Calling bullshit - <AUTHOR> http://callingbullshit.org <comment><USER2> Admirable, but misguided. Fact-based argument has never been effective. The Greeks knew this. We keep forgetting it at our own peril. We know how to think critically; most of us simply choose not to.

The audience who would see this kind of course/site are likely people who pretty much already have their head screwed on the right way. It would be much better to train them in effective rhetoric so they can counter the bullshit in real arguments.

We keep forgetting that people tend to support policies and politicians for largely social and psychological reasons, not because of facts and ideology. The former are where the real battle is fought.

I spend a lot of time debating with people who disagree with me politically. It's nearly impossible to have a factual debate. So stop trying. Instead, make your point based on common morals, do it with compassion and generosity of spirit, and don't allow the goalposts of the debate to be moved. Throw in like two of couple of your choicest facts and sources, but don't expect them to help. Move on and repeat.

<comment><USER3> > It's nearly impossible to have a factual debate.

You contextualize this as related to politics. But, I've noticed, in certain fora, that it's nigh-on impossible, even for something as measurable as energy production. And that's just inputs and outputs where the units of measurement are already agreed to! :-O

What's the difference? What causes some topics to be amenable to rational debate (or even discussion that doesn't go off the rails) and not? Politics, economics (because it's related to politics?), and religion - no. No rationality to be had there. Anything that have to do with harmful invisible vapors (vaccines, electromagnetics, radiation, environmental toxins) and health - no. Any form of "alternative lifestyle", including digital nomadicism (!) - no. Law - all over the map. Computer programming - all over the map.

In fact, right now, I'm trying to think of something that humans debate rationally, and I'm having a difficult time thinking of one (I'm sure they exist - but I'm only lightly caffeinated so far).

Regardless of my inability to think of topics that we (humans) _can_ debate about rationally, why do some topics "work" for rationality and some not?

> Move on and repeat.

Why? You just said it almost never helps.

<comment><USER2> > Why? You just said it almost never helps.

Yeah, great question! I didn't really address that part.

What I really meant is that I almost never "win" the argument. I've overtly changed someone's mind before, but that's like 10% of the time, at best. So making that my goal wouldn't be a good idea.

More often, I can get the other person to expand their point of view, even just a little bit. I can gain some credibility in their minds as someone they may disagree with, but can respect. And it opens the door to the perception that maybe the point of view I represent isn't directly opposed to their tribe. For people I tend to debate repeatedly, I can tell there's a shift over time.

Not to mention the fact that I'm not always right. I learn a lot from people who aren't already inclined to mindlessly Like everything I post. Debating people makes me a better thinker and persuader.

But I think most importantly, I do it for the audience. I suspect that in many of these debates, the lurkers are much less entrenched in their point of view than me or the person I'm debating with. Those are the people I really want to move. And that's a big reason why it's _crucial_ to be civil, sincere, and avoid blowing up on people. Nothing turns off a neutral onlooker like someone being an asshole, even if it's righteous.

<comment><USER3> That makes a ton of sense. I almost always forget that there is an audience -- and that the audience, because they aren't in participant mode might well be less in their chosen position. Thanks!

[ It still baffles me why people would take on a non-rational position on (say) power generation. It's just engineering and physics. Anyone can look up the math in any library - it doesn't really even change that often! ]

<comment><USER4> Even the most fundamental comparison between two energy production techniques requires hours or days to calculate all relevant aspects: cost, production cycle, transmission, and storage. It isn't that surprising that anything that requires that much work could be considered as an article of faith.

Most people take the analysis provided to them by their trusted authorities: newspapers, magazines, television, public figures, esteemed friends and family; and form their world view based off of that. "Team" membership and identification also are prominent.

<comment><USER3> I think "Team" membership is key -- it tells which opinions they are likely to listen to. Any team can rustle up a credentialed opinionator that didn't do the math themselves (or will say anything, just, because) to round arm the rubes with talking points to unleash onto Reddit (or wherever). It would be a quite the dance spectacle, if it didn't make my stomach hurt. And, the worst thing is? My brain is just as broken (for the purpose of thinking rationally) as any of theirs! :-O

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I really like this idea, though struggle to understand the effectiveness.

My guess is that the type of person who falls victim to 'bullshit' theory or messages is not the kind of person who is willing to dedicate time to an online course about learning to be more critical in thought. 'Bullshit' thinking has been largely successful because its an effortless pathway to establishing an opinion on something (queue System 1/System 2 thinking).

Conversely, the people who would be willing to read this sort of content are likely the people who are already reasonable skeptical about what they take as face value.

<comment><USER6> I think everyone, engaged and skeptical or otherwise can miss falsehoods if it aligns with their values/beliefs already. Taking something like this should, in theory, give you tools to make sure that even if you really want to believe what you are reading/hearing because it aligns with your world view (or worse, comes from a source you respect and trust) then you can still determine how honest or accurate it is.

<comment><USER7> The latest SGU (Skeptics Guide to the Universe) podcast touched on your point, and how everyone is susceptible to false hoods particularly when those opinions make up a persons identity. Someone who identifies as 'liberal' or 'conservative' is more likely to fight facts that go against their beliefs. One possible solution presented, was to always attempt to self identify as a skeptic who is okay changing opinions as new facts come in. It is not an easy thing to do because 1) it's a lot of work and 2) you're outside of most of the big popular groups.

<comment><USER8> Self identifying as a skeptic is easy. Changing opinions as new facts come in is hard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> From the "patron saint of reason and common sense" I can recommend Carl Sagan's "Baloney Detection Kit" from superb _The Demon-Haunted World_ :

[https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/01/03/baloney- detection-k...](https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/01/03/baloney-detection- kit-carl-sagan/)

<comment><USER10> In fact, that's one of Calling Bullshit's sources:

[http://callingbullshit.org/syllabus.html#Spotting](http://callingbullshit.org/syllabus.html#Spotting)

<comment><USER9> Oh dear - I should have read that page more carefully.

Anyway here is one that isn't on their list:

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> My wife took a Critical Thinking course at college. Changed her life, and as a result, my life and our kids'. Blows me away that only 90 people per year at that institution took that course. Meanwhile, back in the public school system, we have examiners mistaking their own opinions as fact. [1]

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13348672](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13348672)

<comment><USER12> Really? My college experience was very different. All the professors talked about how essential "critical thinking" was.

And to this I asked:

\- Is there even a definition of "critical thinking"?

\- (As a psychology major) Is there evidence that this is a sound objective concept (rather than something everyone thinks only they have)?

\- Is there any objective measure of critical thinking? If not, how can you have any objective reason to believe your courses increases critical thinking?

And to this they said various forms of "I don't know." I guess they had never really thought about it critically.

<comment><USER11> I think you are making the same point. There was just _one_ course, with just one professor, on critical thinking at this college, and then there are 1000 where the professor assumes that you know, indeed that they know, what critical thinking is. In fact most don't. My alma mater didn't have a critical thinking course.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I am not sure I like this site. It uses strong language, but avoids anything controversial and provided case studies are pretty shallow.

Nothing like some Youtube channels, where presenter spends one hour deconstructing some study, to its sources and sources of the sources.

<comment><USER14> How To Deconstruct Almost Anything: My Postmodern Adventure, by Chip Morningstar, June 1993.

"Academics get paid for being clever, not for being right." \-- Donald Norman

[http://www.fudco.com/chip/deconstr.html](http://www.fudco.com/chip/deconstr.html)

<comment><USER15> Wow, thank you for sharing this. It's one of the more entertaining essays I've read, especially since I've recently come into contact with some of the literary critics and deconstructionists he's writing about.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This seems like a similar idea to Julian Baggini's "Edge of Reason"[1]. In the book he investigates how we've become very bad at using reason (in the philosophical sense of the word) to examine things around us. I'm about 1/2 way through and I've been finding it very interesting indeed.

[1] [http://yalebooks.co.uk/display.asp?k=9780300208238](http://yalebooks.co.uk/display.asp?k=9780300208238) \- There's a brief interview with the author that introduces the book on there.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm sorry to be this negative, but people simply don't care. They don't care because thinking critically and trying to grasp subtle nuances and balance complex opinions about the world will not directly improve their lives. Convenient truths and easy emotions feel more comfortable and as if they have a direct "return on investment". Most people prefer simple truths, certainty and connection to/identification with a group over uncertainty, doubt and existential loneliness. (Or at least that's what I see, as somebody who is somewhat on the autistic spectrum and doesn't easily connect with a lot of this group-think.)

It's laudable to fight this, just very prone to disillusion.

<comment><USER18> It's not necessarily that they don't care, it's that not everything that matters to one person matters to the other.

The things which do matter to them however they care deeply about. And so it's much more accurate IMO to talk about misaligned perspectives rather than whether people don't care about the truth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Bullshit is a numbers game, just like spam. Spam doesn't particularly try not to look like spam or avoid spam filters because the target audience isn't employing decent countermeasures.

Maybe marketing can be elevated to the same standard as phishing, where effort is put into deceiving our filters?

If so, this would be a very useful course for a marketeer to attend ;)

</comment><comment><USER20> Reminds me of a good book I read in my ethics classes:

[https://www.amazon.com/Bullshit-Harry-G- Frankfurt/dp/0691122...](https://www.amazon.com/Bullshit-Harry-G- Frankfurt/dp/0691122946)

<comment><USER21> Not surprisingly, that's also one of _Calling bullshit_ 's sources:

[http://callingbullshit.org/syllabus.html#Introduction](http://callingbullshit.org/syllabus.html#Introduction)

(Funny little story, btw: The NYT reviewed that book, without being able to ever mention its title or, well, subject :-)

[http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/14/books/between-truth-and- li...](http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/14/books/between-truth-and-lies-an- unprintable-ubiquity.html?_r=0)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I agree with the spirit of what this is trying to promote, but its target audience likely considers themselves to be "critical thinkers" already and feel its everybody else who needs this kind of course.

That said, why does it have to be set up like a college course? Not only did looking at the site bring back memories of freshman year crit analysis courses, the way in which their proposed structure is laid out is completely out of sync with the way in which people absorb information today.

Fake news is shared widely because it's easy and doesn't require much mental exertion of the sharer/reader. The people most likely to share this kind of provocative "viral" content do not even have a working common-sense bullshit meter. Yet the well-meaning people behind the course think they're ready move from 200 word blog posts with a black-and-white view of the world to college- level reading?

I'd suggest looking at the UX/UI of an app like Google Primer (bite sized lessons on digital marketing) and see if that model can be applied here. Probably not Primer is designed to provide on-the-go info while this is designed as an actual college course.

</comment><comment><USER23> This looks fairly similar to the psychology course, "Everything is Fucked" [1]. EiF has a stellar syllabus, while this one seems a bit lighter (maybe it's for fewer credits). Seems like a pretty useful course, in any event.

I'm definitely curious about Susan Fiske's article, about how social networks encourage unmoderated academic "trash talk" [2]. Andy Gelman has a pretty negative critique of the article here [3].

[1] [https://hardsci.wordpress.com/2016/08/11/everything-is- fucke...](https://hardsci.wordpress.com/2016/08/11/everything-is-fucked-the- syllabus/)

[2] [http://callingbullshit.org/readings/fiske2016mob.pdf](http://callingbullshit.org/readings/fiske2016mob.pdf)

[3] [http://andrewgelman.com/2016/09/21/what-has-happened-down- he...](http://andrewgelman.com/2016/09/21/what-has-happened-down-here-is-the- winds-have-changed/)

edit: why the downvote?

</comment><comment><USER24> Yes. Yes. Yes.

This is exactly what public education systems should be teaching. I'd almost say that next to basic literacy and mathematics, this is the most valuable subject to teach. It lays the groundwork for so much else.

<comment><USER25> Bullshit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> 'Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital.' \-- Aaron Levenstein

Or putting in other words: analysis is an art not a science.

</comment><comment><USER27> I wish this kind of courses were mandatory for all undergraduates in our post- truth era.

<comment><USER18> Can we stop with the claims about a post-truth era?

It's not like people suddenly decided to disregard truth and not believe in actual truths.

It's that we have just realized that interpretation is not the same as truth and have now been made aware that there are other interpretations of the facts than our own.

We don't live in a post-truth world, we live in a world were the truth is confused with difference of opinion.

<comment><USER28> >It's not like people suddenly decided to disregard truth and not believe in actual truths.

"post-truth" doesn't mean people have decided to disregard truth, it means that factual truth is no longer a relevant factor in in the effectiveness of political arguments for many people. See Karl Rove's quote about the "reality- based" community (which may or may not be apocryphal) versus the American empire which simply creates whatever reality it likes.

<comment><USER29> > _" post-truth" doesn't mean people have decided to disregard truth, it means > that factual truth is no longer a relevant factor in in the effectiveness of > political arguments for many people._

It mostly means:

"Some people can't accept Trump got elected, so when e.g. criticism of him being sexist/rapist etc because of some comments back in the day is discarded, they call it a post-truth world. At the same time, it's not post-truth when the same people discard allegations of rape for Bill Clinton and his wife helping with cover up".

Or, as I'd put it:, both party voters could not give a rats arse about the truth, but the Democratic party has a better stronghold on academics, columnists, intellectuals and "hi-bro" journalists, etc., the sort of people who would just single out the others' disregard of the truth as "post-truth".

<comment><USER30> Well said. I would add that journalistic ethics have reached a new low. Astoundingly new low. On the other hand, I was not alive in the 1890s during the era of "yellow journalism" where everyone with a printing press was turning out nothing but bullshit on an hourly basis and hawking it to unsuspecting rubes.

Turns out there is good money in just making up crap and printing it.

<comment><USER31> I remain unconvinced that journalism has reached a new low, rather than our ability to detect its shoddiness has reached a new high.

The only two things I could identify as uniquely a problem today that weren't problems in the past are A: the money is coming out of journalism faster than it can adapt to it and B: the incredibly immediate pressures to be first and get the most clicks. The latter being a thing that has always been present to some degree, since journalists have always made money by attracting eyeballs in one form or another, but the immediacy of the pressure today I'd say is a quantitative change that becomes a qualitative change by sheer size.

But I'm still unconvinced this is a new low, rather than one that we're detecting. Journalism has some nasty stuff in its history. It certainly hasn't reached a new low if you step outside of the United States. The press still hasn't quite reached Pravda lows, but I will conceded it is currently engaged in a full burn towards it.

<comment><USER18> Completely agree. It's a sign of health not sickness that we are experiencing this change.

What people often forget is that at the same token lies can be spread so can corrections to those lies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> > Advertisers wink conspiratorially and invite us to join them in seeing > through all the bullshit, then take advantage of our lowered guard to > bombard us with second-order bullshit

This made me chortle

</comment><comment><USER33> The idiots of the world fight ferociously to spread their "100 percent correct" views, while the smart (HackerNews) remain relatively silent in fear against the masses of idiots flooding all mediums. Carl Bergstrom and Jevin West had the courage to scream loudly back, speaking smarts to stupid. Better marketing for good ideas! Bravo!

Marketing opinion. This page: [http://callingbullshit.org/case_studies.html](http://callingbullshit.org/case_studies.html) should be made homepage content, for it is their most compelling and clear value statement and takes little space. It took me too long to find naturally, and I didn't feel fulfilled on the bullshit pitch till I did. If you don't want to move it, perhaps call them examples instead of case studies, if you want to reach a general audience.

Serendipity. These professors made a course/website "bullshit" the title. Which I think's funny because I just uploaded a youtube video in a tophat/leopard print about how smart people should be more aggressive spreading their ideas.

</comment><comment><USER34> _For better or for worse, the term_ bullshit _has no exact synonym in the English language; we use the term because it precisely describes the phenomena we are studying._

Interestingly enough, the claim about _bullshit_ lacking an exact synonym is false. Not only does _bull_ by itself mean precisely the same thing, but in fact its use predates the compound formation by three centuries. The use of _shit_ in _bullshit_ is an intensifier, as in _shitstorm_ or _shitfit_ , though presumably the rather evocative image of bovine excrement was also a factor.

From the Google dictionary:

        bull (3)
        bo͝ol/
        noun informal
        noun: bull

            stupid or untrue talk or writing; nonsense.
            "much of what he says is sheer bull"

        Origin
        early 17th century: of unknown origin.

        bull·shit
        ˈbo͝olˌSHit/
        vulgar slang
        noun
        noun: bullshit

            1. stupid or untrue talk or writing; nonsense.

        Origin
        early 20th century: from bull (3) + shit.

</comment><comment><USER35> > we are proposing to teach it at the University of Washington in the near > future

I call BS.

</comment><comment><USER36> This is a really good effort! In analytics and data science world where I work, it's difficult to train our junior people to think through all the reasons their conclusions might be misleading. The cases are likely to be very helpful to get the thinking process started.

<comment><USER30> My biggest concern about data science is that a lot of people who lack basic skills at doing science are racing into the field. My other concern is that this happened because an article said that there would be a huge demand for data scientists in the future, a matter I am also skeptical of. Repeat after me: Correlation is not causation.

<comment><USER36> Actually I find that commoditization of computing power and dirt cheap storage combined with the rise of digital as an advertising and sales medium are primarily responsible for the rise in demand. Some of the demand comes from beyond the tech sector in companies like mine which are in the traditional consumer goods busines.

There's a lot of depth of analytics required when you're spending a billion dollar marketing budget that goes well beyond correlation causation basics.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> There are four kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, statistics and big data.

<comment><USER38> You forgot academic papers, peer-reviewed literature and consensus among scientists.

<comment><USER39> Yes, what good has ever come of any of those...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> It isn't about identifying bullshit so much as coming up with a subjective preference set to carry out and seek out that leads to a better world regardless of the circumstances.

<comment><USER41> "a better word" is theory-laden, and can't be separated form personal, selfish biases, and "circumstances".

<comment><USER40> yes, it is implicit in my comment that this perspective can be intellectually dismantled if you prefer, but the original point of course is that indulging this urge gets less than nothing done for my idea and makes no progress at all on yours while still consuming your time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> This reminds me of Jon Stewart's swan song of "Bullshit is everywhere"[1] message.

Sigh, I miss Jon Stewart.

[1]. [http://www.cc.com/video-clips/ss6u07/the-daily-show-with- jon...](http://www.cc.com/video-clips/ss6u07/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart- uncensored---three-different-kinds-of-bulls--t)

</comment><comment><USER43> Looking at the name I thought this was going to be some kind of wiki- encyclopedia of bullshit, where people could submit reasons why any given thing is bullshit.

Am a little disappointed actually, that would be a handy reference. Though naturally such a thing would almost immediately devolve into arguments about the degree to which anything is bullshit, but that could still be valuable.

</comment><comment> Paul-ish The criticism of this course in principle is ironic to me. A lot of people are saying "This course is pointless, the people who would take this course don't need it." Which seems to imply... that they wouldn't take the course. Which would, by their own logic, imply they probably need it.

We all have blind spots, we just have different blind spots.

</comment><comment><USER44> Ok, so it's not "this course" in the "you can go here to take this course" sense, but in the "there may be a course held somewhere some day" sense? Because I was interested but baffled when I tried to find the course or info about where to take part on that site.

</comment><comment><USER45> Is this a MOOC? I don't see lecture videos.

I laughed hard after reading Week 3:

Week 3. The natural ecology of bullshit. Where do we find bullshit? Why news media provide bullshit. TED talks and the marketplace for upscale bullshit. Why social media provide ideal conditions for the growth and spread of bullshit.

</comment><comment><USER46> From [http://callingbullshit.org/syllabus.html](http://callingbullshit.org/syllabus.html):

> _but recently a fake news story actually provoked nuclear threats issued by > twitter._

Nuclear threats issued by Twitter. What a world we live in.

</comment><comment><USER47> > _For better or for worse, the term bullshit has no exact synonym in the > English language_

Perhaps only in British use (?) - but 'rubbish' and 'nonsense' can both be used to replace 'bullshit', other than qua faeces.

</comment><comment><USER48> This "bullshit" meme is getting tired. It seems like a cutesy way to say something like "not rigorous" or "deceptive". Which a good introductory course in logic (informal and formal) will help in spotting.

</comment><comment><USER49> [https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/humor/fionavar/flame_school](https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/humor/fionavar/flame_school)

</comment><comment><USER50> I think this is an effort towards the people that don't need such effort. The people really needing this course will never willingly read - or understand - such educated content.

</comment><comment><USER51> 90% of everything is crap.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon's_law](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon's_law)

</comment><comment><USER52> more supplementary readings:

"SILENT RISK :NASSIM NICHOLAS TALEB" ( pdf )

[http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/SilentRisk.pdf](http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/SilentRisk.pdf)

and

"Taleb: The Intellectual Yet Idiot"

[https://medium.com/incerto/the-intellectual-yet- idiot-13211e...](https://medium.com/incerto/the-intellectual-yet- idiot-13211e2d0577)

</comment><comment><USER53> Everything around you is bullshit. Click here, follow/upvote us, we are not.

Shallow "facting" does not help the the cause.

</comment><comment><USER54> > In this course we aim to teach you how to think critically about the data > and models that constitute evidence in the social and natural sciences

I call bullshit on the existence of "social sciences". Even the best attempts at controlled, reproducible experiments were laughable, so at most we can call them "social _studies_ ".

</comment><comment><USER55> If you can't call callingbullshitdotorg bullshit, you've learned nothing!

</comment><comment><USER56> Isn't this just a collection of things to read rather than a course?

<comment><USER57> In the disclaimer (bottom of page) it says it is indeed not yet a real course but will eventually be offered at the university of washington.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> > So, the aim of this course is to help students navigate the bullshit-rich > modern environment by identifying bullshit, seeing through it, and > combatting it with effective analysis and argument.

I am calling bullshit on this.

<comment><USER59> Why?

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> glad to see the groundswell!

However I made a more efficient approach at solving this : [http://TrumpTweets.io](http://TrumpTweets.io)

The manifesto : [http://TrumpTweets.io/manifesto](http://TrumpTweets.io/manifesto)

<comment><USER61> How does this facilitate positive changes in the world? I could be wrong, but I'm not seeing it.

It feels like preaching to the choir. It is also fairly antagonistic, which people generally respond defensively too.

It looks like it was pretty fun to build though!

<comment><USER60> read the manifesto : [http://trumptweets.io/manifesto](http://trumptweets.io/manifesto) we are just getting started.. those are just test samples. working on better content though.. try it out though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> ..."other tools of persuasion" like posing as your own fan on message boards to defend and flatter yourself, after you're criticized for claiming that women are "treated differently by society for exactly the same reason that children and the mentally handicapped are treated differently. It's just easier this way for everyone."

[http://comicsalliance.com/scott-adams-plannedchaos- sockpuppe...](http://comicsalliance.com/scott-adams-plannedchaos-sockpuppet/)

Scott Adams, talking about Scott Adams in the third person, while pretending not to be Scott Adams:

\- [0] plannedchaos -21 points 4 months ago

If an idiot and a genius disagree, the idiot generally thinks the genius is wrong. He also has a lot of idiot reasons to back his idiot belief. That's how the idiot mind is wired.

It's fair to say you disagree with Adams. But you can't rule out the hypothesis that you're too dumb to understand what he's saying.

And he's a certified genius. Just sayin'.

<comment><USER62> Scott Adams is also a MRA who equates being a woman with being mentally handicapped. [http://comicsalliance.com/scott-adam-sexist-mens- rights/](http://comicsalliance.com/scott-adam-sexist-mens-rights/)

He is a climate change denier with the senseless circular reasoning, that if he can't understand the science of climate change himself, why should he ever trust climate scientists and other experts in the field, because their models are complicated. [https://twitter.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/814133681711263744](https://twitter.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/814133681711263744)

Later in the thread, when presented with any scientific explanation of climate change, he reverts to repeating "how can I trust it?", all the while accusing climate scientists of having a financial incentive to push climate change, not providing proof himself.

<comment><USER63> I don't think he is a denier, I honestly believe he is poking fun at the supremely confident masses who are _absolutely sure_ climate change is _precisely as the scientists say_ , and that anyone that disagress in the slightest is a denier/idiot/whatever. He also happens to be correct, the general public doesn't understand the intricacies of climate change.

I'm no denier either, but you'll have to pardon me if I choose to not join the unthinking hordes who insist we _must do something now_ , and no we _will not think_ while we are doing this. Dissension is _explicitly not allowed_.

Oh, is that not _exaaaaaaaaaaaactly_ what the message is? Of course not, but there is some truth there. There are highly trained scientists who don't fully support the party line, and they are not allowed to speak. I believe it is not an intellectually honest conversation, and I'm old enough to remember other situations where dissent was not allowed and it turned out not so good.

Also, don't forget that Scott is a humorist author, and part of his schtick is to deliberately cause outrage, especially with people who take themselves way too seriously.

<comment><USER64> > There are highly trained scientists who don't fully support the party line, > and they are not allowed to speak.

Name one.

<comment><USER63> Judith Curry

[https://judithcurry.com/2017/01/03/jc-in- transition/](https://judithcurry.com/2017/01/03/jc-in-transition/)

Look at how this mildly (at best) informed senator encounters facts that don't support his hypothesis, look at how he, an amateur, speaks to a top scientist!

I believe many if not most scientists are at least partially _lying_ to people, and by lying I don't mean they are accidentally mistaken, I mean that they _know_ that some of what they are saying is speculative, but they pass it off as established fact. I look forward to stopping thinking this way when the scientific community admits to this.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oh6zDbWMuP0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oh6zDbWMuP0)

I suppose (sigh) that I must pre-emptively add that no, indeed, she wasn't in fact _literally_ prevented from speaking. I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to decide for themselves whether all is well in this situation.

<comment><USER14> People like that usually have interesting discussions on their talk pages.

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

Characterizing her as "not allowed to speak" or somehow oppressed and silenced by mainstream scientists is totally off base, since she herself has said: "I flat out don't care; my feelings aren't hurt, I don't feel like my professional status is being jeopardized or challenged or whatever. I flat out don't care at this point."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Judith_Curry#Collide-a- Sc...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Judith_Curry#Collide-a- Scape_on_The_Judith_Curry_Phenomenon)

<comment><USER63> Did she go on to say all was well in the scientific community?

Judith herself obviously has quite a backbone and seems to be able to take this environment on, the more important point is: is there some truth to what she says? Is there in fact a lack of complete honesty in the scientific community, are some people "strongly encouraged" to not say certain things whether not it has a solid grounding in science?

<comment><USER14> Is there some truth to what you say? "There are highly trained scientists who don't fully support the party line, and they are not allowed to speak."

If you don't mean "literally speak", then what exactly do you mean? What qualifies as "speaking"? Testifying in front of Congress on live national television? Writing an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal? Boasting of having a total of 12,000 citations of her publications, and a blog that gets on average about 12,000 'hits' per day, and 300-400 comments? None of that counts as speech?

First, define "speech", then list the names of highly trained scientists who aren't allowed to speak because they don't fully support the party line.

<comment><USER63> Let's approach it this way, in an attempt to clarify _where_ it is we disagree: do you believe there is a single instance in recent scientific history of peer pressure being used to encourage/discourage certain ideas within the scientific community?

Don't forget, sometimes you don't see certain things because they have been eliminated, and a natural reaction might be to assume that they never existed. The idea that disagreements occur in professional environments I don't think is very controversial on HN, but what I seem to be hearing today is that HN believes that these disagreements do not occur in the field of science. There is certainly a very long history of disagreement in science, it is one of the primary strengths of the scientific method. And yet now, it has disappeared? That would certainly appear to be the case, all I'm saying is, I doubt that is the actual reality.

<comment><USER14> Please stop trying to move the goalposts, and go back and 1) define what you mean by "not allowed to speak", and 2) list more names of scientists who are "not allowed to speak".

<comment><USER41> Please prove the goalposts have been moved...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> Yes. Bullshit is ruining everything. There needs to be some kind of grassroots movement to stop it.

<comment><USER66> You need to want to know what is true first, to care enough to take the trouble of knowing how to detect bullshit. I think the reason why bullshit is flourishing is because those that actually give a damn are the minority. The majority is composed of the useful idiots and those that manipulate them. Of course reality is never black and white, and it is much more nuanced than I've stated here, but I think that's the general gist of things

<comment><USER46> A big problem is that for most people, _truth_ has no direct or measurable value in lives. Information is mostly used as social objects - something to talk about and share with other people. It doesn't matter whether e.g. that GMO-causes-cancer paper is solid or a hoax, what matters is that as the story circulates, you can play the relative status game with your friends by showing who's more into GMO-causes-cancer belief.

In the areas where "getting things right" has a direct impact on someone's life, people turn out to be surprisingly good at catering for their own interests (though not perfect, and the whole advertising industry is based around the desire to screw people in this area).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> This is a course on being intelligent, it seems. If you are able to teach people how to be intelligent without making them actually intelligent (= to know a lot of things) then it is magic.

<comment><USER67> Isn't "to know a lot of things" just being wise? Being intelligent, to me, is more about being able to process information, arrive at conclusions - or, in simple words: to think well.

You could be wise without being intelligent (someone who learned a lot by rote learning, but doesn't understand much of it), or vice versa, although the latter is somewhat questionable - an intelligent person will likely use the intelligence to know more and more things. :)

Edit: heck, even D&D had separate wisdom and intelligence stats. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> The trollometer Plumpfmeter 2.1 can actively be turned into a bullshit detector by using a post anaphylactic reaction using the original designed [http://la.buvette.org/tech/reseau/prumpleffer-2.html](http://la.buvette.org/tech/reseau/prumpleffer-2.html) based on deep machine learning with the latest green powder AI.

Don't get trolled or bullshited again, buy Plumfmeter the only and original protection that really works.*

* Will make you famous, less gullible and totally smart without effort or learning __

 __Recommended by our best customers: Trump.inc, NSA, EU parliament, EvilCorp.gmbh.</comment>


Ask HN: Are SEO tools worth it? - <AUTHOR>

Is it valuable to use (and pay for) SEO tools like MajesticSEO and SEM Rush. Are there free/better tools that provide the same information? <comment><USER2> It depends on the data you are trying to extract. If you want backlink data, most of it is available in GWT, Bing, and Webmeup. If you are planning to identify opportunities & do competitive analysis, both Majestic SEO & SEMRush are fantastic.</comment>


Project Common Voice - <AUTHOR> https://voice.mozilla.org/ <comment><USER2> The terminology is a bit confusing. They are saying that they want to build voice recognition but it seems like they actually might want to build a speech recognition engine. Speech recognition is about recognizing the speech, the spoken words. Voice recognition is about recognizing the speakers voice, i.e. identifying the speaker. Also, maybe they also want to build a text-to-speech (TTS) system but I'm not sure.

No matter what, the collected data might be useful for all of that, maybe except of voice recognition actually, because I guess the data will be collected anonymously?

Note that there are some other existing big open speech corpora such as LibriSpeech ([http://www.openslr.org/12/](http://www.openslr.org/12/)) which could already be used right now to build a quite good speech recognition system.

<comment><USER3> I can tell from your comment (and it's responses) that the language on our homepage is a bit confusing, so thank you for the feedback.

To answer you question: Common Voice is about building a collection of labelled voice data (ie. sentence clips w/ transcripts) that can be used to, for instance, train speech-to-text algorithms. Part of the goals of this project though is to figure out how this data can best help people build voice technology. So it's pretty open ended at this point.

Mozilla does have an open source speech-to-text engine [1] we are developing, and we hope one day to use the Common Voice data to train this engine. DeepSpeech and Common Voice are related, but separate projects, if that makes sense.

As for LibriSpeech, the DeepSpeech team at Mozilla does use this data for training. However, the language is pretty antiquated, and we only get about 1K hours of data, whereas you need about 10K hours to get to a decent accuracy (WER of 10% and below). Common Voice is about adding to public corpora like LibraSpeech, not replacing them.

1.) [https://github.com/mozilla/DeepSpeech](https://github.com/mozilla/DeepSpeech)

<comment><USER2> Very interesting. I was not aware that there is Mozilla DeepSpeech (which implements the model from the same called paper DeepSpeech by Baidu, in TensorFlow). Note that the issue with DeepSpeech (the CTC model from the Baidu paper) is that it really needs a lot of training data to perform well (that is a generic property of CTC). If you use more conventional models (hybrid NN/HMM models), you can get very decent word-error-rate performance with only a few hundred hours of data. The advantage of DeepSpeech of course is that it is simpler and you don't need a lexicon (mapping words to its pronunciations, i.e. sequence of phonemes).

I would also not use voice technology as the generic term for speech recognition, text-to-speech, and whatever else you want to do with this data. Rather, speech technology is the common term to cover all of this ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_technology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_technology)).

<comment><USER3> Noted. Again thanks for the feedback :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This looks great! I use voice control to program on occasion due to an rsi injury. The standard stack for this is a mess due to closed source systems that aren't designed for voice programmers. A good open solution could really save me from a lot of headaches.

<comment><USER5> You can take a look at what we build at [https://snips.ai](https://snips.ai), we will open-source the platform later this year

<comment><USER6> Cool. Just curious on What is the voice engine behind snips ? and who is the provider of training data ?. Also do you have plans for supporting additional languages or can it be trained on when you open source it ?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If they're planning to make a voice recognition system, why are they using example statements that are clearly taken from novels? [0] That's not how real people talk. They use a lot more slang, a lot more stopping and starting, filler words, etc. Instead you have people saying things like "irresolute", "rumbling", and other complex words. It would be useful for training a novel dictation system, but it's not how people would speak to their browser for example.

[0]: An example sentence is "a thin circle of bright metal showed between the top and the bottom of the body of the cylinder", which is from H. G. Wells' _War of the Worlds_.

<comment><USER8> Maybe there's not yet good open datasets available for this kind of material?

This gives Amazon, Apple and Google a nice advantage since they are able to collect huge sample sets of actual voice commands used by people and to some extent also correlate them with the actual action taken by the person.

How could we collect such dataset? It's a bit chicken-egg problem. I don't want to talk to some open source system unless it has fairly good chance of understanding me. Should we try to half manually (through crowd sourcing) come up with potential requests like "Check news from CNN.com", "Order me quattro stagioni" which could be then fed to platform like Common Voice?

Or should we work on higher level. Come up with task descriptions ("You want to order taxi to get to airport for your morning flight at 7am") and then let people record how they would actually request this from computer with voice. This might more accurately capture the language we actually use when speaking. Through some simple automation you could generate variations of the requests and at least partly the same base material could be used for different languages (task given in English, ask person to make the request in Finnish).

<comment><USER9> If you want people carefully reading books, it is pretty easy to get a hold of that kind of data in the form of audio books and the work of Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic. Sure, it isn't chunked into sentences, but since you have all of the source text you could do a quite reasonable job automating the slicing, throw out places you aren't sure, and still have a near infinite amount of great data. (Note that it isn't like these sentences are perfect anyway, hence the filtering process with volunteers: while I was judging some audio files one of the issues was "person turned off microphone a little too soon".)

<comment><USER10> Perhaps that's one of the points of using text from books. You can compare how people are speaking compared to someone who was specifically tasked with reading the book out loud for the audio book.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Sadly, in Demographic Data, only native english accents can be selected.

<comment><USER12> I have reported this and it looks like they intend to fix this [https://github.com/mozilla/voice- web/issues/242](https://github.com/mozilla/voice-web/issues/242)

<comment><USER13> If I read the issue right they don't intend to fix it at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Is the data going to be freely available as well? It's a little unclear whether they intend to make it separately available or not.

<comment><USER15> It looks like the database will be open sourced later this year: [https://voice.mozilla.org/faq](https://voice.mozilla.org/faq)

I'm wondering if the format will be easily translatable to the kinds of models that software like CMUSphinx and Julius use

[https://cmusphinx.github.io/](https://cmusphinx.github.io/)

[http://julius.osdn.jp/en_index.php](http://julius.osdn.jp/en_index.php)

<comment><USER16> It's weird to me that they publish the project about having an open dataset of voice data, with only a promise the open it up later.

<comment><USER17> It's Mozilla, they likely just don't have the infrastructure/code in place yet. They definitely get my trust for believing they actually will. They have been very good in the past about keeping things open. They make mistakes sometimes, but their goals are all about being open.

<comment><USER3> thanks for the vote of confidence! yes we will absolutely open this data up, and it's just a matter of collecting enough data to be useful, and then building the UI. we have a goal of achieving this by the end of 2017, so stay tuned!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Any plans for languages other than English?

<comment><USER12> This seems planned: [https://github.com/mozilla/voice- web/issues/213](https://github.com/mozilla/voice-web/issues/213)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> And... 503'd. I didn't catch what the intended use case was before it died, but I'm guessing computer generated voice?

Most of the computer generated stuff I've seen uses trained actors. Which neatly avoids the problem of trying to reconcile a myriad of accents and dialects, which was immediately apparent from the first two samples I tried.

edit: back up, seems to be about voice recognition, which this could help with no problem.

<comment><USER20> Actually, based on the site content I think they're using it to create an archive of speech data to train speech recognition systems.

<comment><USER21> That is correct. The DeepSpeech project, [https://github.com/mozilla/DeepSpeech](https://github.com/mozilla/DeepSpeech) will use this data to train and validate open source / freely available speech to text models. The training data, along with the trained models will be made available for free to all users and researchers alike.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> It would be useful to collect data from non-native speakers of a language. More and more such individuals are appearing in all countries, and devices that accept spoken words should not break because of someone's level of command of a spoken language. For example, a Swiss speaking German (Hochdeutsch), or more clearly, a Brit speaking French, etc. Some children who grow up in multi-lingual families also intermix words from multiple languages into their sentences. We can still understand them.

<comment><USER3> This is a bug with our website [1]. We actually are trying to collect non- native speakers (as well as native). We are looking into clarifying this on the site.

1.) [https://github.com/mozilla/voice- web/issues/242](https://github.com/mozilla/voice-web/issues/242)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I wonder if implementing a new type of Recaptcha with these type of projects in mind would make sense. The data wouldn't be going to some data center in Google land, but instead to some open end that anyone should be able to get their hands on. Also a free and open source recaptcha alternative would be nice. Trick is keeping it complex enough that bots cannot just reuse the existing public data set. Maybe withhold on making some of the data public for a few years till deemed 'retired'.

</comment><comment><USER24> I hope this data will be used purely for voice recognition purposes and not for voice generation, or we'll be stuck with robots talking with this horrible gurgling and clicking accent due to poor recording conditions of most participants!

<comment><USER25> According to their FAQ they actually want those poor conditions to be present in the corpus.

> We want the audio quality to reflect the audio quality a speech-to-text > engine will see in the wild. Thus, we want variety. This teaches the speech- > to-text engine to handle various situations—background talking, car noise, > fan noise—without errors.

[https://voice.mozilla.org/faq](https://voice.mozilla.org/faq)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Cool project, really aligned with the mission of Mozilla, and with a pleasant UX. And if you're a non-english speaker like me validating sentences is a nice way of improving your comprehension.

<comment><USER27> Yep! Though us non-native speakers should really be recording, too. So we're not left behind in voice recognition.

<comment><USER3> Exactly! Part of the goals of Common Voice is to make voice recognition work better for non-north american men (which is where the vast majority of the training data comes from).

If you are a non-native speaker, we need your voice!

<comment><USER26> Okay but what should strangers submit for country and accent in the form ? The only options are anglophones countries.

<comment><USER3> Good question. Sounds like we should add an "Other" to that drop down, and make it clear that we are looking for _all_ accents?

<comment><USER26> Yes - imho "non native english speaker" would be we the field where I would look first- edit typed on phone ...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Should i have any privacy concerns with contributing? I dont want just anyone to have the data to recreate my voice digitally.

</comment><comment><USER29> Man, most people have horrible microphones.

<comment><USER21> Indeed, and a big problem for STT models, which is why we're trying to collect this type of data.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> this is an important development. voice control has good potential. would be cool if they used it as an alternative way to control firefox and/or servo?

</comment><comment><USER31> Any idea why the duplicate detection did not work for this link: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14786881](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14786881)

Anyhow: these should be merged (even though there is no discussion on the other submission)

<comment><USER32> I think that's why. When the previous thread is not very active, dup's are allowed. Not sure though.

<comment><USER33> Yes. The system is designed to allow multiple chances for good content to get exposure.

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=dang%20deliberately%20porous&s...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=dang%20deliberately%20porous&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Can't believe it's down already.</comment>


Analyzing Every Reddit Comment Mentioning HODL Since 2017 – Part One - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/hodlblog/analyzing-every-reddit-comment-mentioning-hodl-since-2017-part-one-d536eb8364ad <comment><USER2> "The days with the biggest market losses, along with the days with the biggest market gains are associated with a higher # of HODL comments."

It's quite interesting that everyone is working together to maintain keeping the perception of the higher value.

It's clearly a tactic to make the crypto-assets seem less volatile, and therefore to make new people feel more comfortable putting funds in - and also maintaining the illusion for those that are "hodling."

It seems the strategy's been working for them, and I'm sure they're hopeful they can continue this until too much of society feels vested into the success of these incentivized crypto-assets to let them fail, leading to the late adopters' wealth being redistributed weighted towards the earliest adopters; wealth redistributed for doing no work, except for giving money to the person before them in the pyramid - in exchange for a digital asset.

Edit: To add, they all know that if the price starts to drop or plummet, to HODL - to not sell - until the price stabilizes and starts going up again. There have been times when people would dump a lot of Bitcoin or Ethereum, and the price would drop because not enough money was flowing in. I imagine now, the bigger asset holders of these incentivized crypto-assets, now keep a reserve -- probably platforms like Coinbase are incentivized to do this as well -- to counteract large dumps like this, or they simply shutdown trading, like it has looked like they've done in the past when there was a strong downtrend; I imagine they line up bigger investors interested in buying large amounts of Bitcoin et al, with people/friends looking to offload large amounts -- so they only sell once a buyer is already aligned, preventing/limiting these volatile drops. Coinbase further trying to prop up the ecosystem by creating/supporting tools and functionality that ties into getting people to adopt/pay into these Pyramid-Ponzi schemes like with attempting to purchase Earn.com.

Everyone's getting good at rallying the marketers and people incentivized for these Pyramid-Ponzi schemes to succeed.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you earn your Bitcoins? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Mostly from pre-roll in-video ad revenue and donations (fans can be surprisingly generous) from my most popular site: [http://www.JapaneseBugFights.com](http://www.JapaneseBugFights.com)

</comment><comment><USER3> I sell vpn [http://www.vpntraffic.com](http://www.vpntraffic.com)

<comment><USER4> hey please pm me oknoorap.at.gmail</comment></comment>


Show HN: Search, View and Share Vines in browser - <AUTHOR> http://www.vined.co

<comment><AUTHOR> Happy valentines day! You can either search a #tag or a twitter @username and it will pull in all the associated vines. Let me know if you have any feedback.

I plan on showing popular search terms and usernames on the homepage.

Remember to click the videos from the search pages if you want to play. Also, if you see another #tag in text beside a video you can click it and it will execute a new search.</comment>


A Day in the Life of a Food Vendor - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/18/dining/halal-cart-food-vendor-new-york-city.html <comment><USER2> A puff piece, yet I learned a lot. Those NYC regulations sound painful but at the same time I feel safer eating the street food.</comment>


Ask HN: Is home irrigation a good target market? - <AUTHOR>

I'm talking about sprinkler systems for lawns / gardens. ASP is substantial, overall number of units is large, upgrade cycle is... well that could be tricky. You don't want to target only new construction.
I'm not sure how large the irrigation market is, but in general if you can save people money by buying your product, and even save the environment while you're at it, it's a good start.
I can think of all sorts of tweaks you would want in a decent irrigation system. All the way from system design, coverage, level of control and adjustments, to usage stats, performance tracking, etc.
Maybe I'm just a little over-sensitive to making sure the system is operating at its peak, but there's a decent amount of actual work involved in maintaining these systems.
There's a lot I think you could do with just some Bluetooth LE flow meters that can be attached in-line at various points. Maybe next step is building them into the valves. Bonus points if they are self powered by the water flow, but probably totally unnecessary. Ideally no swapping batteries.
Is anyone targeting the residential market here? Is this Google Nest's next target market? <comment><USER2> People who need to save money turn it off and let the lawn die. Sometimes they replace it with landscaping that does not require water.</comment>


Run your own OAuth2 server - <AUTHOR> https://www.ory.am/run-oauth2-server-open-source-api-security.html? <comment><USER2> Isn't the "problem" with this that you can't get arbitrary websites to talk to your OAuth2 server? For example, even though, say, Gitlab, supports OAuth2 login with Github, I can't get it to authenticate with stavros.io.

This is the problem Portier ([https://portier.github.io/](https://portier.github.io/)) and OIDC aim to solve, ie to be able to auth on any website with an auth instance you run.

I love this idea because it's much easier to secure _one_ thing whose sole purpose is authentication than to secure _every_ thing you want to authenticate on.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not sure if I understood you correctly. Delegation of authentication usually implies trust between the two parties. GitLab (the hosted version) does probably not trust stravros.io enough to allow people to log in through there.

Portier looks indeed very nice, maybe I'll set up a tutorial how to get those two working together to get full Authentication (portier) + Authorization (Hydra) with using only open source technology.

<comment><USER3> Why does Gitlab have to trust anyone? It's the user that has to trust stravros.io not to tell Gitlab that other people are authorized.

It's no different than a regular email/password (with password recovery): if I register with firstname.lastname@example.com, then that email server becomes empowered to give access to the Gitlab account to anyone it wants. But that's not Gitlab's problem.

See also OpenID.

<comment><USER2> Exactly, and OpenID connect adds an authentication layer over OAuth2 for this exact purpose. If we manage to build that future, it will be very useful and quite exciting, at least to me. There won't be compromised passwords any longer, just the one password you can easily change.

<comment><USER4> You are ten years too late. The original OpenID did exactly this, and quite a few sites (especially tech focussed sites) let you sign in with it. Except then along came Google and Facebook with their proprietary login systems, and everyone jumped ship to those as they offered access to profiles rather than just a domain and possibly email address.

<comment><USER5> We first worked in this problem at Netscape just after the AOL acquisition in 1998. It turns out to be impossible because: show me the money. Something we figured out within a few weeks back then.

<comment><USER6> Which is precisely why DNS and SMTP have failed miserably.

<comment><USER7> Please elaborate on how DNS has failed? It seems to me that everyone uses DNS all the time and is an essential component of the Internet as we know it, but you and I may have differing notions of failure.

<comment> mike-cardwell I assume he was being sarcastic

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > _Please use more secure values in production. ;)_

That's not going to stop people from using those exact values. How many breaches have we seen due to the lack of sane defaults? Tutorial code (especially when written by the people putting out the software) is a default, and it's likely to result in plenty of people running this exact code in production.

<comment><AUTHOR> That is a valid concern. However, once a password is published (especially in docs or tutorials) it is insecure whether they are random values or not - simply because they are public and clearly linked to the product you're running.

That's why I chose to make it explicit, and thus more likely to be caught in review if done.

<comment><USER9> I'd suggest using something like:

      export SYSTEM_SECRET=$(cat /dev/urandom | tr -dc 'a-zA-Z0-9' | fold -w 32 | head -n 1)
      echo "SYSTEM_SECRET is $SYSTEM_SECRET"

<comment><AUTHOR> Good idea! How could that look like on windows (the guide should work on all OS and I'm no windows pro)?

<comment><USER10> Rough equivalent in PowerShell would be:

      @(48..57 + 65..90 + 97..122) | Get-Random -Count 32 | ForEach-Object -Begin {$secret = ''} -Process {$secret += [char] $PSItem} -End {$env:SYSTEM_SECRET = $secret; Write-Host "SYSTEM_SECRET is $secret"}

<comment><USER11> My Powershell-fu isn't quite up there. What's the first part of that block? Is that concatenating arrays of ranges of char codes?

<comment><USER10> Yes, it just creates an array of the decimal values for ASCII A-Za-z0-9. By default Get-Random just returns a random unsigned int, but if you pass in an array of objects it will select a random object from the array.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> If you're not into reading the article itself and want to check out the technology first, here's the link to github: [https://github.com/ory/hydra](https://github.com/ory/hydra)

If you have any questions, feel free to ask ahead.

</comment><comment><USER12> Is not running Postgres in Docker in production still a thing? What kind of problems are people running into? I love having everything managed using the same deployment techniques and I was on a team that ran Postgres in Docker in production for a couple of years and never ran into trouble. Of course that doesn't mean anything so I am curious.

<comment><USER13> I'd like to know, too! I'm working on a side project and aiming to run containerized docker for production – can anyone weigh in?

<comment><USER14> It's advice born from people who don't quite understand docker. Postgres in containers just needs a data volume on a dedicated drive for speed, and you need to remember dockers default stop behaviour hard kills after 10s which is not long enough for a clean shutdown (use docker kill to send sigterm and wait).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Worth adding to this that Wordpress have been working on an official OAuth1.0a server plugin for while alongside the development of the new REST API. It works well. I've built an iOS app on the back of it. (1.0a was chosen due to WP not wanting to enforce https.) [https://en-gb.wordpress.org/plugins/rest- api-oauth1/](https://en-gb.wordpress.org/plugins/rest-api-oauth1/)

I've also seen discussion on an official OAuth2 server plugin, what with the rapid increase of https sites, thanks to the likes of LetsEncrypt.

There's a well supported OAuth2.0 server plugin here: [https://en- gb.wordpress.org/plugins/oauth2-provider/](https://en- gb.wordpress.org/plugins/oauth2-provider/)

But you'd be wise to only run it via https.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes indeed, running OAuth2 without https is madness!

<comment><USER16> It's not just madness, TLS is a MUST in several places in the oauth2 spec.

In fact, they managed to remove a lot of oauth1 madness (all the complex signing stuff) by simply requiring TLS and let that layer deal with it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Also worth mentioning IdentityServer: [https://identityserver.io/](https://identityserver.io/)

</comment><comment><USER18> SAML doesn't get enough love. Big _big_ companies want to use your software but really need to use their existing SAML-compatible identity provider. When you don't support it they'll move on to someone who can.

Conversely, if your organization has a SAML-compatible IdP you get to work with a vast sea of compatible software without really having to think about the integration. Exchange metadata URLs, maybe some URL templates, and you're done.

</comment><comment><USER19> Worth mentioning Keycloak as well: [http://www.keycloak.org/](http://www.keycloak.org/)

I've been playing around with it recently and it seems to be a very capable OIDC/Oauth2 provider indeed.

<comment><USER20> The issue with Keycloak is that it is never patched.

> Think of Keycloak as bleeding edge with quick releases, unpatched, and > limited community support. [1]

Seems fine for research, but using it in production seems risky.

[1] [http://www.keycloak.org/support.html](http://www.keycloak.org/support.html)

<comment><USER19> RedHat SSO is the production-ready version of Keycloak: [https://access.redhat.com/products/red-hat-single-sign- on](https://access.redhat.com/products/red-hat-single-sign-on)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I've been jumping between hydra and dex for the last couple of weeks. On the one hand I like the tight focus hydra has, with the exception of the warden api. On the other hand it is really involved to simply setup a working environment that includes hydra ready to go. It would be nice to do all the token, client and policy setup using a simple docker-compose up.

Dex for example has a dev mode doing that for you. The downside of Dex is you cannot use your own backend without forking the project, writing your own login page and creating a custom connector for your existing login system.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the valuable feedback! The dev mode is indeed a very good idea - I'll probably spin up another docker-compose example with all the default things set up. Would that make it easier?

<comment><USER21> Yes definitely. Although you could build a new image based off of the original one, add a bash script that sets it all up for you and overwrite the entrypoint i never like that sollution. It should be something that the software supports out of the box as it plays into one of the strengths of docker, easily spinning up and taking down instances.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Interesting work. Especially for me as I have spend a lot of time delving into OAuth2 spec during my career and I have my own competing solution :)

See it here: [https://github.com/RichardKnop/go- oauth2-server](https://github.com/RichardKnop/go-oauth2-server)

Available as docker container. You can simply deploy it via docker-compose up.

Yours seem to be better maintained though :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Looks interesting, does this solve authentication as well? It looks like it but from quickly scanning through the readme I didn't find anything.

Also what's your reasoning for relying on 4 (etcd, consul, postgres, nats) external dependencies?

<comment><USER22> Hi, you can use resource owner password credentials grant which is part of OAuth2 spec:

[https://github.com/RichardKnop/go-oauth2-server#resource- own...](https://github.com/RichardKnop/go-oauth2-server#resource-owner- password-credentials)

It's basically a login with username and password.

If you want a fully fledged identity provider on top of OAuth2 (so create / update user account, password reset), I have a sample project which extends on the oauth2 repository and builds a full identity provider on top of it: [https://github.com/RichardKnop/example- api](https://github.com/RichardKnop/example-api)

About dependencies: only two are required - etcd/consul and postgres. There is no other requirements.

Originally I developed this project while deploying to a CoreOS cluster so etcd was a native choice for storing app configuration in a distributed key store. Consul support was added later in form of a contribution as an alternative to etcd.

I also want to remove dependency on etcd/consul completely and allow just simple configuration via environment variables to make the projec more portable.

<comment><AUTHOR> What I meant to ask is if this has things like user registration, password reset flow, two-factor authentication, account takeover prevention, etc.

I think removing 3rd party dependencies is always a good idea - it keeps things lean and removes ops overhead.

<comment><USER22> No it doesn't have things like user registration password reset flow etc. I wanted to keep the project just as straight OAuth2 server based on spec, nothing more.

I have another project which I sometimes use as a boilerplate when working on ideas and I need a simple API for my prototyping. It contains all those things as registration, password reset flow etc:

[https://github.com/RichardKnop/example- api](https://github.com/RichardKnop/example-api)

<comment><AUTHOR> So how do people grant tokens then? They do need to log in somewhere?

<comment><USER22> The go-oauth2-server contains simple web forms (which you can style to match your UI) to handle the full authorization and implicit flows of OAuth2 so you would connect to the oauth2 server from your app, log in and be redirected back to the app with authorization code and then the app can obtain access and refresh tokens from the oauth2 server via API call.

This is a normal authorization flow people are used to from Facebook/Github/LinkedIn, works the same way. See README for images of how the forms look out of the box, without any customization.

If you want to have in app login system, then for such scenario usual way I have implemented this before is to have a separate frontend layer and it works something like this:

1) Frontend (mobile/web app) displays login form

2) Enter username and password

3) Use resource owner credentials grant to obtain access token via API call

4) Now you can make authenticated API calls with the access token (and use refresh token in the background to renew your access token)

In case of web application frontend (let's say NodeJS app), the app would store client ID and secret server side (so you would proxy all requests from client app to Node proxy because we don't want to keep client ID and secret in public JS).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Unfortunately Hydra does not (and will not) support the resource owner password credentials (ROPC) grant ([https://github.com/ory/hydra/pull/297#issuecomment-294282671](https://github.com/ory/hydra/pull/297#issuecomment-294282671))

I'm no security expert, but to my understanding the ROPC grant makes sense for highly privileged applications, i.e. 1st party client applications (e.g. main app website, main native iOS client) as explained by [http://oauthlib.readthedocs.io/en/latest/oauth2/grants/passw...](http://oauthlib.readthedocs.io/en/latest/oauth2/grants/password.html)

I've been looking around in this space for OAuth and auth out of the box alternatives. I've tried Kong's OAuth2 plugin ([https://getkong.org/plugins/oauth2-authentication/](https://getkong.org/plugins/oauth2-authentication/)) but after trying to integrate it felt like I had to write more code than necessary. Also had to configure a lot of APIs, and felt like it was clunky to manage them that way.

I have also tried to play with [http://anvil.io](http://anvil.io), but the authors are busy with another project ([https://solid.mit.edu](https://solid.mit.edu)) so Anvil is taking a back seat. Even the Getting Started currently has known unfixed issues.

I am heavily investigating [http://www.keycloak.org/](http://www.keycloak.org/), and so far I am really impressed. However though, to deploy you will need to delve into Wildfly/Java configurations. And of course, minimum 512MB to run any Java app on a node.

Dex is also advertised as a solution but it looks like the documentation could do with more information and improvements. [https://github.com/coreos/dex](https://github.com/coreos/dex) Doesn't seem easy to just take and run.

Thanks to comments here, I might these looking at these next:

1\. [https://github.com/RichardKnop/go- oauth2-server](https://github.com/RichardKnop/go-oauth2-server) 2\. [https://portier.github.io/](https://portier.github.io/)

</comment><comment><USER24> If you're looking to add an OAuth2 server to your PHP app, check out Laravel Passport ([https://laravel.com/docs/5.5/passport](https://laravel.com/docs/5.5/passport)).

</comment><comment><USER25> I already have a hard time with OAuth Client!

<comment><USER26> What problems are you facing? Practically every language I have worked in has a third-party library for dealing with OAuth 2.0.

<comment><USER25> I was trying to make it work in Unity with reddit stuff...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> If you're using Django, Python Social Auth tends to go a good job at this without any extra servers.

<comment><USER26> PSA is a collection of authentication clients for authenticating with third- party auth providers (e.g. Google, Facebook, Microsoft). If you want to run your own auth provider server, you will need another library. We use Django OAuth Toolkit ([https://github.com/evonove/django-oauth- toolkit](https://github.com/evonove/django-oauth-toolkit)) at edX.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Worth mentioning: login.gov

</comment><comment><USER29> If your sole purpose is authentication w/o authorization, one should use securelogin.pw which does not depend on identity provider. And btw OAuth2 spec is insecure by design, it's a known fact.

<comment><USER30> > btw OAuth2 spec is insecure by design, it's a known fact.

OAuth2 is only "insecure" in that it relies on TLS for its security: the same as HTTP, IMAP or SMTP. You should never run OAuth2 over a non-HTTPS (i.e. HTTP) connection. The same is true for any other login system.

This is covered in RFC 6819: [https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6819](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6819)

<comment><USER29> Not just that, a couple of other bad decisions that caused made many websites inherently insecure [https://sakurity.com/oauth](https://sakurity.com/oauth)

<comment><AUTHOR> That is a really bad specification with no examples, no formalization, and zero references.

However, all server-side attack scenarios listed there are not possible with Hydra. Some of them also boil down to misusing OAuth2 for authentication, which is why we have OpenID Connect.

<comment><USER29> No, ignore the spec (it's just a list of traits i'd like to suggest), design issues are outlined after it.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Battery-less remote gets power from button presses, aims for production in 2011 - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/18/battery-less-remote-gets-power-from-button-presses-aims-for-pro/

<comment><USER2> Reminds me of self winding rolex watches.

<comment><AUTHOR> pretty cool. i think there are lots of things that could potentially capture kinetic energy to generate electricity (light switches, doors, windows, pens, cellphone movements etc)</comment></comment>


Social media with purpose:Connect with the world around you - <AUTHOR> https://www.prisvo.com/+apps <comment><USER2> I have seen you post this several times so I am curious now. Why is this better than the others out there?</comment>


What do ask during your interview - <AUTHOR> https://www.mikebz.com/2019/09/what-to-ask-during-your-interview.html <comment><USER2> I've often found that asking things about the recruiters experience at the company itself is very enlightening when it comes to evaluating how it would be to work at the company. Questions like "What has been your worst day working for x company?" are sometimes a bit harsh but if you can fit them into the conversation they're great.</comment>


How Retailers Will Survive in the Amazon Era - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcodesign.com/3057833/how-retailers-will-survive-in-the-amazon-era <comment><USER2> It would help if Macy's and Nordstrom created an affiliate program like Amazon has. Amazon lets you promote individual items and it only costs them 4% that is almost nothing compared to what Amazon gets in return.

Nordstrom has a nice online e-commerce system that handles millions in sales, I could not imagine it being that much more of a stretch to offer such a program.

<comment><USER3> Macy's does have their own credit card and points system</comment></comment>


Ransomware gang behind Lady Gaga dump claims to have sold Trump data - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-data-ransomware-grubman-law-firm-madonna-2020-5 <comment><USER2> We need to clone decephalized humans and livestock.

With thousands of brainless bodies kept alive on life support, you have test subjects for a limitless number of experiments that would have never been possible before. You also create a never-ending O negative blood supply and organ harvesting program.

It the case of decephalized animals, you also get cruelty free meat. And that's how you bootstrap the program and port it to the human model.

There would be a lot of political pressure, but this would be a space-age jump in supporting fundamental biological research, supplying renewable body parts and tissues, and keeping us healthy and young.

We need to do it.

If I ever get Elon Musk money and power, I'm doing this instead of rockets.</comment>


Cocktail of flu, HIV drugs appears to help fight coronavirus: Thai doctors - <AUTHOR> https://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN1ZW0GQ <comment><USER2> Gilead is also trying the same with remdesivir. [https://www.scmp.com/tech/science- research/article/3048579/c...](https://www.scmp.com/tech/science- research/article/3048579/coronavirus-case-us-treated-experimental-gilead-drug- may-spur)

Sample size of 1, but in both cases, the patient appears to have gone from very sick to normal vitals in 48 hrs.

The really nice thing about lopinavir/ritonavir if it works will be... we've already got a lot of it.

Edit: Both cases being the separate administrations of remdesivir & lopinavir/ritonavir.

</comment><comment><USER3> Does this mean that those already on these drugs are more resistant to the new variant of coronavirus, or more susceptible because their normal regime of medication isn't able to remediate?

</comment><comment><USER4> Too small a sample to make any statements about effectiveness.

</comment><comment><USER5> How did they discover this? When a new virus appears, do labs test all the existing drugs against it to check if something sticks?

<comment><USER6> It might be - ironically - due to that Indian group's preprint with crappy method that suggested the virus was intentionally hybridised from HIV and coronavirus.

[https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.30.927871v1....](https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.30.927871v1.full.pdf)

If you took that preprint at face value, before the flaws were pointed out e.g.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/ewtmnq/uncanny_sim...](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/ewtmnq/uncanny_similarity_of_unique_inserts_in_the/fg4k2ak/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/ewtt6f/uncanny_sim...](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/ewtt6f/uncanny_similarity_of_unique_inserts_in_the/fg4dxe5/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/ewtt6f/uncanny_sim...](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/ewtt6f/uncanny_similarity_of_unique_inserts_in_the/fg4l51v/)

Then mixing up a cocktail of flu and HIV anti-virals would be a smart move.

If this result pans out, it might just be a remarkable piece of serendipity from some shitty science.

<comment><USER7> It has nothing to do with the crap preprint. There are journal articles about HIV medication treating SARS-CoV from over a decade ago.

<comment><USER6> > It has nothing to do with the crap preprint.

I am glad you are here to tell us exactly how it went down in Thailand.

Those same papers were also available for the last month of treatments being attempted and yet we see this news from Thailand of 'recovery in 48 hours' about 48-72 hours following widespread sharing of that (crap) preprint. It may be coincidence, it may be serendipity.

I don't think either of us knows what happened here, but one of us certainly thinks they do.

Presumably you are right, but in my own experience, a recent headline on social media is as likely to prompt an idea as a journal article published 10 years ago.

Which is why we are all here on hacker news looking for ideas, instead of all busily reading issues of journals published in 2010. Am I wrong?

Interesting comment here btw:

[https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/extdrc/thailand_...](https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/extdrc/thailand_cures_coronavirus_with_antihiv_drug/fgcth7l/)

"Although 2019-nCoV is NOT an influenza virus, but a coronavirus strain, it contains hemagglutinin-esterase proteins on its surface, which unlike Influenza A and B's HA that binds sialic acid, binds 9-O-acetylsialic acid instead. I assume that the similarities between these two receptor molecules are what lead doctors to use this influenza drug, in hopes that it also inhibits coronavirus HA-esterase to some degree."

<comment><USER8> Please stop spreading (wrong) rumours.

<comment><USER6> Can you please specify which (wrong) 'rumours' you believe I am spreading, exactly, and why you know they are (wrong)?

By my count, in my comments I posted one link to a scientific preprint (noting that it was very questionable), 3 links to discussion of the scientific merits of that preprint, and 1 link to a scientific discussion relating to the structure of the 2019-nCoV virus. As well, my own little piece of entirely idle speculation, clearly and repeatedly indicated as being such and not as a fact.

By my understanding of the word 'rumour', as a native speaker of English, nothing here qualifies as a 'rumour' or 'rumour-spreading'.

A rumour would have the form something like 'I have heard that … (completely unevidenced claim)'.

FWIW, a tip back to you - telling someone else to shut up without explanation of what exactly it is you're referring to, or why you think they should shut up, is considered rude on any discussion forum, and also in real life conversations too.

Further, it encourages others to behave the same way.

For those reasons, please stop posting curt and rude shut-up messages anywhere on the internet. It is far more harmful to internet communities than anyone's idle speculation or references to discussions on other forums.

If you want someone to do something, anywhere in life, explain clearly what you want and clearly why. It doesn't need to be detailed but at least it should be clear. Being a polite netizen takes more than using the word 'please' at the start of a sentence.

Also, please do not expect other people to be able to telepathically intuit your mental state in a discussion, as nobody can do this, and please do not simply issue vague commands to other people, because it is rude.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Simple HEX to RGB Converter - <AUTHOR> http://hex.colorrrs.com

<comment><USER2> Great work Jamie!</comment>


CMU's computer science dean on its poaching problem - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2016/04/26/it-isnt-just-uber-carnegie-mellons-computer-science-dean-on-its-poaching-problem/ <comment><USER2> Academia in general is screwing itself. The main reason for anyone to go into it is to work on interesting problems in a self-directed fashion with amazing job security. You probably wouldn't get rich, but you'll have a nice upper- middle class salary and almost no way of getting fired.

Now the available tenure-track positions are declining every year in favor of adjunct quasi-slave labor. Even if you do win the lottery and get a tenure- track position, from what I understand you'll spend most of your time writing grant proposals to chase funding, and at least 5-7 years trying to please the tenure committee.

So, why exactly would anyone spend 10-15 years making a fraction of what they could in industry for a vanishingly small chance of the eventual payoff of tenure?

If you're going to slave away for 10-15 years anyway before you get to do what you want, you may as well do it in industry where you could put away enough money to be financially independent in that time. The only remaining obstacle is that you still kind of need an institutional affiliation to be taken seriously as a researcher and publish, but that might be slowly changing as the Internet makes it easier to publish.

<comment><USER3> Honest question: where do you learn advanced stuff if not in a graduate school? Academia undoubtedly sucks if one mainly takes money or career prospects into account. But among people who do challenging and sexy stuff (including in the industry) phd seems to be the norm, not the exception. One might object that phd has become unnecessary because nowadays all the relevant information is online but learning without the help of a community and a mentor is hard.

<comment><USER4> You absolutely do not need a PhD for industry unless you want an R&D job in a handful of domains. A PhD is not simply learning more facts about a particular topic. It's an apprenticeship for conducting independently directed academic research. There are so many topics that you can not just learn from reading some online sources e.g. most experimental work. Most of the time spent in a typical PhD program is spent trying to solve problems that have no easy answers and no easy guidelines to follow. While you can definitely gain similar knowledge and experience in an industry setting, you almost never have the freedom to take the 3+ years often necessary to explore a narrow topic, struggle and fail repeatedly, be faced with and overcome crushing doubt and frustration, and do so in a generally supportive community.

<comment><USER5> > You absolutely do not need a PhD for industry unless you want an R&D job in > a handful of domains.

I know Phd.s at {MSFT, Google, Uber, Deepmind, GE, P+G} research divisions. I don't know anyone who works at those who does not have a doctorate. So I would say this applies to more than 'a handful of domains' \-- If you want to do research, you should plan on having a doctorate, even in industry. The majority of data scientists I know have doctorates, even if that strikes me as (generally) overkill.

Otherwise, I agree with the rest of your statements.

<comment><USER6> I know people who work at those research divisions (they work with neural networks) without a PhD. So I just falsified your claim.

<comment><USER7> Well yes, barriers to entry do get lower when markets are hot. What qualification _do_ these guys you know have?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> As an aside, the use of the term "poaching" always bugged me. It implies that an employee is _owned_ by a company like some deer in the King's forest.

<comment><USER9> Not really. It originated to describe high level employees who take a job and then exploit their personal network to hire away friends. This is super-common and expected, and is also the reason non-competes became popular. It wasn't until later, the tech boom, that "poaching" was repurposed to be more generalized luring of high potential employees from wherever using whatever ($, perks) means available.

<comment><USER10> The idea that they need non-competes to retain talent should still set off some alarms that maybe companies aren't paying market rate salaries.

Most people don't leave a company for less money and no other benefits, and there's nothing wrong with employees being lured away for more pay. That's how it's supposed to work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> CMU has dropped significantly in my personal ranking of universities. None of that was related to faculty being hired away. All of it is related to activities like attacking the Tor network or accidentally admitting 800 students. Maybe they have a PR problem but my overal view of them is pretty meh even though they are one of the more elite CS schools (and I think Pittsburgh is a fairly nice city, never been there though).

<comment><USER12> Your metric for ranking universities is in no way based on how productive the university is in research or the quality of the graduating students. Even if you consider the things you mentioned as proxies for the quality of the university, they are extremely weak ones and there are better metrics available to judge the quality of a university.

Am I wrong in viewing this comment as a flawed attempt to attack the university? Open to any counterarguments.

<comment><USER13> Presumably OP's ranking cares about things _besides_ just research quality in CS or graduating students? Those other things aren't _proxies_ for the quality of the university, they're _components_ of it.

<comment><USER12> Unfortunately creating one's own idiosyncratic ranking holds no value to the world if it doesn't conform to what the world values. (Open to counter arguments on what the world values)

People generally use rankings to gauge how strong a university is perceived. OP's comments do nothing to change my perception of the university's strength.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Well, I'm glad to hear CMU is hiring 17 new faculty and that the fields of robotics, computer vision, and machine learning are all booming so rapidly (though let's hope it's not a bubble)!

But as to the concept of "poaching", well, to quote the economist Homer Simpson, " _Money_ can be exchanged for goods and services."

<comment><USER14> The quote in context: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgct3Jn8pFA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgct3Jn8pFA)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Just curious: How many out there are yinzers? I knew there was a nice technology scene here but am surprised to see Pitt/CMU on HN several times over the past couple weeks.

<comment><USER16> CMU professor here. Currently on leave at Google for the 2015-16 academic year, returning in August. (Not, in my case, for the money - I actually left a startup I co-founded a few months before it was acquired because I decided that I'd probably learn more at Google. Ask me in a few years if I regret leaving that money on the table -- but thus far, I'm exceptionally glad about the decision. Having a total blast. Sabbaticals/leaves are one of the under- advertised benefits of being a faculty member. Which is useful, since the salary delta to industry sucks. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, dga! I took 15-440 under you! Wasn't a very good student, though. Just wanted to say hi and all the best in your sabbatical!

<comment><USER16> Hi and thanks! Hope post-440 life is going well. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Professors at CMU make incredibly great salaries.. they are not 'poor'

<comment><USER18> No one, here or in the article, claimed they were 'poor'. But most are not as wealthy as similarly-qualified peers in industry. That's all. CMU's CS and AI profs are among the best in the world and companies are keen for these skills.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Does anyone have any links to the emotion recognition work he talks about?

<comment><USER20> I think he was referring to this guy's work: [http://www.pitt.edu/~jeffcohn/](http://www.pitt.edu/~jeffcohn/)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: OS projects looking for contributors? - <AUTHOR>

Hey HN!
I want to contribute more to Open Source projects, but feel like there are tons of projects that don't even want anyone to contribute (e.g. because they still want their name to show up on a "git blame").
So if you have an open source project (preferably JS, but doesn't matter, I'm happy to learn whatever language you use) and you're looking for contributors, have a long TODO.md or just have a couple of bugs, dirty code etc. Let me know! I want to help.
Thanks, Alex <comment><USER3> Check out Quill.org, a free literacy tool that provides writing, grammar, and vocabulary activities to K12 students. We're an open source nonprofit, and we currently have 45,000 students using our platform. We're primarily looking for help with our Rails projects ([https://github.com/empirical-org/empirical- core/issues](https://github.com/empirical-org/empirical-core/issues))

We also have a Wordpress community portal ([http://community.quill.org](http://community.quill.org)) and an Ember/Firebase app ([http://quillwriter.org](http://quillwriter.org)).

Please feel free to reach me at firstname.lastname@example.com. I'm the founder of the project, and we'd love to have your help.

</comment><comment> Warewolf-ESB Hi Alex We need your help! Check out Warewolf Easy Service Bus - <USER2> written in C# - [https://github.com/Warewolf-ESB/Warewolf- ESB](https://github.com/Warewolf-ESB/Warewolf-ESB)

We got tired of complex and intricate ESBs, so we're building one that is easy to learn and simple to use. It's a big breakthrough.

Would love to hear any of your feedback - good and bad!

Please be in touch directly or via [http://community.warewolf.io](http://community.warewolf.io)

</comment><comment><USER4> If you're interested in fighting spam, and looking at JS-code, then [https://github.com/skx/blogspam.js](https://github.com/skx/blogspam.js) might be worth a glance.

#25 in particular makes my head hurt, and comments are most welcome.</comment>


Judge OKs Tivo-in-the-clouds - <AUTHOR> http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/8/big-win-for-cable-judge-oks-tivo-in-the-clouds

<comment><USER2> Wow, I just thought of that as a startup idea yesterday and thought I had invented it myself.

Next up, I'm going to invent a round receptacle for waste. I think I'll call it the trash can.</comment>