864791)</comment>


No Kindle for Canada - <AUTHOR> http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2009/10/07/tech-ebook-kindle-international.html

<comment><USER2> The Democratic Republic of Congo is getting the Kindle but not Canada, what the fuck!?

<comment><USER3> Maybe the people in Canada have intellectual property freedoms to a greater degree than in the Congo. What could be worse for Amazon and the publishers than customers that expect to have rights?

I wish I lived in a country with no Kindles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There is another article on this, [http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/why-you- cant-...](http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/why-you-cant-get-the- kindle-in-canada/article1316081/) , also linked at HN, <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=868723> . It's speculation, similar to what I wrote here earlier, still no real news.

</comment><comment><USER5> _"A spokesperson for Amazon refused to say why the device is not being made available in Canada."_

I was hoping the CBC had managed to find out why.

<comment><USER6> Just speculating but: Rogers. They own the GSM networks here and they are utterly awful. Worse than AT&T.

<comment><USER7> Bell/Telus are launching a GSM network soon (in November). Maybe (hopefully?) the Kindle will launch on their network.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's not coming to New Zealand either. You have to wonder why they are excluding a substantial portion of the english speaking world.

</comment><comment><USER9> Not coming to Turkey either. Being in a third world country sucks hard in every count.</comment>


The Huge, Bee-Decapitating Hornet That Can't Survive Group Hugs - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2016/02/absurd-creature-of-the-week-the-huge-bee-decapitating-that-hornet-cant-survive-group-hugs/ <comment><USER2> I WANT TO SAY: thanks wired for the new anti-adblock campaign. You just saved me 10 minutes of my life reading about bee beheading hornets. Now back to programming.

<comment><USER3> Interesting. I didn't see anything like that. Maybe noscript = win?

<comment><USER4> If you're blocking their cookies, or blocking scripts (because they increment read articles count with js for some reason) then you don't feel a thing indeed. Also, it doesn't seem to detect DNS based blocking.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "[The European honey bee] hasn't stumbled upon the swarm countermeasure, so the hornet scout inevitably marks a European bee nest and returns with its friends."

Given how devastatingly effective these hornets are, the honey bee swarming behaviour seems to be a completely "over-the-top" reaction that thankfully works for them, although the bees (surely?) have no idea why.

Have any beekeepers been successful teaching European (or any other type of) honey bees new, complex behaviours? If they have, how do newly acquired behavrioual patterns spread beyond the initial target hive?

<comment><USER6> How do you go about "teaching European honey bees new, complex behaviors"?

<comment><USER5> That's exactly what I'm wondering - whether there have been any instances of deliberate human-caused epigenetic changes in bees. In light of @ansible's sister comment that worker bees only live a few months, teaching or learning any new behaviour, let alone one as complex as recognizing and swarming an intruder to death, seems to be even more unlikely.

<comment><USER7> Bees are a eusocial organism. While individual bees are dumb/unable to understand their actions, as a whole, bees are remarkably intelligent.

Bees already swarm and kill intruders, but simply lack the understanding of how to bake the wasps. I think a cross breeding program may take care of that issue - but hybridization can bring other problems (see African bees mixing with European).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I just got "ad walled" by wired, putting a huge paywall like thing in front of the text talking about ad blockers. Anybody seen things like that? Certainly won't click the next wired link.

<comment><USER9> I think it's their prerogative to say "either get served ads, become a paying member, or leave." I imagine they wont mourn the loss of someone who would have likely not brought them revenue in any form, ever.

<comment><USER10> Part of the reason I use Addblock rather than another plugin is that I agree with their whole "acceptable adds" idea and I'm perfectly happy with adds if they aren't too annoying. But I wonder how many companies actually use that program?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Same story in comic form: [http://theoatmeal.com/comics/bees_vs_hornets](http://theoatmeal.com/comics/bees_vs_hornets)

</comment><comment><USER12> There is a Nat Geo special called "Hornets from Hell" that shows video of the honey bee hug. It also gives some nightmare inducing close up footage of these things.

Signed a wasp phobic person

</comment><comment><USER13> National Geo video on YT on same topic: [https://youtu.be/2P7Q1ncgcoY](https://youtu.be/2P7Q1ncgcoY)

</comment><comment><USER14> Sorta apropos: if you have not read The Bees give it a look, even if you're not one for fiction. This "group hug" is part of a key scene and other bee social behaviors make for a unique and fascinating novel. [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FJ3CM7M](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FJ3CM7M)

</comment><comment><USER15> Can we just drop wired.com indefinitely?

<comment><USER16> people who subscribe to the site would complain. Why not create a per-user "exclude list"? If I don't want to see posts hosted on Wired.com, I just add the domain in this list...</comment></comment>


Twitter's Bootstrap in the Asset Pipeline - <AUTHOR> http://blog.crowdint.com/2012/02/03/bootstrap-in-the-asset-pipeline.html <comment><USER2> I would advise against the 'less-rails-bootstrap', 'compass-bootstrap' gems and whatnot (there's a whole bunch of them).

I tried a few of them before resorting to embedding bootstrap as plain less.

The gems did either not work at all for me or did not support 2.0-wip, and none had a clear upgrade-path (the sass-compiler chokes on 2.0).

Generally I've become strongly biased against the practice of bundling CSS/JS- libraries as gems. It never seems to work quite right (only jquery ever went smoothly for me) and they always seem to introduce an ungodly amount of magic. - When all you really want is drop a few static files into vendor/assets...

<comment><USER3> I created a fork of less-rails-bootstrap a few weeks ago and put 2.0-wip on it pretty easily in an hour or so. A week or two after that 2.0-wip was pushed to the master branch on that project. What issues were you having exactly?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Let me share some quick thoughts and trade offs.

I did:

(1) Cloned bootstrap into the Rails.root/lib/assets directory, setup config.assets.path, added the require lines to my css and js files.

Alternatively I could have done:

(2) Used one of the gems mentioned in the comments, added the require lines to my css and js files.

In 2.0, there's some manual work involved to get the js pointing to the correct image path, but assuming you've made it that far, those changes are pretty simple to automatically regex.

IMO, the biggest difference is the way you go about styling markup. In (1), markup is modified intrusively. The example from the OP can be tolerated. But now imagine if _all_ your divs had a .row or .spanxx classes attached. If that's unacceptable for you, I'd find a gem that you can work with.

I was tracking 2.0-wip for a couple of months and it wasn't easy to stay up to date with all the changes. Hopefully it's getting easier for gem authors to track and update

</comment><comment><USER5> I was looking for something like this last night, and I found this project: <https://github.com/seyhunak/twitter-bootstrap-rails>

Using this generator is a very fast way to get your rails app using Twitter's bootstrap.

</comment><comment><USER6> Just use <https://github.com/varley/sassy-twitter-bootstrap>

Switching Bootstrap from Less to SCSS is very simple.

</comment><comment><USER7> Anybody using less and sass together?

<comment><USER2> I am, sort of.

On Rails 3.1 I have these in the Gemfile:

      gem 'sass-rails', "~> 3.1.0.rc"
      gem "compass", ">= 0.12.alpha.2"
      gem "less-rails", :git => 'https://github.com/christiannelson/less-rails.git'

I'm in the process of transitioning from sass to less (mainly because I'm tired of compass and because bootstrap comes as .less). The above configuration happily compiles sass/less alongside for me.

It wasn't smooth sailing to get there, though, as you can tell from the pinned versions. The above will probably not work on Rails 3.2 or 3.0, and might even break with the next minor upgrade of 3.1. As it stands the asset-pipeline and supporting gems have been _very_ fragile for me...</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Assume the universe is a simulation. Why is c the speed of light? - <AUTHOR> If you were to reverse engineer the universe from your observations, what would you say is the significance of the speed of light?
I'd say it's the clock-speed of the processor. The rate at which the universe ticks, always constant.
Or perhaps they used a primitive MAX_SPEED that can't hold anything larger than C. <comment><USER2> I'd say it's a hack, and so is the whole quantum "you can't find both momentum and position of a particle" thing. There's something weird about the Simulator's 256-bit computer that we're running on that makes a constant C and some quantum physics oddities run faster. They didn't think it would matter, but we figured it out.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's a hardware problem.

</comment><comment><USER4> MAX_SPEED sounds good to me.</comment>


Why Your Cell-Phone Bill Should Be Going Down But Isn't - <AUTHOR> http://readwrite.com/2014/05/09/4g-3g-smartphone-data-price-difference <comment><USER2> Prices _are_ coming down because the government prevented the ATT-Tmobile merger and Tmobile decided to start competing on price. Thank goodness for a little government regulation and that created competition.

<comment><USER3> Government regulation doesn't create competition.

Edit: It's remarkable that any statement regarding regulation that isn't overtly Marxist immediately gets half a dozen down votes on HN.

<comment><USER4> That is the definition of antitrust regulation.

<comment><USER3> Can you name one monopoly that exists anywhere that is not the creation of a government in the first place?

Do some digging into the history of antitrust legislation. The Sherman Antitrust legislation was an act of mercantilism designed to protect incompetent businesses who were losing market share to superior competition, most notably Standard Oil, the poster boy monopoly which gained an 85 percent market share through lower prices and economies of scale, delivering a benefit to consumers but harming their comparably inefficient competitors. It was those same competitors who spearheaded the antitrust legislation, not the poor consumers 'suffering' from lower prices and superior service at the hands of the 'monopolistic' Standard Oil.

<comment><USER5> "Can you name one monopoly that exists anywhere that is not the creation of a government in the first place?"

Microsoft.

I'm a libertarian, but one of the reasons I can't even consider being an anarchist is that I consider anti-trust regulation to be a good and proper function of a government. I'd break up a lot more, personally. It's one thing that I find the otherwise-excitable class warriors to be bizarrely reticent to do.

I'd also observe that antitrust regulations do not forbid monopolies... they forbid the _abuse_ of monopolies, according to a certain definition of abuse. Microsoft was not punished for having a dominant desktop OS, they were punished for using that dominance to engage in shenanigans to try to "abusively" (in accordance with the legal definition) extend that dominance into a another sphere. Of course that is the theory, and what happens in the courtroom in fact may be arbitrarily related to the theory, but that _is_ the theory.

<comment><USER6> I certainly suffered under that monopoly (as did the entire industry) but couldn't the argument be made that market forces took care of it without government intervention?

I'm aware that there was an anti-trust judgement against them, but as far as I can tell it didn't deter them in any significant way.

It seems to me that they simply collapsed under their own hubris and the blowback from their decades of abusive practices, and as soon as they weakened the competition ate their lunch.

<comment><USER5> "I certainly suffered under that monopoly (as did the entire industry) but couldn't the argument be made that market forces took care of it without government intervention?"

YMMV vary, but my conclusion is this: The government successfully prevented Microsoft from crushing the rest of the browsers. They really were trying, really did damage Netscape, and really were well on their way to _more_ dominance in that field than they had a "right" too. And they were on their way, too; Netscape was faltering and IE was a better browser for a good long time. As it is they still had enough dominance to end up causing web tech to stagnate badly for a few years.

However, recall why Microsoft was so scared of the browser, which is that it threatened to become its own OS and make it so you could run a computer without Windows that could do everything you needed. _Broadly speaking_ (bear with me here), this still has not happened. Here in 2014, you could run a small business out of a browser, and you can do a lot with a Chromebook, but Windows is still around, still powerful, and still pretty full of legacy software that doesn't exist in a browser and businesses are not having an easy time disposing of... witness the continuing lurching life of Windows XP, which Microsoft _wants_ to be rid of and can't be.

I think it was a good decision and still correct, even if ultimately it really only served as a very large shot across Microsoft's bow (even if it was aimed at the hull) due to the fact that the browsers of the time weren't going to be able to manifest the promise of displacing Windows. We'll never know, but the secondary effects of chastising Microsoft may have been worth more than the primary effects ever could be. And I do think the secondary effects were more important; the direct impact pales in comparison to the fact that they'd just been notified they couldn't proceed down that path any farther than they'd already gone without the costs exceeding the benefits.

Of course, what truly displaced Microsoft turned out to be more Apple, via the MacOSX and mobile, which Microsoft continues to struggle with. But so may years ago, who'da thunk it? And it would have been silly for the government to count on that.

<comment><USER7> Not the way I remember it. Netscape owned the browser market. Microsoft didn't even have a dog in the fight (remember they were "blindsided" by the internet). You signed up for internet access with Earthlink or Juno or some other company like that and they sent you a CD with a free copy of Netscape.

Microsoft licensed the Mosaic browser from Spyglass and that became IE. As you pointed out, they developed IE until it was a better browser. The Netscape stagnation happened when they had a long delay in releases due to their undertaking a "thing you should never do [1]," a from-scratch rewrite. Around that time the 2000/2001 dot-com collapse happened which certainly didn't help, but Microsoft didn't cause any of that.

Fast-forward a decade, and now Microsoft is stagnant. Apple developed WebKit and Safari, and Google came along with Chrome, a better browser. By the time Microsoft worked its way through IE 6-7-8 to a browser that was actually competitive again, they had lost a lot of their browser share. Apple, with Safari, and Firefox, rising from the ashes of Netscape, also offered compelling alternatives.

"Who'da thunk it." Well I'm not sure. I don't see any evidence that the government has any better thinkers than the companies in the tech sector though.

1: [http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html)

<comment><USER5> IE 4 was a better browser than Netscape. I think we may finally be distant enough that we can drop our allegiances and just admit that. Netscape did not randomly decide to drop everything and rewrite a browser, they did it because they were trapped in a terrible, terrible code base that could not easily be extended to grow into the future. Netscape "layers", their answer to what we at the time called DHTML and today don't even have a name for it because it's just how the web _works_ , were atrocious, and it was directly a result of their code base not being able to do anything else.

Netscape was boned either way... not doing a from-scratch rewrite would still have doomed them to being stuck behind Microsoft for a long time. It would have allowed them to keep making releases instead of just going silent, but they still would not have been able to be as good as IE. And they'd have still be stuck hard by the fact that Microsoft monopoly'd the price of a browser down to 0... and Microsoft would probably have monolopy'd the price of a server down to 0 too even faster than it did, given the chance.

Microsoft was "stagnant" because they _could_ be stagnant because they had _won_. The judgment at least prevented them from pushing home the advantage, because they knew they'd be slapped down. This is what I'm saying was probably the most important thing about it, and it's easy not to see what "didn't happen", but I suspect that Microsoft would have done yet more "evil". Perhaps it would have gone poorly, but it would have been foolishness for anybody to count on that. (What we know _now_ about Microsoft and Ballmer's leadership makes that a safer bet, probably, but we didn't know that at the time!)

I think people look back at the world in which Microsoft was slapped, and see a world where bad things didn't happen, and don't realize that, due to second- order effects, there's probably more relationship between those two things than they realize, even if obvious first-order effects are missing (like, Bill Gates never rent his clothes in twain on national TV going "Woe are us, for we are injunction'ed!"). In the end Microsoft's dominance would have been cracked sooner or later, sure, but in the long run we're all dead; no policies can be written based on that theory.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> carriers dont deliver "10mbits" which becomes "15mbits" with LTE.

LTE, GSM, etc. use "radio bandwidth". Thats waves in the air if you will. The faster the wave oscillate, the higher the frequency and the shorter the range at which it will keep oscillating.

Radio bandwidth is a finite element and thus frequency ranges are assigned to operators, to wifi, to your microwave (yes it emits on 2.4ghz and interfere with wifi in fact), to your TV, to handled radios, to your drone remote control, etc.

To give an example, an HSDPA channel is 5mhz. In these 5mhz you may be able to send up to X mbits depending on how the signal is encoded (how the signal is encoded is actually what provides the spectral efficiency).

Recent advances, in particular OFDM allowed us to transmit more data for the same radio bandwidth (aka frequency range). Variants of OFDM are used for xDSL, Wifi (not all standards) and LTE (and many other things, including that HD video feed from sport cars or the ISS).

So, since the milkshake's straw does not and CANNOT change size (again: radio bandwidth - spectrum - frequency range) are we are bound to the laws of physic. We're more efficient in the way we organize the data (and mainly, how we're not losing the data - thats the main advantage of OFDM - if you're interested in how it exactly works, wikipedia)

I really despise articles with sensationalistic headlines, that attempt to carry a point through misleading or even incorrect statements - even if often the result of genuine ignorance.

Also, i'm in the USA and I pay 30/mo for 5GB LTE, unlimited DC-HSDPA, unlimited text, 100m calls. It's not great (calls should be unlimited) but thats a good enough deal. If you're paying more you should consider dropping verizon/att - not blaming milkshakes.

<comment><USER9> I pay $70/month for TMobile with unlimited LTE. My coverage isn't as good as ATT while traveling, but its fine where I live. Is this a sign of "gouging?" That it costs more for a service with good coverage in the less populated parts of the sprawling US?

Why are 4G prices higher in US? Demand is higher. Supply is more costly to build. Econ 101.

<comment><USER10> > That it costs more for a service with good coverage in the less populated > parts of the sprawling US?

Did you read the part of the article where they compare to Canada which is paying less than us for more bandwidth? Compare population density there with here.

It's not as simple as supply and demand either. If your infrastructure is being utilized heavily (efficiently), therefore delivering your more customers for the same equipment compared to another region, then you come out way ahead.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've gone without phone or data service on my cell for a couple years, getting by entirely on Wi-Fi, and using Google Voice for the handful of occasions when I needed to call someone.

When I signed back up, I was happy to get unlimited data again, for less money than I'd been paying a few years ago. Back then, it was extra for a data plan, and extra for a "smartphone" data plan -- making my bill over $100. Now, I'm paying less than I was after corporate discounts were applied to my old plan.

And mobile data, even just 3G, is _fast_. And often I'm upshifted to HSPA or 4G, which is faster than the Wi-Fi in some bars. Plus apps and websites are built to use less data than a couple years ago, using AJAX and other methods to cache and reuse more data on the device, such as UI elements and layout. The app is just the mobile browser page, and that is a client that calls an API, minimizing repeated network calls.

</comment><comment><USER12> ProTip: I just called AT&T today and asked when my contact ended, because I was considering going to T-Mobile. A few minutes later they offered me the approximately the service for half the cost.

<comment><USER13> Indeed. Prices _have_ come way down, but the carriers are engaging in price discrimination (quite rationally). You don't get the new prices automatically, you have to switch carriers/plans or persuade your current carrier that you are going to do so.

<comment><USER14> On the other hand, such price discrimination reminds me of things like this:

[http://blogs.computerworld.com/node/3538](http://blogs.computerworld.com/node/3538)

<comment><USER13> I'm certainly not saying discriminatory pricing is entirely fair :-) But the article's premise is that costs haven't come down, and that simply isn't true. (Admittedly the reasons likely have more to do with T-Mobile's strategy than technological shifts.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The difference between wireless technology and computing technology is that wireless communication is limited by Shannon's Law which basically says that C ~= 1.44 * B _(S /I_N) where C is the information rate (i.e. bps) B is the spectral width (how much RF spectrum is being used to modulate the signal onto, and S/I*N is the signal to interference and noise ratio. Right now, LTE is very close to the Shannon limit, there is no Moore's law we are all familiar with. Most carriers face a choice of either obtaining more spectrum (which is limited resource and expensive) or increasing the SINR which is very expensive to do since it involves building more cell sites, if the tower is closer to the user the SINR goes up. I think often times the cost of maintaining the infrastructure around supporting tens of thousands of cell sites is under estimated. Yes the wireless companies are profitable, but no where near the kinds of profits the phone manufacturers are reaping where it costs them $50 to make a phone and charge the cell companies $500 for the phone, that huge mark up is passed along to the customer as part of their monthly bill because everyone expects their phone to be "free". It is no free, the cost is embedded in your monthly bill. The best way to drive down wireless costs in my view are to assert competitive pressures on the phone manufacturers.

</comment><comment><USER16> The blogger is full of crap. 3G base stations don't automatically upgrade themselves to 4G. It costs a fortune to upgrade each tower. The backhaul also has to be upgraded to cope with the extra bandwidth that the tower can cope with due to the increased spectrum efficiency (more data in the same frequency space due to SCIENCE!).

<comment><USER17> Can you expand on why it costs so much to upgrade a basestation? the fiber is already rolled out, the contracts between land owners have already been signed, the surveys for radio propagation have already been done. I honestly don't think the upgrade from 3g to LTE was nearly as expensive as the upgrade from EDGE/2g networks to 3g was for carriers. Also it was much, much quicker for them to roll out LTE networks vs 3g networks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'd love to be a cynic, but my family's AT&T bill went down when we got on their new family plan back in February. And now we have way more data than we can use. I can only assume it was due to competition in the market in family plans.

</comment><comment><USER19> My AT&T bill dropped by 25% just a few months ago.

</comment><comment><USER20> This article seems like it was written by someone who has little if any knowledge about cellular tech.

<comment><USER21> This would be a better comment if, instead of just putting down the author, you taught us some of the relevant things you know.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Completely irrelevant but I can't help myself given the milkshake example provided in the article.

Milkshake scene from the movie "There Will be Blood": [http://youtu.be/s_hFTR6qyEo?t=1m20s](http://youtu.be/s_hFTR6qyEo?t=1m20s)

</comment><comment><USER23> Actually in Japan 4G plans _are_ cheaper, presumably because the 3G networks are so oversubscribed that carriers are trying to get people to swap (and buy new phones in the process).

</comment><comment><USER24> You really need competition on your networks. In Denmark the carriers are forced to rent out their networks to competitors so that we don't get a monopoly.

Currently i pay ~37$ for unlimited speech, unlimited sms/mms and 10gb data a month. Oh yea and no roaming charges in sweden, italy, UK, ireland, hongkong and austria. The list of countries might grow since the european union is considering removing roaming charges completely within EU.

</comment><comment><USER25> Meanwhile, in "socialist hell-hole" Sweden, I have an unlimited calls, texts and 4G data plan with these speeds [http://i.imgur.com/62yT2ig.png](http://i.imgur.com/62yT2ig.png) (45Mbit down, 7.5Mbit up)

It costs me ~$48 per month. I average around 10-12gb per month, but don't have to worry about any charges when tethering my laptop to the 4G.

<comment><USER26> And for what it's worth in even more socialist hell hole Vietnam I got a prepaid SIM with voice and 2GB of data for about US$9. Only 3G sadly enough but fast enough.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> There are two first would countries in the world comparable to the United States, and one of them is only an almost.

Australia - Widely dispersed population, universal coverage hard to build out, environmental factors. Unlimited Voice/SMS/MMS 2.5gig data allotment - 121.73 USD (Telstra)

Canada - Population in a small band near the border but many rural areas must be covered by mandate, universal coverage expensive to build out, environmental factors. Unlimited Voice/SMS/MMS 2 gig data allotment - 82.61 USD (Rogers Communications)

United States - Population widely Scattered, many rural areas without significant infrastructure improvement raising construction cost for bearer facilities hence huge construction costs in 4g rollout. Unlimited Voice/SMS/MMS 2 gig data allotment - 75 USD (Verizon Wireless)

Beyond the above - there has never been a time in the last 10 years where there was not a major network rollout in progress by the major carriers in the US, first they built the digital networks (96-2001) then the 2.5g rollout (EV- DO/EDGE (2001-2007) then the 3g Rollout (EV-DO Rev A and HSDPA) (2007 - 2009) now the 4g Rollout (WiMax then LTE) (2009 to Current). This has been the case world wide - but because of the geographical features of the US (higher construction costs and lower density) our telecom costs will always be higher than Europe and Asia.

<comment><USER28> Finland - Unlimited voice & SMS/MMS + uncapped data at 2MBit/s: 35 USD/month, but that's without a contract. If you're ok sticking with the same provider for two years, you can get the same with 50MBit/s uncapped data. On the other hand, if you're fine with 256 kbit/s uncapped data and paying 0.10 USD per minute or SMS, it's just 4 USD/month.

Our population density is on average half that of the USA (16 people/km2 rather than 32 people/km2), and we're just as dispersed. The coverage of the above-quoted provider you can see here: [http://elisa.fi/kuuluvuus/](http://elisa.fi/kuuluvuus/)

Explaining the high cost of US mobile comms in terms of the situation in Canada & Australia doesn't work, all you're really pointing out is that it's far too expensive there as well. In other words, your friends are also being fleeced.

<comment><USER29> Let me explain to you the difference between median and mean. Finland has an average population density that is half that of the USA but mostly because the population is heavily concentrated into six or eight islands around urban areas and the rest of the country has a very low population density. To serve 80% of the population of Finland I would need to provide service to less than 20% of its area. The US has many more urban centers, swaths of very low population density that are larger than most of western europe, and a high- density cluster along the eastern seaboard that would be the equivalent of providing Helsinki-level infrastructure over the entirety of Finland.

Not even close to similar.

<comment><USER28> Ummm, did you even look at the coverage map I linked to? For the sake of completeness, here are the other two national networks:

[http://www.sonera.fi/etsi+apua+ja+tukea/verkkokartat/peittoa...](http://www.sonera.fi/etsi+apua+ja+tukea/verkkokartat/peittoaluekartta/) [http://kuuluvuus.dna.fi/Peittokartta/](http://kuuluvuus.dna.fi/Peittokartta/)

My point here is that each of the three has nearly complete coverage of the whole of Finland. Sure, faster data than EDGE isn't available everywhere, but there's still service. And given that we're offering to these service providers only up to 5.5 million theoretical customers in total, they still manage to make a profit at the rates they charge.

And somehow the situation in the US is so radically different that even with your economies of scale customers are charged perhaps triple compared to here? I'd say explaining how it works out that way calls for extraordinary evidence, and I've yet to come across such evidence.

<comment><USER27> I did.

On both of those maps LTE coverage covers but a fraction of the country, Verizon has rolled out LTE to about 90% of its network footprint ([http://media.idownloadblog.com/wp- content/uploads/2013/05/Ve...](http://media.idownloadblog.com/wp- content/uploads/2013/05/Verizon-4G-LTE-coverage-20130520.png)) and they are still in the midst of an active deployment - the sheer cost of this deployement is staggering - the figures I know, for the Samsung LTE hardware - just the hardware alone for a mid sized market, just 700 or so sites costs around 70 million dollars - thats ahead of installation/construction costs - which I'm estimating at somewhere between 100-150k a pop (assuming no structural mods are needed, and there are no construction charges to bring in new fiber backhaul) - figure the US has around 200,000 cell sites - I cant find out how many finland has - but just on the size 104k sq miles (about the size of colorado) I'd estimate no more than 2000 sites - probably less.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Like a year ago I wanted to see if there was a way to get an unlocked sim not tied to a carrier and just use data. Reason being, I wanted to see how much I was over paying for voice [I have 1000s of unused minutes]. I wasn't able to find a data only sim option.

But by a base line calculation I'm spending ~$300+/year over the cost of VOIP.

</comment><comment><USER31> This article is seriously flawed. Yes, 4G transmission is more efficient for the allotted wireless spectrum, but users are guaranteed to be using more bandwidth, so the effective number of users per tower stays the same or decreases. And it costs more, not less for 4G rollouts.

<comment><USER32> If users are on the same limited plans they're not using more bandwidth over any appreciable time scale.

<comment><USER31> I'm not talking about data use, I'm talking about instantaneous data rate. Base stations are designed to handle a particular maximum throughput for a given number of users relative to the available spectrum in that area. The maximum throughput needed for many users on a 4G tower will be much higher than it is for 3G, it isn't the same or less.

<comment><USER32> Again, this is only true on very short time intervals. If you're an AT&T user throttled after 2GB per month you simply aren't going to be using 4G speed for more than a single coffee break per month.

In the real world, of course, people rarely download data endlessly and so the main difference is that a 4G user will use data at a higher rate for a shorter period of time since they're downloading the same YouTube video as the 3G user.

Since 4G takes considerably less time to establish connections than 3G, this trend is even more favorable to network operators since more phones can go from passive to active and back in any given time interval.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> > Cellular plans in the U.S. with 500MB of data cost about $85.

I highly doubt that. The piece links to [1] which in turn cites [2].

In [2] "Mobile-broadband prices are collected from the operator with the largest market share in the country", "prices applying to the largest city (in terms of population) or to the capital city are used", and a the 500MB plans are ones that include voice and text.

Moreover, the reported prices include taxes; while including taxes is necessary to accurately reflect the cost to consumers, it does not give insight into weather or not carriers are "gouging" consumers, which is what the RWW piece alleges.

AT&T charges $65 for unlimited talk and text and 2GB of data [3], Verizon $60 with 1GB [4], T-Mobile $40 with 500MB [5], Sprint $55 with 1GB [6].

I won't get into prepaid plans and/or MVNOs exhaustively, but for instance, Aio (AT&T's own MVNO) charges $35 for unlimited talk and text with 500MB of unthrottled data if you enable auto-pay [7].

According to a 2011 report [8], the average tax rate is 16.26%, which would still only bring the most expensive plan I mentioned (AT&T's) to $75.57.

Based on that, unless there is a very large number of consumers on old plans that have not been brought down to current prices (and I'm not sure if that even happens), I highly doubt that $85 figure.

[1] [http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2013/10/daily-c...](http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2013/10/daily- chart-5?fsrc=scn/gp/wl/dc/mobilebroadbandprices) [2] [http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Documents/publication...](http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Documents/publications/mis2013/MIS2013_without_Annex_4.pdf) (page 112) [3] [https://www.att.com/shop/wireless/data- plans.html](https://www.att.com/shop/wireless/data-plans.html) [4] [https://www.verizonwireless.com/wcms/consumer/shop/shop- data...](https://www.verizonwireless.com/wcms/consumer/shop/shop-data- plans/single-line-data-plans.html) [5] [http://www.t-mobile.com/cell-phone- plans/individual.html](http://www.t-mobile.com/cell-phone- plans/individual.html) [6] [https://www.sprint.com/landings/framily/?INTNAV=ATG:HE:Frami...](https://www.sprint.com/landings/framily/?INTNAV=ATG:HE:FramilyPlans) [7] [https://www.aiowireless.com/shop/plans.html](https://www.aiowireless.com/shop/plans.html) [8] [http://taxfoundation.org/article/states-target-cell- phones-s...](http://taxfoundation.org/article/states-target-cell-phones- stealth-burdensome-taxes)

<comment><USER34> I get 5GB of 4G data and unlimited 2G after that for $30 in the US

<comment><USER35> Through?

<comment><USER36> T-Mobile, I'm guessing, as I have the same plan. Look at [http://prepaid- phones.t-mobile.com/prepaid-plans](http://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/prepaid- plans). It's near the bottom, under "Pay by the day" even though it's a monthly plan.

$30/mo. for 100 minutes, unlimited text, 5 GB LTE data, throttled to 2G but unlimited with no overages after reaching 5 GB. And their LTE is fast as hell, I have pulled 30/10 on it which is faster than my Qwest/CenturyLink DSL (at the fastest speed they'll sell me).

<comment><USER37> I've got T-mobile for $30 a month. I live in Knoxville. It is almost not terrible when it comes to data. I put up with it because I mostly just wanted it for the occasional call and lots of texting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Actually didn't TMobile recently defect and then the others followed suit? AT&T lowered my prices recently!

</comment><comment><USER39> My price went down massively thanks to the TMob kamikaze mission. 180->135 for 3 iPhones on ATT. Thank you TMob.

</comment><comment><USER40> It seems like it is getting cheaper. I get unlimited minutes, texting, and 300 mb of data for the same $40 I was paying 5 years ago, but I was also paying extra for minutes, texting, data, etc.

</comment><comment><USER41> Hey patio11, you're spending less time on BCC these days so even though the feature set is the same you SHOULD be charging less.

Hey colinp, your backend AWS costs have come down, so you SHOULD be charging less for tarsnap [1].

Hey you (yes, you), ignore everything you've read about surviving as a startup. You SHOULD be charging your customers based entirely on your cost base and ignoring any conversation about the value your customers receive.

[1] Is that even possible?

<comment><USER42> TarSnap dropped its prices five weeks ago.

<comment><USER41> A move not-well-received by proponents of value-based pricing - [http://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/04/03/fantasy- tarsnap/](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/04/03/fantasy-tarsnap/)

<comment><USER43> "Proponents of value-based pricing" is like "believers in anthropogenic global warming" or "supporters of the theory of evolution". Be careful not to "teach the controversy".

Tarsnap is tragically underpriced, and we have years of its business track record (compared to every other well-known backup provider) to see that the strategy of delighting the kinds of people who account for their storage costs to the picodollar does not result in runaway success.

Colin does fine for himself, but that's because he pours an avalanche of competence and expertise into what he's doing. If I were him, I'd be furious that I was getting lapped by people who do a much poorer job. But probably also hesitant to accept that my own low pricing had something to do with that.

<comment><USER44> _I 'd be furious that I was getting lapped by people who do a much poorer job_

You'd only be getting lapped if you think life is a race to make money.

I'm doing Tarsnap because I wanted to build a good product, and by that metric I think I'm far ahead of the "competition".

<comment><USER43> You can treat your business as a labor of love, but be aware that you're making it less likely that the broad market will benefit from what you've built. Which is frustrating, because you have perhaps the only trustworthy cloud backup system I'm aware of.

<comment><USER42> Why frustrating? The guy's sitting right there telling you he's happy. The $tartup "culture" isn't for everyone, aight?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey' Saw into the Future - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-kubricks-2001-a-space-odyssey-saw-into-the-future-1520609361 <comment><USER2> My immediate reaction after watching "2001 a space odyssey" was realizing that I had absolutely wasted 2 hours of my life. Shortly afterward, I came across ONE: A Space Odyssey [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sz4aQ2YbN-E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sz4aQ2YbN-E) which summarized the whole 2 your movie in around a minute.

I have since encouraged anyone who is curious about watching that movie to instead watch the Lego version.

</comment><comment><USER3> Watching movies has to be one of my most inspiring accidents. In 2017, due to some external circumstances [1], I watched maybe 50+ movies on the IMDB top 250 list. Kubrick is definitely my favorite director that I didn't know about before. His stuff takes some time to digest, but they are definitely worth watching. Besides 2001, The Shining, A Clockwork Orange, and Full Metal Jacket are all worth watching. I have to re-watch Dr. Strangelove at some point because last time I didn't finish it.

The other director that I think I started to 'get' (however hard to believe) is Coppola. I didn't get Godfather before that at all despite having watched the movie 3 times. After the second Godfather movies, I started to see the Godfathers as human and empathize with them ("Yes, I can totally see myself doing that"). I haven't read the novels, however, I hope to get to the novels at some point.

At the same time, when I re-watched Tarantino's movies, I became less impressed in his style. After gore and somewhat snarky theme, I failed to see anything else. I still equally love Coen brothers regardless of how many times I watched their movies.

My old boss who owned a wine importing business used to tell me when you have tasted enough wine, you will know what good wine is like without having to describe it. After watching 50 movies or so, there was a moment when something started to 'click.' I think it gave me inspirations to do take notes of human feelings and emotions and empathize with them. I am more inspired to produce meaningful software that does not have to be technically challenging to write, and write blog posts that are not about technically hard/clever code. After watching "Sunset Blvd," I decided that money was never my problem, so I think less about money.

I'm 30 now and have always been a nerd before. Good movies have partly changed my life.

1: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16360380](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16360380)

<comment><USER4> Ha! I actually remember reading that comment.

I really hated 2001, except for the 2nd act with HAL. All the rest of it just seemed so pretentious and devoid of story. I remember when they were landing on the moon for instance, that scene was insanely drawn out. I don't mind a slower pace for a movie, but I like to watch youtube film making critics [1]. Something I hear from them all the time is that everything in your film must serve a purpose. So much of 2001 seemed to serve no purpose at all, if it did, the purpose was so unclear it was akin to having a fever dream.

Full Metal Jacket on the other hand was brilliant, and while I enjoyed the 1st half more than the second (as I tend to like more light hearted media), the tone shift was incredible. I think that kind of shift really did say something about the experience of soldiers. Bootcamp was still safe, they were home, then when they were about to actually leave, it really sunk in for them what they were about to go through.

1 - [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG5h8yHSUS4n7zPnh0dG0SA](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG5h8yHSUS4n7zPnh0dG0SA) I find this guy to be particularly interesting/funny and relatively unknown

<comment><USER5> > _I really hated 2001, except for the 2nd act with HAL. All the rest of it > just seemed so pretentious and devoid of story._

I find it really cool that I have had an opposite opinion on the movie. The me the second half was sort of incomprehensible and I never understood the message or point. I understand _what_ happens, I just never understood _why_. The second half feels like a fever dream.

The first half, while I agree doesn't have a conflict, is more of a spectacle. Everything from the set design, to all the outer space shots, to the focus on people living in Space is done with a lot more care than movies usually do. Space is usually "that stuff we did on Earth, but in low gravity!" \- but I found the rotating / perspective shifted rooms really neat.

<comment><USER4> Well I'm not a huge fan of that either, I'm talking very specifically about the sections with HAL. I'd consider all the LSD trip stuff to be the 3rd act.

I appreciate it from a movie making perspective, the effects are very good especially considering the time period it was made. I just think a lot of it was incredibly dull.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I know Samsung tried to use 2001 as proof of art for the Apple infringement lawsuit re: the iPad. But didn't they also cite the pads in ST:TNG as well?

</comment><comment><USER7> For those who are stuck in paywall:

[https://archive.fo/5dUq7](https://archive.fo/5dUq7)</comment>


FullContact CEO proposes no capital gains tax on angel investments - <AUTHOR> http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/1750310436001/more-business-owners-saying-no-to-tax-breaks/?playlist_id=87185

<comment><AUTHOR> The first half of the video they talk about the value of tax breaks for small business of which he is not a fan.

It gets real interesting when the reporter asks him what he would do. He says the biggest problem for small business is access to capital. So he proposes that angels investing in enterprises with less than a hundred employees pay no capital gains tax on the investment.

I believe that even in areas like Michigan where there are few angel investors it would make a measurable difference.</comment>


Show HN: CSS Number Scrolling - <AUTHOR> http://andrelion.github.io/css-number-scroll/

<comment><USER2> If I'm not having a problem with my eyes, there are blue(maybe green) dots between numbers.

<comment><USER3> I don't see that really. I see something blue-ish when there is a zero or an eight. On those numbers to the left there is a small 'thing' on the left side of each.

<comment><USER4> I see it as well. Using .num{width:.9em} fixed it for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Plenty of javascript in there. You could generate a list of fake random numbers using pseudo-elements to make it CSS only.

</comment><comment><USER6> Doesn't seem to work in Chrome Version 24, OS X Mavericks.

Worked in Safari though.

</comment><comment><USER7> It would be nice if you used GitHub properly and put the source code in the actual project. Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER8> With all this power surely there must some exploits for CSS? Do we need NoStylesheet, in addition to NoScript?

<comment><USER9> This should just be part of graceful degradation practices already in use.</comment></comment>


SaaS: 4 Mistakes We've Done During Our Beta And How To Avoid Them - <AUTHOR> http://blog.frontapp.com/saas-4-mistakes-weve-done-during-our-beta-and-how-we-could-have-avoided-them/ <comment><USER2> tl;dr

Mistake 1. They have collected beta invitation email addresses but did not send any emails until the launch. Some users forgot about the product when they received the invitation 3-6 months later.

Mistake 2. They used spreadsheets to track user cohorts and that was too time consuming.

Mistake 3. They focused too much on features instead of benefits.

Mistake 4. They weren't able to find ways to get exposure from blogs.

<comment><USER3> Everyone starting up should print this out on a paper and stick it over their desk. I have made all of these mistakes myself. Collectively, they suck out usage from your product when you need it most.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you are going to collect emails to promote your app launch, send out a useful email to your list every week or two. Your open rates and click through rates will be MUCH higher on launch.

Also, if you are "too busy" to communicate with your customers before launch, you probably won't have many customers after launch.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thks for the tip!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> #5: Writing large blocks of text using a tiny gray sans serif font and expecting people to read it.

Sorry, my eyes just won't hack that this early in the morning.

</comment><comment><USER6> 5\. Saying "Done" in the title instead of "Made".

<comment><AUTHOR> thks I'll correct it. Sorry for it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Beta invitation and getting subscribers pre-launch is in many cases a flawed strategy. It is really, _really_ hard for an unknown startup (amongst hundreds of other unknown startups) to stay 'top of mind' for more than a week or so.

For the beta and pre-launch startups I sign up for, I remember only half by the time I can register and use the service. I register for about 5% of those I still recognise. For the rest, I simply don't care any more.

Rethink the pre-launch and onboarding strategy. Just because others say you should doesn't mean it will work for you. THINK FOR YOURSELF.</comment>


NY Court of Appeals finds retroactive liability unconstitutional - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> You mess up when posting this? There is no link.</comment>


Twitter list of 480 Hacker News members - <AUTHOR> http://twitter.com/tlrobinson/hackernews <comment><AUTHOR> Updated to include jmillerinc's user list from <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1555866></comment>


Ask HN: Is AWS deprecating Windows? - <AUTHOR> Recently, AWS introduced the new T3 instances.  In the AWS blog post T3 instances were described as even more cost-effective than T2[1]
For example, a t3.2xlarge Linux (VPC) instance (1-year) is a 9.5% cheaper than a t2.2xlarge instance. So far so good.
But for Windows, it the opposite scenario: a t3.2xlarge Windows (VPC) instance (1-year reservation) is a 19.2% more expensive than a t2.2xlarge instance (!)
Or from another point of view: for T2 running Windows instead of Linux means a 23% uplift while for T3 the Windows uplift is now 60%(!).
What is the main driver for this trend to make Linux AWS instances ever cheaper and Windows AWS instances ever more expensive?
a) Amazon deprecating Windows on AWS, as to making migration to Linux more compelling to AWS loyal customers. b) Microsoft raising rates for AWS to eventually drive Windows loyal customers to Azure. c) Both d) Other
[1] https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new-t3-instances-burstable-cost-effective-performance/ <comment><USER2> Small timer here,

I cannot afford Microsoft or afford to trust Microsoft to host my apps.

Linux support is often google-able, while Microsoft is often paid.

I only imagine Amazon is getting some friction from Microsoft Corporate.</comment>


An AI crushed two human pros at StarCraft–but it wasn't a fair fight - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/01/an-ai-crushed-two-human-pros-at-starcraft-but-it-wasnt-a-fair-fight/ <comment><USER2> An army of Stalkers should __NEVER __beat an army of Immortals.

Stalkers have 14.4 DPS (vs Armored units) while Immortals have 48.1 DPS (vs Armored units). Both Immortals and Stalkers are armored.

Immortals provide more than double DPS, with 200+100 HP / Shields. While Stalkers have only 80+80 HP / shields. Stalkers cost roughly 1/2 of an Immortal, but any "even match" would have roughly 2x Stalkers for every Immortal.

Immortals do roughly 3.5x more damage while having 2x the HP (Immortals have a bonus ability to gain +100 Shields as well). Even if outnumbered 2-to-1, Immortals shouldn't lose the fight.

The problem is that AlphaStar can watch all of its Stalkers's HP simultaneously, and blink them away from danger instantly. AlphaStar is playing a game that is fundamentally different than what Humans play. In AlphaStar's version of Starcraft, Stalkers win vs Immortals. All you gotta do is Blink away low-HP Stalkers to the back line, and then have the Stalkers regenerate their shields before bringing them back into battle.

Its inhuman. Maybe its intelligence, but its an exceptionally poor demonstration of intelligence.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment>---

The game that the AI played was not Starcraft, certainly not the game that humans play. Humans cannot physically click quickly enough to move stalkers in the way that AlphaStar did. The screen humans look at cannot show all of the HP of your individual units. The screen humans look at can only see __some __of the battlefield, not the entire battlefield.

That's the main issue with the demonstration. Sure, the APM rules were designed to prevent this situation from happening, but the demonstration proved that the APM-caps were insufficient at creating human-like playing conditions.

<comment><USER3> The goal was to have an AI defeat humans at SC2. Mission accomplished.

Was it fair when AlphaStar tried getting at an air unit with all its land units and pissed away a lot of time doing so, while Mana proceeded to obliterate its base?

What if a future AI solves cancer from scratch in a day? Are we going to find reasons to call this 'AI vs Mother Nature' match unfair?

Silly hoomans don't need to look for reasons why AlphaStar was playing unfair. It's just a game. And machines will be better at it. They'll be better at everything. Make your peace with that.

DeepMind has only just gotten started. Like with Go. AlphaGo was trained for years. AlphaZero was trained for days. The latter obliterated the former.

DeepMind is reading this criticism, don't you know. What do you think AlphaStarZero will be doing in a few years time?

Crushing AlphaStar 100 out of 100 times, with low APM. That's what.

<comment><USER2> > The goal was to have an AI defeat humans at SC2.

Hardly. They put APM caps in there for a reason. We all know that a real research team going all out with 100,000+ APM would have zerglings dodging tanks and other super-human shennanigans going on. But that's simply not interesting.

Nominally, AlphaStar set a 300 APM cap on the match. Apparently its a 300 APM average across the match however, which means the cap wasn't really effective at preventing "superhuman" conditions. Hopefully the next demo will better address that shortcoming and lead to more interesting matches.

I think the main lesson of the demo is that "APM" is a poor metric for what they're going for. A new metric needs to be developed. Other posters downthread were talking about "eAPM" (Effective APM). A formalized version of the concept may help.

<comment><USER3> >>The goal was to have an AI defeat humans at SC2.

>Hardly.

After cracking Go, DeepMind stated that it was going after SC2.

This is recorded history, so don't even think about deluding yourself into thinking otherwise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> When a swarm of killer drones comes down your neighborhood, good luck complaining "it wasn't a fair fight".

<comment><USER2> We have fully automated homing cruise missiles since the 1980s. That's what modern combat is about these days. That's why guerilla fighters exist: to hide from US Troops because they can't win in a fair fight. They need to use civilians as shields (and there's no AI that can determine friend from foe yet).

\</comment></comment><comment>---

The Starcraft demo was supposed to be a demonstration of intelligence. Not a demonstration of superior-accuracy and superior-dexterity that machines have. We've known for years that machines can see things at the millisecond level and react faster than us for some time.

The AI problems trying to be solved today are "friend vs foe" recognition, strategic decision making, etc. etc. The AlphaGo game managed to demonstrate that. But the AlphaStar games only demonstrated what we already know about computers: Computers can click faster, and more accurately, than humans can.

<comment><USER4> 1 Tomahawk missile = $1,000,000

1 10kg payload drone = $10,000

Bonus: the killer drone can hang around for hours and tell fried from foe via biometric recognition [voice, face, gait], dutifully compiled by your nearby adtech multinational. Finally we can afford genocide on a private budget.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> you want skynet? 'cause that's how you get skynet.

<comment><USER6> "But there was one man who taught us to fight, to storm the wire of the camps, to smash those metal motherf___rs into junk. He turned it around. He brought us back from the brink. His name is Connor. John Connor. Your son, Sarah... your unborn son."

From the article:

 _" This is what I'm used to seeing when humans battle AIs," Stemkoski said, as Komincz dropped the Immortals in AlphaStar's base for the third time. "You're finding something that they're doing that's a mistake and you're making them do it over, and over, and over."_

It seems that right now, AI is good at figuring out useful tactics and applying them. It's not so good at seeing when its useful tactics are turned against them. In that way, it's similar to humans.</comment></comment>


Flying sphere goes where humans fear to tread - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/14/us-japan-flying-idUSTRE76D0SR20110714

<comment><AUTHOR> Video here: [http://www.reuters.com/video/2011/07/14/flying-sphere- goes-w...](http://www.reuters.com/video/2011/07/14/flying-sphere-goes-where- man-fears-to-tr?videoId=217093066)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> We wanted to build a flying sphere also, but different from this one.</comment>