Incrementally improving the performance of a Python script - <AUTHOR> http://mycode.doesnot.run/2018/04/11/pivot/ <comment><USER2> This is just a reflection from recent work on interpreter internals, but I figured it could be relevant to someone walking the same paths.

Allocating registers for all local vars statically means scopes have different sizes, which in turn complicates slab allocation and/or reuse. In return for being easier to reason about (except for the main scope issue) and saving space.

I opted for a fixed number of linearly assigned registers per scope in Snigl [0]; once the limit is reached, remaining variables are stored in a table. Which means I sort of get both, since additional scopes may be added using {} (it could make sense to add a scope: keyword to Python) if that becomes an issue.

It's all compromises, all the way down.

[0] [https://gitlab.com/sifoo/snigl](https://gitlab.com/sifoo/snigl)

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting. I guess I've been accidentally optimizing when I put everything in a main() call after an "if __name__..."

<comment><USER4> Same

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Python has some unusual performance behaviors. IIRC you can also speed up the performance of your program a lot by assigning intermediate variables instead of referencing properties, for example:

[A.b[i] for i in range(100)]

is a lot slower than:

B = A.b

[B[i] for i in range (100)]

<comment><USER6> Unusual is a strange qualifier here. Removing a dereference leading to a speedup is probably one of the few almost universal optimizations.

<comment><USER7> People do it in C# a lot with Count and Length on Lists and Arrays and it ruins array bounds check elision.

It is something that compilers do for you, in this context, in most programming environments.

<comment><USER8> Unfortunately, Python being hopelessly dynamic, `A.b` could involve executing arbitrary code and side effects depending on what `A` is. So hoisting `A_b = A.b` out of the loop may produce different results and thus can't be done automatically without some kind-of incredibly (impossibly?) smart static analysis :(

(though perhaps a JIT could perform this optimization for the usual, non- surprising path)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I don't think I understand the problem. We have n distinct integers, and the array has already been partitioned. Why isn't the answer just that there was exactly one pivot that could generate that partition?

<comment><USER10> I didin't really understand it either. I think the problem is taking in an array that's already been partitioned around a pivot, and then trying to figure out how many numbers could have been the pivot. The reason why this isn't just the length of the array is because the array is _already_ pivoted. The reason why you have to use a linear scan is because the array is still in unsorted order.

For [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] there are 5 pivots.

For [1, 2, 3, 5, 4] there are 3 pivots (1, 2, and 3)

For [2, 1, 3, 5, 4] there is only 1 (3).

<comment><USER9> That makes more sense. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Found something weird with codes posted in the links. I am getting different outputs for the intermediate and the final codes for the input of "5; 1,2,3,4,4". Can someone help?

1\. [https://imgur.com/a/u8O65AF](https://imgur.com/a/u8O65AF)

2\. [https://imgur.com/a/uHniZof](https://imgur.com/a/uHniZof)

<comment><USER12> > Starting from an array A that has n __distinct __integers

I don't know in what ways they are differents, but these programs were not designed to work with duplicates in the input. This probably explains the results.

<comment><USER11> Yeah you're right

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Slightly OT from the main takeaway, but I wonder if this could be sped up further by only doing a single pass, and maintaining a stack (implicitly sorted) of elements which are greater than everything seen so far, and popping them off when they're greater than the current element.</comment>


Student who hacked Bill O'Reilly gets 30 months - <AUTHOR> http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/110910-student-who-hacked-bill-oreilly.html

<comment><USER2> 2.5 years in jail for a DDoS attack seems disproportionately steep. He made a few websites temporarily inoperable, sounds more on the level of a bad prank than a felony with jail time on par with armed robbery.

<comment><USER3> According to the charges that were filed [1], the defendant also played a role in the creation of the botnet used in the attack. In addition to the DDoS attack there is the issue of accessing machines he was not authorized to. He pled guilty [2], so I don't think 2.5 years is that surprising.

[1] [http://www.justice.gov/usao/ohn/news/2010/Mitchell%20Frost%2...](http://www.justice.gov/usao/ohn/news/2010/Mitchell%20Frost%20Information.pdf)

[2] <http://www.ohio.com/news/break_news/95045294.html>

<comment><USER4> Another shining example of our justice system that uses competition to arrive at an equilibrium. Of course most encounters match up an opponent with unlimited resources (the state) versus someone with limited means (in this case a student).

The prosecution seeks the max, in this case 15 years, to persuade the defendant to plea the case out. His options are to try and defend himself with no resources (a public defender is worth next to nothing) or make a deal. The prosecutor and judge get to look "tough on computer crime" which will help their resume when looking to advance their careers, and the kid gets to have the end of his 20's. All that is left out is "justice", and by that I mean let the punishment fit the crime. And now society must carry the debt, both economically (housing the kid) and socially - will our streets be safer over the course of his lifetime once he gets churned out of prison.

<comment><USER3> I'm familiar with the general arguments you are presenting but they don't hold up in this situation. This case is clearcut. It is not some poor kid being beat down by the system. It is a computer criminal being sentenced to a punishment that fits his crimes. I suggest you read the references I cited above and take note of the wide array computer crime the defendant was involved in.

You're also exaggerating. The defendant does get to have the end of his twenties. He's going to be out of jail when he's 26.

<comment><USER4> I have read it, and he still has a 3 year probation after his prison term.

When they accuse him of "fraudulently obtaining user names and passwords and stealing personal identification and financial information" - does that mean he went after this information, or more likely one of the computers in the botnet happened to have such information residing on it. It's possible he didn't know of any financial information and they would throw the book at him anyway just to get the initial charge and work down from there. We all know there are differences in _computer crime_ , that our legal system isn't able to make a distinction does not make an argument.

<comment><USER3> _Does that mean he went after this information, or more likely one of the computers in the botnet happened to have such information residing on it. It's possible he didn't know of any financial information..._

No it is not possible. Had you actually read the above references as you claimed you would know that after executing a search warrant the FBI found credit card numbers and SSNs on computers in his dorm room. It's in Section 12 of the FBI document. Sure, maybe that was a result of a chat room he was logging. Maybe he didn't specifically go after this information himself. But at the very least he still chose to retain that information on his computer and at worst he did indeed go after the information himself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's utterly ridiculous and a waste of resources that these sorts of things are felony criminal prosecutions at all. Putting people in state prison at a cost of $70,000 a year in housing costs, PLUS the loss of income and other tax they would have paid plus the loss of their support of family who then goes on welfare, this should only be reserved for people who are an actual imminent threat and danger to the community.

Hacking should be something that gets fines only. Let the hacker pay back the cost of his damage, but there is no reason for taxpayers to bear hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs to warehouse these guys with actual hardened criminals whom they will have to make deals with in order to survive in the pen. Then, when they get out, they owe favors to actual criminal syndicates which they formerly had no relation to.

Sheesh.

<comment><USER6> If you broke into a store, stole a raft of credit card numbers from carbons, and rigged the registers to feed you more of them in the future, common sense would inform us that you're a criminal. Similarly, if some jackass broke into a series of automobiles and drove them to a store's parking lot to inconvenience or cripple its operations, we'd have no trouble conceiving of the criminal charges that might result from that.

The only difference between those crime and the crime committed here was the ease with which the Internet allowed it to be committed.

No doubt, the person running the botnet collecting credit card numbers and launching DDoS attacks didn't _feel_ like a criminal. He felt like a prankster. But how is that relevant? I say it isn't relevant. At all. The Internet has a knack for making reality feel unreal. But there is a reality, and it does not give a shit about your message board posts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The student didn't "hack" O'Reilly's site, he conducted DDoS attacks. Totally Different.

<comment><USER6> From a botnet that he set up. It's actually worse than "hacking O'Reilly's site".

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's ridiculous how easy it is to go to jail in the USA. It doesn't really solve anything for lower level non-violent crimes. Surely if they can rehab for drugs, they can rehab for hacking.

</comment><comment><USER9> Elsewhere, Bill O' Reilly was overheard saying, "F#$k it, we'll give him life!"

</comment><comment><USER10> Go Zips!

<comment><USER10> Not too many other HNers who went to Akron U I see.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Old news from last week.</comment>


Russian Arctic military exercise draws awe and concern - <AUTHOR> https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/russian-arctic-training-1.5563691 <comment><USER2> I read about this last week, and seemed a bit pointless. Yes, a drop from very high altitude. But wouldn't be just about as stealthy to send your commandos in on a raft from a submarine? Also, what sort of threats does Russia imagine it's confronting in the Arctic? The armored bears from _The Golden Compass_?

<comment><USER3> I'm not an expert at all in this subject, but I think a lot of these actions are a way of pushing forward Russia's sphere of influence over the Arctic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wonder what the facility in the background of the photos is and why it wasn't airbrushed out. It looks like some kind radio communications station, VLF for subs?</comment>


How do you know your code is bad? - <AUTHOR> https://dev.to/bob/how-do-you-know-your-code-is-bad <comment><USER2> Ironically, this is the code that you get if you follow all the latest React/Redux "best practices" when doing your JavaScript UI development.</comment>


Scenes from Earth on the Voyager Spacecraft - <AUTHOR> http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/scenes.html <comment><USER2> _Please note that these images are copyright protected. Reproduction without permission of the copyright holder is prohibited._

Are you f*cking kidding me? How are they copyright protected? As a NASA project, the images are government owned and therefore public domain.

Moreover, and OBVIOUSLY you're broadcasting them into outerspace. Are you going to sue the aliens for publishing these images in their newspapers once contact is made?

Get real.

<comment><USER3> That is why Voyager 1 has a disk with pictures and Voyager 2 is following with a suponea from RightHaven to 'Alien Doe' for rights violations :-)

While I don't doubt for a second that should our probe come into the possesion of another intelligent species, they _would_ publish copies of the pictures on their version of the Internet, as they aren't signatories of out international copyright treaties they wouldn't be culpable, however you and I, should we make say a really cool t-shirt with these designs on them, well we would be violating someone's copyright.

Someday, assuming someone finds the probe before it gets sucked into a black hole. It will be a really interesting story.

<comment><USER4> Why should it drop into a black hole? It'll probably just go into orbit. Black holes behave like normal masses, if you don't get too close.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "The artifact appears to contain data about a civilization on the third planet of a previously-unknown star system. The inhabitants' bodies are made of metal or (sometimes) wood, and have wheels affixed for locomotion. The inhabitants seem to have an obsession with some sort of soft-bodied apparatus, which they appear to consume as fuel."

\-- _Lord Arquhus, Report to the XVIIth Convention_

</comment><comment><USER6> This gave me one of the best "the world is awesome"-feelings. Seeing how much we discovered, how much we know, seeing humans being humans, living their life. And at the same time knowing that we are only a drop in the ocean of the universe. Barely escaped from the claws of evolution. All these messages a tiny hope, that maybe someday somewhere somebody/thing will discover them. A tiny scream against the vastness of interstellar space. And we we wonder. Wondering how 'they' will perceive us. What will they think of us? Will they understand us? Like thinking about seeing your girlfriends parents for the first time. Only on a vastly grander scale...

Hm, sorry for this little anti-rant. Some things are ... not meant to be captured by words.

<comment><USER7> Most likely the records will never be discovered. Possibly they will be the last remaining evidence of humanity's existence, out lasting our civilization, the last living human, and perhaps even the surface of the earth. In that sense, I find it interesting and in fact comforting that even millions, perhaps billions of years after humanity has been erased, we will have at least left a tiny crumb hinting at our past.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Did anyone else dig into the quotes section for "Messages from Earth"? (<http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/greetings.html>)

This one made me chuckle because all I could think about was the Simpsons Halloween episode where the aliens have cookbooks about cooking humans:

 _"Friends of space, how are you all? Have you eaten yet? Come visit us if you have time."_

</comment><comment><USER9> The "Mathematical Definitions" photo was fascinating. <http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/images/image003.gif>

<comment><USER10> I wonder why every alien-oriented mathematical thing I've seen includes binary. It doesn't seem very important to me to communicate that we understand base two, versus showing some more advanced mathematical formulas.

<comment><USER11> The assumption is they will understand counting dots easily, = sign, then base 2, then another = sign, then base 10. It's to help both with the = sign and figuring out we use base 10.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I was more impressed by these images intended for aliens' consumption: <http://perl.plover.com/yak/12views/img/q01.gif> <http://perl.plover.com/yak/12views/img/q02.gif> ... <http://perl.plover.com/yak/12views/img/q23.gif>

Can you decode them?

<comment><USER13> _spoiler alert, if you want to decode them_

q01.gif counts in dots and associates it with binary X and O. The most often repeated symbol (like a double-dashed integral) looks like a separator, or more probably an equal sign. It follows that then rightmost side of each equation is numbers too, in decimal form since 10 is one followed by zero. Underside are a list of prime numbers in base 10. The last line is a Mersenne prime, precisely 2^3021377-1, which I suppose was among the largest primes proven at that time. It also conveniently defines minus symbol and exponent notation by offset.

The XO on top define page number in binary, and also define page orientation. The middle symbol certainly defines some chapter.

The symbols are certainly so convoluted to resist bit rot and/or tampering, offering some form of redundancy, and making them unambiguous upon rotation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Neat, but not all pictures are linked. Here's s site that has working links to all the pictures: <http://re-lab.net/welcome/images.html>

<comment><USER15> <http://re-lab.net/welcome/images/image108.gif>

Should've had words "Oh Shit" placed at top, and some graphical representation of defecation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Interesting to think about how this was conceived as representative of human culture: <http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/images/image082.gif>

Who on earth (literally) drinks like that? :)

<comment><USER17> When I was in Catalonia, they said that this container and way of drinking are both local customs.

They explained it's a heritage from times of plague - this way you drink without touching (thus contaminating) it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Considering the rarity of planets in a habitable part of a galaxy, with a magnetosphere, favorable chemistry, an atmosphere, oceans, plate tectonics, single central star, a moon that didn't fall in the roche zone and break up to form rings that bombard us, etc.. the creators of Voyager might have thought twice about giving out that map to our awesome little life supporting planet. The return message might be (as suggested in Contact) a guide to their colonization procedures.

<comment><USER19> This has been well covered - but the odds of someone finding Voyager, as compared to the approximately 30 Light Year Radius of Radio Energy we've been pumping out, is a number which pretty much approximates zero.

<comment><USER18> Actually V1 has a 20W transmitter on-board that will stay operational until around 2025. It's busy crossing into the Heliopause which means it's a transmitter far from the noise and obstructions of the solar system. The craft will fully cross into the Heliopause in around 2015 so will have a decade of transmitting in deep space.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's interesting that we didn't put up any nuclear explosion photos.

As proud as we appear of our technology. Is keeping it a secret a decency or tactical play?

</comment><comment><USER21> how will alien distinguish this from random noise that is scrached on disk.

<comment><USER22> Considering the aliens are examining an interstellar space probe with manufactured materials and systems, perhaps they could intelligently conclude that the disc isn't there for any other purpose than to contain information?

<comment><USER21> but still you need to interpret that data, which can be done in infinite number of ways

<comment><USER23> I'm assuming that's what this metal plate [[http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/images/golden_rec_sid...](http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/images/golden_rec_sidebar.gif)] and the calibration circle [<http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/images/image001.gif>] are for.

<comment><USER24> Can you explain what the metal plate and calibration circle are for? (edit: I meant, how do they work?)

To me, the plate looks like Death Star blueprints, so I'm a little relieved to hear that it's not what I originally thought :)

<comment><USER22> Going from memory, the plate defines a base unit of measurement based on the frequency of the Hydrogen atom (lower right). Hopefully every space-travelling civilization has got that one down on paper.

Then it goes into how to play the record back (the speed is drawn around the edge of the record), then how to demodulate the waves, then how to convert the data into scanlines and plot them in a square and get to the calibration circle (middle of the disc).

It's kind of quaint that we sent this record of civilization out as gold- plated LP record. Very 70's.

<comment><USER25> > It's kind of quaint that we sent this record of civilization out as gold- > plated LP record. Very 70's.

Now, we'd probably just send an iPad with instructions for recharging it (or a solar charger). Or even better, just send an e-ink Kindle... just make sure to turn it off first.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This seems more like an exercise for NASA engineers to succinctly summarize the human race, instead of an intuitive discovery tool for aliens.

</comment><comment><USER15> Maybe a book of pics would have been better, or some microfilm - that is if the aliens can even see in our spectrum.

<comment><USER27> But this disk, unless I'm mistaken, can be updated on the fly. It also provides a primitive starting point to read our current storage mediums, which if the world were to end in 2012 could provide an alien civilisation a glimpse of what we were (if they take the journey).

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> So, other than "gold plated LP", what format this was this actually encoded in? It's designed to play back completely analog, scanned to a screen? Are the pixels shown only once or scanned repeatedly? What kind of screen / machine keeps those pixels lit long enough to see?

Does NASA actually have a terminal that reads this thing somewhere?

<comment><USER29> Here ya go: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_Golden_Record#Playback></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's the best WYSIWYG CMS for a Rails app?  - <AUTHOR>

What do you guys use for editing the marketing content for your Rails apps? I'm looking for a WYSIWYG CMS because editing copy in code is too much of a pain and so I never get it done.
DHH recommended Brochure, which is just a static site generator with erb templates. I've googled around a bit and found Refinery to be the most recommended choice. I haven't tried it yet, because I wanted to get some recommendations from people here.
I'm sure a lot of you have had this problem. So, any thoughts on how you deal with it would be very helpful.
Oddly enough, I find A/B testing tools like VWO and Optimizely to be great for quick content editing even if I'm not really running an A/B test. <comment><USER2> I've been working on a Rails based CMS (Wheelhouse CMS - <https://www.wheelhousecms.com>) over the last few years as a side-business to my regular web dev consulting services (and slowly transitioning to supporting it full time).

It's able to integrate with existing Rails projects or stand as its own app, and its quite extensible so you can potentially use it as an admin area for the remainder of your app too.

If you're interested, email me (email@example.com) and I'll set you up with an evaluation license.</comment>


Nearly 75% of iPhones are in use outside the US - <AUTHOR> http://www.asymco.com/2011/01/08/nearly-75-of-iphones-are-in-use-outside-the-us/ <comment><USER2> Considering that 95% of the world live outside the US, One could say it may be more impressive that 5% of the world accounts for 25% of iPhone use.

Between Japan, Korea, and Europe and the US that's ~1.4 billion people, putting the US at ~20% of the high tech world. That's not even including China.</comment>


How Uber's new logo transforms into State Bank of India's logo - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/dnyaneshmankar/status/694795483961634816 <comment><USER2> and into [http://opensource.org/](http://opensource.org/) in two more clicks</comment>


Starting an Airline  - <AUTHOR> http://www.boeing.com/boeing/commercial/startup/ <comment><USER2> Here's an investment banker joke I've been hearing oddly often recently: "How do you get a million dollars?" -> "Invest a billion dollars in the airline industry".

On a more serious note: there's a lot of talk on this page about the finance and logistics of starting a company like this - but I think the human factor is also worth mentioning. I fly a moderate amount, and whenever I have an hour or so to spare on a layover, I try to find interesting people to talk at the bar. While I've had varying levels of success, last layover at O'Hare, I spoke to a pilot who had been with a major airline for about a decade.

Having seen "Catch Me If You Can" and surmising that the situation must have changed, I asked him about his job. That was the most dismal response I've received from that question. We talked for about half an hour about how terribly pilots are treated, and how (maybe a bit of an exaggeration) a good number of beginner pilots for airlines are on food stamps because they're paid so poorly. I asked about benefits, and his response was, "just about every benefit you can think of is basically unusable." I asked him why he did it, and he told me that flying was like a drug.

Pilots are responsible for lives, and I'd feel a lot safer if my pilot was paid enough to survive. Yet, with dwindling margins and a thriftier consumer base, it's going to take _a lot_ to disrupt this industry. In reality, I don't see anything major happening without some drastic innovation that cuts associated costs significantly in order to build up that margin.

<comment><USER3> Pilot salaries are all based on union contracts. Union contracts are all negotiated by union leaders. Union leaders are all senior pilots. Senior pilots have a strong incentive to negotiate contracts that pay senior pilots the most, even if it is at the expense of new pilots.

I know a guy who flies less than 20 hours a month but makes well over $100k/year. He's been a pilot for over 20 years and knows how to work the rules so he makes money even when he's not flying (being on standby and such).

<comment><USER4> Things I learned from Hacker News: both high and low salaries are all the fault of dastardly "unions".

(Actually, the regional carriers that employ newbie pilots are non-unionized.)

<comment><USER5> Not just the unions. "Regulations" are at fault too. They're unnecessary and expensive. The number of airliners that fall out of the sky per year due to faulty design/construction/maintenance or due to under- trained/overworked/unfit pilots is something for "The Market" to decide, not the Gubbmint!

<comment><USER6> It is? Personally, I'll take the more expensive airline ticket if it means my airline's safety standards aren't weighed against profit margins.

Unfortunately "The Market" optimizes for profit, which is almost never in my (and the consumers') best interest.

<comment><USER7> I think you missed the </sarcasm>

<comment><USER6> I think you're right :|

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There's a saying in the airline industry that goes something like this: "What's the fastest way to become a millionaire in the airline industry? Start with a billion dollars."

I don't work in the airlines, but I'm a private pilot with lots of friends and family who do work or have worked in the airlines (and in the aviation industry in general).

Expenses are high and often unpredictable, and profits are low. A lot of airlines operate on incredibly thin margins, where only one problem could push them into bankruptcy. Back in 2008, Frontier Airlines had to go into bankruptcy (and was ultimately acquired by Republic) due to a dispute with its credit card processor. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontier_Airlines#Bankruptcy_an...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontier_Airlines#Bankruptcy_and_acquisition_by_Republic)

Competition is also fierce and is almost entirely price-based. While there have been a few attempts at competing on other metrics (there were several attempts to start business-class only airlines in the late 90s and early 2000s) have almost universally failed. In fact, the only one I can think of currently is OpenSkies, and it is backed by a major airline (British Airways).

It's also (as you would expect) a very complex regulatory and legal environment. Simply getting off the ground can take years of work.

I have idly thought about a small airline that would connect a handful of smaller towns across the Southeast that lack affordable or convenient air service to larger airports, where they could interconnect with the majors. But when I even begin to look at the numbers, despite what an exciting idea I think it could be, I know there is no way it would be successful.

<comment><USER9> I would assume these margins get even thinner and customer service even worse in the future as most people really do just go to a referral site, grab the cheapest flight and call it a day (I mean honestly, where I'm currently at in life, I don't need comfort on a flight, I just need to get from point a to point b as cheaply as possible and I assume this applies to 80% of people flying).

I was just on a Frontier flight a few months ago where nothing but water was free and they were being EXTREMELY strict about carry on size, which produced probably a dozen or so more $25 bag checking fees from people boarding. I have to expect these fees will only continue to grow in order to make up for lost profits on the original sale

<comment><USER10> I'm not looking forward to it. Flying has already gotten devilishly uncomfortable (my knees run into the seat in front of me) and while I would pay for a little bit more comfort, I can't figure out whether it's just impossible to _find_ such airlines/seats, or if they just don't exist on the trips I make.

<comment><USER11> Pretty much every airline offers exit row seats for something like $25 more or an "Economy Plus" that's a step up from economy but far from first class.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It blows my mind how people start such big businesses. You must build an airport, hire stuff, buy planes, meet many legal requirements and so on, all costing tens of millions of dollars, and on top of that, it must be profitable. This gives some insight, but still it's terryfing. I feel so small.

<comment><USER13> Air travel in the US is a massively subsidized business (the government gives huge amounts of money to Boeing to make next-gen warcraft, then Boeing translates those R&D concepts into airplanes.

The airlines were, for a long time, subsidized by air post. Fuel prices are still much lower than they could be.

These things are _barely_ directly profitable, but they contribute immensely to the global economy. That's the interesting tradeoff in post-capitalism.

<comment><USER14> Defense contracts are not subsidies. They are won by competition with the likes of Lockheed. Most of the money won is spent providing the product or service. The profit margins on defense contracts are not nearly large enough to "subsidize" an airline business. Yes, some R&D crosses over but it's no easy trick. Lockheed does not play in the commercial space at all.

Disclosure: Former Boeing Employee.

<comment><USER13> I've read enough books about Boeing to say that this is established practice (IE, the people who ran boeing during the 747 period specifically said this internally).

Some R&D examples I've seen is the movement of advanced electronics and structural materials from military craft to commercial craft. Boeing and AirBus both benefitted tremendously by their military contracts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The airline industry has the lowest return on invested capital of any industry: [http://centreforaviation.com/images/stories/2013/jul/05/ROIC...](http://centreforaviation.com/images/stories/2013/jul/05/ROIC4.PNG)

This analysis from McKinsey is worth a read: [http://www.iata.org/whatwedo/Documents/economics/Profitabili...](http://www.iata.org/whatwedo/Documents/economics/Profitability- and-the-air-transport-value-chain-final.pdf)

<comment><USER16> It's very strange given how necessary air travel is. It still surprises me how need and margins are inversely related (luxury goods have high margins, commodities low), but it makes sense. It's the price. The price of travel is so high for most consumers that they're going to optimize on price at the sacrifice of everything else.

The cost of flying and operating an airline is so expensive that airlines also optimize on costs and prices.

Virgin stands out as trying to change, that, but otherwise for everything economy class it's a race to the bottom.

Looking at prices you'd think we value things we need lower than things we want.

<comment><USER17> Actually it's commoditization. There is very little differentiation in airline flying - particularly domestic in the US. So they get stuck competing on price. Imagine you're flying from NY or BOS to SFO. You have two choices. Pay around $500 per ticket with some price shopping. Have a horrible experience of cattle herding, no food choices, small seats. Or spend $2500 or something insane for slightly larger seats. Weird how there isn't an option for $500, $800, $1500 just like there's a Corolla, Camry, Avalon or Lexus. Now, the airlines will tell you that's because people just care about price and only price and that's why soon you'll need to drop quarters in to use the bathroom. But that's just opportunity to me. There are about 800 places you can improve the flying experience from the minute you hit the curb to bundled in Uber to and from to wide seats (vs just extra legroom) to food to entertainment to dedicated standing areas to "kids focused flights" (parents embrace business travelers avoid) to baggage rules........

<comment><USER18> Do they not do economy plus (or equivalent)? I mostly fly internationally (not a lot of domestic flying in England) and there's usually the option of spending an extra ~£100 on a LHR-EWR return for extra legroom seats. I couldn't justify the jump to Business/First, but £100 over 15hrs of flying is a no-brainer.

<comment><USER19> Yes, but for many flights, especially international ones, the charge for those seats is not worth it.

I was looking into flights to Japan, and the Premium Economy tickets are literally double the regular economy tickets.

Many domestic flights have Premium Economy for less than double the price, but it's still expensive enough and the benefits not great enough (generally only a couple of inches of legroom--no change in seat width, no better service, etc) to generally not be worth it unless you are flying cross country.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Will there be airplane purchases involved?

at least they give a handy price list.

[http://www.boeing.com/assets/pdf/commercial/startup/pdf/busi...](http://www.boeing.com/assets/pdf/commercial/startup/pdf/business/prices.pdf)

These planes aren't cheap. More than a AWS, digital ocean and a linnode combined!

<comment><USER21> They don't sell the 757 any more?

<comment><USER22> 757s were discontinued.

[http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/sales-drought- take...](http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/sales-drought- takes-757s-scalp-172670/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is very cool. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has fantasized about starting an airline and doing it 'right' after an annoying flight. Probably not going to happen but at least I can read about it now.

</comment><comment><USER24> Although going big is interesting, I am surprised no one has brought up [http://www.surfair.com](http://www.surfair.com) when thinking about starting an airlines. They seem to be doing well and although i do not have a membership (live on the east cost) I think it would be interesting to do the same thing from DC to NYC to Boston as I would be down for that!

</comment><comment><USER25> This seems like a potentially clever way to grow their customer base.

<comment><USER26> This isn't Boeing starting an airline, it's advice to others starting airlines.

<comment><USER27> ...who would buy airplanes, increasing their customer base.

<comment><USER28> I know what you mean, but, just to nitpick, most small airlines will lease the planes

<comment><USER29> From people who bought the airplanes...

<comment><USER30> Yes, of course, the theory is clear. I still can't help suspecting that this whole "Startup" organization is a boondoggle so somebody's brother-in-law can be a VP in charge of something harmless. At Boeing's scale, purchases (or leases) of new (or at least new enough to affect demand for new) planes by investors who can't hire their own experienced airline executives will necessarily be a drop in the bucket.

<comment><USER31> Experienced airline executives often use outside consultants for specific areas of expertise, and national governments have a fondness for starting airlines and purchasing multiple new aircraft. It's probably the only marketing division of Boeing that turns a profit :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> There's been a big boom in small, regional jet airlines over the last few decades (Low Cost Carriers, or LCCs, sometimes known as Low Cost Regional Carriers). A lot of companies saw what Southwest and JetBlue were doing and figured they could do the same on a smaller scale: control costs by flying limited routes and serving smaller markets, where they could outcompete the bigger carriers on price [1]. Then, if things went well, maybe expand from there.

It's an incredibly crowded field now, and even many of the LCCs themselves collapsed.

[1] It seems a little counterintuitive, but in the airline business, there is almost a _reverse_ economies-of-scale effect. This is because routes can't be flown on demand, but must be scheduled, and so you're maintaining a fixed supply while dealing with variable demand. You don't have a lot of fantastic levers to pull to deal with fluctuations in real time, because you can't redirect inventory (planes, crews, etc.) on demand, and canceling flights causes chain reactions across hubs and spokes.

This is why a lot of the big carriers have been cutting flights and routes like crazy in recent years. Faced with undersupplying or oversupplying the market -- and faced with all their other enormous costs -- they'd rather bet on undersupply. Passengers these days aren't incredibly loyal to any given airline, and they're very price conscious. They won't give you credit for having a bigger network; all they care about is getting from A to B _right now_ , and finding the best price in so doing. So having a bigger network can often be a liability.

</comment><comment><USER33> Anything that encourages people to pursue different airline models intrigues me. Air travel is still the fastest for anything over 500 miles.

</comment><comment><USER34> There was a fascinating article on HN a few months ago (don't have the link handy at the moment) about how most major airlines make less than 25 cents profit on each ticket sold. It's pretty mind blowing when you consider the entire industry operates on such margins.

</comment><comment><USER35> As a study in starting an airline, Richard Branson's biography is well worth a read.

<comment><USER36> Which biography is that? I see a few on Amazon.

<comment><USER35> "Losing My Virginity".

<comment><USER37> Hah that is an clever, witty, and awesome title.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> My co-founder and I have a combined 20+ years of experience in the airline software industry. When we set out to start our own business, it was clear that we were not going to sell to airlines. Too many legacy systems, too much historically grown cruft, needless complexity, too many individual requirements but no money to pay for it. Plus they're distributed all over the world so selling to them is very costly. It's a shame because we would have had a big head start in terms of domain knowledge.

</comment><comment><USER39> The problem with starting an airline is that the pilot's union has the leverage to capture all profits: [http://philip.greenspun.com/flying/unions- and-airlines](http://philip.greenspun.com/flying/unions-and-airlines)

The key issue is that you don't just need to be certified to fly a 737, you need to be certified to fly a 737 for a specific airline. This makes strikes extremely powerful because you can't easily hire replacements.

</comment><comment><USER40> One of my favorite childhood games was Aerobiz [1]. Probably not an accurate simulation of starting an airline, but that is what this submission made me think of.

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

<comment><USER41> Another good game - Simutrans - [http://www.simutrans.com/en/](http://www.simutrans.com/en/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Uh, I'm just gonna go find a cash machine.

</comment><comment><USER43> Virgin started with one plane. 1. Uno.

In fact, starting with a fraction of a plane / plane-on-demand would be even less risk.

</comment><comment><USER44> I've thought about starting an airline - an all inclusive fare type deal - also no carry on bags.

<comment><USER45> Good luck with that :-) Frequent travelers, i.e. the people who airlines massively depend on for their profits, hate to check luggage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Smart. Facilitating the process of creating new customers for you.

</comment><comment><USER47> "Make something people want", they said.</comment>


Akin's Laws of Spacecraft Design - <AUTHOR> http://spacecraft.ssl.umd.edu/akins_laws.html <comment><USER2> > 36\. Any run-of-the-mill engineer can design something which is elegant. A > good engineer designs systems to be efficient. A great engineer designs them > to be effective.

I feel like you could permute "elegant", "efficient", and "effective" in any way here and still arrive with a maxim that sounds nice but doesn't really say anything.

<comment><USER3> I don't agree, but there is a level of interpretation at play in here:

elegant: builds a system in a way that is technically satisfying

efficient: builds a system in a way that uses the least resources

effective: builds a system in way that best solves the problem

I've built a lot of elegant systems that didn't solve the right problem but sure looked good.

I've also build systems out of leftover servers and laptops that were super inexpensive.

But I've learnt that there are times where spending money is the best way to build the system that the customer actually wants (and will pay for).

<comment><USER4> > "elegant: builds a system in a way that is technically satisfying efficient: > builds a system in a way that uses the least resources effective: builds a > system in way that solves the problem"

No, 'Effective' solves the problem, but not necessarily in the "best" way possible. In my opinion, the quote as stated is just wrong. Effective means "gets it done", but doesn't convey that it was done optimally.

It makes much more sense to me to say...

"Any run-of-the-mill engineer can design something which is effective. A good engineer designs systems to be efficient. A great engineer designs them to be elegant."

<comment><USER5> The way I read it, that's exactly the point.

It makes much more sense to you (and me) that way but the point is _our common sense about what makes an engineer great is wrong._

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "To design a spacecraft right takes an infinite amount of effort. This is why it's a good idea to design them to operate when some things are wrong."

I feel like this applies to everything. I mostly work on ecommerce and analytics systems, and I feel like I'm having to make this same argument all the time.

<comment><USER7> There is an interesting, opposite mindset: The program will not function unless nothing is wrong.

It was surprising how reliable the programs turn out to be. But the shocking part is how small they are.

I'm starting to be convinced that the only way to write reliable code is to spend most of your time trying to remove code. And not at the expense of clarity; tricks like that don't matter.

<comment><USER8> Very small programs don't solve complex tasks. If you plan to glue many small, correct programs together you'll likely get unintended behavior from the collection. You're just shifting the complexity around.

<comment><USER9>
       Very small programs don't solve complex tasks.

That's not quite right (some simple algorithms solve complex tasks). I think it is more true that very small programs can't model or facilitate complex interactions.

Your point about shifting complexity around is a good one.

<comment><USER8> Well yeah, the universal turing machine has a pretty small program and solves all kinds of problems. But that's not really what I imagine when I say "a simple program".

<comment><USER9> I wasn't being that abstract, I'm thinking of real world systems.

Some numerical solvers, graph algorithms, control systems, etc. have this property. They are definitely what I would call a simple program, even if the math behind them is not. YMMV.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This one really tells a story:

"A bad design with a good presentation is doomed eventually. A good design with a bad presentation is doomed immediately."

Both sides of the issue. Doesn't matter how _right_ you are if you can't convince anyone. While bad plans can persist in sucking up resources because they were 'sold' well.

<comment><USER11> It is remarkable that most organization try to "fix" this by teaching everyone to present (i.e. sell ideas) better, rather than teaching people how to better listen and evaluate new ideas.

<comment><USER12> The reason for this is quite simple. Presentation skills are taught to underlings, but evaluation skills have to be taught to decision makers. It so happens the decision makers also decide who has to put work into training.

<comment><USER13> I disagree. Everyone is someone else's underling, even at the top of the corporate hierarchy, where you have the executives reporting to the investors/shareholders.

It then follows that everyone has to be taught presentation skills, just as they're taught evaluation skills.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Also relevant: Beginning Engineer's Checklist

[http://www.piclist.com/tecHREF/begin.htm](http://www.piclist.com/tecHREF/begin.htm)

If a ten commandments of growth hacking ever comes into being, my hope is the first law states: Thou shalt not spam ;)

<comment><USER15> I can date that list to the early 90s because the amazon link is to the old edition of AoE and I lived thru the Motorola anecdote in the early 90s "Hey world, design something using our new cutting edge microcontroller" "Sorry world, my bad, our sales guys did such a good job nobody but GM will get a shipment for the next three years". I'd add a corollary to that anecdote that the market to scale software is infinite, but not hardware, theres plenty of people out there who can rewrite the code for a 8051 faster than anyone on the planet can magically make late 68hc11 shipments arrive.

An interesting 4th book to add to the book list is the ARRL handbook. If there's anything you don't understand between those covers, then you just identified what you need to learn to be a well rounded engineer. AoE is still good for strictly design topics. Can't design anything better than you understand the application is another semi-related good one.

<comment><USER16> ARRL handbook = this?

[http://www.arrl.org/shop/ARRL-Handbook-2016-Hardcover- Editio...](http://www.arrl.org/shop/ARRL-Handbook-2016-Hardcover- Edition/?page=1)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > 38\. Capabilities drive requirements, regardless of what the systems > engineering textbooks say.

This is so true. Yet, its the inverse of what all textbooks say.

How can it be this way? This is a huge blind spot right on the middle of systems engineering.

<comment><USER18> It's because your customer (who writes requirements) typically doesn't know 1) what they actually want, or 2) what capabilities actually exist. This is why a good customer will allow the company to help them write their requirements.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> > 14\. (Edison's Law) "Better" is the enemy of "good".

That's a traditional russian saying, never seen it attributed to Edison before.

<comment><USER20> Hmm traditional French saying as well: "Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien"

I too call shenanigans on the Edison bit ;)

<comment><USER21> Assuming Edison is Thomas Edison, the Wikipedia page about him has nothing to say about any law of his. I suppose they meant another Edison, though that is sort of cheating ("Obama's law: such and such" \-- oh, I meant Jamie Obama)

<comment><USER22> Why that would be considered cheating?

I often google names from personalities that I know and get a footballer or a singer in the first results.

<comment><USER21> Well when using a very well-known name (such as Edison, Newton or Obama) it is expected that it's about Thomas Edison, Isaac Newton or Barack Obama, not some random dude who happens to have the same last name. If you want to quote Jason Edison, say it's Jason Edison's law to prevent misattribution instead of piggy-backing on the well-known name.

<comment><USER22> The expectation is bounded to the audience and the context of the text. Maybe Jason Edison would be more obvious than Thomas in a given setting.

Maybe there's an Edison that spacecraft folks know and we don't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> > 29\. (von Tiesenhausen's Law of Program Management) To get an accurate > estimate of final program requirements, multiply the initial time estimates > by pi, and slide the decimal point on the cost estimates one place to the > right.

I was once commenting to a friend that my project was taking about 12 times longer than planned, and he said, "ok, about a factor of 4pi". All my time estimates get a factor of 4pi increase now.

</comment><comment><USER24> " _18\. ... Too much reality can doom an otherwise worthwhile design, though._ "

That is entirely too true.

" _20\. A bad design with a good presentation is doomed eventually. A good design with a bad presentation is doomed immediately._ "

And _that_ explains NASA. (Except for the corollary, "A good design with a good presentation is doomed, too.")

</comment><comment><USER25> Colin Chapman's law of race car design: "simplify, then add lightness".

<comment><USER26> Keep in mind the following is also attributed to him:

"Any car which holds together for a whole race is too heavy."

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Same laws with some additional thoughts: [http://www.ece.uvic.ca/~elec399/201409/Akin's%20Laws%20of%20...](http://www.ece.uvic.ca/~elec399/201409/Akin's%20Laws%20of%20Spacecraft%20Design.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER28> SLS, meet Akin's Law #39. Law #39, meet SLS.

<comment><USER29> On the other hand, new launch vehicles are good for jobs. Well, probably only in Huntsville and nowhere else, but Sen. Shelby will see to it that nothing happens to that work, even if its to the determinant of NASA as a whole.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> This reminds me of Jon's Law: any drive powerful enough to be interesting is powerful enough to be a weapon of mass destruction.

<comment><USER31> Assume that you could discharge a full Tesla battery in a picosecond. It will be unpleasant to be nearby.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> 11\. Sometimes, the fastest way to get to the end is to throw everything out and start over

If this ever happens to me in my career I will start believing in god or whatever you want. Dealing with "legacy" tech has been the only constant in my life across several unrelated industries (even in the supposedly brash and agile games industry).

</comment><comment><USER33> I believe most of the laws could be applied to building a minimum viable product.

</comment><comment><USER34> "2\. To design a spacecraft right takes an infinite amount of effort. This is why it's a good idea to design them to operate when some things are wrong . "

one of the key definitions of antifragility.

</comment><comment><USER35> The "Miller's Law" entry seems wrong in more than one way...

Does anybody know to which Miller it refers to?

</comment><comment><USER36> omg</comment>


What my top students had in common: they asked questions - <AUTHOR> https://dogsnog.blog/2018/01/27/what-all-my-top-students-had-in-common-they-asked-questions/ <comment><USER3> I have been doing private tutoring of senior high school students and first- year uni students for the last 2 years. Out of about 30 tutees, I have had 3 top students. Those 3 had one thing in common: they were super-organised. And to make it even more challenging, two had jobs - one even had a child - <USER2> they had to organise their study around. I was simply in awe that they could get more done than others (like myself) who had less on their plates.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is the second strongest correlation I found: my worst performing students didn't have a plan, a desk setup, a working computer, a schedule with time blocked out for course-work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'd guess they are just engaged in the subject enough and confident enough.

This could mean any of the following:

\- the lecture has the right pace for them (too smart and they doze off, so I'd say it's smartness+pace)

\- they are genuinely interested

\- the teacher is a good match for them</comment>


David Pogue's Review of the iPad from 2 Angles - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/01/technology/personaltech/01pogue.html?hp <comment><USER2> _Apple asserts that the iPad runs 10 hours on a charge of its nonremovable battery ... in my own test, the iPad played movies continuously ... [for] more than 12 hours. That's four times as long as a typical laptop or portable DVD player._

This is one thing I've always found interesting. Apple _underestimates_ their battery life in every product I've laid hands on, even under relatively high- power operations. And they claim longer battery life than any other similar product.

<comment><USER3> With my mac laptops I have consistently seen high battery life at the start and it has diminished considerably after a few months. Does this not happen with everyone else?

<comment><USER4> not here (sample size of one). I still get 5-6 hours use from my 1st gen unibody macbook; the one with the removable battery.

<comment><USER5> I have the 2nd gen unibody macbook pro ( the one without the removable battery ) and I still see 5 - 6 hours of battery life. I can usually get more if I'm just watching movies on it. Youtube & Hulu et. al. seem to be the biggest battery killers for me ( 4 - 5 hours )

<comment><USER6> I am impressed and dismayed by your experience. My 2 year old MBP (pre- unibody) gets only 45-60 minutes of battery time. Did the unibody MBP's see that much of a boost in battery performance?

<comment><USER7> Yes. Apple completely changed battery designs between the removable and the non-removable versions. The latter will last significantly longer.

<comment><USER8> Here's a video from Apple with a fantastic overview of the new tech:

[http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/overlays/battery- video.html#...](http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/overlays/battery- video.html#overlay-batteryvideo)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Maybe it's just me, but i was hoping for deeper insight into how the device feels in day-to-day usage, not just a list of features that i might as well have read on Apples info pages.

Stuff like: how the device feels to sit with for longer periods of time, is it more natural to type with one finger or both thumbs when sitting, can i read while lying down... All the stuff that isn't just "it has this amount of ram, you can view videos and the web on it and...."

</comment><comment><USER10> An interesting thing about the review is that the photo on the left shows a person using an ipad on rack with one finger. With a bit of reflection, it should obvious that you would not want to use a computer for even a minute in such a fashion.

This hardly seems like a hard-nosed, critical appraisal: _"The iPad is so fast and light, the multitouch screen so bright and responsive, the software so easy to navigate, that it really does qualify as a new category of gadget."_ "brighter brights" and "whiter whites" indeed.

</comment><comment><USER11> finger prints everywhere, illegible in sunlight, poor ebook selection, too heavy for extended use, miserable typing experience...seems like these points would apply to "Everyone Else" as well, no?

<comment><USER12> Less space than a Nomad.

<comment><USER11> you missed my point. "less space than a nomad" was precisely a "techie" criticism of the iPod. That the Nomad had a 6GB capacity and the iPod 5GB was irrelevant to most people.

Conversely, not being able to type comfortably or hold the device for more than 10 minutes without getting cramps--these are major usability issues that will affect _everyone_. iPad proponents seem to think people won't need to type on these things. Aren't they for casual web use? How do you write emails, blog posts, comments, usernames and passwords, URIs, google queries, tweets, IMs, etc. without typing? These tasks are trivial on regular keyboards, I'm not sure that will be the case on the iPad (I know it's not the case on my iPhone).

<comment><USER13> His third-last paragraph nails it: It's a "consumer device", not a producer device. This _particular_ issue hasn't hurt the iPhone...

BTW: "Nomad" was so appropriate, being appealing to techies but not to normal people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Pogue is usually a great writer, but this was strangely disjointed. He wants to like the iPad, but feels obliged to give a semi-critical "techie" review, apparently in anticipation of the inevitable hate mail that follows any hint of pro-Apple bias.

I'm curious to try out the iPad after reading his and Mossberg's review, but can't imagine shelling out a lot of money for what is essentially a leisure device that doesn't fit in my pocket.

<comment><USER15> I really don't think he wrote a split review because he's worried about fanboys.

I think it's just what he said: people really seem to love or hate the iPad, based mostly on their background.

<comment><USER16> He's 100% correct too.

Personally, the iPad isn't for me. I want less screen time in my life, not more - and the iPad doesn't fill any gaps that warrants me purchasing one for myself.

That being said, I did order one for my grandmother. She's been pestering me about getting the Internet and I felt like it would be a device that was less daunting for her than a mouse/keyboard combination.

<comment><USER17> The thing that most troubled my grandmother when she got her computer wasn't the filesystem or the mouse/keyboard combination; it was the fact that the computer knew which emails she had looked at and which she hadn't. She found it very unnerving.

Apologies if I've drifted off topic.

<comment><USER16> Not off topic, my grandmother just cannot use a mouse. She's sat in front of my PC and is absolutely baffled by it.

I might as well have asked her to do Differential Calculus.

However, I think the iPad will be different. If she's playing say, solitaire and wants to move something - she touches it with her finger and moves it. Easy.

<comment><USER18> Yep. Getting one for my grandfather for this very reason. The only computer he seems to be able to understand is the touchscreen photo-processing computer at Walgreens.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I have to admit I'm surprised that both reviews (this and the Walt Mossburg one) state they were able to achieve well over Apple's claimed 10 hours batter life playing video, both reaching almost 12 hours.

I'm surprised because a) that's one hell of a long time, and b) Apple, like everyone else I guess, tend to overstate battery life and reviewers seem to find it almost impossible to replicate the published claims.

<comment><USER19> As other people have mentioned, Apple consistently understates the battery life of their products in market copy while also pointing them out to be longer than those of competing products.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> That tidbit about the Scrabble app is very interesting. Using an iPhone or iPod Touch as a local, private screen while using the iPad as a shared game board could be used in a lot of cool ways. Only problem of course is it is over $1k worth of gadgets.

<comment><USER7> I think the idea is that the individuals in your family already own iPod Touches or iPhones (we do), so as soon as someone has a iPad, you're set.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> It seems obvious the iPad is directly aimed at the larger net book market instead of the relatively small digital reader market. Not many people are going to carry and iPad _and_ a laptop. If the iPad is a device you buy instead of a net book, which by extension is a device you buy instead of a larger more functional laptop, Apple may not have an uphill battle here. Net book customers have already decided they don't want to spend $1k+ on a laptop, they can live without an optical drive, they can adapt to a small awkward keyboard, etc. In other words they are people who have already started to abandon the idea of a computer as being a fully functional all encompassing device in favor of form factor, price, and portability. So I think Apple clearly has a big market but they'll have to stress the things the iPad does better than a net book. Multi-touch web browsing, gaming, better battery life, better build quality/design, easier to use, no malware/spyware problems, etc. They'll need to quickly fill in the remaining gaps of functionality before customers have the dreaded "oh it doesn't do _that_?" experience.

<comment><USER22> I know I'm not in the majority here, but as a person who commutes to work via a 40 minute train ride each way, the iPad would be very attractive in addition to a laptop. I'm pretty much glued to my iPhone during the entire ride. The small screen size can often be a problem, especially if I want to do something like post a comment here. Even though I have a 15" Macbook Pro, the ergonomics are all wrong to comfortably work on it. I have to work with the keyboard slid partially up my stomach with my arms in an awkward position because the screen angle isn't sufficient otherwise. It's also not connected to the network (thanks to no tethering from AT&T). The iPad would have near perfect ergonomics and connectivity that is way cheaper than what I would have to pay for an AT&T data plan and laptop dongle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Pogue claims there will be 1,000 apps in the iPad app store on day one. If Apple will hurry up and finish reviewing my game, mine will be one of them.

If that number is true -- only a measly thousand -- then I'm pretty excited. Based on the buzz I've heard in the blogosphere, and the chatter on Apple's own dev forums, I would have guessed more like ten thousand. At that number, competition for eyeballs is pretty fierce. But if it's really only a thousand, then I stand a real chance of making some money.

<comment><USER24> That seems very low. At those numbers releasing _anything_ on day 1 should pay off. I will be there with two apps hacked together in a single day each.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> _the iPad is not a laptop. It's not nearly as good for creating stuff. On the other hand, it's infinitely more convenient for consuming it_

I wonder if there is a killer app in algorithm-assisted sketching and drawing with your fingers on the iPad. Consider zooming, automatically having lines meet perfectly, having the "artistic" filters from Photoshop, different drawing tools, etc.

<comment><USER26> I want to get an iPad so I can try supporting this kind of interaction in OpenShapes (<http://shap.es/docs>) - probably using Raphaël <http://raphaeljs.com/> as the rendering component

The bulk of OpenShapes is in JavaScript - so should be good fun making the editor work with the touch interface.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> "U.S.B. jacks"

Ugg, NYT style guide.

<comment><USER28> Yeah, I heard you can get those from I.B.M. :-P

When your style guide _requires_ you to misspell proper names, that's when you know it's total crap.

<comment><USER29> I.B.M. is the correct style for the company's name. Their official name is still International Business Machines. Therefore, it is an acronym and should be shown as such. "IBM" _isn't_ the proper name of the company. You could argue that it's a marketing term (it's certainly a trademark). From my limited USPTO search, it looks like "IBM" wasn't even registered as a mark until 1990.

U.S.B. is in the same boat... it's an acronym. If they really want to get the NYT on board, they'll have to change the name.

Side note: this isn't the case with AT&T (anymore) as that is the company's official name. AT&T doesn't actually stand for anything (officially).

I know it's pedantic, but if the New York Times stops caring about such things, who will?

<comment><USER30> _AT &T doesn't actually stand for anything_

Too bad they dropped the name completely; they could have just changed "telegraph" to "[wire]tap" and they would have been totally up to date.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> As soon as you use the words "netbook" or "giant iPod", your review is missing the point entirely.

<comment><USER32> Clarification would be good, here: what is the point, exactly, that you'd be missing?

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> _Review for Techies - The Apple iPad is basically a gigantic iPod Touch.

Review for Everyone Else - The Apple iPad is basically a gigantic iPod Touch._

Big Surprise.

</comment><comment><USER34> "The bottom line is that the iPad has been designed and built by a bunch of perfectionists. If you like the concept, you'll love the machine. The only question is: Do you like the concept?"

Love the concept- But I'll wait until HTC/Google come along and give it some missing features (webcam, expandable storage) and the extra oomph that the geek in me appreciates (multi tasking, maybe a keyboard (maybe a sliding one like the HTC Tilt?))

<comment><USER35> You say you love the concept but then you show that you completely don't get the concept.</comment></comment>


A "once-in-a-lifetime" shot of Mount Colima during a powerful eruption - <AUTHOR> https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/destinations/north-america/mexico/2017-travel-photographer-of-the-year-colima-volcano/ <comment><USER2> interesting note: these photos are legit, except the starry background has been added afterwards to make a composite shot.

you can see that they are all identical star fields, and you can see the slight egg shaped stars at an angle, which happens when a shutter is opened for ~30 seconds or so (because stars move across the sky.) the photographer would have to have a relatively quick shutter to capture the fine details of the ash cloud burst, but at that speed it would not pick up the stars at all.

<comment><USER3> The article says the images are 8 second exposures, no mention about composites. Are you sure?

<comment><USER4> They don't appear identical to me either. If you flick through from first to last (chronologically, eg from image 2 onwards), watch the star in the very bottom-left (they all behave, but this proximity to the edge makes it more perceptible). It does exactly what it should do.

What does seem interesting (to me), is that if you do the same and watch the opposite (right) edge, you'll the stars on the left edge are travelling right (and upwards), and the stars on the right are travelling left (and upwards).

I find this novel because I've never seen this myself - I'm in Northern Europe, so what I see is stars spinning around the pole. The effect we see here is the camera pointing towards the equator, putting it facing east(ish).

Regardless, this is one area where I'm happy to defer to natgeo's ability to spot shenanigans.

<comment><USER2> okay - you are correct. photographing terrestrial objects _and_ stars are very difficult to do in the same shot on account of light pollution.

my bad - and here, i made this as a mea culpa to show that it's legit: [https://i.imgur.com/aTvpilo.gif](https://i.imgur.com/aTvpilo.gif)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: GifDeck – Convert SlideShare presentations into GIFs - <AUTHOR> http://gifdeck.in

<comment><USER2> Really nice implementation.

Couple of comments:

The input box doesn't give visual feedback on text highlight. I was trying a few URLs and it took me a second to realise I had selected the text to overwrite (disappeared on backspace).

The save dialog always presents the filename as slideshare-as-a.gif. Suggest you use the last part of the slideshare link to generate the filename.

Updating the location bar dynamically when adjusting settings as well as using query params is always useful.

Being stuck with a wiki that won't allow linking to slideshare, I can see a real world use for this.

Is there an API available?

Minor points aside, looks and works great.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot for the appreciation and feedback. I completely agree with all the points mentioned. The first issue has already been fixed.

There is no API as of now, mainly because it was developed as a client side technology. Everything happens on the user's browser. I'll consider making one though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Limited to 256 colors, bloated (poor) compression, and overall terrible old legacy format.

I'd throw that image at gfycat.com faster than you can say "next slide please". Even the twitter example given -- twitter has already converted the gif to mp4. Why waste the bandwidth uploading something that's just going to get transcoded anyway?

</comment><comment><USER4> I will just wait for a animated gif output for Pandoc, which already turns my Markdown (and other files) into beautiful slide shows in a variety of formats.

</comment><comment><USER5> Nice implementation, but I still prefer something like gif brewery where I can set the parameters myself.

<comment><AUTHOR> There is actually a settings icon right next to the submit button. You can specify the parameters there. It could be easy to miss.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'd like to see this concept (presentation to GIF) for powerpoint (PPT/PPTX).

</comment><comment><USER7> would be nice to see this work with GitHub's speakerdeck (IMHO, much nicer than slideshare)

</comment><comment><USER8> Nice product. Some constructive advice - whilst naughty swear words are fine between friends and on your blog, on your product's home page it gives the impression of childishness and unprofessionalism.

<comment><USER9> I couldn't agree more.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Who is using HappStack? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> <http://www.patch-tag.com/>

<comment><AUTHOR> hmmm It looks like 'darcshub' a source code repository...

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Is xkcd also using happstack????</comment>


Chinese database of 2.4M influential people and their weak points revealed - <AUTHOR> https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/15/china_shenzhen_zhenhua_database/ <comment><USER2> I think this is a very big story and I'm surprised it hasn't been covered more. Especially in the context of the whole OPM database hack.

Also, Prof. Balding is on twitter, and can be followed there. [1]

[1] [http://twitter.com/BaldingsWorld](http://twitter.com/BaldingsWorld)</comment>


Ask IH: Feedback on this idea very much needed - <AUTHOR> https://www.indiehackers.com/forum/ask-ih-feedback-on-this-idea-very-much-needed-f408c6eddd <comment><USER2> Please don't cross post like this.

</comment><comment><USER3> I had to read the entire site twice to understand what you're doing. I think you're too close to the problem to know how to explain it clearly.

"Grab a persons email and instantly learn all their social media profiles so that you can follow them."

Course then you have the problem that they're most likely not in your database. Once you have the email then you need to contact them, tell them who is trying to reach out and get them to sign up for an account. Then if successful recontact the original poster and tell him the information is now there.

Hopefully you know that there are a couple of dozen startups who have tried to solve the problem and failed. Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey! Did you try to send yourself a test e-mail? What you are talking about is not actually what we are trying to solve :) But thanks for your comment, we will keep trying to make our idea clear for everyone!</comment></comment>


China's New Tool for Social Control: A Credit Rating for Everything - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-new-tool-for-social-control-a-credit-rating-for-everything-1480351590 <comment><USER3> I'm not sure about this. It's going to be so disastrous, reminiscent of Cultural Revolution in some spiritual form, to try to force human nature into quantifiable scoring system that relies on subjective truth that is determined by a central government.

Then again this is China, people have no way of speaking out against their government without risking their lives, and the government has no obligation other than maintaining their power over the population.

I almost feel as if Xi is losing his grip on the population by introducing drastic internal policies like this that only names goals that appear to benefit the greater good but almost certainly driving his own agenda, even if it earns the ire of his surrounding peers.

A foreign policy analysis of Xi's external facing policies are almost certainly always to further his internal grip which explains the bizarre & seemingly counter-productive positions he took against North Korea and South China Sea, that further drove neighbouring countries to America's arms....but with strange turn of events it seems that they will be undone from Trump's camp, much to the delight of Putin & Xi.

Time will tell, but it's doubtful we will have anything but a government mouthpiece statician announcing the success of such policies.

It's tough to know the real truth in societies where it is actively suppressed and manipulated by a single central entity. It's also difficult to say how long such systems will last without continuously taking on more risky and expensive internal policies that lags behind changing technology that disseminates information.

but what's that saying? The person wielding the biggest stick in the room is the source of truth implying force is always the lowest common denominator in human societies. Afterall, America wouldn't be where it is today without its 14 nuclear powered floating airports with the most advanced weapon technologies that casts a shadow on any port it chooses to refuel in.

<comment><USER4> Credit scores have existed long time in the West. This just extends the idea. I live in country where positive credit scores are not allowed and I think US type credit score is creepy, but people used to it seem not to care.

My fear is that it works all too well, especially in Chinese society.

<comment><USER3> Credit score is based on financial and measurable context.

Giving people brownie points for "being nice" or "not shitting in the streets" seems like a different ball game.

<comment><USER5> Not to mention it's mostly been recently that people/companies have started using Credit Scores outside the context of applying for a loan.

And IMO they should stop using it outside that context. People shouldn't have to worry about whether they can find a job or apartment based on having poor credit. Turns it into a game that everyone is forced to play instead of a simple metric that financial institutions can use to determine your credit- worthiness.

I've never had bad credit, but when I started working office jobs I actually went out and got a credit card I didn't need just so I could use it a few times and pay it off in full at the end of each month. Completely worthless process that I had to involve myself in simply to build my credit up. What a joke.

<comment><USER6> Credit score for an apartment seems reasonable, though - you're paying a non- trivial amount of money per month, and apartments want to minimize evictions - they just want to know if you can pay. I've been in a situation where my credit score was bad, but I provided an offer letter for my new job (which indicated that my future situation won't be like my past) and it was fine.

Where I can see it failing is for people who live "outside" the system - <USER2> have a friend who refuses to uses banks and deals only in cash and ancient coins - he can't find an above-the-board place to live because of his lack of credit score. But with that said, he does have a high risk of not being able to make rent on time, so its difficult to say what the policy should be.

As for finding a job, I don't know of any instance where a poor credit score would prevent you from getting a job, other than getting a security clearance, but that also seems reasonable since the government wants to know if you have any blackmail-able "money troubles" that an enemy actor can take advantage of.

<comment><USER7> The problem I've had is that there is effectively no difference between bad credit and no credit. It is entirely possible to be a financially responsible person (who exists in the "system" with a bank account) and still be denied housing. This forces people to get credit cards.

<comment><USER8> >> "This forces people to get credit cards."

That's the point. They designed the system of incentives and constraints to make you their customer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> China has had similar systems for decades. The dang'an record books on employee behavior were kept by big state employers. But that system didn't hold up well as more private employers appeared. Now it's being brought up to date.

The US has something like this for travel, where the lowest tier is being on the "do not fly" list, and having a Global Entry card, which requires "extreme vetting", moves you to a higher tier where you can bypass some security lines.

<comment><USER10> > China has had similar systems for decades. The dang'an record books on > employee behavior ...

Under the Communists China also has had (and maybe still does?) city block- level surveillance by neighbors of residential behavior.

> The US has something like this ...

The false equivalency comes up too much. I wrote some code in a couple hours the other day that is "something like" the Linux kernel, in that they are both code, both read from the network and output to the monitor, and both have bugs which will never be fixed. But if I want to communicate to others an accurate comparison of the two code bases, mentioning those similarities is misleading.

<comment><USER11> Communist China still has residential officers, but only in older complexes (I don't think we had one in my newish complex, but I definitely heard about them in more traditional Beijing apartment complexes).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> For people who haven't seen it, I highly recommend the black mirror episode "Nosedive" for an exploration of what this could do to a society even in the absence of government control.

<comment><USER13> Haven't seen "Nosedive" yet but just saw White Christmas. While we don't have the wetware enhancements for that yet, it did give a chilling look at how society would react if you had an AR overlay that somehow classified people as "undesirable." This was really highlighted at the end when he walks into the busy market and shows up as red to people.

While I have reservations about governments using a system like this as it is...you get into some fascinating and terrifying scenarios when you enable public access to this sort of thing. Imagine being added to some list because of an error, and then having the entire public viewing you and just assuming you are a bad person because you are on that list without giving you the chance to do anything about it or perhaps even know they are aware of that.

As a more tangible example, imagine if something like the infamous Lulu app (that lets women rate and apply tags to men they've dated and only lets other women see the ratings...kind of like an exclusive Yelp for men) was combined with ubiquitous AR. Now imagine you had a falling out with an ex and you're trying to start dating again. You now have to deal with all of the (potentially quite false) assumptions someone you might be interested in is making about you based on how your ex rated you in addition to whatever other assumptions they would normally make without it.

And odds are you'd never even know they made their decision before you even saw them because they previously scanned the room with a rating filter like Amazon and only care about people above their threshold. We worry now about the impact of filter bubbles with things like Facebook. Now think about having them applied to people you interact with in your day-to-day.

<comment><USER14> This already exists. My parents own a bar and were pitched a technology that would instantly screen problem patrons from a cloud-based data store. Further it can "remember" problem patrons if you flag them on your internal cameras and then use that to prevent them from entering in the future. It currently has many customers in the US.

<comment><USER13> Whats this called? Are there any checks and balances against it? Like, would someone ever know they were in this system or have recourse to see their data and challenge it?

I could totally picture insurance companies being all over something like this, and it is really scary to think about the lack of transparency and how you'll never know if you are in one of those databases.

<comment><USER14> PatronScan[1], no, no. [https://www.patronscan.com/id-scanner-for- bars/](https://www.patronscan.com/id-scanner-for-bars/)

<comment><USER15> > _The age of the patron is displayed for every scan, and the ID scanner > operator can be alerted if the patron exceeds the minimum or_ maximum _age > set by management._

The _maximum_ age.

> _If patrons break the rules, then ban them from every venue using PatronScan > in North America._

> _The Banned Patrons List is shared with every other venue using PatronScan_

> _PatronScan ID scanners give you live stats about […], the gender > distribution, and the average age [of patrons]._

Wow. Just … wow.

<comment><USER16> What exactly is so disturbing about a company digitizing what bouncers have been doing for decades?

<comment><USER12> Bouncers don't typically work for multiple clubs, you can't hack into their brains, they have imperfect memory, etc

This is like asking, what's wrong with state owned security cameras on the streets? It's digitizing what bystanders have been doing for centuries.

<comment><USER16> Well, I don't see any problem with state owned security cameras.

<comment><USER17> > state owned security cameras

There is a difference between security cameras and surveillance cameras. Surveillance cams are broadcasted somewhere else (maybe even over internet) and stored and reviewed. Security cameras - are for security incidents and shouldn't be broadcasted or footage stored longer than necessary (matter of hours or days depending on location).

Too bad often times these state owned security cameras are actually surveillance cams disguised as innocuous things which they aren't. There is this Will Smith movie "Enemy of the State", it's fiction but our dystopic society is becoming ever more scary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This could show or open up some possible alternatives to the current monetary system. You have to see money as providing the same function today in our society. Not your credit score and whatnot. Those are derived from it.

Money is what forces humans today into a quantifiable scoring system. On one side is doom but it is worth thinking about that the other side could provide. "Today you have been credited 400 points for helping 100 elderly over the street, driving 50 disabled people to the doctor and returning 20 lbs of unused food". Then you don't have a monetary system pricing your actions, but you have central control over what gets priced in what way. Sounds familiar, I know. But just because none of us can imagine anything but money to fulfill this allocation function, does not mean that other thinkers are hard at work. Surely this is far away from western individualism, but not every country has bought into that. China is surely investigating it's options long term to opt out of various constraints imposed upon by global power systems, one of which is the global banking and monetary system.

<comment><USER19> How would your example differ from a government simply putting a price on various tasks (helping elderly, etc) and paying with regular money?

I'm not saying it's a bad idea (I actually like it!), but conceptually it seems no different to the current monetary system, just with governments taking a more inventive approach to paying for public services.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Coverage of China's Credit and Scoring System is described by those covering it, like CNN ([http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/27/opinions/china-social- credit-s...](http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/27/opinions/china-social-credit-score- creemers/)), as:

"In that sense, perhaps the most shocking element of the story is not the Chinese government's agenda, but how similar it is to the path technology is taking elsewhere."

This is because, for example, surveillance of social media posts have been an input to credit scores in countries like the United States for some time. ([https://www.thenation.com/article/how-companies-turn-your- fa...](https://www.thenation.com/article/how-companies-turn-your-facebook- activity-credit-score/))

In the United States, further, social media post and social relationship information is used across America to calculate real time police "threat scores", predictive crime measurements that are applied to prioritize law enforcement and surveillance efforts. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/the- new-w...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/the-new-way- police-are-surveilling-you-calculating-your-threat- score/2016/01/10/e42bccac-8e15-11e5-baf4-bdf37355da0c_story.html)

China unfortunately is not unique in this landscape of social gamification - the kind espoused by the Bush and Obama Administrations - perhaps most perfectly represented by the legal justifications and arguments by Washington insiders in the intellectual orbit of Cass Sunstein.

<comment><USER21> That article seems to strongly imply that social media is a factor in your credit score but never actually proves it. After meandering on a story about targeted marketing via social media we get back to a history of credit scores yet no connection is ever made.

At best its thesis seems to be "these things are similar!" yet the headline and the intro is very misleading. Guilt by association is not a fair argument.

FICO using social media as a factor in its score would be extremely interesting were it true.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> When Extra Credits "Propaganda Games" video came out about a year ago[1], I was relived when I read that "Sesame Credit" was a complete fabrication, and even questioned EC for posting such a video without source checking.

Apparently is wasn't _completely_ fabricated after all.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHcTKWiZ8sI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHcTKWiZ8sI)

<comment><USER23> It is not fabricated, it just wasn't accurately reported.

Every article I read described it as a government system already implemented and measuring every aspect of your life, when it was actually a scheme created by a private company within their ecosystem and most people used it for showing off.

The government proposed system is still in pilot stage.

[https://www.techinasia.com/china-citizen-scores-credit- syste...](https://www.techinasia.com/china-citizen-scores-credit-system- orwellian)

<comment><USER24> Yeah, your answer should be pinned at the top. Most discussions going on here are without a real understanding of what's actually happening.

I have a Sesame credit score. It's pretty low. The whole system seems incredibly creepy though, even without the misreported government political intrusion aspects. I basically have to let a private company know all the details of my education, work and personal life (plus they have my entire purchasing history on Taobao, which covers most aspects of my life), and then they'll give me a score. I totally understand the need for a credit score in the context of giving loans, but the threat is always that this score then gets applied to other arenas as a generalized trustworthiness rating.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The Chinese leaders love talking about "harmony" as a social goal. In that spirit, these could be called "Harmony Points", or simply HP.

 _You gained 17 HP yesterday. You 've just leveled up! Report to your neighborhood party representative for your complimentary face massage kit. [Share on Weibo] [Share on WeChat]_

<comment><USER11> HP sounds better than the older Sesame points. Though it conflicts with hit points.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Like clockwork for every story just like this...

 _China has had similar systems for decades_ .... _The US has something like this for travel_

and

 _How different is this from our current credit system through FICO scores?_

Sorry, that technique doesn't work. Come up with something new.

</comment><comment><USER27> This strikes me as thoroughly oppressive.

Its a bit like the American credit system in that it can kick people in the balls...except its more arbitrary, outside of the persons control and very vulnerable to abuse.

</comment><comment><USER28> This is very dangerous. Things like this make me glad that I live in a democracy, although people in power can some times get away by doing stuff, they ultimately have to agree to the popular demands (this is also why certain dictators are overthrown by popular demand by a very big uprising, but it then disrupts the working of the country for a long time, works quicker in democracies since leaders have to listen to get elected next time)

</comment><comment><USER29> Doesn't sound bad, but when one of the factors used to calculate your credit rating is your degree political alignment, it is bad.

That combined with mass surveillance, censorship, and the fact that the People's Liberation Army serves the communist party and not the Chinese people gives them total control over the population.

</comment><comment><USER30> How different is this from our current credit system through FICO scores?

<comment><USER31> FICO is by private companies to measure your financial discipline if you want to borrow from them. You can continue to exist without opting in into FICO.

China's score is by government and it determines your mere existence. May be you end up in jail if the score goes below something. Also it is not about finances but about your opinions.

<comment><USER32> > You can continue to exist without opting in into FICO.

Only in theory.

For one thing, you don't opt into FICO - the company I transact with chooses to share my information with FICO, without giving me any choice on the matter.

The only way you can opt out of FICO is if you never use the financial system, not have a job, or a place to live. Unless you're an animal, or an undiscovered cave hermit, good luck.

> May be you end up in jail if the score goes below something.

Citation needed.

<comment><USER31> > Only in theory.

Not really. For example you can create a startup that might help banks find dependable borrowers more effectively than FICO and you can totally decimate FICO.

When I arrived in this country and wanted to borrow to buy a car I did not have a FICO score but I had a very good job. I borrowed outside the conventional banking system with a little higher APR.

FICO is like cellphones or email that has won and become common because it is the best alternative than everything else. One can certainly refuse to use cellphones but then that life would be highly inconvenient indicating how much value cellphones have brought to our life. FICO similarly has brought a lot of value to our lives so much that living without it is highly inconvenient.

BTW living without FICO is simpler and pretty much common thing in USA. How do you think illegal immigrants, students, H4 dependents etc. do financial transactions ?

<comment><USER32> > How do you think illegal immigrants, students, H4 dependents etc. do > financial transactions ?

I don't know about illegal immigrants, but anyone in the US on a valid visa can walk into a bank, show a teller their passport, and open an account.

Also, most of us aren't so blessed as to have a landlord (Dorm housing) that will forego a credit background check.

<comment><USER31> Except that the person will have to sign a reason why he/she does not have a SSN and agree to provide it with N days. After that the FICO can track you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Don't we already have this? A prospective employer can look up everything about you, and form a composite score on their own if they want to. China is late to the game.

</comment><comment><USER17> Now that Facebook is coming to China, maybe they will integrate it in their chinese version. Then other countries soon also could be granted to receive such a feature.

</comment><comment><USER34> This puts me in mind of Whuffie

</comment><comment><USER35> We will materialize our filter bubbles and you will call it equality.

</comment><comment><USER36> This was an episode in the latest season of black mirror

</comment><comment><USER37> Welcome to 1984!

<comment><USER38> Aldus Huxley portrayed something that scares me to death of actually happening... yet every day I see us coming closer and closer to its fruition. Strong teller...or fortune teller? Lol that is the question.</comment></comment>


Database.com from Salesforce - <AUTHOR> http://www.database.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> I submitted it because I think for a product of Salesforce.com, design looks very much like a parked domain.

<comment><USER2> I thought it was a parked domain as well when I first saw it.

I'm definitely interested in hearing people's thoughts on the actual offering though.

[Edit: So far pretty unimpressed with their attention to detail. Registering for a "free" force.com account, email address is required as well as a username. After specifying a username and submitting, an error in the form of an alert box popped up saying "username must be in the form of an email". Why they wouldn't just use the email they required me to give them is beyond me.]

[Edit 2: Okay, this is enterprise in the worst possible way. Clicking links sometimes give an "Authorization required" error message, even though I'm logged in. Information is strewn all over the place. It's going to take a lot of convincing that their database product is best of breed to convince me to want to use any of this garbage.]

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> _188,324,887 transactions today powered by database.com technology_

If you are going to show this, it should update when I press F5.

<comment><USER4> Maybe they cache it to improve performance :-P</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What tech podcasts do you listen to? - <AUTHOR>

What (if any) tech podcasts do you listen to on a daily/weekly/monthly basis? <comment><USER2> TechzingLive - <http://techzinglive.com/>

This Developers Life - <http://www.thisdeveloperslife.com/>

Mixergy - <http://mixergy.com/homepage/?skip=yes>

Startups for the Rest of Us - <http://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/>

This Week in Startups - <http://www.thisweekinstartups.com/>

Guardian Tech Weekly - <http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/series/techweekly>

Infinite Monkey Cage - <http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/timc>

60s Science - [http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/podcasts.cfm?type=...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/podcasts.cfm?type=60-second- science)

Skeptics Guide to the Universe - <http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcast.aspx?mid=1>

</comment><comment><USER3> \- The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe \- This Developer's Life \- Retrobits \- Open Apple \- 1 Mhz \- Future Tense \- Star Stuff \- Science Weekly \- The Naked Scientist

</comment><comment><USER4> The Big Web Show - <http://5by5.tv/bigwebshow> Founders Talk - <http://5by5.tv/founderstalk>

I used to listen to a lot of the TWIT / Leo Laporte ones but they have gotten really long & I don't have time for them anymore.

</comment><comment><USER5> Justin Vincent and Jason Roberts' Techzing. <http://techzinglive.com/></comment>


Ask the Wizard: You Always Start the Last Company - <AUTHOR> http://www.burningdoor.com/askthewizard/2007/04/you_always_start_the_last_comp.html <comment><USER2> This is a case of overgeneralizing. Evolution favors the organism most responsive to change; thus, one must recognize conditions how they are, instead of operating from a mental model of how they were, to increase one's chances.

It's _always_ relative; a combination of idea and environment. The mistake is, when something doesn't work out, that we are tempted to say that the idea must be a bad idea. The correct inference is that the combination of the idea and that particular environment did not work.

The corresponding mistake is to assign blame to the environment and say the environment is just bad for everything. Note that hardly anyone makes _that_ mistake -- instead, they say, "the environment isn't _ready_ for this idea _yet_ ", noting that change is inevitable.

Another way of stating this is that the author failed to investigate _why_ something was problematic. Instead, it's as if he was operating blindly; "I got burned by X, so in the future I will avoid X, because X burns." That's somewhat like a child bumping into a kitchen table and getting mad at the table. "Tables are a problem -- let's get rid of them."</comment>